Category: Issue #18

Year: 2106.
Location: Camp Van Tassel, France – 20 Klms from the battlefront.
Five days before Bloody Tuesday

Rain drummed on the mess’s roof all morning, and the soldiers made a long track of mud from the doorway on the left to the servery. They selected their food and paused, looking with increasing frustration for a free seat. A lucky few found a free table in one of the five columns of twenty rows.
Jarred sat at the head of a table two rows down and in the centre column. The air was full of the kind of fear-filled chatter he’d noticed just before combat, the voices running over one another, making it difficult for the others to hear him. Jarred and the four other syns with him were in a bubble of sorts. They leant in close to Jarred so they could hear. He paused in what he was saying and, in that moment, caught a strand, a part of a sentence coming clearly through the babble of voices;
‘… I mean, like, how’d I know I aint eatin’ one of ‘em?’
Jarred understood the words but not the meaning and returned his attention to the others. On his right, their backs to the serving terminals, were Jack and Jack. Directly opposite Jarred, but sitting at an angle so that he could see both Jarred and anyone who entered, was their Ian. Next to him also at the head, Ivan; the two were often to be found together. Finally, Jake and next to Jarred, their last remaining Huxley.
Jarred tapped the thin computer screen with his left hand. The simple silver ring on the ring finger of his left hand glinted brightly against his tan in the bright lights as he pondered the coloured columns. The lapTab was only one millimetre thick and slid slightly back and forth as the finger landed.
‘Major Wallace’s company is in a good state,’ Jarred continued. ‘Most of his men are seasoned, with only a few recent replacements, and his syns are mainly current models. The two platoons on the right flank are the same.’
The other’s followed his gaze, their eyes absorbing the story the numbers told.
‘However,’ he said, ‘the two platoons on the left flank are weak. They’ve had too many replacements recently, and most of those are older model syns.’
‘Older models,’ Ian said. ‘They should have been retired ages ago.’
Jarred glanced at Ian and nodded slowly.
‘Yes. But circumstances have not allowed for it.’
‘That’s no excuse,’ Ian said. ‘We know those models are slowing. They should have been replaced by now.’
‘Ian, it would be desirable, at the moment, it’s not practical with only four days before combat,’ Jarred said. ‘We work with what we have. If the Major were to transfer across some of the seasoned soldiers and newer syns, I’m certain we’d have a good result.’
Jarred’s hair was short, a buttery blond, his blue eyes so pale as to appear like the waters of the Aegean in summer. The Jacks’ hair was slightly darker, Ian’s darker still, and Huxley’s was like midnight.
‘Is it really necessary?’ Ian asked. ‘Major Wallace’s company will provide the main thrust of the attack. The platoons on the left and right flanks are only there for support. Intel tells us the hill is only lightly defended.’
Jarred deliberated for a moment or two. The others waiting patiently.
‘I’m uncertain about the intel,’ Jarred said. ‘I believe it’s wrong or, at the very least, incomplete. I’m certain hill M94691 has more troops up there than reconnaissance reported. Look at what we know. The hill is used as an observation post. We know killer drones have been launched from there. That means troops to handle the maintenance, repair and support of that equipment. And more troops to guard and protect them. Add supplies and munitions, and we have a decent force. If they realise, we have a weakness, and the platoons on the right are weak, they could break through the line and cause havoc. Remember, the battlefront is only five k’s further southwest. They only need to break through at that point, and we could lose the entire front. This whole region could be lost. Nearly 400,000 humans still live in the ruins of Lyon. New Harbin is just to the northeast …’
‘If the Major won’t make the changes?’
A sergeant and three soldiers carrying trays stopped at their table.
‘You slimes, fuck off!’
The seams on Marable’s fatigues were razor sharp. His sergeant’s insignia hung from his collar at the right angle. His hair was regulation and his skin a healthy tan.
‘Sergeant Marable?’ Jarred said, reading the sergeant’s name patch
‘Off. Fuck off. You got no right sitting when good men have to stand.’
Jarred stood, the other syns silently following him.
‘As you command, Sergeant.’
*
June 9th. Bloody Tuesday.
Major Wallace had not listened. Because of that, the bodies of several hundred of the fallen and the retired lay scattered at awkward angles all over the slope of the hill. Some were only parts, missing arms, legs or their heads.
Jarred kept his head down as much as he could as he searched the torn up battleground for signs of life. A soldier squatted next to him, crying softly. Overhead, shells exploded, rockets zoomed past. IMEDS fire hit the sandbag barrier. The soldier winced and cried louder, hunching closer to Jarred. The air was so full of explosions it was difficult to hear, difficult to think.
The syns Jarred had scrounged were quickly filling the gaps left by the fallen and the retired. He was about to give up the search and concentrate on retaking terrain when he spotted a hand flutter briefly above the rim of a bomb crater two hundred metres to his left. There was no cover, and any rescue attempt would be suicide.
‘Jack,’ he snapped.
‘Jarred?’
‘There’s a wounded soldier two hundred on my right. Give me covering fire.’
‘Affirmative.’
Jack looked at Jarred, then the distance he’d have to travel under fire.
‘All you, listen,’ Jack called above the roar of battle. ‘Covering fire on my mark. Jarred?’
Jarrad waited till there was a lull in the bombs and weapons fire.
‘Now!’
‘Covering fire, NOW.’
Jarred rushed from behind the cover, darted this way and that in a jigsaw pattern to make a harder target. He knew death could catch him at any second, but still he ran. At last, he stumbled over the rim, tumbling into the relative safety of the crater.
‘Sergeant Marable? Are you hurt?’
The crater rim was an inadequate cover. Anyone on top of the hill had to just look their way, and it would be all over. Quickly Jarred examined the Sargent. There was so much blood. Marable’s face was pale as snow, but his eyes flickered, and he was breathing.
*
August 23rd
‘Why’d you do it to me! Why?’
The night was bright with the rising full moon. Sergeant Marable blocked Jarred and Ian’s path, the bandage on his hand white in the light. Lines of bandages under his recovery shirt were visible. His hair was long enough to be ruffled. But it was his face that revealed the most significant changes. The skin of his face was drawn tight over the bone. His tan had faded, and he looked pale and weak, except his eyes.
‘Sergeant Marable, it is good to see you on your feet.’
‘Why’d you do it to me, you fucking slime.’
Rage ran across Marable’s face, his eyes burning with hatred, his right hand formed into a tight fist. The knuckles white.
‘I don’t understand?’
‘Save me. Save my life. Why!’ He was almost screaming. His voice was ragged and full to the brim with pain. ‘How can I go home now. Everyone’ll know. They’ll all know. How can I live with that?’
‘You would have died if I hadn’t, Sargent. You’d lost too much blood ….’
‘I’d a been a hero. I’d a died a hero,’ Marable snarled. ‘But now everyone’ll know a slime saved me. I see ‘em in the barracks. They don’t say nothing, but I see it in their eyes. I hear ‘em laughing behind my back. What am I going to do?’
‘You could kill yourself,’ Ian said. ‘That would solve your problem.’
‘Ian, that’s not helpful,’ Jarred replied.
‘Suicide? How the fuck … My family’d lose my war pension. You know what else? Wallace says I’m gonna get a medal?’
‘Congra-’
‘For what!’ he was shouting now, barely coherent. Tears ran down his cheeks. ‘All I did was get myself hit by a bunch of shrapnel, like a fucking greenie. You’ve put me in hell, you bastard. You motherless, fatherless piece of shi-’
‘We have a father,’ Ian said.
Marable glared at him. Despite the hatred filling his eyes, he was puzzled.
‘Dr. Richard Forester Solo,’ Ian said. ‘The father of the INFACT program.’
‘Ian, enough,’ Jarrad said.
Marable moved in close to Jarred, stabbed the syn in the chest with a thick finger. Jarred didn’t react.
‘You’ve put me in hell, you fucking piece of slime. What can I do? What can I do? It’ll get out, it always gets out ….’
He stumbled away into the dark.
*
July 4th
Marable loitered behind a tree while attempting to appear not to be hiding. The sergeant, against the recommendations of the base doctor, had been drinking. A slow fire, a rage, burnt within him. He saw Jarred and stepped out.
‘Sergeant?’ Jarred stopped.
Despite waiting, despite spending nights thinking, dreaming, of this moment, Marable could think of nothing to say. To keep Jarred there till he had the courage to act, Marable nodded at the chain and the small disk around Jarred’s neck.
‘I didn’t know you things wore jewellery?’ he said.
Jarred touched the disk.
‘It records our thoughts, our knowledge and our experiences. When a syn retires, this information is transmitted to the central system for integration into future syns. Each of us has the memories of the syns that have gone before. It is how we retain and learn from experience. We develop. All new models are updated this way.’
‘So, you’re just a machine after all, aren’t you? Like an IMEDS or a truck. I saw the way they mulch up “Retired” syns for fertiliser.’
‘We are what you made us.’
Marable swayed slightly. A dribble of spittle ran down his cheek.
‘Yeah? Well, I’m making you shit.’
Marable pulled out his sidearm and fired. There was a brief pulse of heat, the soft hiss of IMEADs firing, then silence.
*
July 5th
‘Look, sergeant, destroying government property, you know, it’s frowned upon.’ Lieutenant Colonel Wallace sat at his desk, a mildly frustrated expression on his face. ‘I know you’ve had a tough time of it, and your wounds, so, yeah, I think it’s understandable.’
Sergeant Marable stood stiffly at attention. He looked and felt weak. His eyes were sallow and bloodshot, and a three-day growth covered his chin like scrubland. His gaze wandered over the Colonel’s head.
‘This is what we’re going to do.’ The Wallace looked up and smiled as if he had good news. ‘We’re sending you home on the next shuttle. You’re going to be doing some glad-handing for a while, chivvy up John and Jane public, let ‘em know what we’re fighting for. Good hotels, good food, good drink. Maybe a syn to keep you company. Just for a month or two until you’re fully recovered, and then … then we’ll see. And good news. We’re promoting you. Command Sergeant. The extra chevon’s will look great along with that medal of yours. You’re a hero, man.’
*
July 23rd
Marable, his duffle over his shoulder, stumbled out of the shuttle towards the terminal. Out of battle fatigues for once, his awards, commendations and the new medal sparkled on his chest. Yet his head was bowed, like an old man with a burden he could no longer carry. Around him, passing him, the other soldiers left the shuttle jibber-jabbering with the delight of being away from the war.
‘Command Sergeant Marable.’
Marable knew the voice. A week ago, he’d killed its owner. Then he remembered, not killed, retired.
‘Jarred,’ Marable whispered.
He didn’t want to look up, a battle raged inside him, but Marable found he had to.
‘Yes.’
Marable saw a cookie-cutter copy of Jarred.
‘When … when were you, you know?’ Marable whispered.
‘I became operational three weeks ago. I’m the last of the Jarred series. The Jayden series next will be.’
‘You know … you know then,’ he spluttered. ‘You’ll know everything.’
‘Let me take that for you.’

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Instead of sitting down to tell you a story confined to a single beginning, middle and end, I invite you to walk with me through the rugged trail of the coastal Coogee track. If a beginning must be established, one might situate us roughly half-way down Coogee Bay Road leading directly to the water. I cannot, however, tell you how far we will go or where we will end up. But in all honesty, that is how this walk always begins.
By the end of the day in mid-July, the boutiques and salons typically start dimming their artificial lights while owners close their doors to the subtle bite courting the breeze for the month. Couples huddle together in lines outside restaurants while seasoned runners, seemingly immune to both daylight saving and temperature, dart past in tanks and shorts, almost in defiance of the lowering sun. Yet, beyond the bustling glow of The Pavilion, the landscape quietens. Metres from the shore, the concrete turns to grass and a path, rising steadily upward, forms one entrance to the trail.
It was here on one such night that I was first told the rather dizzying words: Every five years your life changes. Perhaps it was a product of the blushing clouds that reflected on the water like rose tinted glass, irresistibly coaxing a more philosophical way of looking at things. Maybe it was the fact that it was a second date and the words were a rather tactful manoeuvre on his part to maximise the romance the scenery so gratuitously afforded. Regardless, at barely nineteen such a proposition that the start and middle points of each decade promised outlandish adventures enamoured me; like two sides of a mountain, time would mark a tipping point at which life itself would transform.
‘You’d better be right. I’m putting in my order now for a high-flying job in the city. I’m talking corporate suits, barista-made coffee every morning…’
He smiled. ‘Don’t you forget me when it happens.’
Hand in hand, we scanned the shrinking shore, discussing birds and other matters of life. My sneakers steadily gripped the ground. Though reluctant to admit it, we both secretly carried the belief that we could take on the world.

The smooth, flattened rock at the top of the first cliff extends quite a distance. Though the path inclines relatively quickly, the next few metres make for an easy first-timer’s walk. Bordered by a white barrier, not unlike a picket fence, one might even believe the easy terrain promises to stay this way. Beyond a stretch of tall grass, however, the bushes start to thicken. The path here is hard to find but once on the trail, the walkway snakes abruptly downwards.
The night before my twentieth birthday, this part was particularly hard to navigate. The sun was turning in earlier than expected, albeit normal for that time of year, but sudden for a small group of teens who had believed summer would last forever. Gripping the handrail, I shakily raced after my childhood friends as the path led us down to sea level. Kicking off our shoes, we scrambled across the ramp into the pocket beach of Gordon Bay. I watched as they jumped unconcerned from rock to rock, exchanging shrieks and laughter while the waves hissed at their feet. Perhaps it was different for those who still had months separating them from the next decade. My stomach knotted as the tide edged closer. I thought of the new blazer and skirt laid out on my bed and wondered whether or not to tell them about the impending morning interview. Silence, I concluded, preserved the last few hours separating the night from morning.
‘Guys, look over here!’
Gathering around the side of a beached fishing boat, we gazed at a shell cradled in one girl’s hands. The glossy face formed a jagged swirl dotted with holes.
‘Aw shame it’s broken,’ one remarked.
‘All shells get like that over time,’ another replied. ‘It’s basically hardened calcium carbonate. Once the mollusk discards it, it washes up wherever the current goes.’
Holding the shell to my ear, I listened to the swirling sounds of its travels and wondered whether it too had felt apprehensive about the journey. Glancing up at the mountaintop, I marveled at how sure I had once felt treading over the smooth terrain.
Tiptoeing along the rocks, another wave leapt up. Catching my breath, my feet slipped momentarily. Every five years your life changes.

Beyond the Gordon Bay cove, the path climbs a new cliff. Though reaching a similar height as before, the series of oncoming steps challenge even the more experienced walkers. There, the sun temporarily disappears behind the bottlebrush trees and for a moment, more than ever, it is impossible to predict just how steep the incline will get.
I only gained an appreciation for this part of the walk the morning of my first day working part-time in the city. After removing the university textbooks from my bag and grabbing my keys, I briefly paused by the mirror to adjust my jacket. Twenty and a month. Having since replaced the blazer that had drowned my shoulders in the interview, I regarded the new, unnerving image of a woman standing in a well-fitting suit and corporate bun. Scanning her made-up face and pearls, we both raised a hand to our cheeks. Impossible. Double checking my bag for my concession card, I gingerly started towards the door, clinging to the hope that people would see her instead of me.
Stumbling off the bus, a familiar bite seeped through my layers as the aroma of coffee drew me down York Street and passed a greasy figure exiting a street-side café. Hey there lady, where are you off to? Lady? Pushing the glass door, my eyes darted to the woman reflecting back.
It was only once I had started up the office building steps, with barista-made coffee in hand, that I thought of the boy. Being a month into a new decade, I could not refute his philosophy although, had he been present, I would have offered one qualification: that life changes every five years promises nothing about the preparation in the climber.
Wobbling in my corporate shoes, I continued up the stairs. Though I looked the part, it was perhaps the first time I truly felt the weight of my inexperience.

It was a while before I revisited the path connecting to the next lookout. The track was neither empty nor busy, with neither a sunset nor sunrise. Yet, the Bundock Park viewpoint marks the furthest and potentially most memorable point of the walk thus far.
It was the first time I walked the track in silence with a friend. The silence stemmed largely from my not knowing what to say but in hindsight, any of the possibilities would have been unnecessary. After a year working in the city, I had been waiting at the bus stop when he reached out with the news about his mother. Walking along the track, I decided to let the birds and quiet rustling take the conversational reins.
Though each turn presented its challenges, I began to wonder whether my shoes had since improved or whether my feet had somehow toughened. Regardless, the constant treading over unfamiliar terrain was, in some ways, becoming comfortable. As we sat down at the rock’s edge, I listened to the distant laughs of my childhood friends and the swirling sea. I listened to the boy speak of big words and philosophy and eventually, to my friend as he stared at the water and began to talk.
Only by Bundock Park did I realise, in looking at my friend, the error in how I expected life to unfold. At twenty-one and witnessing someone reach such a devastating turn before the next five-year period, it dawned on me that those elusive words never promised to restrict the movement of life to a singular point in time. While my own landscape at fifteen compared to twenty told of significantly different terrain, so too did the comparison between nineteen, twenty and a month, and twenty-one. Ultimately, it appeared reaching one arbitrarily marked time period was not to say that life would remain the same until the next five-year marker.
I never found the ‘right’ words to say to my friend. But much like the trail we had followed until this point, there was a developing steadiness in navigating situations I was in no way familiar with, nor prepared for. Sitting along the edge of Bundock Park, I squinted into the distance, attempting to catch a glimpse of the trail ahead.

Depending on how one decides to define the walk, I am told the length extends more than double – if not triple – the distance already covered. Perhaps by then, the road will grow familiar and life itself will become easier to tread. As for now, my only goal is to reach what lies between this point and the next. If we meet again, I will show you what I have seen. 

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It’s dark ten o’clock, down near the roses as I watch Trix uncover Tony’s face. Maz had tripped on his head, buried as it was among cheery autumn leaves. He was sooo dead, but his amber-eyes were still glaring up at me. ‘SLAY’ had been written across his forehead. I stifled a scream, then hiccupped and swayed.
‘It’s written in Ruby Woo,’ I hissed, unnecessarily. It was our squad’s signature lipstick colour after all, worn when on a mission to… Slay. ‘We need to get out of here.’
‘Is this even real life?’ Maz said. ‘What the fuck? Trix, don’t take a photo.’ Trix shrugged.
‘Oh Dee Dee, Dee,’ Trix said, shaking her head and making tut-tut noises as if we’d just discovered a child’s hand in a lolly jar.
‘She wouldn’t, would she? We can’t report her!’ Maz was breathing so heavily I thought she might hyperventilate. I eyed the paper bag surrounding the bottle dropped at her feet.
‘She would. And no way,’ I said, silently weighing up our options.
We’d all been besties since kindergarten. Dee had always been bossy but in recent years she’d become a nasty bully. Her loaded parents gave her all the latest clothes, threw killer parties and for her 17th birthday she got a shiny new Merc. To be in the ray of her sunshine, and her car if I’m honest, levelled us all up. So, we looked the other way as she took control of our group. Now here we were, in a scramble to figure out just how loyal a friend we were to Dee in her new status of murderess.
The body lying dead-as-a-doornail in front of me was quite a convincing argument for keeping our mouths shut. That and the passing memory of watching the candlelight dancing around Dee’s face one sleep over, as she told us that if anyone ever crossed her, they would end up face down in Wahroonga Park. We’d been in our matching pyjamas that night, ruby red of course, to match our lips.
‘Tony was a dick anyway,’ said Trix. Maz nodded.
Dee had been dating Tony, but Tony had been having it off with one of his mum’s friends. As we walked away from his body, I wondered who would take the fall.

Six months later a blast of winter air swept through the doors of the Supreme Court House. I shook to learn that I would be swapping my red pyjamas for a green ensemble and juvie. Dee’s expensive lawyer had got her out of being a suspect and somehow framed me. Trix and Maz sat wide-eyed as I was led away.
That night I lay in my bunk with a broken heart. As the guard’s footsteps clunked along the hall, I could feel bitterness spread like black cancer across my body. Meanness and anger took over my thoughts and grew to monster proportions in my nightmares. The only positive was that I found a new friend in my unhinged cellmate.
‘Girl, one day I’ll help you take both your Judas and her disciples down. I’ve got contacts in the poison business, you just let me know when you’re ready.’
I thought of this as I was released not long after, thanks to new DNA tech.

I could see them all as I spied like a total creep through Dee’s window. At least Trix and Maz didn’t look like they were having that great of a time. I was ashamed of the pain churning through my insides, the pull of wanting to belong to my squad still there, minus Dee. I tried to shake the feeling by tossing up if I should slip poison in the coke or sprinkle it on the cake. Then I stopped. I knew better than this.
As I sat slumped underneath the window, I closed my eyes and prayed for guidance. I prayed to forgive for my own sake. My mum’s voice came into my head and said ‘Honey, when you’re feeling bad about a situation, the only way you’ll feel better is to take control and make a plan!’ She was right of course. I wondered what I could do to more gently remove Dee from our lives.

Dee’s place was a serious contender for the front page of Better Homes than Yours magazine. As I walked across the lawn towards Dee and her tennis court, my feet sank into her impossibly soft carpet of grass. She was hitting balls in a super-cute tennis outfit, all white but for the red soles of her sneakers that flashed up as warning when she moved. She reminded me of red-back spiders that sport red as the colour of danger.
‘Dee. You’ve got to go.’
She turned to me with a look of disinterest. I handed her an envelope of photos. Photos that would make a Kardashian blush, as well as our PE teacher. She only glanced in the envelope and then looked up at me with amusement.
‘Fine,’ Dee said and laughed, ‘I was bored of this shit hole anyway. They don’t call it the north-snore for nothing.’
Dee waved her tennis racquet loosely around, gesturing at her family’s mansion and uber-green gardens. A ball shot out of the auto-serve machine towards us, which Dee hit with ease. She held out the racquet to me.
‘Fancy a hit before I go? Those arms of yours look super toned now, was that from all the toilet scrubbing in the clink?’
She flew out the next day to go live with her grandma in Alaska.

‘It’s now called Slay Park, by the kids anyways,’ Trix informed me.
Trix and Maz had sheepishly agreed to meet me. It was a year since the murder and it seemed fitting to be having a drink among the roses again, breathing in the fresh autumn night.
‘You know what I learned from all of this? I now understand that it’s the most unhappy people that bully, and knowing this, I can find empathy for Dee.’ Trix and Maz stared blankly at me, doubt cast across their faces. ‘But you’ve got to stand up for yourself.’
‘I learned to not be such a weak excuse of a friend.’ Trix looked to Maz.
‘We’re really sorry we didn’t say anything,’ Maz said.
‘All is forgiven my loves.’ It was warm hugs all around.
‘What did happen to Dee?’ Trix said as she extracted herself from the huddle.
‘Remember those photos you took of Dee and Mr Gee in the back of the sports cupboard?’ I smirked.
‘Ohhhh, you didn’t!’
‘I did.’
‘Wow. Here’s to you my clever friend,’ Trix said, raising her bottle in the air.
‘And here’s to Dee, may she find happiness and repent, but twelve thousand and fifty-seven kilometres the hell away from us!’
‘Cheers to that!’
To lighten the mood Maz began to recount her date from the night before.
‘OMG guys, he was so nervous to kiss me that he closed his eyes and missed!’
Trix snorted so hard that the beer she’d just taken a gulp of fizzed out her nose. Maz ran off holding her crotch, desperate in her search to find an emergency pee bush. I threw my head back and roared with the most satisfying, deep, hysterical laughter. The kind of laugh that only happens among friends.

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‘Motherfucker,’ I whisper, too preoccupied with my frustration, forgetting myself in the night’s silence.
It’s what I get for buying the shitty fifty cent pencil pack from the IGA, I know, but my anger flickers and boils regardless. It’s two A.M, the lead on this god awful pencil keeps breaking, and I can barely even think what to write.
I’ve already sharpened it too many times, the shavings forming a monument to my stupidity on my desk. I clump them together. It’s a record of how whittled down the pencil has become, taking my energy with it, and I hesitate to brush it into the bin. Where the lead — sorry, graphite — is supposed to stay secure in the pencil is now replaced by a gaping hole, a wound in the wood. I have half a mind to discard the thing entirely, to discharge it of its services and start anew, but then, the temptation to give up altogether would be too great.
I could, of course, venture outside of my room and acquire a pen; a much more reliable tool, but my work is far too important to be permanent on the first try. Besides, even though they lack the fragile graphite, they can just as easily run out of ink; the ballpoint rolling uselessly around, only scraping out ghosts of letters. There’s nothing that wants to help me with this.
My page is maybe a quarter, maybe one third full. Pathetic. I’ve been at this for hours. I haven’t even allowed my attention to wander — this page, nearly blank, has been my whole world. The least it could do is act inviting.
It doesn’t like me, though, I’ve realised. It resents the markings I’ve laid down, rubbed out, tried again and discarded once more. It mocks my indecision, knowing the more it stays blank the more I’ll pay for it. I can hear my teacher now — ‘This is unacceptable, Cameron.’ The page thinks I’m stupid. ‘You never put any effort in.’ It’s right, though, I’ll give it that.
It’s my pencil, I remind myself — it refuses to cooperate with me. Constantly breaking. All my utensils are against me; none of them want to be in my corner.
Forgetting again the silence of the early hours, I throw the pencil down and it rattles against the hardwood floor. The sound snaps me out of my bedroom and to my classroom — my teacher, Mrs Alex, was always quite fond of taking my pencils and hitting them against my desk when I wasn’t working hard enough. Sometimes they would snap, little pieces of wood flickering back at me. I look down to where my pencil now lays on my floor. It deserves to be there. Besides, it’s probably a far more exciting fate than all the nothing I’ve been using it for on the paper.
I have to keep writing, though. I need to hand this work in.

It’s five past six now, and the morning light is just starting to creep over the horizon. I walk to my destination, my pile of A4 pages securely in my hands. I look over them again to check they’re in the right order — intro, body, conclusion.
I reach the graveyard a little bit later than usual — I hope Mrs Alex isn’t too impatient — and I can see some other people milling about among the dead; maybe some workers, a few other visitors. They’re all silhouettes against the rolling hills, stalking between the aisles of tombstones.
When I reach Mrs Alex, I step lightly. I present my finished work to her, resting the sheets of paper down on the patch of grass that covers her grave.
‘I finished it in time,’ I tell her. I had to stay up all night to do so, but it was worth it. ‘It’s handwritten. With two centimetre margins, just how you like.’
I struggle with what next to say. She’s giving me the silent treatment, like she hasn’t had her coffee yet, like she wants to be left alone. Maybe I didn’t write enough. Maybe my handwriting is too hard to read.
‘It’s an essay on the creation myths of Mesopotamia.’ I hesitate. ‘I know we didn’t go over that a lot when you had me, but…’ There’s something stopping me from forming full sentences around her, a firm grip around my throat that’s leaving me flustered.
She was my year six teacher. In the cramped classrooms of a public primary school, five days a week, I knew her for a year. Or, more accurately, for most of a year. It was a month or two before my primary school career was over that the principal sat our year down, talking his mouth off about grief and loss and support structures. They were concepts that most twelve year olds would rather die than be forced to hear about, and before I knew it, a substitute I can’t remember the face of replaced Mrs Alex for my final days. I didn’t see what all the fuss was about. My parents took me out for ice cream that day.
Throughout high school, she didn’t cross my mind much — she hardly ever did, until I found her by accident, my vision drowned in tears.
It was a year and a half ago, and I’d just barely graduated high school. I was one of many in a crowd of black, crawling after a coffin carried on the shoulders of men, my grandfather’s body safely wrapped up inside. Walking along the winding path of the cemetery, I saw it, as if possessed by an eagle, my eye somehow catching her in a sea of her brethren.
Evelyn Alexander. Beloved wife, mother and grandmother.
I stopped in my tracks. She reached out of her grave and clawed at my mind, yanking me out of the slow stride of the crowd. It was a sort of stumble, a sort of yielding.
My memories of that last year of primary school didn’t come flooding back; there wasn’t a tidal wave of past emotions suddenly overtaking me at seeing her name. Only confusion grabbed me; the grip of the past was not as strong.
In fact, I could hardly remember anything from that time. The last year or so of primary school, everything wrapping up and starting anew in high school — there were only bits and pieces, most of it was a blur. There was an obscure glass wall in my mind, and I didn’t dare break it.
There was one thing, though. One thought, one memory, that scratched at my brain as I stood, rooted in the middle of the cemetery, lagging behind my grandfather’s corpse.
Mrs Alex was a heinous bitch.
There were some faint screams in my head, maybe hers, maybe my parents, maybe mine, I didn’t know. Too late, too late, always too late — and if I wasn’t too late, I wasn’t enough anyway. For such a hazy memory, it was loud, so loud, and boiling to the touch; the glass my mind kept it safely behind smoked and steamed, like I would burn myself if I got too close.
And for the rest of the funeral, the wrong ghost was haunting me. I didn’t cry when they lowered my grandfather’s body into the ground; I had other worries on my mind.
In all the days since, I’ve been trying my hardest to make up for lost time.

The cold morning air bites at my skin as I stand in front of Mrs Alex. The conversation sputters and dies out, flopping uselessly as a fish out of water — she’s had enough of me by now. The sun is rising slowly, beams of light now flickering the morning awake. My essay pages are dotted with white-gold flecks.
‘I hope you like it.’ My eyes are on my feet, I don’t dare look at the tombstone — into her eyes. The letters on the stone serve as her only presence left in this world. Her name, etched into the granite slab, is dug deep, like lasting scars — she has no burden of impermanence, no possibility of the indecision I face when I erase pencil mark after pencil mark. I leave the cemetery before the morning hits seven.
She’ll be impressed with me one day. One day, my efforts will finally be enough.

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None of the other children ever wanted to play with her.

They pretended she wasn’t even there as they shrieked in delight, running as fast as they could to win the game of tag. Kids visited the playground every day, but no one ever offered to push her on the swings. On cold days, she would watch them build snow people dressed in the fluffiest scarves and fanciest hats, while the flakes swirled around like a scene from a shaken snow globe. They all existed in a happy bubble, and she watched from the outside, unable to pop it and join them.

The playground was empty today. It had been raining softly all afternoon, so no children would come to play. She didn’t mind the rain. It made the grass shiny and cleaned the abandoned toys. Maybe it could wash away her invisibility, then the children would see her and let her join their games. She trudged towards the swings, her favourite spot, and dodged the obstacle course of puddles while the drops continued to tap tap tap her on the head. Today she was the ruler of the playground.

The triumphant feeling faded when she spotted the seesaw. On her early days in the playground, a little girl with the prettiest sunflower dress had been playing there with an older boy. He pushed harder against the ground, his strong legs sending them higher and higher each time. Sunflower girl’s giggles turned to whimpers. She pleaded with the boy, why couldn’t he see that Sunflower was so small, so afraid? No matter how loud she cried, the boy never looked her way. The little girl slipped and landed on her arm with a sickeningly loud crack.

Shaking her head to shoo the dark thought cloud, she dug her heels in the mud and pushed herself off the ground. Perhaps if the swing went high enough, she could land on a cloud, safe and solitary, and watch the teeny tiny kids from far away. But that wouldn’t be so different from now.

The swing slowed to a creaky halt. A gentle breeze eased the old rainbow merry-go-round merrily round and round. It danced between the red, orange, yellow leaves of the trees and nudged her tattered dress. She frowned, trying to remember how her dress was ruined. Or how she had gotten to the playground. Or her name. Everything before the playground was . . . empty. Just an ocean of nothingness.

Softly sighing, her gaze dropped from her clothes to her muddy shoes. The rain was still falling, but she could no longer feel it. Where was the tap tap tap? Was she invisible to the sky too? She glanced up.

Someone was holding an umbrella over her head. Or rather, something was a more fitting description. It was more shadow than person, dark amidst the muted colours of the playground, with eyes that glowed like candlelight.

But somehow, she did not feel afraid.

‘At last, I have found you.’ The shadow’s whisper sent chills down her spine. ‘You have drifted far, little one.’

As the shadow spoke, its dark cloak had slightly fallen back, exposing a hint of smooth bone where a face should have been. The candlelit eyes seemed to float where normal eyes should have been.

She felt glued to her seat, frozen by the cool wind and the colder voice. ‘I don’t think I’m supposed to talk to strangers.’

The flames glowed pleasantly as they continued to watch the child, thawing the chill that had seeped under her skin. ‘But I am no stranger. I am a friend who has come to collect you.’

Her craning neck became sore. She hung her head and studied the shadow’s feet, but instead there was a cloak made of strange smoke. It wasn’t blown away by the breeze. The black tendrils lazily swirled in place like the darkest storm cloud.

‘Why?’ she asked, her small voice echoing in the silent playground as she raised her head again.

The flames dimmed, almost like they were sad. ‘Little one . . . do you not know what happened to you?’

The little girl shook her head, tiny fists tightly gripping the metal chains of the swing. The brief warmth was gone and in its place cold cold cold settled into her skin. Maybe she stole it from the swing’s chains. How could she give it back?

The shadow reached into its cloak, pulling out a crumpled piece of paper, and offered it to her. The sleeve slipped back, revealing a skeletal hand. She shakily took the paper, fingers brushing against the bone. Cold. Her body seemed to know what was coming, even though her mind was still racing to catch up. Finally, a game of tag. But now was not the time.

The paper was as blank as her memory, but came alive with her touch. Smoke as dark as the shadow’s cloak swirled around, settling to create a picture of a car that had been flipped upside down. The wheels shouldn’t be up there. How was the car supposed to work? The smoke rearranged itself, and words swam around like confusing alphabet soup, all mismatched, until it settled to create another image. Two adults stood near the car, shaking like the trees’ leaves in the wind. The shadow approached them, seemingly speaking quiet words and reaching out a bony hand. They stopped shaking, serene as they accepted the offered hand. A little figure appeared at the other side of the car, far from the adults.

Her hands stopped shaking. She could no longer hear the pitter patter of the rain. The quiet was way too loud. The figure was a little girl with wild hair, with the same face she would always see reflected back at her in the puddles of rainwater. She watched, unable to tear her eyes away as the little girl slipped away, drifting past the tree that had squished the car like a bug. The smoke rearranged itself again, but the alphabet soup cleared to form a real word: Leila.

‘I am Leila?’

She had a name.

‘Yes.’

Leila balled up the paper in her fist. She still did not understand . . .

‘Why can’t I remember?’

Leila looked up at the shadow. It had not moved this entire time, as still as the trees surrounding the playground.

‘Memories fade away once you are dead.’

She loosened her grip on the paper. Dead. It sounded so final. But the word felt familiar. The children used it in their games, shrieking that the imaginary monster was dead. But they made it sound so bad. Hearing the shadow say it, was a different feeling. Something finally made sense.

‘Is that why the other children can’t see me?’

The shadow nodded. ‘The living cannot see us.’

Leila tilted her head. ‘Who are you?’

‘I am the Reaper. I am a friend who is here to collect you.’

Leila let the newspaper clipping float to the ground. The mud greedily swallowed it up. She oddly felt at peace.

‘Are you lonely, Mr. Reaper?’

The Reaper seemed to be at a loss for words. It silently eased the umbrella closed. The rain had stopped, but the world was still grey. Leila glanced at her skin. She never noticed that it was grey too.

‘I always collect souls once it is their time,’ the Reaper rasped, startling Leila back to attention. ‘But I could not find you. It . . . worried me, that you were somewhere alone, and I have been searching for you ever since.’ The candlelit eyes looked around the playground. ‘Somehow you turned up here.’

Leila followed the eyes. While the children had never seen her, the playground had been her safe place. ‘How long have you been searching?’

The Reaper’s quiet sigh washed over her, cold like the winter breeze. ‘Far too long.’ The candlelit eyes dimmed again as they turned to her. ‘I am sorry, little one.’

The cold reminded her of the winter days watching the children and their snow people. Leila blinked away the memory. ‘The swings kept me company.’

‘They must have made fine companions,’ the Reaper touched a single bony finger to the metal chain.

Leila hummed in agreement. Her blank memory replayed the paper over and over, pausing on the image of the two adults. All the adults in her playground always looked the same, but these two were different. The woman had hair even wilder than Leila’s, and the man had a face similar to her own. They were beautiful.

‘Mr. Reaper . . . were they my parents?’ Leila whispered.

The light glowed warmer than ever before as the Reaper offered a skeletal hand. ‘Yes. They have been waiting for you.’

Leila’s lips curled upwards. She let go of the familiar metal chain of the swing, her pale palm accepting the offered bone.

The air made it hard to weep.

Even the plant in the teacup curled in on itself, green having long since turned to brown. It was curious how the plant was even able to wilt while surrounded by such a thick layer of dust. Ara herself felt weighed down. Laying on her stomach, she carefully took in every inch of discolouration. She would liken moving to crawling through molasses, without the sweetness, and instead with the bitterness of a decaying plant.

 Was bitter the right word? Ara rested her cheek against the cold floor. I don’t really care.

She was unsure how much time passed as she lay there, staring at the plant like it would come back to life. The other nine didn’t. They used to be impressive where they sat on the wall of shelving, all bearing various shades and shapes, a display of vibrant green in the cold expanse. The first had died on a Monday. (Or was it a Sunday? Maybe Tuesday… I washed my hair that Tuesday). The second to die was on a Friday.

She stopped noting the days after the fifth.

Ara managed to push herself onto her elbows. Her eyes watered as she inhaled a chunk of dust, her sneeze causing spittle to fly across the sea of dead plants. She wiped her nose on her thumb, then wiped her knuckle on her worn jeans. Ara wondered if the plants ever got the urge to wipe themselves down after being watered. She shook her head. If she had the strength she’d laugh at herself. They’re dead, they don’t need watering, or wiping.

She noticed just how fragile the plant was as she cradled it in her hands. Ara was sure it was wilting further with every passing second, but she knew there was nothing she could do. She was low on water, and she simply couldn’t risk it. There was every chance it would die. There was every chance she would die. The plant would have to wilt, and she would have to move on. She had every intention of doing so, and would have if not for the sudden beeping.

Ara looked up at the control panel to try and pinpoint the origin of the shrill noise. It wasn’t the beeping that alarmed her, no, it was always the colour that came with it. This button was blue. Green means company, red means fuel, blue means… I don’t remember blue. What the hell is blue? Ara quickly understood when she struggled to take in her next breath, the rattling wheeze like a broken fan. Blue means oxygen levels.

‘Shit.’

Ara scrambled to the control panel, wiping away stray space junk to peer at the calendar. It was the sixth cycle. The ship’s purge was well overdue. She usually timed it well, always finding a planet in time to let the ship reset. Unfortunately, this time she hadn’t been so clever. Ara would end up like the plants if she didn’t screw her head on. It was easier said than done when she hadn’t seen her head in three cycles, maybe four.

Nuts and bolts fell out of the emergency cabinet when she ripped it open. She riffled through it, holding her breath as she did. Eventually, she felt the mask’s familiar groove. But the cord was wrapped around something, and tugging it out was a struggle. Ara didn’t care if she tore open her hand. Her lungs were aching, her eyes watering, and it was taking all her remaining energy just to move.

Eventually, it came loose. Ara fastened the mask around her face and took a deep breath.

She took a long moment to collect herself. The pounding in her ears thrummed alongside the beeping. Ara used it to control her breaths, trying not to be greedy with her inhales. Her breath stuttered when she noticed the abandoned plant lying limp on the ground, forgotten in her haste. She reached for it, frantically covering its leaves like it also needed to breathe. An image of the plant wearing a mask flickered in Ara’s mind, and she couldn’t help her wet chuckle.

In a way, they did wear masks. Used to, Ara reminded herself, they used to wear masks. Ara would cover the plants with neat little domes during purges, turning them into small greenhouses. She was unsure where they’d ended up; after the fifth plant had wilted, Ara threw a couple at the wall in a fit of rage. Perhaps she had known they would become unimportant, perhaps she had just been impulsive. Perhaps the domes reminded her too much of her own ship.

When the beeping stopped, so did Ara’s musings. Dirt was scattered across the floor, and the teacup was cracked and jagged. Ara couldn’t recall dropping it, let alone smashing it. She wondered if that was a symptom of the fear, or the simple callousness of self-preservation. She wondered if things would have been different if the plant was still alive. Ara stared at it, hopeful that the answer would be scrawled on its leaves. There were no letters, no words, but there was something…

Hidden under the leaves of the wilting plant was another plant. Small, green, so fragile Ara feared it would wither away into nothing if she touched it. Ara waited until her hands stopped shaking. She scooped it out of the dirt, careful of its roots. They were spindly, finger-like and reaching out to her. Old fingers with wrinkles, divots, and stories to tell. She looked closer, noting the plant itself was misshapen. Its leaves were naturally jagged, its stem bent.

It wasn’t the prettiest, but it was alive.

Ara threw the old plant at the wall, its sad descent unimportant. She got to work giving the seedling a new home, digging a hole into the cup and repositioning it in the centre. It was as if the other plant was never there, nothing left of it to even sustain a memory. Ara kneeled on something as she placed the new plant on the shelf, but she paid it no mind, far too focused to care. The seedling, lively and bright, was impressive among the cemetery of dead plants.

She emptied a few droplets into the dirt, careful not to tip her flask too high. The plant needed to live, but so did she. Ara took a tiny sip herself, satisfied with the three droplets. She felt a new vigour, and couldn’t blame it all on the water. She shook her fringe out of her eyes, carefully strapping the flask back onto her thigh. Ara kneeled there for a long time, so long that the moon’s shadow started to creep into her peripheral. She itched to feel, so she reached for the teacup.

Humming along to a tune she couldn’t remember, Ara shuffled to the window. It was the only one on her ship, and its grime was no match for the blinding light. It was fading, but Ara would have to make use of it. She held up the plant, knowing that was how they used to survive on Earth. Sprouting under the sun, preening under the rain, then bidding the sun goodbye as it left to make room for the night.

She wondered if plants liked sunsets.

Ara thought sunsets had lost their novelty. Every planet was the same, and this one was no different. It had a moon, small and grey, the patches of green on the surface familiar. She tried to picture what the plant would look like down below, comfortable in soil and surrounded by others like it. Ara held the plant tighter to her chest, unashamed of the sudden wave of greed. Up here there was nothing to be afraid of, up here she could protect the plant.

Her eyes darted to the collection of dead plants.

She took in each of them, only counting four before looking away. Guilt was an unpleasant feeling. It simmered like a boiling pot, the unsteady water rising high in her throat. She swallowed it down, letting her gaze wander to the plant to ease her mind. Ara’s hair fell over her eyes, her hunched figure like a marionette with snipped strings. Her thumb toyed with leaves, gently prodding, and she was unsure if she imagined the leaf nuzzling into her palm.

It was likely a trick of the eye, or her own staggered breathing. Ara, having spent so long without the touch of another, didn’t mind either way. Bathed in the fading light under the stale, artificial air, something fluttered in Ara’s stomach. It was a warmth she had never felt from the moon, or the stars, or the other ten plants.

As she stared out the porthole, Ara imagined a heartbeat, and the expanse of space became a little less quiet.

The dawn light falls through the narrow window, across the thick woven carpet, and reflects off the leather encased feet of a man who paces.

‘Read it to me again!’

From the lacquered escritoire that borders the rug, the scratch of a quill abruptly stops. There is the light rustling of parchment before a tentative voice replies, ‘In the name of —’

‘No, no, it will never do! “In the name of”?! I am not a king!’ The soft fall of the boots halt, and, for a moment, eyes as cold as winter lakes expectantly peer across the surface of the desk. ‘Am I?’

A heavily pregnant pause is followed by an Adam’s apple bobbing. The voice holding the quill whispers: ‘…’

But the polished calfskins have continued across the room without demanding an answer, and their wearer chuckles loudly, ‘A king!? Ha!’

‘May I suggest “By the order of”, my lord?’ the scribe interjects.

Silence.

A bead of sweat forms along the scribe’s hairline as he holds his breath. His eyes dart to the spectre guarding the door. Relief is executed by the barely perceptible patter of small feet running in shag pile.

‘Read it to me again!’

The scribe clears his throat nervously as the excited face of his recently appointed liege appears at the height of his right shoulder.

‘By the order of Lord Maximus Farquaad, all creatures of a fairy-tale nature are forthwith revoked of citizenship in Duloc. I am authorized to place you under arrest, and transport you to a designated resettlement facility.’[i]

The salty droplet begins a slow descent down the domed forehead. Inches before the scribe’s tired face, the thin lips of his ruler silently repeat the words that have been laboriously composed since the scribe had woken to a dark silhouette standing by his bed. The large man’s presence in his bedroom, as the moon rose, could only mean one thing: their lord had finally succumbed to his illness, and his successor had, as successors do, succeeded.

Knowing better than to mistake this guard’s silence for patience, the scribe had thrown back the covers, grabbed the worn leather roll of his station, and hurried to the study… still in his nightclothes.

The scribe cringes as the corners of the nobleman’s mouth twitch. ‘I can change it again Milord,’ he begins, ‘we could try “proclaim” —’

He is startled by a low rumble from the corner by the door. In all his years in Duloc, the scribe had never heard Farquaad’s companion laugh. It chilled his bones.

‘Oh, Thelonious,’ Maximus’ cold blue eyes begin to sparkle affectionately. Gazing into the laughing shadows, the sharp crescent of his grin fills with manic chortling. ‘It’s perfect!’

***

‘Fark wad! Fark! Wad!’ The chant filled his ears as the faces merged into a blur of flesh and wood; fur and biscuit.

No one had prepared Maximus for his first day at the new school. Things were different since his family had moved to Duloc. At his old school, everyone knew each other. They played together before school, and walked home, toward the promise of cake, together. But, at Duloc Elementary, he knew nobody.

 ‘O’ look, it’s “Little Lord Farkwad”’, Bad had called across the playground.

Children who had been filing through the gate, avoiding eye contact with the grey wolf pup and his snickering friends, froze. Thoughts of freedom, home, and milky afternoon teas vanished at the prospect of a fight.

Max blinked in confusion, his lips moving as he silently repeated the taunt.

‘You have mispronounced my name, friend’, he responded cheerfully. ‘It is “Far-quar”. The “d” is silent, and there is a “kw”, like in “queen.”’

The wolf’s lip lifted slightly in response.

‘Far- quar,’ Max repeated, ‘and I am not a lord. Not yet.’

Gingerbread! That’s what Max could smell as the crowd of juvenile fairy-tale creatures swarmed him. A voice squealed in mirth: ‘FARKWAD!’ Max’s legs buckled. He found himself sprawled in the dirt, his perfectly pressed uniform ruined.

‘Fark! Wad! Fark! Wad!’

His eyes stung with tears, then the sun switched off.

In the darkness, there was a yelp, a scuffle, and a small break of ginger-scented wind. Max squeezed his eyes shut as he floated through the air, landing lightly on a nearby play fort. He risked a peek and caught the glimpse of a face, before curling up in a tight ball to await his fate.

‘Milord?’ The voice was deep and slow. ‘’R you a’right, milord?’

Thelonious had been quietly keeping an eye on Duloc’s newly discovered scion since he had been delivered to the school gate that morning. He was easy to spot. Apart from being the smallest human at the school, and giving off the slightly petrified vibe of the new kid, he also had that air of arrogance only found on those truly favoured by fortune.

When Bad (later known as Big Bad) Wolf had invented the nickname, Thelonious silently laughed along. But, when Gingy—the anthropomorphised cookie with precious candied amulets—had snuck in under everyone’s gaze, and sharply pushed the small boy in the hollow of his knee, Thelonious felt compelled to act. His mother had taught him that part of his role as a big, strong person was to help those less robust than he. And, left to his own devices, Thelonious thought Max would be destined to end his days in a gingerbread house; happily bubbling away in a cauldron, a warning to silly little children everywhere.

‘I am not a lord.’ Max opened his eyes, squinted, and could see a halo of light encircling a large black shape. As his eyes adjusted, the shape slowly formed into an exceptionally large boy, whose face was hidden in a black homespun hood.

‘They only do it because Father was summonsed, and now,’ Max sat up and sighed sadly, ‘I am destined.’ He closely inspected a small graze on his knee. In a smaller voice, thick with shame, he confessed: ‘And because I am so little.’

Max turned his inspection to his rescuer. ‘They call you “Ugly Der-loneliest”. But I saw your face, and you are not ugly.’ He peered into the hood. ‘And I don’t think you’re stupid either, Thelonious.’

Thelonious reeled in panic, spinning around to make sure Max’s observation had not been overheard. ‘Please milord, you must never say that again.’

‘I’m not a lord. Why do you let them call you those things?’

‘Type casting, milord,’ Thelonious replied softly, still alert. ‘If the writer finds out my true nature, I will get cast as a soldier. Or a hero. Or worse, a hypermasculine antagonist, always wearing a muscle tunic, stalking some icky girl and singing in third person. Much better to be a smith, milord. Or a ploughman.’

 ‘I’m not a lor—wait,’ Max’s brow furrowed. ‘Did you just say that everything here is written?’

 ‘C’mon, I’ll tell you on the way home.’

They were well along the shadowed path when Thelonious spoke again.

‘We live in a Fairy Tale.’ He shook a nearby tree, releasing an apple. ‘An apple! There is no sun in these woods. Apples would never grow here.’ Thelonious looked both ways and then dashed into the forest. ‘Fairy Tale creatures protect the fiction,’ he said, tearing off a leaf. He raced back to present it to Max. ‘Stray from the paths, and it’s just paper. See? We’re in a Story Book.’

Max walked in silence for a few minutes, stopping occasionally to inspect the piece of delicate paper or examine a fallen fruit. Thelonious plodded beside him, listening to the familiar sound of his heavy boots, and just enjoying the company.

‘Or,’ Max began to chuckle, ‘a henchman?’

‘Milord?’

‘I’m not a — never mind. By tomorrow, the whole school will know you have saved your Lord’s son. You won’t be able to hide from the writer anymore. But…I think that I am an important part of this story. Otherwise, I would have stayed where I was and not become,’ Max waved his hands toward the scenery, ‘“Fairy-Taled.”’

Thelonious gaped at the smaller boy’s insight. 

‘Just as big, stupid, and ugly don’t always go together, nor do little and meek,’ Max teased, pleased with himself. ‘So, here is my plan. You will become my bodyguard, ensuring the fairy-tale creatures leave us alone, and you never end up in a musical. Father already has plans to turn the manor into a castle. And when the school year is out, I start with my tutor. You can live in the castle, so you are always close…’

Thelonious smiled to himself. Max’s incessant chatter was almost soothing, like night-time rain on a thatched roof. But he also hoped the castle would have a nice dark dungeon, for when he needed some quiet.

‘… and then, I will officially become the Lord of Duloc. And I can say: Thelonious, summon the scribe!’

---

[i] From the Shrek script: imsdb.com/scripts/Shrek.html

There it stood, cap coated in a film of dust nobody dared remove. Aftershave. In an all-female household. It looked out of place on the bathroom mirror shelf, a broad glass container among the array of gaudy plastic tubes and makeup paraphernalia. It dominated the scene. It had to. This was all we had left of him. My grandfather, Youssef. My Gedo.

A year today. I raised my fingers to the cool blue refractions of light emanating from the tinted glass. I’d almost forgotten how it smelled. How he smelled.

He was the embodiment of fatherhood. This morning, I woke up certain I’d find him in the kitchen preparing breakfast, like he always used to do. I’d hover nearby to listen to his unnervingly off-key singing as he bobbed his head about to his own tune—at utter peace—while he shuffled across the room and chopped tomatoes for the ful medames. Yes, he’d hum a slow hymn as he collected his ingredients. By the time the dish was ready for the final squeeze of lemon, he’d belt melodies fit for an uproarious village wedding.

Gedo was always up and dressed to the nines by six-thirty sharp, ready to bargain his way through all the greengrocer had to offer. He’d always return victorious, the entirety of God’s green earth in the plastic bags he hauled home. His modest red bike would barely be visible under the load. I imagined that’s how he looked driving through the dusty streets of Egypt decades ago, with his four kids hanging on for dear life, triumphant as their father defied the laws of physics.

‘Look what I got jus-for you today, Rifkah,’ he’d say to me in his rumbly croak. And he would beam, his forehead expanding and pushing back the fuzzy peppered coils he had for hair. ‘Mint! It’s-e-fresh!’

I’ve never seen anything quite like his smile. His teeth would readily greet the world, but were so crooked it seemed as though they were huddled for warmth. The grooves he had for dimples hardened into position, stretching out his face enough for pale nose-hair to ceremoniously peek through and observe a kind of queen’s wave.

Sometimes this would be accompanied by his classic wheeze-laugh that ended with an abrupt, high-pitched notei and a barely noticeable nod. It was hard to not grin along—not when he had the vicious sense of humour he did. This often meant that his children-in-law fell on the wrong side of the conversation; Gedo Youssef thought the world of his kids, lacking the capacity to think highly of anyone who breathed in their proximity and dared to cross them.

Such conversations were prefaced with a very specific forerunner. Gedo would purse his lips and execute a meticulous side-eye glare before raising his eyebrows, rolling his dark eyes back to the front, and lowering his hairy brows with a theatrical sigh. No rite of passage was as sacred as being allowed to stay in the room after he decided to start any sentence with, ‘Frank-e-ly, I just can’t under-e-stand…’

It was a sentence I’d often heard the introduction of, but never had the imagination to finish. Or, at least, finish with accuracy. I grew up with a childish belief that no tensions could exist within the inviolable domain of the family. And, as was inevitable, the cracks began to show. By that time, I was finally old enough to be a fly on the wall without stumbling into its unfathomable crevasses.

As it turns out, Gedo Youssef frankly just couldn’t understand a range of things, from the tattoos on that man his ‘baby Farah’ married, to why his man-child of an “angel son Sherif” chose “her”. “My princess” Laila’s fiancé also came up a couple of times, though Gedo had to really dig for content there. He never had much to say against the guy, but still gave him the additional portion my dad never received; he walked out on Gedo’s “diamond Amal” before I was old enough to walk, and it was during these conversations that I found out “that so-and-so” was not actually overseas for work.

I believed that to be Gedo Youssef’s only flaw at the time. I believed that until his cancer. Gedo Youssef was not a fighter. He took the news from the doctor’s lips and buckled into denial.

‘Don-worry, habibti. Nothing-can take down an old-e-goat like me.’

And he’d be up and out of the house by five instead, fearing neither cold nor dark.

‘Why you are worried, Rifkah? What do-you think I am? Old?’ Then, he’d laugh his laugh and nod with an added glint of mania. ‘Just one hour, habibti. I promise.’

He avoided sleep in all the ways he could, and this included his mandatory afternoon nap. I didn’t know what to do with myself from the hours of three to five without the rumbling sound of his snoring rattling the windows. Homework just wasn’t the same without the live ambience.

His energy died down too soon and, within a month, the rest he resisted became the silent sleep he dissolved into. Chemo did not hold back. It stifled a lot more than the cells waging war against his body; our entire sun dimmed, and it was Weet-Bix for breakfast.

Weet-Bix or nothing.

Our house crumbled into an uncomfortable quiet as he wilted further into his mattress, pain etched onto his face. It became clear that no amount of half-hearted, broken-Arabic singing, or stale, tasteless breakfasts could change anything…the magic was one-way. I held my breath as I watched the light slip from his fatherly eyes. And I held my breath as he was carried away from me inside a wooden box, and into the darkness he left outside the church’s doors.

We mourned for weeks on end, but soon the seasons changed. My tear-stained mother purged the house of junk we’ll never use: the thick-framed glasses he used to proofread my essays, the striped pajamas he’d let me cry into, the worn-down bike he’d drive at the crack of dawn to get us fresh produce… and I held my breath.

And Laila wore white in that same church hall months after we’d all been there in black, and I held my breath. Her brother walked her down the aisle, both shedding a tear over their father when they arrived at the altar, and I held my breath.

And Farah grew a baby bump, and I held my breath.

And Sherif and his “her” bought a house, and I held my breath.

And my mother was no longer tear-stained, but radiant and young-looking again, and I held my breath.

And what does it mean that I’ve been holding my breath for so long, that I haven’t had breakfast since the day Gedo stopped snoring? That I haven’t been able to listen to a single song I understand the lyrics of?

***

I break the film of dust that has been collecting on the bottle I’d so adamantly defended against my mother’s grip. I twist the cap open. His musky scent fills our small bathroom, and I can finally breathe again.