“I’ve been doing a lot of reflecting,” Liliane says as she breaks the silence. Her voice echos through the empty room that seemed to go on for miles.

“About?” Amelia inquires. Taking a glance around the room, she notices that the once red-stained walls had now been painted white. It had been a while since she stepped into the residence that used to be her second home.

“Life,” a vague answer comes from Liliane that causes an eyebrow raise from Amelia. Liliane was now staring out the window, looking into the gloomy sky. If not for the genuine concern, Amelia might’ve laughed at how dramatic this looked. 

“Gotta be more specific than that Lils” Amelia jokes, trying to get a smile out of the suddenly serious and seemingly queasy older woman. It had been strange being back here, still in confusion as to what caused the sudden invitation, but Amelia figured she would find out soon enough.

“I gave up everything for this, everything and now it’s gone. What do I have now? Who do I have now?” Liliane says bitterly. Amelia goes to say something, though somewhat at a loss for words when Liliane cuts her off.

“This lifestyle was the only thing I desired. To have a whole world of supporters, and yet I look around in times like these, and I have no one. All those awards, recognitions, everything was just a waste. Turning away happiness for what I felt was best for my career” a sharp intake at the words coming out of her own mouth. Amelia begins to get up, wanting to sit closer to her old friend who was growing increasingly distressed.

“I’m sick, Amelia” Liliane states in a cold manner as she begins to walk out of the room, leaving Amelia to wonder what the hell to do with this.

Michael stared at the sunset. A huge grin plastered on his face. He sits alongside Drew. “Isn’t this the best? “Michael says, turning to Drew. Drew doesn’t respond, he continues to stare at the sunset. His eyes slowly filled up with tears. Michael understands, this will be their last moment together. He knew this day would come, they couldn’t avoid it. Drew has been his closest friend. They both weren’t good at making friends with other kids. This might explain why Michael was so drawn towards Drew. Ever since then, they have constantly hung out together. All of that was about to come to an end soon.
Drew still hadn’t uttered a single word. His eyes were wide and his body was shaking. Michael reached out and grabbed Drew’s shoulder. Drew jolted away, tears now streaming down his face. “It’s going to be okay”, Michael says as he hugged Drew. Drew trembled in Michael arms, dread consuming his mind. All Michael could do was comfort his friend, and thank him for letting him enjoy this last moment with him. Of course Drew did not respond, he couldn’t. The duct tape made his words unintelligible, the rope bound his hands together. Michael didn’t want Drew spoiling this moment he has been waiting for his whole life. He grabbed the knife behind him and made one more look towards Drew, his closest friend. Knowing this was the last time he would ever see him again.

The street lamps on Ladonna Avenue weren’t green at all.

Yes. They were definitely more of a grayish olive, old and dull like a spoiled bruise.  If this lamp was a person, it’d probably be a mysterious elder, who had a black cane and a limp on his left leg, and maybe he reeked of cigarettes too. I planted my feet firmly on the sidewalk, leaning closer to the lamp’s pole until the tip of my nose was touching its cold exterior. 

Curious, my fingers glided over the pole’s rugged surface, brushing past bumpy slopes and tiny craters reminiscent of the textured skin dotting my face. By its side was a bright red telephone booth, and farther down were cobblestone steps leading into Ladonna Station. I could hear the q51 city bus rumbling in the far off distance, its headlights clashing with the neon blues and cherry reds of the traffic signal, flashing brightly in the darkness. I had to get on that bus if I wanted to reach Midtown by early morning.

As I waited, I wondered how many other people had strolled past this street lamp in particular. Garnished by layers of flaking green paint and faded scribbles, the lamp stood triumphantly before me, as if it was proud of how much it had endured over the years. I added on to my make believe character- the old man was now in the military for twenty seven years and three months, exactly. He was a ranked general in the combat unit, I think. 

Carved onto the very bottom of the pole was a girl’s name in boxy letters. It looked something like Esper or Emerald or Emma, but I couldn’t make out the entirety of it, so I just chose Esperanza. Hmm, yes, he had a wife named Esperanza who he divorced when he was 27, and then he got remarried to another woman named Emma. And he had no kids, no kids at all. How could he? He dedicated his entire life to the military. With a tired yawn, I lifted my hand off the pole and clutched the strap of my backpack, glancing up at the acacia trees swaying back and forth from the wind. It was only after a few minutes had passed that I suddenly noticed a phone number etched near the top of the pole:

call if u need a friend: 3478916544

Maybe it was from the flickering light, drowning me in splotches of artificial yellow for just a few seconds at a time, or the chilly midnight breeze prickling at my skin, but I felt a strange uncertainty wash over me as I  stood underneath the street lamp. It was a jumpy feeling. I grabbed my flip phone from the back pocket of my jeans and added it to my contacts. They were dumb enough to put their phone number on a street lamp, and I was dumb enough to save it. Who knows? Maybe whoever wrote this is dead, or like, 200 years old. Maybe this is the man,  the elderly man from the military. Maybe he had a mission for me.

For as long as I can remember, my grandmother has been knitting a quilt. To the point that every holiday, she required us to gift her different colors of yarn instead of presents. I counted in total how many balls of yarn we’d gift her a year between my mother, my brother, and myself; in total, she’d receive 12 balls of yarn every year. But despite her being very “yarn-rich”, none of us have ever seen the quilt she’s been knitting. Nor have we ever been gifted so much as a sweater from all her balls of yarn. Whenever I’d ask her how her quilt is coming along, she’d put her wrinkled hand in the air and wave me away while saying “almost done, almost done”. I’ve heard her say that for the past 22 years of my life and still, no quilt. My brother and I used to always joke around and place bets on how old we’d be before we ever saw one of her quilts finished. One time we went as high as 50 years old before our mother told us it’s not nice to make fun of old women. That’s classic mom though; she hasn’t really been into jokes since our father left. One winter, we got a call saying that our grandmother was sick and in the hospital. When we went to go visit her I couldn’t believe my eyes; on her lap, was a pink and white quilt. I watched as she struggled to catch her breath, while at the same time, her fingers moved with a graceful speed. Two weeks later, we found out that she passed away. As we drove up to her house to empty out her things, I wondered about the pink and white quilt. As we were cleaning out her bedroom later that day, there were three cardboard boxes with my mothers, my brothers, and my name scribbled on top. When we opened each box, our eyes welled up with tears. Each box had an array of sweaters, mittens, and the most beautiful quilts I’ve ever seen. That’s when I knew, our grandmother was knitting the ultimate present for us, throughout all these years.

I walk up to my room and drop my bag at the floor. I stare at the pitch-black ceiling and pull out my phone. I raise the volume in my headphones and try to block the noise I hear. My mind feels like it going to rip itself apart. Lately, all my parents having been doing is nothing, but argue. Fights, yelling then there this uncomfortable silence where nobody can say anything.

I have tried to put on a brave face, but I can’t keep pretending anymore. I look up to see across from bed, a picture frame of my family. It was taken a couple of years ago and it was a time when the fights hadn’t escalated to this point. I know that it normal for a family to argue from time to time. However, for a family to argue every single day, and talk about leaving or divorce isn’t normal. Things didn’t used to be this way in the past I hear them argue over money, and occasion about family members. I don’t know when my parents fighting got worse.

Now I’m sick of all this-fighting. I have started to avoid my parents at all costs and coming home late. I try to block the drama by staying in my room, listening to music or movies. I have started to avoid my parents at all costs and coming home late. My schoolwork has started to suffer because of this, and I know my friends are starting to suspect something wrong. I have started cancelling plans on them, not handing in assignments, and becoming more reclusive. I haven’t told any of my friends that truth and I don’t want them to know about the situation at my home. I feel that if I tell my friends the truth then….

I feel weaker, sluggish, and tired. I try to remember the time before all the fighting, screaming, and lies. I want to go home. The beautiful irony is I am home, but I don’t feel I am at home. This home feels more foreign to me by each passing day. Everyday nothing changes and something inside of me begins to fade.

“As long as anyone could remember Margaret loved racecars. Everything about them fascinated her. She was prolly bout 3 when I first brought her to the track. I member walking into the Speedway, immediately I saw her bright green eyes gloss over right b’neath them coke-bottle glasses, jaw damnnear hit her boots. I spent lots o’time wit kids in the past and never seen such passion on a child’s face before. I never expected for that day to spark what would become her life long dream. Growing up, all she’d do was talk about cars and how she would be the best racer there was. In elementary school, she practically begged my wife and I to move to Alabama, so that we would be closer to the Talladega Superspeedway. Course, we quickly shut that down. Instead, Margaret settled for something else. We told her that for every birthday we would go down to a different Nascar track. She wanted to see them all. One Friday afternoon, new little miss 8th grade attitude so boldly walked up to me and said ‘ten dollars please,’ with her hand out so high and mighty. I looked down at her and said ‘and for what exactly young lady’ to which she so confidently replied ‘Im going out.’ Before the panick set in, I allowed her to explain herself. She told me there was a new kart track next county over, she had to go. No ifs ands or buts. So, I slapped them ten dollars into her hand and said ‘let’s go’. A few days after her 16th birthday she came to me the same way she did in 8th grade. Head held high, confident with that sneaky little grin of hers, stuck her hand out and said ‘$1000 please’ with confidence even stronger than before. I could not even imagine what this could be about. She had a job at the gas station a mile down the road. She proceeded to say ‘I know its a lot but Ive been saving. Them neighbors is selling their car and I’m $1000 short.’ My little girl always gets her way. Soon enough she got her full license and was driving and dragging that car everywhere she could… not always so legally. When she graduated she applied for a special driving school to become a racer. Course she got in, ‘woulda been their loss if they hadn’t’ , she would walk around and tell everyone. I remember the day of her final test. Somehow she had gone through all this time without them telling her she needed perfect vision. She was devastated — beyond that, she was crushed. Just when she thought her dreams were over, one of her teachers told her she would be a perfect pit leader. Sure, she wouldn’t be racing, but it was the next best thing. He even told her that she could race ‘unofficially’ from time to time. On her first official day, halfway through the race, one driver lost control. The car flipped the baracade and hit Margaret head on. My daughter whom I loved more than anything gone in an instant. Today is the 3 year anniversary of her death. I thank god everyday that my wife convinced me to start going to these, sharing my story, our story, Margaret’s story. Thank you for listening.” He sits down shakily, the person next to him grabs his hand. “Thank y’all for sharing today, it’s been another great meeting. See y’all next week” the AA leader says. “See ya next week” they reply in unison.

For many years her mother was sick but didn’t realize how bad her condition’ had become.

Anne was my mother’s name. she was woman in her 40’s, hardworking and relied on only herself to take care of her only child. Me her youngest daughter Jewel was a cheerful but shy at times, I was 8-year-old that lived right her mother and wanted to be by her side through thick and thin.

“Mommy are you feeling better yet” I asked my mother

“Yes baby” my replied as she secretly tries to hide the fact, she’s in pain.

She always told us tells her child knowing that it would her a peace in mind.

Anne would act as if she was invincible in front of her children and to show that her sickness could not stop her from having a normal life like any other mother.

“Come on baby get ready were going to the amusement park” mother says cheerfully

“I’m not a baby anymore mommy” I say

I hated that name.

I never understood why she would push herself knowing she didn’t feel well.

Well either way we still went to the amusement park, and she even went on the rides along with me. it made me happy that’s I was able to spend time like this with my mother like this. Eating popcorn, winning prizes, taking pictures and the screams we shared while riding the big kid roller coasters as my mother says. A memory that would always hold a special place in my heart. Days later after I thought she was feeling better she seemed to have gotten worse, and my heart skipped a beat as it ached in pain of the thought of my mother in constant pain.

This pain, her pain. It was different. She was rushed to the hospital to be taken care of. This was normal to me. In and out the hospital but this time… this time she didn’t come out.

I was scared as I sat next to my mother hospital bed as her tray of mash potatoes, chicken breast, peas, and her cup of closed apple juice collects dust on the side table of the bed.

“Why didn’t you eat your food” I asked with concern

“No baby I’m not hungry right now, I’ll eat later I promise” she replied slowly

Silence as she slowly drifts off to sleep.

Not to long I left to go home with the rest of my family

After that next day when I planned to go visit my mom at the hospital, but something was different at home. It was so gloomy but yet it was so bright outside. Something wasn’t right. My family cried and for some reason I started to cry but for some odd reason I knew that I wouldn’t hear that nickname that I hated so much again.

I was a kid only when I was six. My family owned a glass shop at the time next to a prominent waterfront restaurant. I would stumble over the massive curb, some times falling but mostly jumping, and head to their back door across the alleyway. I knocked and brought out the big man that would open the door; everything was round about him other than the grease stains on his apron and the brown paper bag he held in his hand.

”Two?” I said, holding up my thumb and pointer finger in front of a shit eating grin.

He gave a quick exhale through his nose, smiled, and reached somewhere I could not see. In my mind, I was hoping that it was going to be a white rabbit that he pulled from thin air. Or a dove. Even then I knew he couldn’t fit into a suit, though.

He pulled out another paper bag and held them steady as I tugged.

He bent down to me and said, “Tell Ernie that Pop needs to talk to him.”

I agreed without wincing at the smell cigarettes coming through his smiling teeth. He smiled like dad, and smelled like him too.

He let go of the bags, grabbed the top of my oversized head, and then twisted me. He pretended to kick me off like a horse in one of those westerners my grandmother keeps on in the waiting room. We both laughed as I barreled recklessly through parked cars towards the sound of blasting six shooters and screaming horses.

I stepped inside to see Zelda, Ernie’s daughter. She was younger than me, too young to hate her name. I’d spent a lot of time sitting on damp carpets in front of T.V. screens so I know the trick that was played on her. I wished I had a name like that.

”Where’s your dad,” I asked her.

She responded with a finger that was pointing out back to the shop where the old men hock and spit smoke. I was too excited to be Pop’s messenger to say thank you and ran through the clear plastic tentacles that constituted the door to the shop. I stood on the stairs and scoped the place out to no avail.

I then headed upstairs to the apartment above the office and slowly opened the door. I heard sniffling like I had when I got the cold going around a few weeks before, or like the times pop would open the door and let the smell get to me.
I saw my dad snapping pens while Ernie looked like he was chopping up onions with no smell to them. He was crying.

I walked in and they both jumped and covered the plate like I would when I was caught doing something bad. I gave them the bags and said what Pop told me to.

Ernie put something together from the back of his pants and his pocket.

He said a naughty word.

The woman promised he’d be free by morning.

Her name was only spoken in whispers behind cupped hands, recorded only in memory and never on paper. The day he heard it spoken first, he was lying spread-eagle in the snow, face crusted with tear tracks, fingers curled around the neck of a half-empty liquor bottle. The girl saw him from the house across the road—he thought he knew her from town. What was her name? Amal?—and came rushing over, dragging his limp body back to the house when he refused to respond or get to his feet. He stared blankly, unspeaking while she asked him what he was doing in the snow, while she pried the liquor from his frigid, blue fingers and sat him in front of the crackling fireplace. 

“Were you trying to die?” she asked, peering at him the way you would a particularly challenging riddle. “That’s a terrible way to go! I can’t imagine what would be worth dying so painfully for. You’re lucky I found you.”

He said nothing, the fire throwing a flickering orange glow over his features. She said, “I know you. You’re Shahryar, from the farm down the road, aren’t you?”

The sound of his name startled some of his consciousness back to the surface. He said, “I was not trying to die. I was trying to forget. Though I suppose it might take death to forget after all.”

Amal studied him with a sharp, secret gaze. She said, slowly, deliberately, “Memory is not so stubborn. It is not so eternal. It’s easier to let go of than you might know.”

Shahryar moved of his own volition for the first time, turning his creaking body until he was eye to eye with her, his gaze suddenly attentive. He had a feeling that she didn’t mean her words in the way of a cheap comfort or a rehearsed platitude. 

He spoke, haltingly. “Wha—what does that mean. What are you saying.”

“There’s a woman. A rawia. She’s a craftswoman. Her trade is memories. If you have a memory you want forgotten, you can tell her what you want gone.” Amal’s cadence was no different than it had been only a moment earlier, but her eyes were fervored and she was leaning too close to him. He didn’t move back. “When you speak the memory aloud, she takes it and it is gone from you; you forget whatever burden you were carrying.”

Shahryar’s chest heaved with something like a gasp. He blinked and Amal’s thin shoulders were in his hands, crushed under the sudden, desperate strength in his grip. “Tell me,” he croaked. “Tell me! Who is she where is she how do I find her what’s her name—”

“Her name is Khalida,” Amal said, fearful of his sudden animation, but not so fearful that she’d forget to whisper, to look to the ground as she spoke. “You can see her tonight. You’ll be free of the memory by morning. That’s her promise.”

The walls on the apartment hallway were peeling and damp with mold. Filling the air with his cigarette smoke, Y walked down the hallway glaring at each door number until he found his target; 6A. He stopped and knocked three times. Some noise could be heard before the door opened and a slim middle aged man was standing before Y. “You Y?” the man asked. Y smiled and nodded, “Yes sir.” The man let Y in. Y tossed his cigarette aside and headed for the couch. He waved at a woman standing at the kitchen doorway. She gave him a nasty look but kept quiet. Y shrugged it off and sat down. The man stood across the coffee table, “You have it?” Y dug in his inner coat pocket and pulled out a black rectangular box. He set it down on the table and slid it to the man. The man picked up the box and opened it. Resting in a velvety cloth were a number of glowing green shards. He let out a chuckle and closed the box, “You want something to drink?” Y shook his head, “I want my money.” The man reached into his pocket. A sudden noise came from his wife. Y and the man both looked over at her. She looked flustered. “Isn’t this enough already!? Those damned drugs are just gonna get us in trouble! And you’re even bringing in this random man in here. He could be a cop!” She yelled. Y let out a hearty laugh, “You know she has a point.” The man began laughing just as hard as he walked over to his wife. He pulled out a gun and rested it on her head. The laughter stopped and a deep silence filled the room. He cocked the gun and pressed it deeper against her head. “I don’t rememb-” A loud creak interrupted him. He turned around and saw Y standing a few inches from him. A pipe wrench dropped from Y’s sleeve. Y raised his arm and brought down the wrench with great force onto the man’s head. At the same time the man managed to get a shot into Y’s abdomen. The man dropped like a ragdoll and Y stumbled back. He pulled the bullet out of his vest and went through the man’s pockets. “You asshole! Did you kill him?!” The wife shouted. Y ignored her and grabbed the money from the man. He split off a portion of bills from the stack and reached out to the wife. “Sorry for the trouble, honestly.” Her hands shaking, she grabbed the money. Y headed for the door. He stopped and looked at the box on the table, then back at the wife who seemed to care more about the money than her husband. He grabbed the box and slid it in his jacket. Y walked out the door and back down the damp and peeling hallway. I hate this job, he thought to himself, lighting up a cigarette.