12

It was when Louise started to go deaf that the music began. At first, she thought it was coming from outside her bedroom window overlooking the rest home's northwest lawn. She mentioned to the day nurse about the wonderful big band she thought had been playing in the gazebo just beyond her view and asked why she hadn't been notified so she could have gone down in person, but the nurse insisted there had been no band of any sort.

The next day, when Louise was walking on one of the wide, well-manicured paths through the woods, the music came again. She froze, and the just-turning leaves shivered in a breeze. There was no band this time; it was a single voice. A sweet, clear, single voice she had not heard in twenty years singing one of the silly songs he had made up for her as they made breakfast together, or lunch, or dinner, or while they folded laundry, or as an ode to their pet fish, or an echoing song sung in the shower. He was singing to her now, after all these lonely, heartbroken years. Louise sank to the ground and listened and cried.

11

Bartholomew cut a fine figure on the dance floor. He was elegant in a dark blue suit, cut to accentuate his broad shoulders and trim hips. The man glided more smoothly than even my rotten cousin Melinda, who unceasingly bragged about her extensive dance lessons. Even while floating effortlessly across the room, he managed to remain the epitome of a man. It was at that moment I understood I needed to make him mine. The only trouble was, he was betrothed to another, and I to yet another. Small concerns, however, when love is involved.

I may have fibbed when I said the "only" trouble. The other trouble was that Bartholomew and I had never formally met.

If I gave the impression that not having actually met Bartholomew was the final trouble, I do apologize because there is yet one more, teensie tiny trouble: I was suspected of killing his grandfather, though I assure you that I did nothing of the sort. The elderly man simply died in my presence; I had nothing, directly, to do with it.

10

Evening
The monkeys were advancing, and I told James as much. He told me to relax, but there was no way I could relax before I gave the robots their briefing. The only problem was, I couldn't find the robots. I must have sent them to the front lines already. I shouted for my secretary until James came back and threatened to tie me into bed again. No, no, no; I could not be tied down now. Not when the monkeys were about to cross into what had always been my territory. I began planning a night mission.

Dawn
Breakfast was a mess. My scrambled eggs were overcooked and the toast was undertoasted. The butter didn't even melt. I complained to the waiter. Somehow the other patrons started a foodfight. James tied me into bed.

Dawn
Yesterday slipped from me. I managed to write my log entry before they retied me, but...whatever I keep taking takes from me, too. I lost a lot. I don't even want to know how much.

Afternoon
I promise to behave. I promise to behave. I promise to behave.

Unknown time
How can I be "good", if I, first of all, don't know what "good" means to them, and second of all, if the scratchings and chatterings of those stupid monkeys keep me from sleeping? STOP. IT.

Dawn
Someone new came to see me. He seems nice, but I can't tell yet what side he's working for. I will, as always, wait and observe.

9

The old witch died alone on the forest floor, clutching the only flowers that would decorate her grave, a small bunch of feverfew, not nearly strong enough for the pain.

A carrion bird found the witch's body and tried to feast on her eyes. The bird didn't have time to squawk before it died. Other animals happening upon her body turned and ran. The witch's body bled the remnants of powerful magic cast throughout her long life, but it also held a specific spell in its bones.

The flesh and clothes of the woman rotted and fell away as would that of the most common housefrau, or even the Queen, but the skeleton of the witch waited.

8

Peter firmly believed that nothing of consequence ever happened in the town of Hicksville, and he absolutely hated that he had to live there.

Being ten, he knew he had little choice in the matter. He went wherever his parents went, and they seemed to go a lot. This was the third move he remembered; there had been two others while he had still been in diapers, and Peter was thankful he had no memories of those days.

He remembered his first school, and his first day of school. He was a walker, and his mother walked with him on the first day, to make sure he'd make it. It was only three blocks from their little suburban ranch to Gwinnett Bierce Elementary, a slightly more sprawling suburban ranch. It was on that day that Peter first realized that his mother was...different. By seeing the reactions to his mother in the eyes of others, his own eyes were opened, and he could not, no matter how hard he tried, close them again.

Peter could picture how they had looked. Himself: slight, pale, with light brown hair and brown eyes. Dressed as neatly as ever in pressed khaki pants and blue polo shirt, an oversized Peanuts backpack pulled over both shoulders and holding his matching Peanuts lunchbox, a new box of crayons, school glue, and a lucky rock he had found the week before.

His mother: tall, thin, pale, with large brown eyes and dark brown hair carefully brushed into a bob. She was wearing a sunny yellow vintage dress with simple brown flats. Peter remembered his mother getting ready early that morning and checking her dress in front of the mirror. "How do I look, Petey?"

"You are beautiful, Mommy," he had replied, and she was. To him, his mother was the most beautiful woman ever, which made the reaction of his teacher extra baffling to him.

They had walked hand-in-hand right into the school and to his classroom. Peter knew now that it was unusual for crowds to part the way they always parted for his mother, but he didn't notice it just then. Groups would also silence upon their arrival; again, unnoticed at the time.

7

Sweeping away as far as the eye could see were Forget-Me-Nots. No grass, no other splashes of color in the purplish-blue and green, just Forget-Me-Nots. They swayed in the warm, gentle breeze, turning their faces to the golden late afternoon sun. In the fall they would dry and shed their seeds in the stronger, colder winds, spreading their delicate beauty to even further distances. Up and down the hills, to the edge of a stream, pausing only for the flowing water, continuing up the other bank and on and on and on.

They continued the way human memory couldn’t, replicating exactly and blooming year after year without change, only becoming more deeply entrenched. The tiny flowers never knew the reason for their planting, but they marked it all the same. They mutely marked a memory so powerful and so important it had spilled over into action uncountable years ago. But just as human memory faded, humans themselves faded, leaving only this sea of desire for a memory lost to time.

6

Nigel fell in, screaming. He obviously expected to be hurt badly, but his fall was really only about two feet. He lay there on the hay we put out for new arrivals, probably thinking he was shattered, or maybe he thought he’d died and this was the afterlife. Barlow disabused that fantasy in his own, coarse way.

“Hey, buddy, you shouldn’t lie there all night. There might be others coming through, and you don’t want to get stepped on.”

I was watching Nigel closely, before I knew he was Nigel, of course. I saw him stop breathing for two heartbeats, and I watched as Barlow’s words sunk into his brain. He turned carefully towards us, there were three at that time, and I saw his eyes were blue. I imagined I could see the wheels of his thoughts turning as those blue eyes scanned us, trying to make sense of what had happened to him. Sitting together, we surely defied all reason.

Barlow was massive and only half dressed. He had been the third through, and Cat and I had quite a shock when the giant, shirtless, sweaty man appeared, axe held high above his head. Cat screamed and the axe slipped through his shaking hands to drop behind him. We thought he’d brought us here to slaughter us, but it turned out Barlow had been splitting logs when he, himself, had been taken.

Cat was a tomboy whose boobs were an embarrassment to her and surely the talk of the town from which she came. She said she was fifteen and her clothes said she was a boy, but her huge rack disagreed with both. She had been the second through, so closely behind me I hadn’t had a chance to wander away.

And I sat between the two of them, on the log Barlow had dragged over so we could watch the entry point. Nigel’s blue eyes landed on me and stuck. I smiled and shrugged. I was, after all, quite a sight in my wedding dress.

5

“It’s not working.”

“What the hell do you mean, ‘It’s not working?’” Malek’s voice verged on panic.

“I mean,” Lorin said with patient frustration, “it’s not working. Nothing’s happening.”

“You reset?”

“That’s what I went over here to do, Malek, so yeah, I reset, but it’s not resetting.” Lorin straightened, shook her light brown hair out of its ponytail tieback and braided it deftly.

Malek stood in a slight crouch, arms and legs spread slightly, looking to Lorin like a squirrel frozen in traffic. He gaped at her as she pinned her braid into a tight loop on the back of her head.

She saw the question stuck in his frightened throat. “I’m getting ready to jump, Malek, and I suggest you get ready, too.” Lorin didn’t wait for his reply. She zipped her flight suit and checked that all her pockets were tacked shut even as she moved towards her storage locker.

“But…we can reset…the ship can…we can’t possibly…there’s no…” his hands made limp circles as he looked from the helm to the terminal screens and back.

“Listen, if you’re not going to finish a sentence, why do you even bother starting them?” Lorin finished securing her inter-space lifesuit and paused with the helmet in her hands. “I suggest you put on your lifesuit, too, Malek. Unless you’re planning on going down with the ship? The captain’s dead. There’s really no need for you to die, too.” The helmet self-fastened as soon as it touched the top of her suit, inner atmosphere initializing. She checked the stats on the visual screen superimposed on half the faceguard and noticed Malek still staring. She selected external audio with a blink. “Malek,” she spoke as if to a resistant child, “put on your lifesuit. Now!”

Any action Malek may or may not have taken was overridden when the port side of their ship peeled open and all the air, as well as Malek, were sucked into space.

Lorin swore once. She had about two minutes to save him before the effects of the vacuum were irreversible. Hopefully, he remembered to scream to help balance his internal lung pressure, or she’d have even less time. Lorin grabbed Malek’s suit from his storage locker, disengaged the magnetic coupling on her lifesuit’s boots and launched herself after her ill-chosen boyfriend.

4

Nora slowed as she neared the house, wishing the fan belt didn’t squeak at low speeds, but there was no need for silence; his truck was gone.

She killed the engine and fumbled for the house key, hurrying for the back door. He was gone, but she didn’t want to bank on how long. She sprinted up to the bedroom and flung wide the closet doors. One small carry-on suitcase, one backpack. Another pair of jeans, a few shirts, her two favorite sweaters, pajamas, random underwear, socks, toiletries, pillow, and her stuffed bear Beau who had always, always been with her.

He had once accused her of loving that stuffed bear more than him.

“Yeah, well, I’ve known him longer,” she said smiling. But he hadn’t smiled back. He really was jealous. And time was still ticking.

Underneath, she must have known for months, maybe years, that she’d have to leave in a hurry. She had a stash of about a thousand in squirreled away tens and twenties, her passport, the title to her car, and some bonds all in the back of her desk drawer. Her most precious notebooks and sketchbooks would fit in her backpack, but she’d have to hope the rest of her stuff could be gotten later, after the divorce papers were filed. She was out of time.

3

I swore to God this morning that if anybody else mentioned my inside-out shirt to me, I would punch him in the face. Now this nun, a goddamn nun, was telling me my goddamn shirt was inside-out like she was my personal dresser. Carson freaking Kressley gay married to Jesus and all dolled up in a habit whispering fashion advice to me. Like I could take off my shirt right here on the goddamn bus and turn it right-side-out and put it back on without everybody thinking that was a whole hellava lot worse than just a freaking tag sticking out and maybe some visible seams. Who the hell cared? And now I had to punch this stupid, goddamn nun in the face. My luck.

2

For Beth, the hardest part about going into work every day was knowing the world would end while she was in her cubicle. The trouble was, she didn't know which day it would be. She didn't even know if it would be before or after lunch. Beth tried hard to recall if she had been wearing this particular green sweater, but although she was always in her visions, she was never able to see herself.

The blast would shatter the windows at the far end. Jan and Charlie, Lisa and Nancy would all be toast because they had seniority and therefore got the cubicles with a view.

"Good morning, Elizabeth." The rich smell of coffee would be mingled with dust and smoke.

"Morning." Beth continued her slow walk, remembering Connie's head rolling past on the rubble-strewn carpeting. She let her fingers trace the carpeted wall of hers, the most junior of junior "offices", right next to the busy hallway leading to the copier, the bathrooms, the elevators.

Beth hesitated before entering, as if the step across the threshold would herald the explosion. Her vision said she would be sitting, typing, but that didn't make the first step into her cubicle any easier. If her vision about the man hadn't come true already, she wouldn't be having this much trouble with the end of the world.

1

It was a bus stop, one of the three-sided glass enclosures with a graffiti-carved slat bench, and it smelled like urine. The remaining fluorescent bulb flickered and buzzed, causing more irritation by still working than if it just had gone dark. Leaves and bits of unrecognizable paper trash piled in the corners, dampened and dried into detritus sculptures. To head-height the glass was opaque with scratches and smears of greasy fingers, hair gel, lipstick, spit, marker, newsprint, vomit and various beverages. The baby lay under the bench, quiet and still.