When I saw you for the first time, you were an old woman, and I was only six. My shoulder had briefly collided with your hip, and for that short stretch of contact, the world went soft in my vision–not soft like fur, but foamy and sticky, like a bubble bath, like someone clapped a handful of suds over my ears. You kept walking, but I saw you stumble. It was enough to know you were feeling it, too. You had felt the stretch of earth beneath us dip only a fraction lower, enough to catch the toe of your clogs.

I kept watching as you shuffled away. You were like every other old granny I’d ever seen, down to the way you dressed: a frumpy blouse that came all the way up to your collarbone and a pair of cut-off pants that flared out at your shins. With each step, the drooping beads that connected to your glasses swished back and forth until they disappeared into the crowd along with you.

My limbs were suddenly slick and heavy, like I’d been covered in oil. I wanted to laugh and vomit and scream at the same time. But the feeling had vanished with the sight of you, and I was left cross-eyed and panting.

It was my fault we’d bumped into each other. I was sidling behind the stalls of the weekly Farmer’s Market, far from where Dad had told me to stay, which was right next to him. He was selling some new pyramid scheme, and I could feel my insides souring amidst all the talk of weight loss and health benefits. I just had to leave.

There was a splash pad just beyond the homemade soap stall, the only relief from the unrelenting Florida sun. I wasn’t allowed in it, for a reason Dad changed every time. This week he’d said, “I just cleaned the car, Eve. I don’t want water stains on the seats.” Last week it was, “They just mowed the grass out there; you’ll get a rash.” Still, I was determined to get my feet wet, to wiggle my fingers through a geyser, before I rushed away with enough adrenaline to run a lap around the stalls.

When it all was said and done, I reluctantly perched on the lower rung of a wooden fence, facing the Farmer’s Market. Behind me, the splash pad was close enough to hear the fat feet smacking against the wet pavement. I squinted through the sun at the shuffling patrons and hoped a few more tiny drops from the sprinklers would land on my pink shoulders.

A flicker of light caught my eye, reflected off the flat metal that dangled from an earring. And there you were again, speaking gently to a vendor about sourdough. I observed you more carefully this time, somehow safer now that I was out of your sight.

Your skin collected around your eyes and mouth, the same way my dirty clothes piled on the floor of my bedroom, the clothes Dad yelled at me for. You were squinting against the sun, holding your knobby hand to the sky, and seeking respite in the shade of your fingers. Even from my distance, I could see the papery thin wrinkles of your skin, nearly translucent. Your hair, what was left of it, glowed white under the sun. Those shimmery blue earrings stretched your lobes like taffy.

The feeling was back, a gurgle of horror and wonder, but I had longer to feel it this time, longer to understand what it was screaming at me.

The same way birds know to fly, I knew you. Like somewhere beyond the reaches of my mind, you had always been standing there, quiet and dormant.

I wanted to be you, more than I wanted the splash pad, more than I wanted to stop coming to the Farmer’s Market every week. But beyond that desire, was something stronger, like a rope tethering us together. It wasn’t just that I wanted to be you. It was the realization that I already was you. And you—even though your stature curled in on itself, even though you struggled to hear the baker in front of you—were me.

My jaw went slack. The sun let up on its tirade. Even the beads of sweat that dripped down my neck stopped itching. I wanted to scream your name—our name—so you would look over and see me, so the hairs on your neck would stand at attention like mine had. But when I drew in a breath, the single syllable caught in my throat and I was suddenly terrified of confronting you.

I never got to. Dad’s strong hands yanked hard against the collar of my shirt, dragging me across splintering wood. I was not quick enough to catch myself on my feet, and even as the undersides of my legs burned, I was still searching for your face. Even when Dad raged on about wandering off, his words hit me like styrofoam, crumbling to nothing at my feet.

---

The next time I saw you, I was ten and wandering the aisles of the grocery store. Dad was waiting outside because a young couple caught him shoving ramen noodles into his blue jeans a few weeks before that. Earlier, we’d bummed for change in the parking lot, where the pavement was hot enough to warp the air around it. I spent the entire time hoping he’d make at least ten dollars so we could get the real hot dog buns instead of the white bread that caked to the roof of my mouth.

We only made six dollars, so I went in and collected as much ramen and hot dogs as I could afford. I was soaking up the last few moments of crisp, recycled air, and there you were, the figure in front of me, pushing a grocery cart down the baking aisle. Four years different, with haphazardly chopped hair that framed your face in wisps that glowed like a dying light bulb. Like there was almost nothing left.

You were dressed like a teacher: a white, puffy blouse tucked into a gray pin-striped skirt. I tried to imagine the version of myself that would stretch the hips of a skirt, the version of myself with shoes that went clunk, clunk when I walked between rows of school desks, with a wallet that had money in it before the parking lot.

A stranger with my face. I pressed my fingers into my cheek, searching for the sharp bones that framed your eyes, but there was only soft, squishy pudge.

You paused at the end of the aisle. Had you felt the air change? I could see your muscles tensing, like you were about to glance over your shoulder, and the terror returned like instinct. I headed straight for the parking lot, dropping crinkly plastic wrappers like breadcrumbs behind me. When Dad scowled at my empty arms, I told him I’d gotten caught stealing Tic Tacs.

World Hunger

by Mark Manifesto

Sheets of poison smoke hung over the night sky. Trails from the crumbled skyscrapers. Faint alarms. Most had died out. Staring from overtop the metropolis, Hector tried not to think of the lives beneath the burning steel, generations which had erected these towers, towers cleaved in less than an hour. A world taken in less than a day.

The planet shook under the Obstinought’s step. It was his own. All ten thousand feet of the titan. The flesh over his bones, the eyes through which he stared out of Thesakles’ visor, they weren’t really him. The suit was.

Admiral Booker called over the radio, “One last wasp, Thesakles.”

Soaring in from northern clouds hummed a mammoth battleship. His greataxe carved through the streets as he dragged up and over his back.

“Quellcannon,” Hector commanded.

The quiverholster rotated. Power inputs attached from wrist to rifle. Missiles flared out from the ship in rounded arcs, a great plague of fireflies. He doubted they’d darken the hull.

He slid the power control near the trigger. Three percent. A red glow illuminated the rifle’s core. With crosshairs on the ship, he felt a sudden fit of asphyxiation, panic and self-loathing. He reminded himself of the billions of Unus Animus citizens waiting in orbit, exiled from a world turned desert. Pauci pro multis. A few for the many.

Hyllan had its time.

Hundreds of fiery plumes burst over the hull. He squeezed the trigger. Unholy thunder roared and a colossal pearl of red energy cleared the city’s smoke. Like a fist through wet paper, the ship erupted.

Hector looked over the apocalyptic landscape. Gauges read that he’d only used twenty three percent of the suit’s battery over the course of the day. The casualty estimate bore too many commas to conceptualize. Acid licked sharply at the lining of his stomach.

“Hell of a job, Thesakles,” Booker called from the ship. He looked up to the celestial gray sphere in orbit. “Hyllan’s down for count.”

“…”

“Steak on me.”

A firmament quivering roar rolled from the jets on Thesakles’ back. Buildings below seared and boiled as the mecha rose towards the stars.

---

Arms at his back, eyes on the Harvester ships descending upon Hyllan, Hector’s mind ventured towards places he wouldn’t let himself dwell. Booker finished reading the report and tossed the tablet onto his desk.

There was a time when Hector didn’t worry about the results. “Sir?” he asked, fingers running over the input jacks atop his hands.

“Nothing I haven’t seen,” Booker said. Deep wrinkles scored his ebony cheeks. Dark oysters swelled beneath his eyes.

“So I’m stable.”

“As anyone. They’re going to boost your prescriptions. More SNRI for the fits and PPI for the ulcers,” he said, sitting on the end of his desk. For a man who hadn’t undergone the Pilot Surgeries— and pushing 197 years old— he was a unit.

“How’d it feel to get back in the suit?” Booker asked.

Hector’s gaze turned to the sun and Thesakles before it, a spiraling cone of light siphoning the star’s combined energies into its core. Sharp thorns ran from shoulder to knuckles, hips to ankles. Its crimson alloy drank the light.

“I didn’t think about it.”

Booker grinned and shook his head. “Maybe it’s time I had the med team hollow me out too.”

People genuinely thought that Pilots couldn’t feel.

“Anything useful we should know?” Booker asked.

“The air and water have dangerous amounts of heavy metal. A lot of microplastics in the soil. Regardless of its size, I’m guessing the next two planets might provide more in the way of untainted resources.”

A sharp buzz sounded from the door. The security monitor in the corner showed Dr. Lanna Ross, tablet in hand, foot tapping anxiously. She buzzed again.

Booker sighed. “Keep your head together, Kid.”

He remembered the term as pedantic in his younger years, but at seventy-two, he didn’t care.

The steel door slid open, and without a second’s pause, Doctor Ross stormed forward. She held her tablet up like a second coming of the commandments.

“See!” she said, pushing her glasses and pulling her loose trousers up. Her hair poked like straw out of her ponytail. “I told you.”

“Most likely,” Booker said.

“This time near it was at the center of the Paramecium Galaxy. Last week in the Sculptor Dwarf. So either there are multiple of them or it can jump. Organic wormholes. Quicker than ours. Look,” she said, handing him the tablet.

Hector turned to leave.

“Captain Thorne, can you tell me what you see?” Booker asked.

The image showed a blurred image of a large cylindrical formation floating through space, surrounded by small asteroids, and hovering before a blue planet. Next showed it nearer, the last showed no planet. Ross glared in the abominable manner he’d become accustomed to at advisory panels.

“I’m not an astronomer.”

“That’s not what I asked,” Booker said.

“I see a large and irregularly shaped asteroid, surrounded by smaller ones. Then what looks like a planetary devastation.”

“Are you serious?” Ross asked, almost knocking her glasses off as she palmed her face. “An asteroid that size would be round, held together by gravity. And it couldn’t change direction, look at the frames! And these ones from last week. And these ones from two months back! Don’t be ridiculous.”

“As ridiculous as an interstellar, planet-eating leviathan, with symbiotic insects? We’ve been crossing stars for nearly three thousand years, Lanna, and not once have we seen one of these things. You’re making a wild leap.” Booker stood and stared down his nose. “And more importantly, I told you to stop wasting satellite time on personal projects when your job is to tend to the Obstinoughts. We’re still behind on Deianira’s core systems, and I’m waiting for a damage report.”

She tried to match the heat in his gaze. “This isn’t why I joined.”

“Dismissed.”

Down the stainless-steel halls, past communications rooms, and labs, the phantom reverberation of Thesakle’s ax through Hyllan’s Planetary Capitol Building sent a shiver through Hector’s forearm. Flashes of incoming missiles played in the periphery of his sight. Splattered bodies that could hardly be made out.

“Captain Thorne!” Ross called, running down the hall.

“Yes?” he asked.

Hunched over to catch her breath, she said, “Your psych evaluation.”

His heart sped and eyes turned furtively. “I’m tired, Doctor.”

“It’s my job to make sure our Obstinoughts and their pilots are in working condition.”

“Thesakles is fine.”

“He always is.”

“… What do you want?”

“To discuss your future.”

Fifty years of service, thirty at the helm of humanity’s greatest sword, and now a small case of regret was going to ruin him? “Can we have this conversation in private?” he asked.

Ross’ office was adorned like most of the research and maintenance team. Monitors, files, VR systems, fidget toys, and a hologram table.

“You don’t have to stand at attention,” she said, taking a seat and gesturing to him to do the same. “Suit yourself.”

“Are you going to recommend my dismissal?”

“No. I want to discuss the dismissal of the Conquest program.”

His brow furrowed. It was like discussing the end of public education.

She continued, “Have you ever thought about how ridiculous this system is?”

“To live is to consume.”

“To live is to learn.”

His jaw tightened in defense of many things. “There are over five hundred trillion Unus Animus citizens spread across a hundred worlds. How else should we provide for them?”

“For starters, taking care of those worlds.”

“Easier in theory.”

“Easier than relocating a population every few years.”

“You should talk to someone who can help.”

“I am.” She sighed and rubbed circles in her temples. “For deeply troubling reasons, people look up to Obstinough pilots, yet you, your colleagues, and predecessors only use your celebrity to sell bullshit.”

“The pension isn’t great.”

“The pension isn’t the problem— and there’s a reason most don’t live to see it.”

The crystalline memory flashed of his father slumped in his office chair. Blood on the wall, a half-finished note. He cited the Unus Animus motto, “Pauci pro multis.”

“What I’m saying is that if you endorsed alternative means of resource allocation, alliances, or maybe even just sustainable living instead of Dunbar’s Discount Imitation Shrimp, maybe we wouldn’t need to decimate half a dozen planets a decade.”

One of the main reasons he’d joined the military is because it was— on the surface— supposed to be simple.

“You overestimate how much people care about us.”

“And you haven’t estimated it at all. You might try to look like teflon, but you’re breaking. You have been since the last Conquest. Your liver’s proof.”

He squeezed irritation through his wrists.

“It’s my job, Ma’am.”

Too flustered to speak, she snarled, “It won’t last forever.”

He nodded and looked to the textureless steel floor. “Am I excused?”

“I’m not a commander.” She rolled her eyes upon seeing him still there. “Yes.”

“Thank you. And good luck.”

He meant it.

The only thing more stressful than an excursion to a museum planet with Year Threes? Starting the day with thirty galactic cherubs and hitting recess with only twenty-nine. But a guy couldn’t monitor every student at every second, even in 2390.

Ugh. Bring on holidays.

The system’s synthetically-restored sun warmed the grass under our feet at Old Earth’s entrance lawn. I stroked my dark brown beard and adjusted my glasses to thermal imaging. Two tall, red figures stood across the other side of the class—our Specimen Support Officers, or SSOs, counting and recounting student numbers. We still had twenty-nine. I wondered if my misplaced student had fiddled with tech they shouldn’t have, like Mrs. Farzon’s Year Eights last week. Ballooned the size of planetoids, they had. I’d almost booked an excursion to see them.

My heart skipped a beat as the likelihood grew that a student was actually missing. Then I saw it: the red haze of a figure fifteen feet upside-down in a palm tree. I didn’t need to switch off my glasses to guess the culprit.

“Ferrix! Get down!”

Just Ferrix again, thank goodness. I thought we might have lost little Havannoa Saint. Of the two most powerful corporations in the galaxy, the Corporate Housing Trust and the Saint Bank Syndicate, ‘daddy’ was president of the latter.

I switched off thermals. Sure enough, Ferrix disengaged the fixed-point device he’d used to lock himself to the tree. The SSOs sighed in relief. Back to a full house. So long as you counted eighteen humanoids, three squid, a half humanoid-half squid, four reptiles, three bears and a sentient ice cube as a full house.

“Alright class,” I said. “Listen up while you finish injecting your recess. I know you’re excited to see your first whole planet museum and it’s—Kenzee, put that down¬!—been a long teleport here, but remember to take notes for your upcoming assignment. And listen to your guide. There’s lots to see today.”

“Yeah, and it’s all boring,” said a little voice.

“Try to stay positive, Ferrix. You can digitize your packs now, everyone.”

Havannoa bashed her pack repeatedly against her tech belt. “Mr. Stewhorn, mine won’t clip on.” Her frown evolved to outrage. She persisted with the bashing.

“Is that fixing the problem?” I asked.

“No. Why won’t it work!”

I let her frustration hang. The lesson was more important than the solution. “Try doing it the way I specifically told you a second ago. Digitize it.”

She tapped a button on her wrist monitor. The pack shrunk. It now fit. Amazing.

Our planetary guide warped in beside me, her mustard shirt evoking a daffodil aroma. She carried more excitement in her gray eyes than half my class combined. At least she wasn’t a bot, like the one from our last excursion.

“Welcome, class. I am Guide Yakka,” she said, smiling. She indicated the environment around them with her hand. “And this is Old Earth, jewel of the sector!”

Every planet was apparently jewel of some sector.

She went on. “Your MyWarps have already been pre-loaded with the appropriate site coordinates. First stop, the Under Land exhibit!”

My SSOs warped ahead of the class. I watched as students stood, twitched. One-by-one, their images flashed against my retina and they also warped away. Five, ten, fifteen …

The sentient ice cube, Gob, stared up at the tree where Ferrix had been. His thoughts matched his see-through viscosity. One unruly menace climbed something he wasn’t supposed to, and boom—five others wanted to try.

I hustled over, my broad shoulders towering above him. “Hey, Gob. Did you forget to turn your MyWarp on?”

“Were we supposed to?”

I breathed deeply through my nostrils and reminded myself he was only eight and over ninety percent Hydrogen Dioxide. “Yes, Gob. Please turn it on.”

“Okay.”

He warped away. Satisfied, I flicked on the device at my hip and waited for the slight freezing sensation, followed by a swift pull.

My molecules re-entered main state. A brown, barren landscape, charred by the sun’s ruining glare, replaced the green grass from before. It must have been fifty degrees Celsius. Students already fanned themselves. I counted them again, got twenty-nine.

Probably Ferrix mucking around.

“Here in Under Land,” Yakka began, “a large landmass situated in the planet’s southern region, the ancient inhabitants experienced many exciting trials. Serpentine creatures could bite you—and the ancients didn’t have Cureall or warp drives like we do!”

Several strange creatures with two powerful legs and thick tails leaped across the dry, dry ground before us. The musky scent from their hides drenched the air. “Ah, ha!” Yakka said. “Kangaroos! Amazing creatures. Ancient kids even rode them to school! Can you believe that?”

I didn’t believe that.

Three students yawned. Even I started daydreaming, as I pictured myself a pioneer on Old Earth. Muscles like mountains I’d have had, with a noble’s bravado. I’d have mapped out the first landmasses, risked a new world’s dangers single-handedly, just like the ancients. From my X3000 Starfighter’s cockpit, of course. Stewhorn the navigator. Stewhorn the planet’s beloved.

“Mifter Ftewhorn, my toof comed out!”

Some days I’d have settled for Stewhorn the elsewhere.

Our guide addressed us. “Let’s keep moving.”

Another headcount. Fourteen tentacles, three furry locks, seventeen humanoid frames, and … still twenty-nine.

“Ferrix, you’d better be here somewhere or so help me you’ve got a virtual compression tomorrow.”

“Here,” he said, leaning out from behind a bear. “Nowhere else to go.”

So, not Ferrix missing. Not Ferrix? I walked over and placed a hand on his shoulder to check he wasn’t a hologram. Not my first day in a classroom. But he was as solid as our ice cube, Gob. Who was missing?

I withdrew a metal box from my hip. It flipped open to triple in size, allowing me to ping the recorded roll. Almost all students were within proximity. One name flashed on my screen as ‘absent’: Havannoa Saint.

Sweat formed atop my brow as I read the name. I tucked the box back to my hip, tapped it furiously. I scanned the brown landscape. She was nowhere to be seen.

Think. Think.

Buddies. “Class, who is buddies with Havannoa today?”

A tiny paw raised into the air. “Thank you, Krill. Did you see her arrive at Under Land?”

The student shook her head.

“And you didn’t say anything? Why not?” I tensed my shoulders, exhaled.

Ferrix smirked. “Maybe a kangaroo took her.”

“Not helpful, Ferrix.”

Memories flooded my mind of the day Havannoa’s father, President Saint, had a parent accidentally exit from warp onto his polished diamond shoes at the school drop off zone. Simple device malfunction. Next day, the parent ended up with a rare job opportunity to study a black hole—from the inside. My veins turned to icy rivers just thinking about it. What would Saint do to me if I lost his daughter?

“Guide Yakka, a word.”

She pointed me toward the museum planet’s head offices. They would know more.

Nat was Openminded. She told me so the first time we hung out, sitting on opposite sides of my brother’s truck bed drinking slushies in the heat and mosquitos of an August convenience store parking lot evening.

“It’s like having the TV of your mind turned on, all the time, to this channel you can’t change whether or not you like it,” she said. “Drives my parents nuts. Can you imagine what it’s like being told to watch what you think? I wish.”

Openmindedness only went one way and she was a transmitter, not a receiver. The syrupy taste of watermelon slush and the way our shoes pointed at each other, wanting to touch across the plastic ridges of the truck bed, I didn’t care. It wasn’t enough to make me not like her, or not want to taste her cherry limeade lips.

Which I did. Not that night, but a different night, and without the cherry limeade. We’d been hanging out so regularly that everyone at the store sensed us making eyes across the linoleum walkway separating Women’s Plus, my section, from Sportswear, hers. If you like me the way I like you, Nat, why should I be afraid of what you think? I thought it for weeks before I built up the courage to lean across the gear shift, clammy hands sticking to the steering wheel, and I was still thinking it when I pressed my lips to hers, hoping she’d be able to receive what I was thinking.

Instead, a flood. Deluge. Oh my god oh my god finally, no, what are you doing I’m so sweaty why are her lips so cold what does my hair look like I wasn’t even ready for that; of course I was I’ve been waiting forever; no, I wouldn’t wish me on anybody, I shouldn’t have said yes to going out the first time, I wish I could make this stop but I didn’t start it did I and besides, I warned her.

Our lips came apart but the flood of words didn’t stop, only quieted a bit with the distance. I sat blitzed, lost in the flow, those last words echoing in my head: I warned her. I warned her.

The first thing that surprised me about hearing someone’s inner thoughts wasn’t their jumbled nature or brutal honesty, I was ready for those, but the way they bounced between referring to me in second or third person. Sometimes it was hard to tell whether she was talking to herself or thinking at me when she used the word ‘you.’ Was it any less strange to hear her think of me as ‘her’ or ‘Krista’ or ‘my girl?’ No, I liked the last one. I couldn’t help but smile, and she smiled in return, knowing why I did, and we laughed without having to explain ourselves, and laced our fingers together in a clutch of polished nails, her highlighter yellow and my deep maroon alternating, pulling in complementary fashion at the soft skin between knuckles.

And I wish I could say it was perfect, like those romantic comedies about being Openminded and the quirky misunderstandings that unspool from the condition. Except people aren’t perfect and movies aren’t life. She was right to say it was like having an unmutable TV channel in your mind. Closeness strengthened the connection, but some nights I could hear her across town, thoughts scrambling, cycling, finally wavering off into sleep. Sometimes at work they were so distracting, deafening, that I forgot what I was doing halfway through, or couldn’t pay attention to a customer, or had to fight the urge to walk over to her section and insert my opinions into her internal conversation. It was agonizing, almost, knowing what both of us were thinking about each other when we had to stock racks and fold tank tops.

Doubts still riddled her thoughts: What am I thinking starting this, is this serious or not, how serious am I, how serious can it be after THREE WEEKS do I like her do I love her or what, what, what; am I supposed to be thinking about the rest of my life with her, when do you do that, how long do we wait to have sex, what’s the right way, shut up, she knows everything you’re thinking, stop thinking at all; no, that never works and you know it, think about food. What’s for lunch? Chimichangas? Taquitos? Did I even bring my lunch?

I had the same questions, hesitations, minus the awkwardness of knowing they’d be projected outside my mind. But it seemed like the more these questions came up for her, the more I had to think them, too. Why should it matter, these were the questions of how a relationship began. Answering them was how a relationship progressed.

It wasn’t her worries that cut to the quick, though, but rather her knee-jerk reaction to a customer in my section. I fought to remain focused on explaining different jean styles even while words like bitch and cow crashed through the back of my skull. My inner voice wanted nothing more than to scream back at her across the linoleum walkway, Who do you think you’re fooling? Look at who you’re dating and keep thinking that.

Later, while I was driving her home, she looked over at me, apologetic. “I thought she was flirting with you.”

I grunted. She didn’t have to say it because I’d already heard as much. And besides, even as she said it her mind rephrased the statement slightly but significantly: Or you were flirting with her.

“Don’t tell me what you think,” I said.

“What else am I supposed to—”

“You can’t unthink it, don’t try to make it sound better with words.”

She frowned down at her knees. “I wish I could make myself think differently, all right, but I can’t,” she said. And thought: I warned you and now I’m the bad guy; I never would’ve tried to kiss you first and this is why, you know what, Krista, you did this to us. Both of us. You wanted to have your own way so much well now you do and this is what you get, that’s a relationship, you get the good and the bad except with me you can never shut it off. Any of it.

“You have no idea what I was thinking,” I said, before I could stop myself. “You never have and you never will.”

Tears leapt to her eyes, frustrated and furious, and it took an effort to reach over and lace my fingers in hers. To drive her the rest of the way home with her thoughts amplified and raking at the contact. A migraine pounded, relentless, by the time I parked in her building’s lot.

“It’s late,” she said. And thought: Leave me alone.

I watched her gather her bag and open the door, and couldn’t help bitterly realizing that, already, I put more stock in her thoughts than her words. As though the raw impulses of the mind meant more than the way she navigated them into reality. My own response nagged me: You have no idea what I’m thinking. Thank god for that, or how much would she hate me for the fact that the memory of our shoes, so close but not touching, squeezed my heart with longing now?

She didn’t show up for work the next day, and I didn’t work for a few days after that. It helped the migraine fade, and the connection. The signal of that TV channel grew weak, distant. In the few transmissions I received, it sounded like it was a relief for her as well. To not have to know someone was always eavesdropping on her, judging her, overthinking her every unguarded moment and impulsive, imperfect thought.

When I next went to work they said she was transferring to another location. One closer to her home. I knew where she lived so I knew there was no closer location.

I waited. Waited for her to text and ask to see me again. Or to show up at work. Or for her internal monologue to spontaneously pop into my head so I didn’t have to be alone with mine. I wanted things to go back to how they had been, no longer wistful about our pairs of sneakers pointed together, but aching for the crazy rhythm of maroon and fluorescent yellow nails clasped in a steady cacophony, a hopeful chaos of connection.

And still, I wait. I want her to be the one to choose this time.

Late at night, over morning coffee, in the lulls when folding tank tops at work, I direct my thoughts toward her and hope she’ll catch my message. What I should’ve known to say back when I had the chance:

I’m listening, Nat.

As a fine art professional, Mar has wielded katanas and handled Lady Gaga’s shoes. As a veterinary assistant, she has cared for hairless cats, hedgehogs, and, one time, a coyote. As a writer, her short fiction can be found or is forthcoming in Analog, Escape Pod, Apex’s Robotic Ambitions anthology, and many other publications. She is a reader for Interstellar Flight Press, and a graduate of the Wayward Wormhole. She resides in the Pacific Northwest or can be found on various social media @MaroftheBooks.