Happy Birthday!

a short story by Jehan Ammar

‘10.’ My family and friends chant, counting down until it’s finally my 18th birthday. I feel surrounded by love, with my close ones gathered around me. Never have I felt more myself than in this moment—an anchor for all the future versions of myself.

‘9.’ They start shouting louder, and my cat hisses, hiding behind some bushes. I love her.

‘8.’ My best friend raises her arms, a few dots from a failed DIY stick-and-poke tattoo still visible on her wrist. I have the same. We were so foolish at 16. Perhaps we will never be again. The thought saddens me.

‘7.’ My father doesn’t count, but he nods approvingly. That’s as much as I get, but he’s here, and that’s all that matters. I wonder whether my father’s father also nodded approvingly back at him when he was just a child.

‘6.’ My boyfriend counts the loudest, as if trying to express his immense love through the sound of his voice. It’s both silly and endearing.

‘5.’ My little brother kicks me under the table. I screamed at him earlier for drawing a picture with my makeup; I kick back.

‘4.’ I can see a single tear running down my mother’s cheek as she comes to the realization that I won’t be her little girl anymore. Is it a tear of sorrow at losing a part of me or a tear of joy at gaining another?

‘3.’ The sound feels muffled in my ears. I feel disoriented. The ground under me starts shaking.

‘2.’ It’s all quiet now. The moon and stars above me are gone. The sky is pitch black. I feel as if I am dissolving.

‘1.’ My vision goes completely dark. This is the end of my journey.

‘0.’

 

‘I extend a cordial welcome, ushering you back into the embrace of the realm that inherently belongs to you. In what manner did the experiential sojourn transpire, eliciting intricate layers of emotional resonance and cognitive reflection, culminating in a nuanced synthesis of subjective realities within the temporal confines of the undertaken odyssey?’ A person in white robes is talking to me. I look around; I am in a seemingly endless illuminated white room. It’s neither hot nor cold and I feel no breeze around me, playing in my hair like it did just seconds ago. I feel like puking, but nothing comes out. There is a weird high-pitched noise coming from everywhere.

‘W-What. I don’t understand.’

‘Perceive not distress in your countenance; rest assured, the retrieval of recollections shall imminently manifest within the recesses of your consciousness,’ the creature adds calmly.

‘I don’t understand. Please, where am I? Where is my family? I was just home. Don’t hurt me, please, I am just a child.’

The creature sighs. ‘You are no child.’

‘Please, I still count sheep when falling asleep. I want my mom back. Help! I need help!’ But there is no one here aside from us. My screaming is not based on logic but on instinct.

‘Just wait a few minutes.’ I bend over. My tears fall to the ground, I cry, not prettily but hysterically as I hiccup on my own snot. My hands feel bigger, somehow, as I cover my ears with them. Minutes pass. I do not remember anything that could explain this situation. The figure before me stands still; I can see the seam of their gown within my vision. The ends of their long blonde hair appear strange and unreal but not out of place. I wipe my tears away.

‘Please let me go. I- I- my name is Allie Anderson. I like the colour green and I like cats and-’ the figure kneels down in front of me. I look up but not directly at it. It appears human-like with features both androgynous and soft yet in a way unsettling.

‘You should remember by now. Why can’t you remember? I know this is the first journey, but you said it would only take a few minutes. You must remember-’

‘Remember what? I have never met you before, so what are you talking about?’ I try not to weep. The noise becomes louder.

‘You are not Allie Anderson.’

‘I am.’

Now the figure seems slightly panicked. I avoid their gaze as they search mine.

‘Technically, yes. You made her. You made them all. You made everything.’ I look at the creature’s hands, now fiddling in a strange way as if they have never been nervous before. ‘You went there to dwell amongst them, to navigate a labyrinth of mortal emotions. To experience it all as a lower being and take in what it means to be blind to the future and the past. To feel not despite your seeming mortality but because of it. And now you have returned. So please just tell me what we have wanted to know from the very start, how was it? Did you acquire mortality in some form?’

I can’t follow; my heart beats, proof that I am human.

‘No, I want my family back, please. Let me go.’ My fingernails push through my skin; blood gushes out. The creature looks at me with sadness and perhaps a bit of pity. It hurts.

‘You are still in this form because you choose to be. The blood is not real because you are not human. You once made me, remember? You couldn’t possibly forget that?’ Their voice aligns with the high- pitched noise.

‘I am a fraction of yourself that you sacrificed and granted freedom. Like a cell having been cut from its original body, you understand? Please don’t forget me. Please. You are all I have,’ they add but it still makes no sense. Maybe I am dreaming? But what if I am not?

I search for its gaze now, observing a loneliness in their eyes that seems to have originated in the depths of mine. I know their eyes, the first eyes I have ever formed with my hands, a part of myself and yet another being. Not all-knowing but the closest it will ever be amongst all other fractions.

Second to me in everything, yet the companion worthy to hold my cold, all-mighty hand once we are finally dying. Doomed to be born, to exist until I cease to, yet still being frightened by the possibility of my absence? Has my creation ever experienced panic before, dreading eternal companionship with a stranger named Allie, now intertwined with me? Can they even name fear as an emotion? Or is this perhaps the first piece of humanity and thus mortality I brought along with me? The reason why I even created it all in the first place, so I can feel what being alive means and therefore acquire what it means to die.

Mutual understanding floods us as my being shapeshifts into something familiar. The blood dripping from my hands doesn’t stop but subsides. Proof that I am now part human. Part mortal. I remember—the making, the loneliness, the indifference, the wish to end it all. The decision to create something so I can destroy myself. The creature feels calmer now; I can sense it. I do too.

‘So, how was your first part of the journey?’ they ask.

I feel warm and sad for Allie and the beautiful experience it was to be her. I miss my home, the uncertainty that comes with being young and vulnerable and the love of the people around me. It pains me to leave her behind, yet I cannot wait for the next part to come.

‘It was lovely. I am feeling… warm.’ I take the creature’s hand, emphatic. ‘It’ll be easier next time. Don’t panic. I will bring great knowledge with me. Six more journeys to go until it’s time to start demolishing. I shall return soon.’

Surprised at the unknown warmth of my hand and the blood still dripping down occasionally, the creature’s brows furrow. This will be our end.

‘I will be waiting for you then,’ they answer while running their thumb across my knuckles. I close my eyes; all noises fade away.

 

‘9.’

The chanting startles me, and I hiss.

Compound Eyes

Content warning. May contain spoilers.

cancer, death, depression

a short story by Luc Salinger

Jessica and Mark were sitting on a bench in the park. The weather was scorching hot. A perfect summer’s day. Besides them, the park was completely empty, as if they were the only people who were aware of how great the weather was. A couple of bees were there, occupied with burying their heads in flowers. Birds were ploughing the ground for worms and occasionally, a mosquito tried to test its luck with the couple, gently flying to their exposed legs to ram its snout into their flesh.

Jessica’s breath was irregular. She was panting, and tripped over her words, clearly excited about something she had in mind. Her friend Mark stared at her, patiently, expectantly.

‘There is something I want to pitch to you,’ she said, her breath shaky, her eyes glistening with excitement.

Mark smiled at her. Knowing her, it was probably something stupid. Last time she started a conversation like that, she told of crossbreeding pigs and ducks to develop a special bacon that stays crisp and doesn’t get soggy once she heard that ducks, even when spending time in water, don’t get wet. As she got older, getting her own apartment and her own responsibilities, she developed the habit of completely obsessing over things that only Mark was willing to put up with. She knew that Mark was the only one who listened to her, so she was always excited to talk with him about her ideas.

‘What’s the pitch?’

‘You know…’ She stared into his eyes. ‘You know, how we have all sorts of pictures at school for things like the solar systems, atoms or those sliced up bacteria cells?’ She waited for him to nod.

‘Yes?’

‘Nobody took those pictures. Those are just concept pictures! You know that?’

Mark tried not to laugh. ‘Course I do. They aren’t photographs. They are illustrations. Everyone knows that.’ He put on a look of suspicion. ‘Is that all?’

‘That is not all!’ She put her finger up. ‘Consider this now…’ She leaned a bit closer forward. ‘All those illustrations have been made with the sole intention of helping humans understand the universe.’

Mark still had no idea what Jessica was rambling on about, but her tone was building up to something. He remembers her bacon pitch, too, being like that. Picture this, she had said, you’re swimming in a pool and crave a crispy slice of bacon, but oops, it falls into the pool and now it’s not enjoyable anymore. Reason for that is the hydrophilic nature of the bacon strip itself! It had been hard for him to visualize the scenario at all, but she had a way of gripping Mark as if the things she was saying were really sound. Even if she was completely delusional.

Mark nodded now and she continued. ‘I ask you this now: have you ever seen such a visualisation for any other species?’

‘I guess not. No. Those pictures are for humans because they are the only species that studies the universe in such a way.’ His eyes trailed off from Jessica.

He thought Jessica looked really cute when she was getting riled up by her ideas, even if they felt like she was just sharing her shower thoughts with him, as opposed to really interesting concepts worthy of discussion. She had little bags under her eyes whenever she pitched him an idea, as if she mulled over it for the entire night beforehand. It drew attention to her eyes. Those eyes, with their verdant tinge. So tired. So beautiful. He smiled.

Jessica put her hands on her thighs and looked at him smugly. ‘I don’t think that’s quite fair now, is it? For example, you have those colourful pictures of DNA. That would be so useless for a dog because they don’t see the colours that well. We are in the position that we know better. And gatekeeping our knowledge is just plain cruel. Don’t you think?’

Mark thought back to the time Jessica was at his place. Back when he still had his dog. She’d seemed so gleeful and giddy at that moment. His big mastiff tongue had caressed her cheek like it was vanilla ice cream on a hot summer’s day. Back then, she’d never told him of ideas in her head. She seemed so close, but also not as talkative as she was now. He couldn’t help but shake his preference for the old version of her, back when he still had his dog.

‘I don’t think dogs would care.’

‘Some might,’ she quickly responded and a daring smile crept on her face, as she looked into his eyes. ‘But my idea doesn’t pertain to dogs. I need to start somewhere else. How do you think a fly sees the world?’

‘With compound eyes?’

Jessica jumped up from the bench, putting her palms in the air as if she was balancing an invisible cheerleader on top of her. ‘A huge tapestry of eyes. Like a kaleidoscope. And if that fly would see a picture of the solar system, it would see hundreds of thousands of planets in its view.’ She adjusted her glasses. ‘And that’s not scientifically correct.’

Mark remembered the time when she hadn’t worn glasses. She broke them. It was in the summer, must be seven years ago, back when it took her parents over a year to replace them because they had to spend a lot of money on some stupid stone, as Jessica had put it, for their son. So many emotions inside her, she didn’t know what she was saying. Back then, she was upset that she was so dependent on others. She saw everything blurry. It was the only time that Jessica had said to Mark that he looked beautiful. He knew it was meant as a joke, but he remembered it.

‘I don’t think flies care about the accuracy of their conception of the universe.’ Mark said, now. He stared too much. He shouldn’t look at her this intensely. He should break eye contact once in a while, he thought.

‘You can be such a hater sometimes.’ She nudged him a bit with her shoulder as she sat down on the bench next to him again.

      Mark smiled. ‘I’m not a hater. I just don’t think your idea is feasible. I can’t even begin to understand how you would conceive a picture, where a fly, with its hundreds of little eyes, could see a single image as we do. If you turn the solar system into a kaleidoscope, then it would just see the kaleidoscope in its own eyes, multiplied again.’

Jessica rubbed her chin. ‘My hypothesis was that two negatives make a positive and the kaleidoscope and the compound eyes would cancel each other out.’ She looked at him. ‘Did you know that flies can see UV light? Maybe that’s the key.’

He began to yawn. If only Jessica could see how annoying she was being. Back when they were still at school together, it wasn’t draining, talking to her. Ever since that one summer, when his dog was diagnosed with cancer and Jessica’s brother Dylan had drowned in their swimming pool when she was supposed to be watching over him, their relationship changed. Jessica used to talk about real things during that summer. Not crispy water-bacon or fly-friendly pictures. Things felt more real.

‘Is something wrong?’ Jessica asked him. ‘You tired?’ she added with a teasing undertone.

‘Yeah, the weather is getting to me. I think I should go.’ He stood up from the bench. They used to hug each other when departing but this time, Mark didn’t feel like it. He waved to her and left, leaving Jessica wondering why.

When Jessica went to her apartment, the idea she had just talked about with Mark was still in the forefront of her mind. She felt excitement coursing through her and immediately got to her working station. When she sat down in her chair, an army of fruit flies flew from the partly empty yoghurt cups on her desk. The entire working station smelled like rotting cheese or spoiled milk, depending on which yogurt cup was closest and able to overpower the others.

She opened up her photoshop app and worked throughout the day. The smell of the yogurt served a practical use of ruining her appetite whenever she took a breath, so she never felt the need to eat as she diligently worked. Hit the Save-as button, printer on and out came a kaleidoscope, where every little hexagon was a small image of the solar system. It filled the entire page and with pride she held it up in the air.

Jessica rushed towards the kitchen, paper in hand. Once she opened the door. Her ears were filled with buzzing noises. On the kitchen counter, the flies living with her couldn’t have been happier with the accidental hospitality of the hostess. Opened cans of fruits, black bananas, fish bones, half a pack of minced meat that had turned completely brown and served as a maggot kindergarten.

Whenever she stepped into her kitchen, it was a stark reminder to her just how hard living alone was. She hadn’t seen her parents even once since she was kicked out, at eighteen. They hated her guts for letting her brother die. They never used the pool after that. Not even on the hottest of summers. Careless. She didn’t care about anything, her father had said. It stung, and he was wrong. She did care. She put the paper she designed on her kitchen table.

After a couple of seconds. A lonely fly landed on the image and it was the first time a fly got an accurate representation of the solar system. It tapped its trunk on the paper, still warm from the printer. Rubbed its tiny little hands and flew away.

Hidden Away

Content warning. May contain spoilers.

drugs

a short story by Paula Solterbeck

By the time I first saw her, I had stopped counting the days. I remember how little she fit in my world then, with her hair still all shiny and this weird look she gave me, almost a grin. In contrast to the dark, colourless barn, where it stank of horses you never saw nor heard. The dryness of the south, and the dust that reached every corner of any lung. Surrounded and trapped by all the wood, wood that offered splinters when pushed up against. No, Anya didn’t belong here.

He sat, no, rather pushed her down into my little coop and clicked the newly-bought handcuffs around her wrists. Then he said something about her being my new friend or something. At the time I thought that was some sick joke, but ironically, he would be right about it in a way. No, I’m actually not going to think about him. I want to think about her. Anya. My Anya.

Anya wasn’t the first, obviously, but neither was I. Now that I think about it, I don’t know who it was. I had kind of always assumed that it was Holly, but she was merely the first I knew about. I honestly don’t really remember how I got here, when it was still her place, Holly’s place, or how many days I was unconscious; that’s how drugged up I was and to be fair… that wasn’t all him. I know my way around those kinds of things. Drugs.

Anyway, when I woke up all those nights ago, Holly was there. Watched me in my misery of the withdrawal. This sweet girl I went to middle school with, all dirty and broken, you could see that from miles away. I knew then and there, as soon as my senses started to clear, that she was not the same girl I met as a child. That girl with the thoroughly-combed blonde hair, straight As, and all the talk of future husbands and shit – that girl would never come back home. That was what I first thought, after I had recognized her under all the dirt.

She didn’t really talk, other than trying to soothe me, the first few days, just prayed. Perfect girl. It is kind of an awkward reunion, right? At least, that’s what Anya said about it later and she wasn’t wrong. When Holly finally talked to me, she mainly repeated that they would find us soon. Probably more for her own sake than mine.

Now, I didn’t know who they were supposed to be, with almost everyone in town thinking she ran away, after some bad breakup with her fiancé or boyfriend or whatever. Apparently, she had also become some kind of theater kid in high school, at least her friends said something about her dreaming of Hollywood, I guess they hoped that was where she went. Maybe that was wishful thinking. I was unsure about her parents, but with her Christianity and her perfect-ness, I guessed that they were still looking. But, still, no one has found me and the others, even after he took Holly away from the barn and didn’t bring her back. Instead, he replaced her. Twice. And we remain hidden away. Maybe they stopped because they found her body or something, but wouldn’t they start looking for that asshole then?

Although, no one out there would be looking for me, I don’t have to be delusional about that. I had been away for weeks at a time, high on some shit a friend of a friend of a stranger had sold me. The folks were used to it and I didn’t really have any friends before I met Anya. Oh yes, Anya.

After she arrived, she had nervously laughed sometimes, and I thought the psycho had caught himself one of his kind and hoped they might kill each other. Honestly, I get it; while crying would have been the more appropriate choice, I, too, sometimes laugh in absurd situations. Though I have never been in a situation this absurd before. That was something we joked about too, because she seemed so collected (aside from the laughing). She didn’t really need my advice, didn’t let me be her teacher. I guess that’s why we felt like equals, except that she still smelled better than me back then.

‘I’ve never seen you around town, where are you from?’ I had asked, while cleaning the wounds he had given her and her eyes had widened a little. When she answered, I understood why.

‘Which state are we in?’ she had asked in her silly West Coast accent. San Fransisco was where she caught it, she told me later. The sad expression on her face didn’t look right. Unnatural. Not fitting in that beautiful face. I wanted to cheer her up – after all we would be here for a while.

‘Sweet, sweet Louisiana, honey.’ I leaned into the accent with this one and to my surprise, she actually laughed about it. That was when I knew she wasn’t like my other companions. ‘Why would a Cali girl come down here? Family matters?’

‘Passing through,’ she had answered and her expression told me to leave it alone. In hindsight it feels like fate, right? Had he never brought her, we would never have met. Of course, I wish she didn’t have to endure the things he did to us, but selfishly I’m glad that she is the one here with me. For the sake of our moments together, not his. Maybe I’ll share these moments one day, but for now, they belong to us and us only.

In the time with her, my face hurt in a way that I can’t easily describe. The muscles meant for the happy kind of expressions which hadn’t been in use for a while, and the intensity of the soreness, made it clear that I was here for longer than I had imagined. She made me smile so much, she even made me laugh sometimes. Occasionally, I even thought I was happy to be here. After all, this was the place I fell in love.

Entwicklungsbericht der Spezies „Mensch“ auf dem Planeten „Erde“, verfasst von Xluptr-03342

a short story by Jule Kaben

Sie sprechen in fremdartigen Zungen auf meiner Sprache zu mir, sie nutzen Wörter wie „Heuristik“ und „Transzendenz“. Sie zwängen sich in unbequeme Anzüge und Kostüme, Schuhe, die sie offensichtlich unangenehm finden. Sie verstopfen sich die Poren mit hormondurchtränkten Kosmetika, welche teilweise zu (Erd-)Mondpreisen über den Tresen gehen. Schlimmer noch: Sie motivieren persönlich oder im Internet andere Menschen dazu, dieses kuriose Körperpflegeritual selbst zu vollziehen. Im Internet sehen sie sich stundenlang Inhalte an, die sie offensichtlich unglücklich machen, hören allerdings nicht auf. Diese Menschen im Internet erzählen anderen Menschen, sie würden sich hauptsächlich von Haferschleim mit Beeren ernähren, Hausputz sei ihr Hobby und um fünf Uhr morgens aufzustehen die große Offenbarung. Der moderne Mensch glaubt nur noch an einen Gott, dieser ist viereckig und muss alle paar Jahre in der Religionsstätte für ein kleines Vermögen neu erworben werden. Zu diesem Gott beten sie sehr häufig mehrere Stunden am Tag ohne Unterbrechung, hierbei ist es erstaunlich, dass junge Menschen der Religion noch fanatischer anhängen als die älteren, welche dieser allerdings auch völlig verfallen sind. Den Geschlechtsakt vollziehen sie nur zögerlich, denn sie haben in ihrem religiösen Portal gesehen, wie andere Menschen es schon viel besser und ästhetischer als sie selbst gemacht haben.

Damit der Mensch in seiner eigenen, zerstörerischen Genialität die Welt nicht in einem unüberschaubaren Tempo unterwirft, haben sie die Bürokratie erfunden. Grundsätzlich gilt: Je weniger Humor der jeweilige Volksstamm besitzt, desto mehr Bürokratie hat er sich auferlegt. Es gibt Regeln für das Aufstellen von Regeln und Regeln für die Regeln, für das Aufstellen von Regeln und Regeln und Regeln für die Regeln der Regeln der Regeln. Während gestern noch die Menschen völlig ohne Papierkrieg ihre Lehmhütte aufstellen konnten, behindern sie sich nun selbst im Bau einer Behausung. Verletzt man einen Menschen emotional, so tut dieser alles, um emotional möglichst unverletzt zu wirken. Lehnt man die Avancen eines romantisch-interessierten Menschenwesens ab, reagiert dieses mit „Ich wollte dich sowieso nicht. Eigentlich finde ich dich zutiefst abstoßend und mein Interesse basiert auf Mitleid“. Möchte ein erwachsener Mensch weinen, unterdrückt er diesen Impuls, bis er die Sicherheit seiner spärlichen Behausung oder einen stinkenden Abort gefunden hat. Wenn Menschen doch einen begrenzten Zugang zu ihrem unterentwickelten Emotionsleben erlangen wollen, trinken sie in größeren Mengen einen schädlichen Saft aus gegorenen Früchten und teilen sich hemmungslos mit, bis nur noch ihre letzte Mahlzeit ihren Mund durchdringt. Dabei besteht die Kunst darin, diese Situation für alle Beteiligten, auch das Individuum im Nachhinein, möglichst beschämend zu machen. Dazu läuft üblicherweise Musik, die zu jung ist, um als geschmackvolles Überbleibsel einer besseren Zeit zu gelten, jedoch auch zu alt, um als frischer Wind aus den Lautsprechern empfunden zu werden. Wichtig sind hierbei sich wiederholende Strophen mit hohem Nervfaktor und Songtexte, deren geniale Philosophie man erst nachvollziehen kann, wenn man ein paar Gläser von dem Saft hatte. Der Schlager ist im Prinzip das Wackelbild zwischen Nüchternheit und Rausch, weshalb die Meinung des jeweiligen Menschen in einer engen Beziehung zum jeweiligen Promillewert steht. Dazu genießen mittelmäßige Menschen die Beobachtung von fragwürdigen Individuen, um sich für einige Stunden von der Enttäuschung über die Sinnlosigkeit ihres eigenen Lebens hinwegzutrösten. Basierend auf der Pigmentmenge ihrer Epidermis bestimmen Menschen den Wert des Individuums, in der Regel sind wenige Pigmente gut und viele schlecht, wobei auch an dieser Stelle viele Streitigkeiten herrschen.

Ansonsten wird Brutpflege und Stammeserhaltung nicht als basale Praxis der Arterhaltung, sondern eher als nebensächliche Gefälligkeit angesehen. Der Mensch hat es sich zum Ziel gemacht, kleine digitale Zahlen bis in die Unendlichkeit zu erhöhen. Das Problem dieser digitalen Zahlen besteht darin, dass sobald alle hohe digitale kleine Zahlen haben, niemand mehr hohe digitale kleine Zahlen hat. Trotzdem sitzen viele dem irrigen Schluss auf, die kleinen Zahlen könnten sich bis ins Unendliche erhöhen. Dazu wurden sogar komplexe Theorien und Systeme entwickelt, die dazu genutzt werden, nichts ahnende Opfer auf Cocktailpartys zu langweilen und die eigene Überlegenheit zu demonstrieren, welche die grassierende soziale Ungerechtigkeit rechtfertigen soll. Ansonsten ist das aktuell höchste Produkt der menschlichen Innovation die 5-Minuten-Terrine, denn sie bereitet exquisite Nudelgerichte ohne weiteres Zutun innerhalb von fünf Minuten preisgünstig zu und verkürzt durch ihre fragwürdigen Inhaltsstoffe das trostlose Leben der Menschenwesen auf ihrem sterbenden Planeten. Die beste Spezies auf dem Planeten ist die Gans, denn sie ist wie ein Schwan, nur kürzer und mit einem höheren Aggressionspotenzial. Die schönste Stadt der Erde ist Neumünster, denn nur an diesem Ort wird das Vermögen des menschlichen Auges an die fünfzig unterschiedlichen Schattierungen von Grau zu erkennen, richtig ausgekostet.

Abschließend lässt sich sagen, dass die Erde aufgrund ihres hohen Unterhaltungspotenzials in der interstellaren Tourismusbranche einen festen Platz hat, für die Entwicklung unserer Spezies jedoch nicht von höherem Interesse ist. Man erlaube mir dieses persönliche Urteil: Die Menschheit war um einiges charmanter und schneidiger, als wir sie beim Bau der Pyramiden unterstützt haben. Wir, die wir erkannt haben, dass der Bau von Hochleistungsraumschiffen nur funktionieren kann, indem man nach der eigenen Intuition einfach ein Bauteil ins andere steckt, haben den wahren Kern des Seins bereits erkannt, während der Mensch sich weiterhin durch absurde mentale Konstrukte und sinnfreie Bedenken behindert. Man kann nur hoffen, dass mit dem statistisch bewiesenen Absinken des menschlichen Intelligenzquotienten die Menschheit doch noch ihren Weg zur Erleuchtung finden wird. Um diesen Zustand zu unterstützen, leisten wir Entwicklungshilfe in Form von Gammastrahlung und wertlosen TV-Formaten im Abendprogramm der privaten Fernsehsender.

Unterm Strich gebe ich der Menschheit auf dem Planeten Erde 3/5 Milchkühen.

How Lovely

Content warning. May contain spoilers.

death, dementia, miscarriage

a short story by Liv Hambrett

The baby, and she was a baby, no more than eight or nine months old, was sitting on a towel, eating sand. She was a beautiful little thing, the first curls coming in, her tiny feet resting sole to sole. A few metres to her left, a girl who must have been her sister was squatting, digging judiciously, the hole big enough for her to hop in and out of as she dug. She was completely focussed on her work, salt-water matted hair dried in strings across her freckly forehead. Occasionally, a wave would sidle up the shore and threaten to fill her hole with water and she would quicken her digging, heaping wet sand onto the dam wall she had built.

Penny watched. She was sitting quite close to them, very close to them actually, almost sharing their big picnic blanket. She didn’t know why, she was simply there. On a chair, at least, which was going to make getting up easier. The thought was fleeting, a willow’s bend, a wisp, before Penny looked at the picnic blanket again and wondered where she was. She looked at her feet, tucked into the warm sand, and thought they looked very strange. She looked at the children again and wondered whose they were. One thought after the other, willows, wisps. The children were very pretty. Lovely curly hair. Penny looked at her feet again and wondered why they were covered in sand. Always wondering, Penny muttered to herself, and the words slipped and slid around her face with the briney air. She must have said the words out loud, because a baby was looking at her. A baby, Penny thought, how lovely. What was it doing there, sitting on a blanket all alone. But there was another child, Penny saw, a little girl digging a big hole in the sand, big enough for her to hop in and out of. How fun.

Penny had children. She knew that. She knew a lot of things and all of these things she knew, the words and names and ideas, they fluttered and flapped, tiny moths with their dusty wings, hiding in the dark, in the corners, the recesses, slippery dippery little things. They had been disrupted, the moths, or were they more like bees, buzzing and furious and sucked from their hives at some point, sucked into vacuums and voids, where nothing had structure, where gravity did not exist to allow for knowledge to be laid down like slabs and built upon, so it became immovable, known. Sometimes the moths, or were they bees, sat still in plain sight, quiet and calm, and Penny would reach out a hand, try to touch them. But they were never still for long. The wings fluttered, the walls slid, Penny watched. Children. Children, Penny, she said out loud, watching the baby’s sandy fist. She had children. She closed her eyes, fished in the gloom, found his face. Within reach, always. A big old tree, a shitty old motorcycle, she could still see that too, that stupid thing, clapped out and rickety. A knock at the door at 3 o’clock in the morning, John’s unbearable fury. (Where was John?) He had been lovely, tall, skinny, a silly little beard, just beginning to grow into himself, a sapling, a willow’s bend.

After him, clots and clumps and ideas, those moths always sat still. John – where was John, actually, he loved the beach – would find her in bed, crying, but he had told her it was all normal, his patients had miscarriages all the time, it was just the body getting itself in order. Penny hated those words: miscarriage, the body, order. The next one, he had said, the next one will take. The next one didn’t take, nor the one after that. John – where was he? He loved the beach. – stayed positive. After the fifth one – Penny counted them by scratching a little tally on the pantry wall – they stopped trying. The pantry wall was somewhere nearby, it must have been. Just around the corner perhaps, four strokes and a slash down the middle for five, not far from the shelf with flour and the baking powder which the shop down the road never had enough of, although it always had mangos, big trays of them and they smelt like heaven. John always said, it’s okay, we have… Penny frowned. We have… but there was a wall there, now, and Penny couldn’t get past it. She had someone, they had someone, a silhouette, a shape-shifter, could be anywhere, could be anyone. But a mango, Penny thought, a smooth mango with its soft flesh, how you could press their golden rumps right up to your nose and inhale. Penny smiled.

A cry, carried on the air, as a seagull wheeled down to land on the shoreline. The girl glanced at it. The baby watched it. There was a clump of seaweed the sea was relentlessly trying to reclaim with each wave and the seagull poked its redcurrant beak in amongst the slimy, salty innards. Penny watched. Hello, she said, and the seagull’s beady eyes flashed in the sun. Don’t feed the gulls and it was her father’s voice, out of nowhere. She looked around the cavern of her skull, which contained everything she had ever known, this big, black nothingness with its wings and walls and wisps. She did know a great deal of her life lay beyond the walls. But she was used to them now. There were so many of them, moving and sliding, stopping Penny from getting anywhere. Some faces stayed within the walls, resolute. Her mother’s face, her father’s. Her son’s. John’s face. But all of the other faces, she saw them, but they never came into the room. They never stayed. They were too late. She looked at them, she tried to hold them, but they refused to stay with her. Like woodpeckers on concrete, they couldn’t imprint and they would get so frustrated, so tetchy. How dare you not remember me? They didn’t know that sometimes, not even Penny herself stayed.

Movement caught her eye and she glanced up. A dog and a surfer were walking towards them. The baby watched them, fistfuls of sand momentarily forgotten. The surfer looked at the baby, then at the little girl in her hole, then at Penny. He smiled at Penny and Penny smiled back. The dog moved towards the baby but the man called him back. They kept walking. The baby watched them go. Penny had a dog, he was a lovely thing. She looked around for him but he must have gone home. Red. His name was Red. She smiled warmly at the moth that had sat still. Where’s my dog? She asked the baby, but the baby was impassive. You’d like Red, she said, he won’t bite. He only bites snakes, Mum says one day he’ll lose a fight but he hasn’t yet. She said these words out loud, she knew that because she could hear them on the air, they sound different to when they’re just in her skull, shooting between the canals and cavities. And the baby was watching her, gimlet-eyed. After much consternation, the baby made a very loud sound and Penny smiled.

Penny looked out at the water, flashes of light, soft sighs. She liked water. She had always liked water, even when that kid around the headland had drowned and her mother forbade her from swimming for an entire summer. Mum. Mum, she said. I’m here. I’m right here. Come and find me. Her house must be near here, she suddenly thought. This was her beach, of course it was, there was the pine tree, there was the pier. In a rush, she knew where she was. She looked at her feet again, then her legs. She hoped she wasn’t late for dinner, her mother always worried. Where was her mother? Her mother had probably asked her to watch this baby. Penny sighed. She was always being asked to watch babies. One day, her mother always said, you’ll have some of your own. Penny wasn’t sure if she even wanted babies.

The baby had rocked herself forward onto all fours and was wobbling a little, to and fro, her nappy barely contained by the hot pink lycra of her swimming costume. An awful colour, Penny thought, so brash. Who had chosen that awful colour. So brash. The baby lurched forward suddenly, a little uncertain on the sand, but finding her rhythm as she moved. She crawled a few metres and stopped, sliding her feet under her bottom so she could sit back up and continue eating sand. Then she did again: lurched forward, crawled, slid her feet under her bottom and sat. The process gained her a metre or two every time. From her hole, the older girl suddenly looked up, eyeing off the baby.

‘Stay.’ She said, loudly, as if the baby were a dog. The baby smiled at this and tipped forward onto all fours again. A game. She took off again, but the older girl wasn’t watching anymore. She was crouched down, moving handfuls of sand, eyeing off both the waves that had become a little louder as a wind had picked up, and the seagull that had been joined by a friend.

Strawberry jam, Penny thought suddenly. Would the young girl like a sandwich, perhaps. Penny loved strawberry jam. Her mother’s, in particular. She was sure she had packed some sandwiches, she always packed sandwiches for the beach. She looked around to ask her mother, but couldn’t see her anywhere. Her mother didn’t really like the beach, she reminded herself, remember your birthday by the sea, your ninth birthday it was, when Dad nearly drowned and cousin Judy got stung by a bluebottle? Penny smiled. Ah yes, she said, out loud perhaps, I remember that. Her mother never went back to the beach after that day. It’s always taking people, Penny. Her mother’s voice.

Penny looked out at the water. The sun had passed its highest point and was now sitting low and fat in the sky, bouncing lazily off the water. But the wind was making the water short-tempered. Penny shielded her eyes. Where was she, anyway? Why was she on a beach? Penny frowned. Her mother must have let her come down alone, but where was John? He loved the beach. Did her Mum know John? Yes, they must have met, John must have come around for cake. Where were they, then? And then, the panic, quick and cold, wet. Where was she? Where was she? This can’t be all of her, surely, this wisp, this fragment on a chair, on a picnic blanket, on a beach, the wind whistling. She had come apart, somewhere, there had been a split, there must have been a split. She turned to a young girl who was digging a hole, not too far from where she sat, on a picnic blanket, on a chair, on a beach.

‘Where’s the rest of me?’

The girl paused in her digging and looked up. ‘Huh?’

‘Pardon, not huh,’ Penny murmured. The girl returned to her digging.

There was a shout. Penny turned to see a woman running across the sand. As she got closer, Penny could see her terror on her face.

‘Lily,’ she was screaming, ‘Lily, your sister!’

Lily. The name got sucked into the vacuum. Penny cast about for it, but it was gone.

Penny watched as the woman ran past the girl in the hole – why was she in a hole? – towards a baby who was, by now, sitting right where the waves whooshed up to shore, their frothy white hems breaking over her chubby knees. Why was a baby sitting so close to the water, Penny wondered. Oh dear. Her father could swim very well, he should have come over and helped. She looked around for her father, but couldn’t see him. Perhaps he didn’t know where she was. But she had told him, hadn’t she? Perhaps this woman could help her find him and then she could tell him where she was.

The woman looked at Penny and there was a hint of exasperation in her eyes, around her taut mouth. That was familiar, Penny suddenly thought, that look, that pull of skin. The baby was annoyed at being stopped and flapped her arms, squawking like a bird, but the woman clasped the baby to her hip, her side, hoisted her away from the whispering sea. After a moment, the woman exhaled slowly, closed her eyes, then opened them and smiled. She looked Penny in the eye and Penny wondered if she knew her. Probably from school. Penny was a primary school teacher, she knew that. Husband John, dead son, primary school teacher, house by the beach. Mangos, strawberry jam, Mum hated the beach. Penny knew all of those things, sometimes all at once, sometimes not at all.

Eventually, the woman reached out and touched Penny’s arm, and said, ‘Okay Mum, come on, let’s get the kids home.’

Oh, thought Penny. Yes. Of course. Perhaps she would know, then. ‘Where’s John?’

The same blink, the same smile. ‘Dad’s dead, Mum, he died ten years ago. You’re at the beach with me, Bec. And my kids. They’re your grandkids.’

The list of facts, ticked off, one after the other. She had said them a thousand times before. Penny was sorry. She knew she couldn’t remember. John, the pantry, the clapped-out motorbike, strawberry jam, mangos, the cavern of her mind. She knew it all even when she didn’t, even when she came apart.

‘Oh,’ Penny said, and she followed her daughter, her feet in the warm sand. She watched her feet until they reached the road and then she looked up. A woman was standing at a car, looking at her. Penny knew the look, expectant, hopeful, terribly, terribly sad. So she knew this woman, then. She smiled politely as she got closer to the woman, motioned at the two children, the baby on her hip, the young girl with the sun-streaked hair.

‘Are they yours? They’re lovely. Aren’t you lucky.’

The woman closed her eyes, briefly, then opened them and smiled. When she spoke, her voice was bright and patient. ‘Mum, it’s me, Bec. I’m your daughter. These are your grandchildren. Let’s get in the car and get you back home, okay?’

As they drove away, Penny saw her house out the window. She tapped the window. ‘But that’s my house. Can you take me home? My parents will be waiting for me.’

Somewhere, a baby began to cry. A baby, Penny thought, how lovely.

BBQ

Content warning. May contain spoilers.

Cannibalism

a short story by Lea Köster

Everything is glowing bright in the setting afternoon sun, the light covering the world in a million shades of red. Smoke is hanging thick in the air, making the heat of the disappearing day even more unbearable for those that bother to notice.

Bowls of salad, fruit, bread and other delicious looking and smelling things are passed along the tables, losing something with every hand that touches them. The sound of meat sizzling on the grill mixes with laughter and light conversation. Everyone is enjoying themselves. On the second floor of the house, behind a window, paper birds seem to fly effortlessly through the air.

‘Hey Carol, where’s Mallory?’ In the wind, her ocean blue dress, moves like waves, as she approaches her childhood friend who is dressed in black.

‘Hi dear, you look lovely.’ Carol’s voice is smooth and calm, as always. Her eyes take in every little detail, even those that shouldn’t be seen, like the necklace that is hanging around her friend’s neck which Carol had seen being bought by one of her friend’s students. ‘How is the party? I feel like I’m just running around. I haven’t even said hello to everyone yet.’ A smile covers Carol’s lips, amusement and exhaustion her eyes. She holds out a plate of burgers, stuffed with meat from the grill, that she was about to take over to a table in the shade of the house. The woman in blue gratefully takes one and praises the cook, Carol’s husband, for his excellent work at the barbecue.

‘Everyone is wondering what kind of meat this is, it’s so good.’ But before she can get an answer, the woman in the black dress is called by her husband and she turns, swiftly, leaving her friend standing there.

The moment Carol places the plate of burgers on a nearby table, two of the neighbourhood boys take one, thanking her. As she walks up to her husband, she watches the people – her neighbours and friends – who seem to not have a care in the world.

‘Could you get more meat? I ran out.’ Her husband whispers in her ear. His breath is cold in the heat of the day. With knife and plate in hand she goes through the kitchen, into the living room, down the hallway and opens the door to the basement. The air goes cold and damp, the laughter inaudible, as she descends the cold concrete steps, with the sharp stone walls, into the cellar. The door behind her, now closed, doesn’t let in any light. Her nose involuntarily twitches in disgust as the light bulb on the ceiling stops flickering.

Kneeling down on the floor she takes the knife and cuts parts of the meat into smaller pieces. With caution she places a few slices onto the plate. The meat is still fresh. The bones white. She is about to leave the room, but before she does, she takes a last look, but there is nothing the person in black hasn’t seen before. The floor is covered in dried blood. The flesh is cold. Chopped off parts lay around. Letters written with the last breath and blood read I’m sorry… followed by something illegible on the white tiled floor. Eyes, still filled with fear, seem to look at her, asking for help they will never receive.

Her daughter was a disappointment, a disgrace, like her sister before her. Weak.

Maybe the next one will be better, Carol thinks and places a hand on her not-yet-showing belly, before ascending the stairs without another look back.

Who?

Content warning. May contain spoilers.

cheating, swear words

a short story by Paula Solterbeck

The gallery on my phone doesn’t get any more interesting as I scroll through it for the third time. The café doesn’t have wifi and this way I look somewhat busy, while sitting alone at the table, waiting. Putting my lips to the brim of my cup, I realize it’s still too hot for me to drink and I wonder if the other people are looking as I put it back down. I think about deleting the pictures I took with my friends on my last night out, which was months ago, and then my mother’s number lights up the top half of the screen. I tap the green icon and start to whisper into my phone, feeling the anxiety and anger start crawling up inside of me.

‘Where are you? It’s been fifteen minutes,’ I manage to whisper into the speaker in a calm voice.

‘I’m so sorry, sweetie. Something came up at work, I can’t make it today. Could we maybe do this another time?’

I don’t respond, partly because I don’t know what to say, partly because I don’t want to make a scene in front of these strangers.

‘I would love to see you, we miss you, honey, I am truly sorry. You know how it is, the ER doesn’t clock off. They still need me here. Tell me how I can make it up to you.’

I lift the phone off my ear and my finger presses the red circle, as if moving on its own. I should have known better than to agree to this. He told me not to meet her, that she was trying to get into my head and get me to go back to them. The blood starts boiling in my veins, but first and foremost I am angry at myself. What would he say?

I choose not to think about it and focus on something else, as I fear I might cry. A fly lands on my saucer and I try to shoo it away, when a woman around my age enters the backroom of the café. Aside from clocking that there are two — now three — other people in the room with me, I hadn’t really had a look at the place. For the first time, I really take it in; the walls are painted in several earthy tones of green and brown, the tables and chairs don’t fit together and the dark colour someone once put on the hardwood floor is chipping off in the places most people walk or the chairs are always being pulled back. My mother chose the place; it suits her.

In the meantime, the new woman has found who she was looking for and hugs the other woman, who was already seated at the table beside mine. They exchange the common small talk and I figure that they are friends. Is the man behind me also waiting for company? I was stood up and they know, they’re probably secretly making fun of me or, at the very least, pity me.

I should have listened to him, he always knows best and it’s so embarrassing to be here alone. They probably think that I don’t have any friends, which is true, technically.

The women talk to each other in lowered voices, show each other things on their phones and laugh in between. They look like copies of one another and the way they talk doesn’t make them unique either. I wonder who copies whom and if they talk shit and spread rumours about the other with different friends. As that thought crosses my mind, I pull my phone back out and start deleting the pictures. The people I called friends back then, whose pictures were taken that night, dropped me when I got engaged. They tried to turn me against him and claimed he was unfaithful.

The damn fly again.

The waitress comes up the steps to the backroom with a single coffee and passes me.

‘The Latte Macchiato with oat milk?’ she exclaims in a shrill tone, to which the man at the table behind me replies by thanking her.

Though I can’t see him, I still get second-hand embarrassed. Oat milk was something I drank too, when I was younger, due to my inability to digest the real thing, but now I’ve realized how embarrassing it truly is. My fiancée told me early on that he wouldn’t go out with me if I ordered it — as a joke obviously — but still, people could think I was vegan and we hate vegans.

The man must be embarrassed too: the stupid waitress let everyone know about the milk and we also know that he’s here alone, probably not by choice either. Who would be? Alone, that is. In public!

I have to get out of here. The guests, the waitress and this damn fly have cost me my last nerve, they take up all the air in this place and I can feel my chest tighten. I decide that I will not suffocate in this place, so I throw the rest of the bitter fluid down my throat and put enough money next to the cup. It would have paid for my mother’s drink as well. Good thing I didn’t tell him about the amount of money I keep for myself for these kinds of affairs. Affairs indeed, because I feel like I am betraying him. He doesn’t deserve this; it makes me sick to think about how disappointed he would be in me, if he knew that I was sneaking around. Maybe he would even be ashamed to be with a woman like that, which would be fair; shame is what I feel right now. Good thing he doesn’t know I meant to meet my mother. I am out for groceries, that is what I am doing.

As I stand up the waitress comes in and collects the tip. She thanks me with a smile that makes me want to punch her. I wonder what it is she is compensating for.

On my way out of the café I see the first leaves falling from the trees out front. On the bus I feel like crying. On the stairs to my apartment, I try to shut everything out and get excited about seeing him. I hope his day was okay, so I get to talk about mine.

When I unlock the door, I see a pair of shoes and a jacket on the ground. Both women’s, both not mine. I hear shushing from the bedroom and my stomach drops. Holding my purse with both hands, I am stuck in motion. He is going to twist this. I am overreacting, as always. He will have an explanation. I open the door and it turns out he doesn’t.

His eyes look up and meet my gaze, as do hers.

Durian

Content warning. May contain spoilers.

alcohol, swear words

a short story by Luc Salinger

Cathy had disheveled hair. Her cotton clothing was riddled with little holes and patches. She was greasy and she smelled like a dirty damp rag left to simmer outside in the heat of a summer’s day. I didn’t exactly hate her, but she wasn’t a person I would want to hang out with or be close to in any way. Foul odor aside, being near Cathy would tank your reputation immediately. As if she had a disease that you could contract just by opening your mouth when standing near her.

‘See that girl over there? You have to make her invite you to her place.’ Maddie was pointing at Cathy.

We were leaning against the concrete wall of the school building, our eyes darting over to the old wooden bench where a girl sat by herself. Immediately, I felt as if bile was just waiting to come out. Like most games, truth or dare perverts the longer it goes on. The desire to pay someone back for what they made you do and the need, almost in a moral sense, to go through with demands because you have inflicted so much pain and shame on the other person; that was what kept the game going. I had made Maddie drink a bottle filled with toilet water from the boy’s restroom, so it sort of put the onus on me to do whatever she wanted, even if, arguably, Cathy is more disgusting than the dirtiest toilet there has ever been.

‘A dare is a dare. Don’t be a wuss. And tomorrow, tell me what kind of disgusting rat hole she lives in,’ she said.

So off I went, taking one last deep breath of fresh air before I got into the vicinity of the garbage girl. She saw me approaching and I slowly waved at her.

I actually had no idea how to make her invite me to her house. Maddie must have thought Cathy was so desperate for any social contact, it would be just a matter of asking her and she would say an emphatic, yes! Maddie really knows how some people tick.

Cathy and I went to Pinecrest, a neighbourhood which my parents had always talked badly about, saying every house there was dilapidated. Not just them. It made headlines in newspapers and there had even been a documentary about it on TV once. Living conditions there were “inhumane” and “criminal” it said. The multi-story buildings there had issues with bursting pipes, mouldy ceilings, water outages, all the stuff that would make you want to move out, but people in those apartments just couldn’t, for whatever reason. Maybe they were too stupid to realize what kind of shithole they live in or they didn’t have the money to look for something better. When we went to the neighbourhood, walking past the uncut lawns and the trash bags scattered in front of the houses, I hoped that Cathy would at least exceed my expectations insofar as that she wouldn’t live in one of the notorious apartments. Then again, maybe they just looked bad, ugly and not cared for on the outside. Honestly? I desperately hoped so, because they really did look disgusting and stepping inside of them seemed like something I really didn’t want to do.

‘I have to warn you, my place isn’t exactly in good condition right now,’ Cathy said as she turned her keys to open the door.

We were on the seventh floor of the building and the staircase had a musky, pungent odour to it, like urine, that made me almost puke. I hoped that at least inside her apartment it would smell better, but once she opened her door, it was worse. I don’t think I could attempt to describe it, because every scent description would need to refer to something else to get across how it smells. It just smelled uniquely bad, horrific, awful.

It was dark. A lightbulb that hung on a string dangled in the air, shining light on a kitchen island. The counter was scattered with plastic wrappers, dirty plates and a thin layer of grease that made the light reflect in a nice way. Cathy entered the apartment and, as she stepped foot inside, her feet were scooting away glass bottles that laid on the ground. They made a wave of sharp tinkling sounds, as one bottle smacked against the other.

‘Sorry, my mom is a drunk,’ Cathy said as we both walked towards the kitchen.

My eyes darted around the sea of empty bottles on the floor, trying to take the situation in. An idea was niggling.

She opened a cupboard. ‘You want something to drink?’

I tried to play it as casually as I could. ‘Oh, you must have wine here then or something, right? What does your mom drink?’

She looked at me incredulously. ‘Um… I think I have some vodka here somewhere.’

I had never drunk hard alcohol before. I wasn’t allowed to, so the prospect seemed too enticing.

‘That would be nice!’ I said as I waited for her to reach for the bottle of vodka that was stashed underneath the kitchen sink and two glasses from a cabinet where the bottom hinge was completely ripped off, making it dangle in the air. Cathy filled the two glasses to the brim with vodka and set one of the glasses in front of me on the counter.

‘Just straight vodka?’

She gave me a weird look, as if I said something stupid. ‘Do you want to add something to it?’ She took her own glass and quickly drained it, as if it was a cold glass of water.

Hesitantly, I took the glass she had prepared for me and tried to drink it, but my face immediately scrunched up by the horrific taste. It tasted like poison. She looked my way and began to cackle.

‘What’s wrong? You don’t like it?’

‘It tastes terrible!’

She reached for the bottle and poured herself another glass. ‘P-Pussy…’ she slurred with a sly smile.

Now mad, I gritted my teeth and emptied my own glass. A strange warmness was filling my lungs, and I felt a burning taste that went further than my mouth. I coughed, which prompted her to laugh at me again.

‘Fuck you.’ I grunted, trying to act tough, but I couldn’t stop myself from beaming a little.

She laughed even harder. ‘F-Fuck you too!’ She said it mockingly, grinning from ear to ear and then pressing her lips on the rim of her glass again.

After we had emptied the bottle, she got another one and we just began laughing together. I didn’t even notice anymore how bad the apartment smelled or how it looked. I just had fun as we were cracking jokes. She brought out a packet of cookies, too, which we occasionally dipped inside our glasses and laughed about how bad it tasted.

‘You know what, you are more fun to be around than I thought.’

Her face was red. ‘Th- thank you so much!’ She took another sip of her glass. ‘You are the first real friend I have ever had. I am so happy right now.’

I just laughed. ‘You see me as a friend?’ I sipped from my glass again.

By that point, she was completely wasted. She put her glass down.

‘Of course!’ Then she looked at me and her eyes were glistening. ‘Why wouldn’t I? Nobody has ever been so nice to me.’

She got closer to me and I could smell her vodka breath as she wrapped her arms around me.

I stood in shock, my arms dangling to my sides. ‘Nice to you? What did I do?’

She hugged me tighter. ‘Just everything. You are nice to me. You don’t make fun of me. You don’t make fun of the place I live in. You don’t make fun of my clothes…’ She continued to melt into me as I felt an incredible sense of disgust wash over me. Not just because Cathy was now hugging me and she seemed not to have washed herself in a week. No, it was disgust with myself.

‘Yeah… sure…’ I murmured and gently wrapped my arms around her too.

‘I just wish you would’ve approached me sooner.’

I didn’t have the heart to tell her about the dare or anything, about how disgusting I had always thought she was or how much shit I talked behind her back. Even while being completely drunk, I wasn’t brave enough to do so. I just stood there, letting her hug me until she let go. She looked at my slightly parted lips with a completely flushed face.

‘Can I kiss you?’

The next day at school was horrible. I didn’t know a hangover could hurt my head this much. Cathy didn’t come to school at that day, and I totally understood why. I got annoyed by every tiny thing. Even Maddie’s enthusiasm as she kept on teasing me, trying to make me tell her about Cathy and what I did.

‘Honestly, I can’t remember.’ I told her as I kept my hands on my head like a wise monkey.

‘You’re kidding right? Not even a tiny detail?’ She gave me a look of suspicion. ‘Are you sure you even did the dare like I asked you?’

‘I did.’

‘Got any proof?’

My mind wandered, trying to find anything. ‘Nope, no proof.’

‘Geez, I should have told you to take a picture or something. You could just lie to me right now. Don’t you think it’s unfair? You saw me drink the toilet water right in front of you and you won’t even give me anything to laugh at now? You’re such a terrible friend.’

‘Pick a better dare next time,’ I said. My head felt like it was being stung by hundreds of hornets.

‘No, no. This one was perfect. You just messed it up. You have to do it again.’

‘Fine, whatever,’ I slurred as I lay my head on my school table, taking a deep breath of air.

I felt sick.