The water was still and silent as the moon cast its reflection across her
She holds the bounty of a sailor's dreams inside her bosom
And every ship at sea will search for the treasure that lies within her
Even in the depths of her watery grave a heart still beats.
 
Hands that touch the sails of a pirate's masterpiece hold on to her dreams
And guide these painted ships by the stars up in the sky
When the winds come to a place that bring a salty breeze you’ll know you are there
You know that she has delivered her treasure and her dreams into the salty air
 
Treasure that shines like a king’s ransom in gold never sees the sun and never grows old
The dreams of her wealth come alive in the storm and the vision of a pirate's masterpiece
Is waiting on the ocean floor.
 
Things that were seen through tired eyes have shown the mystery of her seas
Mermaids and serpents that protect her gold have come to steel a pirate's dreams
Painted ships with windblown sails headlong into her watery grave can feel the calm
And touch the still and silent water that has brought the sailor home.



Jeff Nesvig is a writer living in Florida.

Last night I dreamt of Carole Baskin again.

Except who says “dreamt?” Was it a mistake to watch Rebecca and Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre yesterday? Maxim and Heathcliff and Rochester and moors, moors, and more moors.

My mother called today. She wanted to know if I’d gotten any work done and I told her of course, being quarantined at home is the best thing that could have happened to me. I know she thinks I’m full of shit, but she feels guilty because I’m not allowed to come home since she has that “immune thing.”

She doesn’t have an immune thing, she’s the one who’s totally full of shit. She probably has a new boyfriend and she’s told him she’s forty instead of sixty so when her thirty-two year old daughter shows up, how’s she going to explain that?

I told my boss I have a bad cough and I might have a fever and he told me to take it easy. Do you think I’ve fucked myself over karma-wise? You shouldn’t pretend to have COVID-19 because of course that means you’re going to get it, the worst possible version of it, and you’ll be dead in a week.

I promised my boss the journal entries by the end of the day.

It’s hard working from home. Too many distractions. Like looking outside and admiring the deep blue, un-smoggy Los Angeles sky. Like baking, lots of baking. Bread and scones and banana bread. The apartment has never smelled this good before.

Like Netflix. Ozark and Money Heist and Peaky Blinders and Babylon Berlin and all 7,000 seasons of The Great British Baking Show and Tiger King.

Joe Exotic seems like a douche. Everybody in Tiger King seems like a douche. Carole Baskin seemed normal. Well, for about ten minutes.

How did Carole Baskin kill her husband? Okay - spoiler alert. If you don’t know who Carole Baskin is and did she kill her husband or not, you haven’t been quarantined for six months.

It is six months, isn’t it? Or does it just seem like six months?

Did she shoot him with a tranquilizer gun and drag his body to a tiger cage? And let the tiger do the real dirty work? “Good boy, Simba,” Carole told him.

Maybe she had a good reason to kill her husband. She was in quarantine with him for six months and he drove her crazy. He didn’t like baking or looking up at the sky. He wouldn’t watch The Great British Baking Show. Halfway through season six he googled the results online and told Carole who won (Nadiya Hussain, I love her). He ruined TGBBS, he ruins everything! Carole would sit by Simba’s cage, feeding him cow femurs and complaining about her husband. “I don’t know what to do,” she said to Simba, watching his giant jaws crush the cow femur to dust.

I guess the point is, sometimes there are legitimate reasons to kill somebody. I’m not a big Joe Exotic fan, but Carole did go out of her way to destroy him. People debate her sincerity about her Big Cat Rescue and she does seem as bad as the rest of them, exploiting exotic cats for fame and fortune. Yes, it was not the greatest idea in the world for Joe Exotic to hire a hit man to take out Carole, but he should’ve known better than to mess with a lady who fed her second husband to a tiger.

Meow.

Almost five o’clock. Got to get those journal entries going. There’s my computer. Right there on the table. Next to the remote. Investigation Discovery is going to do a documentary on Carole Baskin. I wish it was on right now. Thank goodness for Netflix, it’s like having a quarantine boyfriend.


I’ll work tomorrow. Time for Narcos, The Death of Stalin, and The Great British Baking Show Master Class.


Diane Redfern is a writer and model living in New York.

I went to Sam’s today and for the first time I wore a face mask. I felt like a wimp.  It didn’t help when Mr. Muscle Guy walked by without a face mask and wearing a Superman tee shirt. Worse, he glanced at me and smirked. Now I feel like a pathetic wimp.

My wife sensed my humiliation and put her arm around me. “Don’t let him bother you. I bet by the time he gets to be your age, that tee shirt won’t even fit him.” 

Gee, thanks.

I followed my wife out of Sam’s pushing our loaded shopping cart up the slight incline to our car. I imagined myself as one of those old time coal miners, pushing an ore laden cart out of the mine shaft. Left foot… right foot… left foot. You’re almost there. You’re almost there.

We finally reached our SUV. I pushed the button on the remote. There’s a beep and the back of the SUV yawns open.

Sweat has caused my mask to stick to my face. I peel it off and let it slide down to my neck where it hangs by its elastic strap. It’s not tight. I can still breathe. Maybe I can get a refund.

My wife gets in the SUV and turns on the air conditioner. Her day is done. I look at the groceries that need to be loaded. Four dozen hot dogs, 144 cans of cat food, six half gallons of orange juice, four dozen eggs, case of Chex Mix, eight frozen pizzas, five pounds of unsalted butter, jumbo jar of peanut butter. My head starts to spin. Only in America, I think. Only at Sam’s in America. I look around for Mr. Muscle Guy. I’m going to need help loading everything.

Grocery shopping used to be easy before this virus hit. Now, people shop like a nuclear winter is coning. Four dozen hot dogs? I look through the rest of the groceries and find no hot dog buns. Who eats a hot dog with a knife and fork? Beans and franks in a can I understand. But a plain hot dog rolling back and forth on a plate? Is that what we have come to as a society? Is the end that near? I stare at the hot dogs sitting innocently in the thermal bag. “Damn you,” I say.

With the groceries loaded, I get in the SUV and start it. My wife comes to attention. “Let’s go straight home. I’m hungry.”

“Ok,” I answer. “What are we having?”

She thinks for a moment. “I don’t know,” she says. “Maybe hot dogs. Did you remember to buy the buns?”



John Smithwick is a writer living in Florida.

Softly and tenderly Jesus is calling,
Calling to you and to me.
See on the portals he’s waiting and watching,
Watching for you and for me.
 
Stay home, stay home.
Stay safe. Stay healthy. Stay home.
Earnestly, tenderly, Jesus is calling,
Calling, “O people, stay home.”
 
If you must go out, then please wear a face mask.
Stand at least six feet apart.
Wash you hands often and sing “Happy Birthday.”
Don’t be foolhardy. Be smart!
 
Stay home, stay home.
Stay safe. Stay healthy. Stay home.
Earnestly, tenderly, Jesus is calling,
Calling, “O people, stay home.”
 
Don’t gargle Clorox and don’t ingest Lysol.
Don’t try to self-medicate.
God gave you brains and so now you must use them.
Listen before it’s too late.
 
Stay home, stay home.
Fight COVID-19 at home.
Earnestly, tenderly, Jesus is calling,
Calling, “O people, stay home.”



Barrie M. Kirby is a writer living in North Carolina.

No one knows what they’re about or where they’re from or why so many of them are out in our streets. Certainly we don’t know and neither does our government.

Do you know where they come from, we ask?

No, says our village council. No, says our mayor.

As the death toll from the coronavirus pandemic continued to rise, hundreds of them suddenly appeared in our little town--many of whom could be seen wearing those idiotic MAGA hats and chanting “Give me Libility or Give Me Dearth!” an apparent bastardized reference and misquote of Patrick Henry’s encouraging Virginia plea to provide troops for the American Revolution--and took to the streets seemingly overnight to protest our Governor’s stay-at-home order put in place to curb the spread of the infections.  

Whoever they are, they’re getting crazier by the moment. They flipped over a bus, busted out all the windows at Pop Mumford’s drugstore, and firebombed the mayor’s re-election office all before the six o’clock news came on TV.

As the sun goes down on this most tumultuous of days, my wife screams, “Did you hear that? There’s somebody on our roof!” I race outside barefoot just in time to see the figure of one of the Magamaniacs edging toward our chimney.

Get off my roof! I shout.

He turns his face languorously toward mine, stares for a second or two, then rips a shingle from our roof and flings it at me. A split second later two more shingles fly in my direction missing my head by inches.

I crawl back into the house, grab a bottle of Maker’s Mark and drain the bottle.

Fortified by my liquid courage, I venture outside and confront one of the interlopers.

Excuse me, I said, but could you tell me why you’re smashing the hell out of Bob’s Mercedes with a tire iron?

Because I feel like it, he says, moving on to a mailbox.

                                                    *   *   *

What the protestors look like: almost to a man--including the women--they’re all carrying some sort of weapon, many have AR-15s or 30-30s, all have handguns, most carry misspelled signs with slogans like, “Don’t Tred on Me” and “Free the Sleaves.” Despite the threat of transmitting COVID-19 none of them wear masks, except a few radicals who are hell bent on burning down our village.

Each of us has a theory as to why the protesters came to our village. Some say it’s because we’re quaint, a throwback to an earlier time and to a much simpler time. Others say that it’s because our Governor has a summer home here. A few of us believe it’s because our village was built on the site of a former Choctaw indian burial ground.

Mrs. Sipple had a theory, too. It’s because of the aliens, she said. They came once before and now these people are here waiting for their mothership. The only way to get rid of them is to sacrifice a male and female virgin in the village square.

We turn and face one another, this sounds like a reasonable solution.

At our town meeting we discussed Mrs Sipple’s idea. It’s a good plan we say but one with a serious flaw: we have no virgins.

I climb onto the cupola and scream at the heavens, why us? Why us? Then I go home. When I enter the kitchen I see half a dozen protestors sitting around our overturned refrigerator and my wife dressed as a maid cooking them dinner at the stove.

We call on Pastor McMasters asking what we can do.

Have you tried seeing all this from their perspective? he says.

We tie him to a chair and drag him to the protestors.  He’s all yours, we say.

                                                    *   *   *

The protestors won’t leave.

My shop is one of the few businesses still operating. Five of them enter and state emphatically that they’re going to plunder and take whatever they want and then burn the building down.

I smile.

Any objections? they ask.

Feel free, I say. I’m insured.

All the better, they say.

They destroy everything I’ve built and then some.

You deserve this, they say. You have so much, now you’ll be just like us. Now thank us.Thank you, I say.
                                                    *   *   *

After they’ve gone I go home. This madness must end, I tell my wife. She nods, smiles and grabs my hand pulling me outside.

It’s quiet, there’s no sign of anyone, let alone the protestors.

We crumple to the grass and grin stupidly at one another; we rip off all our clothes. We begin to dance wildly as we start to pull out all our hair.

In times like these madness rules.


 Jake used to live and write in California. He doesn’t live there anymore.

Jason Love was sitting on a bench reading the Sporting News when the dog spoke to him.
“Reading anything interesting?” the dog asks softly. “Mind if I sit with you?”
Jason doesn’t look up.
“Didn’t you get the memo?” he says with a bit of annoyance in his voice. “We’re supposed to be social distancing. Go home. Watch the news, get a clue.” He turns a page and checks the latest speculation about the Mudcats and the rest of baseball plans to save the season. His wife Michelle loved baseball like Jason. She loved hearing him reading the results of games they never went to together.
“I know,” answers the dog. “But it’s just you and me and I won’t tell anyone.”
“Leave me alone,” says Jason.
“I wish I could but I can’t, “ the dog replies.

                                                                         *  *  *                                                          
 
Jason and his wife Michelle had moved east from Los Angeles just a few months before the pandemic hit the country and ruined his life - well, if his professional life could be any more on the life support, that is.
Jason’s career couldn’t have been any worse so he didn’t voice an objection when Michelle said she found a job in North Carolina and wanted to move.

Jason rationalized that he could be a writer anywhere, maybe change his name so people would judge him on his work and not on...well...on him. He had a well-earned reputation for being difficult. His career was littered with what best could be described as questionable judgments. There was that incident with Disney, where Jason and his writing partner were in an exec’s office and his co-writer snapped, got foul-mouthed and flipped over a desk. Jason thought it was hysterical and couldn’t stop laughing even after security escorted them both from the lot. So ended his relationship with the big mouse and he couldn’t get work for five years. Then, one morning outside of Starbucks he mouthed off at a big Hollywood star and didn’t work again for another three years.  The final straw came when a producer friend hired him for a one-off TV cartoon and he got into a fistfight with the head writer over a joke Jason didn’t think was the least bit funny. That was almost two years previous to his and Michelle’s move to North Carolina.
Jason and Michelle put their house on the market, packed up their belongings and shipped their furniture east to be stored until they found a new home. They said goodbye to their friends and made the trip along the southern route, stopping to see the sights and people long missing from their lives.

At the time Jason and Michelle didn’t know it would be their last trip together, if they had known they would have slowed it down to enjoy even more time together.

Despite arguing that any hope he had of resurrecting his career was gone, their life in North Carolina was good. Michelle excelled at her new job and Jason’s alienation from the few people who still respected his talent drove him to become a better and more prolific writer. Christmas came and went, as did the beginning of the New Year. They made plans for a getaway for Valentine’s Day but Michelle had a work emergency and that delayed their weekend escape until early March.

It never happened.

Michelle barely had any signs of the Covid-19. There was no dry cough and barely a fever but almost overnight she quickly got worse. She became one of North Carolina’s earliest victims.
Jason would never admit that he loved Michelle more than life itself but it was true. Everything he was and wanted to be was because of Michelle’s love. He would have followed her anywhere.

                                                                   *  *  *

“How about we have a catch?” the dog asked.
Jason keeps reading the Sporting News.
“Leave me alone,” he says angrily. “I just want to sit here and be with my wife.”
Suddenly the dog grabbed the Sporting News from Jason’s hands. The dog gave a couple of “woofs” and stood on Michelle’s grave shaking the paper until Jason stood up. 
As Jason moved toward the dog, the dog ran a few a yards, stopped, turned back toward Jason, barked, and ran a few more yards. “Okay, dog. You want to play, we’ll play.” Jason chased the dog. Passing Michelle’s gravestone, he whispered, “Don’t worry. I’ll be right back.” 

The chasing continued through the cemetery until the dog entered a wooded area by an opening in the fencing surrounding the memorial park. The dog waited until Jason made it through the opening, then took off through a path in the forest with Jason fast on the dog’s tail.

Jason caught up to the dog in a parking lot leading to an older brick building. It was the hospital where Michelle spent her last hours of life. Jason wasn’t allowed to be with her and was forced to spend those hours outside looking up at her as her life slipped away.

The dog barked and Jason came back to reality for a second and noticed he no longer was alone in his grief. There were others standing around looking up at the windows where their loved ones waited to see who would survive the cruelness that is Covid-19.

                                                                       *  *  *

Inside the hospital, a nurse and a doctor hover over yet another dead body. The doctor lifted his head and the nurse nodded.
“Is this--”
“Yes,” the nurse interrupts. “It’s the husband of the first victim you and I handled.”
Hanging his head, the doctor pulls a sheet over Jason’s head and calls for the next patient.

                                                                         *  *  *

In the parking lot, Jason turns away and the dog joins him at his side. As they walk toward the cemetery the dog slowly morphs into Michelle and she slips her hand into Jason’s as they glide to their inevitable final resting place.

                                                                     


Jake was a writer living in California. He doesn’t live there anymore.

Ruth is talking about classic television shows with someone on the internet. She wears a sweatshirt that hasn’t been out of the apartment for quite some time.

RUTH
Favorite episode? Oh, boy. I mean, there are so many. All the classics. Monsters Are Due on Maple Street, It’s a Good Life, Time Enough at Last. Great. The best. But favorite?
(Thinks. Remembers.)
There’s one about an old man, a sidewalk vendor. It starts with him in front of a building on a hot summer day, selling toys and manicure sets and neck ties out of a sample-case on legs. Someone’s watching him. A young man in a dark suit, making notes in a small black notebook. When the salesman goes home, the man is waiting in his apartment. He says to the old man, “I’m Death. It’s your time to die.” Then he clicks his pen and starts flipping through the pages of his notebook, checking all the information, making sure there aren’t any mistakes, no gaps in the record. That’s when the salesman starts to bargain with this guy. He bargains with Death. Works out a deal with him. It doesn’t end the way the old man wants it to, but for one minute, he got Death to...pause. That was the thing that stayed in my head; that you could sit across from Death in your living room and come to a mutual understanding. You could talk to him, ask him questions. He’d still take you, you’d still have to die. He’d still put his hand on your shoulder and walk you under the street lamps the way Death takes the old man at the end of the episode. But there would have been a moment. A connection. You could look Death in the eye.
(A moment.)
If only this thing had a face. Eyes. But there’s no face. Shut windows. Closed doors. That’s all.
(She decides.)
I know how I’d do it. I’d put on a nice suit, a white blouse, a string of discreet pearls. Then I’d get a black notebook and a good pen. People could look me in the eye when I gave them the bad news. And after I tell them, I’ll listen. I’ll nod, make notes in my book, and listen. If you’re tired, you can tell me how tired you are. If you’re afraid or angry, you can tell me that, too. You can tell me anything, because I’m listening. You can see it in my eyes.

Ruth holds her look to the camera for as long as it feels appropriate. Then:

RUTH
Right. Well. Anyway. That’s my favorite Twilight Zone episode. I think it’s called One For The Angels. What’s your favorite?

Joseph Dougherty is a writer living in California.

Sail me across the water
fly me through the sky
touch me down on the highest mountain, Lord
I need you by my side.
 
Oceans of time in a world so big
With answers lost in curious thoughts
But I feel the sand beneath my feet
And I know just where I am.
 
Can you hear the music of the words we’ve shared
They’re beautiful but out of tune
We can leave our thoughts on papyrus sheets
And send them to the moon.
 
With only one chance to find our way to the words we left behind
We can sing each song to the seminal wind
And watch them as they hide in secret places in oceans of time.



Jeff Nesvig is a writer living in Florida.

By the time Susan hit the Escape Key it was too late.

The sentence that she feared more than any other in the English Language
suddenly appeared in the middle of her computer screen.

Safari cannot open the page because you are no longer connected to the
internet.

“Aarrrghhh!”

She screamed so loud that she was sure she was going to wake Old Man
Lyons in the apartment next door – even if he wasn’t wearing his extra-strength
hearing aids.

But at that point Susan didn’t care. She felt her world crashing all around
her and all she could think to do was push the Escape key over and over.
To no avail and the same result.

Same fucking message. On the same path to Tech-No-Where.

How many times had a friend or colleague told her not to place all her faith in
The Almighty Internet? And how many times had she told them that having
everything at her fingertips was the only way to go?

The message on the screen was practically goading her.

We’ll Show You.

So, now her work was floating out there somewhere in the computer
EtherLand – and she couldn’t access it because the backup copy was on her server
and that was down now as well.

She had slaved over the tag lines for the movie campaign for over a month –
having compiled more than five hundred of them. Yeah, sure it was your basic B
(okay, make that D) horror movie with a girl locked in the bowels of a zoo’s reptile
house with every creepy-crawly-thing imaginable surrounding her; but Susan also
knew that tag-lines like In Space No One Can Hear You Scream and Just When You
Thought It Was Safe To Go Back In The Water had sent movie-goers flocking by the
millions into the theaters and made Spielberg and Ridley Scott into gazillionaires.
And now she’d gone and emailed the file to her boss Mike but had no way to
know if it even reached him because the network had crashed at that very moment
and all Susan kept seeing was that Spinning Wheel of Death and the message that
kept refreshing every time she hit the Escape button.

Fucking Internet.

What had she been thinking? Why hadn’t she at least printed the damn list
out?? And the only catch phrase she could remember was the lousiest of all – It’s a
Zoo Out There -- no way that one was going to fly.

She stared at the clock. Half past one-in-the-morning. Couldn’t very well
go and call Mike right now. And he’d made it clear in no uncertain terms that the
project was due no later than eight a.m. sharp. The client had finally already given
them one extra day after a ton of kicking and screaming.

Susan’s index finger was already beginning to ache from punching the Escape
button over and over.

So, she grabbed her cell-phone and started to dial the computer help line and
then realized that she didn’t have it in her Contacts.

Fine. She’d look it up on the damn internet.

Except.

Shit.

She turned back to look at the computer and saw the message on the screen
mocking her like a Joker in a deck of cards.

Safari cannot open the page because you are no longer connected to the
internet.

“Fuck you!”

If the iMac wasn’t already a practical life-line-extension of her body and soul,
she would have smashed the thing right then and there.

When her iPhone’s server (the same one) gave her the identical Message of
Doom she had to do everything in her power not to throw it out her window.

“Aarrrgghhhh!!!!”

Still no response from next door. Old Man Lyons definitely must’ve slept
without his hearing aids.

Somehow, she forced herself to calm down, then wondered if there even was
anything such as 411 anymore.

Not really, she soon found out.

It took over forty-five minutes of voice mails, recorded messages, and
operators located in places like China and the farthest reaches of India to finally get
a person on the phone who could give her a website she could access for help to get
back online.

“But I can’t get on a fucking website, don’t you get it?!”

That person hung up on her.

An hour and fifteen minutes later she got an actual phone number.

That resulted in her having to wade through at least half a dozen voice mail
menus (their servers seemed to be working perfectly fuckin’ fine thank you very
much) and by the time she got someone on the line to help her she was practically in
tears.

“Please. Please help me,” she blubbered.

A calm voice with an accent from some faraway place she couldn’t quite place
(or give a shit about) listened to her tale of woe and then made a suggestion.
“Did you try the Escape Key?”

Susan didn’t curse this time. Or even scream.

She just broke down and sobbed.

The technician took her through a series of steps.

Unplug the computer and reboot.

The idea of this scared Susan shitless but she went and did it.

Within seconds of rebooting, the computer went through its normal
progression of start-up menus – and came up with the very same message.

Safari cannot open the page because you are no longer connected to the
internet.

Susan let out a whimper.

“Don’t despair,” said the technician. “Let’s give the modem a try.”

He walked her through the steps to disconnect and restart it.

Susan was holding her breath when she flicked the modem back on and kept
on doing so until the computer kicked back to life.

Same fucking message.

She let go of her breath with a wail.

“Nooooooo.”

The technician sent out a signal to reboot the modem from whatever shithole
he was located in.

Nothing changed.

“Maybe we need to try and attack it from the server side. Do you have your
password?” asked the technician.

Susan gave it to him and within seconds the technician had more bad news.

“Didn’t work. You’re sure that’s right?”

“Of course I am. It’s my last name and birthday backwards. You have to try
it again.”

The technician did – twice more “Hmmm. Now you’re locked out.”

Susan groaned. “My work. Gone."

“That one you told me? It’s a Zoo Out There ? It isn’t that bad,” said the
technician.

“Are you out of your fucking mind?” Susan practically screeched.

“Any other way I can be of service?” asked the technician.

Susan just hung up on him.

Even that didn’t feel good.

She turned to look at the clock.

It was 5:30 in the morning.

Desperate beyond words, she opened a desk drawer and did the unthinkable.
She dug through the dusty contents and came up a sheet of paper and a pen
last used back when there was a Bush in office.

Then, she sat at her desk and stared through tears while trying to come up
with all those great ideas she had put in a file that was lost somewhere in a cyber
universe far, far away.

When she woke up it was half-past nine.

When she called him on the phone, Mike didn’t even let her get half the story
out. He fired her right then and there.

Susan’s day only went downhill from there.

Along with the rest of her life.

Her first clue should have been when she tried to Uber downtown to Mike’s
office to argue her case and she was immediately rejected because her credit card
had been declined.

A couple of phone calls and a trip to the bank later – her worst fears had been
confirmed. Not only had her credit cards been canceled, someone had gained
access to them the night before and run up totals approaching six figures. Right
around the exact same time, an untraceable cash transaction from her bank wiped
out all her accounts – basically her life savings.

With no money to her name and a credit rating that a transient wouldn’t even
claim, Susan soon found herself booted from her apartment. She crashed on
friend’s couches as long as she could – but wore out her welcome really fast.

Without any disposable income and the ability to land a new job because her credit
check came back non-existent (not to mention endless liens because she owed so
much); Susan finally decided to pack it all in.

She borrowed fifty dollars from her last friend, just enough for a one-way
ticket back to Pittsburgh to move back in with her matronly mother.

She was passing through Times Square on her way to Port Authority when
she saw the huge billboard advertising the movie.

The film’s title, Reptile House, was surrounded by every menacing snake and
lizard known to man with the tag line practically flashing in neon.

It’s a Zoo Out There.

She stepped off the curb to get a better look she screamed.

“Are you fucking kidding me?!”

Her cry was swallowed up by the prolonged blast of a horn and screeching
wheels.

Susan whirled to see the US Postal truck hurtling directly toward her and
threw up her arms.

SMASH.
* * * * *
“Susan! Jesus!”

Mike stood in the doorway, unable to move at first. He turned to the old man
(his last name was apparently Lyons) who lived next door and had let him into the
apartment.

Susan was leaning over her desk; pounding rhythmically on it.

Mumbling over and over.

“No. No. No. No. No.”

“When did this start?” asked Mike.

“I heard her screaming right after the power outage.” replied the old man.

“But that only lasted a minute or so. The blackout, I mean. She kept screaming
after that – most of the night. I got worried when I didn’t hear her moving around
this morning and got the super to open the door. She was doing this when I found
her. I couldn’t get her to stop.”

Mike took a few steps forward until he came up behind Susan and put a
soothing hand on her quivering shoulder.

“It’s going to be okay, Susan.”

But Susan paid him no attention.

She was too busy punching the computer keyboard.

Specifically, the Escape Key.

Her hand, the index finger in particular, was a gnarled and bloody mess.
That was when the piece of paper caught Mike’s eye.

At first, he thought it was just covered in splashes of blood from the carnage
Susan had caused at the computer.

But then he realized that words had been scribbled on it – in blood.
Like a finger had traced them there.

It’s a Zoo Out There.

Mike could barely make out the phrase; but once he did – he had to admit
that it was rather catchy.



Scott Shepherd is a writer living in California.

The red death had long devastated the country. No pestilence had ever been so fatal, or so hideous. Blood was its Avatar and its seal -- the madness and the horror of blood. There were sharp pains, and sudden dizziness, and then profuse bleeding at the pores, with dissolution. The scarlet stains upon the body and especially upon the face of the victim, were the pest ban which shut him out from the aid and from the sympathy of his fellow-men. And the whole seizure, progress, and termination of the disease, were incidents of half an hour.

But Prince Prospero was happy and dauntless and sagacious. When his dominions were half depopulated, he summoned to his presence a thousand hale and light-hearted friends from among the knights and dames of his court, and with these retired to the deep seclusion of one of his crenellated abbeys. This was an extensive and magnificent structure, the creation of the prince's own eccentric yet august taste. A strong and lofty wall girdled it in. This wall had gates of iron. The courtiers, having entered, brought furnaces and massy hammers and welded the bolts.

They resolved to leave means neither of ingress nor egress to the sudden impulses of despair or of frenzy from within. The abbey was amply provisioned. With such precautions the courtiers might bid defiance to contagion. The external world could take care of itself. In the meantime it was folly to grieve or to think. The prince had provided all the appliances of pleasure. There were buffoons, there were improvisatori, there were ballet-dancers, there were musicians, there was Beauty, there was wine. All these and security were within. Without was the "Red Death."
It was toward the close of the fifth or sixth month of his seclusion that the Prince Prospero entertained his thousand friends at a masked ball of the most unusual magnificence.

It was a voluptuous scene, that masquerade. But first let me tell of the rooms in which it was held. There were seven -- an imperial suite, In many palaces, however, such suites form a long and straight vista, while the folding doors slide back nearly to the walls on either hand, so that the view of the whole extant is scarcely impeded. Here the case was very different; as might have been expected from the duke's love of the "bizarre." The apartments were so irregularly disposed that the vision embraced but little more than one at a time. There was a sharp turn at the right and left, in the middle of each wall, a tall and narrow Gothic window looked out upon a closed corridor of which pursued the windings of the suite. These windows were of stained glass whose color varied in accordance with the prevailing hue of the decorations of the chamber into which it opened. That at the eastern extremity was hung, for example, in blue -- and vividly blue were its windows. The second chamber was purple in its ornaments and tapestries, and here the panes were purple. The third was green throughout, and so were the casements. The fourth was furnished and lighted with orange -- the fifth with white -- the sixth with violet. The seventh apartment was closely shrouded in black velvet tapestries that hung all over the ceiling and down the walls, falling in heavy folds upon a carpet of the same material and hue. But in this chamber only, the color of the windows failed to correspond with the decorations. The panes were scarlet -- a deep blood color. Now in no one of any of the seven apartments was there any lamp or candelabrum, amid the profusion of golden ornaments that lay scattered to and fro and depended from the roof. There was no light of any kind emanating from lamp or candle within the suite of chambers. But in the corridors that followed the suite, there stood, opposite each window, a heavy tripod, bearing a brazier of fire, that projected its rays through the tinted glass and so glaringly lit the room. And thus were produced a multitude of gaudy and fantastic appearances. But in the western or back chamber the effect of the fire-light that streamed upon the dark hangings through the blood-tinted panes was ghastly in the extreme, and produced so wild a look upon the countenances of those who entered, that there were few of the company bold enough to set foot within its precincts at all.

It was within this apartment, also, that there stood against the western wall, a gigantic clock of ebony. It pendulum swung to and fro with a dull, heavy, monotonous clang; and when the minute-hand made the circuit of the face, and the hour was to be stricken, there came from the brazen lungs of the clock a sound which was clear and loud and deep and exceedingly musical, but of so peculiar a note and emphasis that, at each lapse of an hour, the musicians of the orchestra were constrained to pause, momentarily, in their performance, to hearken to the sound; and thus the waltzers perforce ceased their evolutions; and there was a brief disconcert of the whole gay company; and while the chimes of the clock yet rang. it was observed that the giddiest grew pale, and the more aged and sedate passed their hands over their brows as if in confused revery or meditation. But when the echoes had fully ceased, a light laughter at once pervaded the assembly; the musicians looked at each other and smiled as if at their own nervousness and folly, and made whispering vows, each to the other, that the next chiming of the clock should produce in them no similar emotion; and then, after the lapse of sixty minutes (which embrace three thousand and six hundred seconds of Time that flies), there came yet another chiming of the clock, and then were the same disconcert and tremulousness and meditation as before.

But, in spite of these things, it was a gay and magnificent revel. The tastes of the duke were peculiar. He had a fine eye for color and effects. He disregarded the "decora" of mere fashion. His plans were bold and fiery, and his conceptions glowed with barbaric lustre. There are some who would have thought him mad. His followers felt that he was not. It was necessary to hear and see and touch him to be sure he was not.

He had directed, in great part, the movable embellishments of the seven chambers, upon occasion of this great fete; and it was his own guiding taste which had given character to the masqueraders. Be sure they were grotesque. There were much glare and glitter and piquancy and phantasm -- much of what has been seen in "Hernani." There were arabesque figures with unsuited limbs and appointments. There were delirious fancies such as the madman fashions. There were much of the beautiful, much of the wanton, much of the bizarre, something of the terrible, and not a little of that which might have excited disgust. To and fro in the seven chambers stalked, in fact, a multitude of dreams. And these the dreams -- writhed in and about, taking hue from the rooms, and causing the wild music of the orchestra to seem as the echo of their steps. And, anon, there strikes the ebony clock which stands in the hall of the velvet. And then, for a moment, all is still, and all is silent save the voice of the clock. The dreams are stiff-frozen as they stand. But the echoes of the chime die away -- they have endured but an instant -- and a light half-subdued laughter floats after them as they depart. And now the music swells, and the dreams live, and writhe to and fro more merrily than ever, taking hue from the many-tinted windows through which stream the rays of the tripods. But to the chamber which lies most westwardly of the seven there are now none of the maskers who venture, for the night is waning away; and there flows a ruddier light through the blood-colored panes; and the blackness of the sable drapery appalls; and to him whose foot falls on the sable carpet, there comes from the near clock of ebony a muffled peal more solemnly emphatic than any which reaches their ears who indulge in the more remote gaieties of the other apartments.

But these other apartments were densely crowded, and in them beat feverishly the heart of life. And the revel went whirlingly on, until at length there commenced the sounding of midnight upon the clock. And then the music ceased, as I have told; and the evolutions of the waltzers were quieted; and there was an uneasy cessation of all things as before. But now there were twelve strokes to be sounded by the bell of the clock; and thus it happened, perhaps that more of thought crept, with more of time into the meditations of the thoughtful among those who revelled. And thus too, it happened, that before the last echoes of the last chime had utterly sunk into silence, there were many individuals in the crowd who had found leisure to become aware of the presence of a masked figure which had arrested the attention of no single individual before. And the rumor of this new presence having spread itself whisperingly around, there arose at length from the whole company a buzz, or murmur, of horror, and of disgust.

In an assembly of phantasms such as I have painted, it may well be supposed that no ordinary appearance could have excited such sensation. In truth the masquerade license of the night was nearly unlimited; but the figure in question had out-Heroded Herod, and gone beyond the bounds of even the prince's indefinite decorum. There are chords in the hearts of the most reckless which cannot be touched without emotion. Even with the utterly lost, to whom life and death are equally jests, there are matters of which no jest can be made. The whole company, indeed, seemed now deeply to feel that in the costume and bearing of the stranger neither wit nor propriety existed. The figure was tall and gaunt, and shrouded from head to foot in the habiliments of the grave. The mask which concealed the visage was made so nearly to resemble the countenance of a stiffened corpse that the closest scrutiny must have difficulty in detecting the cheat. And yet all this might have been endured, if not approved, by the mad revellers around. But the mummer had gone so far as to assume the type of the Red Death. His vesture was dabbled in blood -- and his broad brow, with all the features of his face, was besprinkled with the scarlet horror.

When the eyes of Prince Prospero fell on this spectral image (which, with a slow and solemn movement, as if more fully to sustain its role, stalked to and fro among the waltzers) he was seen to be convulsed, in the first moment with a strong shudder either of terror or distaste; but in the next, his brow reddened with rage.

"Who dares" -- he demanded hoarsely of the courtiers who stood near him -- "who dares insult us with this blasphemous mockery? Seize him and unmask him -- that we may know whom we have to hang, at sunrise, from the battlements!"

It was in the eastern or blue chamber in which stood Prince Prospero as he uttered these words. They rang throughout the seven rooms loudly and clearly, for the prince was a bold and robust man, and the music had become hushed at the waving of his hand.

It was in the blue room where stood the prince, with a group of pale courtiers by his side. At first, as he spoke, there was a slight rushing movement of this group in the direction of the intruder, who, at the moment was also near at hand, and now, with deliberate and stately step, made closer approach to the speaker. But from a certain nameless awe with which the mad assumptions of the mummer had inspired the whole party, there were found none who put forth a hand to seize him; so that, unimpeded, he passed within a yard of the prince's person; and while the vast assembly, as with one impulse, shrank from the centers of the rooms to the walls, he made his way uninterruptedly, but with the same solemn and measured step which had distinguished him from the first, through the blue chamber to the purple -- to the purple to the green -- through the green to the orange -- through this again to the white -- and even thence to the violet, ere a decided movement had been made to arrest him. It was then, however, that the Prince Prospero, maddened with rage and the shame of his own momentary cowardice, rushed hurriedly through the six chambers, while none followed him on account of a deadly terror that had seized upon all. He bore aloft a drawn dagger, and had approached, in rapid impetuosity, to within three or four feet of the retreating figure, when the latter, having attained the extremity of the velvet apartment, turned suddenly and confronted his pursuer. There was a sharp cry -- and the dagger dropped gleaming upon the sable carpet, upon which most instantly afterward, fell prostrate in death the Prince Prospero. Then summoning the wild courage of despair, a throng of the revellers at once threw themselves into the black apartment, and seizing the mummer whose tall figure stood erect and motionless within the shadow of the ebony clock, gasped in unutterable horror at finding the grave cerements and corpse- like mask, which they handled with so violent a rudeness, untenanted by any tangible form.

And now was acknowledged the presence of the Red Death. He had come like a thief in the night. And one by one dropped the revellers in the blood-bedewed halls of their revel, and died each in the despairing posture of his fall. And the life of the ebony clock went out with that of the last of the gay. And the flames of the tripods expired. And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all.



Edgar Allan Poe was a writer who lived at 203 North Amity Street in Baltimore, Maryland.

My elderly mother lived the last few years of her life in the Florida Keys. Despite being in her eighties, she was in reasonably good health. She walked her two dogs every day, played bridge once a week and was still a relatively safe driver, except at night. At her last eye examination for her drivers license, the doctor yielded to her pleas and passed her but asked that she stay out of his neighborhood. I thought it was funny but she never did see the humor in it.

When we talked on the phone, I would ask her how she was doing. She would tell me she was fine and keeping busy. Today, she was going to Wal Mart. Tomorrow, maybe the Publix grocery store while the next day she had to get gas. She said her life revolved around these short trips. She said that they gave her something to do every day.

Fast forward twenty years and I’m sitting in my house, under a stay-at-home order because of the virus. I think about my mother and her short trips to stay busy and find myself in a similar situation. Yesterday I went to Sam’s. Tomorrow, Publix. In a couple of days Ace Hardware. That will be a special trip for my wife and me. There’s a Wawa a couple blocks further and we will stop and get a coffee and maybe a pastry. In today’s world, Wawa is our substitute for dinner out.

Coming home from Wawa, we will take the long way through the downtown of an old central Florida town trying to remake itself as a chic restaurant and boutique destination. Stores will be closed and traffic light. But I will still drive slowly down the town’s main street and remember the busy farmers market and sidewalk cafes of just a few weeks ago.

Tonight, my wife will walk our two dogs, just as my mother did. I may join her. But while my mother walked a mile or more along the ocean, we will walk a residential sidewalk. Maybe we will see other couples also walking, and wave. Maybe the boy around the corner will be shooting baskets at his portable net. Maybe a car will pass us. As we near our home, we will pass the small children’s playground with its metal gate wired shut. One day the wire will be gone, the gate opened and children playing. Maybe. Just maybe because nothing is certain any more.



John Smithwick is a writer living in Florida.

“They were in my cart. I saw them. Right there, I swear.”

She nods at him. “I believe you.”

“I hadn’t seen them in weeks. It’s bad enough going to Ralph’s and the cleaning product shelves are empty, but it seems to me if Amazon Fresh lets you put something in your cart, it ought to stay in your cart, doesn’t that make sense?”

He taps at his laptop keys, harder than necessary. “Why do people take all the sanitizing wipes? One per family, fuck, society is falling apart. It’s anarchy.” He sighs.

“Anarchy,” she says, crushing peppercorns with her knife.

He stares at the computer screen. “What good is paying for Amazon Prime if they can’t get you what you want? They never have Cottonelle toilet paper. I gave in and got that shitty toilet paper that has five sheets to a roll. Sure, it’s soft, but it lasts a day, especially if you’re crapping all the time because you’re anxious about surviving a pandemic.”

He closes the computer.

“I made hand sanitizer,” she says. “We have plenty.”

“It’s not the same.” He opens the computer. Takes a deep breath. “Let me see what’s in the cart. So. Zero sanitizing wipes. But we’ve got enchilada sauce, Imodium, Sleepytime tea.”

“You could add rice vinegar.” She puts the peppercorns in the bowl and reaches for the fresh ginger. “We’re almost out.”

“Rice vinegar.” Click click click. “Nakano Seasoned Rice Vinegar.”

“No. Unseasoned.”

Click click. “There isn’t any. Of course.” He slaps the computer. “Fuck.”

“It’ll turn up. Keep refreshing. Why don’t you pour yourself a glass of wine?”

“I don’t want to drink it all. Suppose we run out?”

“We’ll call BevMo. They deliver.”

He grumbles. Looks at his order. “Reduced fat Triscuits. We might as well eat full fat Triscuits, what’s the point?”

“Why don’t you order some lard? We don’t have to eat my chicken adobo for dinner. We’ll just have giant mounds of lard. Yum.”

“Funny. I probably couldn’t find lard anyway. The same people hoarding sanitizing wipes and Cottonelle toilet paper and unseasoned rice vinegar are also hoarding lard.” He looks at her. “The ginger smells good.”

“It does, doesn’t it?”

He hits refresh. “Still no unseasoned rice vinegar. They don’t have Salt and Vinegar Pringles. Or bleach. Or Kleenex with lotion. Is this the way it’s always going to be?”

“The new normal. For now.”

“Forever?” he says.

She doesn’t answer. Rubs the ginger across the Microplane and inhales the scent.



Ann Lewis Hamilton is a writer living in California.