A Beach Encounter
By MeKel Engel
The tide had taken her clothes. Not in a roaring surge, but slowly and easily like it had been cleaning up after her.
She had laid everything on one of the gray rocks -shirt, shorts, panties-while she waded into the Irish water that numbed her ankles and pushed her breath out as it skimmed around her shoulders. When she turned around the clothes were gone. At first she wondered if anyone had grabbed them, but all the people that she could see were far across the sandy part of the beach marching back and forth from the water’s edge or relaxing under tiny umbrellas that were posted up beside them.
She checked the next rock, and the next. Then she felt a “lost at sea” feeling for her clothing and for herself- being so far from home. She decided to lean against a rock to steady herself.
Her gaze followed the beach back to the curved line of rentals, a few gulls flying in dark tiny M’s across the sky. All of a sudden she saw someone walking along the curve on the horizon coming towards her!
So she did the only thing she could do, she hid. The rocks along the shore made a jagged little maze and seaweed stuck around her ankles, making every step slick. She peaked over a rock. The man had settled about forty feet away on a bright blue towel that he laid out in the sandy stretch beyond the rocks. A paper book balanced against the back of his fingers. He was still and deeply absorbed in the book.
A breeze tugged at the ear of the page he was reading. He scratched his nose, scratched his leg.
As time went on, she stated inventing an identity for him.
He was probably a professor. Or a journalist on vacation. Maybe he was reading about distant lands, medieval trade routes. He had come to the beach to reach a deeper level of thinking while other tourists .were happy eating gelato and playing frisbee.
She imagined what it would be like if he were to strike up conversation with her. If she could possibly ask him to allow her to borrow his towel.
The sun was becoming more distant and some clouds pushed over soft gray covering the sky. He skin was covered in goosebumps from her legs up to her arms.
Her mood shifted with the weather change as though the embarrassment she could face wasn’t as serious of an issue as she’d thought before,
Then something happened. He stood suddenly, letting his book fall from his hip to the towel and digging into the sand. Someone shouted and his head was already turned to the waterline down the beach,
A small crowd began to gather and he was slowly peddling towards them.
Her stomach tightened. If something bad had happened maybe she should call for help. But she couldn’t run up the beach with her skin showing,
Her eyes dropped to the bright blue towel lying alone on the beach and the decision arrived all at once.
She darted over to the towel and snatched it up.
A boy was laughing,… not at her, they were holding up an inflatable raft .
Someone had rescued the inflatable raft!
No ambulance, no panic, just laughing.
The people are on the elephants going up the hill to feed the cats. I am in the parking lot and I can see that the elephants started running into each other. I don’t want the trainer to get mad so I hike up the mountain to let the trainer know it wasn’t the elephants fault. There’s a man dressed like a sikh. I can’t see where I’m going so I stop at a house on the way. A little girl answers and says she’ll go ask her dad if the trail leads to the elephants. Then I notice the door is locked in front of me. So I hike up the trail. The Sikh is doing yoga on the ground and the elephants are walking back down with the people on them.
Jay explained about his lucid dream while waking to me placing my hand on his heart. Then he softly falls back into the ebb and flow of snoring.
I explain to him that I was falling asleep last night to ideas of showing compassion and practicing kindness so we’re in sync.
I sit in the silence, the heater humming softly behind my back. The wind chimes drift in and out of focus—small melodies breaking apart with each passing gust.
Lil Bit rests at my left foot, her fur brushing lightly against my skin, a quiet reminder of something living, something present.
I check on you. Your deep breaths guide you somewhere I cannot follow.
The bitter trace of grape juice lingers on my tongue from breakfast—sweetness turned faint, almost forgotten.
And still, everything feels suspended here.
It’s Earth Day—a day to feel gratitude for water, for fresh vegetables, for fruit blended into something alive.
Root your bare fingers into some soil and let the earth settle beneath your fingernails.
To celebrate life not loudly, but with intention.
With kindness. With compassion. With the simple act of being here.
Beach Encounter 2
By MeKel Engel
The woman on the beach reluctantly agrees to walk with the man to the gelato stand and she’s only wearing the towel. She’s trying to treat it casually but she is hyper-aware of how ridiculous the situation looks.
Their conversation is light at first- tourists. He tells her he is a local. The weather,
The man’s perspective becomes the narrative lens. He notices that she’s being cautious but still curious. At the ice cream stand, they sit on a wooden bench, sharing small talk and watching the sunset fade.
As they wander the boardwalk afterward, he mentions his late wife causally. He explains she had been ill for a long time and had spent her last months in a care facility near the coast. His tone is subdued but not dramatic, which unsettles the woman.
She begins quietly filling in emotional blanks with suspicion- wondering why he sounds so detached, wondering about the circumstances of death.
The man, unaware of her internal spiral, continues talking.
As the evening drifts on, her imagination takes control: His calmness when talking about illness, the towel incident earlier, his solitary lifestyle.
She begins creating a dark narrative in her mind perhaps that he neglected his wife while acting as a caregiver.
She abruptly grabs his towel, half in panic and half as an excuse to escape, and runs.
She sneaks back to her timeshare building, clutching the towel. Once inside, she locks the door and feels a rush of adrenaline and shame. She imagines he might come looking for it, but instead the night grows quiet. She replays the dramatic story in her head when the morning sun rises and tried to make sense of it.
The next day she overhears details from locals talking about another local and learns that the case involved negligence at the care facility, which has been under investigation.
Her imagined narrative deflates.
The towel now feels like an absurd symbol of her own mistake.
The trip feels muted and she’s more embarrassed than ever. Months pass, and she’s back to work, the same daily grind in her hometown. She has another trip to the beach house planned, but tells herself it’s unlikely she’ll be seeing him again.
The woman on the beach reluctantly agrees to walk with the man to the gelato stand and she’s only wearing the towel. She’s trying to treat it casually but she is hyper-aware of how ridiculous the situation looks.
Their conversation is light at first- tourists. He tells her he is a local. The weather,
The man’s perspective becomes the narrative lens. He notices that she’s being cautious but still curious. At the ice cream stand, they sit on a wooden bench, sharing small talk and watching the sunset fade.
As they wander the boardwalk afterward, he mentions his late wife causally. He explains she had been ill for a long time and had spent her last months in a care facility near the coast. His tone is subdued but not dramatic, which unsettles the woman.
She begins quietly filling in emotional blanks with suspicion- wondering why he sounds so detached, wondering about the circumstances of death.
The man, unaware of her internal spiral, continues talking.
As the evening drifts on, her imagination takes control: His calmness when talking about illness, the towel incident earlier, his solitary lifestyle.
She begins creating a dark narrative in her mind perhaps that he neglected his wife while acting as a caregiver.
She abruptly grabs his towel, half in panic and half as an excuse to escape, and runs.
She sneaks back to her timeshare building, clutching the towel. Once inside, she locks the door and feels a rush of adrenaline and shame. She imagines he might come looking for it, but instead the night grows quiet. She replays the dramatic story in her head when the morning sun rises and tried to make sense of it.
The next day she overhears details from locals talking about another local and learns that the case involved negligence at the care facility, which has been under investigation.
Her imagined narrative deflates.
The towel now feels like an absurd symbol of her own mistake.
The trip feels muted and she’s more embarrassed than ever. Months pass, and she’s back to work, the same daily grind in her hometown. She has another trip to the beach house planned, but tells herself it’s unlikely she’ll be seeing him again.
She hears her name before she’s fully convinced it’s him.
The voice is familiar enough that her shoulders tense up immediately. She slows down against her own will power to leave as fast as she can. He walks up, two pairs of sandals dangling from his fingers.
For a moment they just look at each other. Then he smiles and begins talking, “Small coastline, I had a feeling I’d run into you again here.”
She begins to laugh but it sounds dry. “I’m not a local.” She says.
They stand together against the dune grass. Waves break steadily in behind them and a few gulls make their sounds overhead.
“I thought I saw you this morning.” He began.
“I was avoiding you.” She replied.
“I guess, after how our last visit ended.” He responds.
“I owe you something.” She says.
He looks puzzled, then begins to laugh. “I was beginning to think the ocean had taken it.”
She studies the sand between their feet instead of his face. “That night, I filled in a lot of blanks about you and your wife that weren’t mine to fill in.”
His expression softens, but he doesn’t interrupt.
As she finished, he reaches in and touches her elbow, then softly kisses the side of her mouth.
Alice the Neurodivergent
Alice slipped behind the row of townhouses to escape the white glare of the sun reflecting off the pavement. The narrow strip of shade felt like relief. A chain-link fence ran along the back of the properties, and beside it an old tree pushed up through a square wooden frame that had once been a garden bed.
She dropped her backpack and leaned her shoulders against the rough bark. Her legs stretched out until her feet touched the fence. Inside the wooden border the garden had gone half-wild—dry soil tangled with stubborn weeds and a few patches of green that had survived neglect.
She tilted her head back to look at the sky.
The city never really went dark. Light from streetlamps and distant parking lots washed the sky into a dull gray-orange. Sirens drifted through the late evening air, sometimes close, sometimes far away, the sound echoing between buildings until it was hard to tell how much time had passed between one and the next.
Alice tried to piece together the night and couldn’t. Time had been slipping lately—stretching, folding in on itself. Hunger did that. So did weeks without proper sleep.
Her clothes felt stiff and grimy when she rubbed her fingers across the fabric. Dust had settled into every seam. Her water bottle was still heavy in her hand, filled only to the rounded bottom where the plastic curved inward. Not much, but something.
Her lips were cracked and sunburned, the skin tight when she moved her mouth.
She told herself she was thinking clearly. She had to believe that. People already looked at her like she wasn’t credible the moment she tried to explain things—how noise piled up in her head, how fluorescent lights made it impossible to think, how rules in shelters changed without warning. The world always seemed built around systems she couldn’t quite align with.
But exhaustion made everything worse.
Her stomach twisted hard enough to make her fold forward slightly. When she looked down, she noticed a small mushroom pushing out of the soil near the base of the tree. It grew beneath a cluster of low green leaves, pale and round like a button.
She stared at it for a long moment. Somewhere in the back of her mind a voice tried to calculate risk. Then she brushed the dirt away and ate it like a sandwich, slow and careful, as if the act itself might steady the world.
Afterward she dozed beneath the tree across the street from the neighborhood garden.
Sleep pulled at her in uneven waves.
When she opened her eyes again, a white rabbit sat just inside the fence, watching her with unsettling patience.
She startled awake when she felt tugging at her wrist.
The rabbit was gnawing on the strap of her watch.
She jerked upright, determined to chase it, but tripped over her own loose shoelaces as she lunged forward. Alice stumbled after it, lost her balance, and pitched forward headfirst.
Suddenly the ground gave way beneath her.
She tumbled into a narrow tunnel that slid beneath the grass. Her clothes twisted and snagged as she spiraled downward through the dim passage. The concrete walls were covered with crude animal graffiti—rabbits, grinning cats, and other shapes scratched into the surface. Pebbles scraped under her shoes as she skidded along the slick floor, her cheek pressed against cold concrete while the tunnel curved and dropped.
The slide finally spilled her out beneath a creaking merry-go-round.
Above her, its rusted structure groaned and turned unevenly, one slow, lopsided rotation at a time.
Across from her, past one of the painted horses on its pole, something gleamed in the humid plastic paneling:
two eyes and a wide, floating grin.
Then she saw the rabbit again.
It dropped her watch onto the ground.
The glass cracked open on impact, and the numbers and ticking sounds spilled upward in a spiraling stream, drifting toward the sky like loose pieces of time.
As she watched, the rabbit twisted and stretched, its shape warping until it became the Cheshire Cat.
Towering over her now, the creature’s grin widened.
Alice gasped and jumped back, choking on her breath. Instinct took over—she crab-walked backward across the dirt before scrambling behind a nearby bush.
The grin flickered above her vision one moment, then vanished.
In its place, a man appeared—like a glitch in the light—stepping forward casually as if he had always been there.
Before she could react, blue lights flashed behind her.
Hands reached down, steadying her by the arms. A small group of people gathered around, guiding her toward an ambulance waiting nearby as the lights continued to strobe against the dark like an artificial sunset.
Later, walking down the white corridor, Alice would describe the hospital as a palace made of plastic.
The lights hummed overhead and the walls shone with a sterile grandeur that reminded her of marble, except that it bent slightly if you pushed it. Everything gleamed, but nothing felt real.
From her perspective the staff’s expressions appeared exaggerated, as if their smiles were stretched too wide across their faces. Their pastel scrubs looked like ceremonial robes. Their name badges hung from lanyards like crowns worn just below the throat.
The Mad Hatters ran civil court.
That was what the case review felt like to Alice—a quiet, polite court where a circle of professionals decided whether a person got to stay a few weeks before making another decision. They sat around a table the way guests sit around a tea party: careful posture, clipped voices, polite interruptions.
Alice arrived with a defensive posture. Shoulders slightly hunched. Hands folded into the sleeves of the hospital sweatshirt. After not speaking to anyone for a month, her voice was something she treated like a fragile object—something that might break if she used it too much.
When they brought her into court, she complied. She mostly watched.
A clipboard flipped open. Someone adjusted their glasses. Another person tapped a pen against a folder.
“Alright, Alice,” one of the Hatters said gently. “We just want to understand what brought you here.”
Another Hatter cleared his throat. “There was mention of a… mushroom?”
The Hatters exchanged glances. A subtle ripple around the tea table.
“Did you believe it was… psychedelic?” someone asked carefully.
Alice considered the question.
“I don’t know if it was psychedelic.”
“But you ate it anyway?” the woman across the table said.
Another glance passed between them.
“And what did the mushroom do?” one of them asked.
“I’m not sure what you mean by hallucinate.”
“Did you see things that weren’t there?”
The Hatters paused again, unsure whether this was humor or confusion or something else entirely.
“Alright,” another voice said, gently steering things back to the script. “Alice, what are you asking for today?”
The professionals nod slowly, writing things down in the language of the court. Their pens scratch softly against paper like teacups against saucers.
Alice watches them as if they are a strange species performing a ritual.
Finally someone closes the folder.
“Well,” the lead Hatter says, offering a polite plastic smile, “we’ll run your papers for release.”
Another adds quietly, already writing in the chart:
The crowns dip as they sign their names.
Alice feels it first. The floor trembles slightly. A water cup ripples. She says quietly: “The ground is moving.” The Court dismisses it. “Probably construction.” Then the earthquake hits. Lights swing. Ceiling tiles shift. Carts roll down the hall. Papers scatter across the table. For a moment: Everyone loses composure. The Court members are no longer composed officials — they are just people trying to steady themselves. Alice remains calm. She sits still and breathes slowly. Her survival instincts are stronger than their procedures. After the shaking stops, alarms beep. The room is silent. One of them finally asks: “Are you okay?”
Alice waits in a small observation room after intake.
A nurse enters — different from the formal “Court” staff. She seems more relaxed, maybe slightly eccentric. She keeps a small deck of tarot cards in her pocket. She flips one card for Alice.
To Alice — exhausted, overstimulated, and still partly dissociated from sleep deprivation — the cards look strange.
The figures on them resemble people she knows.
For a moment the floor looks like a crowded room of tiny characters watching her. Alice blinks and the illusion fades. The nurse says, “Sometimes that happens.”
Alice watches the cards like drifting leaves. With the characters, she is reminded of family and her past life.
Despite the earthquake moment, the system resets. Paperwork resumes. No one asks: “What do you need?” Alice internally explains what she meant by accommodation: quiet place to sleep predictable questions written communication time to process She is discharged with pamphlets. No watch. No accommodation.
After discharge Alice begins rebuilding quietly.
She get’s her things organized and cleans herself up, finding her way to the public library. Alice begins writing about the hospital experience.
By MeKel Engel
In the small desert city aligned with red-dirt canyons, where a river cuts through a canyon is an old stone bridge. This bridge has tunnels beneath it built for rail workers and was used by smugglers. During the 1930’s, the town rapidly grew into a bourgeois class of miners and trade workers. It’s the late 1950’s, and this prosperity lives an underground counter-culture of wanderers, folk scholars, and thieves. This mystery school of folk is known as the school of the Third Current.
Beneath this bridge lay moss-covered rocks, and near the river grow bio luminescent mushrooms that appear after rainfall.
Within the Third Current, the Bridge Bandits attend lessons on practical alchemy (herbal medicine, chemistry), spiritual alchemy, sacred geometry, survival, simple living, and philosophy of redistribution and mutual aid. The school’s instructors believe that the mushrooms could be part of an ancient communication network rooted in the ground and around the tunnels.
Rowan lives freely in the canyon among some cottonwood trees, stealing from the wealthy storefronts in town, to help maintain trades and to support migrant workers.
The air beneath the river bridge shimmered with blue spores. The mushrooms pulsed like small hearts under the arch, drumming low-frequency rhythms into the stone—an electromagnetic hum that Rowan could feel in her ribs. She crouched beside them, her gloves smudged with moss, eyes bright.
Elias arrived from the other side, jacket collar turned up against the fog. It had been months since she’d seen him—too many. His boots made no sound on the wet gravel, but the river carried his reflection toward her like a warning.
He hesitated a few paces away. “You shouldn’t be here, Robin.”
“Then neither should you,” she said, standing. “But here we are.” Rowan had grown up outdoors.
The mushrooms pulsed again, stronger this time. The glow rippled over the water, casting their faces in flashes of light. They both turned toward the sound as it shifted—like static through bone.
“What is that?” Elias murmured.
Rowan shook her head. “Been happening all week. Like they’re breathing… or listening.”
He crouched beside her, running his fingers just above the caps. “Listening to what?”
“Or who,” she said. And for a moment, neither spoke. There had always been something sacred about the space under this bridge—an edge-world between the town above and the wild beneath. But tonight the air buzzed as if charged with some larger awareness watching them both.
She stepped closer. “It’s been a while.”
Elias’s eyes softened. “Too long.”
“I missed you,” she said, louder than she meant to. “Things got… strange after Solstice Night. Everyone talking—rumors spreading like mold.”
“I’ve heard them,” he said, jaw tight. “Something about an energy vampire, right? —” he stopped himself.
Rowan nodded. “They say it only hunts after twilight. Leaves people hollow.”
“The townspeople love their stories,” he said bitterly. “But they look at anyone who stays up too late or works near the current, and suddenly you’re next to be blamed.”
His voice had that edge she remembered—the one that flared when he talked about the government.
“They don’t care what happens down here,” he went on. “Bureau inspectors take notes on us like we’re wildlife. Half our tools are illegal to even own now—experimental, they say. They want to study the phenomenon, not fix it. And yet I have to stay. Grants, partnerships, all that polite captivity.”
He looked at her then—really looked. “Nothing’s safe anymore, Rob. I’ve been followed, I think. Maybe it’s just paranoia. But I see the same shadows, same faces near the studio. Townsfolk, sometimes. Or maybe government auditors. Whoever they are—they’re patient.”
The mushrooms fluttered again, bright white for half a heartbeat. The hum became a rhythmic beat, syncing faintly with Rowan’s pulse.
Before either could speak again, a thud echoed from the east slope. A figure dropped down from the fog—Maren Vale, tall, weathered, eyes sharp as flint even in the dimness.
“You two are either brave or stupid,” he said quietly. “You think the town’s blind? You think the sensors don’t track magnetic activity this strong? Every time you meet, you risk exposing all of us.” He motioned to the pulsing fungi. “The folk school is supposed to be a rumor, not a glowing beacon under the bridge. You’re giving up too much.”
Rowan straightened. “We’re careful.”
“Careful?” Vale scoffed. “Bridge bandits, right? That’s what they call us now.” He glanced up toward the road above, tense. “Keep meeting here, and they’ll find our work. The mushrooms—all of it.”
Elias exhaled, the heat from his breath turning silver in the air. “It’s not the town, Vale.”
Rowan met his gaze. “No,” she said, voice soft but certain. “It’s something else.”
The three stood in silence as the mushrooms pulsed one final time.
The river had no name, and very few people knew it was there.
It cut through the red earth like a scar that refused to close, winding between plateaus and jagged stone ridges that burned orange at sunrise and bled purple at dusk. The town followed farther up to the North West where the ground flattened up enough for ambition.
They started streaming in from the same direction- migrant workers from dry valleys, broken coasts and places where the soil had let them down. They came with tools wrapped in cloth, children clinging to their backs. A future carved from stone.
The village began to expand until the mining began and the towns’ wealth began to swell. They found it in the deep red vein in a mountain, Word spread fast, and the townspeople didn’t want the migrant workers in the town, and few jobs were available. Greed came with the expansion.
The young group of three scholars, Dain, Sara, and Lio assisted with the plans. Soon after, exhaustion and fatigue set in, first through the town and with a few in the village.
They were there as volunteers as the town’s youngest scholars. Dain was carrying the tools. Eyes followed them from shaded doorways and half-built structure. The village had grown crowded. Too many people, not enough work, and tension that hung in the air like heat after a storm.
The young woman stood near the edge of an old well, sleeves rolled, hands stained with clay. She met them with her chin up. She turned as they approached, wiping he hands on a cloth tied at her waist. She seemed more grounded than the rest of the village.
At first, it was nothing. Then—there. A distant shuffle. Not one person. Several.
Kera turned toward the southeast ridge. “That’s not from the village.”
Figures appeared along the slope, small at first, then clearer as they moved. A group—maybe a dozen—making their way down from the higher rock formations. They carried packs, tools strapped to their backs, some dragging makeshift sleds behind them.
Sara shook her head slightly. “Not from any group I’ve seen.”
They watched in silence as the figures continued their descent, slow but steady.
Lio stepped forward a bit, scanning the ground absently—and then paused.
He crouched, brushing aside a thin layer of dust. Something caught the light—a faint glimmer beneath the red grit.
Lio picked it up carefully. A small, jagged piece of crystal, pale and translucent, threaded with faint lines that shimmered when it turned in the light, he leaned closer. “That’s not from the river.”
Kera stepped beside them, barely glancing before nodding. “Oh, yes. We have those forming in the rocks all around.”
“Higher up,” Sara said, gesturing toward the ridges. “In the fractures and shallow caves. They grow out of the stone in clusters if you leave them long enough.”
Dain frowned. “I’ve never seen anyone bring them down.”
“They usually don’t,” Sara replied. Her gaze shifted back to the approaching group. “Which means…”
Kera followed her line of sight. “They’ve been up there.”
“For a while,” Sara said. “Long enough to gather gear. Long enough to know where to find shelter.”
Lio turned the crystal in his fingers, thoughtful. “Makeshift caves, you said.”
Sara nodded. “There are pockets all through the far Northeast ridge. Not stable, but livable if you reinforce them.”
“And now they’re coming down,” Dain said.
“Or because they ran out of something,” Sara finished.
The four of them stood there, the small crystal catching light between them as the distant group drew closer—another piece of the shifting world around them, arriving whether anyone was ready or not.
Kera exhaled slowly. “Looks like we’re not the only ones trying to build something outside their control.”
Lio closed his hand around the crystal.
We noticed them as they walked northwest along the bank and crossed the bridge. They appeared as gypsy travelers, ankhs hanging from their necks, moving together like a quiet, purposeful caravan. They rose as a group, travelers dwelling in makeshift caves above a small stone bridge they discovered in the evening, having followed a thin river that met from the opposite side of a village. Traveling northwest, they found the river and decided to set their final camp there.
Word began to spread to our group that all members were teachers forming a school. Their goal was to establish an open mystery school, blending with the new trades emerging in the village among incoming migrants. But months after they began teaching the younger adults, they realized, to their disappointment, that the trades were not fair, and they could not openly run their healing shops to support the school.
As they stood speaking in a circle, setting up new tents for masters, a flicker of light bounced off the leaves like a spark, and for a moment they thought its source was a mushroom. The sun’s orb slowly slipped past the mountain’s silhouette. Their feet were stained red from the soil.
“We still have the old lectures,” one said, tracing a line in the dirt with a stick. “They don’t need walls. They can travel—passed from voice to voice, like we did before.”
“But the circle is smaller now,” another replied. “Those who stayed will expect more. They’ve seen the village, the trades… they’ll question what we bring.”
“Then we adapt,” a third said. “We weave the old teachings with what they’re living now. Let the river be part of the lesson. Let the work they do become the language.”
“And trust?” a fourth asked quietly.
“Earned again,” came the answer. “In smaller gatherings. In homes. Not in the open. Not yet.”
They nodded, the circle tightening as the last light thinned.
“We’ve been watching your camp from across the bank,” she said. “We mean no harm. We’re new here too.”
A master looked up, studying them. “Most who come say that. Few stay long enough to mean it.”
“We’re not traders,” another of the four added. “Not miners either. We’ve seen how that’s turned. We thought… maybe you could use help.”
“Help with what?” one of the Masters asked.
“Building, carrying, keeping watch,” he said. “Or listening. Whatever is needed.”
There was a pause, the river faint behind them.
“You understand,” a master said, “we don’t open our circle easily.”
“We’re not asking to enter it,” she replied. “Just to stand near it, for now.”
The masters exchanged glances.
“Then stand,” one finally said. “And listen. That’s where all of this begins.”
The young scholars went to the master at dusk, when the light stretched thin across the courtyard and the shadows seemed longer than they should have been.
“Something is wrong,” they said.
The master poured tea as if nothing had changed.
“The days are shorter,” one insisted. “Not by the clock—but inside them. We begin things and they are already over. We wake, and it is night.”
“And the people,” said another, “they are tired before they have lived the day.”
The master handed them each a cup.
“Do you believe time is disappearing?” he asked.
“We don’t know what we believe,” one admitted. “But everyone feels it.”
The master nodded. “Good. Then you are not asleep.”
A breeze moved through the courtyard, though the air had been still all day.
“There is talk,” another scholar said quietly, “that the government has invited outsiders. That they are studying us. Measuring productivity. Efficiency. Output.” He swallowed. “As if we are failing at being human.”
The scholars looked at one another, uneasy.
“We don’t know how to answer that,” one said.
The master gestured to the tea in their hands.
They obeyed. The tea was warm, simple, grounding.
“Tell me,” the master continued, “while you were drinking, where was time?”
“It was just now,” said another.
“It was enough,” whispered the youngest.
“Time is not disappearing,” he said. “Your attention is being taken.”
He stood and walked to the edge of the courtyard, where the last light clung to the horizon.
“When a river runs dry,” he said, “do you ask who stole the water? Or do you walk upstream?”
The scholars felt something shift inside them—subtle, but undeniable.
“Go back,” the master said. “Watch closely. Not the clocks. Not the rumors. Watch where your moments go.”
The master turned, his expression calm and unreadable.
“Then you will see whether time is vanishing… or being traded.”
The wind passed again, and this time, they all felt it.
A dimly lit room. The hum of equipment. Static murmuring beneath everything.
Rowan leaned over the table, notes scattered like fallen leaves.
“This isn’t random,” Rowan said. “It can’t be.”
Elias adjusted the dial again. The faint glow from the specimen jar flickered in response.
“It’s too consistent,” Elias replied. “Every pulse follows a structure.”
“You’re still chasing ghosts,” Maren said, stepping in.
“We’re not,” Rowan shot back. “You’ve seen them.”
“I’ve seen mushrooms,” Maren said calmly. “You’re the ones insisting they’re speaking.”
“Then listen more carefully,” he said. “It isn’t language the way you think.”
Rowan and Elias exchanged a look.
“I suspected,” Maren said. “But I couldn’t break it.”
“Because you don’t believe what it’s supposed to be,” she said. “That might be the only advantage you have.”
She turned to leave, then paused.
“If you figure it out,” she added, “don’t expect it to make sense.”
Elias leaned closer to the pulses.
“Not language,” Rowan said. “Structure.”
They worked in silence, the glow of the mushrooms syncing with the machine.
“No,” Rowan said. “It’s returning.”
“To the beginning,” Rowan said slowly. “Every time. Perfectly. No drift. No variation.”
The room seemed to hold its breath.
Rowan looked at the glowing jar, then back at Elias.
A pause stretched between them, heavy and electric.
Mattie Hawk and the Tunnel of Grey Light
By MeKel Engel
Northwest of the railway tunnel was our main town: scattered wooden buildings, farmland patches, and dirt roads near water access with a slightly higher elevation than the rest of the county. Far southeast there was a lake where the Utes met in spring and summer and had developed trades with Mattie Hawk’s grandparents, who raised her. In between is where Mattie volunteered her time as a farm hand for an older couple.
Mattie Hawk rides like the wind knew her name first. She’s a cowgirl shaped by the hard years after the Civil War, when nothing came easy and everything had to be earned twice over. Her black hair, thick and sun-touched at the edges, is usually tied back into Dutch braids to keep it out of her eyes, though a few stubborn strands always slip loose while she’s working or riding. Dust clings to her boots like it belongs there. On her dark chestnut-brown quarter horse, Mattie moves with effortless command. What really sets her apart is the way she speaks to everyone—she knows how to listen and speak so that everyone feels heard. It’s about respect for her, not softness. She keeps her tone even and never lets anger seep through. She gave up drinking at an early age when she lost her grandfather. At the time she wasn’t sober and felt there was nothing she could do to prevent his death; she often reflects on that time with deep remorse and depression. There are a few things you should know about Mattie: everyone knows she’s never missed a shot, she settles disputes before they get ugly, she doesn’t talk about her past, and people know better than to offer her a drink.
It was near dawn. Mattie took a deep breath and pulled her hair back from her face. Sweat gathered on her scalp. She’d just finished irrigating at the ranch where she worked, and a group of drunk wanderers arrived—rowdy and unpredictable. They began to disrupt the peace, and Mattie knew it was about half an hour before they would arrive in town. So she prepared herself, helped the old lady close up, mounted her quarter horse, and rode in the opposite direction.
The first things the wanderers did were harass the townsfolk, then start fires and small fights. The cowgirl refused to let the situation get violent, so she stepped in and got the guests some food. She knew the group would settle in town for a while, at least until they drank most of the bar dry. As her horse grew heated, she dropped down the left side of her horse and led her to the lake by the reins. Since it was late summer, the Ute camps were near the rivers and water sources for gathering plants, catching fish, and hunting at higher elevations. She rode uphill on a small trail until she heard drumming and followed it to the first wickiup and an animal-hide lodge. She spotted the elder’s shelter and tied up her horse. She knew the elder would be more open to helping her. She unloaded some supplies and made her way over, but heard rustling. Cautiously, she slowed and tiptoed to the other side of the fire. Now she felt hesitant to approach. The elder had stopped drumming and muttered something. The fire was low and smoke curled up like a question neither of them wished to answer.
“You sit like a storm held in a small sky,” the elder observed.
Mattie said, “And you speak like you’ve already buried the storm.”
“Not all burials are endings,” the elder responded.
“They smell like sickness and forgetting,” Mattie replied, describing the drunks in town.
“Yes.”
“And you want me to go to them?”
“I want you to walk into the place where forgetting has made a home… and remind it that memory still breathes.”
“They need medicine.”
“You are like medicine.” The elder placed herbs into Mattie’s bare palm. “These will help them, but roots alone won’t teach a body to remember itself.”
When she got back on the horse she began the rituals and some people joined in for encouragement, then a few more accepted the herbal treatments. Storytelling began and some of the wanderers resisted, but one stayed by Mattie’s side the entire time.
Mattie started to have a flashback of her heavy drinking. She remembered how lonely she felt the day her grandpa had the accident and how they’d argued because she wanted to be left on her own to drink that day. She began to see herself in the wanderers.
One wanderer lashed out violently, and this was around the time everyone began to question Mattie’s approach and methods. Supplies ran low, tensions rose. Some villagers demanded the wanderers be driven out—or killed. A group formed against the cowgirl. The native healers warned her that trying to force change would break everything. So Mattie stood alone, trying to hold both sides together.
She was pulled between wanderers who wanted to change and kept failing, and healers warning that force would shatter things. She doubled down on the learning lessons and used it as a chance to teach the youth.
“Morals aren’t what you say when things are easy. They’re what you hold onto when it’d be simpler to do wrong,” she told them.
Dusk settled again over the small country town, and just as quickly it felt like dawn returned. On her way to work, passing the old railway tunnel, Mattie noticed small spirals of dust twisting along the ground. The wind didn’t feel natural. Then she heard it—a voice, low and distant, like it was echoing through time. She paused, but only for a moment.
By the time she returned to town, her arms were full of herbs. As always, she prepared a circle for storytelling after visiting the Ute elder. Fewer people came each time. Chairs sat empty. Bottles clinked somewhere in the distance. But one man remained—the sober wanderer. Quiet. Steady. Present.
That night, just as the circle began, the air shifted. A flash of gray light burst from the direction of the tunnel. Bootsteps followed. A drunk gunslinger staggered into the circle, though there was nothing weak about him. His eyes were sharp, dangerous. His hand never strayed far from his revolver. He grinned.
“Look at this,” he drawled. “A circle of saints in a sinner’s town.”
He laughed. “What is this? Tea and stories? You folks forget what real living feels like?”
Mattie stood slowly. “You’re interrupting something important.”
“Important?” he scoffed. “You call hiding from life important? Sobriety?” He spat the word like it tasted foul. “That ain’t strength. That’s fear dressed up polite.”
The wanderer shifted uncomfortably.
The gunslinger continued, pacing. “Back in my day, a man faced the storm head-on. Didn’t hide behind circles and stories.”
He straightened, almost proudly, and quoted, his voice suddenly formal: “‘Duty is the sublimest word in the English language.’”
Mattie studied him. “And you think this—” she gestured at his shaking hand, his bottle, his anger— “is duty?”
He smirked. “‘It is well that war is so terrible, or we should grow too fond of it.’”
She stepped closer. “And did you grow too fond of it?”
Silence flickered across his face—but only for a second. Then the sneer returned.
“War made men honest. Violence strips away lies. You? You’re just teaching people to pretend they’re better than they are.”
Mattie’s voice was calm but firm. “No. I’m teaching them they can choose.”
“Choose?” he laughed. “People don’t change. They break. Or they don’t.”
He turned to the crowd. “Go on. Who here wants a drink? Who’s tired of pretending?”
A few people looked away. One man almost stepped forward.
Mattie’s voice cut through. “Enough.”
The gunslinger turned back to her, eyes narrowing. “You must be the one they follow.”
“I don’t lead,” she said. “I stand with them.”
“Well then,” he said, grinning wide, “stand with me.” His hand hovered over his gun. “Duel. You and me. Let’s see what your ‘morality’ is worth when it’s staring down a barrel.”
“If you lose,” he continued, “they see what you really are. If you win…” He shrugged. “Well. Let’s be honest—you won’t.”
Mattie didn’t answer right away. The wanderer stepped forward, eyes wide, voice shaking. “Mattie… you don’t have to—”
“Who are you?” she asked the gunslinger.
The man smiled, slow and cold.
Before he could answer, the wanderer whispered, almost in disbelief, “General Lee…?”
The name hung in the air like a ghost.
The gunslinger tipped his hat slightly. “At your service.”
That night, under a quiet sky, the wanderer sat beside Mattie.
“Thank you,” he said. “For staying. For… not giving up on me.”
Mattie stared out toward the tunnel. “I almost did.”
He shook his head. “No. You didn’t.”
She exhaled slowly. “Violence… it’s all I’ve ever known. It’s easy. It’s… familiar.” Her hands tightened. “Tonight, when he spoke… part of me wanted to answer in his language.”
The wanderer said nothing.
“But that’s not who I am anymore,” she continued. “Or at least… not who I want to be.” She looked at him. “If I take that duel… I risk everything. Not just my life. What this place stands for.”
“And if you don’t?” he asked.
She looked back toward the tunnel, where faint dust still stirred. “Then he keeps tearing it apart.”
The next day, the town gathered. The gunslinger stood at the far end of the street, relaxed, confident. Mattie stepped forward. The world felt different. As she faced him, her vision began to drain of color. The town faded into monochrome—black, white, and endless shades of gray. The wind slowed. The dust hung in the air like suspended ash.
The gunslinger smiled, but even that seemed delayed, stretched across time. “Let’s see your truth,” he said.
His hand moved first. Slow. Deliberate. He drew. Fired. The shot cracked—but in Mattie’s greyscale world, it unfolded like thunder underwater.
Then—a violent snap. The gun backfired. The force erupted backward into his chest. His expression shifted from triumph to shock. He staggered. Dust began to peel from his body, like he was unraveling.
“No—” he started, but his voice fractured with him.
The wind returned—not natural—pulling, spiraling. The tunnel behind him burst open, no longer just stone but a swirling portal of gray light. The gunslinger’s body disintegrated completely, turning to ash that whipped violently backward. Pulled. Dragged. Erased. Back into the tunnel.
The light collapsed. Silence. Color rushed back into the world. Mattie stood still, her gun never drawn. The town watched. The wanderer exhaled, almost a laugh, almost a sob. Mattie lowered her gaze—not victorious, but steady. The wind died. And for the first time in a long while, the town felt quiet in a different way.
The Third Thread
By MeKel Engel
He has taken the day off with a plan: map the week so the wedding that he attends and a string of spa event fall into place that will give him a little island of time to himself; to clean and finish some small, precise tasks.
On the easel is an abstract he began three nights ago: three distinct motifs pulled toward a central knot- a center theme that seems to bind with itself without his conscious direction. Grey at the outer edges that hushes everything and a blur of color toward the center that suddenly pops. He wanders to the couch, half in thought, half in rehearsal for the week. He picks up a slim book titled, “Lenses of Gender” reads a paragraph and feels the words thin out meaninglessly– reading for knowledge instead of comprehension He lowers the book to the end table and it flops back open on it’s own, spine drooping. His eyes flicker back to the canvas.
The apartment is airy but cluttered in intentional ways- half-finished canvases stacked against the wall, a record player humming softly. A paint-stained mug sitting beside a neatly arranged set of brushes. A book with an old cracked spine marking it’s page on an end table.
“You never told me you painted this much.” Lena says, as they head for the door.
Elliot shrugs, “I don’t talk about things I’m still figuring out.”
Silence and then she adds, “I’m not trying to figure you out, just trying to understand you.” As he shows her to the door.
He calls himself Elliot Vance, even though the name feels like it belongs to a version of him he’s still rehearsing. At 35, Elliot lives in that careful curated middle space– old enough to still be “figuring things out.” He dresses in neutral tones, speaks in softened certainties, and says just enough to seem emotionally intelligent without it actually being known.
When he speaks, he gives enough time for pauses to listen; only enough to mirror. He needs contrast to feel stable and needs reflection to feel real.
Lena is into clean eating, she hates mess, and she’s idealistic. Everything for her needs to be controlled. Marena, on the other hand, carries a kind of restless energy that never really settles. She’s always half a step ahead of herself, fingers tapping, eyes scanning, mind running a million miles an hour. There’s always a cigarette never far from reach. She cares deeply about how she’s perceived. Her hair is styled just right, her make up deliberate, her clothes clean and sprayed with febreeze.
Lena moves in an entirely different rhythm. Early twenties, but with a calm that feels mature beyond her years. She’s grounded, but loose and unbothered letting things unfold as they will.
Between Elliot and these two women it’s friction and fascination. One is all edges and urgency, the other soft lines and patience. One tries to control the moment and the other let’s it pass.
It’s later that day and Marena is with Elliot in the same apartment, but the energy feels different. The canvases now look less artistic, and the clutter feels heavier.
Marena mentions, “This one’s new.”
Elliot says “I didn’t think you’d notice.”
“I notice everything, I just don’t always say it.” She says.
Elliot smirks “That’s what I like about you.”
The ceremony had just ended and the receptions unfolded into a soft, golden calm. Glasses clinked gently. A low hum of conversation drifted through the garden threaded with laughter and the distant swell of music.
Everything felt suspended and the linen drifted in the breeze- almost dreamlike.
Lena stood near a bar, not drinking of course. Her eyes wandered without intention- over the string lights, couples dancing, clusters of strangers.
He was across the lawn talking with someone. At the same moment, as if pulled by the same thread, Elliot’s gaze flicked up.
Not fully, but he couldn’t pretend it wasn’t real.
She was moving towards him from a crowd.
“Umm, sorry I have to end our conversation,” He said, placing his hand on his companies arm “I have to leave.”
Lena had already seen him seeing them both, and she didn’t know the other woman. So she reached for him, but he dodged. Giving one last response. “Sorry Lena, I have to go-”
After the wedding ended that way, Marena told herself it was nothing. A strange overlap. A coincidence dressed up as something heavier.
But after pushing it out of her mind several times, Marena’s curiosity began to grow. The easiest way for her to fill in the gaps was to navigate social media. For the longest time, she didn’t think the other woman had a social media account. She looked up photos of Elliot with the same background, scanned each photo to see if they were taken from his apartment to see if it was an intimate connection and she planned to connect the dots before meeting in person. She didn’t even know the younger woman’s name! She found clean angles, half-finished captions. She followed breadcrumbs.
She began piecing them together, cross-referencing posts across months. One picture on a balcony. One from another account on his balcony. Finally, she found a picture of him with Lena in the background laughing on his balcony. Then she scrolled down farther, deeper.
Marena leaned back in her chair, the soft glow of the laptop reflecting in her eyes as her thoughts tangled into something sharper, more deliberate.
Her fingers hovered over the keys, then pulled back, then hovered again.
A balcony photo. A tagged comment. A half-cropped smile beside Elliot’s shoulder.
The junk food sat unopened at the table, loud in its crinkled packaging. The cigarette rested beside it in her new resin ash tray- the illusion of clarity with it.
She picked it up, turned it in her fingers.
Maybe it’s Lena’s time with him.
Her mind began to map him out- his habits, his rhythms.
Elliot in the shower. Steam fogging the glass mirror. That’s when the messages came. About paintings, about commissions, Casual, unchecked.
“She doesn’t even know me.” she whispered. “Or maybe she does..”
Maybe she had noticed the same inconsistencies, the same half-truth wrapped in charm.
Marena clicked into the search bar again.
Zoomed in this time, with purpose.
A username. Close enough to Lena that it felt like a door.
She sent off a message but realized it was an old account.
So she jumped on it, and typed him a text message that described the last time they were together- hoping Lena would respond if she intercepted it. Then, before she could retreat into hesitation-
Lena sat on the edge of Elliot’s couch the sound of the shower steady behind the door- too steady, like it was buying him time she no longer wanted to give. She glanced at his phone. Maybe he’d left it because he no longer wanted to keep secrets from her. He’d made her promise that they didn’t have to share what was on their phones after she’d brought it up.
That’s what she would tell herself later.
But her eyes had already moved. Already caught the screen lighting up and the message flashed across the screen, then disappeared.
Something that looked enough like a woman’s message to confirm her doubts.
She reached into her purse quietly, pressed the pen into the reciept and took down the number.
Then she pulled out her phone, quietly thought, “Thank you.” and moved toward the door just in case.
Marena’s phone buzzed almost instantly.
She hadn’t moved from the bed. The room still carried the damp heat of the shower, the air thick and close like it was holding it’s breath with her. He eyes dropped to the screen. Simple Direct.
There was a wedding. He did leave early.
She wasn’t ready for what was next, so she didn’t reply.
Lena waited. A minute passed by.
She exhaled sharply, tossing her phone onto the passenger seat as she pulled out of the parking lot.
The drive home stretched longer than usual;, every red light lingering just a little too long.
Her mind replayed the night of the wedding in fragments- Elliot’s distraction, the excuse. The way he slipped away.
Across town, Marena sat in the quiet aftermath of her decision.
Her phone was face up beside her.
“What am I even trying to say” She whispered.
Because any answer would open a door she couldn’t close again.
And for the first time, silence felt like control,
Just a quiet mutual awareness.
The spa lobby smelled faintly of eucalyptus and citrus.
Soft music drifted through the space, the kind designed to dissolve tension, but neither woman felt relaxed. Lena checked in first.
“Who is it under?” asked the receptionist.
Lena sank into one of the cushioned chairs by the window door, scanning the rooom without really seeing anyone.
The receptionist smiled again, “ Yes go ahead and take your seat.”
Lena was already looking at her, directly.
There was a flicker of recognition, not from memory, but from something deeper. Pattern recognition, energy. The kind that says: You matter.
They both looked away almost immediately.
Marena’s phone buzzed in her hand.
Her breath caught, then something unexpected surfaced.
Lena was already smiling back at her.
Marena tilted her phone as a silent confirmation.
The receptionist called both of them back.
The receptionist looks a little bit uncomfortable.
“Looks like we have a double booking.” She says, as cheerfully as she can.
They both stand in unison and walk back to the tables, sliding in side by side.
“I think now works.” Lena said, looking at Marena who answered, “Yes it does.”
Later, wrapped in robes, hair slightly damp, skin warm from treatments, they sat side by side again, this time more quiet.
They were both thinking the same think. Right in sync with each other. Every time one of them had something to say, the other finished her sentence.
A small knowing smile passed between them “Not yet.”
Elliot stands center his paintings, Marena is across from him, casually walking around the paintings with her arms flowing.
“You know, I’ve been reading about attachment styles lately. It really explains how people misinterpret space.” Elliot says, as casually as he can.
He presses on, adding “I’m just saying– sometimes distance isn’t avoidance. It’s… processing.”
Marena, “Mm.” She scans the room instead of looking at him.
“You don’t believe me.” He says.
“You believe you.” She replies.
Elliot freezes slightly, brushed his disheveled hair from his face but it falls back again anyway. He walks to the door, looks through the peephole.
Marena questions, “who is it?”
Lena stand there, calm. Grounded. “Hey.” She responds.
“Yes we know each other.” Marena fills him in. “Lena, may I catch a ride home?”
Marena and Lena arrive at a bright juice bar. It’s sunlit.
Lena says, “Ok, hear me out– wheatgrass.”
Marena grimaces, “Sounds like punishment,” she says “I smoke, I don’t punish myself. I enjoy my bad decisions.”
Lena responds “It’s for the cessation.”
Lena responds, “It’s good for you.”
Marena says “Wait, I want to show you something.”
She opens her phone screen and pulls up Bikini Kill.
“It’s a song I used to listen to all of the time.” she tells Lena. “The lyrics are why don’t you show me now, how to lose control!”
The next day, Lena is outside in the nice weather. There is outdoor space, long tables, people chatting. No one’s approached her yet and she feels almost like she’s intruding. The younger woman stands slightly apart, scanning unfamiliar faces.
Marena approaches “I don’t think I’ve seen you at any of these before.”
Lena answers “That makes sense I’ve never been. What are you doing here?”
“Who are you here with?” Marena asks Lena, looking around.”
“I came to meet everyone.” Lena says.
“Oh, so you are just dropping in on a random reunion.”
No, I just took one of thoses DNA tests and found out this might be my biological family.” She tells Marena.
The older woman goes very still, studying her more closely now.
“ I figured honesty is easier than pretending I belong.” Lena says.
Marena softens “Belonging is overrated anyway.
A small pause, then something flickers between them.
“How about the wedding? I was there for the groom. Second cousins.” Marena says.
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