A monster emerges from the shadows. He is followed by another, and another, until the world is inhabited by new beasts of its own creation. This anthology incorporates stories from various genres and timelines, exploring what makes us who we are.
"You're wasting your life!" She nudged me into the classroom. "This isn't a joke!"
I gawked up at her. "Please."
Her arid, wrinkly lips twitched. "Please what?"
"Not sure." My eyes lowered to my shoes—dark with grime. "Just please."
Mrs. Kelly closed the door, then ran a hand through my hair and seemed to linger on every strand, her fingers gathering strange knowledge from the fibers.
"I'll tell my parents," I said.
"You missed another day," she said.
My legs buckled and it took all I had to keep from collapsing.
"Do ya . . ." I paused and shuddered. ". . . ever fear God?"
Her hand withdrew.
Then it slapped my face.
I wobbled backward, holding my cheek.
She molested me again that evening in her car behind the school, and how no janitor, teacher's assistant, or security guard noticed us I still don't understand but somehow people seemed to disappear when I needed them, and this I considered nothing more than bad luck. However, I find myself wondering now if I'd have aged different, slower perhaps, had I never known Mrs. Kelly.
The answer will never be clear.
It keeps me from sleep even now.
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Have I gotten used to the ache?
My wife says yes.
I believe her because the 21st century has overtaken us, the 2000s, where our present was 1952's most distant dream.
She embraces me when I frown, and her gray hair smells of peppermint. We're old. The world today is brighter than it was years past, and Manhattan gets more neon each season. I often pause on my morning walks to admire the billboards that advertize new miracles: from drinks that resemble atomic slime to glossy, bullet-shaped cars. My life is quieter as a retired man, offering me plenty of time to obsess about my ifs.
While there's no returning to boyhood, I see myself in my son. He visits my apartment less frequently now that he's married. Sometimes he brings my grandchildren, and they also have traces of little Lenny in their eyes, their button noses, their smiles, their laughs. I cherish those kids, warn them of sin that isn't theirs, nurture them, hug them as if trying to squeeze into them what I never had, and maybe they'll receive it if I clutch them tight as the fingers of God.
Though I'm not religious anymore, I believe children are as close as we'll get to the divine. We create them and yet how thoroughly and wondrously they become our Creators. The older I find myself, the quicker I am to envy that impossible moment where chaos becomes life. I smile as I watch. Tiny humans erupt from soft parental flesh and wriggle in blankets and scream at a too-bright world that demands order and contribution. Do we belong? Were we ever supposed to?
