Freedom

They met hanging out in the theater during lunch. The boy was shy but cared, the girl was direct and talked about forbidden topics. She wanted someone who appreciated her, he needed someone who broke the ice. They worked.

She had a long-time on-again, off-again. He was her weakness, and bad for her. She said as much, but she wore his ring even when they were off. The boy didn’t understand. Why not just walk away? She said he wouldn’t get it, and she was right.

They spent time together, but not much. He was too embarrassed of eyes and thoughts to officially date. She was fine with that, thinking of her on-again, off-again, wearing the ring no matter how much he wanted her to take it off, or how much she wanted to.

He couldn’t get past the ring. He stared at it, wondered if she would wear one that he gave her, knew that she wouldn’t.

One day he got her alone, held her hands, looked her in the eyes, and pulled the ring off. He thought it would free her. Instead, she took her hand away before he finished, and I guess it freed both of them.

Kiss, Like Formaldehyde

In a tiny back room in the library, in the dark of night, on a beaten old couch at a small table, I’m sitting with my boyfriend, and it’s as quiet as this paragraph makes it sound.

We’re only dating because I was interested in his roommate, but invited them both over to mask my intentions. Which is how I wound up in my dorm room watching a movie alone with this guy. We’re both shy, but somehow at the end of the night we were an item.

Which was elating only briefly, because he’s the product of a stereotyped Asian upbringing: He rarely speaks, is impossible to hear when he does, is entranced by the idea of romance and terrified of kissing. Him being too embarrassed to kiss even in complete privacy killed this relationship; I’m just chickenshit enough I’ve waited a month to bury it.

And now we’re in that first silent paragraph, and I know damn well what this room is for and he just sits there. The words “I want to break up” swell in my chest. They burble toward the surface, growing, where they are about to burst free... when he kisses me.

Well, shit.

Diced with Death

I thought I was really clever. I had it all worked out, how to avoid death. I had my dice: Specially carved from the knucklebones of a murderer, tried and executed, and dug up and carved all in one moonless night, a year and a day after his death. I kept them within reach at all times.

When Death did come, it was for the dumbest fucking reason. I choked on a piece of broccoli after congratulating myself for not dying falling down the stairs. I’d tripped at the top, see, but I knew enough about how to fall to roll with it and come out at the bottom with all my bones intact. Five minutes later, I take a big congratulatory bite of broccoli and then I’m choking and I panic and I’m on my knees and

And then I can breathe just fine, and I’m standing over my body. It’s still twitching, and I’m thinking that shouldn’t be so, I shouldn’t be officially dead until I’m officially dead, but

“We had to make time for your game.” Oh, thank god, it’s actually true. I fish my dice out of my pocket, but “You never win at dice.”

It’s because of the stakes, I explain. Death can’t just let people free to be alive again, so of course everyone loses when they set impossible stakes. So I make a different wager: He wins, I’m dead as normal. I win, I do his job for a year and a day. Death just smiled. He didn’t have a skull for a face, it turns out, just emaciated. Still a weird smile.

So we rolled, and he won. I didn’t understand what I’d done wrong. Was it just a roll of the dice? “No. You had it right. Bad stakes make for a bad game. But you had nothing to wager. If you’d found me while you were alive, maybe, but you let me find you. And by then, you have nothing left.

“C’mon, let me give you the tour.”

Train Related

Superman’s Dad was an important businessman. He worked in the city and worked very hard making sure that everyone in the city--actually, in the entire country!--had the stereo equipment that they needed.

He was also a stalwart aide to Superman. Superman’s Dad watched the jail and made sure Superman knew when bad guys were escaping. It was neverending work, since bad guys were always escaping from jail, and Superman’s Dad sometimes wished that someone would build a better mousetrap, but until they did, he would keep an eye on the jail.

More than anything else, Superman’s Dad was proud of his son, and also worried. He knew Superman did good, important work, but he also knew there was a lot of kryptonite out there, and a lot of evil geniuses. Even one was too many with a jail as leaky as theirs.

So, Superman’s Dad did what he had to, which was also what he enjoyed. He sold stereo equipment to everyone who needed it, and he helped out Superman. So as he rode the train to work, he read a book on prison design and another on superpowers. Maybe he would be the one to build the mousetrap.

Commuter Train

Cal missed Karen. He wished he knew where she’d gone, or why she’d left, or why she’d taken all his old football trophies. If she hadn’t cared about him, well, that was a surprise that stopped his heart like a fall into icewater. But not caring enough to stay in Will’s life was impossible to imagine.

He looked up as Will bumped into someone while playing Superman. He was so lively. Karen’s absence hadn’t hurt him yet. But Cal hadn’t been able to discuss it with Will so far. He didn’t know what to say. How do you tell your son that his mother might be gone? If she were dead, he’d be able to say she weren’t coming back, but he couldn’t even say that with confidence.

Cal retrieved Will, and went to apologize to the man Will had bumped into. Hetripped over a young woman’s foot on his way back, and he mumbled an apology to her, too. She reminded him a little of Karen.

Tonight, he would tell Will. He’d said that before, but this time he’d stop stalling and do it, and they’d go on together. That though made him feel better. Enough to go on.

Another Train

Even famous Pokemon trainers need to take the train. At least, that’s what he told himself every time he was on one. He thought he should have a private car, but the championship private circuit wouldn’t pay for more than the train. It made him angry. He had the most powerful Pokemon the world had ever seen, and here he was, on the train with all these normal people!

He called forth two Pokemon: floating psyduck and bulbasaur. This would give him a little more of the ease due his expertise. He let them clear some space among the other passengers, and once he had his choice of seat, he set them to training.

He trained his Pokemon hard. No pulling blows, no holding back, and no mercy when one was wounded. They had to take their lumps if they were going to overcome them. That’s how he had learned, when he was young. That was the way to get tough enough for a world that didn’t care about you.

Superman called out for him to stop, but then Superman’s Dad made him guard the jail. The Pokemon trainer just smiled. Even Superman couldn’t stop him from being the best.

Super Train

Superman was riding the train. There were bad guys everywhere, and he had to defeat them. But Dad said not to play with the other passengers on the train. He had to wait until they reached day care to play with others.

So he fought monsters no one else could see. There was the Joker! Superman punched him and took him to jail, which was Superman’s seat by Dad. Then he flew down the train car and grabbed Brainiac and flew him to jail. And then he saw a Pokemon trainer hurting Pokemon at the far end of the train, and he flew to rescue them!

He bumped into a person who yelled, and he ran back to Dad. Dad told him he had to guard the prison now or the bad guys would escape. “But the mean Pokemon trainer is over there!”

“You’ll have to stop him later,” said Dad. “If you leave, the bad guys will get out of jail.” So Superman guarded the jail. After a while, Dad leaned over and whispered, “Oh no! They’re escaping!” He pointed at the window behind Superman’s seat.

“I’ll stop them!” said Superman, and he started punching them back into jail.