The Green-Walled Tower

May 1, 2013

Room 306 – Friday Fictioneers

Room 306

screams the screams room 306 fumbled with keys door opened blue walls all blue splashed with red thing at the window thing at the window green all green girl on the bed red so red thing jumped off didn’t fall didn’t hit the ground flew away mary mary on the bed so red not moving my special girl mary mr keller came called police i didn’t do it thing at the window all green did it not me but now I’m here white all white walls no red still at night I see room 306 special girl mary screams

screams

53 Comments | tags: creepy, fiction, flash fiction, Friday Fictioneers, hotel, insane, monster, murder, stream of consciousness | posted in Dark

April 30, 2013

Story Premise Challenge: Ready, Set, Go!

By David Stewart

A couple days ago I posted a quote on Facebook that said, “Original ideas appear at the nexus of dissimilar concepts.” I didn’t get a lot of comments on it, but what I meant by it was that I sometimes come up with novel idea by sticking two very different things together. For example, I might put the picture of cogs below with the word “chocolate” and come up with the premise: “A chocolate factory in Switzerland is sabotaged by the Jelly Bean Army, sparking the first of the Candy Wars.”

Okay, I just made that up on the spot. They’re not always very good, but it’s a good way of getting the creative juices flowing and thinking of things from a different angle.

So, now it’s your turn. Below there are three pictures with random words attached to them. The words were provided by my wife, who didn’t see the pictures and wasn’t sure why I was asking her to give me random words, as evidenced by the first one.

Your challenge is to give a one-sentence story premise based on one of the picture-word combinations (do as many as you want, of course). Multiple entries are encouraged. I’ll let this go for a week and then pick the best one and give them some sort of prize. I’ll let them pick from some choices and although it won’t be money, I’ll try to make the choices cool. So, here are the three pictures:

1. “Mermaid/Jerk”

2. “Car/Peacock”

3. “Kneeling Man in Woods/Violin”

Ready, set, go!

14 Comments | tags: challenge, contest, premise, prize, short story, writing | posted in Uncategorized

April 29, 2013

Klista’s Story – Fantastic Travelogue #16

By David Stewart

Sometimes you have some amazing adventures you just have to tell everyone about. Read the rest of this account here.

Synopsis: I was hiking in the mountains of Korea when I found myself in another world. I met a young woman there named Ain-Mai. We eventually got captured, along with her brother Sing-ga, by a sorceress named Hengfel, who took us to her world. We got away from her and hid in the air tunnels of her fortress. Sing-ga died after being attacked by small spider-like creatures. Ain-Mai and I found our way to the outside of the huge fortress where we sheltered in a small hollow. I woke up to find a small winged creature looking at me. He brought us up the mountain and through a portal into a beautiful area where we were taken care of. A woman named Klista came into my room.

Klista’s Story

“There is a lot that I want to learn from you, and perhaps some that I can tell you as well,” the regal woman calling herself Klista said. “Right now, let us go meet your friend.” She helped me from the bed onto a square platform that immediately started to float and then moved out the doorway and along the corridor.

“Is this magic?” I asked.

“If by magic you mean it works in ways you wouldn’t understand, then yes,” Klista said. She was striding along next to me.

We came out into the room with the falling water. Ain-Mai was there, sitting by the small waterfall. She had changed clothing and despite the scratches on her face and neck, she looked more beautiful than ever.

“It is good to see you again, David,” Ain-Mai said mentally, her thoughts coming directly into my mind. I noticed she had a similar bracelet on as me. I blushed, although I’m not entirely sure why. Perhaps it was the shock of suddenly being able to talk freely after all our time together.

“It’s good to see you too. Are you feeling well?”

“I think I can say that both of you are not perfect, but are doing much better than when we found you,” Klista broke in. “Now, I need to know how you came to be on the side of the Eithelfeen, the tower where Drovoi found you.”

I told her everything I knew, from getting lost in the woods in Korea and meeting Ain-Mai and her brother, to getting captured by Hengfel and brought to the huge fortress with the dragons. Then Ain-Mai told her perspective on all that had happened. Klista just listened and nodded.

“I am curious how you got to her world in the first place,” Klista said, gesturing to Ain-Mai.“You didn’t mention it. Was there a stone circle, or did you have a certain item?”

“Nothing like that,” I said. “At least, I don’t think so. I was walking in the woods and I found myself in the other place, Ain-Mai’s country.”

“There are unstable areas, where world brush against each other briefly,” Klista said. “Likely there was a stone circle or a similar way of traveling between worlds at that spot, long ago.”

“Please,” Ain-Mai broke in. “Can you tell me who Hengfel is? She has been coming to our world for many years, taking our men and anything else she wants back with her. Can you stop her?”

Klista sat down on the floor and put her feet in the pool of water. Then she took a breath. “Before I tell you who she is, let me tell you who I am. I am the daughter of the rulers of the Zifliels. We have for a long time been ambassadors and diplomats between many worlds. Wherever we go, we establish trading posts and where there is a lot of trade, we set up the stone circles or some such thing to make movement back and forth easier.

“In one world, we set up trade with a small nation, not realizing that it was threatened by an even greater threat, the people that we now refer to as the Invaders. They seized the technology of the stone circles and used it to invade our world with their dragons and other terrible creatures. We defended ourselves as well as possible and although we are adept at traveling between worlds, they were the stronger fighters and eventually we were forced to flee our world to hide in exile in others. We destroyed as many of the circles as we could to limit the spread of the Invaders, but some survived, such as the great one in the Eithelfeen.

“The Invaders used it and others to invade more worlds. Some of them, like your Hengfel, are selfish and greedy and only use it to get more things for themselves. Others, however, use our network to continue the conquest. We fight them whenever we can, but they are almost always stronger.”

I found this background information interesting, but there was only one question I was interested in. “Do you know how I can get home?” I asked.

“I know where your world is and I do not need to use a stone circle to travel,” Klista said. “However, I do not know where you are from.” She indicated Ain-Mai. “In order for you to get home, you will need to go back to the room you came through and find the right medallion to get back to your own world.”

“What, alone?” I asked.

“Obviously not alone,” Klista said. “If it were possible for a single girl to break into the heart of the fortress and use the machine that is most precious to the owner, we would have no trouble taking it back. No, I will go with her; with you too, if you want to come. And not just us. I think I will use this opportunity as a test and if it works, then this Hengfel will never come back to your world again.”

Klista closed her eye. “Bruce, come out here, please.” Although I could hear her, the thought seemed to be projected farther away. A moment later, a man came out into the room. He nodded at us and smiled.

Klista stood up and began drying her feet. “Bruce,” she said. “Go call Chirik. Tell him to get ready for war.”

(to be continued…)

You can read more about Klista, Bruce, and Chirik here.

1 Comment | tags: Bruce Riansson, Fantastic Travelogue, fantasy, fiction, injured, Klista, other worlds, travel, travelogue | posted in Travelogue

April 29, 2013

Doodles in MS Paint

By David Stewart

So, what are your nerdy hobbies? One of mine is making designs with a pencil and straight-edge. I used to do it all the time in high school when I was bored. Another hobby of mine is using MS Paint. I admit that it’s no Photoshop (which I love, but can’t afford at the moment) and the lack of layers can be really crippling sometimes, but you can do a lot more with it than some people think. My friend Sharmishtha Basu is a good example of a great MS Paint artist. Anyway, today I decided to play around with designs in MS Paint. All of it is done by hand, just using the tools in the program.

Step 1

In this first step, I just measured regular distances and connected the lines, just as you’d do with a pencil and ruler.

Step 2

For this step, I just colored in the blocks. MS Paint doesn’t have a gradient tool, but you can adjust the color manually, so I colored one part and then successively made the color darker or lighter.

Step 3

The middle seemed a bit empty, so I used a similar technique to put a diamond in the middle. It’s a lot of fun, if you have the patience for it.

8 Comments | tags: art, doodle, drawing, MS Paint | posted in Doodles

April 28, 2013

Forgotten Histories – Visual Fiction

By David Stewart

taken in Namhae, Korea

It just looked like a nice place to rest.

I came across the site while I was toiling through thick undergrowth on the side of a nameless Korean mountain. There was no gravestone to identify the person buried beneath and I barely thought about it as a grave as I threw my pack down and stretched my sore muscles.

Fatigue and a soothing bed of springy grass made me drowsy and my eyes closed on their own. All I could feel was the cool firmness of the grave under my back and the warm sun on my face.

Suddenly, it was night and I was standing in a village of houses with thatched roofs. Over the low, outer wall of the nearest house, I could see the door open and a woman was holding a newborn baby. It was crying and its face shone red in the lamplight.

The scene changed and I now saw a boy standing by the street, watching Japanese soldiers march into town. The boy was now in school, learning Japanese, whispering in Korean with his friends, and being beaten for it when he was caught.

The scenes began to move faster and faster. The boy was now a man, wearing the uniform of the South. I saw his name tag: Hong Deok-Jin. I saw him guarding a harbor, sneaking off to see his family, being caught and reprimanded, then sent to a small island as punishment. I saw him leading the counterattack against North Korean boats, then being rewarded for it.

The war was now over and the man lived in a small house with his growing family, his war medal tacked to the wall of the kitchen. I saw one fishing boat sink under him; watched him work with friends, saving money for years to buy another boat. I watched as one son and a daughter died and three more got married and set grandchildren on the man’s knees. The man’s wife finally passed on and I saw the man make his way painfully to the beach each morning to look out over the water, sitting on a rock with his wrinkled hands on his knees, looking and thinking.

Finally, I saw the procession of children and grandchildren carrying his body up the mountain slope to the grave. The family was too poor for a granite gravestone, but I saw them laboriously carry stones up the slope to build the wall around the site. Each year, family members would come to clean and maintain the grave, but then they stopped coming and the trees and undergrowth began to encroach upon the protecting walls.

I woke up with a start. Several hours had passed and the air had gotten chilly. I jumped up, suddenly apologetic about my careless use of another human being’s resting place. I was far behind schedule and needed to move on, but I couldn’t go right away. First, I cut a thick piece of wood and laid it on the grave for the next person who would come across the grave. On it, I carved in English and Korean:

Here lies Hong Deok-Jin. He once lived.

21 Comments | tags: fiction, fisherman, flash fiction, flashback, grave, historical, Korea, life, photograph, visual fiction | posted in Visual Fiction

April 27, 2013

Motivational Drill Sergeant and the Aliens

By David Stewart

My father, the Motivational Drill Sergeant, likes to tell this story, especially after he’s had a few Piña Coladas. That’s all he drinks, although he calls them Muzzle Blasters.

One night when my mother was off giving a speech to the UN, my father and I were at home playing the Game of Death. It’s a game he made up—basically a combination of the Game of Life and Risk with his own rules mixed in. He had already had a few Muzzle Blasters, and so I wasn’t surprised when he brought up the aliens.

With apologies to Milton Bradley

“Boy, did I ever tell you about the time I got kidnapped by aliens?”

“I don’t think so,” I said, although I could probably have quoted the story, word for word.

“It was about 10 years ago, before you were born,” he said. I didn’t enlighten him that I was older than 10. “I was out by myself, skulking around the perimeter of Dollywood, since I’ve always been suspicious of that place. I was just climbing a tree, when I was approached by two aliens. They were yellow, looked like flowers, and were exactly opposite heights.”

This is a detail he always puts in, although I’ve never figured out what “opposite heights” means exactly. I nodded and rolled the dice. “I’m attacking the wedding chapel,” I said.

“You only have four armies,” he said. “You need at least five armies to attack the chapel without a degree.”

“Yeah, but you said that if I cashed in my Fire Insurance, it was good for two more armies,” I said. He frowned a bit and then nodded. My father has made the Game of Death so complicated that I have to remind him of the rules sometimes.

“Anyway,” he said, taking another swig of Muzzle Blaster, “they asked me to come with them, to which I replied in the negative. Meaning, I told them to buzz off. The next thing I knew, I was onboard an alien spacecraft. I knew it was a spacecraft, because I saw the Earth in the window. That was a dead giveaway.”

“‘Are you out of your flowery, extraterrestrial gourds?’ I bellowed at them in my best drill sergeant yell. ‘How dare you kidnap me?’

“‘We need your help,’ one of the aliens said. He looked bashful and that made me feel better. ‘We’ve heard a lot about you.’

“That made me feel a lot better, but I didn’t as much as smile. ‘What’s the problem?’ I growled.

“‘We’ve spent years building up weapons of unimaginable destructive power but we’re too shy to use them,’ the alien said.”

“Did he blush orange when he said it?” I asked.

“He did, actually,” my dad said. “Are you sure you haven’t heard this story before?” He took my innocent look as confirmation that I hadn’t and continued.

“I said to those aliens, I said, ‘Well, who do you want to attack? Not us, I hope.’ ‘Oh no,’ they said. ‘We’ve seen enough of your TV programs to know you’d get way too angry. We were thinking of the innocuous creatures of Flufficon Four.’”

“I thought it was Cuddlius Three,” I said, forgetting that I’d never heard the story before.

“They wanted to attack a lot of innocuous planets,” my dad said. “Anyway, I stood up and slapped the main alien in the face. ‘What a bunch of spineless, gutless, yellow-bellied space pansies!’ ‘We’re actually closer to tulips,’ the main alien began, but I slapped him again.

“‘Shut up!’ I shouted. ‘If you got the flower-power, you use it, see? Nobody pushes you around and you don’t let a bunch of Flufficons or Cuddlians intimidate you. Ooh, what’s wrong, you waiting for an engraved invitation before you go attack them? Well, it’s not coming!”

“‘But—’ one of the aliens began but I cut him off. ‘But?’ I shouted. ‘But is something you sit on and you won’t conquer any planets sitting down. Now, stand up.’ They all stood up a lot straighter. ‘Get out there and conquer some innocuous planets and don’t let me see your sorry asses back here until you do. Also, if you could, drop me off at Dollywood before you go. Something about that Dolly Parton makes me suspicious.’”

While he had been telling the story, I had been quietly cheating and by now, I controlled most of the board. My dad looked down and grimaced.

“I’m nuking the retirement mansion,” he said, taking out a hammer.

“I thought you needed to roll two 12s in a row to do that,” I said.

“Okay,” he said, and proceeded to roll two 12s in a row. The hammer came down and the little plastic mansion was shattered. I don’t know how he does it, but no one beats my dad at games when he’s been drinking Muzzle Blasters.

13 Comments | tags: aliens, fiction, funny, Game of Life, Motivational Drill Sergeant, pina colada, Risk, science fiction | posted in Light

April 24, 2013

Classic Arguments – Friday Fictioneers

By David Stewart

Classic Arguments

The library had only been closed a minute when the whispers began.

“You know, it is a universal truth that a single volume in possession of a beautiful cover, must be in want of a sequel.”

“Shut yer rot, Austen, ya gloopy devotchka.”

“Double plus right.”

“As God is my witness, I’m never going to listen to you all gripe again.”

“This is the best of nights, it is the worst of nights.”

Suddenly, from the corner of the library with primary colors and board books and beanbag chairs came a roar of fierce joy:

“Let the wild rumpus start!”

Previous Week Update:

On February 13, I posted the story The Wrong Tourist, about a person posing and getting their camera stolen. So, in a fit of meta-fiction, I went down and posed by the statue in the photo prompt, handing my camera to a stranger to take my picture. However, instead of a creepy old man, it was a young woman with a much better camera than mine, so I don’t think she would have wanted it.

This was taken back in February, when I still needed a coat.

58 Comments | tags: fantasy, fiction, flash fiction, Friday Fictioneers, library, literature, writing | posted in Light

April 23, 2013

The Phonology of “Baby Teacher”

By David Stewart

I am a teacher and in my teaching career I have probably taught thousands of students. And of those, quite a few have called me Baby Teacher.

As you may or may not know, I teach English in Korea. Normally, Korean students called their teachers seonsaeng-nim, which, like the Japanese sensei, just means “teacher”. If they need to distinguish between teachers, they add the teacher’s last name before it, as in “Kim seongsaeng-nim.”

I have my students call me David. That is the opposite of the norm here, since Koreans usually only call friends and social inferiors by their first name. I wouldn’t do that if I was teaching in North America, but over here, foreign English teachers are outside all the rules of normal engagement, so it doesn’t really matter. However, a lot of them still stick “teacher” on the end of my name to mimic the Korean style.

So how does “baby” come into it? It has to do with Korean pronunciation rules. First of all, Korean doesn’t have a “v” sound, so my name automatically becomes “Dabid”. As well, Korean doesn’t have any syllables that end with a “d”, so my name gets stretched to three syllables, as in “day-bi-deu”. This means the second syllable is now open, which in Korean means that the “i” gets changed to an “ee” sound, and we end up with “day-bee-deu”. Take off the last syllable and it’s suspiciously close to “baby”.

Of course I correct them and they usually do it just to be brats. Still, I’ve gotten used to it. I’m sure I could be walking down the road in America and if an elementary school student yelled “Hey baby!”, I’d probably just smile and wave.

This is what came up "baby teacher" in an image search. Source.

This is what came up for “baby teacher” in an image search. Source.

19 Comments | tags: baby, Korea, outside the tower, phonology, pronunciation, quirky, students, teaching | posted in Uncategorized

April 22, 2013

The Mansion in the Summit – Fantastic Travelogue #15

By David Stewart

Sometimes you have some amazing adventures you just have to tell everyone about. Read the rest of this account here.

Synopsis: I was hiking in the mountains of Korea when I found myself in another world. I met a young woman there named Ain-Mai. We eventually got captured, along with her brother Sing-ga, by a sorceress named Hengfel, who took us to her world. We got away from her and hid in the air tunnels. Sing-ga died after being attacked by small spider-like creatures. Ain-Mai and I found our way to the outside of the huge fortress where we sheltered in a small hollow. I woke up to find a small winged creature looking at me.

The Mansion in the Summit

The winged creature perched on the entrance to our hollow put its hands over its eyes and bowed deeply. Then it fluttered forward a few steps and took off one of its bracelets, offering it to me.

Ain-Mai woke up when I tried to stand and she gasped at the sight of the thing. I was nervous as well, but it kept offering me the golden bracelet, so finally, I took it. It mimed for me to put it on, but it was too small to put around my wrist and I had to stick it on four of my fingers.

That is better. Now we can talk, the creature said suddenly. The meaning of the words went straight to my mind, without it moving its mouth at all.

Who are you? I asked. It was strange to speak in my mind and have him answer there. I didn’t like it; it was as if someone was snooping on my thoughts.

My name is Drovoi and I am a diplomat in exile. At one time, we met with peoples from many worlds until we were conquered. I will tell you more later, but right now you are hurt and hungry. I will take you to somewhere where you can rest and get treated and then we can talk a little more.

Ain-Mai put a hand on my arm and gave me a questioning look. I took off the bracelet and handed it to her. I saw her eyes widen and I knew that she was conversing mentally with Drovoi. After a moment, she gave it back to me.

I have a transport coming to take you to our refuge, but we must hurry; the dragons are often about in the morning and I do not want to get drawn into a battle.

Because we were conversing with ideas instead of words, I got a mental picture of the “transport” just before it appeared. Still, it was a shock. A curved, furry leg reached over the edge of the hollow and a creature like a huge tarantula appeared. It was covered in white hair and its legs ended in small hands that gripped at the rocks as it moved.

You want us to get on that thing? I asked.

It is not dangerous and it will travel quickly where we need to go—much quicker than you can alone. Do not worry. See?

Drovoi took off his bracelet and held it against the creature’s head. I did not feel thoughts—only simple emotions coming from it—but I could tell that it was tame and amiable, with the temperament of a St. Bernard rather than a predator.

I let Ain-Mai feel this as well, and then we both hobbled forward and slowly climbed on its back. It was the strangest thing I have ever done in my life, even including my adventures of the previous week. The white fur was as soft as silk and it had a harness and back support attached to it. This turned out to be a very good thing as the creature began to climb up the steep side of the tower. Its leathery tail came around and held us in place so that we did not slip off its back.

We climbed for twenty minutes, the white spider-mount moving upwards steadily, never slowing or speeding up. The air began to get thin and the wind increased. I was freezing and my arms were starting to ache from holding on tightly. Drovoi had flown on ahead, it seemed. I looked down behind us and saw dragons flying around, thousands of feet below us.

Finally, we reached the summit of the tower and I could see that we were in the middle of what had once been a huge city. It stretched away for miles on all sides. There were other huge towers visible in the distance, but those had been broken down, so that only the lower parts were still standing.

Drovoi appeared from behind a rock. Please come in. You must be very tired, he said. The wind was screaming and threatening to blow us all off and we followed him behind the rock. There was a door, camouflaged to look like the rock. It was open, but I could see that the cave beyond it was only a few feet deep. Still, I followed Drovoi inside. He suddenly disappeared, but before I could even react, everything around me changed.

The wind was gone. The air pressure was normal again. We were standing in a wide room with a pool of water in the middle. The floors were smooth stone and water was falling from above. The air was bursting with the fragrances of flowers and fruit. A moment later, men and women came towards us and escorted Ain-Mai and me to separate rooms.

What came next was like being in a spa, hospital, and restaurant, all rolled into one. The men bandaged my injuries with cloths and medicine. Then they helped me change into clean clothes and served me all sorts of food that I could not even begin to describe accurately. There were meats and fruits and other things I could barely have imagined: foods that were like eating cold, flavored air or others that looked like square diamonds until they melted in my mouth in a burst of sweetness.

After I had been treated and had eaten as much as I could, a woman came into the room. She was tall and wore a red cloak, with long, dark hair hung down the back. She was beautiful, although her face had a timeless look to it. She handed me a golden bracelet that was big enough for me to put on.

How in all the million worlds did you end up on the outside of that tower? she asked and her eyes bored into me as if she was trying to read my mind.

It’s a very long story, I said, mentally. I’m not totally sure myself.

She was still looking at me very hard. Suddenly she said out loud and in English, “Where are you from?”

I had not realized it until then how long it had been since I had heard English spoken and my shocked expression must have shown my comprehension. She only nodded.

“You speak English,” I said, like an idiot.

“I speak many languages,” she said, “and I have been to your world before. My name is Klista.”

(to be continued…)

13 Comments | tags: Fantastic Travelogue, fantasy, fiction, fortress, injured, Klista, other worlds, travel, travelogue, tunnels | posted in Travelogue

April 21, 2013

Unsinkable – Visual Fiction

By David Stewart

Taken in Namhae, Korea

Robert Brouard rowed the old green boat, nicknamed the Love Boat, into the middle of the silent reservoir. The surrounding hills seemed to smoke with ragged cloud vapor and unwillingly, he thought of the crematory giving off smoke as it transformed his beloved Sandra’s body into nothingness. All he had left of her was an urn of ashes and the boat she had built long ago.

He reached the middle of the reservoir and picking up the urn, he started dumping the ashes out into the water. He didn’t feel sad—at least no sadder than he had for the last week. It was hard to think that the grey dust had ever been a part of her. He accepted it objectively, but he felt no need to say good-bye to it. The boat had more of her spirit left in it than that grey, dusty ash.

The boat…

Sandra would always sit in the back when they went rowing together. She would smile lovingly at him and that would keep him going as he sweated and worked to row them out into the middle of the reservoir for a picnic, or to look at the stars, or just to be alone together. He thought of that first night in it, after she had finally finished and launched the thing that had taken up her spare moments for two years.

He had been so proud of her—I’ll bet I’m the only man in the world whose wife can build a boat, he’d said. It probably wasn’t true, but it made her glow with pleasure and when she was happy, he was happy. They had drunk the champagne instead of smashing it on the prow and then made love in the tippy little craft under the stars. It had been awkward and precarious but passionate, and forty years later, the memory was still electrifying.

But now…

Robert put down the urn and picked up the hatchet, prepared to chop through the bottom. “I’m going to come join you now, if that’s okay, dear,” he said. “Just you, me, and the boat.”

It wasn’t that he felt depressed. He felt none of that black cloud of despair that had sometimes afflicted him as a teenager. It just seemed natural, logical even, to go this way. He had no purpose without her; he was just a lonely old man waiting to die in order to be with his beloved again, so why wait? And he could not leave the boat to be sold off and used by others who did not know its significance and history. Memories were not for sale.

He closed his eyes and with a swift movement, struck the bottom of the boat. He chopped again and again, making a fist-sized hole while water flooded in.

It had covered his calves when the water stopped flowing in. He sat there for some time with wet shoes and socks, wondering why the boat wasn’t sinking. Wood floated, of course, but he had filled the boat with weights to make sure it sank. Still, it refused to sink, as if some of Sandra’s obstinacy had imbued the very timbers. Finally, feeling foolish and confused, he rowed slowly back to shore.

Later that evening, he used the truck winch to pull the boat onto shore and examined it to find what had caused the miracle. He pried off one of the sidewalls and found that it was filled with foam. He checked the others and every space was filled with foam: enough to keep the boat above water, even if it got a hole in it.

And he had never known. Back then, she had been a star swimmer, while he could barely do a lap. Just in case, he could imagine her saying. Just in case we spring a leak. Just in case we’re stranded.

Just in case I die first and you take the boat out alone.

“I’m going to have to fix that hole as soon as possible,” he said. And then, for the first time in that horrible, tragic, soul-crushing week, he began to cry.