The Green-Walled Tower

July 21, 2012

One Lovely Blog Award

I’ve never thought of myself as particularly lovely (although David does mean “beloved”) but thank you, The Bumble Files, for nominating me. Because you are so awesome, I accept. She was the third person to follow my blog and is my number one commenter. Check out her blog.

Here are rules for the award as I have received them:

1. Thank the person who nominated me. (of course)

2. Share 7 things about myself that you still may not know. (see below)

3. Nominate 15 bloggers. (see below)

4. Notify the nominees that I have done so. (wouldn’t hurt)

5. Put the logo of the award on my blog site. (cool. Why not?)

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So, here are seven things about me that you probably don’t know. Hmm, let’s see…

For a period of time in high school, my signature included a tiny Viking ship.
I once broke my thumb the first time down the ski slope. However, I didn’t want to miss skiing so I skied the whole day with a broken thumb.
I use Greek letters for my initials (thus, my Gravatar), something which dates back to when I first studied Greek on my own in high school.
My favorite Korean food is sundaegukbap, a spicy soup of pig organ meat and blood sausage. It is much better than it sounds, although some Koreans don’t even like it.
I worked for 5 years in my college library as a book doctor, fixing books whose covers were falling off or that were coming apart or whatever. It was an awesome job.
My favorite book is Lord of the Rings. I’ve read it about 20 times in 3 languages. I could never get tired of reading it.
I used to blush very easily and even now I still do. I blush more than I’m actually embarrassed, so I feel like my face is betraying me sometimes.

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I have only been blogging for a short time, but already I have met and enjoyed reading a lot of interesting, intelligent, funny people. Here are a few that I think are lovely bloggers. Go read their thoughts.

Thanks again for reading, everyone!

14 Comments | posted in Uncategorized

July 20, 2012

Outside the Tower: Update on “It Only Takes Once”

By David Stewart

As you had probably guessed (by the “fiction” tag), the story I wrote a while back, It Only Takes Once is fiction. However, as I mentioned in the comments, it does take place in the apartment I’m currently living in. As I sit at my computer, I can look into the bathroom and see the window where the hand appeared. This one:

The following is true, by the way. Just so there’s no confusion. A few minutes ago, as I was sitting at my computer, alone in the dark, the light went on in the hall. The motion-sensor light. I suddenly heard this “squeak, squeak, squeak” over the sound of my music and I looked into the bathroom. Through the frosted glass window I could see my neighbor’s door moving back and forth really fast. Maybe it was just sitting in the dark alone like this, but it reminded me of the rapid, jerky movement of the haunted rocking chair in the movie The Woman in Black.

After about 20 seconds, the door slowly closed and the light went off. I’m sure there is a perfectly natural explanation for it all, but it made me really excited, because what if there wasn’t?

6 Comments | tags: apartment, creepy, outside the tower | posted in Uncategorized

July 20, 2012

Alone on Top of the World

By David Stewart

Dawn came far earlier than it did for those down below. The bright, cold rays hit the upper edge of the valley, making the bare rock glow as if on fire. The sheep began to get restless. Aerin woke up.

It was bitterly cold in her small valley on top of the world. Even an hour later, when the sun reached the grass on the valley floor, she walked around in her huge, wooly cloak that made her look twice as big as she really was. The sun rose, pale and watery in the thin air, and shone its cold rays on her little world.

It was just her, in that tiny valley on the summit of Mt. Odinokii—her and her flock of Ambrulo sheep. Everything about the valley was special. There was a special reservoir cut below the valley because rain almost never fell that high up and every drop that did was precious. The grass was special since normal grass would not grow in such cold and thin air. The sheep were bred specially for high altitudes and it was said that it was the thin air that made their hearts delicious beyond imagining.

Aerin herself was special. She had been chosen and had trained for five years until she was an expert on everything concerning the Ambrulo sheep: breeding, diet, surgery, infant delivery, psychology. She stood alone in expertise concerning the Ambrulo.

She led the sheep out of their pen and into the long fenced-in lane towards the water trough. As they walked, the sheep pushed against levers that drove the pump that brought the water up from the reservoir below. Aerin walked next to them, calling them by name and inspecting them. Once they had all drank and started grazing, she went over to the pulley and looked down.

The pulley was her only contact with the world. There were actually two pulley and two platforms: when one went up, the other went down, a thousand feet or more to the first staging platform. Beyond that, there were more ropes and pulleys and then a narrow, treacherous road that wound for miles down the side of the mountain until it reached habitable regions.

Every two weeks, she sent a sheep down and in exchange, received its weight in food—her only food for the next two weeks. The sheep was then brought down the mountain and two hundred miles to the palace, in full haste and with a full security detail. There, its heart was prepared by the one chef in the kingdom who was qualified, and then eaten by the king and his nobles.

Aerin went to the grazing flock and walked through them, burying her hands in their thick coats as she passed. “Nivis, perhaps? No, let him grow a little more. Jasquet, maybe? No, let her stay with her lamb a little longer. Peros? Okay, let it be Peros.” She guided the chosen sheep out of the flock and towards a scale where she weighed it.

A flash of a red flag far below told her that they were ready. She guided Peros onto the platform, then closed the gate. A lever pulled, the anchor released and the platform swung free. She began adding small weights to the platform, until a moment later, sheep and platform began to descend.

Aerin stood looking out over the world, waiting. The darkest of blue skies above her reached out in all directions until it reached the curving horizon far away. Below, the land spread out like a mosaic of greens, browns and blues, except where huge white masses of clouds obscured her view.

Many minutes passed before the ascending platform arrived, filled with food and the next shipment’s weight requirement. Long before, there had been notes for her from family and friends and the workers on the lower stages. No more, though. She unloaded her food in silence and carried it into her cave.

She lay on top of the observation tower, her high platform built in the very center of the valley. The sun had passed its zenith and was slowing dipping towards the western curve of the Earth. Aerin lay looking up into the featureless dark blue and this was how the high-air sprites found her, as they always did.

“Aerin, Aerin, come play with us. Come fly with us.” Every time, like a greeting.

“I have no wings, my friends.”

“Neither do we,” they laughed. “Wings would do no good up here. Come, though, and be like us.”

“But who would take care of the sheep?”

“What care do they need? There is nothing to harm them here.”

“Who will give them water?”

“Let them figure out how to walk through the fenced lane by themselves. If they are too stupid, then maybe they do not deserve to live.”

“Who will send them down every two weeks to the king?”

“The king? He will not starve without an Ambrulo heart to eat every two weeks. Do not worry about him.” There were many sprites around her now, laughing, playing, beckoning her towards them. “Come, come be one of one, Aerin the Lonesome, Aerin the Solitary, Aerin, Queen of the Upper Airs.” They laughed, but they were not mocking.

“And how would I become like you?” she asked, although she knew what they would say.

“Leave your confines. Jump from the edge of the mountain. Fly up among us and soar through the atmosphere, higher and higher. Too timid, too shy, too tied to the cruel, hard earth.”

“I am not like you,” she said, as she had said many times before. “The Earth has a pull on me which I cannot escape, even if I tried.”

The sun had reached the borderland of the western horizon. Already, at the base of the mountain, it was full night. Aerin got up and herded the sheep into the cave, shutting the heavy doors against the freezing darkness that encroached on them.

She went to stand at the western edge of the valley and watched the sun descend to meet the Earth in a rack of fiery clouds. As she looked down on the world, alone, her heart ached with a pain that had nothing to do with the cold or thin air. The sun went down and black, icy night covered everything.

The sprites were playing and shouting in the air far above here, dancing among the cascade of glittering stars that pierced the blackness. The ache in her heart eased as she watched them and she smiled as she pulled her hood up around her head.

Life is still beautiful, she thought.

4 Comments | tags: fantasy, fiction, mountains, other worlds | posted in Dusk

July 18, 2012

Inside a Social Raindrop

By David Stewart

(This story is dedicated to my wife Leah, whose birthday is today.)

Aqua-biologists have determined that the smallest sentient particle of water is the droplet. Droplets are much smaller than we think and are very resilient through all states of matter. They are also very friendly.

I can just see them up there on a cloudy day, bonding together into bigger and bigger drops.

“Just a bit more,” they yell. “Just a few more for critical mass.”

“Hey, didn’t I see you in the Danube?” one droplet asks another.

“Yeah, back in the day. I’ve been hanging around in the upper atmosphere for a while now though. You?”

“Africa. I spend some time in an elephant.”

“Hey, I was snow,” another says and all the other droplets ooh and aah. Being part of a snowflake is incredibly fun.

“Are you guys going down?” a few droplets cry as they whirl by in an air current. Water droplets have such corny senses of humor.

“We sure are. Grab on,” the others shout, laughing.

More droplets pile on. “Three, two, one, and here we go!” they all shout as they all feel that delicious brink-of-the-rollercoaster sensation just as the raindrop begins to plummet.

“Whee!” they all scream. It’s only natural. The ones at the bottom are flattened out by their speed and the ones on top just barely hang on. They descend through a grey misty world and then suddenly come out of the clouds.

“Almost there!” one of them shouts as the ground rushes up to meet them.

“See you in the Amazon River!”

“See everybody in the Amazon River!” They all laugh, even though it’s the oldest joke in the book for water droplets.

“And here we goooo!” they all yell together.

Splat. The man looks down at his coat sleeve where the raindrop hit and then up at the sky.

Dang. He forgot his umbrella.

12 Comments | tags: fiction, funny, mid-week flash, quirky, rain | posted in Light

July 17, 2012

Outside the Tower: Looking for a new world

By David Stewart

Of course I didn’t see anything. I was using the tube with the red stars on it.

Leave a comment | tags: outside the tower | posted in Uncategorized

July 15, 2012

Bloody Neighbors

By David Stewart

Don’t you hate upstairs neighbors? I cannot tell you how long it took for me even to get a sniff at an apartment like mine—how many real estate agents I had to suck up to, and how much networking it took. Finally, I got it though, the whole first floor of a beautiful old building on the Lower East Side. Every inch of it was mine and I made it my castle. It was perfect, except for the guy living upstairs.

There were only three floors in the building—three apartments total. The upper apartment was occupied by an elderly couple—the Gerards, according to their mailbox. They looked well-off, but kept to themselves. I probably wouldn’t have minded being under them. The guy on the second floor, a Mr. R. Hart, was in his mid-thirties, single and active. I could hear every step he made: from bedroom to bathroom, from kitchen to living room. It drove me crazy. It was worse when his girlfriend stayed over, and almost unbearable when he decided to have a party for all his friends—yuppies or hipsters or whatever that type is called these days. I would go to sleep with headphones on, willing the strains of Aaron Copeland to drown out the blare of dubstep from above me.

Our building had a dedicated elevator—you needed a key to use it. That was one of the things that drew me to the apartment. It meant that it could only go to one apartment at a time, since only one key would fit at a time. I loved that feature more than anything. It meant no awkward elevator rides with neighbors that I had no desire to speak to—talking about the weather or some other nonsense. Sometimes I would come home to find one of the other neighbors waiting for the elevator and I would pretend to check my mail until they had gone up.

The elevator opened into my entryway, just off my living room, but I had a box rigged up in the kitchen with a call button and a display to show the floor the elevator was on. So, even though I never met my neighbors I knew a lot about when they came and went. The Gerards never went out after seven, except on Sundays. Mr. R. Hart came and went at all hours, but once he was in for the night, he usually didn’t go out again. And just like me, they never visited each other.

One night I was up late, reading Kafka in the living room with a glass of wine. I got up for another glass and saw that the elevator was moving. It went up to the third floor. It was just after midnight on a Tuesday and I suddenly became worried. The Gerards were elderly and anything off schedule couldn’t be good. I looked outside for an ambulance, but the street was deserted.

I finished my third glass of wine and was bringing the glass into the kitchen when I saw the elevator going down. It stopped on the second floor. Probably Mr. R. Hart had called it. I watched for it to go down to the lobby, but it never did.

There were several footsteps above me and then a thump. There was another thump and then a crash. Normally, I didn’t think anything of any sounds coming from the apartment of Mr. R. Hart but with the mystery of the elevator, I was getting seriously anxious.

There was another thump and then another. Then the sound became rhythmic—thump, thump, thump—and I realized with a flash of relief and disgust where I had heard it before: it sounded just like a headboard hitting the wall. Right away, I could picture the scenario. Mr. R. Hart had had a woman over. He had called the elevator for her to leave but they had gotten caught up in the throes of passion again and started crashing around up there. I had heard similar, and worse, from his place before.

The thumping continued, on and on, while I clenched my fists and ground my teeth. I grabbed a broom and started pounding on the ceiling.

“Hey, jerks!” I shouted. “Quit rutting like a pair of drugged up hyenas. Some people are trying to sleep. I just called the police—they’ll be here in a few minutes.”

The sound stopped abruptly and I gave a smug smile. A moment later, the elevator started moving down to the lobby.

I rinsed out the wine glass and was just about to turn off the light, when I heard a sizzle and smelled a hot, metallic smell. I looked up at the light, just to see a large drop fall from it and splash in a tiny red puddle on my polished oak floor. I called the police.

By the time the police arrived, blood was dripping down my light and the towel I had put down was soaked. I was almost in hysterics—not something I like to admit, but I blame the wine. The police called the landlord and found Mr. R. Hart dead on his living room floor. His skull was crushed and blood was everywhere. The police estimated that the killers must have smashed his head against the floor at least fifty times.

The Gerards were dead too—brutally beaten to death and all their valuables taken. Based on my testimony, the police determined that the perpetrators had gone there first, then down to the apartment of Mr. R. Hart. No one knows how they got in, but the police suspected that they used a set of keys that the landlord admitted to losing several months earlier. Nothing was taken from Mr. R. Hart’s apartment. It seems the burglars had gotten scared and fled the scene. No one mentioned it, but I could only think of where they would have gone after the second floor.

* * *

The apartment building is silent now. The burglars were never caught and the two apartments above me are still active crime scenes. The police confided in me that even if they were arrested today, it would be years before the apartments could be rented again. I would never move though. I changed the locks, upgraded my security system, and now I sit, alone in a building that is two-thirds crime scene, while the ghosts of neighbors I never knew disrupt my sleep with their silent steps.

I almost wish I had gotten to know them.

15 Comments | tags: apartment, burglary, creepy, crime, fiction, horror | posted in Dark

July 13, 2012

See the World Through a Cardboard Tube!

By David Stewart

A blue van with lightning bolts painted on it pulled up in front of Brent’s school at lunchtime. The students, being trusting teenagers, crowded around to see what it was. A man and a woman stepped out, dressed in outfits that could only be described as castoffs from a magician’s garage sale.

“Step right up!” the man said, somewhat unnecessarily, since he was in danger of being crushed against the side of his own van. “See the world as you have never seen it before!”

The crowd of middle-schoolers remained silent, seeing where this was going, but the man refused to give details.

“Who will be the first one? Come into the van and we’ll give you the instructions.”

At this point, an adult would have been running in the opposite direction while calling the police, but teenagers are thoughtless and curious: a dangerous combination. After a moment, a girl named Stacy raised her hand.

“Sounds good. What do I have to do?” Stacy was always self-assured and forthright. Some had speculated that she had probably cut her own umbilical cord.

Brent watched with the others as the woman led Stacy into the back of the van. A moment later, she emerged, seemingly unscathed, with a cardboard tube in her hands, like one that comes in a paper towel roll. It had red stars drawn on it in pen.

Stacy held the cardboard tube up to her eye and gasped. “Oh wow.” It sounded like a moan. She slowly moved the tube around and when she turned it on the crowd, she laughed. “This is amazing, guys,” she said.

This reaction caused a ripple of discussion to go through the crowd. Half the students were intrigued; the other half tended towards derision. Brent was in the latter group. It just seemed too absurd, although part of him wanted it to really be something amazing, and not make-believe or a drug trip.

A minute later, Stacy gave the cardboard tube back and grabbed her boyfriend, Tim. “You have got to try this Tim,” she said, cutting off his refusal with an imperious look. She practically pushed him into the back of the van.

The students were captivated now. Tim was one of the most popular boys in school. What would his reaction be? A few minutes later, the van door opened and Tim got out. He held the same tube and put it up to his eye.

He didn’t say anything, but as he looked around, his mouth slowly fell open. The crowd was dead silent. A tear actually rolled down his cheek as he handed the tube back a few minutes later. The students went crazy. Whatever was in that tube, it had made one of the coolest boys in school cry.

There was no shortage of takers now. The man picked a few more and their reactions were even more outrageous. A few laughed or jumped up and down. One just full-on bawled, and kept saying how incredible the sight was.

“We have time for one more,” the man said. “Who will it be?”

Brent found himself raising his hand, although he had not planned to. The man pointed to him and the woman led him into the back of the van.

“Can you keep a secret?” the woman asked. It did not seem a promising beginning to Brent, seeing that he was now alone with her in the back of a van.

“What kind of secret?” Brent asked.

“The biggest kind of secret in the world. The kind you couldn’t tell to your best friend.”

“No, probably not,” Brent said after a while. “I would try, of course, but it if was a big secret, it would probably slip out at some point.” He had a troubling habit of being honest.

“Well, I suspect you could,” the woman said with a smile, “but I appreciate your honesty. Now, go out and look through this tube.” She handed him a cardboard tube decorated in pen with blue stars.

Brent stepped out of the van. Half the crowd had wandered away after hearing that Brent was going to be the last one. The rest of them were staring at him. He put the tube to his eye.

The world disappeared.

The school was gone. In its place was a high castle with strange mountains climbing up behind it. The sky was a dark purple, with coruscating lines of pink running through it. Small, blue creatures like dragons flew around them, landing and taking off nearby. A group of trees was strolling around, having what looked like an animated discussion.

Brent looked back at the van. It was gone. In its place was a woman dressed in a red cloak, sitting on a huge black Pegasus. She smiled at him.

He took the tube down from his eye and the real world flooded back. The students looked unimpressed by his reaction and the crowd started to break up.

“Here you go,” Brent said, handing the tube back to the woman. She held up her hand.

“You keep it. I’ll make another one. My name is Klista, by the way. Remember that.”

The next day, Tim came up to Brent after school. “I saw that they picked you to look into the tube. So, how much did you get?”

“What do you mean?”

“That woman didn’t give you any money?” Tim asked.

“No, did she give you some?”

“Yeah, she brought me into the back and asked if I could keep a secret, so I said yes. She said they were doing an experiment and that she would give me money to go pretend I saw something amazing when I looked through that tube. That’s why I cried. Nice touch, eh? I’m thinking of taking up acting, maybe go in for the school play. Between Stacy and me, we got fifty bucks. You really didn’t get anything?”

“She let me keep the tube,” Brent said.

“The tube?” Tim laughed. “Man, you really got gypped.” He turned and walked away.

Yes, you did, Brent thought.

12 Comments | tags: fantasy, fiction, Klista, other worlds | posted in Klista

July 10, 2012

Crane Game Wife

By David Stewart

(Introducing the Mid-Week Flash, a short, often rather odd piece of fiction every Wednesday.)

I found my wife in a crane game. You know, those ones you find on the street and in bars that are impossible to win. This one was in the back of a run-down arcade. I was bored and when I saw a bunch of small, pretty women inside the case, I thought: Why not? Better than a plushie Spongebob doll.

I put a quarter in and started to move the crane around with the joystick, but they all started running away from it. It was then that I realized they weren’t robots or dolls. They made me sit down and tell them about myself, what I was looking for in a girl, and why I liked them in particular (which was hard, since they were asking about all of them and I didn’t know any of them). Finally, after a couple hours, I put in another quarter and one of them jumped on the crane and I got her out.

She was only ten inches tall but she said if I put her in water, she would grow. Of course, stupid me, I left her in too long and now she’s like, seven feet tall.

I still love her though.

21 Comments | tags: crane game, fiction, funny, marriage, mid-week flash | posted in Light

July 9, 2012

It Only Takes Once

By David Stewart

(This is the first story I have posted that I consider a “Midnight” story. Slightly more creepy than my other stuff.)

There are some experiences that carve such a large hole in our lives that they affect everything from then on, for good or bad. The best defining moment of my life was when I stepped off my boat after sailing solo from New York to Cherbourg, France. The worst defining moment was shorter, but had a greater impact.

I was living in Korea, teaching English for a year for the experience of living abroad. My apartment was apparently designed by voyeurs since the only window in the bathroom led to the outside hallway. Flip the latch, slide the frosted glass window and I could have talked with my neighbors as they were coming home and as I was taking a shower. Needless to say, I never opened the window.

I got up one night around 3:00am to use the bathroom. I’m not normally skittish, but that night, I kept looking behind me.

The motion-sensor light in the hall came on—one of my neighbors coming in late, most likely drunk. I didn’t hear any doors open and a few seconds later, the light went off. I was just washing my hands when I glanced up at the window and saw a hand pressed against the glass.

The fingers were long and thin and the whole hand had a greenish-grey tinge to it. It was pulsing slightly—stroking at the frosted glass window with its fingertips and wherever it touched, it left greenish smudges on the glass.

My heart started to pound and I backed out of the bathroom. I wanted to look away, but I couldn’t. The hand slowly slid down the glass and out of sight until all that was left were five long smears.

I was not near the living room light switch but I reached into the bedroom and turned on the light there. At the same time, the motion-sensor light in my small entranceway came on.

I was starting to seriously freak out. Maybe it’s just a short in the wires, I thought. I knew my outer door had been locked. The entranceway light went off, but then a second later it came back on. I saw a shadow of something come across the light through the frosted glass windows in the closed entranceway door. The knob began to turn, silently.

I thought I was going to pass out from panic. I had nothing close by to use as a weapon. In a second, the entranceway door would open.

“Go away!” I shouted, although my voice cracked absurdly. “Go away now . . . in Jesus’ name!”

I wasn’t a Christian at that time, and I had no idea where that came from. It just came into my head, suddenly.

At that moment, the light in the entranceway went off again, which made things worse. I backed a little further into the lighted bedroom, waiting for movement to turn the entranceway light back on.

But it never came back on. The waiting became unbearable. I had no idea if the person was gone or if they were lurking there in my entranceway, not moving and not triggering the light. An hour went by before I got up the nerve to venture out and turn the living room light on. From its light, I could tell that the entranceway was empty. I opened the door and saw that my front door was open too.

There were many things I could not explain. I swear that I had locked my front door—I did so automatically whenever I came home. The outer door was big and creaky, but I never heard a sound. The entranceway was covered with bits of dust and tiny clots of greenish-grey dirt. The strangest thing—and what made me shiver in terror—was the sight of one of my steel-toed boots, crushed almost flat and covered with green dust. I could not imagine what could have done that, and silently too.

I have never seen anything like that since, but once was enough. I could not sleep in that apartment again. I slept in a hotel for two weeks until my school arranged for a new apartment for me, one with a pass code to get into the building. I would have thought it was all a horrible dream except for the dirt and the filthy smears on the window that were still there the next day.

Since that time, I have never had an apartment on the ground floor or one where the windows were at all accessible from outside. Still, whenever it is dark and I catch a glimpse of a window, I shudder to think of another hand pressed again it, smearing it with green-grey filth, or even worse…

…a face.

14 Comments | tags: apartment, creepy, fiction, horror, mystery, scary, stalker, window | posted in Dark

July 6, 2012

The Woman in Blue, Part 3 of 3

By David Stewart

The Woman in Blue, Part 2

…Jack Simons walked into the house. It seemed mere seconds since he had left it that morning. He was tired and aggravated, although he didn’t know why. And his finger hurt. Slowly, he parted his fingers and saw two words, cut in tiny strokes on the side of his left ring finger. Stay calm.

Someone must have known about his outburst the night before.

He sat down at the computer. Hi, Sarah.

Hi, Jack. How are you feeling today?

He felt like crap and wanted to punch something, but he forced a smile onto his face. I feel great. How about you?

I’m good, Jack. I’m good.

Over the next few days, it seemed as if everything in the house began conspiring against him. The next day, the toaster started smoking on its own. That made the sprinkler system go off, which soaked everything in the house, including his bed, but strangely, not the computer. Sarah had no explanation for this, as much as he accused her of setting it up.

Stay calm. The words rang shrilly in his head, making him more angry, if anything, but he contained his rage. This got easier when he discovered an extra heating unit and other electronics stuffed inside the mangled remains of the toaster and he knew that they—whoever they were—were testing him, trying to get him angry.

On the night of May 21^st, Jack was woken up by sounds of movement coming from the living room. He went out and turned on the light to see a burglar—no mask, though—standing in his living room, filling a large bag with electronics and knick-knacks.

“What in Styx do you think you’re doing?” Jack asked, although it was pretty obvious.

“Go back into the bedroom and you won’t get hurt,” the burglar said. He was young, in his early twenties probably. He gave Jack a saucy sneer and suddenly Jack wanted to kill him. Not for the stuff he was stealing—it wasn’t Jack’s anyway—but just for being an arrogant prick who thought he was tough and thought he was in control.

Stay calm.

Of course, this was only another test, to see what he would do. Jack forced a grin onto his face. Are you watching this, Sarah? he thought.

“Ah, come on. You’re not going to hurt me,” Jack said, suddenly changing his tone and giving the burglar a easy grin. “You just want this stuff and then you want to go, right? How did you get in?”

“Uh, the back door. It was unlocked,” the burglar said, suddenly unsure of himself.

“Makes sense, I honestly can’t remember ever locking it. Hey, do you want the TV?” Jack asked. “I don’t watch it anyway.” He unhooked the cables from the back and then carried it over to the door. “I’ll get the microwave for you too.”

Twenty minutes later, Jack and the burglar had stripped the house of anything of value and piled it by the back door. Everything except the computer and the telephone. Jack had offered them, but the burglar had declined, not surprisingly.

“Now go into the bedroom and shut the door,” the burglar ordered. “I’ll carry this stuff outside.”

“Fair enough,” Jack said. He went into the bedroom and lay down, listening to the burglar moving things out of the back door. He wondered if the burglar lost his memories every time he went through. That would be pretty funny. He wondered if Sarah was watching all this and what she thought of it all.

He heard the door shut and then there was silence. A moment later, the phone rang. Jack smiled and then got up to answer it.

“Hello?”

“Hello, Jack. I saw you were up anyway.”

“Yeah, funny thing about that.”

“Jack, I’m here to tell you that it’s over. The experiment, that is. They say you passed.”

“Okay, now what?”

“Now, you can leave, for real.”

Jack heard a buzz and a click. Looking out in the hall, he saw that the front door was standing ajar.

“You’re in prison, Jack,” Sarah’s voice said. “You were sentenced to life in prison for killing two men, but you were lucky enough to be chosen for this experiment, to see if your behavior could change if you had no memories—to see if you were fundamentally bad or not.”

Jack knew he should shut up. His brain kept telling him to, but he couldn’t stop himself. “Is that what you think of me? That I’m a robot that has a GOOD-EVIL switch that might get flipped to GOOD if I couldn’t remember being a criminal? And you were going to prove this by trying to make me angry? Anger doesn’t equal evil, Sarah, and calm doesn’t equal good.”

“Jack,” her voice was sweet but warning at the same time. “They passed you; don’t try to convince them to undo that. This is only Stage 1. If you go out the front door, they will still be monitoring you, although you won’t know it. You’ll forget everything about this place and about prison. You’ll have a new identity and wake up in a hospital, supposedly with amnesia.”

“Amnesia?”

“The Department of Corrections isn’t too creative with their ideas,” Sarah said and there was a hint of amusement in her voice.

“Will I remember you?”

“No, you won’t.”

“Then tell me: who are you, Sarah?” Jack asked.

“I am your fiancée,” she said, after a pause. “We would be married now, if two men hadn’t broken into your house a week before our wedding. You beat them both to death. The warden asked me to help in the experiment as a control, because I knew you. I was the one person you could never forget and they wanted to prove that you could. I love you, Jack.”

“I won’t do it,” Jack said. “If I have to be in prison for the rest of my life, so be it. I don’t want to forget you, out there. I’ve been trying to remember you in here and I couldn’t. I don’t want to live like that for the rest of my life, especially now.”

“Jack,” Sarah said, “you don’t remember now, but there was a time when you fell in love with me. You pursued me and charmed me and made me fall in love with you too. You told me you did this experiment for me, so let me do this for you, Jack. Let me find you and make you fall in love with me again.”

“Okay, I’ll trust you. What do I do?”

“Just walk through the front door. There are machines built into the door frame. You won’t remember anything after that and we can start again. I love you, Jack.”

He wanted to return the feeling, to say he loved her too, but the words sounded false in his mind. He didn’t even remember her. “I will love you too,” he said. Then he hung up the phone and walked out the front door…