The Works of Nick Hayden

Below, light shimmered and flashed between a thousand panes of glass, coming from nowhere and reflecting from everywhere. Alicia squinted, turning her face upward to the boundless dark that enveloped the space, as if the corridors of brilliance hung suspended in the void. Which, to be honest, they probably did.

“And where are we tonight, O mysterious guide?” Alicia asked.

The old man next to her looked exactly as she thought Merlin might, if Merlin were real. Which, apparently, he was, because Carl here claimed to be Merlin’s nieces’ son, via time displacement. Of course.

“This,” Carl said in his gruff voice, “is the Hall of Mirrors.”

“Ah. I should have guessed.”

“Well?” he barked. “Go look.”

Alicia sighed, but started down the marble steps hanging over nothingness. These dreams–she still called them dreams, though she knew they were as real as her waking life–always held a surreal quality. And a lesson. Always some sort of lesson. Like things weren’t always what they seemed and the world held more things than imagined in your philosophy, Horatio, and silence is a virtue. (She hadn’t really learned that last one yet.) Carl was preparing her for something, she was special, she could see things others couldn’t, yadda yadda.

Strangely, when she was here, in these dream realms, her waking life was shrouded, remembered in abstract ideas rather than images. Oh, she knew she attended high school and she had parents and three siblings, the general contours, but the rest was dark. And she knew she remembered these encounters, even when she woke.

Down among the mirrors, she managed to keep eyes open against the light, but it seemed to be beating against her brain like some death metal chugga-chugga.

“What am I looking for?” she asked.

“What do you see?” Carl retorted.

“Myself. Surprise.”

She was rather short in the polished glass, with short red hair and freckles. Decent-looking.

“Are you sure?”

In the next mirror she was taller, thinner (rather too thin), with black hair halfway down her back. She had been certain the previous reflection was hers, but now this one…

Now that she thought about it, though the line of mirrors faced each other, she saw only one reflection in each and not an infinite line.

The girl in the next mirror was almost certainly a champion shot putter, and Alicia was almost certain this was her true self. Oddly, this didn’t bother her.

If this wasn’t a dream world, she was sure she could just look down at herself and determine which images were not the true her, but as it was, any view of her own body slid away like words skimmed when half-asleep.

 Down the corridor she walked, lingering before each image. She felt like she was choosing an avatar in a video game. 

“So, what are you trying to teach me?” she asked. “I can be whoever I want to be?”

Carl made a sharp, choking sound. “No! No! That is dangerous, more here than in the waking world. This realm tempts you with possibilities, with lies. You must be real here before you can exert any power here.”

“So…I have to choose my true self?”

“Yes.”

“You do know I’m in high school, right?”

Carl said nothing. He didn’t understand.

“What if I get it wrong?”

“Don’t.”

“No pressure then.” Alicia looked in the next mirror. Light flared off her bald head. She looked good bald. She closed her eyes to rest them. 

“Can I complain again about being special and all that? Normal people don’t have to perform trials while they sleep.”

“They have other trials.”

“Yes, of course. “ She paused in front of a beautiful young lady. Elegance radiated from her. “Not this one, I suppose?”

Carl said nothing.

“How do you see me?”

“With my eyes.”

She looked over at him. Not a smile, not even a hint of one.

The next image showed a mousy, nondescript girl. “Is this like Indiana Jones and that cup?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

A crowd of young females stared back at her, one at a time–brazen, apologetic, startled, bored, confused, resigned. Her head throbbed. The far end of the hall was shrouded in darkness. Her reflection followed her in a hundred permutations as she strode for relief. She passed from light to dark as through a door. Carl entered behind her and was swallowed. Though she could see the hall beyond, not a glimmer of light fell past the dividing line.

Curious, she held out her hand. It touched the smooth surface of a mirror.

“What does this one show?”

Carl’s voice came from over her shoulder. “What do you see?”

She ran her hand along the mirror. A hand grabbed hers. Her fingers crawled up the arm, and its fingers climbed hers. She felt the face, touching ear and cheek and nose as they touched her face, action for action.

“This is me, isn’t it?”

“Tell me why,” Carl said.

“It’s not an illusion. It’s real.”

“Wrong. This is an illusion, too.”

“We can’t truly know ourselves. That’s why it’s dark.”

“Wrong. This isn’t philosophy class. This is basic. This realm is forgetful, wish-fulfilling. It’s wild and must be tamed by truth. What is the truth?”

“Fine. I don’t know who I am, and I need someone to show me.”

“Wrong. Look at yourself.”

“There’s nothing to see.”

“Exactly.”

“I’m dead?”

“Oh, criminy, no!”

Using both hands, Alicia felt the face before her, let her face be felt. Chin, lips, cheekbones, ear lobes, the soft pressure of eyes–

“Oh.”

“Yes,” Carl said, touching her. “And next time you come, you will remember.”

She woke in her bed. It was dark. It was always dark. She felt her face. Then she lay back down to wait for morning she would not see, blind.

Paran walked along the long, dusty road beneath a brutal sun. There was singing in the fields nearby. Men and women were gathering in the wheat, their voices strong beneath the cloudless sky. 

He knew the songs. His lips twitched to the words one could not quite decipher at this distance, and he continued walking. 

With some surprise, he saw that Karl had finally mended his fence. The Latmar house had a fresh coat of paint. Margaret sat on her porch, working with a needle. Paran would have walked past her, delaying the moment when he would have to speak into this almost-familiar world, but she looked up as he approached, so he greeted her with an uncertain pause between “Good” and “Afternoon.”

She smiled politely and returned the greeting. Then her smile widened. “Paran? Is that you?” She stood, and he saw she would soon give birth. Her face was exactly as he remembered and as foreign as any he had met in his travels.

“I can’t stay, I haven’t seen my mother yet,” he said as she hurried over.

She gazed at him in astonishment. “Such a beard!”

“I had other things to do than shave.”

Her expression closed. “Is it over?”

“Yes.” He forced a smile. “We won.”

“We heard rumors, but only a few. It seems so far away.”

He looked over her into the field, where the people sang. “It was.” He glanced at her belly. “Your first?”

“Second, actually.” 

Paran said nothing, just nodded, and refused to meet her eyes. 

“You’ll tell us about it, after you settle in?” Margaret asked.

“I suppose.” He forced himself to look at her. “Don’t tell anyone yet. I mean, don’t go out and tell them. I want to see mom first. She’s all right, isn’t she?”

Margaret laughed. “More than all right. She hasn’t changed a bit.”

Paran nodded. He almost said more but instead just touched Margaret’s shoulder and continued down the road.

He could see Marlslin ahead, the spire of the village church rising above the other buildings. He stopped. Along the road, a large rock stood. He remembered the boy who used to sit on top of it and stare down the long, dusty road, waiting for something to come. Where was he now?

Paran moved on. His house sat small and lonely just outside Marlslin. He felt too large for it; it was an old pair of boots long unworn, familiar but no longer comfortable. He stood outside the door, not quite able to knock. There was a patch of dirt across the road where the boy used to dig and collect rocks and line them up in patterns. Tufts of faded grass grew there now. 

He did knock, and he waited, and he opened the door and walked in like a stranger. His mother was not home. She would be at the church, then. He would have to go into town.

He had fought and shed blood and held the injured. This was a different kind of sorrow.

Paran walked resolutely among the stores and homes. It was exactly as he remembered it–except it seemed an imitation, as if behind the windows and doors he would not find kitchens and conversations and lives, but the backside of facades. And the boy was not there, the boy who threw rocks and chased the birds across the roofs and diverted the rain that dripped from the eaves.

The main room of the church was a large, wood-floored room. He heard the scraping of a broom before he entered. He stood in the doorway watching her. She seemed smaller than he remembered, and older. 

“Hello, Mother.”

She looked up. It was only a moment, them staring at each other, before she dropped the broom and embraced him. He held her close and looked at the ceiling, blinking. When she finally stepped back, wiping her tears, she looked upon him with hungry eyes.

“Don’t look at me like that.”

“Why, Paran?”

“I’ve done–seen–I didn’t know anything before and I wish I didn’t now. It’s all so broken….” He swallowed. “Where is he, Mom?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“The boy–the one who used to hide in the corner there and pretend he was invisible. He used to climb the stairs to the top, up there, and look out, and you’d call for him, and he’d pretend he was king over everything, that the whole world was his, and when he came down, you scolded him and fed him and kissed him and put him to bed….”

His mother stepped close and touched his cheek.

“My boy. My dear, dear, boy. You’re home now. You’re home.”

He nodded, the tears coming, coming, and she held his too-big body in her short, solid arms.

It was not much warmer in the hole he had dug for himself than it was outside it, but he eventually managed to control his convulsions. His teeth still chattered if he didn’t force them shut. He was as small as he could make himself, and he was starting to cramp.

Outside, the gunfire and explosions continued. The sound crashed against him like waves, drowning him in din, pressing into his brain until he couldn’t breath, and then draining away into an almost-silence, leaving him cold and tired and barely able to brace for the next onslaught. Another came, and another. Another always came.

His friends and fellow soldiers were dead, their corpses somewhere on the field. It was night now, but there had been no sun for days, just iron clouds and stiff wind and an ever-present mist soaking into the bones.

Charles existed, and the sensation was terror.

His fingers pressed against his pocket. He could feel the envelope. There was no way to read the letter now, but he knew what it said. He had read it repeatedly in the days leading up to the onslaught. It said impossible things. It said, “The day will come when the war will end, and all the pain and sorrow that seems to swallow your world will dwindle. You will be happy again, and there will be peace. I know, because I am writing from that day. I cannot say more, but trust the one who writes this letter.” It was written in his handwriting and it was signed with his name. 

The night was endless, and if he slept, he did not know it. The world became silent, utterly silent, as if all men had died and the grave ruled. The sky grayed, and it began to rain. He could not move, and he had not been dry for many days. Charlie struggled and slithered free of his hole onto churned earth. He drank water from a puddle and wept. 

They found him later, as he crawled back toward safety. Three of them surrounded him and jeered at him in their language. They pushed him forward and hit him in the back with the butt of their rifles. Then he was among them at their base, their soulless eyes watching him. Into a dark hole they pushed him. They close a thick panel over him. 

He touched the envelope in his pocket. He knew what it said by heart. He knew what it said.

The darkness deepened in the hole, and it was night again.

“Are you comfortable?”

“Yes,” Albert said.

“The nurses explained the procedure to your satisfaction? Any questions?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“All right. I’m going to lean you back now. If you ever want me to stop, just tell me. You’re in control here.”

“This is my first time” Albert said. “I figured someday I’d come down here, but on the other side, you know? I never expected–”

“You don’t have to explain yourself. People come for all kinds of reasons. There’s nothing to be ashamed of. Now, you’re going to feel a pressure at the base of your neck. It shouldn’t hurt. Done. How’s that?”

“It’s okay.”

“It says on your form you don’t have any particular event decided on. Is that correct?”

“Yeah.”

“All right. Let’s try a few medium range samples and work from there. I’ll just choose some promising looking ones. It’s sort of like that duck game at the fair, you turn one over and see what prize you–”

The phone is ringing on the other end and I’m trying not to breath and I just want to hang up and almost do. Hello? It’s her. Hi, Sara, I was just calling because you said you might need help on your homework–I’m lightheaded and painfully alive. Sure. I’m smiling, my teeth hurt, my insides hurt, and I’m happy, and–

“That one is surprisingly vibrant for being decades old,” the doctor said. “It has a nice immediacy and innocence. Some of the edge is dulled since you’re viewing it through older eyes. We could probably give you a hundred, a hundred-fifty for that one.”

“And I would lose it forever?”

“That’s how this works. Now that I have a baseline, I can see some other vibrant ones. How about–”

I lie still, utterly still, in darkness, my legs pulled up near my body. I listen intensely, hear the shallow breathing, wait still. Slowly, slowly, I lift my head, lift myself onto my elbow, the mattress squeaking. I pause. Still, the soft, regular breathing. Bit by bit, drawn out over long minutes, I lift myself over the body next to me, teetering over it as I slip out of the crib, where my son finally, finally sleeps, peaceful–

Albert blinked to clear his vision. “Why would someone want that one?”

“You’d be surprised what people will pay for. Great triumphs, thrills, danger, they’re the best sellers, of course, but some people just want to feel normal. And some of them want to comfort themselves, feel like they were good parents or workers or spouses.”

“And sad memories?”

“People want them gone, and there’s a lot of money in that. There are some clients who buy them too. Maybe they want to commiserate with someone in their tragedy. Maybe they want to beat themselves up for having a good life. I don’t ask. We humans are a strange bunch. We just want to feel connected, one way or another.”

“How much to take a sad memory?”

“Depends. Which one you want me to look at?”

“Never mind. I was just curious.”

“Next one then. This looks promising.”

The lights are off in the living room. I’m in the dark, lost, everything over, years wasted, ruined and bankrupt, deep fear and anguish brooding over me, enveloping me. My wife sits down beside me. She takes my hand. She just sits there, silent. Then she leans close, and she whispers in my ear. I can hear the sorrow. I love you. It’s going to be okay. I begin to cry, tears flowing out of the blackness that’s been drawing closer, heavier, and she holds me and she’s there in the abyss, solid, warm, real. I’m here. We’ll get through this together.

“I’ll give you $1250 for that,” the doctor says. “It’ll only take a few moments, and you’ll have your cash. I’ll give you $1300, even. What do you say?”

The princess in the tower was beautiful, which was one of the reasons men made the arduous journey across the sun-scorched ruins to the monolithic stone that entombed her. Those that survived the trials, which were numerous and cunning, arrived in her suite, a colorful and well-furnished space that nevertheless seemed as desolate as the environs without. These men might find her in the dining room, or in the music room, or in the bedroom. No matter where they found her, no matter the time of day, her would-be rescuers found her staring at them, intent, unblinking, emotionless.

Her hair was night and her eyes were stars, distant and faintly gleaming. Some called her complexion porcelain when it was truer to call it wan. She wore a high-necked dress of dark color, gloves, and slippers.

One brave man, finding her sitting upon her bed, approached boldly and kissed her. (He had heard this broke curses, and she had a well-proportioned face, with a small nose and thick lips, that encouraged such actions.)

She looked at him sadly, a shadow of injury marred her placid features, and she stood and locked herself in an adjoining room until he went away.

Another brave man arrived while she sat at dinner. He introduced himself. She did not answer. He explained that he was from such-and-such a kingdom and was a well-endowed member of such-and-such a family and that he had suffered many trials to free her from her imprisonment. She stared at him, unmoving and unmoved, so that he felt compelled to continue, detailing his travels and his aspirations and his responsibilities.

Finally, exasperated and nearly hoarse, he cried, “Woman, why do you not speak?”

The princess turned away. The brave man waited expectantly. He touched her shoulder. She stood and looked at him impassively. He turned away, unable to meet those dark, distant eyes, and finally left.

A third brave man came armed with spells and talismans, for it was obvious now, to those who kept up with the news concerning curses and the cursed, that the princess in the stone tower was a special case. He poured oil on her head and draped a shawl of goatskin around her shoulders; he muttered incantations and flicked holy water at her face; he danced and sang and pricked her thumb with the needle of a spinning wheel. She watched him with the blank eyes of an idol. 

“If only I knew your name!” he cried. “Then I could break this spell.”

By this time, brave men began to move on to greener pastures. Princesses everywhere were in the thrall of wizards and stepmothers and elves, and this princess in this tower seemed, to many, a rather inconvenient prize. “She’s not even that beautiful,” they said, which, compared with others in comparable situations, was probably true.

But eventually another young man came, because young men must come, and he, being drawn by the dangers less frequented, as some are drawn to the books less read, arrived finally in the princess’s suite. She was in the sitting room, sitting, and stared at him. He sat, too. He said nothing. He closed his eyes, tired from his long journey and the hazardous ascent. 

He slept, accidentally, and then, waking, found her still looking at him. “Sorry,” he mumbled and remained seated, listening to the silence. After a time, he heard under the silence something else, a motionless presence like a predator watching, or a child peering around a corner when she should be in bed. He looked at the princess and felt her shifting, inching toward him. She did not move, but the stars of her eyes seemed to shimmer faintly.

He listened now more intently, and he began to hear–the long, unchanging days, the empty rooms, the clockwork movement, the empty hands and noteless expanse and creeping fingers of hopelessness. And still he listened, and he began to hear, faintly, like ants in the grass or clouds scraping against one another, the stirrings of her soul, the flicker of the only flame in leagues. 

The princess blinked. She turned her head away from him, just a smidge.Then she spoke, and she told him her name.

It should go without saying that death, in its current form, is undesirable to the human condition in as far as its presence arouses questions of a spiritual nature that are no longer useful to civilization. As we move away from our pagan past and embrace the scientific reality that undergirds the universe, it is necessary that we do away with the leftover evolutionary impulses of former generations.

To this end, it is essential that we remove death from modern society. This is not to say that we must, in so many words, eliminate death–science has not yet progressed so far, though it will, no doubt,  in time–but that we must functionally remove the presence of death from the everyday world of humankind. This has been largely aided in advanced nations by the innumerable and often violent deaths in our visual media, thereby unconsciously rendering in the minds of many the end of life as a cathartic plot point and not as an embodied incident, and by the encouraging trend in funerals of making the ceremony a celebration of individualism and not of communal rites of grieving and estacological hope.

Despite these improvements, there still remains an absence and a corpse to deal with when the inevitable comes. True, the growth in the number of cremations has removed the body from the view of many of those whose personal concerns might be disturbed by the sight of a lifeless body, while simultaneously creating the illusion that a loved one is “always with us,” whether on the mantelpiece or in the garden feeding the newly planted tree. More, however, remains to be done and must be done.

To further the transition to a deathless society, we must first change the language. Euphemisms have always abounded concerning the cessation of life. We must push them further. We must make the passing of a loved one into something undeniably positive, even preferable to continued life–but again, we cannot let religion creep in. Even literary terms, such as “sailing west” or “entering golden fields” must be stripped of their mysticism and presented in a strictly realistic sense. In the United States, for instance, “moved to Florida” might replace “bought the farm” and still mean, as far as we allow one to consider it, a strictly geographic relocation.

Such a spatial move is vital to our program. It is obvious, I hope, that we must remove the sick and aged from the sight of the young and healthy if we hope to eliminate death from society. This is most efficiently accomplished by making the sick and aged acutely aware of  their failings and of the burden they present to the fit and productive. This guilt of uselessness must then be met with the promise of both relief and purpose, by which we mean that their purpose is to relieve others of their presence.

Then they must “go away.” We can establish various idyllic locations and present them in a variety of media, until it is well understood that this is where those who are no longer a benefit to society are welcome. Whether they actually arrive can be decided on a case-by-case basis.

Furthermore, with recent advances in technology, we can make this journey truly convincing. We have collected mounds of data on each citizen’s conversational mannerisms and facial expressions from the devices in their homes. It is not hard, with the proper systems in place, to produce calls and video chats from those who have retired to those who are still living. This content will be kept purposely mundane and uninteresting. Combined with the living’s perpetual activity, contact between the living and those who have gone away will grow more and more irregular until those who have moved on are finally forgotten.

Some have asked whether we can truly convince our citizens that their family members and friends are living elsewhere, content and happy. Won’t they know that they have died? some ask. Can we truly convince our citizens that we have conquered death?

To that I say, of course they will believe. Some will accept it easily, because it is the official story. Most, of course, will know the truth, deep down, but they will lie to themselves until they believe it too. And then it will be true. It will take one of the hard and brutal questions of life out of their hands and remove the specter of religion and its outmoded demands entirely from their consideration.

That is what we desire and what they, though they don’t know it, want as well.

I’d been a month at my new job in the city, and I was done. I wanted to go home. So as soon as I clocked out Friday, I threw some clothes in a bag and started driving. It was a five-hour drive, a bit less if you took the shortcut along country roads, and I wanted to sleep in my old bed.

My phone ran out of battery an hour in, and somehow the car charger was back in my apartment. It didn’t matter. I’d driven the back way once or twice and I figured I could do it without GPS.

The problem was, I got stupid tired, tired enough that if I’d had a twenty dollar bill on me, I’d have held it out the window to keep me awake. But I hardly ever had cash in my wallet. I opened the window anyway. The bitter wind jolted me at first, but I got used to it.

I drove bleary-eyed along empty stretches of farmland and country homes, the occasional headlight staring me down and blurring past. Nothing looked familiar. For a long time there were no houses and no cars and no lights but my own.

Finally, the lights of a town appeared in the distance, a glimmer on the horizon. I drove into a quaint downtown with two-story buildings that made you think of Disney’s Main Street, with windows lit up by lamps and the theater sign glowing with rows of incandescent bulbs. I parked near a little park nestled between buildings, with a gazebo at its center, lit by small solar charged lights at its base. I got out of the car to stretch. I was starting to wake a bit.

A figure walked out of the dimly lit path of the park and stopped a moment. I ignored it and gazed around, trying to find some indication of what town I was in.

“Excuse me.” The voice was a woman’s. “Are you lost?”

I turned to her. In the light of the street lamp, I could see she was around my age, wearing a black winter cap and a red scarf. “I guess so.”

“You look cold.”

“I’m fine.” My cheeks were burning from the miles I’d driven with the wind in my face.

“There’s a cafe on the corner. Come on, I’ll buy you a cup.”

I nodded. She smiled and started forward, motioning for me to catch up.

“I was trying to get home, but I missed my turn,” I said, trying to explain myself.

She laughed and turned into the corner shop. Inside, it was dim, with only a few lights dangling from the high ceiling. Large windows ran along two walls and looked out into the night and street lamps. Three men in the back corner were playing jazz. Most of the small tables were occupied by men in hats and suits and well-dressed women. A metal monstrosity rumbled behind the counter, steaming milk and making espresso.

I ordered in a daze. I brought my wallet out to pay, but the woman waved it away. “Not tonight,” she said, smiling.

We sat against the far wall. I felt warm again, and the latte toasted my insides.

“You haven’t said much,” the woman said.

“I don’t know what to say.” The piano danced above the murmur of conversation.

A gentleman came up, sharp-looking and smooth-cheeked. “Melinda, who’s the fresh face?”

I stood awkwardly. “Andrew. I’m here by accident.”

“George.” He gripped my hand firmly. “Nice to meet you. Dancing’s starting soon. Melinda’s a fine teacher, if you don’t know how. Ain’t you, sweetheart?”

“I do all right,” she purred. “Tell your brother ma misses his visits.”

“Next I see him.” George tipped his hat. “Glad you stumbled in, Andrew.”

Suddenly, there was a scraping as people pushed their tables against the walls. The band started up again, but there seemed to more players now, with more brass. Melinda, still seated, glanced at me. “Do you have to go, or can you stay a bit?”

“I can stay.”

“Good. I’m glad.” She stood and extended her hand to me.

We danced. Everyone danced. The music was an enveloping, like water or air or sunlight, and we swam and soared in it. We all smiled and we laughed. It was a romance—not me and her, but all of us: George and Stanley, making faces and prancing about; Melinda’s friends, who each took their turn with me; the mustached men hovering on the edges, glasses of something stronger than coffee in their hands. I was sweating, we all were sweating, and we were out of breath and our cheeks were tired from smiling, and we laughed anyway at some wild remark. I didn’t care about being the stranger, because we were all friends—because it didn’t matter that Francis had a lazy eye or Henry had two left feet. We were delighted with each other, surprised and perplexed and astonished with one another.

And sometime in the early morning I skipped to my car after a million goodbyes and farewells, and when I shook my head in the gray morning, somewhere along an endless country road, I wondered at it all.

I never did find the town again, not on a map, not as I drove the long endless roads between the corn fields and soybeans. I never again met those friends of mine, or heard the music play as I did that night.

I’m back in the big city, and I want to go home, but it’s hidden, and I cannot find it.

Josh double-checked the laces on his shiny new shoes, slung his backpack over his shoulder, and headed out into the night. Mr. Benton was waiting in his beat-up truck at the curb. The old man gave a terse greeting, waited for Josh to buckle up, and started out into the country.

Josh had turned 12 yesterday. Mr. Benton had called, and the next evening had been decided upon.

Mr. Benton owned hundreds of acres of woods about five miles outside Shelbyville. It was not a long drive, but the minutes dragged out beneath the heavy rumble of the truck.

Finally, they pulled down his long dirt drive and Mr. Benton shut off the vehicle. The sudden silence struck Josh, who heard the croak of frogs and the chirp of insects and other strange noises he didn’t recognize.

“Follow me, Joshua,” Mr. Benton said, getting out. Josh hurried to climb down, heave the door shut, and obey. Everyone knew Mr. Benton, and everyone liked Mr. Benton, but all the boys feared him, too. One did not disobey him, and one did not want to see him angry.

They walked across a field of knee-high grass to the dark edge of the forest. A path led into the deep shadows. “This is where I leave you. You only packed what was allowed?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. You will be alone. This walkie is for use in an emergency only. You call on it, you’re done. Got that?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Men are made in this forest, Joshua. You might still feel like a boy, but you can do this. Many others have. But it is not easy. Ready?”

Josh looked into the darkness and swallowed. “Yes, sir.”

Mr Benton nodded. “Go ahead, then.”

He could not stand there, frightened, with Mr. Benton watching him, so he started forward on weak legs. He did not like the dark. In town, it was never this dark.

Mr. Benton called to him as he entered beneath the trees. “You got new batteries in your flashlight?”

Josh turned and saw the old man still standing there, a dark form in the grass, like a figure in a horror movie. “Yes, sir.”

“Good. No use twisting an ankle if you can avoid it.”

Grateful, Josh unzipped his pack and got out his heavy metal flashlight. The yellow beam cut through the night. He could see where he was going now, but it didn’t alleviate the weight of darkness. The shadows seemed deeper beyond the light than before.

He had a compass in his bag, a few snacks, a bottle of water, spare socks, and a map of the forest, with elevation markings and sketched landmarks, with an X that marked his goal. He also had a pair of extra shoes, because it had been on the list. He didn’t like what that might mean.

He followed a narrow trail that might have been a deer path, hearing his own passage through the grass and leaves and wishing he’d been allowed to bring some music. There was always some strange rustle or a creak or whisper hovering over a deep silence that disconcerted him.

The path eventually ran along a wire fence where brambles grew. Josh stopped and checked his map. He thought he should head north, over the fence. It wobbled as he climbed and he lifted his legs carefully over the barb wire on top, one then the other, and pulled away from the thorns that grabbed his clothes on the other side.

He passed through a clearing where a car sat, abandoned. He swept his light over it, checking for movement through the empty windows, and hurried on.

He found no trail on the other side of the clearing. Somewhere he would cross a creek. That’s how he would know he was going the right way. So he ducked under the branches and pressed through the thick brush until he was under the canopy. He walked in a sea of ferns, trees scattered around him, dead leaves crunching beneath his feet. The land here was rising. He checked his compass and continued forward.

The moon was up and its light shown through the leaves, and Josh walked, breathing hard as he trudged up the incline, feet slipping on the wet leaves and mud. He stopped at the top and shut off the flashlight and waited, listening, watching. Eventually, he continued forward again, and soon the land began to slope downward toward a winding creek.

It was not a wide creek but it was too wide to jump across. Josh considered walking across, but the water was cold and a fallen log lay over it to the east, so he climbed onto it and crossed, hands extended to either side, the dark water flowing quietly beneath. Once across, he sat on the log and pulled out his water bottle.

Later, his light caught the remains of a deer stand high in a tree and he traveled for a time along a path that might have been an ATV trail. He saw the shadows of bats in the sky and once stopped, his light landing on a raccoon. They stared at each other until Josh flipped off the light. Eventually, the creature scurried away.

When Josh came upon the small grassy area, he knew he had arrived. A tent waited, and a small table. Josh grinned. He turned off the flashlight and stared at the sky, where the stars had multiplied. He slept deeply.

In the morning, he found that there was a tree at the edge of the clearing which branches held dozens of shoes, a memorial to all the boys who had journeyed here. Joshua tied his new shoes together. They were now covered in dirt and mud. He flung them up among all the others. Then, pulling on his old worn ones, he headed back down, everything transformed by the light of day.

Walter sat on the edge of his bed and watched the snow drifting down outside his window. He’d have to go out in it soon. His costume was laid out beside him, waiting for him.

He had seen the door when he pulled the hanger out of the closet. He decided to go look at it again.  

In the back of the closet was a door, hidden from the casual observer. Walter had not been in there for some time. There was no reason to be. But now he pushed the clothes aside and opened it, pushing the door in and entering.

It was a larger room than one would expect from the outside. Walter had never seen another like it but he knew, from his many years, that most people had a place like this, a private space no one knew of but themselves, a room where lost and broken things collected.

There was a mirror in Walter’s room, full-length, where he saw himself as he had been decades earlier. There were half-completed manuscripts on a shelf, and another shelf of books he had meant to read. Pictures of old girlfriends hung in one corner, faded and warped. Push pins displayed travel brochures on a cork board. A few lottery tickets were posted as well.

Walter stood for a long time, absorbing his surroundings, aching. He had almost forgotten he had once wanted to be a police officer, until he saw the badge on a small table, alongside pictures of the neighborhood as it had been when he was a young father raising his kids.

He turned on the record player and set down the needle. Music filled the room, snatches of piano music he had wanted to teach himself.

Sometime later he returned from his reverie. The room was filled with the smell of freshly mowed grass and sunlight, of days sweating shirtless as a child who found the world perfectly happy.

There was a box on the floor stuffed with transcriptions of mistakes he had made as a parent, things he had said and hadn’t said. He pressed them down and then began to pile the books in. Then came the posters and the records and the pictures, the scrapbooks of things that never were and the photos albums of things that could never be. He forced them in, everything, even the mirror, and tried to pick up the box. He was afraid he wouldn’t be able to carry it. It weighed nothing at all.

He closed the door to the secret room, poured the contents of the box into a smaller, decorative one which sat on his bed beside his costume. It barely fit, but he managed to press the lid on. Then he pulled the robe on over his head.

That evening Walter stood in silence, with Christmas hymns playing softly, as the visitors to the live Nativity shuffled in and out in hushed tones. He stood beside two others dressed in extravagant robes. He was Balthazar tonight, and he held the gift of myrrh, the embalming oil, before the child who would make all things new.