Saturday started like any other day. Charles Johnson sat in his den, listening to the lilting laughter of his children. Every day, he thought about how blessed he was to have such loving, happy children. After a few seconds, their laughter got louder, but just before it reached the point of being a distraction, Charles heard the sound of footsteps, Mary's footsteps. A beautiful voice said, “Now children, go play outside. You don't want to disturb father while he's working, do you?” “No, mother dearest.” the three tow-headed hooligans said in a sweet, angelic chorus, and Charles' grin grew as he heard them skittering playfully out the door. What a perfect life he had.

He sat for a few seconds, staring blissfully as his computer screen, and then he felt something damp and soft on his arm. “Oh,” he thought, “Mary must have brought me some fresh, moist cookies. What a dear she is!” His mouth began watering cheerfully, and when he looked down, he was only slightly disappoined to find, instead of cookies, the family's old, reliable dog, Susan.

Susan had been with the family nearly as long as the children (and longer than two year old Harold, Charlie laughed to himself). She was a beautiful labrador retriever. Sometimes, Charles really had to think when deciding whether or not Susan or Mary was the most beautiful. Mary won 99 times out of 100, but “you'll always have that one time, girl!” Charlie would say. She had been a gentle giant, protecting the children from numerous abrasions with her soft pelt, and, in one amazingly heroic event, she had taken sixteen bites from an angered viper during the family's ill-fated trip to the Grand Canyon. Ah, little Jimmy's ankle would never be the same.

Charles sat at his desk, reminiscing and petting Susan on her beautifully-rounded skull. He wasn't expecting much at all besides a soft touch and a friendly companion (“More than I can expect from my wife!” he chuckled merrily), so he was very surprised when Susan spoke to him.

What Susan said, he wasn't sure. In fact, he had no way of proving that she'd actually spoken at all. It had sounded too multi-syllabic to be a simple bark, but a talking dog? That was impossible, wasn't it? That is why Charles recolied in horror, and suddenly his world began crumbling down around him.

It started the next morning at breakfast. While he was sitting at the table eating his buttered toast and drinking his warm milk (which his friend Greg teased him about mercilessly), he felt like his children wetre looking at him somewhat reproachfully. He looked up, and found that he was correct. There, sitting across the table, was little Jimmy, his twisted legs tucked beneath his wasting body, and his eyes staring accusatorily at the father he had loved the day before.

“Jimmy, my dear son, whatever is the matter?” asked Charles, a slight tremble in his voice. At first, he thought that Jimmy might not answer, but then a reedy, stiff voice slipped like a slug from Jimmy's pale, gradually dying lips.

“Daddy,” he said, a tear in his voice, “why do you.... why do you hate Susan?”

Charles was ashamed and hurt. He wanted to deny it, to shout at the top of his lungs that he loved Susan, had always loved her, had even given her 1 spot out of every 100 (and, in truth, would have given her more if she'd asked), but he could not. The truth was, he did hate Susan. Ever since the day before when the dog might have possibly spoken to him in a her hellspawned voice, his relviling of her knew no bounds. And, although it terrified him, he was beginning to feel the same way toward Jimmy, the gimpy fruit of his loins.

“Jimmy,” he said, seething, “don't you EVER say such things to me! I am your father, and I will hate who I want! Whose side are you on anyway?”

Jimmy just cried until Mary came down the steps. Charles couldn't shake the feeling that she was glaring at him, although he nearly threw the feeling off forcefully while dodging the damp towel she threw at him.

“Charles, what are you doing?” she yelled, her voice nearing hysteria and a pitch that only dogs could hear...

Suddenly Charles was terrified. And then Susan rounded the corner into the kitchen. She looked at him with her bleary eyes, eyes he had once found beautiful, and he watched as her mouth opened in slow motion and a bark crawled through the leaden air. It sounded like the roar of the ocean in a seashell, the biggest seashell in the world. And then Charles was up, running toward Susan, tackling her, dragging her outside, tying her to a tree, her barking and whimpering all the time. Charles couldn't get a smirk of glee off of his face, even as mild pangs of regret began to rescind in his heart.

After Susan was out of the house, things were better, at least for a while. Jimmy, adhering to the age old adage of “out of sight, out of mind,” forgot about Susan entirely once she was out the front door, even to the extent of saying, “Daddy, who is Susan?” when he name was accidently brought up. The other two children, whose names Charles sometimes could not remember, were equally forgetful, a nd Mary was more affectionate than ever, although when she had brought him cookies the day after, he had started and let out a yelp when they touched his arm. Things were perfect... or were they?

For all the good things happening to Charles, he alone could not get Susan off of his mind. Every time he passed her by the tree, she barked at him wildly, twisting to and fro on her chain and speaking frantically in her perverse dog language. He tried to ignore her, but every day it got more difficult. He began to imagine complex scenarios where she was gradually expanding the langth of her chain by unthreading links in the night and replacing them with pop tabs she found lying about the yard. His mind told him this was ridiculous, but Susan's word spoke a different story. Finally, Charles had enough.

One night, long after the sun was sitting upon the far western hills, he went to the garage and took out his old rifle. It gleamed in the moonlight, greased, oiled, and ready for action. He hadn't even held the gun since his days in Nam, but the butt felt right at home in his hands (“What a field day Greg would have with that!” He thought). He walked out to the tree, stared at the barking dog long enough to steady her in his sights, and blew her head clean off. Then he had a glass of warm milk and went to sleep.

That night, a meteor that had been hanging directly above the house for three to four weeks was finally released from its tethers. It flew a light speed from the heavens, and landed on Charles' beautiful house. The house went up in flames instantly, and little Jimmy's useless legs were burned to ash. The other two children were trapped in their rooms, and Charles would never know their fates. Charles himself was trapped beneath a burning beam, blood dripping slowly from his mouth. He couldn't close it since his jaw was shattered. Painfully, he turned his head toward his wife, trapped benaeth the same beam. He thought her chest was broken, and he regretted that he had never written her poetry. Suddenly, he realized what Susan had been trying to tell him all this time. She had known about the meteor! Was it all... his fault for not listening? It was too painful to consider.

He laid back, and waited for death to overtake him, ut with his final exhale, he breathed one last phrase, full of pain, longing, and the hurt of the entire world.

“Susan, I'm so sorry.”

And from up in Heaven, Susan looked down, and cried a single tear.

It was September, 1882, when I first saw you. You were walking down Seventh St, following the railroad tracks. You might have been 15. Your face was glowing and your body seemed light as you stepped, stepped, stepped beside the steel girders. When there was a sound, you would step quickly back, not clumsily, but lithely, seductively, and to my 15 year old eyes, you were a cloud over steel-grey seas.

I wouldn't have spoken to you. I tried to step back into the shadow of the trees, to blend in with the bracken and boughs, but you saw me, and left the tracks.

“Hello. What are you doing?” You were laughing, just a little.

I stuttered out something that must have been unintelligible. I confess that I can no longer recall what it was, but I remember that you laughed, and not at it.

“I just love walking out here by these tracks.” You lowered your voice. “Mother would never approve, but she's been sleeping off last night all day.” A pause. “Would you like to walk with me?” And I did.

We walked east, away from St. Paul and toward Dayton's Bluff. Neither of us had a timepiece, so we didn't know how long it took. The only thing there was to measure our progress was the expanse of the railroads.

“There's a train at 3:00. When it comes, I need to start walking back.” she said.

As we walked further down, my awkwardness began to dissipate, although I never did quite get over the feeling that my head was too big for my body, and my shoes were too big for my feet. Everything you said seemed witty, adorable, clever, and everything I said seemed heavy and dense, but it was alright.

Finally, the tracks began to vibrate, and we could see black smoke rising up in the distance. We stepped back from the tracks, and the train flew past us, so loud that we couldn't hear each other without screaming. We tried at first, but we finally resigned ourselves to the explosion of the steel. We stood side by side, pantomiming silhouettes, both of us featureless and translucent in the shadowing roar of the locomotive. When it was past, we turned back.

We met again the next week, at the same time. You told me your name was Emaline, and I told you mine was Jack. How we had gone the first day without saying them, I don't know. I don't think we said them much the second day either, but after we parted ways, I said yours over and over, felt it on my tongue, sliding through my lips, smooth, sweet, suggestive. Emaline, enchanting Emaline.

Weeks passed, and we missed only two, those two being your birthday and the second week of April, when your mother drank slightly less and woke up before noon. Why we never met in the interim between these days, I don't know. Maybe because we were young and superstitious, and we were afraid that breaking the cycle would really break it, or maybe because the one day we had filled us with more than we could process in the intervening time. Whatever the reason, we went for one year, and met 52 times.

On the day of our fifty-second meeting, we were walking silently when we heard a sound not native to the quiet expanse between St. Paul and Dayton: there were voices, pounding chisels, people. We crested the hill and saw a great force standing about the tracks, and the beginnings of a structure. It bordered the tracks on both sides, as if trying to hem them in, to keep them from expanding and dominating the countryside, as though the trees were protesting and could not defend their own land. We walked on, through the crowd, and no one said a word to us. There were spectators standing around, and we were just another pair in a great mass of pairs. We never left the side of the tracks.

More weeks passed, and the structure began to take shape. On on of our walks, we asked one of the men what it was going to be.

“These will be the Seventh Street Improvement Arches,” he told us proudly. “Because of the angle at which the bridge crosses the street, it's very complex. Not that I know a lot about that, being more of a rock mover than a mathematician.” He laughed, and we laughed, and we left.

The first snow of the year fell on October 28^th. We bundled in our warmest clothes and walked anyway. October evaporated, November coalesced and decomposed, and then December was upon us. Where the valley had once held only the solitary tracks, there now stood a bridge, two tunnels wide. A marvel of engineering, according to the press, but to us, it was just a bridge. In order to walk beside the tracks, we had to cross beneath it, and that is where we first kissed. It was like the tracks were vibrating, like the train was passing directly through our bodies, pressed together by will, held together by inertia, bound together by the cold wind whipping through the openings. It almost whistled.

On December 18^th, seven days before Christmas, the bridge opened for traffic. Automobiles began crossing it, a few at first and then more and more, going from one place to another. The quiet tranquil of the place disappeared, and shops began growing up around the Seventh Street Improvement Arches. First, a bakery, then a shoemaker, then a chimney sweep, then a haberdashery. Before long, when we walked, we walked with the hundreds, the shopkeepers, the shoppers, the families on holiday, and then, one day, we stopped walking altogether.

I know that there is nothing in this story that you don't already know. The end of our journey didn't come about as a result of the Seventh Street Improvement Bridge, but sometimes, I like to tell myself that it did. I blame that marvel of engineering for breaking up my own marvel, our own marvel, and I imagine that Seventh St. is still just a flatland, its plain unbroken by anything besides the street, the latticework of the railroad ties, and two insignificant children, walking together in the snow.

Dear Emma,

It's been a long time since I've written you. Last time I did, daylight was lingering until 9:30, the weather was warm, and jackets were only a distant memory. My dresser was full of t-shirts, since wearing long sleeves in the summer is something like wearing a life preserver in the desert, inappropriate and unnecessary.

So, you might be wondering why I'm writing you now. You might even be a little peeved at my long silence, and, believe me, I understand that feeling quite well. Every day, I told myself I needed to write you, but things kept coming up and coming up, as I'm sure you'll see. I hope that when you've finished reading this letter, you'll understand why it's such a solitary item, and, even if you can't exactly forgive me, maybe you can at least understand me.

I've known you since we were children, and you've never been one to judge. When I got caught stealing chocolate from the corner store, you laughed and told Mr. Kent I was probably just hungry. He didn't even call my mother, and I got to keep the candy. I still believe that only your ten-year-old intervention is what saved me from years behind bars, federal laws now allowing for the incarceration of anyone above the age of nine. But I digress.

The real point is, you've always been the only person I could share anything with and expect a sympathetic ear. When Kari found out she was pregnant two months after we broke up, you took my side. You were right, of course. I'd barely gotten to second base, let alone home plate with that girl. You knew that, although I'm still not sure if it's a compliment or an insult (Did you think it was impossible, Improbable, or just unlike me?)

I have to admit, the current situation is significantly worse than a bored, vindictive old flames hurling baseless accusations of fornication, but I trust that you will listen to me as you always do, quietly and without scorn. I guess you've really got no choice, since I'm writing a letter instead of calling.

Oh, and about calling. As you've noticed if you've tried to reach me lately, my number isn't exactly working. I didn't change it without telling you. I know longer own a cellphone, for reasons that will be explained later. So, without further prelude, let's begin.

It all started, as it seems that many of life's little quirks do, because of a brief moment of courage. You know, of course, that I have a difficult time speaking to my grandmother, let alone a beautiful girl I barely know (This is another reason I haven't tracked down a payphone to call you. It's been so long, I'm afraid my tongue would dry up if I tried speaking to you). Despite my natural inclination toward silent sobriety, I was sitting at Starbucks, drinking a maple latte (An aside: I wish those things weren't seasonal. I've considered buying a bottle of maple syrup so that it can be a perennial), when the door swung wide, and in walked a girl. Now, I know what you're thinking, and I am not going to indulge you. She was not the most beautiful creature I have ever lain eyes on, nor did a catty glint in her eye drive my libido to distraction. She was just a girl, attractive, not gorgeous, college-aged—Maybe twenty-two or so. I watched her as she walked up to the counter and ordered something, then walked over to the straw caddy for the requisite cinnamon and nutmeg.

In that moment, Emma, something happened to me. I barely even remember standing, walking over to the straw caddy, and starting up a conversation. I do not remember how I led off, and I do not remember how she responded. I imagine she felt a sort of instinctive pity for me and my awkward advance, because, whatever her exact response, when she left the straw caddy, she sat in the chair across from me.

The first words I can actually recall her saying are, “My name is Kelsey.”

I stammered as awkwardly as would be expected for the first several minutes, half expecting her to realize her mistake and stand to leave before any friends from college could enter and see her sitting across from me. Mentally, I constructed elaborate excuses she could use for being seen in my presence, but that was unnecessary. She was friendly enough, and didn't leave until she finished her drink. I wanted to get her number, but was still too cowardly to ask. However, she flawlessly divined my desire, and one tube of lipstick and a napkin later, she was in my pocket. Or, rather, her number was. You know what I mean.

Now, Emma, don't nod off. This isn't just a story about how I overcame extreme adversity to speak with a girl besides you. That is an important part of the story, but it is not the crux of the whole thing. In fact, compared to what came after, it's barely more than a bland introduction.

Long story short, K and I hit it off. Her natural exuberance complimented my natural morbidity, and we spent time doing things that I suppose most couples do, even though we really weren't one. She'd go shopping while I dragged witlessly behind. We bowled. Once, we went fishing, and neither of us caught anything. Two weeks after we met, we kissed for the first time. But I'm sure you didn't read this far to hear a chronicle of young love. If you've been skimming, pay careful attention, because this is where things become more interesting.

Aside from my weekly jaunts to Starbucks and the occasional bookstore, I was largely housebound before meeting K. As a result of our friendship (and later, our kinship... does that make sense?), I started going out more. I never did exactly get used to the crowds and the daily interactions, however brief, with folks I didn't know, but with the activity came a new sense of freedom, a frivolity which I had never experienced prior to our coupling. Even with you, Emma, there was always a bit that was kept under wraps. Does that reflect on you as a person? I don't think so. I blame myself, as I blame myself and not K for everything that happened after week number two.

In her quest to turn me from a reclusive reject into a sagacious socialite, K showed up at my house one Friday night and informed me that, instead of our traditional third weekend bowl, we would be attending a party. I reacted negatively, but K's youthful enthusiasm eventually got the best of me. When you're a fifty-year-old living in a twenty-six-year-old's body, even the smallest acquiescence to youngblood impetuosity seems like an act akin to leaping the Grand Canyon in spike-heeled boots.

She drove, as she ordinarily did when we did things on campus. I had some initial trepidation about that (There was an old saying back home that any man who let a woman drive was whipped.), but after several immensely unsuccessful attempts to divine my way through the campus' labyrinthine byways, I finally admitted to myself and K that we would be far more likely to arrive on time (or at all) if she drove. So, she did.

On the way, she was telling me about people I'd be meeting. There was Jason Higgs, a boyhood friend who'd had the misfortune of knocking up some floozy his senior year of high school. There was Karen Ellis, former cheerleader, now studying for a masters in molecular biology (“'Head cheerleader' was just leadership experience,” said K). There would be Ted, Aaron, Jenny, Sarah, others. It stopped mattering after mini bio #3.

I apologize for the minutiae, Emma. I'd like to say that it is all important to understanding this tale, but it's not that. It's just that remembering is so easy. I remember everything.

We were late, not that the party had a strict timetable, so we parked a block away and walked. It became clear at that point that this was hardly an intimate gathering of friends and family. This was a Party with a capital P.

No one was minding the door, so the two of us walked in. I remember that her arm was looped under mine. I could hear her breathing, smell the Doublemint she was chewing. I won't lie, Emma. I wanted to take her away right then, take her off to some desolate isle, and love her until I dropped dead of exhaustion, or my heart burst. Meaningless metaphor? Perhaps, but I can only relate what I felt. As we wandered out of the vestibule (It was a gigantic house, probably some frat's, although that is one detail I cannot recall.) into the crush, I was immediately overwhelmed. I wanted to run, to escape back to my dimly-lit apartment and self-imposed solitude, but I restrained myself, repeating over and over in my head that it wouldn't last forever, and that this would be the last Party I attended, youthful impetus be damned.

We pushed through the crush of people. When we had entered, the music had been temporarily silent, but it boomed back to life. I couldn't pick up on the words, but the bassline commanded only one thing: dance, and so we did, in a manner. We waltzed rhythmically through the crowd as K greeted her friends with a yell, a wave, “Hey, come over and meet my boyfriend!” Several of them followed her behest; several just smiled and waved. I met Jason's floozy and Sarah. Neither impressed me much.

It was not until forty minutes or more into the party that I saw the drink in K's hand. I asked her if it was alcoholic. She nodded and giggled, “Don't worry, I'm of age.” I informed her that it wasn't her age I was concerned about, but the drink's effect on her navigational skills, but she would have none of it. Instead, I soon found myself with my own disposable cup of... something. Cheap beer, most likely. Not that I've never imbibed. The solitary life I live often virtually demands it, but the liquid warming in the flimsy cup looked like weak apple juice and tasted like arsenic. I had four servings.

Four hours later, the music was winding down. I was feeling quite ill, and K was saying her last, slurring goodbyes to her friends, as though she'd never see them again. Liquor makes some into kindly spirits, some into criers, some into nostalgic fools, but K's heady rush was turning her into a dyed-in-the-wool fatalist.

“Oh, Jason, we may never meet again!” she said dramatically.

Jason laughed, turned her half way around, kissed her on the cheek, and left.

Finally, we made our final pass back out into the vestibule, and then we walking (staggering, really) back to K's red Jetta. She got in and turned the key, and I cannot imagine what I was thinking. The girl could hardly hold her head above her shoulders, but it didn't even occur to me to call a cab. When I drink, I become quite forgetful. Maybe I should be drinking now.

Perhaps you see where this is going, Emma. We drove slowly down one deserted street after another, and the pitching of the car was dismissed as a drunken illusion. “I've driven this way tons of times.” K reassured me, and I am as trusting as I am forgetful when I drink.

I don't remember starting across the bridge, nor do I remember the Jetta's nose ripping the steel guardrails from their stations. My memory becomes crystal clear, however, at the point when the steel girder thrust itself through the windshield. Despite the breaking glass and screaming steel, I remember the sound of her neck snapping. It sounded like a pencil breaking in half, only louder. Everything slipped into a gauzy slow-motion, and I saw her face contort in pain and surprise, and then I couldn't see her face at all. Her arm twitched twice, and, oh, the blood was everywhere. Blood on my glasses, on my arms, covering the seats. I could see her hair flowing from beneath the grey steel, a dead river of golden rivulets. I tried to help her. I shook her, I screamed, I tried to move the steel, the car, anything at all, but it was no good. The girder pinned K to the car as tightly as a butterfly on a backing board.

All my hysteria was no good. I tore at the girder till my fingernails were shattered and torn, and it didn't budge. I couldn't see her mouth. I couldn't see her head at all. Only her hair. Her beautiful, beautiful hair. I stroked it, and it seemed so tragically romantic, with the streetlight shining cockeyed through the window onto me and my headless, haloed lover. Sirens came minutes later.

I remember being questioned by the medic as he peered in through the window. He asked banal stupid questions. I wanted to scream at him, to tell him to ignore me, to save K, but I couldn't speak. I could barely breathe. He reached across me and took her wrist. I'm sure he told me that she was dead, but I honestly cannot remember.

So that's most of it. I don't know if I am to blame, although I suspect I am. Every night, I dream of her. I hear her talking, smell the mint and alcohol on her breath, but when I look over into the passenger seat, it's always covered with blood and steel. Every time I put on my glasses, I can see her life on the lens. I'm thinking about getting contacts.

Thanks for listening, Emma. I'm sure you'll want to call me, but that's not going to be possible. I'm leaving town tomorrow. There's too much to remember around here. Last week, I saw Jason in the supermarket. He tried to tell me he was sorry, but all I could see was him pressing a drink into her hand. I don't even know if he did, but I wanted to kill him slowly. Projection, I guess. Anyway, when I get wherever it is I'm going, I'll be sure to write.

Goodnight, Emma.

I closed my eyes, and the backs of my eyelids flicked to life. There was a cast of thousands, just waiting to be called into action. Some of them were friends, fellow travelers on my life's journey. I smiled at them, and they smiled back. When their cue came, they would step into the story, and we would talk.

“It's been a long time.”

“Sure has. How're you doing? Still seeing Anne?”

“Naw, Anne and I, well, we just didn't work out. You know how it is.”

“Yeah.” I kicked the ground.

“So how about you? You doing alright? Found yourself a woman yet?”

“Nope. Still playing the field. I guess I'm just not ready to be tied down yet.” Bitterly.

“Yeah, well, it was nice to see you again. Hope everything works out for you. I'll see you later. Maybe tomorrow. Who knows?”

I started to answer, and he was gone. He had heard his curtain call.

Some of them were lovers, and some of them had just been loved. Not all of them had returned my favor, but I had extended myself to them all. There was Emma, Mindy, Samantha, Marion, Erin. They were all the same as I remembered, all beautiful, all singing sirens, all as unattainable as the clouds in the sky. When their cues were called, they would walk in, but we would do nothing more than exchange pleasantries.

“Hey, Samantha, it's been a while. How's it going?”

She smiled a plasticine, rehearsed smile, and giggle something prerecorded. It made my skin crawl.

“Oh, I'm good. It's just great to see you again!”

Three seconds of awkward silence, and then it was time for her to exit stage right.

“See you later, Brent. Good seeing you!”

Some of them were not real people at all. They were figments, people I had imagined existed. There was Tom. He towered over me, his lean, handsome features shadowed by dark hair that was impeccably in place. Everywhere he walked, there was a caravan made up of friends, lovers, and figments. Tom works at an auto manufacturing plant now, running a punch press. I heard he lost two fingers last June.

Finally, there were the monsters. They always hung back in the shadows, the translucent blackness shading their features. They were wraiths, vampires, and bogeymen. They all had names and they all had places. There was Insecurity, Frankfort, IN, January, 2000. Fear, Cincinnati, OH, 2002. Despair, Everywhere, USA, 1983-?. Their faces would have been awful. I couldn't make them out, but I could sense them. There was Insecurity with its perfect skin and winning smile, but I could feel the seeping blackness in the corner of its eyes, and I could hear the venomous gurgle of its laugh. Fear stood further off, glowering in the darkest reccesses of the stage. He was shapeless and colorless. In fact, when you looked right at him, it seemed almost as if he wasn't there at all. Then, as you looked away, you would feel a chill run up your spine and your heart would skip a beat, and your could see him perfectly, sitting with his long fangs glistening, ready to attack.

The others were similarly macabre. Some of them looked like regular men and women, and I couldn't have told you what was wrong with them, only that they were terrifying. Others were horribly disfigured. One had a head so badly crushed that I couldn't tell if it was a male or a female. There was one that appeared to be a little girl with an old man's face. One looked like a dog, save for its bulging green eyes that begged me to come closer.

They each heard their cues, and stepped a tenetive step out of the darkness and onto the stage. We would talk, dance, and they would leave, waiting to be summoned by the next lover, friend, or figment.

One by one, the cast diminished, and soon it was only me and my monsters. I took a bow, and imagined the audience applauding. The curtains closed, then opened, and there was only ceiling, a clock, a bedpost, and a vague memory of a plot.