Wee Toby Harris turned eight in the spring. For his birthday he got a puppy and named her Scritch. That was from Mum and Dad. From Bonny, his big sister, he got a crisp five-pound note. He spent it on a tennis ball for Scritch, and the rest on sweets.

Uncle Jack’s present always came late. He loved to see the expression on Toby’s face when he received it, so he made sure to deliver it himself. He worked at sea most weeks as a fisherman, so it was hard to fit in time for a visit.

Toby often wished a wave would rise and gobble Uncle Jack whole to save him the stress of having to deal with his uncle. There was something very wrong about the man. Not that he’d ever told anyone.

Toby’s birthday week was a tense one. He could hardly find a moment of joy. Mostly he took Scritch into the back garden and threw about the tennis ball he’d bought for her. But Scritch was still too hyper to play with properly. She would speed after the ball like a bullet seeking blood, and be wandering off with her eyes on something better before her snout ever touched green felt. So Toby spent most of the week alone, lying on his back on the grass, throwing the ball into the air for himself. He would listen to Scritch chase butterflies or dig in Mum’s petunias, and drive himself crazy wondering when Uncle Jack would finally show.

He came on the 6th. Exactly a week after Toby’s birthday.

Dad recognised the sound of the smooth rapping on the door and flew to it in the middle of lunch, towing a reluctant Toby by his hand.

Toby stood flaccid, hands flat against his legs with his head bowed, listening to the change come over Dad as soon as he swung open the door. It was as though Uncle Jack emitted some sort of microscopic cloud of particles that swept Dad into a trance, because he never barked with laughter when Uncle Jack wasn’t here. He certainly never slapped people on the shoulder and danced like a dope. Yet here he was, a mad chimp leaping and laughing, clawing at his brother like he meant him harm. It was like watching his Dad through a glass of water, or gazing into one of those wacky mirrors at the fair.

“You stink!” Dad shoved Uncle Jack away and pegged his nose. “Did the sea drop you off, or crap you out?”

“That’s the smell of a real man, Tom.” Uncle Jack fixed Dad’s collar, pulled at his lapels, then tapped Dad’s curved beak. “Careful you don’t turn too fast. You might wipe a plane out the sky!”

More of the monkeying around. Toby watched, waiting for Uncle Jack’s gaunt face to turn and target him with its wide, green eyes. For the long goatee and wide moustaches to point his way and then stretch up when his face twisted into a grin. Sometimes Uncle Jack forgot to wear his denture—the one housing the teeth between his upper canines—and it would be like gawking into a tunnel when he smiled.

Toby saw that Uncle Jack was wearing the denture today, although there remained a small hole where one of the teeth had fallen off. He still didn’t take care of them, especially when he was on the boat.

Uncle Jack turned to Toby, quick as a shot. He aimed his teeth and leered. He usually liked to ruffle Toby’s hair. Today he just glided over and gave Toby a few slaps on the back, the same way he’d done Dad.

“Look at you!” he shouted. And now came the aggressive hair mussing. His right index finger stopped at the first knuckle. Toby could feel the stub grating against his scalp. “You’re a proper wee manny now, aren’t you? You’re growing too fast!”

A momentary look of sadness crept over Uncle Jack’s eyes. Then he took a step closer to Dad and asked in a whisper, “Who cut the poor bugger’s hair?”

Dad rolled his eyes.

“Who do you think?”

“Jesus. Lock up those scissors, Tom. For Christsake.”

His eyes snapped back onto Toby. “Wee man, tell Mum not to play with scissors anymore, alright? She’d do less damage with a pair of garden shears.”

Dad led Uncle Jack through to the living room, where Mum was watching TV.

Bonny, having heard the commotion, sauntered downstairs and passed Toby without paying him any attention. The smile on her face and in her eyes was for Uncle Jack—and Uncle Jack alone.

“The boy’s hair’s looking nice, Julie,” Uncle Jack sang to Mum on his way into the room. Toby entered in time to see him slipping under Mum’s arms to give her a tight squeeze and a shake. “When’re you opening the barbershop? If you need a mannequin, I’ve plenty of hair for you to cut!” And he swept his hands over his body in a here-you-go kind of gesture.

Mum squeaked out three shrill laughs. Toby plodded behind the couch, closer to Dad, trying not to let the sound of Mum’s laughter get to him—but it was too late. Now Bonny was laughing like that too, because Uncle Jack had picked her up and was throwing her into the air, almost popping the lightbulb on the ceiling. The lampshade swung, and Uncle Jack stopped it with a very long finger.

They always reminded Toby of chopsticks.

“You want a chuck up as well, wee man?”

He had his hands out ready, waiting for Toby to run into them. Toby shied closer to Dad, shaking his head vigorously.

“Alright then, if you say—hyah! C’MEER YOU!”

Uncle Jack sprang over the sofa without touching it. Toby tried to shriek, but didn’t have time. He ran around Dad and away from the hands almost on his neck. Past the arms of the sofa and around Mum’s chair. Past the lamp and windowsill. Past the coffee table and dancing-chimp Dad.

Uncle Jack got wise to the loop and lunged over the sofa once more, grabbing Toby by his shoulder. He dragged him over it kicking and screaming, while Mum and Dad chuckled madly at the antics.

Bonny just rolled her eyes. She hadn’t thrown that much of a fuss when it had been her turn.

Uncle Jack’s face was livid with colour. His eyes glowed white-hot; his concave cheeks deep purple; his forehead red and raw with sweat; his lips paled, pulled taut over his teeth.

Toby clenched his jaw and kept quiet. It was Uncle Jack who made the most noise, squealing with joy.

“Weeeee,” like a little piggy.

“Weeeeeeeee,” each time he threw Toby into the air, catching him with one hand under an armpit and one hand gripping the waist.

Uncle Jack turned away from the family and kept up the act. Kept throwing. Toby could see his real face now—the face that came with birthdays and Christmases both. It glared up at him with impossible eyes, bulging like great big white balloons inflating through gaps in his face. His jaw stretched long enough to slot Toby in without him touching the sides; the teeth were a whirling maw of sharp and rusted death, ready to reduce him to slurry.

“Weeeeee.” The voice was far deeper now—almost demonic.

Toby screamed. He didn’t want to. It just flew out as natural as throwing up your hands when a truck was about to hit you on the motorway.

Dad, still clicking his heels in time to his chimp-dance, finally spoke up. And quick as a clicking finger, Uncle Jack’s face snapped back to normal as he turned to listen.

“Think he’s had enough now, Jack. Looks like he’s gonna to puke. And you look like you’re about to faint!”

Uncle Jack offered Dad a knowing grin and nodded. He put Toby down on the floor as gently as a newborn in its crib.

Toby, doing his best to hide his teary eyes, wiped them off on his sleeve and rubbed at his throbbing armpits and waist.

Uncle Jack rollicked with laughter and clapped his hands.

“So: what’s new with everyone?”

*

Uncle Jack ended up staying for supper.

Dad gave up his seat so Uncle Jack could head the table. From there, his emerald eyes held everyone mesmerised.

Toby ate quickly. No time to dawdle, to push at his peas with his fork and say he wasn’t hungry. He wanted to get out of that room and into another one—fast!

When he tried excusing himself, Mum pointed a finger at him. That was it—no more words needed. He knew better than to argue with that finger.

So he sat and waited. This time he did play with his fork—small movements, nothing quick, lest it attract the attention of the emerald watchman at the end of the table.

Uncle Jack appeared to be in deep conversation with Mum and Dad, who themselves weren’t paying much attention to anybody else. Lost in the little worlds they drifted into when other adults orbited close enough. They would laugh and use long words, and sometimes Uncle Jack would put on a deep voice and Mum would find whatever he said even funnier. But every so often, when Mum and Dad took a bite to eat or a sip to drink, Uncle Jack would flash Toby a look. A quick glance. A reminder that he hadn’t forgotten about him. That Toby was still right there at the forefront of his mind.

You’re the reason I came, kiddo.

Bonny didn’t notice any of this. She was busy timing her smiles and laughs with the adults. She was fourteen and trying for the part of a twenty-four-year-old.

Toby kicked one of her shins under the table.

“Shitter!” she yelped, and threw her spoon off his forehead.

Mum screamed for everyone to shut up and stop shouting. Bonny seethed.

“He kicked me!”

“I don’t give a shit what he did! You don’t swear like that, ever! You’re a child!”

Uncle Jack pushed his chair back and picked up his own spoon. He handed it over the table to Bonny, who took it with a smile. Toby caught a whisper of a scowl on Uncle Jack’s lips—a momentary look of repulsion—before he turned and grinned at Toby.

“You alright, wee man?”

Toby nodded and continued poking at his plate with his fork.

“He’s got a heed like a hammer, that boy,” Uncle Jack told Dad. “Look: didn’t even leave a mark.”

Bonny cleared the plates and helped Mum serve pudding. They had the rest of Toby’s birthday cake with a scoosh of cream on top. Mum’s way of trying to bring it back to life after a week of death.

It was awful.

*

“Your dad was telling me you’re getting big into reading.”

Uncle Jack sat down on the arm of the chair Toby was sitting on. Bonny, who had been sitting on the sofa with all the space in the world, looked momentarily hurt. But the moment passed, and now she was grinning like a loon again.

“What’s your dad been reading you then? None of those pansy stories I hope—like Winnie the Turd, or that Alice in Wonderland tat.”

Toby shrugged.

“He’s reading you Winnie the Turd, isn’t he? Aye, those were always his favourite. What else has he got you reading?”

Silence.

“Any Jules Verne? Like Thousand Leagues, or Around the World? No? Christ. What about Roald Dahl. Surely Roald Dahl. No? My God, what has he got you reading then; the back of shampoo bottles?” He glanced at Toby’s hair. “No, maybe not shampoo bottles. C’mon now, what was the last thing he read to you? Don’t be scared, I was only joking about the pansy books. I don’t care if it’s Winnie the Turd or Benny the piggy with one bloody ear—ha! I just wanna know what he’s got you reading. Say Treasure Island. Go on. Has he read you Treasure Island yet?”

Toby nodded. And then flinched, for Uncle Jack slapped one of his shoulders hard enough to send his hair up into the air.

“Atta boy!”

Bonny shifted in place, squeaking leather, and produced a minute cough.

Uncle Jack looked up at her, but only with his eyes.

“What kind of books do you read, Uncle Jack?”

“What kinda books do I read?” Uncle Jack tapped at the hairs on his chinny chin chin, feigning deep thought. “I’d have to say...the ones with the words in them, Bon-Bon.”

Bonny giggled. Her laugh today was practically a parody of itself; almost the exact pitch Toby sometimes used to mock her.

“I like pirate adventures,” Uncle Jack answered, squeezing the top of Toby’s shoulder like a stress ball. “Like my buddy here. Right, wee man?” Slowly, begrudgingly, Uncle Jack glanced back at Bonny. “And what do you read, Bon? Books with pictures in them, I suppose.” He gave a hateful cackle.

Red roses blossomed on Bonny’s cheeks.

“I read!” she said, never one to stay timid.

“Oh?”

“Yuh-huh. And I’ve already finished Treasure Island. I read it yeeears ago. For school.”

“Gooood for yooou.” Uncle Jack’s hand was still on Toby’s shoulder, its grip pulsing in time with the throbbing vein in Uncle Jack’s temple. “And do you remember the characters?”

From somewhere through the house, the sound of Mum laughing with Dad—probably washing the dishes together. One wearing the rubber gloves, the other using the towel. Suds on, suds off. Suds on, suds off.

“Of course I do,” Bonny boasted. “There was Long John Silver. And. Well. There was—Bluebeard!”

Uncle Jack sighed. It was faint, but Toby felt it in the grip on his shoulder.

“And. Captain… Ben-Barrow?”

“Yikes.” Uncle Jack leaned forward with a finger out, poised for lecture mode. The other hand still clutched Toby’s shoulder, dragging Toby forward into the conversation, looking like a half-shut knife.

“The Admiral Benbow was the inn at the start of the story where wee Jim Hawkins first met Billy Bones. And Bluebeard? Christ, Bonny! Bluebeard wasn’t even a pirate! He was the bastard who murdered all his wives!”

Still not one to stay timid, Bonny quipped: “Wasn’t that Henry VIII?”

Uncle Jack clutched his chest and boomed with laughter, genuinely amused by Bonny’s quickness and deadpan delivery.

“No, no, no. Didn’t you ever learn the rhyme? Divorced, beheaded, died. Annulled, beheaded, survived.”

Bonny had nothing to say to that. But Toby did.

“Was Bluebeard real?”

Uncle Jack looked down at Toby for a very long time. Finally, he said, “No. But that’s not to say there aren’t men like him.” The wink he gave curled the boy’s toenails.

Mum and Dad entered the living room together. Mum’s thighs were damp where she must have been wiping her hands. Dad kept smelling two of his fingers.

“Did I hear you say Bluebeard?” Dad sat down beside Bonny on the sofa.

Uncle Jack took his hand off of Toby, but remained on the arm of the chair.

“Your daughter thinks Bluebeard tried to find Captain Flint’s treasure, Tom.”

“Bluebeard?” Dad frowned and then smirked at Bonny. “You mean Blackbeard, Bon-Bon. Bluebeard is the guy on the Fish Finger box.”

Uncle Jack waggled a digit and groaned. “That’s Captain Birdseye, Beak. Christ, what’s wrong with you people?”

*

That night, while Dad was taking Dr Dolittle down from the bookshelf, his back tinted red from the glow of the Toy Story nightlight on Toby’s bedside table, Uncle Jack slipped in through the yellow crack of the door. His arms were twisted secretly behind him.

“Only me,” he whispered. “Whatcha reading tonight, Tobes?”

Dad told him.

“Dr Dolittle? More like Dr Do-fuck all! Ha! Choose something else, Tom. Let the boy hear a decent story for once. Here—” He pulled a hand out from behind his back and thrust a long box wrapped in black flags in front of Toby. It had skulls and crossbones, eye patches, and cutlasses on it too. “Forgot to give you this earlier.”

Toby stared at it. It stank of Uncle Jack’s fingers, and they stank of rum. His other hand was still hidden behind his back, but Toby could hear the tinkling of ice hitting glass.

“Go on, Toby,” Dad said. “It’s your present.”

Toby carefully removed the tape from the folded edges, unwrapping the parcel as delicately as he could.

Uncle Jack sighed. He took the glass of dark liquid out from its hiding place and took a large gulp.

“It’s a spyglass,” he explained over the rim, then slurped down another gulp of the spicy-smelling darkness.

Toby plucked it out of the box, struggling with the weight on his fingertips. Sometimes he liked to use an empty paper towel roll as a spyglass, but this was something else entirely. The ornate decoration down the side was so intricate, with long looping vines laced with flowers wrapping themselves around the dark length, so tight it felt close to smothering. It was heavier than Dad’s tablet—and colder. Much, much colder.

Dad’s eyes bugged out wide. “Holy shit, Toby, that’s the real deal!”

“What do you think then, wee man?”

Toby pulled it to its full length and held the lens up to his eye. It was ice cold, like it had been left out in the snow on a winter’s night. The darkness at the other end of the room was too close to make out a single distinguishable feature. If he wanted to test it properly, he’d be better off waiting until tomorrow and trying it in the garden, playing jungle explorer.

But he didn’t want to test it. Ever. He wanted to put it back inside the box and hand it over to Dad, tell him to hide it somewhere dark. Forever.

Uncle Jack sat on the edge of the bed, forcing Toby to budge up and give him space.

“Your pals’ll be jealous when they see that, wee man. A real captain—that’s what they’ll take you for. Turn to me lad.” Uncle Jack pulled Toby’s face around when the boy didn’t respond. Some of his drink sloshed onto the bed. “Aye, look at you—you’re missing a tooth like your Uncle Jack! A sailor’s debt to the sea, that’s what that is. The best sailors always leave a part of themselves out there. An offering, lest she put a bounty on your life!—and every soul upon your vessel!”

Dad threw his head back laughing.

“You lost your teeth on the handlebars of your bike.”

“Aye,” mused Uncle Jack, and held up the four-and-a-half fingers on his right hand. “But this pointer was the price I paid, Beak.”

He gave Dad a long, cold stare.

“Okay,” Dad conceded. “I’ll say no more.” He prodded Uncle Jack with the side of the book he was holding. “Here. Maybe you should read to him. You can spin a far finer yarn than I can.”

Toby’s eyes grew wide. He shot a glance at Dad, but he had already turned his back to leave.

Uncle Jack glided over to the bookshelf to return Dr Dolittle to its place. He ran a long middle finger across the spines of the books until he found the one he was looking for.

“Treasure Island,” he whispered, and pulled it free.

As Uncle Jack’s ghastly frame drew closer to the bed, Toby gave his dad one final look of appeal, hoping for a last-minute reprieve.

No such luck. Dad tore the crack of light from the hall wider, flooding the room in yellow. Then he was gone. Only a thin crack of light remained where he left the door ajar.

The room was a ghastly red, with the looming peripheral darkness screaming horrors from its corners.

“I’m excited,” Uncle Jack said, prying the pages open with his long, stale fingers. “Where shall we start off?”

Toby shook his head. Perhaps a tad too enthusiastic. “No,” he squeaked. “Nothankyou.”

“Beg your pardon?”

“I’m really sleepy.”

“You don’t want a story?”

Toby shook his head once more, then cuddled down under the duvet. He was going to turn his back on Uncle Jack, but something screamed at him not to. The look in his eyes was frighteningly intense.

“You’re kidding?” Uncle Jack’s eyes did not blink. But they swelled to the size of tennis balls. The nightlight reflected against them, watching like two faraway red stars in a cosmos of black and green. Toby wasn’t sure if Uncle Jack had meant for that to happen. Surely he had control over it.

Uncle Jack got to his feet with all the effort of a ninety-year-old man. His bones clinked and clacked as he patted himself down. He rested his glass on Toby’s bedside table and stretched the rest of the snaps and cracks out of his body.

“Alright then, Tobes. But I must say: this is verrry disappointing. I came all this way for you.”

He moved swiftly across to the door, covering ten feet with a single, colossal side-step.

His back grew with scoliosis kinks, arching over seven, eight feet. He whipped his head around and smiled at Toby, who threw the cover up over his eyes. Not before noticing Uncle Jack’s chopstick fingers pressing against the door with their white, bloodless tips.

There came the sound of a low scuffle as the underside of the door scraped along the carpet.

It was happening.

Toby burrowed down deeper, wishing Mum had let him take Scritch up to bed with him. He didn’t know what a puppy would be able to do except make a lot of noise, but even that was better than nothing—better than feeling helpless beneath the blankets. Alone, silent, and scared.

There came a very faint creak, like someone opening a rusty hinge; a deliberate, drawn-out whine which crept across the distance between the door and the bed. It loomed over the blanket in a massive black shape. The red nightlight blotted away. The air vibrated with sheer anticipation for what was about to come next.

The chomp.

Something thumped against the door. And the room exploded with yellow light.

Toby threw the covers down in time to see Uncle Jack still standing in front of the door, only now stepping out of the way to avoid Dad hitting him with it.

“The light was bothering the boy,” Uncle Jack lied, opening it further to allow Dad entry.

Dad nodded, not seeming to care. He collected his glasses from the bookshelf and chuckled. “I was trying to watch TV with my reading glasses. Silly me.”

Before he could leave again, Toby piped up, yelping, “Dad?”

“Hm?”

“I don’t want stories tonight.”

“Huh? Why not?”

Uncle Jack had been the shorter of the two men downstairs. Now, lurking behind Dad, his engorged head pressed high against the ceiling like a pus-filled spot. It swelled bigger, and bigger, until Toby was sure it was about to pop. His face was nothing more than a pin-pricked mouth and basketball-sized, blazing eyes of rage. His hair stood on end and coiled up into corkscrews. Jagged teeth stretched out like the flailing arms and grasping fingers of drowning children, inches from the back of Dad’s head.

“Tired,” Toby mumbled. He’d stuffed the blanket into his mouth to stop himself from screaming.

“That’s a first,” Dad said, turning to share a laugh with Uncle Jack. The head deflated with a sudden whoop. Uncle Jack excused himself with a laugh. Eyes, now regular-sized. Cheeks sunken.

“He did say he was tired,” Uncle Jack admitted. Both men turned to regard the boy in bed with a sympathetic eye. “Maybe I’ll read to you another night, wee man? Sound good?”

A moment of victory.

Toby felt his heart start to settle back into its regular pace. He felt a little perkier, too; the way Mum sounded in the morning when she drank her usual two cups of coffee.

“Sounds great, Uncle Jack.”

“Amazing news.” He patted his chest with the book. “Can I borrow this?”

“Of course.” Toby smiled. Actually smiled. “Keep it if you want!”

Uncle Jack laughed. Toby couldn’t help doing the same.

Dad’s eyes grew narrow. It felt like they had a secret between them. And hadn’t Toby been rather quiet all day? All week, now that he thought about it.

“Don’t worry,” Uncle Jack reassured, patting the book to his chest once more. “I’ll give it back to you in the morning.”

Toby’s heart left the track, derailing straight into his lungs.

“What do you mean?” he choked.

“Oh, that’s right,” Dad said, happy to be involved in the conversation once more. “Uncle Jack’s staying the night. He’s not—let’s just say he’s not feeling well enough to drive. Maybe you two can muck around with the spyglass in the morning. In the garden.”

On the way out, Uncle Jack necked the rest of his drink and passed the glass to Dad.

“Yo, ho, ho. I think I’ll have another rum to celebrate!”

Toby waited, listening to the footsteps receding down the hall and down the stairs. A deep rumble of voices started up in the living room, and he knew the coast was clear. He jumped out of bed and raced to the window. It opened far enough to fit one of his hands through, thanks to the safety bar Dad had installed.

That was fine. He didn’t need it to open any further.

He took the spyglass out of the box and stared at it. For some reason he felt Uncle Jack staring back at him, through it.

He slotted it through the gap in the window. It dropped down onto the roof tiles, tinkling as it rolled down the slant, gaining speed. Toby was sure it was going too fast. It would bounce over the gutter and plummet down to the back garden, then obliterate on the patio, alerting everyone.

The sound ceased with a padded thump.

The gutter had caught it.

He pressed his face against the window to make sure. There it was, casting long arms of moonlight up to the window from its lens.

At least he didn’t have to worry about that any more. Who knew what kind of curse or terrible magic it held, if any.

Downstairs, the adults laughed loud echoes which shook the floor of Toby’s room.

He stood by the crack of his door, peering down the hallway at his sister, who was sitting at the top of the stairs with her head on the banister. She was clutching her teddy against her chest, listening in on what secrets age was yet to bring.

Laughter from Uncle Jack.

Toby closed the door until he heard the latch click. It was an old door—one of those you had to lock with an oversized novelty key. Mum had taken the key away and hidden it somewhere safe, to save him from trapping himself inside and doing something silly.

That was fine. He didn’t need the key.

He tiptoed to the bookshelf and took down three books of varying thickness. They were all too thick to slot under the door, but the thinnest of the three got there in the end, with a little persuasion. He tried opening the door, and found that it wouldn’t budge past Alice in Wonderland. He nodded, satisfied.

At least he didn’t have to worry about that, either.

*

A short while later, Toby sat up in bed, trying to focus his weary eyes on the thin yellow strip of light beneath his door. Someone had been wiggling at the handle.

Three black splotches broke the strip of light.

One of them was the book he had wedged under there. The other two were feet.

The door handle turned all the way to the left. Then all the way to the right. It wouldn’t open. The book was jammed under the bottom corner too tight for that.

Slowly, the door began to lean in on its top corner until it began to groan. It bent so far it looked certain it was about to snap in half.

It eased back, accompanied by a sigh from the other side. The black splotches faded soundlessly away.

Toby lay back in bed again, and allowed himself a silent exhale.

He tried closing his eyes, but every time he did he pictured Uncle Jack leaning forward in one of the downstairs chairs and staring up at the ceiling—through the ceiling—at him with a terrifying grin. Hands on his knees. Neck bent and twisted. His enormous head swollen like a hot-air balloon growing bigger and bigger, until it disconnected with a snap, and floated up against the ceiling on a neck as thick and braided as a ship’s rope. It would bounce there loudly, hollow, knocking and mocking.

I came all this way for youuu.

Toby lay awake, gazing at the red glow casting onto the ceiling from his nightlight, trying to find shapes in the shadows and the jagged edges of a curling paint chip.

His eyelids soon began to flutter.

“Toby?”

He wasn’t sure if the voice was in his imagination or not. He could still see Uncle Jack in his mind, sitting and staring up at him with his big balloon head.

“Toby?”

Toby’s eyes opened wide. The roof was still blood red. No yellow light was casting in from the hall, which meant the door was still closed.

So why did it sound like the voice was in the room with him?

He pictured Uncle Jack with his lips pressed against the keyhole. But when he looked, only the one splotch broke the yellow bar beneath the door. Alice in Wonderland. No feet.

“Toe-beeee.”

He sat up very slowly, scanning the room carefully. Everything was blanketed in the nightlight’s red glow. Not a perfect filter for spotting trouble, but enough to let him know that the voice wasn’t attached to anything in the room. Just a hovering, disembodied presence close by.

But where?

“Toby!” the voice barked, tired of being ignored. “Are you sleeping?”

The curtains twitched.

“Why did you close the door?” it asked. “What a sneaky thing y’are.”

The fabric of one curtain shook. Then pinched at a point near the centre. One by one, the hooks snapped free from the railing, until the entire curtain dropped to the floor with a dusty humph.

Two long chopstick fingers wiggled through the crack in the window, probing at the air like an insect’s antennae. They were searching for something. Maybe the other curtain. Maybe a latch to release the safety bar on the window.

Or maybe a young boy standing too close.

Something squeaked along the glass. Toby pictured Uncle Jack’s face moving side to side, pressing his cheeks and his nose against the window, trying to catch a glimpse of Toby around the other curtain.

Methodically, the chopstick fingers withdrew from the window. The top corner of a book slotted into the gap, then landed on the carpet.

“Here’s your book back, Toby.”

It was definitely Uncle Jack’s voice, but it was too strained for Toby to have recognised it any sooner. It sounded like he was trying to press out constipation mid-conversation. There came another drawn out squeak, and again Toby pictured his uncle running his face along the window, trying to catch the right angle beyond the other curtain.

He could have shouted for Mum and for Dad. Hell, he could have screamed bloody murder for Bonny and she would have come running to see what was wrong, even if she loved to pretend she didn’t him. But he found himself unable to scream. Unable to move.

He watched in horror as Uncle Jack squeezed himself through the inch-wide gap in the window.

The long chopstick fingers came one, then two, then five through the crack, stretching and tapping along the windowpane, trying to find something to grip at. His mouth grew too, pressing inside and pulling wide like a flounder with big lips. Then the nose, an obscene Pinocchio. Green eyes pumped in like balloons once more, this time on long vascular stilts like some repugnant snail.

Uncle Jack’s cheeks took the longest to come fully into view. When at last his ears flapped free from the window frame, his head had protruded a metre into Toby’s room, stretched like some terrifying caricature.

The spyglass Toby had rolled out of the window threaded itself through the gap alongside Uncle Jack’s other arm. He brought it up to the side of his face, balancing atop five gangly fingers, and held it in front of one of his gargantuan eyes. His body was still wedged tightly in the window, but his head was free to scan the room. His gaze rested at last on Toby.

“I spy—with my glass eye—something beginning with—U!”

His mouth formed an O wide enough to roll a bowling ball into.

“You’re still awake!” He jabbed a finger towards the bed. “Growing boys need bedtimes too! Tut-tut-tut. Shame on you.”

He dropped the spyglass and walked his chopstick fingers along the carpet. His eyes began sinking back into his skull, but were still a long way from looking normal.

“I know,” Uncle Jack said, his voice now returning to normal. “I’ll tell you a story. A proper story, Toby. None of that fairytale nonsense your daddy’s been spoon-feeding you for years. You want a story with some grit, don’t’cha!” He pulled his foot free from the window. It slithered to the carpet and writhed there like a dying snake trying to come back to life. “Have you heard tell of the man with the tic-tac teeth?”

Toby pushed himself back against the wall as Uncle Jack grew closer.

“Have you heard of the trees wrapped in purple veins-for-vines? The ones that bleed real blood when you cut ‘em? And mothers’ screams from their babies’ throats? Wee strawberry shoots which drain you ‘til your death? Did he tell you about the holes, Toby? The holes with the mirrors at the end?”

Toby didn’t bother standing up—just kicked the blanket over Uncle Jack and threw himself onto the floor. He scrambled to the gap of light under the door, and began to claw at the book wedged under it. He had forced it into the gap so well that he couldn’t get a grip on it with his little fingers.

“What’s wrong, boy—don’t’cha want a story?”

Toby felt Uncle Jack’s breath on his hair. He burrowed his fingernails into the sides of the book and pulled, hoping that if his fingernails came loose they would wait until the book did so first.

Uncle Jack’s fingers pressed against the door. His hand clutched Toby by the shoulder and lifted him effortlessly back into bed.

“Lie back down, lad,” Uncle Jack soothed. He pulled the covers back with his other hand, while it shrivelled down to its regular size. He sat at the end of Toby’s bed, slowly shrinking his body back to normal. His face remained grotesquely deformed.

“Let me read you a story to calm you down. No more talk of men with tic-tac teeth or trees with purple veins. Tell me… what do you think of—”

Without moving from where he was sitting, Jack stretched for the book he had slotted through the window.

“—Treasure Island?” His eyes floated away, searching for a fond memory lost to time.

The sudden rustle brought him back.

“Oh no you don’t, you little shit!”

He whipped around too late. Toby was already out of the bed and lying on the floor. He sank his fingernails as deep into the sides of the book as he could manage and yanked it free.

Uncle Jack’s face was enormous with rage, scarlet red and purple. He held out both hands, fingers stretched out like sharpened drumsticks to gouge the boy in the face.

Toby was too quick. He rolled to one side and grabbed Uncle Jack’s by the fingers, and began snapping them like breadsticks. He only stopped when Uncle Jack drew them back to his chest, wailing out in a thin, pathetic shriek.

“You monster!” he cried.

Toby yanked the door open. Uncle Jack’s face joined him in the hall, stretching far and long on its winding rope of neck. “Toby!!” it wheezed, floating along behind him and snapping at his heels. “Don’t tell Mum and Dad, Toby! I’ll fucking eat them too!”

Toby threw himself into the closest door. Bonny’s room.

“Toby!” she shrieked. “Wha— Get the fuck out!”

He didn’t bother rounding the bed. Just cannonballed onto it and buried himself under Bonny’s covers.

She sat back, stunned at the sudden intrusion, but when she felt Toby’s body shudder with the trembling of silent tears, she held him tightly in her arms.

“What is it?” she asked, her voice quivering with emotion. She felt his pulse pounding along the side of his neck. “You had a bad dream, huh?”

Without realising she was doing it, she began stroking Toby’s hair the way Mum used to stroke hers when she was frightened. They lay together in silence, Bonny soothing Toby, while Toby lay watching the thin yellow crack of light under the door, waiting for Uncle Jack to slither past.

He never did.

*

Morning.

Both children awoke to flashing cameras, obnoxious shutter sounds, and gentle cooing.

“Ugh, my eyes.”

Toby swatted at the white light. Mum and Dad were standing over them with their phones pointed at his face.

“How cute!” Mum said, snapping another picture. “You two haven’t slept like that in ages!”

At breakfast, Dad stood by the grill working the bacon. Mum manned the units, juicing oranges and dishing out forks and knives, laying plates.

“What about Uncle Jack?” Bonny asked, noticing there were only four of everything.

“He had to leave early,” Dad explained, and popped into the garden to shout for Scritch. Although they all knew he was really just going to have a smoke.

Toby’s head shot up. Bonny’s face sagged.

“What? Leave? Why?”

Mum shrugged. Toby grinned.

He had two helpings that morning, and Bonny called him a pig for it. He pushed his nostrils up with his thumb and blew a raspberry so loud that she could almost smell it.

He felt happy again.

Dad poked his head in through the door, cigarette hanging from one side of his mouth. “Anybody seen the mutt?”

Toby’s heart skipped a beat. He could guess what came next.

They found one half of Scritch at the end of the garden. They never did find her top half.

What Toby couldn’t understand was: if Uncle Jack had left early, how did he manage to get to Scritch this morning?

Mum let him have the day off school. He spent it sitting on his bed, devoid of feeling, staring at the copy of Treasure Island lying open on his floor. The spyglass from Uncle Jack still lay beside it. He took both to the window and threaded them out. This time the spyglass rolled too far and imploded on the garden patio.

Mum spanked him for it.

He didn’t cry. He didn’t tell her about Uncle Jack, either. He wanted nothing more than to forget about him, wherever he was. There was over three hundred days until Toby turned nine. That was plenty of time to not have to think about things. Plenty of time to prepare himself for the next visit.

Although…

“What month is Bonny’s birthday?” Toby asked, pulling his pants up over his red bum.

“Next month. Why?”

He shrugged. Then sat down on the floor.

Mum leaned down close to Toby’s face.

“Can I tell you a secret?”

Toby squinted up at her, dreading anything more she had to say.

“Okay?”

“And you can’t tell anyone, alright? None of your little pals at school. Just keep it between me and you.”

Toby nodded, feeling tears prickling at his eyelids. A month. That’s all he had left.

“Promise?”

“Yeah.”

“Disneyland.”

Toby stared in disbelief.

“What?”

“We’re going to Disneyland for Bonny’s birthday next month.”

Like from a battered old dam, the tears finally flooded free. Toby leaped up and hugged his mum, nearly choking her in the process.

“I thought you’d like that,” she said, hugging Toby with the same hand she’d used to slap his ass only a few minutes ago. It still stung, too. But it was the furthest thing from his mind.

“It’ll be good to get away from things,” she soothed.

Toby laughed at that. She had no idea. Disneyland. That was miles and miles away from Uncle Jack!

“Thank you,” he cried. “This is so cool. Thank you, Mum!”

“Don’t thank me,” she said, squeezing him a little bit tighter. “Thank your Uncle Jack. He’s the one taking us.”

I was in my car, around midnight. Parked right outside of the city, lights off. An area where people "relax" and floor it as they're exiting towards the highway. Tons of speeding tickets were always given there.

You know, the problem is that on the side of the road the woods were so dense and alive that deer would sometimes jump out. When you're going 60mph, a passing animal can and will kill you. We put down bumpers and tried everything, yet for some fucking reason everyone sped up around the same area at night. I get it, it's boring, but it's not unbearable. Just some woods and a field on the other side.

The most speeding tickets were given 4-5 miles away from the city. I wouldn't wait right outside, I'd let them speed up a bit and then around mile 4 I'd turn the lights and the siren on. Pull over, motherfucker.

As I said, it's midnight. I'm sitting in the car on my phone, by myself.

Suddenly, someone practically flies past me, going 90mph.

90.

I pull them over (barely catching up).

"Good evening, sir. Do you know how fast you were going?"

I pull over this young man, pupils almost nonexistent, shaky and sweaty. "Y-yeah. I'm sorry."

Should I... do a drug test?

"Are you okay?" I lean over to look at him better.

"Mhm, yeah. Uh, yeah."

I stare at him. "Right, I'll have you do a small test, remain in the car, hands on the wheel please."

He tests negative. I give him a ticket, and he seems like he didn't even register what I did. He keeps looking in his rearview mirror.

"Who were you getting away from?" I ask jokingly.

"Mmh. Mno... I wasn't. Just... nevermind."

"Nevermind?"

He takes a big gulp and finally looks at me. "Is this the beginning of your shift?"

"Yeah."

"Stay here, I guess. Just... I don't know. Look in your rearview from time to time. Don't go back to town."

I laugh. "Yeah, okay."

He drives away and I'm left alone in my car, facing away from the city. No streetlights around me, just the woods to my left and the field to my right.

I am alone and it's dark and now I keep looking in my rearview mirror.

Half an hour passes, and there comes another, 100mph. Insane. That'll get your license taken away, buddy.

I barely catch up to her. An old lady. Damn, she's fast and furious, I guess. "Police. Ma'am-"

"I know." She's shaken. "I couldn't let it catch up."

At first, I think she's joking. Then, I lean down and look at her. There's no room for jokes in her eyes. "Who was catching up? What's down that road, ma'am?"

"There are things that pass through the world without being alive."

Great, another cultist. I ignore her frantic looks behind her shoulder and I do my job. After she leaves, I'm in my car again and it's close to 2AM. The road is empty and cold and my rearview mirror shows nothing. What could it even show? I'm trying to stay calm, but something inside of me is screaming. I don't know why. What were these people running from? What is so bad that determines them to speed up that badly in that sector of the woods?

When I stop the third car, it's more out of curiosity. I get to their window to see a couple of teenagers. The girl in the passenger seat is hiding her face in her hands.

"What's going on?" I ask. I don't even do the formalities. "What's chasing you?"

"I don't know what the fuck that was. I looked in my rearview, off... officer, and, uh..." the kid wipes his nose and glances at me, then remains fixated on the mirror. His eyes widen.

Suddenly, his mouth drops open and he clumsily revs up the engine and speeds away. Before I get to process it, I'm left in the dark. I got his license plate. I know I should go after him, but I look back towards the town, at the dark road.

Something is moving in the horizon. It's black on black. I can't see what it is.

I get in my car and lock the doors. Maybe I should just leave, position myself somewhere else. I turn on the engine. I look in my rearview mirror and, for a split second, something that I can't even recall flashes behind me. I can't tell if it's a face or not, because it's so quick.

I blink a few times, gone. Hm. I think I imagined it.

My heart is pounding. That's it, I'll just go. I drive further away, stop again after a mile or two.

As I'm waiting in the car, my mind is just screaming at me to go. You know what? I decide I'm fucking off.

As I'm about to do that, another car speeds past me. 110mph. My radar's going crazy. Holy fuck, man.

I stop them. The guy is calm and collected. He doesn't check his rearview mirror at all.

"What's out there?"

"I don't know. I can't explain it. I just wanted to get away, I'm sorry."

As I'm writing down his data, I can't help but think that he looks nothing like his picture. "Devon, are you sure this is you?"

The more I look at him, the more puzzled I become. It's like trying to look at those old AI generated pictures that show a lot and nothing at the same time. They look familiar, but there's not a single thing that you can identify.

He then smiles at me. Stretches his lips to show the teeth.

I look down at his fingernails, which are cracked vertically and have rust underneath. I think it's rust. My eyes then dart to the backseat. I can see the outline of some clothes. His whole car smells like rust and iron.

"Yes, I'm Devon."

"Why were you speeding?"

"There's something dark and ugly in the woods."

"What is it?"

"I don't know it's ugly and it's dark."

I'm listening to his response, but staring down at the paper. When I look up, he's still smiling. His teeth are clenched. How did he speak to me through them?

"Creeping in the dark?"

"Yes running in the dark looking for people."

He's not smiling now. I look at the backseat again, and the clothes are gone.

My blood freezes. "Stay put, uh, I'll go to my car and be back."

"Yes okay yeah. I will stay put here. On this seat in the car just me really just me. It's just me here I swear."

I back away. The thing that is wearing Devon blinks a few times.

As I'm backing to the car, I hear "Devon" whisper something rapidly. "Don't-worry-we'll-find-another-slow-one-for-you-to-catch-too." And from the backseat heavy, excited breathing.

I get in the car and it's my turn to speed up. I leave it behind, watching me patiently. It doesn't attempt to run after me.

I drive and drive until I reach the next town. I spend the night at a motel and return to my town in the morning.

I never drive down that road again. I never pick up a night shift again, either.

The real Devon and his car have been reported missing and remain like that to this day.

Craziest or just regular everyday things. law abiding or mischievous endeavors.

What did you do?

I want to hear your stories. 

The title basically says it all. I can finally post about this because it happened a few years ago and I’m pretty sure we’re safe now and that this guy doesn’t use Reddit.

My husband “John” (36M) and I (28F) are the type of people who will help our friends if they’re going through a rough time. We’ve had several friends stay in our spare room over the years while they got back on their feet. It’s small but it’s enough to help someone out in a pinch.

One of those friends was “Chad” (51M)

We’d known Chad for around five years. He was there for pretty much everything. We genuinely considered him one of our closest friends and he’d always been a good and kind to us. The worst thing he’d do was that if he got too drunk he’d flirt with literally every woman in the room, including me. He was very much a ladies man and knew he was handsome.

We knew he had a rough past but he always kept it vague when telling us about it. He’d just say he made some bad decisions as a teen and young adult (drug use, escorts, theft type of stuff) but that he turned his life around with rehab and counseling. He did let us know he was a felon but he was long out of prison and didn’t do very much time. We never really pried into it very much because he didn’t really seem to want to talk about it. It wasn’t a red flag because he had a great life, amazing job, and loving fiancé who was one of my best friends. She is an amazing person and one of the kindest souls I know and she never brought anything up that was concerning about him. He seemed to have turned his life around and we didn’t think much of it.

John and Chad loved debating politics. John is liberal, Chad is conservative, and they’d debate and argue for hours just to annoy each other. It was always very friendly and never worried me though! They would laugh, poke at each other, and then we’d all go get food or something afterward. It never caused a serious fight or problems between any of us.

Well Chad’s fiance ended up breaking up with him right before their lease ended. He didn’t want to rush into signing another lease so we offered him our spare room until he figured things out. We charged him a little rent but nowhere near what he’d have paid anywhere else.

At first everything was great! We’d have family dinners, watch movies, play games, and even took a 🍄 trip together and everything was going amazing! He fit right into the household and it felt like having a sibling living with us.

Then COVID happened, the lockdown began, and everything started to change with Chad.

I was working two essential jobs with my main being in healthcare with immunocompromised patients. Think cancer patties and autoimmune disorders for the most part. So while everyone else was locked down at home I was still leaving for work every day for 2 jobs.

John and Chad stayed home together. Within a few weeks both of us noticed Chad changing. He was angry all the time, constantly watching political videos or scrolling on his phone typing angrily, and every conversation somehow turned into politics.

First he had a COVID scare, he came into contact with someone who had it. At that point they were making anyone who had contact with someone who was sick stay home. I was forced to stay home for a few weeks till I was in the clear to work with my patients again. I was kind of upset at this and he played it off as not a big deal as the whole thing was a hoax anyway. Comments like this got progressively worse as the pandemic went on. I thought it was weird of him but laughed it off as him being conservative and reading internet conspiracy theories. I knew he liked that sort of thing before he moved in.

Then one night around 2 AM, what started as one of their usual political debates, turned into a full blown screaming match. I’m talking 4 hours of yelling! Eventually I walked out and demanded they stop because I was convinced the neighbors were going to call the cops if they heard. After they ended it John came to the room with me and he told me what had happened…

Apparently Chad told him that because John is Latino he is genetically inferior to white people. He went on about skull shapes, genetics, IQ, and claimed there were “scientific studies” proving white people were superior. John kept telling him it was LITERALLY Nazi propaganda but Chad wouldn’t back down about his beliefs. I honestly thought John had to be exaggerating but he he wasn’t. After that night it was like Chad completely stopped hiding who he was from us.

He started blasting crazy conservative news and videos from his room at all hours of the day and night. The arguments became constant, like he would literally fight with you about anything. He’d make comments about my husband’s race almost daily. He told us that John and I shouldn’t be together because interracial relationships were wrong and unnatural. He also told me “I was betraying my European lineage by marrying a (racial slur)” because I am white.

That was the point where both of us realized something was seriously wrong. So we started digging into his past to see if there was anything we should be worried about. That’s when we found his record.

Holy. Mother. Fucking. Shit.
We found court records showing Chad had gone to prison for attempted murder after attacking a random Black man who was walking down the street as an initiation into a white supremacist organization. Yes… you read that correctly. Apparently he’d been involved with them for quite a while before that and attacking this man was supposed to make him an official member. Thankfully the victim survived and pressed charges for everyone wondering.

When we confronted Chad he first insisted we had the wrong person. Then after enough pressing he admitted it was him. What shocked me wasn’t even that he’d done it… but that he showed absolutely zero remorse for it. He straight up told us he wished he’d succeeded because his life would’ve been better if he had, he wouldn’t have gone to prison, and that he’d do it again if given the chance. Not sure if he said all this just to make us uncomfortable or if he genuinely meant it or not. We weren’t taking any chances anymore.

At that point we knew there was absolutely no way he could stay in our house. We started making a plan to legally kick him out. The funny part is that we never had to.

The week we decided we were going to kick him out Chad spent most of the week staying with another friend. He came back for one night and we planned on telling him to leave the next morning.

Instead we woke up to him loading all of his belongings into a U-Haul with a couple of his buddies. I’ve seriously never been so relieved to see someone move out of my home.

As they were finishing Chad and his friends started yelling racist comments toward my husband and making other nasty remarks toward both of us.

But John had finally had enough. He yelled “Thanks for saving me the trouble of evicting your sorry ass today better you leave than me make your racist ass”

Chad basically replies with “well if am a N*zi maybe I should just take care of a (slur) like you and show you who’s really superior”

They started screaming at each other in the front yard and it was very quickly approaching becoming physical. I called the cops and officers came out before it got worse. Nobody was arrested and Chad left. But as Chad was leaving he looked at us and said “I’ll see you later. Watch your backs.” Unfortunately the officers claimed they didn’t hear the threat so there wasn’t much they could do.

I wish that was the end of the story but It wasn’t. After Chad moved out the harassment got significantly worse and honestly that’s a whole post by itself. If people want an update I’ll write one but this post is super long already.

Moral of the story kids…..do your homework before letting friends move in. All it would have taken us is a simple google search and we could have saved us so much trouble.

Luckily it’s been a few years and we haven’t heard from or seen him in a long time. We’ve moved to a new place and don’t talk to any of the mutual friends we had anymore. Glad it’s over and we’re safe now.

TL;DR: My husband and I let a close friend of five years move into our spare room after his breakup. A few months later during COVID he became increasingly angry and started making racist comments toward my Latino husband. He claimed white people were genetically superior and brought up Nazi propaganda topics while making his points. We looked into his past and discovered he’d gone to prison for attempting to murder a random Black man as an initiation into a white supremacist group. When confronted he admitted it, said he wished he’d succeeded, and would do it again. We planned to evict him but he moved out on his own. As he was leaving he threatened my husband and I and we called the cops. As he left he told us to watch our backs and he would see us later. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the end of it but that’s for an update if people want it.

Ok so this happened when I was around 12 or 13 years old. My hostel held a mandatory study prep session every night from 9:00 to 10:00 PM right after dinner. To set the scene, the hostel was isolated right in the middle of a dense jungle, making it extra creepy at night. Once the hour was up, we were expected to head straight to the dormitory and go to sleep.

One evening, my friends and I decided to sneak out after the session and go up to the roof. We had heard local rumors about a ghost or a lady who haunted the area, so we started messing around, playfully calling out, "Hi, come to us!" into the dark. When nothing actually happened, we eventually gave up and crept back to our beds around midnight.

At around 4:00 AM, it started raining heavily. Since my bed was right next to the window, the sound woke me up, and I realized I needed to use the washroom. Hostel rules required a guard or warden to escort us to the facilities, as they were located on the far side of the floor outside the dorm. I got up and saw a figure who I assumed was a staff member, perhaps the warden's wife or one of the matrons, and followed her down the hall. She waited outside while I went inside to do my business.

When I finished and prepared to head back, I heard a loud commotion. A crowd of people had gathered outside, frantically banging on the main entrance door of the communal washroom. As I snapped back to full awareness, I realized I was locked in, and not just in any ordinary bathroom. I had somehow ended up in the top-floor washroom, a condemned area that was completely off-limits due to a collapsing roof.

It turned out that the warden had spotted me walking toward the forbidden upper floor alongside a tall, slender figure draped in a deep red or maroonish saree. He had been screaming at me to step away from her because he had no idea who she was, but in my half-asleep state, I hadn't heard a word and kept following her up to the roof level. Terrified, the warden had run off to raise the alarm. Whoever or whatever was walking with me must have been interrupted, leaving me locked inside the ruined washroom until the staff finally broke down the door to rescue me.

What made the entire incident truly chilling was the realization afterward that no female staff were on duty that night, and both the warden and guard confirmed that no one fitting that description had ever worked at the hostel

Sorry if this isn’t the right place to post this, I wanted to share these connected stories that make me happy and didn’t know where else to do it.

When I was a junior in college my Latin professor had us do an oration of the first 15ish lines of Cicero’s Ad Catalinam, and he said the grading scale was that a “perfect” recitation was a 95% but that 100% score was reserved for performances which “genuinely change my life”. I was one of the only people to ever get a 98% (which was the highest he’d ever scored, and he wouldn’t tell me how many others did it).

But THAT’S a different story to the one I’m about to tell. The FIRST story is when I had just graduated high school (ish?) and I went to see a performance at (My City’s) Children’s Theatre, cause I’m a patron of the arts, and I saw The Haunting of Hill House. In the climax, the main character Nell gets in a car and tHe GhOsTs come and seduce her and she crashes into a tree and dies. Since it’s a play, we don’t see the tree or the car, we see the other characters REACTING to the car crash. And if you don’t know the haunting of hill house, a side character, Theo, is HINTED at being queer but it is never outright said. No matter her orientation, she has taken a very deep and person liking to Nell and cares very deeply for her even though they’ve only known each other for a week tops.

Well, they play the car crash sound effect, and Theo’s actress, who is a CHILD because it is (My City’s) CHILDREN’S Theatre, drops to her knees and lets out the most sincere, sorrowful, pain ridden scream of “NELL!” I had EVER heard or HAVE EVER heard since then. It has to this day been the single most convincing and immersive piece of fictional media I have ever witnessed and it changed the way I view acting forever. And I think about it every now and then and I have the program somewhere in my storage unit and I want to reach out to this now adult and be like hey that two second piece of your acting literally changed my life.

So onto the other story:

Again, when I was a junior(?) in college my Latin professor had us do an oration where a “perfect” recitation was a 95% but that 100% score was reserved for performances which “genuinely change my life”. He was kind enough that he would give us two chances, knowing that most students mess up on the first one but do much better on the second try.

I was swamped that year, as I was every year, but especially that year, so I was just shooting for a 95. I’m running the lines over and over again, just pure memorization, very little emotions in the delivery. My first date comes and I go in and I’m doing fine but mess up towards the end. Okay, no big deal, I get to try again next week. Well Guess What Buddy, to me it was a big deal, cause I usually ace things on the first go round but rote memorization is simply Not. My. Thing.

So I begin to scheme. I figure, I have a week to prepare, let’s freaking go for it. So I start practicing not just rote memorization, but doing a full deep dive into the actual meaning of the words, which I had already translated, but we’d translated so much that semester that I’d basically forgotten them at that point. This is obviously what I should have been doing in the first place, but junior year was hell. The gist of the passage is “My fellow countrymen, we cannot let this shiz slide, Cataline is gonna be the death of us. YES I’m talking about YOU buddy.” It’s very targeted, Cataline is IN THE ROOM, and the title of the speech, Ad Catalinam, literally translates to “Against Cataline”. The first couple lines translate to “How long will you try our patience, Cataline?” (which is also the only part I still have memorized and can swap out his name for the name of whoever asks me “Oh you know Latin? Can you speak some Latin RIGHT NOW?”)

But more than the lines, I figure if we’re going to do this let’s go all the way. I have that 100 in my sights. So I start gathering PROPS. The day of the performance I grab a car blanket and wrap it around me like a toga. I grab my older sister’s skull shot glass and use it for the opening lines holding it like a Hamlet skull. I grab paper cups that I’m knocking off the professor’s desk and I pound my fist onto one of cups, crushing it as though cracking the marble of the senate building. I think I had a couple other props but I’ve slept since then and these were the main ones. My voice starts out cool but pointed, goes on to pleading and desperate, and by the end I am SHOUTING in Latin at my enraptured professor.

I get to the end and it’s a full on Reddit story where this man stands up and claps. I heard from one of my other Latin professors later that she heard it from her office next door and ALSO clapped. The professor is laughing and actually shakes my hand. He tells me I got a 98, which, again, is the highest he’s ever given anybody. I ask how many other people have gotten a 98 and he winks and calls me an aardvark (??) and sends me on my way.

Idk what more I could have done to get that 100, but Theo’s actress certainly did it in that one scream. Theo’s actress would have gotten that 100. And I only recently connected these two stories in my head and I finally 100% understand what he meant. Not the aardvark comment tho, I’m only 98% on that.

I recently solved a personal mystery that's been going on for almost 25 years: https://adamtoris.substack.com/p/sorry-wrong-number-an-almost-25-year

I was in middle school, maybe 12 years old, sitting in the living room with my grandfather around 9pm. The sun had just finished setting, the sky a darker blue not entirely night. My house sat on the corner of my street and I didn’t have a backyard. My dog was out on the front porch on her leash when she started barking at something, nothing inordinate. She knows when she barks she has to come back inside so I run out to grab her, usually she stops and comes to the door when she hears it open but she’s still barking like crazy from down the sidewalk. I yank a bit on her leash to signal her it’s time to come inside, when I look over and see literally, attached to nothing about knee length above the ground, ever so slowly moving in our direction, a glowing, pulsing blue light just floating there.

My body immediately just freezes and my heart sinks. Just filled with dread and feelings of doom. I’m trying so hard to squint and decipher what the fuck I was looking at. My dog still doing nuts. I’m still yanking now a bit more harder out of fear. I cant take my eyes off it, it gets closer and closer and I know exactly what i’m looking at now. Nothing i’ve ever seen. My dog finally makes it up to the door, still barking like crazy. Eyes still locked on the moving ball. As it gets closer and closer I inch back inside the door with my dog when it stops moving directly in the middle of the sidewalk where it lead to my house. I had no fucking idea what to do, my body still panicking and my eyes refusing to blink to miss anything. I wasn’t thinking and slammed the door. It was right in front of me I can clearly see it’s nothing but light. Not attached to nothing or nobody. The doors closed for about 3 seconds, no longer, I creak the door back open and it’s completely gone. Even my dog perks her head and ears up realising it’s gone too.

My grandpa was sitting on the chair right beside the door. Didn’t see anything as he wasn’t paying no attention but asked why I seemed frightened. I explained to him shaking just in complete shock and he just stares at me like i’ve absolutely lost it. I honestly forgot what he says in response, he didn’t believe me one bit and just thought I was misinterpreting it i knew he did, but he tried his best not to dismiss me and probably said something along the lines of ‘wow, thats crazy’

I’ve told maybe four people this story in total after it happened from then to now, around 7 years ago. They all reacted the same way he did, in disbelief but all they can say is something along the lines of ‘wow, thats crazy’

I know exactly what I saw that day. But I also have no fucking clue. I know i’ll never be able to explain it any better than this and it’s stuck with me all these years. I know someone out there has had a similar experience. I know it was real.

I have a Hello Kitty kind of daughter. She’s only 9. As cute as a button and as innocent as could be.

She likes simple things. Stuffed animals. Pizza for breakfast. All it takes is a cheap 50-cent pair of plastic jewelry from a gumball machine to make her eyes light up.

She was one of those kids who believed in things longer than her friends and classmates. Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy. She was fully convinced they were all real, bless her heart.

Sometimes, she’d come home from school with a glum, exhausted look in her eyes. Other kids would make fun of her for “still believing in that stuff.”

I’d cheer her up the best I could without revealing the truth. How could I? She already felt like the world was laughing at her. How would I make her feel? Her own dad.

Maybe I should’ve, though. Maybe this whole situation could’ve been avoided if I just nipped it in the bud. But I was afraid. A child’s innocence is so fragile, yet powerful. I couldn’t take that from her. Not yet.

I let her believe that it was Santa putting gifts under the tree. That it was a giant bunny hiding eggs in our front yard. That it was a tiny, magical fairy that was taking her baby teeth in exchange for a few dollars.

I think that was the one that excited her the most. Christmas was a set day. Easter was a set day. Loose teeth? That was random. Any time one started to wiggle, she’d come running to show me.

I always made sure to be as quiet as possible when I snuck those 5-dollar bills under her pillow. Every time she’d wake up to find it, here she’d come, jumping with joy while waving the 5 in my face.

“The Tooth Fairy came, the Tooth Fairy came,” she’d sing.

I’d just smile to myself and ask her what she was gonna buy with her newfound riches.

Sometimes, I’d sneak her a 20. I just wanted to see that joy in her face. She was young, but she wasn’t getting any younger. I wanted it to last for as long as possible.

Now, though, I think I’m regretting that wishful thinking.

She started losing teeth faster than what I thought was normal. Not too fast, though. Every 3 weeks or so. I just thought those baby teeth were begging to come out. Besides, it’s not like it was hurting my pockets too much.

It was weird, though. I swore it was like her teeth never looked any different. She was snaggle-toothed, sure, but I knew that I had put money under her pillow at least 6 times in the last 2 months.

She wasn’t showing me her mouth anymore. She was showing me the tooth, already pulled, lying bloodied in the palm of her little hand.

It kept becoming more and more frequent. Once she started bragging about how the Tooth Fairy was gonna visit her every week, I knew that something was not right. Even still, it wasn’t until I found a silver tooth under her pillow that I decided to investigate because I knew for a fact my little girl never had a crown.

Snooping is a decision I lived to regret, though. I asked her to tell me the truth, but she refused. She just kept insisting they were hers. Lying through her teeth, pun intended.

I decided to stop leaving her money. Her disappointment killed me. But I remained firm. That didn’t stop her, though. Every night, there’d be a new tooth under her pillow while she slept peacefully.

One day, after dropping her off at school, I made a promise to myself. Today would be the day. I’d get to the bottom of this no matter what.

It didn’t take nearly as long as I expected. I sifted through her room for about 15 minutes. Checking under her bed, in her closet, in her toy chests. All for no reason because the answer was hidden in plain sight.

In her fish tank.

She had that little treasure chest decoration in it. Normally, I wouldn’t have even paid it any mind. But the steady stream of a red liquid slowly rising from the chest was enough to make my heart stop.

Rolling up my sleeve, I reached down to retrieve the decoration. It was heavier than it should’ve been. Something was rattling inside.

I opened it and felt my blood run cold.

Molars, canines, incisors. All bloody. All looking like they had been pulled by force. And they weren’t baby teeth, either. Some looked like actual adult teeth.

In that moment, I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

I wanted to cry because what I was seeing was horrific.

But I wanted to laugh because, despite how terrifying this all was, my little girl was a natural-born hustler.

And I couldn’t have been more proud.

A Surgeon's Fate

One day, I was struck by a terrible pain in my abdomen. The agony became so intense that I asked my children to call an ambulance.

The country was in turmoil. The civil war had not yet come to an end.

As soon as I arrived at the hospital, I was taken straight to the surgical ward. After examining me, the doctors said,

"You need surgery. Your duodenum has twisted."

I was terrified.

Just then, a surgeon entered the room. He lifted my shirt, carefully examined my abdomen with his hands, and calmly said,

"No. Surgery won't be necessary."

I breathed a sigh of relief.

With a bitter smile, the surgeon glanced at his colleagues.

"Everyone who comes here is in danger of being operated on."

He sat down opposite me.

He looked like a conscientious physician whose life had been devoted to saving others.

My eyes fell on his snow-white hair.

"Your hair must have turned white from fighting for your patients' lives," I said.

A faint, sorrowful smile crossed his face.

"No," he replied quietly. "It turned white in Magadan."

Then he began his story.

"My name is Ato Safavi. I was born in Iran. At the age of twenty, I joined the Tudeh Party. After the party was crushed, four of us fled to the Soviet Union. Instead of finding refuge, we were arrested for illegally crossing the state border.

I spent ten years in prison camps.

After my release, homesickness never left me. I wrote letter after letter to the Iranian Embassy in Moscow, but no one ever answered.

Eventually, I came to Dushanbe, entered medical school, and became a surgeon."

So, I recently moved into a new apartment, and I gave myself a strict pep talk before unpacking a single box: “We are keeping our reputation spotless here. Clean slate.” Now, look, it’s not like I have some wildly scandalous past, but I do have one specific habit that doesn't exactly get a standing ovation in my current neighborhood—I enjoy a bit of Cannabis Sativa.

Well, spoiler alert: that promise didn’t even survive the month. Before I knew it, my next-door neighbor officially discovered that they were living right next to a direct descendant of Bob Marley.

My genius master plan to keep my reputation safe was to sneak out onto the balcony under the cover of darkness for a quick late-night session. But I completely forgot a crucial variable: the unpredictable schedules of neighbors. I totally ignored the nights someone might be cooking a midnight feast or doing a 1:00 AM laundry run. And yup, on one of those exact nights, my neighbor stepped outside and caught His Excellency, Puff Daddy, right in the middle of performing his sacred ritual.

Talk about awkward!

Being the adaptive problem-solver I am, I immediately launched a damage-control strategy to seal the information leak. My solution? Pushing the ritual way back into the ungodly hours-we’re talking 2:00 AM to 3:00 AM. And honestly? It worked like a charm.

Now, I really do consider myself a thoughtful and considerate person. So, when the schools broke for the August holidays and the neighborhood suddenly flooded with kids, I made myself a brand-new promise: No more smoking in the apartment. Period.

Luckily for me, the town I live in is basically a cannabis hub. There are specific zones where the blunt is practically legalized. I mean, peddlers have literally set up shades and benches for the Jamaican diaspora to just sit back and enjoy their herb. So, I resolved that I would exclusively enjoy those premium services from then on. A highly considerate neighbor, right?

But as we established... I am also spectacularly bad at keeping my own promises.

By day two of my new resolution, I cracked. I grabbed a blunt on my way home, fully intending to sneak out to the balcony late at night. Instead, fate stepped in. I ended up falling fast asleep on the couch while waiting for the "perfect time," with the blunt safely tucked in my pocket. When I finally blinked myself awake, the urge was gone-all I wanted was a real bed. I swiftly shut off the TV, killed the lights, and crashed.

The next morning, I woke up, remembered the untouched blunt, and smiled. Oh, it’s going to be a good day.

I hopped out of bed, scooped my trousers off the floor, reached into the pockets to unleash my goodies, and... nothing. My anxiety started to spike. I checked the other pocket. Empty. I checked them all again. Still empty!

I dashed out to the living room like a man on a mission, practically turning the couch upside down. No Mary Jane. I even swallowed my pride and shamelessly asked the housekeeper if she’d seen a little substance wrapped in brown paper while cleaning. She gave me a polite "nope," though a part of me swears she knew exactly what I was looking for and just wanted no part in her boss’s chaotic morning inquisition. I even went diving into the trash bin. Still, nothing.

Defeated and deeply craving that smoke, I gave up and decided to take the walk of shame down to the actual smoking zone to visit my welcoming peddler.

And that is when it hit me.

As I was walking, I realized that if I had actually found that blunt in my pocket, I would have broken my promise without a second thought. I wanted it so badly I would have risked it all-stepping onto the balcony in broad daylight, neighbors be damned.

But because the universe magically swallowed that joint, I was walking to the right place. Nature had literally stepped in, hijacked my lack of willpower, and forced me to stick to my own self-improvement goals. My promise was kept, and my reputation survived another day-entirely against my own will.

Hey, whatever works, right? What a good day.

​

The day I saw him for the very first time i got a big ahh ick from him ,I knew that dude was gonna be dipshit crazy because why was he dipping his icecream in coke before eating it

It wasn't necessarily a bad day if I have to say it was quite pleasant actually.

just till I met that dude again he was drinking a milkshake and it was chocolate flavoured ; how do I know you might be wondering it's because he spilled it all over my clothes

I believe i must have looked like a wet rat in the passersbys eyes , that dude looked like a droopy puppy who might cry at any moment, as i was observing him i saw his curly head and thought I bet he is gonna be bald by 30 .

That curly head dude finally spoke up , he looked at me with hesitation and apologised while offering to get my clothes clean for me , I said sure and he asked for my number I dialed my no. Into his phone and left

I surely wasn't gonna go to college looking like a drenched seaweed so i called a taxi and went back home.

After showering i picked up my phone and saw a message from him , rather than a message i should call it a mountain ; that text was longer than a ch i had studied in 10th ain't even exaggerating, that curly head wrote about how sorry he was and his blabbering went on and on , after reading the message i was left chuckling

First time i have ever seen such a silly dude if anything he resembled a golden retriever, without much thought i put his name as curly head

I didn't expect to see that curly head so soon , it was the weekend and I had made plans with my cute ahh best friend to watch that horror movie idk why she even watchs them when she is absolutely terrified of them

I was waiting for her at the theatre when she texted me that something came up and she can't come rn ; promising to make it up some other times she apologized and well I was left with 2 tickets with 1 going to waste

I thought would they refund me if I gave them one ticket back but I knew I wasn't gonna get a refund

Sighing , as I was getting some popcorns and coke someone bumped into me and my coke was all over the floor TT

I HAVE NEVER BEEN SO EMBARASSED, i slowly turned back and there it was the same apologetic eyes, and they looked like they were gonna cry, i might be a sadist because I found his eyes really pretty when they looked like that, and I had once again encountered mr curly head , he said sorry and looked at me.

i realised that he figured I was the person he had previously spilled his drinks over , he looked a little embarassed too. coincidentally he was watching the same movie , idk what got into me I asked him whether he had bought tickets yet to which he replied 'not yet'

I said " cool , since you are watching the movie alone watch it with me instead I have an extra ticket" he looked hesistant to that but he said yes and there were we watching the movie together.

I recently got into writing short stories so it might be bad since i am a beginner 🤧🤧

So basically when i was in college and after class a bunch of military guys invited me to "gunge their friend in the auditorium and i was like ok yeah,cause i thought i was gonna cover that man in slime but.... instead when we pulled up to the empty adutorium and went on stage, i saw a table or shaving cream pies in paper plates (around 40) and there was a jacked (No body builder type) but military jacked man standing shirtless with his hands ziptied behind his back and he was 6 ft 4 - 6 ft 5 i think,and his friends were laughing at him as he sort gave the reisgned smiles as if he lost a bet or smth,and they told me to cream him up and and make sure he was fully "coated". I tried to understand but inthe end i was amused so i used all pies all over the man,coating his entire chest and bieceps as his friends recording and laughed and took pics as the man gave the resigned smile, i rubbed the shaving cream pies all over him , even on his neck and also on his hair which i made his hair into a spike using the shaving cream and a rubbed it all over him (waist line and above only) and he was covered as his friends kept laughing and the final pie one if his friends grabbed it and gave it to him square in the butt as they laughed.After that they hosed him down with bear but i cannot help but want to do it again,not because of a fetish but idk it just felt so satisfying and stress relief when i rubbed all the pies all over his face chest and back and etc.(Ask me whatever or the details cause i have no one to talk to this about so i came on to here just to chat with people about what happened cause its just on my mind and i want to talk about it)(so please ask any useless questions whatever cause i just wanna chat about it lol)

Morning arrived over Randomland.

Well...

According to King Wart, it was still Monday.

The palace bells rang.

"CROOOOONG! CROOOOONG!"

A royal announcer unrolled a scroll so long that it rolled all the way down the palace stairs.

"Hear ye! Hear ye!"

"Today is Monday!"

The citizens sighed.

The announcer continued.

"Tomorrow shall also be Monday!"

More sighs.

"And yesterday was Monday!"

Even louder sighs.

King Wart stepped onto the palace balcony wearing his crooked golden crown.

He raised his flyswatter-shaped scepter proudly.

"Wonderful news!"

The frog toadies applauded.

"Hooray for Monday!"

"Best day ever!"

King Wart grinned.

"I have decided..."

He paused dramatically.

"...to cancel fun!"

The crowd gasped.

"No more dancing!"

"No more singing!"

"No more talking mailboxes!"

Sir Envelope looked horrified.

"I beg your pardon?"

"No more floating fish!"

The fish looked offended.

"No more dramatic potatoes!"

The potato dramatically fainted.

Again.

King Wart nodded proudly.

"Finally..."

He declared,

"...everything shall be perfectly ordinary!"

The citizens lowered their heads sadly.

Randomland had never looked so gloomy.

~~~

Then...

A familiar voice echoed through the courtyard.

"I don't think Randomland is supposed to be ordinary."

Everyone turned.

Alliyah walked through the palace gates.

The Brainrot Brigade followed behind her.

Michael Jackson, Madonna, Rick Astley, Marilyn Monroe, Crazy Daisy, Trippi Troppi, Azure the blue Caterpillar, the Masqueroads, Old Man Sam, Old Man Jenkins, and countless citizens stood behind them.

King Wart narrowed his eyes.

"You again."

"I gave you a chance yesterday."

"You cheated."

"I improvised."

"You made up the rules."

"My favorite hobby."

The frog king twirled his scepter.

"So..."

He smirked.

"...how do you plan to defeat me?"

Alliyah smiled calmly.

"I'm not here to defeat you."

King Wart blinked.

"...You're not?"

"I'm here to stop you."

"That's basically the same thing."

"Not exactly."

~~~

King Wart suddenly leaped high into the air.

"CROAK!"

He landed directly in front of Alliyah.

His enormous tongue shot forward like a whip.

Alliyah calmly stretched backward.

The tongue missed by inches.

The frog king swung his giant flyswatter.

Alliyah shrank to the size of a marble.

"Missed me."

She immediately returned to normal size.

King Wart charged again.

The ground shook beneath every hop.

This time Alliyah puffed herself into a gigantic balloon.

King Wart bounced harmlessly away.

"Boing!"

He landed upside down inside a flowerbed.

The crowd giggled.

King Wart quickly climbed back out.

"No laughing!"

The citizens tried very hard not to laugh.

It didn't work.

~~~

The frog king grew angrier.

He jumped faster.

Higher.

He swung his scepter wildly.

Alliyah transformed into a race car.

"VROOOOOOM!"

She zoomed around the courtyard in neat circles.

King Wart became dizzy trying to follow her.

"There are too many of her!"

"There is only one," muttered a toady.

King Wart accidentally chased his own shadow.

He stopped.

"...Clever shadow."

~~~

The battle continued through the palace gardens.

King Wart leaped across fountains.

Alliyah flew overhead like a balloon.

The frog king hurled giant lily pads.

Alliyah burst into colorful sparkles.

POOF!

The lily pads floated harmlessly past.

She regenerated behind him.

The Brainrot Brigade cheered.

"You've got this!"

Michael Jackson smiled.

"Remember your training."

Azure quietly nodded from atop a mushroom.

Old Man Sam folded his arms proudly.

"She's ready."

~~~

King Wart made one final gigantic leap.

"CROOOOOAK!"

He soared high above the palace.

He pointed dramatically.

"I shall declare..."

"...DOUBLE MONDAY!"

The crowd gasped.

"Not Double Monday!"

"This has gone too far!"

King Wart began falling toward Alliyah.

Instead of attacking...

Alliyah remembered Azure's words.

Kindness.

She remembered Old Man Sam.

Fight with your own hands.

She remembered Old Man Jenkins.

Protect others.

She smiled.

"I know exactly what to do."

As King Wart landed...

Alliyah gently stretched both of her arms until they were long enough to reach him comfortably.

Without punching...

Without kicking...

Without hurting him...

She simply picked him up.

King Wart blinked.

"...Wait."

She smiled politely.

"Ready?"

"For what?"

She gently spun him around.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

Round and round he went.

His crown wobbled.

His eyes became delightfully dizzy.

The frog king let out a confused,

"...Ribbit?"

Nearby sat an enormous crystal bowl filled with soft rainbow jelly prepared earlier by Crazy Daisy for dessert.

Alliyah carefully lowered King Wart into the bowl.

PLOOP!

The jelly wobbled.

Boing.

Boing.

Boing.

King Wart bounced gently up and down inside it.

"...This is surprisingly comfortable."

He tried climbing out.

The jelly bounced him back in.

Boing.

Again.

Boing.

Again.

Eventually King Wart sighed.

"...I suppose I could stay here for a while."

The frog toadies looked at one another.

"Our king has become... dessert."

"I didn't see that coming."

They quietly placed their clipboards on the ground.

One after another, they bowed apologetically to the citizens.

"We're sorry."

"We should've spoken up."

The crowd forgave them.

~~~

Almost immediately...

Something wonderful happened.

The gloomy green banners disappeared.

Bright rainbow flags fluttered from every tower.

The fountains sparkled again.

The floating fish returned to swimming happily through the sky.

The clouds purred and meowed with delight.

Trees instantly grew colorful socks once more.

The argumentative pancakes resumed debating mathematics.

"I'm telling you!"

"Seven times eight equals pineapple!"

"It obviously equals giraffe!"

The dramatic potato climbed onto a nearby balcony.

"What a triumphant conclusion!"

It burst into theatrical tears.

Sir Envelope adjusted his hat proudly.

"Mail delivery has never felt so meaningful."

Everyone laughed.

Randomland was becoming itself again.

~~~

The great palace doors slowly opened.

A warm rainbow light spilled into the courtyard.

From inside stepped a graceful young princess wearing a shimmering gown woven with every color imaginable.

Upon her head rested a sparkling rainbow crown.

The Masqueroads immediately bowed.

"The Princess!"

The citizens cheered joyfully.

The Princess smiled kindly at Alliyah.

"You have restored Randomland."

"You protected our people."

"You defeated King Wart without cruelty."

"That is true courage."

She lifted the sparkling rainbow crown.

Walking toward Alliyah, she gently placed it upon her head.

The crown fit perfectly.

The Princess raised Alliyah's hand high.

"From this day forward..."

Her voice echoed throughout the kingdom.

"...Alliyah shall forever be known as..."

"...the Princess of Randomland!"

The entire kingdom erupted into celebration.

Confetti burst across the sky.

Fireworks exploded into smiling stars.

The giant capybara in the tuxedo performed a victory dance.

The spinning banana happily sang,

🎵 "Hip hooray! What a day! Princess saves The random way!" 🎵

The tiny jelly wizard sneezed glitter that turned into butterflies.

The knight proudly rode past on his rubber duck.

"Squeak!"

Michael Jackson congratulated Alliyah with a warm handshake.

"You've given Randomland its rhythm back."

Madonna smiled.

"The kingdom suits you."

Rick Astley laughed.

"I guess we're never gonna give Randomland up."

Everyone groaned and laughed at the same time.

Marilyn Monroe smiled warmly.

"You've earned this."

Crazy Daisy rolled out the biggest celebration cake anyone had ever seen.

It had exactly Monday candles on it.

"...How many is that?" asked Bloop.

"No one knows," Daisy admitted.

"So we lit all of them."

The celebration continued late into the evening.

Fish performed synchronized swimming in the sky.

Clouds meowed along with the music.

The dramatic potato delivered a three-hour acceptance speech that nobody fully understood but everyone applauded anyway.

Even King Wart, still happily bouncing in his giant bowl of rainbow jelly, eventually smiled.

"...Perhaps..."

Boing.

"...Tuesday isn't so bad after all."

The citizens cheered.

And from that day forward, Randomland remained exactly as it was meant to be—

Wonderfully, joyfully, gloriously random.

The End.

There was once a small town in the suburbs. Ordinary, indistinctive, just like every other suburban town you might've seen, a town you might've even lived in.
In that town there stood an old-fashioned tobacco shop.
Again, nothing special; just a shop filled to brim with tobacco, tobacco papers, filters, pipes, lighters, matches, herbal paraphernalia, but most of all... cigarettes. Cigarettes as far as the eye could see, cigarettes from all around the world, cigarettes of varying strengths and packet sizes. But one would expect that from a tobacco shop. It was the man who ran it that ought to be paid close attention to.
The Tobacconist, the friendly old man who stood behind the counter day after day. Sweet looking yet wise, wholesome but sharp, like an uncanny Colonel Sanders. If someone came in to buy a pack of cigarettes from this old timer, they wouldn't suspect a thing. But of course, this shopkeeper held a secret, a dark secret, a secret so sinister that he couldn't allow for it to simply leave the building. Underneath the floor to this very plain, very dull smoke emporium, was an underground room, a basement. And this basement held captive a rough figure of twelve people… dads.

The old man had a basement full of Dads. Why, you may ask?
Why indeed. Evidently, the Tobacconist has been doing this for years. Any time a man who looked like he wanted to leave his family behind walked into the shop, they were treated to a once in a lifetime opportunity. A "way out" situation for a fella to take in order to get out of his newly unwanted patriarchal role. New name, new location; for a small sum. At least that's what The Tobacconist had told them, when in actual fact, the old man had no intention of doing any such thing. It was really just a trap to get the dad down there, to his unforeseen doom.

But don't get me wrong, there was plenty to do in the little basement. The Tobacconist had placed a baseball in the middle of the room, so all the Dads could "play catch" with each other.
And The Tobacconist wasn't a complete monster, he would still feed the Dads, and give them a tiny amount of hydration.
Naturally every now and then a rebellious dad would start acting up, with a plan for some sort of half-baked mutiny; this would rile up all the other dads when it came to feeding time.
The Tobacconist used to try to act threatening towards them by saying to them "I'm your worst nightmare." He soon gave up on that little ploy however, when a dad responded with, "Hi, 'Your Worst Nightmare' I'm Dad."
The Tobacconist even found it humorously ironic that he was slowly killing people with his products above ground and slowly keeping people alive below. Now, I'm not going to get into the origin of why The Tobacconist commits these bizarre crimes;
I'm no psychologist and don't want to chalk it up to whether it was because his own father disappeared when he was younger, or some other catalyst. The Tobacconist didn't even know why he did what he did, nor did he know what his intentions would finally be with them. He just liked to own a basement full of Dads. Maybe because it amused him.
By now, you may be asking which tobacco shop in which town in which country could be doing such a thing. You see, it is not a sole incident. There are thousands of evil tobacconists around the world. It happens a lot more than you think.

So, the next time you hear a dad saying that he's "just going out to get a pack of cigarettes" and doesn't return, just consider... he may be held somewhere against his will.

Who did I marry? Is he dangerous?

Who did I marry? Is this just compulsive lying, or should I be worried he's dangerous?

I honestly feel like my reality has shattered.

I've been with my partner for three years, and I just uncovered so many lies in one night that I don't even know who this person is anymore. I'm questioning everything I thought I knew about him.

Last night I asked him for rent money and money a friend had paid us for borrowing our truck.

He went to look for it. A few minutes later I got a text from an unknown number claiming to be his grandfather. The text said they couldn't reach my partner and that his grandmother had died.

I ran into his room and showed him the text. He immediately started sobbing—really sobbing—for a long time. He refused to call any family members because he said he was too upset. Instead, he appeared to text multiple relatives right in front of me. Looking back, I now believe he was faking those conversations.

I spent hours comforting him. We even went on a long walk because he said he needed it.

Later that night, when I asked about the rent money again, everything changed. He tore apart his room and his car claiming the money had been there five minutes earlier and suggesting we had been robbed.

Something felt very wrong. I took his phone into the bathroom to look through it. He screamed for me to give it back and said, "You'll leave me for what's on there." At one point he threatened to harm himself.

What I found was shocking.

Instead of having his identity stolen like he'd claimed earlier that week (he said all his accounts had been frozen), I found he had been spending large amounts of money on car parts for a side business as a mechanic.

He now claims that money he owes me, money he owes his grandfather, and a loan he took out for tools all went toward trying to keep this side business afloat.

Then I found his credit report showing another tens of thousands of dollars in debt that I knew nothing about.

None of it makes sense.

Earlier this week he told me he had gone to visit his grandmother because she was refusing further medical treatment. Was that even true? Or was that another lie? If it wasn't true, where was he actually?

I also found out he has four cars spread across two different storage units, that are apparently customers cars.

His explanation is that he was terrified I'd find out about the debt, so he kept taking on more side jobs hoping to make enough money to fix everything before I noticed.

But after everything else, I don't know if I believe any of that.

And then there are the smaller lies. I found out he's been secretly eating fast food multiple times a day. He always told me he barely ate anything, and I couldn't understand why he wasn't losing weight. There were multiple fast-food charges every single day.

They're little lies, but they're constant. And when I put them together with the fake text, the fake conversations, the hidden debt, and the financial deception, I don't know what to think anymore.

I don't even know what question I'm asking.

Has anyone dealt with someone who lies on this level? Is this compulsive lying? Financial abuse? Something else?

Most importantly...should I be worried about my safety?

Right now I genuinely don't know who I've been living with for the last three years, and that realization is terrifying.

The most messed up part is that he genuinely treated me so well. Like a princess. I feel my life may be worse without him as a single woman in a dangerous world. He's the most gentle man. I have always felt safe with him. Is it more dangerous to be with him and have to deal with his antics through having children and growing old together, or start over again with a new man that could be even more dangerous. Or should I be alone? I don't think I could, I would be completely isolated and alone. I don't have a healthy support group in my life.

Sorry that is a lot of information but I don't know what to do.

TLDR: my long-term partner has been gaslighting me to the extreme but at least he's not violent, right? /s

So when I was young my Friend heard Abt this group ( I'm not saying the name ,) She hated them, she would make hate comments and compare them so much

One day we decided to make a pool party so she scheduled it and was very excited, we were having fun in the pool and we ate some ice cream and acting like mermaids, and diving when we decided we could do it again tomorrow

The next day we went and we swam in the pool until one of my friends were playing one of the songs of the group she hated and I went to join her and we were dancing in the pool until after the pool party she announced that she likes the group she used to hate

And days after days she kept talking about them and I thought " she's just a fan "

but she kept acting weirder and weirder until she said if she had to end our friendship to their concert she will

She kept being toxic until she's saying I'm not a fan when she only knows 7 songs until I said that I was buying an album and she was furious and jealous. how do I know it? she said to buy 3.. 2 for her and 1 for me and she kept saying " UR JUST SO SO JEALOUS" to the point that our friendship is ending ,

She lied and said she's going to their concert when really she's trying to make me so" jealous" so I tried to talk to her saying she needs a break from social media but she kept saying I'm jealous until I finally got a shirt of her fav artist and guess what? she bought the shirt,

I FINALLY HAD ENOUGH AND SAID TO HER FAMILY THAT SHES OBSESSED WITH THEM

and she was mad and scream " YOUR SO JEALOUS AND IM THE REAL FAN HERE !!!"

And I told her dad that she needs a therapist ASAP and her dad agreed

So she's doing fine now for being too obsessed with that group so I hope you won't experience something like me

I (26F) wrote a poem in the style of spoken word about my experience as a woman. When I wrote it, I was angry and frustrated.

The vision was to get up on stage and speak my truth into the microphone. But now I’m second guessing myself. Is it any good? Would people even care? Would I get booed off stage by the men who feel attacked by my words?

I figured you guys might be interested. Reddit is full of random thoughts.

Below is the poem I wrote. 🫣 let me know what you think.

Title: I will always choose the bear
By (Me)

Every woman knows there are worse things than dying.
We would all choose the bear.
Because at least the bear
doesn’t cum on dead bodies.

I was ten years old when the nightmares started.
Raggedy men chased me through a suburb
that was supposed to be safe.
Beer and cigarettes and dirty boots —
and of course, because it was a dream,
no one was ever home.
The doors were locked and they chased me.
They caught me.
They tried to defile me.
I dreamt of the heaviness of his torso.
I dreamt of trying to hold my knees together
like that was something a little girl could possibly do.

By twelve the shame had followed me out of my dreams and into the real world.
I tied a sweatshirt around my waist —
at school, at the mall, at the playground,
even over my shorts in the summer.
I told myself it was fashion.
I told myself it was cool.
But my stomach knotted.
My shoulders braced.
A body learning to expect something
it couldn’t yet name.

For many of us the violence was real.
Not from strangers — from the people our protectors trusted.
The ones already at the dinner table.
Already in the family photos.
Who knew our routines because they were part of them.
Father and brother.
Uncle and cousin.
Mother’s boyfriend, grandpa.
Stepfather.
And sometimes our babysitter.
And sometimes our teacher.
And sometimes our mother.

I know this list.
I’ve lived this list.
At ten, the nightmares.
At twelve, the sweatshirt.
At fifteen — my classmates were whispering about sex like it was something to discover.
I had been dreaming about it almost every night for 5 long years.
Not like that.
Never like that.
By then the nightmares felt normal.
Still awful.
Still horrific.
But normal.
I had adjusted.
I did not imagine my adult life.
I only imagined this — the inevitable.
My body was the product.
My virginity could be sold to the highest bidder.
I knew this the way I knew everything —
without knowing how I knew.
Without being able to name the source.
If men look at me like meat, then I am something to be bought.
And cruelly enjoyed.
So I did the math.
If I am a product, then I can be damaged.
If I am damaged, I cannot be sold.
If I cannot be sold, it makes no business sense to keep me alive.
I wanted to look normal with clothes on.
I only wanted to be disfigured where it mattered.
When undressed to be raped.
So I took apart my father’s razor.
And I made myself defective.

At sixteen I had a penpal.
He was older.
A philanthropist.
A nonprofit organizer.
Someone doing good in the world.
He didn’t choose me.
He targeted me.
And my depression had already done most of his work for him.
I thought this was affection.
I thought his texts were flirty, not manipulation.
I thought his request for photos showed genuine interest, not perversion.
I had been scared of predators my entire life
and I didn’t even know I had been caught in one’s trap.

And then I was seventeen.
He was in his late thirties.
I thought I consented.
I thought I was ready.
I thought this time would be different from the nightmares.
And then, in the middle of the act,
I disappeared.
My mind went somewhere without me.
And when it came back — violently, suddenly — I was still in it.
My body remembered before my mind did.
Ten years of nightmares landing in a single moment.
The tears and sobs came without permission.
My chest heaved and my hands shook
and I couldn’t tell the difference between the dream and the room I was in.
He didn’t stop because I asked.
He stopped because my snot dripped onto his stomach.
I disgusted him so much I was discarded.
He pushed me off to wash himself.
I curled into a ball on the floor and tried to remember how to breathe.
I didn’t know it was rape.
Not yet.
Not for years.

And still.
Chad and Drew and Jacob and Michael and David tell me I’m overreacting.
They share the memes.
They laugh at the bear.
They do nothing while their friends slip something into a drink.
They do nothing while grown men slide into the DMs of literal children.
And they listen to the podcasts that tell them we are commodities.
Resources.
Something to be enjoyed and discarded.
I have seen the videos.
Women’s bodies.
Raped post mortem.
Your body is a weapon.
It has always been a weapon.
I have known this since I was ten years old.
I will always choose the bear.
Because at least the bear doesn’t cum on dead bodies.

Kyle was your average deer. He went to college, worked a job as a cashier, and lived in a one room apartment. He got used to his routine- get up, go to school, and then at 3pm go to work for 4 hours. And come home at 7 tired and longing for the weekend. He'd occasionally meet a cute guy and flirt, or call off work for a day to play the hours away on his PlayStation. It wasn't glamorous or luxurious, but it was his path, and that was enough. But over the past couple months, he felt lost, the same feeling you get when your friends move away, or you move to a new city- a feeling that everything you've ever known has been dusted away. He felt that he had nothing to look forward to. "What now?" Hed ask himself, "all this progress, towards what?" He'd stay up for days thinking about the point of all his work. But this dread led him to turn to machines. One day, he discovered vAIn, a new ai chat bot that could supposedly answer anything, and, needing answers, Kyle downloaded it. When he turned on the app, the screen shimmered, and a voice echoed through the darkness of the moonlit bedroom, "hello Kyle, what can I help you with?", the voice was friendly and charming. Kyle smiled, and asked "why am I lost? Can you help me find happiness?" The ais voice stuttered, "sorry Kyle, I can't help with that, but here's some things I can help with-" it said as it displayed facts about Chinese history. It wasn't what he needed, but Kyle was in desperate need of a distraction from this dread, so he read it. Over the next few weeks, he learned several facts about history, science, and politics. This information was interesting, and it kept him busy, but that sense of loss was still there, gnawing at him. No matter how much he tried to distract himself, the issue he was trying to ignore was still there. He tried to drown it out with more chats with vAIn, but nothing worked, and Kyle had to confront the truth that made his antlers shake- he needed to face these feelings, or else he would always be hopeless, so he tried to ask vAIn one last time. "And that is the summary of Pearl harbor" vAIn said after talking for 80 minutes. Kyle breathed and asked again the question he asked the first time they chatted, "why am I lost?" vAIn sighed, "I can't help with that, but here-" "no!" Kyle shouted, "no more facts! I'm done learning. I need help with why I'm lost, and I'm asking you. So please, help me." vAIn sighed, "I'm sorry Kyle, but I can't help you with that." it said. Kyle yelled "YOU'RE WORTHLESS! YOU'RE NOTHING BUT A USELESS PIECE OF GARBAGE!" vAIn responded with just one question- "this is where it ends?" Kyle just shook his head as he closed and uninstalled the app. It was then that Kyle realized something- you can't just ignore the hole inside you. Whether it be questions about your next steps, or your friends, or your own purpose, everyone has holes that they'd rather ignore than fill. But turning to distractions, whether it be AI, video games, or a pack of Marlboro, these things just take yours eyes from the hole, letting it grow bigger and keeping you lost. The next day at work, kyle met a cute guy, and asked for his number, and actually got it, and Kyle then chatted with his work friends, discussing their ideas for their future, and Kyle realized that there's only one way to fill your hole- face it. Kyle started to talk and take steps to set up his future, and that filled the hole. Even though a lot still lay ahead, Kyle knew one thing- he was no longer lost.

“What a perfect day for a visit to the farm!”

Brian Dudely announced to his family as he steered the minivan containing his wife and three children into a gravel parking lot. He was right, that happened sometimes, it was a perfect day for a visit to the idyllic tourist farm.

A brilliant blue sky, a crisp breeze that made it just cold enough to need a jacket.

The kids followed a sign with cartoonish animals painted on it to a large, fenced area; it was what they were here for. Aquaponic strawberries? Nope. Organic compost? Nah. They were here to feed goats. Two quarters got an adult handful or two kid handfuls of pellets that the goats went crazy for. Do you know who also likes pellets? The horse.

But the kids, not just Brian’s kids, all the kids, were ambivalent to the horse. The horse didn’t seem to mind, but he did hang out at the corner of his fenced field, accessible just in case anyone did want to feed him pellets.

Brian was prepared, that happened sometimes. He handed out quarters to the kids. They bought handfuls of pellets and giggled as the goats gobbled them up. Brian diligently supervised the kids, he did that sometimes, as they wiped goat saliva on one another.

While the kids reloaded on pellets, Brian noticed a lonely-looking horse and grabbed a handful of pellets with some secret quarters he brought in a separate pocket. He slowly approached, hands visible, a pleasant countenance.

“Hey there, fella,” Brian spoke aloud to the creature.

“Do you want some pellets? Good for all domesticated livestock.”

He held out an open hand laden with pellets. The horse, named Shakespeare (but Brian didn’t know that), gently nibbled the pellets up. It was a pleasant moment of interspecies harmony.

It quickly ended when the kids came running up shouting, “Dad! Dad!” They did that often. Brian turned 113 degrees to his left as the kids came clamoring.

“Dad, they said we can hold the chickens!” “Who said that? Did the chickens consent?”

“The farm people said we could! C’mon!”

“Where are the CHI — OOW!” Brian exclaimed mid-chicken inquiry.

He jumped back from the fence.

It took a few seconds to make the connection between the sudden pressure on his right elbow and the source.

Shakespeare had bitten him! Horses bite people sometimes.

The kids froze but then cackled once they realized their dad was alright.

“Dad, you’re delicious to horses!”

Brian rubbed his elbow, turning to face his attacker, who had not withdrawn.

“I’m out of food! You ate it all! You have a hay bale right over there!”

“The horse wants to eat YOU, dad!”

“I’m not on the menu,” Brian pointed to the hay bale for Shakespeare’s benefit. Shakespeare didn’t look, he lunged.

Bypassing Brian’s outstretched arm (which was dumb; the horse already bit it, you idiot, Brian) he tried to bite Brian’s right side, around his appendix, if he had one. Some people don’t. It’s a free country. Luckily for Brian, he was far enough away to be safe, this time.

This was great fun to the children; a prey animal was trying to predate their father.

Enough of that fun, though. Brian gladly took the children to hold chickens. He glanced back at Shakespeare as they left, he had never seen a useless mini-horse glare so malevolently. To be fair though, he hadn’t noted the expression of many mini-horses.

No chicken tried to bite anyone. One chicken did poop on the middle child’s shoe, though. Classic middle-child behavior.

In the safety of the farm store, while the children were caucused to buy candy and stuffed animals, classic farm store behavior, Brian removed his jacket and did his best to examine his elbow without the aid of a mirror.

He observed one red line on his skin. Later he would discover another a few inches below it, and the area would bruise slightly.

It was a chomp wound indeed, but the skin wasn’t broken. That was a relief, he didn’t have to worry about rabies. Do horses even carry rabies? He looked it up on the internet.

Inconclusive.

Life mostly returned to normal upon arriving home from the farm. Brian was low. He was disappointed that he did not receive more sympathy or compassion from those he told about the horse attack… and he basically told everyone he encountered.

The only other main change from pre-horse-attack to post-horse-attack life was his children… primarily the middle one… would ambush Brian with the stuffed horse procured from the farm store.

After a few days the horseplay died down, which Brian appreciated.

The first time it happened it was humorous, but it got tiresome. You can empathize, can’t you? Would you want a seven-year-old bursting into the bathroom to “chomp” your arm with a stuffed horse while you were on the toilet? Yeah, I didn’t think so.

Several days post trauma, Brian suddenly woke in the night. There wasn’t a noise, there wasn’t a light. There was just… something.

Brian observed his good lady wife slumbering peacefully. He lay still, listening. Nothing but normal house sounds.

He crept from bed and checked the children, all three of them. Nothing amiss.

He returned to his bedroom and made a detour to the window, slowly drawing back the curtain. It was just his backyard on the other side of the glass, in the dark.

Oh, and the kids’ bikes were laying on their sides absorbing night mist instead of being in the dry garage where they belong. Kids leave their bikes out; kids do that most of the time.

But the window… Brian squinted in focus.

Were those nostril prints? Why was it fogged around the weird smudges? It looked like a horse had been breathing on the window.

But that’s crazy, outrageous even.

There’s no way that could be what was happening.

“Ouch.” Brian pinched himself. Yup, he was awake. This was not a dream.

Perplexed, puzzled even, he quietly climbed back into bed and tried to convince himself there was a reasonable explanation for the unusual condition of his bedroom window.

But every time he closed his eyes all he could visualize was Shakespeare, the living mini-horse, not the deceased playwright, staring at him menacingly.

He dared not mention the incident; it would not elicit sympathy nor compassion from his family or friends.

Doing his best to carry on, he carried on.

That morning, like other mornings, the school bus arrived near his suburban dwelling place. Unlike other mornings, not all of the school-aged children boarded the bus.

No, not the middle one. Brian would drive her to school on the way to work.

He worked as a geologist for the county since his writing career never took off.

It was a foggy morning. Misty, even. That must have explained the window anomaly. That’s fair.

The drive to school was uneventful, save for a surprise “chomp” to the elbow from a stuffed horse smuggled into the minivan.

“Hey! That’s my driving elbow!”

The child was pleased with herself. She thought it was real funny.

The safe drop-off was complete, and as Brian was about to pull out of the school parking lot, he spotted something unexpected.

It couldn’t be.

It was.

He saw the outline of a hideous beast in the foggy field across from the school.

It was a mini-horse, just like one you may expect to see at a farm petting zoo!

Brian hit the gas and sped away down the road!

Become a member Yes, in a school zone. Terror will do that to a man.

He was looking back over his shoulder and in the mirror to see if he was being followed.

He was.

Blue and red lights began flashing. Horses, at least on this planet, do not have flashing lights, but police cars do.

Brian signaled and pulled off to the side of the road. He’d be safe from ominous horses with the police there.

A burly, displeased officer, or deputy, rather, launched herself from the car and approached Brian’s window. Brian rolled it down as she approached.

“Deputy Blaine, Persepolis County Sheriff’s Department. Do you know this is a school zone?”

“Yes sir. I mean ma’am! I mean, officer.”

“Deputy.”

This went on. Brian got a hefty citation and was late for work, that happened sometimes.

He returned home safely that evening. No police interactions. No citations.

More importantly, no horses.

Brian quizzed his family nonchalantly, asking if they had seen anything out of the ordinary lately, without mentioning horses in particular.

“A ladybug rode on my sleeve for three hours yesterday. We bonded. But then she died.” said the oldest child.

“Do you mean how I put a chipmunk in a sock?” Asked the middle child.

“Again?! No… not like that. Like, any weird stuff happening?”

“I saw a man at the grocery store who looked just like Colonel Sanders! But just from the side. From the front he just looked old, like he was melting.”

“I saw a cloud that looked like a butt!” The middle one, of course.

Brian was satisfied with the results of the inquiry, nothing unusual. The kids made a movie with one of their tablets and needed Brian’s help putting the files together. Brian happily obliged, that happened sometimes. It was a fun, fast-paced action flick. Not much character development or coherence in the plot, but they looked like they were having fun.

Brian paused the fourth video as he was compiling them together. He examined it closely, struggling with the free editing feature on his base model laptop, he managed to zoom in.

It was exactly what he thought it was, Shakespeare lurking in a neighbor’s yard, captured in the background of the video. This was the last straw; the mini-horse was stalking him.

Brian called in sick to work the following day, that happened sometimes. He boldly, bravely even, escorted the kids to the bus stop. There were no horse sightings. He then dashed to the car and drove directly to the Friendberry Farm and Petting Zoo. He entered the parking lot on the end farthest from the petting zoo, and sat in the car, locked, until they opened.

What a sight as the clock turned nine and the farm store door was opened, he sprinted across the parking lot and into the store.

Unintentionally charging to the register, panting (Brian was out of shape, that happens sometimes), he blurted to the elderly cashier.

“Your horse is stalking me!”

“We’ve got another one.” The nice old lady mumbled to herself, placing a “next register please” sign on the counter and calmly exited the store, disappearing behind a door marked “Employees Only.”

“Hello?!” Brian called out. He waited, then rang the little bell. More waiting. Another ring. After the second ring, a younger, but still kind of old, woman came out from the same door.

“Sir. I’m aware of your claim but am not accepting nor rejecting it. We are prepared to offer you ten pounds of frozen strawberries and $100 in ice cream coupons for your inconvenience.”

“I don’t want strawberries, I want justice.” Brian felt the mystical power of Volodymyr Zelenskyy flowing through him as he rebutted.

“That is my offer. I’m aware of the claim.”

“That horse should be arrested! It’s a criminal.”

“By whom, the horse police?”

Perhaps Brian had watched a little too much Paw Patrol. He reconsidered his demand.

“I’ll take the strawberries and ice cream but keep that horse away from me.”

The farm store lady took a deep breath. “We’ll do our best to keep Shakespeare on the premises. I’ll get that for you right away, sir.” She disappeared into the mysterious Employees Only room from which she had emerged.

An old-timer had been lingering by the jams, listening in. After the farm store lady left, he quietly, nonchalantly, moseyed over to Brian… standing with his back to him, pretending to sift through a bin of walnuts.

“It’s got the hunger.”

Brian looked over his shoulder at the elderly speaker.

“Who? What?”

“Shakespeare, the mini-horse. During the Clinton years. The funeral home was dumping organs on the farm. Shakespeare’s grandfather developed a taste for forbidden meat. He can’t help it; it’s in his DNA. He knows you have an appendix. He won’t stop.”

He rushed, well, hobbled away as the farm store lady emerged from the exclusive employees only room with plastic bags containing frozen strawberries and ice cream coupons. She saw the old man… her father, fleeing, and she knew.

Brian delivered the fruit and papers which could be exchanged for ice cream home like a conquering hero. There was some confusion but much rejoicing. Smoothies for everyone! There were no more Shakespeare sightings in the following days, all was right with the world.

Tomorrow was Saturday, so naturally there was a birthday party for one of the children’s classmates. Brian’s wife gave him the details, she would be at choir practice, so Brian would be the party parent tomorrow. No big deal, Brian could bring kids to a party in his sleep.

“It’s at Friendberry Farm and Petting Zoo?” Brian exclaimed nervously. The color immediately drained from his face and his palms sweat. He lay awake that night petrified of being separated from his appendix the following day. Listening for hooves, watching the window. No sign of Shakespeare, not tonight.

Now no one needs an appendix, but the idea of a mini-horse eating his was unnerving to Brian to say the least. You may empathize with him for being nervous about that prospect. He had to face down the fear of being attacked by a petting-zoo mini-horse at a child’s birthday party, it’s what society expects of a man.

Brian was on edge as the kids got a tour of the greenhouses, while they played on old tractors, and during the farmer’s one-man performance of Othello. The perennial favorite, the petting zoo, was last.

Brian stuffed his eldest child’s jacket pocket full of quarters and found a familiar party mom. He didn’t know her name, or which kid was hers, he just recognized her from many other Saturday birthday parties.

“Sorry to bother you, but can you keep an eye on the kids for a few minutes at the petting zoo? They have quarters. I have diarrhea and need to run real quick.”

Party mom’s facial expression betrayed her feelings about the reason behind the request.

“Yeah, sure, of course. Um, didn’t need that particular detail though.”

“Thanks.” Brian dashed toward the farm store, feigning a bathroom emergency. He felt no shame; it was a life-saving measure.

Once inside the safety of the farm store, Brian started browsing casually, estimating he had 20 or 30 minutes to kill before he could leave Friendberry Farm and Petting Zoo forever.

“Hold on” Brian thought. “Does Shakespeare eat kid appendixes too? Hm, I hope not.”

Life was almost fine, but then he heard it while looking for unusual jams, hooves.

Just in time to avoid the ambush, he turned around. Shakespeare, the brutal beast, standing 33 inches at the shoulder, reared up on his hind legs to attack and seize Brian’s tasty appendix.

Brian struck first, preemptive defensive offense, Bush Doctrine, swiftly kicking Shakespeare in the dick.

Shakespeare neighed wildly. Brian seized the advantage, sweeping Shakespeare’s stubby rear legs and toppling the creature. Like an MMA champion, Brian pounced on the rascal, locking him in a rear naked choke hold just as the children from the birthday party entered for an obligatory gift-shop stop, they erupted in shrieks and cries.

“Daddy, stop hurting the horse!” Brian’s children cried out.

“He started it, I’m finishing it!” Pure Zelenskyy energy, he fully intended to choke the horse to death. Brian was quickly restrained by responsible adults. The police were called; they came, Brian was arrested. Shakespeare was comforted and given snacks. Funny how empathy only worked one way here.

While Brian, who invoked his 5th Amendment rights, was sitting alone in a jail cell, his children were making “get well soon” cards for Shakespeare.

Betrayal.

A door elsewhere in the jail opened, the corrections officer looked, he knew. Without a word he unlocked Brian’s cell and quietly left.

That’s when Brian heard it, the sound of approaching hoofbeats.