My story ‘Some men talk too much‘ got published on Negative Suck in their first, ‘The Virgin Issue’. I am very happy.

negative suck is for writers who don’t suck and who write things that don’t suck.

And one piece I wrote got published there. How cool is that?! Very cool!

Please check out all the ten pieces – flash fiction, poems and art. Neither of them sucks, so to say, and they hang together quite well.

‘The Secret’ got published at Blink|Ink today. I love their selection of microfiction and I am very happy that they also published some of my stories (well, this is the second one!)

Also, please look around some more when you pay a visit to Blink|Ink Online; the design of the whole site and the featured artists section are amazing.

They said they would help me change and that I would not be a freak anymore.

Wires, belts, needles, whispers, hands, people touching me, holding me, waving pictures before my eyes, photos of boys, handsome boys… oh, yes, I like boys, I have always loved boys… I said – I am just an ordinary gay next door, there’s no woman under my skin, but they kept saying I would be happy, asking rhetorically who wants to be deviant anyway.

AAAAAH TREMBLING AND SHAKING AND CONVULSING AND OH PAIN EXCRUCIATING PAIN AND THEN IT GOT WHITE AND ALL I COULD HEAR WAS MUSIC BYE BYE LOVE, BYE BYE HAPPINESS, HELLO LONELINESS, I THINK I’M GONNA CRY and I cried and cried until my tears quit on me, or – was it Valium that made me not care?

Something was not working as it should, they told me that my deviance was a serious one and here I was lying surrounded by belts, even more needles, scalpels, whispers, hands, people touching me, holding me, no pictures before my eyes this time, but then I got sleepy and did not care much even before they put me on the table; a needle went into my sore veins and seconds later I was getting even calmer. They would cure me for sure and I would be pretty-as-a-girl when I wake up, one step further on my way to the penis-less and breast-full body.

The anesthetic was working, I was fading; all that I could register was the white light following me through what I back then did not know was my last crawl through the corridors of consciences and then the music started again BYE BYE LOVE, BYE BYE SWEET CARESS, HELLO EMPTINESS, I FEEL LIKE I COULD DIE, I FEEL I’M GONNA DIE, I FEEL and then I did not feel anything, anymore, ever again.

…………………………….

The piece I wrote was inspired by the Aversion Project.

A study called ‘The Aversion Project’ found that gay conscripts in the South African Defense Forces (SADF) during the apartheid era, during 1970s and 80s, had been forced to submit to ‘curing’ their homosexuality, both by electroshock therapies and by botched sex changes.

Sex-change operations, medical torture and chemical castration were perpetrated on national servicemen in a bizarre program to cure ‘deviants’ during the apartheid era.

To this day dozens of victims of the program are crippled and disfigured, stranded halfway between male and female by incomplete sex-change operations performed by the South African Defence Force (SADF).

Many more are sterile after being chemically castrated. A number of the victims have committed suicide. Surgeons who served under the SADF confirmed that a number of patients died on the operating table while having their sex changed; the actual causes of their death were never made public.

The quote above is from Newsmakings.com (’send your son to us and we’ll make a man of him; if that fails, we have Plan B‘). More can be read here and here.

My short story (microfiction, about 50 words) “The Sneeze” is published on Blink|Ink.

07 Nov 2009, Stockholm, Sweden

Was it snow or was it rain that was falling on Stockholm this morning? The opinions were divided.

The results of today’s online survey conducted by “Times of Sweden” showed that the majority of those who experienced rain were also pro invasion of Norway, with the main aim of moving the responsibility for giving The Nobel Peace Prize “to Sweden, where it belongs”.

According to the Zero Personal Privacy Law, “Times of Sweden” provided the government with all the IP addresses of the survey participants.

Your obsessive-compulsive survey-filling reporter hopes that she won’t be behind bars the next time you hear from her.

First posted here, in The Sceptic’s Newspaper

This time I did everything right; I booked our favorite restaurant and bought her a pair of expensive looking earrings (I got her flowers only once, the first time we went out; just seeing me holding the bouquet at the door made her cry; I thought – crap, what have I done now, my mom says roses always work… It turns out that my wife-to-be is actually not overly emotional; she just has a strong allergy to pollen).

My girl came out of the bathroom after not more than half an hour late, but I was fine with that; I had some time to deliver a daily dose of “yes, mom” and “no, mom” on the phone.

In the midst of thinking how lucky I was to be with that gorgeous woman who also had (most of the time) the sweetest personality to match, I noticed an impatient look on my darling’s pretty face; her left brow was twitching (now, maybe that is not a condition that requires medical attention, but I really get scared from looking at it, and being scared often can’t possibly be good for my health…); she had asked something, apparently, and now she was waiting for an answer.

I felt like in a bad dream; my brain paralyzed, stuck in a wrong moment; but still I could hear myself very well when I responded with one firm “yes” just to see those perfectly shaped lips getting distorted with anger while her freckles were disappearing in the sea of red that took over her whole face within seconds.

The love of my life ran back into the bathroom, slamming and locking the door while sobbing and at the same time screaming (at me, evidently): “You… you… happy jerkaversary, you jerk!!!”.

I went to bathroom #4 and saw the clothes tossed all over the floor; the shower was on, steam crawling over the walls; my black and white satin shoes with small quirky bows were getting exposed to the humidity in large amounts; why were they not in their box and what were they doing here?!

The whole search for my shoes started when I could not find them this morning so I went from room to room trying to trace them; and – George.

I was sure he snatched them; I saw how he looked at them yesterday when I had them on when we met him for dinner; but we had a deal from a way back – play with whatever you want; you may borrow my hats, my sunglasses, or even dresses as much as you please; but NOT MY SHOES!

George, that prick with wide hairy feet, who kidnapped my shoes, must have had plenty of time to try them on while I was sleeping (a mental note – inspect the shoes for yucky hair traces after you find that lying cross-dresser and pull his ears out) and when I came in he must have just dropped them on the floor and hid in the shower!

George, you coward and thief, you so crossed the limit this time; we will never be staying at your place when we are in Como again; you may try to sweet-talk me, but good luck with that!

I do not care that my hubby is delighted that I am pissed off with someone else (for a change) this early in the morning, and is not likely to support my decision to end our friendship with you; I do not care that your precious arse is naked and no one who does not pay you 25 million dollars or is not intimate with you gets to see it; get out of the shower and explain what you did to my shoes; NOW!

Posted in Flash fiction, Six sentences Tagged: 6S, angry, bathroom, cross-dresser, fiction, Flash fiction, humor, shoes, thief ]]> http://shortstoriesbyjelena.wordpress.com/2009/10/04/not-my-shoes-bad-bad-george/feed/ 1 Jelena BlackWhiteShoes4 http://shortstoriesbyjelena.wordpress.com/2009/10/03/well-always-have-our-poems/ http://shortstoriesbyjelena.wordpress.com/2009/10/03/well-always-have-our-poems/#comments Sat, 03 Oct 2009 13:22:10 +0000 Jelena http://shortstoriesbyjelena.wordpress.com/?p=221 ]]>

Darling, my saccharine darling; the short-lived euphoria I felt when we met extruded a poem or two that weakened your knees and made you vertiginous; we spent a few days waking up together and now you are in love.

Please don’t keep on saying you love me; that poor statement is so… abused.

Oh no, you furious lady, now you say you hate me; but, hate is so… impolite.

I never said I loved you, did I?

Even if I did, my dear naivetess… if you ever dare trust a poet – do not stop reading his work.

If you paid more attention, you would have known that I left you about two poems ago, my September darling; left you for good.

The last time I was dying did not hurt this much; less pain resided inside of me back then.

Just before you die, all the sediments of pain raise and morph into a whirlwind which only intent is to leave you. That separation hurts even more than harboring the anguish, but this time I endure. After the agony of the detachment is over, the pain is gone.

If I could feel, I would rejoice. But, I can not; I am gone, too.

The first question she popped out caught her new friend off guard; or… did it? She could not read people’s faces that well back then, especially not a face like his, but however he behaved or whatever he said would not have mattered that much; she had already decided that the only interesting person she saw since they came here will become her new friend.

“Why are you black?”

“Wow, that’s a good question; well, my mom was black and my dad was black; I guess that is why I turned out black, too…”

“I like you.”

A lady came nearly running all the way from the other side of the hotel lobby, murmured something even she herself did not understand, and then started dragging her daughter away from the tall guy who was waving back to the little girl whose eyes were turning into waterfalls.

You said I was perfect for you; isn’t it amazing how you could feel that after knowing me for only an hour we’ve spent together in the moving car?

I talk a lot and I am not used to people actually listening, but you do; and I usually feel so lonely but no, not now when I am with you, isn’t that amazing?

No, I have no friends or family, no, I have no one; there are seldom days when I do not feel like the most miserable person on Earth, and here you came, being so kind and talking to me with such a genuine warmth in your voice.

Why are we stopping in the middle of the forest, did something break?

Is that a gun in your hand?

But, you said I was perfect…

The links to my Six sentences stories can be found in the column on the right side.

I do not know what to do with those; should I post them both there and here? It feels redundant and unnecessary. Still, one can not comment on them if one is not a member of 6S. Hm, hm. Maybe I should post them here, after all?

For now, I will update the links to the stories as I write more. Today I posted two of them, Departure and We’ll always have our poems

EDITED on 2009/09/28 :

I will post my short stories from 6S here as well. For my own sake. I tend to lose pieces I’ve written, so I will try to gather the most of them here. I’ll tag those with 6S.

The Accident

It was early in the morning and I was in the bathroom getting ready for work. I washed my face and while putting the towel back on the hook, somehow I managed to turn my head in a previously unexplored direction which was punished immediately with an incredible “I see stars” pain before everything became silent and turned black.

An undefined amount of time later the darkness started fading, and the stars were gone, but – my nose hurt like hell, I was on the floor and apparently I was bleeding. Ice pack, some paracetamol… my nose bled and bled, but it did not seem to be broken. In the days to come I had only some bruising and swelling, but I was fine. Except that I started wondering… how big is my nose, really?

The mystery

Think for a second – how big a nose must one have in order to hit the wall without any intention, or previous calculations and careful planning; rather just by turning his head?! I had to know! How big my nose really is?

I ran to a newspaper stand and bought all of the girly magazines I saw. I googled. I called my friends. I went to a library (there I spent most of the time sneezing loudly. How loudly? Suspiciously very much like my-nose-is-large loudly!). I went back home and took out all of my photo albums and CDs with pictures of me. Looking, analyzing, reading articles…

A surgery or a self-help book shelf?

This world is a nasty place. All the possible reading I found could be roughly divided into two categories; the first about plastic surgeries and how you should look, which surgeon and nose shape you should choose (picking your favorite celebrity and finding the guy who did her nose to fix yours as well is supposedly a good way to get what you are aiming for) and what to avoid and blah blah…

The other category was about women who believe they look unattractive because of their supposedly big and ugly noses (often noses are the bad parts, but sometimes the breasts are too small, or the bottom is too big or…), but according to the articles, those women are just lacking self confidence and should work on that instead. You know, the usual blah blah.

I belong nowhere

And what about my case?! There must be other women around that go through life blissfully unaware of their Cyrano De Bergerac noses, believing that they look cute, miniature and adorable like Claudia Schiffer in their midface region, yet they don’t! We don’t!

Apparently the world does not care. If we have no issues with our looks, and have no intention to operate us, no one cares that we go around and bang at the walls with our trunks, in spite of being in good health otherwise and having no problems with balance. No one writes about us; the invisible, ignorant, “I am looking good” not-really-good-looking people.

Bad self confidence can be profited on, and the world cares about profit. Who can profit on me? Wall repairing people? No, I could not damage a wall with my nose even if I tried. Ice producing companies? There are no such. Pharmaceutical companies? Paracetamol is cheaper than plastic surgery.

Living on the edge

In my case rhinoplasty would probably be a necessity, not a vanity thing, since I have an increased risk of a head injury because of the unfortunate geometry of my face. Still, I think I’ll just pass on that one.

I am quite content as I am; an extreme case who lives a risky life on the edge of the beauty and occasional stars seeing; yet – in a seldom disturbed peace with her beloved trunk.

I do not even need a support group. I do not need self-help books. I do not need to save for surgery. All I need is some ice in the freezer and an OTC painkiller in the drawer.

(A story about growing up)

At first I had none. No “coffee sense” or anything connected to it, existed in my head.

Genesis

One day, as my awareness of the external world grew over a certain point, I have noticed a peculiar thing. They called it “coffee”.

Coffee was embodied in mini black holes of a specific smell that grown ups gravitated towards in their daily get-togethers.

Upon a closer inspection I have noticed that coffee was a blackish liquid with brown foam on top. They used to drink it from small cups – that previously established source of the strong gravitational force.

Grown ups; a mysterious drink; conversations that were either boring or non-understandable; the whole happening often enveloped in clouds of smoke… I was suspecting that all those coffee drinkers were actually members of a sect. Therefore I decided to stay away from coffee.

That was the beginning. My coffee sense hatched from those feelings and impressions. There it was; a virtual one-state cell, with no developed receptors.

Teenage years – The Turkish Phase

I always thought myself to be flexible when it comes to changing my mind; whatever is carved in stone can be evened out and carved deeper… if all that carving is really needed.

I was 15 and being cool was my imperative. It took some years to accept that I am not all that hunky-dory, and, weirdly enough, somewhere along that road all those ideas of where the coolness can be found simply disappeared. But back then it seemed necessary to smoke and drink coffee in order to be less of a loser. So I decided that I was a smoker and a coffee drinker.

It tasted indescribably bad! I hated coffee and cigarettes made me sick, but I won over my annoyance and soon enough I was smoking like a chimney and drinking coffee until there was no coffee left to drink. A bit of bad taste in my mouth would not stop me on the ultimate way to coolness.

The black liquid was bitter and sometimes quite acidic, but really tough, non-loser types drunk it without milk or sugar. I tried it, secretly, alone, and it tasted even worse with sugar, but it became a bit more tolerable with some milk added. Milk in coffee seemed to be my thing, but how nonconformist was that?! No. Black was good. Milk was for wussies.

We drunk coffee, strong, Turkish coffee, and “read” from the cups after we drunk it. After Turkish coffee is drunk, the sediment at the bottom is left behind. We would cover the cup with its saucer and turn it upside-down. Pictures of symbols, animals, etc would form inside. We did not really believe “the readings”, but it was so good to learn that all of our heartaches would be cured, that we would get good marks in school and, also, that we would soon be dominating the world.

My life has been sometimes kind to me, sometimes not, but my Turkish coffee cups were always very generous. They anticipated many boyfriends who adored me, new pairs of shoes, achievements, plenty of luck, wonderful travels – that it would make for at least ten amazing lifetimes.

MUAHAHAHA

(an evil laughter of an unknown coffee sect leader, laughing at me, since I became one of Them)

I was so in. I became a member of the coffee drinkers sect. Actually, as I changed my perspective; there was no sect. There was belonging to a group, there was a sparkle on my aura made of sheer coolness, there were hopes, dreams, fun, cigarette smoke and card playing.

My single coffee sense cell has developed and multiplied. Those new cells emitted bitterness dampeners and pleasure enhancers upon consumption of coffee. Those cells converted coffee liquid to pure endorphins. And that was the exact point at which I wish they stopped evolving.

Further evolution – Mr. Right and filter coffee

During the course of years, I moved through countries where people mostly consumed filter coffee, and smoked seldom. Not having many fellow sect members around, I have already cut my smoking in half, then in third, without really noticing. I finally quit smoking shortly after I had met Mr. Right. That made his life substantially less miserable, and mine – less smoky. The guy who turned out to be The One for me finally came out of those coffee cups!

Surprisingly enough, my Mr. Right drunk only tea, never coffee. He hated smoking and he had never even tried Turkish coffee. Besides tea, he also quite liked me, and we started living together happily ever after. Mr. Right has been drinking tea in the afternoons, while I drunk instant coffee with cold milk added. Why instant coffee? That seemed like the least bad option at a time, of all the readily availably ones. The worst one was, and still is – filter coffee.

Filter coffee. Bad. Looking like dirty water, and smelling not so fresh even when freshly made. You may think differently if you have never tried something else, meaning that filter coffee is the best and worst and the freshest smelling coffee you’ve ever been drinking. Too weak, too tasteless, and too diluted, I say.

During the filter coffee phase all my endorphins were generated mostly from socializing with Mr. Right and consuming significant amounts of chocolate. My coffee sense cells’ receptors were twitching in disgust from filter coffee, yet they extracted what I needed as much as they could from it, while being as enthusiastic as rowing slaves on a Roman galley.

Plastic

The whole feel-good package containing Turkish coffee had vanished from my life, and the dirty looking, wrongly smelling, filtered substitutes crawled in it instead.

I still drank the substitute since it was better than instant coffee from coffee machines. I drunk those coffee machines spit outs as well, when I had nothing else available. They would come out containing some previously pulverized milk preserved with who knows which chemicals that probably killed a bunch of poor lab rats, but which allegedly were harmless, even good for me. My stomach did not understand all that goodness and hurt me every time as a punishment for swallowing the dreadful mix.

Mr. Right saw my suffering and although not understanding this coffee obsession I obviously had, he was trying to make me happy. He was bringing me small presents whenever he would come from the supermarket – different pre-made ice coffees, packed in plastic cups. I really liked some of those. But all that plastic was bad for the environment, the genuine freshly made coffee smell was not really there, and with my coffee consumption levels, beside an extra job, we would also need a new, bigger fridge, or more frequent visits to the supermarket. We decided to take the plunge and buy an espresso making machine. And so we did.

Deus ex machina

It sits prettily on our kitchen counter, that elegant and no nonsense German device which helped me overcome great difficulties of coping with the ending of my Turkish coffee sense phase.

A press on the button and I have it, freshly milled, heavenly smelling, as strong or as weak I like it, a cup of really good Italian espresso that I can pimp up with some cream, with cold or foamed warm milk, add some cinnamon and other spices on the top of it… it is lovely.

My coffee sense has reached the level of development corresponding to the one of sharks. Basically, it is as good as it gets, and its evolution is so slow at this point that it is undetectable. I like to press the button now and then, and consume my freshly generated espresso with a shot of cold milk. It is good and satisfying.

I have tried to drink Turkish coffee again recently, and it tastes nothing like I remember. Memories are deceiving – often they consist of our emotions only, after all the facts have evaporated. Also, I guess that my coffee sense cells have changed for good and their receptors are not backwards compatible. An evolution is seldom something more than a network of one way streets, mostly blind ones.

Funnily enough, I have managed to escape a sad destiny of hitting the dead end, and my story has a happy ending in the shape of a shiny button I can hit instead; whenever I wish.

Click!

- Am I real?
- Why wouldn’t you be?

- I am not visible.
- You do not have to be visible in order to be real.

- I was visible recently. Now, when I look at you, I am not. I have changed.
- Do you think the change was from “real” to “unreal”?

- You tell me. I can not see my own reflection in you. How’s that for “being real”?!
- Hmmm, have you ever heard of vampires?

- What?! There are no vampires!
- No, you are right, I was joking. A poor attempt, sorry.

- What should I do?! I want to see my reflection again!
- Do not worry, it will be okay when we slow down. We are moving at the speed of light and you are holding me in front of you.

- But, Einstein proved… and Galileo…
- Do not forget that is just science, not mathematics; it is not absolute. Those are only theories waiting to be replaced by better ones.

- And what is the absolute truth? I want to know the reason I can not see my own reflection!
- What do I know, I am just a mirror. Yet, I can think of a few possibilities. Maybe Einstein was wrong (after he was right, at first, before he changed his mind). Or – I am a mirror with a will of its own and I suffer from caligynephobia.

- There are no special, in your case – blabbing and annoying, mirrors!
- As someone said – everything is relative. But, I was not done – yet another possibility is that you may need a doctor – an ophthalmologist or a shrink. Or – isn’t it maybe so that you are dreaming all of this?

- Oh, I give up! I do not care whether I am real! Just do me a favor and stop answering back.
- Come on, I expected more from you!

- Ha, I knew it – you ARE a mirror with a will of its own! If you were not, you would stop talking when I asked you to, since you would be a part of my dream and subconscience and had to obey me!
- Oh, no, you got it all wrong. Except for the part that you are a woman. A beautiful one, yes, but, nevertheless – a woman – with a level of logical thinking ability that goes with it…

***

- Darling, you were screaming in your sleep. No, that is not what woke me up. You smashed yet another mirror while sleepwalking.

On a sunny summer day I was lying on a pier, with my head resting on your lap. There were no waves. The turquoise colored sea was calm, almost silent.

I heard the buzz coming from the people sitting in a small café on the beach and shouts of children in the background. They were there, cut and pasted from another time, another place. They did not see us, in spite of the train of my dress covering about one third of the pier, coloring it red. We were there in our own invisible bubble, more real for us than reality itself was; non existing for others.

Rhinestone pins were holding my auburn locks together. Your fingers, warmed by salty sun rays, ran through my hair. I could smell their scent. You whispered you loved me. I cried.

I do not know how I came there that day, to the sunny black hole of our lives which interlaced over and over again. I recognized the dress I was wearing. It was a blood colored silk gown, modeled after a snow white dress my Barbie doll had when I was a little girl. I recognized the pier, the sea, the scents. Ghosts from the past.

The colors changed when I was brought here. That morning I wore an ivory silk gown, one of a kind, and my hair was blond. The sea was disturbed, cold and gray, and it rained back there. The surrounding people were cut and pasted from some other backgrounds to my day.

My heart was calm and lukewarm lately, it did not boil and ache like it did here, in our sunny black hole, on the pier. It has never healed, but it has cooled down and was surviving just fine for years, tended by a non-disturbing environment; the environment without your presence. But you had to bring me here today, didn’t you?

I will meet you again, I promise. But, please, let me go back from the pier now. The sun is burning my shoulders and I am getting freckles.

Please, let me go. The paper cut on my heart opened wide.

Let me go back, my love. It is my wedding day. The other cut and paste people are waiting, and I am running late.

A murderer is in my bed, lying next to me, breathing silently. She looks like the most innocent creature that ever walked the Earth, nothing but gentle softness resides in her transparent aura.

Her cheek on my hand feels light as a feather. Her body is warm and dry like a good summer day. All the hugs and kisses stained her with my perfume, she smells so sweet. On her the scent feels different and even better than the pure concentrate from the bottle.

I kiss her perfect little forehead and she makes a small sound while dreaming of her past and future killings.

My little angel kills with her innocence unharmed. No, she never regrets it. Still, she always gets confused in front of Death. She does not understand. Where did Life go?

I struggle hard to ignore all the killings, I do not want to think of them. I love her as she is, my little furry darling angel. My little accidental murderer.

“You should go out and meet some new people. Or some old friends of yours.”
“I have no friends.”

“Of course you do. Anyway, you should not be alone all day long, every day. You must feel lonely.”
“I am not lonely. I am not alone either, God is often with me.”

“Often?”
“He is always with me. But he talks to me often, I meant that.”

“Did you mention to your doctor that God talks to you?”
“No, why should I?”

“Well, I may be wrong, but if there is no God, and you hear voices, that could be a sign of some chemical imbalance. Maybe you need a medication to help you with that.”
“Ha ha, you need help. You are the one who never hears God. Why do you think that is?”

“Because there is no God.”
“Or because you have been a bad girl and God is upset with you.”

“Right, or – that. And why do you say “He”? Even if there was a God, it may be female. Or sexless. Or hermaphrodite. Or who knows…”
“You are so silly. It is clear from his voice he is male. He has such a warm, deep, manly voice.”

“Actually, most people who hear voices in their head hear male voices. That is because, beside other reasons, it is easier for our brains to replicate male voices; they are of a less complexity.”
“Blah, blah. Complexity, replication, schmention… or, simply and truly – God is male.”

“Oh, whatever. Please, talk to some doctor about it.”
“And you talk to someone about why God ignores you. And stop projecting your own problems on me.”

Dear Joe,

Take a deep breath and keep your eyes wide open. You knew the truth all this time, yet you refused to believe in it.

You stood there for some time and stared without blinking, Joe. They were approaching, all of them. They were coming closer and closer while the smoke caressed my body, attempting to hide me from them.

My bones were heated to stay warm for all the ice ages to come, and you, my love… you were the only one who did not whisper God’s name and make the sign of the cross over your heart, horrified after I broke into laughter. You were the only one who dared to come close to the stake and spit on the witch from The North. Did they praise your courage in the years that followed, my darling? I am laughing again, Joe… but, tell me, did you spit in an attempt to extinguish the fire, or because you hated me for leaving you?

I am being honest, Joe. I admit – I left you. It sounds like a fairytale – you loved me because I put a spell on you, while I did not care. But, when I fell in love with you, Joe… you are the only one who knows how I can love.

I brought you back to life and broke the spell. You could have left, but you stayed, Joe… and I, I came back. Eight hundred years later, I still love you.

Max was playing in the sand. The castles he was making with help of a small, plastic sand shovel were quite simple in shape and lacked many details. Still, he was doing the best he could. He was humming and looked happily engaged in his sculpting activity.

The Blue Fairy silently glided from a cloud and came to Max from behind. She patted him gently on his head. Max got so scared when he felt her touch that he dropped the shovel, jumped aside and yelled.

“Now now, dear kitty”, said the fairy, “do you know that this is a children’s playing sandbox? You should not try to do what you kitties usually do in sandboxes!”

“Eeew? Who are you and what are you saying!?”

“Oh, I am sorry, so impolite of me… Let me present myself – I am The Blue Fairy from The Dream Fairies Cloud City, and I guard children’s sandboxes while the little ones are asleep.”

“A fairy!? I thought your kind was not real, that you existed only in stories for children. But, wait, you do not look like a fairy should, you know – like a pretty lady in a long gown and everything that goes with it…”

“Really? How do I look?”

“To me you look like a small cloud of silvery dust, that, surprisingly enough, talks!”

The Blue Fairy giggled: “That is so funny! I had no idea that you cats see me that way!”

“Why do you keep addressing me as a cat?!”

“Because you are a cat!”

“No, I am not a cat! I am human! I am a grown up and I am trying to repair my son’s sand castles that were ruined by rain last evening!”

The Blue Fairy and Max were staring at each other’s direction in silence, wondering; a tiny cloud of vibrating dust and a white cat; a slender, pale lady with long brown hair and a blue-eyed guy in his thirties, with sand in his hair and on his hands.

Stop telling me that there is no frog in our flat. I heard it this morning again and I know it is here somewhere.

Yes, I know that we live in a city, but everyone has to live somewhere. Frogs have to live somewhere, too.

Yes, I know that we live on the 17th floor, but frogs can jump. I know they can not jump that high, but there are elevators.

No, they cannot press buttons, but they can enter an elevator when someone else does and travel with that person.

No, it did not ring the bell, and no, it did not have the key to our apartment. It probably came in when you opened the door going to or coming from work.

No, you would not have noticed that. You would not notice a frog if it sat on the top of my head.

Wait, I hear it again! Won’t you please shut up? I prefer listening to the frog.

No, this frog does not have nicer voice than you do; it is the content I like more. Stop making sense!

-You look taller. Is it the shoes? Wait, no, those are your old shoes, right?
- I guess I just got taller.
- You also look slimmer. I like your dress, I do not remember you wearing it before. I did not think that Laura Ashley style was your cup of tea, but you do look sweet in it.
- You were not born yet when I used to wear it. It was in fashion back then.

- Now you look more like me.
- I looked more like you when I was younger.
- I thought the same when I was looking at the old photos, but one can not be sure. How did you come here?
- I can not tell you.

- The hat… It looks the same as the one I destroyed 20 years ago in my attempts to make something cool enough so I could wear it.
- It is the same hat.
- How can it be the same hat?
- I can not tell you.

- Why are you here?
- I live here.
- You lived here. They sold it. The new tenants are moving in next week; I am cleaning the apartment.
- I will not leave.

- Why? Isn’t it better there? You do not know the new tenants. You will be bored here.
- I will not leave just because THEY want me to. No one can make me leave.
- Do as you wish. Should I pass some message to someone?
- No.

- They miss you, you know.
- I know.
- I also miss you. It is a bit inconvenient and unsettling that you come to me whenever you please, not when I need you.
- I come when I can, not when I wish. It is complicated.

- I have to go now. But, you really seem taller. Wait… those ARE your old shoes? We buried you wearing them, right?
- Yes.
- I thought so. Then you simply got taller after you died.

It was cold, very cold. It seemed that he was alone in the apartment. Probably in the whole building. Maybe in the whole city. It certainly felt like that. The change occurred while he was sleeping. There was no sound and that felt new. He could not remember experiencing the complete silence ever before.

He has been awake for several hours now and the electricity apparently went off while he was asleep. That has never happened before.

Cold. So cold. The heating was not working. He put on the jacket.

He was walking in circles in the living room, following the shape of his thoughts. There seemed to be no way out. He was locked, as safe as one could be, isolated from the whole external world.

The sterile clean lines and gray-scale metallic colors of the furniture made it feel even colder. Or was it getting colder indeed? He went to the corridor, found and put on his gloves and a cap when it struck him. He ran to the kitchen.

The orchid was in the middle of the white table, in a miniature transparent glass bowl, its roots gently hugging the tiny branch; his baby orchid, the only flower he has ever owned, the only living being he shared his apartment with. He had it for years.

The orchids were extremely rare. Once upon a time they grew everywhere, they were like common weed. Then the species slowly, but inevitably started to die.

Although it was really easy to clone a plant from only a few cells taken from an orchid leaf, they grew up for a few weeks – 2 months the longest and died as if being programmed. It was like the dinosaurs and the meteor, just that no meteor ever struck in the story about orchids’ end. Those plants just refused to live. It was not possible for the best scientists in the world, with all the knowledge and the technology available today, to either find out what was going on or to stop it. No new orchids were being made to live longer than two months. They were no longer found in nature. The species was dying.

But there and then, it was so cold, and his little plant with 3 mm big flowers was freezing. He tried to put the bowl under his jacket, but he was a bit worried about the humidity. The air in the apartment was desert-dry.

The hours passed. He was hungry and thirsty. His fridge was empty, he never used it. The water was not coming out of the tap.

He did not know how much time has passed since he woke up and found out that everything changed. He took the bowl out from under the jacket and looked at the flower. The orchid looked so sad. Very dry and on the verge of freezing. He stared at it for a moment before he took a few deep breaths. He was visibly widening his nostrils while breathing in. Then he put the orchid in his mouth.

They were pearly whitish-pink in color, tiny, deceivingly transparent and delicate, steadily moving forward on the top of the balcony fence.

Those light pink, small legs were carefully avoiding drops of evening rain collected together into miniature puddles on cold metal. They reminded me of our hands. I wanted to touch them and hold them; they looked so warm and alive.

***

I wandered around the apartment that night, tormented by insomnia. In the moment that must have been an odd synchrony of our paths, I looked through the glass balcony door and saw those fragile pink legs engaged in movement; a hairy grayish body and a head with a long nose above; small dark eyes that did not register me behind the glass.

I was always horrified by a mere thought of those creatures. I used to scream soundlessly before the imaginary pictures of them. Yet, all I cared about back that night was not to scare it. I moved carefully and silently away from the door.

On some days I get reminded that someone made me a dual creature. I am human and I am robot.

They do not know that I know that I am robot as well. My human being is hiding it from the robot intruder and from them. It is my own little secret.

Today I opened the dishwasher after the washing program was done and the steam from it fogged my eye lenses. Actually, it fogged only my left eye lens. My robot reflexes were fast, but this time my human perception was faster. The robot reflexes quickly moved my head away from the steam, turning it to the right while instantly rolling the semi-organic lenses down, covering the previously exposed hard robot lenses.

That movement came too late for my left eye, and that is how the human perception came into the picture; I saw my robot eye lens fogging for a few milliseconds, if that long. Anyway – long enough. I am human and I am robot.