"Order up!" The waiter called out, Sous-Chef Patricia winced.
Across the kitchen, Executive Chef Stefan snatched the paper hanging in the window. Commis Michael kept his nose down towards the carrots he was julienning and bit his lip.
"Chicken Diogenes!" Stefan shouted far louder than necessary so that even the waiter ducked their head in response.
Patricia grumbled, put down her meat cleaver, and grabbed her shotgun.
"Don't forget to lock the fucking cage on the egg this time." Stefan huffed.
Patricia grunted at her supervisor and boarded the kitchen elevator. Once the doors closed and the lift started its descent, she pulled out a vial of deep red powder. She unscrewed the lid, pressed the opening up to her right nostril while closing the other, and took a whiff. A deep breath and a few introductory shivers later, the doors opened and familiar shrieks filled the air.
She hummed and tapped the barrel of her shotgun across the cage bars in rhythm to the drum beat in her head. She fluttered past rows of cowering monstrosities until she came to a stop. The beast in the cell in front of her cried out once more before it threw itself against its prison door and spat in her direction. Patricia took another hit of Ash, raised her gun, and finished her drum line with a bang.
Acid, bile, and coagulating blood flowed into the drain beneath the cell as Patricia cranked the pulley for the chain bolted to its leg. The creature's head flopped about from the remaining spaghetti strands of sinew connecting it to its body as it was hoisted aloft. Patricia giggled as gas escaped its neck like passing gas and the cadaver expelled its unhatched progeny. The remaining livestock watched on in rare silence.
The elevator gave her time for one, last hit before she ran through her pronunciation again.
"Chicken Diogenes with our sauce of the day: 'Blueray Effron'."
"Chuck in Dio's genie for our sauce of the day: 'Bluntforce Trauma'."
Patricia chuckled, looked up to the floor indicator approaching ground level, and took a deep breath.
"Chicken Diogenes with our sauce of the day: 'Beurre Effrayant'1."
The doors opened and her face drooped to match the waiting Stefan's.
"Was it afraid?" The executive chef raised a brow.
"Pfft." Patricia answered and pulled the cart carrying the corpse out of the elevator. "From the moment I walked in."
The sous chef parked the carcass by the butchery table and turned back towards the cream churner. Two liters of otherwise bland vanilla ice cream needed preparation in time for their final ingredient.
"Let me know when you get the amygdalas out." Patricia patted Michael on the shoulder as she passed.
"Yes, Chef!" Michael bowed to her and rushed over to the waiting mammalian poultry.
The sound of an electrically powered bone saw filled the kitchen as Patricia stared into the reflective surface of the metal counter.
"Pat."
The reflection smiled back at her.
"Pat!"
Patricia spun around to Stefan staring her in the eye.
"Table three needs their appetizer." The head chef reminded her.
"Two Forget-Me-Pleases?" Patricia snapped to attention and answered.
"Yeah, eel juice. STAT!" Stefan confirmed while he nodded his head like a jackhammer.
Two dozen oysters, a side of caviar, and a few drops of Y-909 later, Patricia had decadence plated and in the window. The plate vanished amid the sounds of the restaurant's well-to-do customers and for 10 minutes Patricia could find peace in the simmering of a butter sauce. A dash of thyme, a sprig of sage, and a wink from her reflection in the counter below. She smiled back for a moment's vacation and breathed deep. All until the waiter returned to the window and stalled before they raised an interrupting finger.
"What?" Patricia's respite broke into a glare.
"Um, sorry, Chef, but the patrons are complaining they haven't gotten their appetizer yet and they want you to deliver it personally."
"Why do we serve this dish?" Patricia turned to Stefan while he hammered flat a section of the monster's breast meat.
"How many times are they going to order it?" Stefan answered her with a question.
Two dozen more oysters. A few forgetful drops at someone's expense. All for another dish no person of grounded self-importance would want. Patricia tore off her apron and grabbed the platter on her way out the door. Long hallways around the restaurant meant one more whiff of Ash before light and the clamoring of the over-fortunate.
"Ah, Chef!" An airy voice called from the other side of the dining area.
Patricia honed in on the source and froze for a moment. Smiling back to her was the establishment founder and owner himself, Chaz Ambrose. A face of existential apathy tightened into one of professional stoicism as she approached her boss and his affluent associates. She placed the platter of oysters between the pack of plutocrats and straightened her spine.
"Two orders of Forget-Me-Pleases."
"Finally! And here I thoughth we weres going to have to place a second order!" The geriatric mogul to Chaz's right slurred out with a slap on the ass of his most recent wife.
"You already have." Patricia let out in a flat drawl before her eyes went wide and her brain caught up to her tongue.
Chaz halted in his reach for the plate and his eyes shot up to the petrified Patricia. Milliseconds dragged on as the master chef stared her down like a piece of undercooked chicken before the table erupted into laughter.
"Brrrilliant!" The oligarch smiled at Patricia's chest and hips until his wife cleared her throat.
Patricia let out a sigh and bowed before she turned away from the table and paced back towards the kitchen. From the corner of her eye she spotted Chaz typing something into his phone before glancing back up to her. One more hit was called for. Stefan stood stiff and tapped his foot as she crossed the kitchen threshold.
"So. How are our patrons?"
"Enjoying someone's death on the half-shell." Patricia grunted back and attempted to navigate past him. "And if Chaz has something to say about my comment then you can just fucking send Michael next time."
The junior chef dropped his knife at the comment and scrambled to pick it back up off the floor. He almost returned it back to his chopping of veal tartare before a cough from Stefan reminded the commis to wash it. Stefan turned back and grabbed at Patricia's arm. He reached up, swiped his thumb across her nostrils, and licked it.
"He didn't message me about your behavior." Stefan replied as he sifted through the flavors of sulfur and delayed suffering. "Ash, Pat? Really? What's next, heroin?"
"When have you given a damn? Food's still getting out there and Chaz's friends are too drunk and horny to notice." Patricia tugged her arm free and returned to the cream churners. "Do we have those amygdalas yet?"
"Right away, Chef!" Michael yelped and rushed over to the opened skull of the abomination with a melon baller in hand.
"Mr. Ambrose cares." Stefan reminded her and took the station to her left.
"Again, food's still getting out there."
"That's not why he cares. He has an image to maintain." Stefan replied as Michael ferried over two walnut-sized lobes of brain matter.
"Oh, so caring about his gala invitations." Patricia cut the lobes in half and passed the larger ends to Stefan.
"Doesn't matter. He pays you well enough to afford that shit, act like it and keep it out of my kitchen." Stefan shook his head.
The executive chef chopped the panic center of the brain into a fine paste before dumping it into the simmering butter. Patricia mirrored the same into the churning ice cream. The cream thickened and Patricia hauled it out.
"Oil's heated for the chicken." Michael alerted them before returning to breaking down the anomalous carcass.
Stefan tasted a spoonful of the butter sauce and paused for a moment.
"Spicy. You told me it was afraid." Stefan remarked.
"They're too drunk to care." Patricia rolled her eyes.
"Ambrose will. Man can sniff the difference between melancholy and depressed in his hamburgers. You think he won't notice the rage in this?" Stefan rubbed the bridge of his nose.
"The order's not even for him! He ain't going to be tasting it!" Patricia's eye twitched and her reflection raised a middle finger to Stefan.
"Uh. Chefs?" Michael whimpered.
"He won't have to! One whiff of this and Ambrose will be twice as pissed as that fucker was when you shot him!" Stefan thrust another spoonful under Patricia's nose.
"Chefs?"
"Don't patronize me!" Patricia smacked the spoon out of Stefan's hand.
"I wouldn't have to if your nose wasn't fried from the devil's coke! Go get another one! And think of how you are going to apologize to Ambrose's table!"
"How about you give it a try?!" Patricia grabbed her shotgun and shoved it into Stefan's hands.
"CHEFS!" Michael screamed.
The two chefs spun around and glared at the interruption to see another egg for SCP-3199 sitting on the kitchen floor.
"I found an egg in it."
"I TOLD YOU TO LOCK UP THE GODDAMN EGG!" Stefan bellowed and threw his skillet full of hot butter across the kitchen.
"I did! Bastard must have had more than one in him!" Patricia eyed the unhatched livestock amid the pile of corrosive afterbirth.
"I got it!" Michael rushed to resolve the row between his superiors and picked up the egg.
Michael hoisted the egg up to his chest before the skin on his hands started bubbling. Panicked cries and an impulsive toss sent the spheroid careening through the air where it landed in the fryer. All three chefs ducked as the oil exploded and the newborn cried out. The dining area hushed for a moment followed by Chaz bursting through the kitchen doors. The master chef watched the hatchling plop down onto the floor and scurry around oil fires towards the order window.
"Stefan! Gun!"
Stefan aimed Patricia's shotgun at the freed offspring as it climbed atop the plating counter and towards the aperture to the dining area. Chaz readied a warning but Stefan's finger was faster. Buckshot nicked the scamp as it stood in the windowsill and the cries of customers followed. The creature squawked back at them as it wobbled its head from side to side and leaped into the dining hall. The culinary crew chased after it and found the seating area in pandemonium. Ambrose's older oligarch friend clutched at the gunshot wound in his neck as his wife bolted out the doors of the establishment.
The kitchen inferno spread out its doors and window until the conflagration took to the restaurant's antique carpeting. Stefan tracked the fleeing fledgling monster with the shotgun and fired one last shell to put it down. Chaz pulled the fire alarm and water cascaded down from the ceiling and washed the blood from the now deceased billionaire's body.
"Out! Out!! OUT!!!" Ambrose slapped each of the three and instructed them after every blow.
Twenty minutes later, the three chefs sat on the sidewalk outside. Fire crews and containment specialists rushed into the still smoking building as Chaz doled out wads of cash to buy the responding authority's silence.
"You two know any other kitchens hiring in Three-Portlands?" Michael sighed.
"I think a change in career might be in order." Stefan muttered in monotone.
Patricia looked down and saw she was still carrying a tub of her ice cream. She scooped a clump up with her hand, took a taste, and smiled.

Footnotes
1. Fearful Butter


Canon Hub » What a Wonderful World Hub / Those Twisted Pines Hub » Take It Away, My Darling » Audrey Fuchs

Chapter I.XI

The plane ride back to the west coast was a surreal, uncomfortable event. I couldn't bring myself to eat. Someone sitting next to me kept trying to make conversation and I wasn't able to keep one up. I had to very suddenly take time off. I had to check the box, "family emergency." I never thought I'd have to check that box. I'd never wanted to check that box. I stared at it for minutes, trying to run things back over in my head, make sure that really was the right one. After much deliberation, I discovered it was, handed it in, and took my leave that day. I didn't bother to check the cost of the ticket. I was tired, I was worried, and I was in a rush.
But worst of all, I was calm.
But not calm like a placid view of the lake. Not calm like rolling mists in the morning. It was calm like the eye of a hurricane, or pulled back beach before a tsunami. And I was waiting, at every moment, for that wave: the crash, the tumble, the ruckus and the explosion. But I knew that it wasn't going to come. That release, when everything finally crumbles, only comes after the part you need to be strong for. And this was what I needed to be strong for. Right now, I had to be the house with strong foundations. At some point, I could lose myself to the storm; have my windows shatter, my doors pull off of their hinges, fall apart from top to bottom, starting with the tiles on the ceiling, then the looser bits of drywall, all my contents emptying out of my open portals, then collapsing in. And then, it would be okay. And I could rebuild. And we'd be fine. But for now, I had to be the house.
That's what was going through my head as this very kind old man continued to try and bring up his vacation to California, and I was nodding along, not just pretending but also really trying to listen. But I couldn't. In one ear and out the other. I think he at some point caught on, because he did eventually stop talking, but it took me a bit to notice. And then I just sat there. I didn't even get the contemplative window seat. I got the aisle seat. So the image of an airplane on a magazine on the back of the chair in front of me seared itself into my vision, inch by inch. I can still recall it, despite its being almost a featureless image, as if it were staring me in the face at this very moment. How strange the human brain works, to be able to focus so intently on that image, but not the conversation of another human being.
I frankly don't recall ever getting out of the airplane, grabbing my luggage, or flagging a taxi. But I do remember arriving at my mom's house.

* * * * *

After I moved to the east coast, my mom moved out of her apartment to get a nice little house in the suburbs. I thought that turn of events was pretty backwards — she only got the white picket fence after the nest was empty. My mom, never having been much for aesthetics, had left it a bland white, with no lawn ornaments to speak of. At a glance, it screamed "for-sale."
I walked up to the door, and Mom opened it just as my hand was reaching for the handle. She threw her arms over me, like a drowning sailor grabbing for a life raft, and pushed her head into my shoulder. I hugged back, and decided that a usual greeting wasn't necessary for the situation. We stood there, embracing in the doorway of her house, for a little while. I'm not sure how long. But it was nice.
"It's been so long since I've seen you," Mom finally said, head still nestled into the crook of my neck.
"I know," was all I could work up, and I wish I had more to say.
She invited me in, and I got to behold the simple design of her little house that was, despite its quaintness, still unreasonably large for just one person to live in. The kitchen was in the corner of the house furthest from the entrance; the dining room was to its right; just to the left of the entryway were stairs leading up; in front of the stairs, by the front of the building, was a lounge area; and under the stairs was a bathroom. At the back of the dining room was a door out to a little lawn that Mom had turned into a garden, and so we moved out to a table and chair under a tree, and drank tea that she had made us.
It was a temperate day, which was the usual way that San Diego weather twisted Spring, Winter, and Fall. If you wanted to be warm, you could stand in the sun. If you wanted to be cool, you could sit in the shade. Besides that, the sounds included cars, people speaking far-off, maybe some children playing, and that was most of it. A breeze came by every once in a while. A dog barked once.
"I'm so sorry that you have to be here under these circumstances."
I looked down at my tea. "It's alright, Mom," is what I wanted to say. But was it alright? It wasn't, I concluded. And so I faltered.
"I'm just sorry I didn't come sooner."
"Don't be."
I nodded lamely and frowned.
"Your dad is going to be over this evening."
"I know."
"Has he seen you…?"
I caught the implication. "No. I'm still not comfortable going out in public in New York like that. I think this place is different, though. More homely."
"Mhmm." She sipped her tea. She left a question unasked, and I felt like leaving it unanswered. In truth, I didn't know yet, and I had a hard time thinking about it. I had a hard time thinking about anything, really.
We talked about benign things. Books we had read, were reading, movies we'd seen, places we'd visited, like museums, parks. Friends of ours. Jobs.
Her veterinary career was going very well. It had taken her a long while to get it off the ground — she'd only really started once I was in my junior year of high school, and that was with the help of Edna. Becoming a single mom had greatly stalled her life plan. But she'd made it. Just in time, it seemed.
I told her about being a controller — a head accountant at the health care provider I was working for. The stories that came about from handling money seemed a lot less interesting than those that came about from handling sick animals, so I let Mom do most of the talking. I'd heard plenty of stories over letters and through emails, but there seemed to be a neverending stream of them, and I was glad to have something to take my mind off things.
"Has Dad told you any of his stories, mmm?" Mom asked.
"Ahh," I replied, stalling, "yes, I think."
"You think?"
I shrugged, and drank tea.
"Well, what do you think of them?"
I gave her a scrunched stare. "They're fun stories, Mom, but that's all they are. I can't imagine running a wildlife shelter isn't exciting. I just wish he told me all the real things."
"Real things," Mom repeated, holding tea to her mouth not to drink but to enjoy its warmth. "Mmm."
I just stared at her. I didn't want to be mad that day, but this game was really vexing me. She caught my expression and sighed.
"I think you should go visit him sometime."
"Mmm," I grunted in response, and used a sip of tea to politely refuse elaboration.
Soon after we had finished, she showed me upstairs to the guest room that I would be occupying. It was as small and unremarkable as the rest of the house: just a bed, a desk, a closet, and a window. She said she was going to start making lunch, and so left me to my own devices. I unpacked, wondering once again whether I had packed too little or too much. The length of my stay was indeterminate. But I had packed as if I was going to live here.
Toiletries, electronics, books, my seashell collection, some important papers, my calendar, and as many clothes as I could manage — all of my feminine attire, and whatever space was left over got filled by my clothes I wore to work and public outings. I kept as much as I could of the latter group androgynous, but typically-boyish clothes stayed typically-boyish no matter how you wore them (at least, so I felt at the time).
I wondered if I should go downstairs. Talk to Mom. Be with Mom. "I should," I told myself. "At all possible times right now, I should." But once I had sat on the bed, I knew I wasn't going to. I needed some moments to myself, some time to actually spend calming down in solitude, not in transit, not about to do anything that required a lot of my attention. Just to breathe.
I felt the pulled back beach.
I felt my strong foundations.
Then, I tended to some quality-of-life improvements. I brushed my teeth, combed my hair, put drops into my stinging eyes. I opened a window just to feel fresh air on my face. Then I unpacked all the rest of my belongings into the room; put toiletries in the bathroom, clothes in the closet, books on the shelves, my shell collection on the desk… it felt, all of a sudden, like home. And in spite of the circumstances, I was really, really glad to be back in San Diego again. New York, while exciting, had never gained that same familiarity and admiration from me that the palm trees, mild weather, and surfer culture had.
With a sudden lifting of spirits, I felt the need to take a shower. The decision carried weight. Showering was something happy people did. I was, at that moment, not happy, but happier than I was before. Home was a powerful force in that way.
When I stepped out of the shower, I was faced with a dilemma. I approached my closet, and saw it split down the middle into masculine and feminine. Trying to choose what to wear felt really childish. Weren't there bigger things going on right now? Who cares what I wore? But as I breathed in San Diego air, and remembered that first Halloween party with my friends (I wonder what April and Jaideep are up to now?), I felt at once more like myself than I had ever felt on the east coast, and the decision became the second-nature it was always meant to be.

* * * * *

I was writing an email to my boss explaining more of the situation that I could not impart before I left when I heard Tim enter from downstairs. There were slaps on the back that I could hear up the stairs from when Mom and him hugged, and then I heard the hushed, strained tones that told me that the worst was on their minds. I opted to finish the email, to give the two time to meet on their own. I heard them echo my visit with Mom — stop by the kitchen, make tea, head out to the garden. Once I finished, I sent it, closed my laptop, and headed downstairs.
Framed under the shade in the backyard, the two looked so picturesque I almost didn't want to interrupt them. I opened the sliding glass door, stepped out, closed it behind me, and they both turned to look.
"Hi," I said in a lame, mousy voice.
Mom looked over with the half-smile I hoped she wasn't just wearing for us, but Tim looked completely blank. I tried to make eye contact, but he seemed to be looking me over. Confused. Concerned. Blinking. As his eyes made their way up, we finally caught each other's stare. His brow furrowed further, and then very suddenly he brightened up.
"Oh! Caterpillar, how are you!" He stiffly stood up, as if what his body wanted and what his mind wanted were in direct conflict with one another, and then came forward to give me a hug.
"I'm… okay." I said right by his ear.
He pulled back and looked up into my face. His hesitation was so slight, you could have missed it. "It's so good to see you!"
I tried to figure out if his emphasis really was on "you" or not, or what he meant by it, but before I could respond Mom piped up.
"We were just talking about the Shelter. It's getting very stressful for your dad."
"Oh, very." Tim let out a suppressed sort of laugh, and slowly made his way back to his seat. Mom motioned for me to take the third and final chair, and so I did. "We have so many more animals than we ever thought we would have! And of so many different types! I can't tell you how many times I have had to call an expert. And how many times I have had no idea where I would find one! I mean…"
Tim paused to look at me, mouth half open.
"Well, it's just hard. Seems I can't research fast enough to catch up on all the things I should know by now, heheh. Just the way the business is working."
There was a sudden silence. I took it upon myself to break it.
"Well. What types of animals are you getting that you didn't expect?"
Mom shot me a glance I couldn't read, but Tim was quick on the ball.
"Oh, aquatic animals! I still don't know if it's normal for a wildlife shelter to take fish in. Is that normal? I always thought it was mainly cute mammals. But we've been getting lizards, and fish… all sorts of things. Oh! That's one of the experts I needed, was an marine biologist! It was a real life saver — Laura Irvin, she hails from Portland, though that's not so surprising, we get almost everyone from over there, and she's been a great help! Just fantastic! And just in time, because we got Copper, and…"
Another one of those pauses, another one of those glances at me.
"Well it was just very good timing."
"Mhmm," I looked at him, unwavering. "And what is Copper?"
"Copper?" Tim looked helpless.
"He's a cod, if I remember correctly," Mom chimed in.
"And what's so important about a cod?"
"Well we can't release him back into the wild," Tim blurted, and then slowed down, "and we didn't have space for him."
"And why's that?"
"Well, because…" Tim looked around, and Mom shot me that same unreadable glance from before, except this time I caught that it was readable, and I simply chose to not read it. "He's got a busted fin, Caterpillar."
"My name's Faeowynn."
A silence fell over the table again. Tim looked into his tea, not taking a sip, and then turned his head to peer into the rest of the garden. I turned my head right, and saw Mom was looking at me. Glaring without glaring. And that cut me straight to my soul.
"I'm sorry," I said in an emotionless monotone, rising from my seat. "I think I am a bit travel-tired, and hungry. I am going to go make myself toast."
I excused myself and went back into the house.

* * * * *

I heard a knock on my door, and felt at once younger. What had happened? I had an emotional moment, I had retreated to my room, and now my mom was coming to comfort me. In San Diego again. For a moment, I was newly Fae. I had just had an uncomfortable conversation about sports at the dinner table with Mom and her boyfriend at the time. I wasn't out to anyone but my closest friends yet. I finish quickly and head upstairs. Mom caught the vibe, and she comes after me. I'm in a torrent of feelings I haven't worked out yet, positive and negative, circling the same trains of thoughts to such an extent that I had decided not to tell my friends about them anymore. I didn't want to be a broken record, repeating the same things. But that was life for so many months. And that night, I told Mom all about it. About everything I felt when I looked in the mirror, when I had to go to P.E., when my peers talked about dating, when everything and anything. And she listened. And I felt completely safe.
And that was the year before I came out to Tim. But I didn't come out to Tim because I really wanted to. I came out to Tim because I had to. Because if I didn't, then every time I visited him in Oregon, I would be Felix again. And I never wanted to be Felix again.
And in that moment, I was Felix again.
"Can I come in, Fae, honey?" Mom asked through the door.
I almost laughed at how many years had just been sheared off of my real age with just that question in just this context. "Yes, you can."
She opened the door, and I could suddenly smell something rich and faintly sweet coming from downstairs.
"Dinner's ready?" I asked.
"In just a little bit." She sat down on the edge of my bed. I put down the book I had been pretending to read for the last thirty minutes, and turned to make eye contact. Her comforting eyes, warm in emotion like bagels out of a toaster, slowly melted away the outer layers of my angst, and with a sigh I began to say what I knew she was waiting for.
"I'm sorry for making a scene with Tim."
"With Dad."
"Right." I looked away. "Sorry, with Dad."
"I don't want there to be a funk between you two."
I took in a deep breath. "Me neither."
There was no response. I turned around, and Mom's expression hadn't changed. I moved to hug her, and she hugged me back. "Okay," I said.
"He's out on the front porch."
I nodded. The hug lasted another ten, twenty, however many seconds, and then I pulled back, stood out of bed, grabbed my shoes, and descended the stairs. The smell of something meaty, savory, and somehow somewhat fruity, grew stronger and stronger, and I suddenly felt very hungry. I pushed the feeling out and away as I pulled on a light jacket that I left on the coat rack in the entryway. Out the window of the living room, I saw Tim, out on the porch smoking a cigar. The image was so strange that it stopped me for a moment, but I made it through to the other side of the door relatively unimpeded.
The night air was chill. The world was getting darker, but wasn't night yet. A blue haze covered everything unlit. Tim looked to his left to see me, then squashed out the cigar on the underside of his boot. I sat down next to him. For some moments, we just listen to the sounds of faraway cars and wind.
"Dad," I got out.
"Yes… Fae?"
I took in a deep breath. "I don't want there to be a funk between us."
I wasn't looking at him, trying to be just me with my thoughts. Trying to absolve myself of social limitations. Trying to not second-guess, trying to be blunt. I was never very good at being blunt.
"Me neither," he says, after a pause. "I'm sorry. I know I should use your name."
"If you know, then please do."
Without looking at him, without hearing anything from him, I knew what this pause meant. "But it's not that simple," he thought. "But it is," I thought back, as if having a phantom conversation in my head would force a telepathic bond and change his mind.
"And whatever this is," I continued, "please just stop talking about the Shelter with me around."
"Okay," he said, with every ounce of humility in his body.
I sighed. Tim wasn't trying to do anything. Tim was continuing to be himself. If I could somehow have been an emotionless pillar, this conversation wouldn't have happened. I was the one setting boundaries. I was the one setting expectations. And I was the one reacting. And even though every step along the way was a necessary and reasonable step, I all of a sudden felt like the most selfish woman in the whole fucking world.
"We need to be here for Mom," I breathed, my voice so much smaller than I had expected it to be. "We can't have the two of us chafing. We have to be here for Mom."
"I agree," Tim said back. "But that doesn't…" He struggled for words. "That doesn't mean, that, I shouldn't have… or, that I should have…"
"It's okay, Dad." I put a hand to my face to feel for tears, but there weren't any. "Mom's got cancer."
It's okay, Dad. Mom's got cancer. What the fuck was I even saying. How were those two thoughts supposed to go together. And here I am, worrying about me, when there are more important things going on. Here I am, making this conversation, when people are dying. Here I am, when I need to be with people, comforting and being comforted.
Tim just stared at me with his halfwit face, like he knew something I didn't, like he wanted to go in for a hug but he didn't, because I had distanced us by moving to the east coast, when I should have stayed.
I feel for tears, but I find none. I see the beach. The shoreline like a ghost, thousands of feet from where it should be, a small and temporary desert waiting to be filled back in, and I just hope, I want for a moment that the salty water should come back in and begin to crash through the streets, ravaging houses and overfilling gutters, the sewers becoming a roaring underground river, debris and detritus becoming flotsam as it gets carried back into the big blue ocean, a new, flattened city ready to rebuild itself, a life cycle, a sudden removal of conflict as everyone is given the same solitary, simple goals: shelter, food, water. To be that simple again.
But the shore remains. The wet sand dries. And what lies before me is a desert.
I feel for tears, but my eyes are dry and stinging. A lump in my throat threatens to form but doesn't. And all I could think about at that moment was just how much Mom needed me. And so I did hug Dad. I don't know how long I was there for. But we clung together, and breathed together, and I hoped with all of my might that actions really did speak louder than words, and maybe what I couldn't explain out loud he could just feel if we became close enough.
The passage of time became irrelevant. The front door opened, and Mom yelled: "Dinner is…" but then quickly quieted down when she saw Dad and I. "Ready." She hummed, and went back inside.
I took that as my cue to let go.
I tried and failed to make eye contact with Tim. So to fill the void, I said: "I didn't know you smoked."
"I don't," he replied simply.
I chuckled at the implication, but I have no idea why.

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If you grew up in the 80's, you lived the dream. Those of you who know what I'm talking about will probably smile and remember the good old days when you tore the reindeer-themed wrapping paper on Christmas morning to discover a Nintendo Entertainment System. You'll remember going to the toy store and seeing physical representations of Masters of the Universe or the Transformers, watching Saturday morning cartoons till your parents told you to stop because your eyes would fall out of your head.
My favorite game was Pac-Man, and I remember going to Art's Arcade when it first opened in my hometown in 1981. So many machines, sucking away our quarters, but the one that stood out to me the most was Pac-Man. Hard as hell for six-year-old me since I didn't really know what I was doing, but I played that game a lot. I got really good, and my high score was 1,776,250 points. Is. I got that score in spring of '89.
More like late winter. There was still snow on the ground, it was April. There was still snow on the ground because I lived in small-town Minnesota. I remember wanting to move away to Texas as fast as I could, freeze-hole as it was. The lows every night from December to early February were at least sub ten. Sure, it wasn't as bad as what our friendly Northern neighbors get, but I lived there till I was seventeen. I think I'm entitled to something, a medal of honor, perhaps? Yeah.
So yeah, this is the 80's. Despite the ass-freezing cold, you're living the dream, playing arcade games, watching cartoons, not caring about school, hanging out with friends watching movies you probably shouldn't. I was doing all that and more.
Let's fast forward twenty-five years.

Edward Hopkins slammed his fist into the filing cabinet. Slamming it always did the trick, or at least that was his inherent masculine reaction. He didn't think about it and struggled, trying to pull it every which way —
It flew back and several sheets spilled out. Edward stooped down, picked them up, and noticed Halley enter the room, wearing her suggestive dress-code-breaking skirt. For a second stereotypical office sounds could be heard, and were silenced when the woman shut the door. Would she? He glanced at her, then started searching through the files. No, she wouldn't. Out of my league.
Halley walked past him to another filing cabinet and unlocked the bottom drawer, bending over to do so. Just can't help yourself, Eddie, can you? He scanned up and down her legs, tan and perfectly curved, then got back to what he was doing. Edward flipped through the ungodly amount of folders until he found what he was looking for: a police report from April 1989. He knew what it was, and his hands trembled as the memories resurfaced.
After locking the filing cabinet, Edward tucked the report under his arm and left the storage room. The office sounds returned: phones ringing, talking, typing, writing…incessant noises Edward couldn't stand. He caught the stare of a wide-eyed woman and quickly looked away. Stacy, that witch, if she looks at me again…
The noises faded as Edward walked into the administrative hallway, seeing Cutter in his office. He opened the door and set the report on Cutter's desk, hiding his shaking hands.
Commissioner Cutter sat next to the window, looking at the street five floors down. Jam-packed with cars and trucks on every block, it seemed, and a river of pedestrian traffic flowing up and down the sidewalks. Wispy smoke trails puffed from his nose and the corners of his mouth. Edward cleared his throat.
Cutter turned to him and stabbed an ashtray with his cigarette.
"You know why I smoke, son?" he asked.
"No," was all Edward could muster.
"Because of reports like the one you just set on my desk." He snatched it and flipped open the folder, revealing a half-inch thick pile of documents. "Gruesome murder of two young girls, twenty-five years ago. The only reason we knew it was murder and not a disappearance was because we found a mass of flesh in the middle of the woods that just so happened to be human. Have you read the report, son?"
"No." He hesitated, and it was again all he could muster.
"Get reading then, Mr. Hopkins. I just received a report from Inspector Miles and Sergeant Tyler that they found a mass of human flesh in those same woods fifteen minutes ago."

Afterwards I gave up my addictions.
I didn't have many friends in middle school, but the ones I did have, my inner circle, my squad, comprised me and three of the best friends I ever had. Samantha Wright and her sister Michelle, and Peter Mills. We would have been the unlikely heroes if there was ever an adventure movie made about a group of kids who stumble upon some fascinating gadget or a door to another land. We were that tight-knit group, all right. '89 was seventh grade.
But we didn't stumble upon something; something stumbled upon us, and it wasn't good. It was anything but good. That's why there was no movie made about us, I guess.
I didn't have multiple addictions, I wasn't that kind of kid. I smoked sometimes, and it was like fire in my throat the first couple times I did it. Somehow it was still the "cool" thing to do, like in those Pepsi posters from the 60's where the hot blonde holds a pop in one hand and a cigarette in the other, smiling at you with gleaming white teeth.
We went to the arcade on April second, after our parents put us to bed. We all agreed to sneak out and play for a few hours. Unsurprisingly, it was Peter's idea, since he was the one plotting out our ventures all the time. The arcade was two miles from my house, so I biked there and arrived first. The others lived further in the country.
The three of them arrived almost at the same time, and we went into the arcade with our quarters jingling in our pockets, eager to play. There were two people left, playing some game in the corner. Galaxar, I think. Or Gaplus. Something like that.
I remember having the most fun that night. "Played until our fingers bled." Bryan Adams wasn't wrong about that one. Eventually, though, I was stuck at the Pac-Man machine, grinding away, getting farther than I had before, beating my previous scores. One hundred thousand. Two hundred thousand. Five hundred thousand. One million. I kept going, I couldn't stop. I told myself this was my one chance to get a perfect game. At this point my friends were standing next to me slouched over, groaning at me to stop so we could go home.
If Sam hadn't jerked the joystick, I probably would've made it. I just couldn't stop myself. Seeing that yellow blob munching away, the numbers climbing … It was better than pop or candy or ice cream. I felt like Pac-Man: an unstoppable force constantly eating.
I said I wasn't that kind of kid, but inside I was. When I came to the arcade, I gobbled down entertainment happily, without questioning it. Yeah, we were living the dream, but screw that, man. I was so selfish.
We left the arcade after my game ended, and Peter and the girls shot down the street. The frustration I had from losing had passed, and I waved my friends goodbye. The crescent moon was a sliver in the sky that night. I remember looking up at it as I biked the opposite way back to my house, intrigued by it.
The road dragged on and on, miles and miles it felt like, going absolutely nowhere. Geography wasn't my strong suit, but I knew from biking on this road that it curved to the right, and then there was a four-way stop where you'd turn left on Gray towards the suburbs. Lucky for me, my legs were going to get a real good workout that night.
There was no stop sign, or a curve. It just continued straight, past never-ending rows of empty fields, and the moon was a sideways smile hanging above me. The only sound was the buzz of the bike tires on the asphalt and my ragged breathing, cold air burning my lungs.
CRUNCH. CRUNCH.
It sounded like wet tree branches snapping. I looked behind me and saw a giant black mass on the road, two hundred feet down. I only looked back for a split-second, and it shouldn't have taken so long for my brain to register that I needed to start pedaling faster. It was like a black hole, invisible only until you got close enough you would see your legs being sucked in.
CRUNCH. CRUNCH. CRUNCH.
The thing behind me moved closer, and the sound was clearer. Rhythmic. I looked back again, longer this time, and felt a shock of panic shoot through my body, almost electrical, as I witnessed the terrible reality of what was making that awful sound.
It was a perfect sphere, and the snapping sound came from a gaping hole filled with jagged red teeth, chomping and grinding. A dog-like whimper came out of my throat and I pedaled faster than I ever had. Tears streamed from my eyes, slicing like icicles in the cold. The monster didn't stop, and neither did I. This wouldn't be the end for me, I repeated in my head over and over. I wasn't going to be eaten by Pac-Man.
At Mach 5 I careened around the curve in the road, tore through the stop-sign, and finally got to my house. Crying my eyes out, I threw my bike in the yard and dove through my bedroom window. I slammed it shut and hid under my blankets wide awake for the rest of the night.

The next morning I "woke up" dead tired with grocery bags under my eyes. I didn't talk that morning, and my mom said something about not staying up late. Which was probably true. I probably shouldn't have gone out last night.
At eleven, Dad had the local news on. The reporter said that Samantha and Michelle Wright were missing.

Ed,
They found another one. Another pile of remains. I saw it on the news yesterday. If you find out anything important, just tell me. They were my best friends too, remember?
Pete

Edward deleted the email and continued walking through the forest. Leaves crunched beneath his boots and rays of sunlight shot down through the gaps in the canopy. He stepped over fallen branches, pushing his way east. He remembered the path, not by the trees or landmarks, but by the contour of the land.
The crime scene was in the valley, next to Blue Creek. Yellow tape wrapped around rocks and poles in the clearing, and several officers were searching the scene. Edward passed through the tape and stopped in his tracks when he saw the mass on the ground.
It was a sphere of human flesh, six inches in diameter, coated in a layer of white fluid. Edward remembered the interviews, the news reports, and the accusations. He remembered coming here months after, years after, wondering why it all happened, but it wasn't relevant anymore.
Now I'm part of the investigation.
I've come full circle. This is the reset.
"But I'm not playing the game anymore," Edward said, and he knelt in the mud next to the sphere.
He closed his eyes and began stuffing it into his mouth.


The Specter Fights For Justice!

It was the second Sunday in March. In Sloth's Pit, Wisconsin, that officially meant that Spring had started, damn the weather. And with the start of Spring came the world-famous1 Sloth's Pit Jam Jam. The entirety of Main Street was closed off to traffic, and the air around it smelled sweet and sticky as judges made their way through rows of white cloth tents, inspecting and sampling the various offerings available, from marmalade to jellies to preserves to honeys.
"Only one arrest so far this year. Not bad." Raymond February used his coffee-colored hand to tap on the wooden facade of Lessler's Antiques. "What'd they get them for, anyway?"
Ruby Williams rolled her shoulders. "It was Quinn Mason. Take a wild guess."
"Another Mellified Man?" He shook his head. "How the heck do the Masons keep making those? The Vegan Buffet was bad enough, but that family ain't right."
Ruby nodded. "And you'll note the distinct lack of apple butter this year. We aren't taking any chances."
"Jesus." February began walking through the stands. "Any potential trouble-makers?"
"Well, there's the jokers from the WisDOT office on Bray Road making 'Traffic Jams' with names like 'Asphalt Apricot' and 'Road-Block Boisonberry'. We've had Sinclair putting wards around them for the last half-hour."
"'Blackcurrant Roadblock' would have worked better."
"When's the last time you saw a Blackcurrant anything in the US of A?" Ruby squeezed past a man in a large bee costume, advertising a local apiary. "The Competitive Eating Club has submitted their own brand of 'designer mustards' to accompany artisan hotdogs. Chris— er, Researcher Hastings and Dr. Harrison are making sure that we don't have a repeat of 2015 by analyzing every mustard sample there is."
"You signed the relationship declaration forms, you can be informal." February shook his head. "I was on leave in 2015, remember? Only came back right when that cult popped up in town after abducting Stalin's corpse."
"Suffice to say, the designer mustard turned into designer mustard gas." Ruby frowned as she passed a group of people who were wearing face masks, with both facial coverings and shirts advertising "Milly's Eucalyptus Jam".
"Isn't eucalyptus toxic to humans?" February frowned.
"I'll get Carol and Tofflemire on it." Ruby sighed and pulled out her phone.
"Toff's here? Thought the risk of puns would be too great."
"He can put his game face on when he needs to." She said this with only a half-measure of sincerity.
"…Carol finally found the shock collar?" February smirked.
From far away in the crowd, an exasperated Robert Tofflemire called, "That was ONCE!"
February and Ruby blinked at each other before walking once again. "And S & C Plastics—" February began, hopeful.
"—is banned from participating, just like the last forty years, by town bylaws." Ruby frowned. "I mean, we'd basically win by default, between Gastronomy and Botany working together. Dr. Harrison's blueberry jam can literally raise the dead, it wouldn't be fair." She looked through her notes app. "There's a couple of S'kakithi and their human mates here, too. Selling 'Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Jam'."
"I can hear the Mouse's lawyers from here." February chuckled. "Wasn't Hendricks dating one of those, out in Oregon?"
"Baseless rumor. Dude's a massive insectophobe. He nearly punched out Dr. Jept for his housewarming gift of a tarantula—"
There was a series of yells and cries along the lines of "hey!" and "what the fuck?!" as a shadow darted through the crowd. They were clad in a top hat with a domino mask over their face, a bulging bag over their shoulder, full of jam, honey, coffee, mustard and several other confections and foodstuffs in jars. The rest of them was covered by a long, black cloak which covered the majority of their body. "Fools! You have been duped! Tricked! Bamboozled! The Jamburglar shall have a great bounty to—"
Before he could say 'night', he fell flat on his back after colliding with Ruby's outstretched arm, which had clotheslined him. Ruby felt her shoulder pop from the motion— the cloak must have been concealing a lot of mass. She looked down at the Jamburglar, flat disappointment on her face. "Richards. Again with this?"
February frowned, looking between them. "I'm… a bit lost."
"Right, you only came here in, what, 2014?" Ruby rubbed her face. "From 2009 to 2013, this man—" Ruby jostled the self-proclaimed Jamburglar to his feet— "name of Homer Richards, was a menace to this festival. Would steal products from everyone and then hoard them in his home. After his first time, he started calling himself the Jamburglar- though this is the first time he's done a getup this elaborate." She shook her head. "Richards, you're not allowed to be within five miles of Main Street. What the hell are you doing here?" She went to rip off his mask—
And found it squelch under her hands, as if she had attempted to tear into a block of Jell-O. "…what."
"Foolish girl!" The Jamburglar… didn't so much spring from her grasp as he did melt from it, taking up his bag along the way. "The Jamburglar cannot be jailed! It is my duty to take from those who are greedily hoarding their bounty for profit, and keep it for myself!" He sprung up to the roof of Elmore's Ribs and Rye, a good three-storey jump, and held the bag aloft. "This is your jam? I say this is my jam! Muahahaahahaha!"
There was a poof of boisonberry-scented smoke, and then the Jamburglar vanished.
"…if I live through this Halloween," Ruby sighed, "I'm asking to get reassigned to somewhere nice and quiet. Like Daleport, or or the Fifth Circle of Hell."

"That was Aurora Psychiatric in Wauwatosa." Dr. Katherine Sinclair replaced her phone in her pocket. "They've got a counselor monitoring Richards."
"And?" Ruby raised an eyebrow.
"Unless a fifty-year-old man with moderate schizophrenia and a bad leg can both bilocate and do a Spring-Heeled Jack impression, he's not our guy. He's been in Milwaukee all day."
"That's not good." February rubbed his face. "Really, really not good. You know what that means?"
"Code Gutenberg." Sinclair shook her head. "His exploits must have become some kind of local meme, and mutated into a thoughtform."
"Shee-it." Ruby winced. "He became a meme? How did we miss that?"
"Because we hardly ever engage with the townsfolk on a basis that isn't putting out some sort of metaphorical fire, or drowning our sorrows in coffee or booze." Sinclair wrinkled her nose. "It took us over five years for someone to realize the local game shop was selling trading cards from other universes, and the better part of a decade for us to figure out that, yes, every high school sports team in this town is literally cursed."
"Mother of God." February groaned. "Well, how do we contain it? And don't say—"
"You can't contain an idea." Sinclair and February spoke at the same time. Sinclair paused. "Well, you can't. We'd have to amnesticize the whole town, plus anyone who may know about it, including us."
"We can't just have him run around like this." February groused. "And he's just going to strike again next year."
"Well…" Sinclair frowned. "He seems to have fashioned himself after a phantom thief, yeah? Hat, domino mask, all of that?" She pulled out her phone and sent off a quick text.
"Yeah?" Ruby frowned. "Sinclair, I know what you're thinking, and the answer is fuck n—"
"Too late." From behind them, the slightly round form of Robert Tofflemire placed a pair of hats onto each of their heads— February got a brown fedora, while Ruby found herself in a black deerstalker. Both of them were given comically large magnifying glasses. "He's a thief, so you play the detectives."
"I hate pataphysics." Ruby adjusted her hat, not willing to admit that she thought it looked good on her.
"It gets old after a while." Sinclair looked away, practically staring through the wall of one of the buildings, irritation in her face. "It really, really does."
"Think of it less as pataphysics, and more as you playing along." Tofflemire grinned. "Goatman and Hook-handed man both hunt teenagers in the woods, Sinning Jesse haunts that Hole-in-the-Wall bar at the edge of town, and the Jamburglar is about to be caught by a pair of ace detectives."
February looked at Ruby, and shrugged. "Why not? Might be fun."
"Just promise you won't tell Blake," she sighed. Her brother was holed up in the infirmary following acute exposure to a gustatory memetic hazard. "He'd never let me hear the end of it."
"God as my witness, he'll never know." February beamed. "Come on. Let's find us some clues."

Despite it being a costume shop, there was no such thing as an 'off season' at the Witch's Hut.
When February and Ruby arrived, bearing a scrap that had been torn from the Jamburglar's cloak by a S'kakithi, the place was full of people ranging from their teenage years to almost forty. February frowned as he walked through the door. "The hell is this?"
"The proprietor sells a lot of cosplay supplies, and Kitsune Kon is only a few months away. Probably the cheapest place around, too." She approached the counter, where Laura Ashbrooke, the thin, pale, raven-haired proprietor of the establishment, was ringing up a pair of teenagers whose backpacks were more pins than exposed fabric.
Laura looked up at the pair of them, and let out a long, lingering sigh. "I literally just got asked the 'black moon' thing last week. I'm still not possessed, and I'm trying to run a business."
"We're not concerned about that— the Pit Sloth has long since been neutralized." Ruby placed the scrap of cloth on the counter. "We believe this may have been purchased here. Part of a costume for a thief outfit of some kind?"
Laura picked up the scrap. "Purchased? Try stolen." She snorted. "Some weirdo in a potato sack commissioned me to make an Arsene Lupin costume for some kind of fancy dress party. He showed up and gave me what I thought was a check before running off into the night wearing it, laughing in some weird accent."
"Let me guess: he paid you in a Jam of the Month Club membership?" February quirked an eyebrow.
Laura stared for several seconds. "Okay, I know you have cameras everywhere, but that is really specific. How'd you know?"
"It's on-brand for the perp. Anything strike you as odd about him?"
In response, Laura stuck her right hand on top of a binder of cosplay reference images next to the register. She lifted her hand, and the binder stuck to it, before gradually pulling off with a dry sound like the ripping of paper. "It's been a week since I got my 'payment'. I'm still sticky."
Ruby frowned, and looked at her right hand. She just now realized that she hadn't stopped holding the magnifying glass, even though her hand was open. "Well that's just peachy."
"This about what happened on Main Street?" Laura asked. "The Jamburglar?"
"Yeah. We think it's a… local oddity."
"Trying to find his bolthole?" Laura withdrew to the back of the store. "I require an address on all order forms for my costumes, in case they need to be shipped. Let's see…"
Laura dug through the forms using her left hand, before producing a piece of paper with several stains on it. "Here you go."
February took the form and looked it over. "Using Richards's name on this."
"When a thoughtform is based off of a real person, they tend to do that." She looked down the form. "That address… isn't that—"

"He can't seriously be here." Ruby Williams stared at the building before them.
"I mean, it's literally the only building on Plastics Circle." February looked up at Site-87, whose four above-ground storeys bore the words "S & C Plastics" in large, light-up letters. "Unless you count the greenhouses out back."
"Has to be a red herring." Ruby frowned, pulling out her ID badge and tapping it against the RFID reader out front. The door failed to buzz open. She tried it again. "The hell, did it get fried?"
February took out his badge and tried it, actually holding it against the reader. It stuck there for a few seconds, before falling off. The reader was covered in a thin layer of what smelled like honey.
"Okay, so not a red herring." Ruby sighed, pressing the intercom button above it. "Hey, uh, Lacey." She addressed the receptionist. "This is Ruby Williams, ID Num—"
"FOOLS!" The Jamburglar's voice cackled over the intercom. "Lacey is not here! She… has taken a personal day!" He cackled.
"How the hell did you get in?!" Ruby tried the door, only to find it locked, and worse, sticky.
"There is no obstacle that can stand in the way of The Jamburglar! The ventilation system posed no challenge to my gelatinous form! And now all of the delicious contents of this building are mine for the taking!
"Dangit all." February produced his phone. "Helen, override Site-87 Main Entrance, Code Alfa-Niner-Green-Echo-Quarterstaff."
«Access Granted.» His phone chimed, and the doors to Site-87 opened with a click.
With some difficulty, Ruby removed her hand and entered the building, and nearly tripped over a dozen jars of honey. Every available surface in the lobby was covered in jars of various types, containing not only the spoils from the Jam Jam, but also jars that looked like they were taken off of the shelves of Starlow Grocery, and even restaurant-sized packets of jam.
"Was wondering why they didn't have any any of this stuff at the Waffle House this morning." February sighed as he stepped over a pack of Smucker's Apple Butter. He made his way to the elevator, only to find the door half-open, the car stuck in between floors, full to the brim with jars of jam. "I see the obvious pun, and I'm not making it."
"Good plan." Ruby entered the stairwell, and went downwards— the only level of the site proper accessible from above ground was the barracks for Sigma-10. Thankfully, the door hadn't been jammed, and opened with a tap of her badge.
The door was still a struggle to open, as it was blocked by dozens of containers of jam. Ruby winced as she heard a crash and several jars shattered. "Okay, if I was a jam-themed robber, where would I be?"
"Is that a rhetorical question?" February pushed past her.
"Of course it is." She entered the main hallway of Sublevel-1, with the barracks proper on one side and the armory on the other. "They're obviously going to be in Gastronomy."
"God, Harrison's not going to let us hear the end of this. Man needs his test kitchen immaculate."
She ran for the end of the hall, throwing open the doors to the stairway to the lower levels.

The containment breach alarms were sounding on Sublevel 3.
Ruby passed by a panic bunker on the way there, which had a light on that indicated it was at capacity. She pressed an intercom button beside the bunker. "This is Agent Ruby Williams. Who all's in there?"
"Williams?" On the other end, Dr. Partridge's voice groaned with relief. "We've been trying to contact you, but something's—"
"—jamming the signal." She sighed. "Why am I not surprised?"
"Everyone's in here. Harrison had to be dragged in, wanted to defend his kitchen to the last."
"That man's insane." Ruby rubbed her face. "All right, well, we should have this resolved soon. Hopefully."
"Careful, agent. The situation here's sticky."
February went po-faced, and stepped next to Ruby, pressing the intercom. "Partridge, this is February. If you make another pun like that, I'm replacing all the literature in your office with Chick Tracts."
"…that's fair."
Ruby and February walked off, with her giving him an odd look. "You wouldn't actually do that, would you?"
"God no." February laughed. "Chick is a raging bigot. But it makes for an effective threat."
"How do you want to do this? He's made of jam, so we can't just stick him in a cell."
February looked at a fire alarm as they turned a corner leading into the Department of Gastronomy's test kitchen. "I have an idea or two."
The test kitchen was like something out of the wet dreams of Emeril, Gordon Ramsay, and Julia Child. It was massive, with dozens of burners, broilers, ovens, pots and pans, with over twenty different fridges storing everything from milk to cheese to out-of-season fruits. There were three fridges set aside specifically for anomalous foodstuffs that would be tested.
The floor of it, normally spotless, was covered by hundreds of jars of jam— each of them from the test kitchen. "See a burlap sack anywhere?" Ruby asked.
"That's a negative." February pulled out his lighter. "Jamburglar? You in here?"
There was a malicious chortle from throughout the room. "I am indeed, detectives! But can you find me? If you can, I'll give you a chance at my spoils!"
"Quit playing games!" Ruby picked up some towels from the counter and used them to clog a drain on the floor, before covering the drain with a small crock pot. "We have you cornered!"
"You are the ones who are in a jam here, detectives!" A ladle flew off the wall and nearly hit Ruby in the head. "I am the Pantry Raider! The Thief of Thyme! I am the Jamburglar!"
"And I am never going to give Tofflemire shit about his puns again." Ruby tried extricating her magnifying glass from her sticky hand, only to find herself looking through it. One of the jars at the far end of the room shone through the glass. Removing it from her eyes, the shine was gone.
She kept the glass up to her face, stopping before the shining jar. It was a jar of blood orange jam. She looked at February, before going to open the jar—
And instead throwing it against the wall over a nearby sink. The jar burst open, and the Jamburglar spilled out, a burlap sack filled with jars appearing in his mass. "Curses! Your deductive skills have foiled me! I hate to resort to this, but…" From his cloak, he produced a 9mm pistol. "It seems I have no choice."
February didn't even bother to allow him to monologue. He held his lighter up against the sprinkler. All of the heads in the kitchen went off, spraying stagnant water everywhere.
The Jamburglar's form rippled at the impact of the water, but remained solid. A confused look was on its masked face. "…was… that meant to do something?"
"I thought jam dissolved in water!" February hissed. "What the hell?!"
"Why would I steal jam if I was made of it? I'm made of jelly you fools!"
"…and jelly's more solid than jam. It's literally gelatin, and water bounces off of it." Ruby rubbed her head. "Fuck."
The Jamburglar cackled and took up its sack of jams. "Foo—" it cleared its throat. "FOOLS! You have failed, and your condiments and confections are lost!"
Ruby twitched, and took a mallet meant for tenderizing meat up from the counter. Before the Jamburglar could spit out another cheesy line, she was upon him, smashing in his gelatin kneecaps. She didn't play Dungeons and Dragons, but knew that blunt-force trauma was the best way to deal with a blob of gelatin from watching a few games of it. The Jamburglar screamed as both of its kneecaps flew off.
"I just wanted," Ruby brought it down on its hand, "to have a nice fucking day at a jam festival!" She hit the Jamburglar in the back. "And instead the town craziness takes over and I'm stuck dealing with you!" With a squelch, she hit it in the side. "You like jam puns? Here's one." She brought the mallet up, golf-club style, and decapitated the Jamburglar. "You're toast."
February stared as the Jamburglar's face hit him in the chest. He swallowed and looked up at Ruby. "I'm… going to need to take a long shower." He looked down at his jam-covered self and sighed. "For. Several reasons."
Ruby grunted as she tried to take up the bag of jams— the glass jars were over 500 pounds by themselves. It wasn't budging, and she felt her arm pop as she tried to lift it. "Fuck!"
"…if I may make a suggestion?" February asked, backing away from her slowly.

Jam Jam was extended by another day as the venue was relocated to the bottom of the hill that Plastics Circle was located on. Armful by armful, jars of food were brought out and returned to their rightful owners. Much thanks was given, and laughter was exchanged.
Ruby absently chewed on an artisanal hot dog as she looked through her phone. She had declined to eat any mustard— Chris told her that the mustardseed they used was thoroughly cursed. The ketchup and relish should have been okay, though.
"What are you looking at?" February asked, bearing a jelly-filled donut.
"Trying to figure out what made the Jamburglar in the first place. I got nothing." She winkled her nose. "Last real mention of him is a newspaper article in Superior around the time the real Richards got sent off to a psych ward."
February raised an eyebrow. "But… a thoughtform just can't come out of nowhere. Legend, Critter, Tall Tale, they all have to be told first."
"That's what's bugging me. There's no indication the Jamburglar had any kind of memetic infamy, or even any jokes written about him." She chewed her lip. "My best guess is that it's some kind of oral tradition, but god knows how rare that is nowadays."
"Ominous," February sighed, "But not an immediate concern." He smelled the air. "Is… someone making fish and chips?"
"Yeah. Sturgeon from Lake Superior with tartar sauce and home-grown potatoes. Hubble Farms is partnering with this new place, S & P Canneries…"
The pair of agents walked off towards further food, their conversation lost among the voices of the crowd.

Footnotes
1. If one thought of Douglas County and the greater Superior, Wisconsin Metropolitan Area as the world.


A grizzled Foundation agent sat at the end of a motel bed, wearing a dingy suit and an almost permanent scowl. The TV was on and tuned to a generic late-night talk show. The generic talk show host, who'd probably cut his teeth on some late-night comedy show, turned to his studio audience.
"You've all heard about our next guest, and I've been trying to get a table in his restaurants for years now. Put your hands together for Anton Ivanovich!"
The Agent spat at the sound of the man's name. "Damn Sarkics."
A deep growl came from the bathroom. "I know you hate em, Lance, but don't spit on the floor. We aren't animals."
"Sorry, Bernard."
"I mean, I feel ya. I hate Russians just as much as you hate Sarkics, especially after last year. But we've gotta be professional."
"Look, I'm sorry about that. But for the last time, that's just circuses, not just Russian ones."
The door creaked open, revealing an eight-foot-tall grizzly bear dressed in a black suit. Tilting his head to look at the screen, he spoke. "That the guy?"
"Sarkic shitbag himself. Grab the keys, you're driving."
Bernard groaned. "You know I hate driving."
"You know I'm a shitty chauffeur."

"So Anton, you just wrote a book about your life as a restauranteur and entrepreneur. Wanna give us a sneak peek, for those of us who haven't been following your meteoric career?"
Anton smiled through his disgust at the host's superficiality. "Well, I'd have to start at the beginning. My grandfather Yuri is really the catalyst for everything I am today. When he fled his home in Siberia because of religious persecution, he walked through just about every country in Europe and picked up a love for food and cooking that he passed on to my mother, and then, to me."
"So he taught you everything you know?"
"Oh no. Bless him, but Yuri was a terrible cook. But what he lacked in skill he made up for in passion."
"So where did you learn how to cook?"
"I'd like to think the same way he did, just under less unfortunate circumstances. When I graduated culinary school, I went to his hometown in Siberia and worked my way across Europe, working for and with as many local chefs as I could. When I got back, I opened my first restaurant."
"And the rest is history. Now, you were just nominated for a Humanitarian award for your work with the New York City homeless shelters. Can you tell us a little more about that?"
"Helping those less fortunate is the greatest thing you can do. People are our most valuable resource."

Agent Bernard closed the freezer door behind him and look at his partner. Lance was standing over an unconscious Anton Ivanovich, seated in a chair.
"He waking up?"
Lance slapped the unconscious man. "Soon enough."
Anton coughed and tilted his back. "Where… where the fuck am I? Are you?" He shook his head and blinked rapidly. "Look, I've got money if you want money."
Lance laughed. "We're not here for money, bud. Foundation's finally got enough shit in the file to warrant a meeting."
"But. I'm not doing anything wrong. We had an agreement." Anton stammered. Lance smiled and sat down.
"Yeah. That you'd keep a low profile," growled Bernard. "And now that you're making us regret that. 121 people who frequent your food kitchens have disappeared in the past month."
"And the guys in accounting found a lot of your money is going into offshore accounts, ones that anomalous groups use a lot. I'm no genius, but I'm sure that's not part of the agreement."
"Look! I can-"
Anton was cut short by the cocking of Lance's revolver. "We're gonna ask the questions."
Anton gulped and Bernard cut in, "Here's what we think is happening. You're running two businesses. Money and supply. You're using the high-class restaurants to generate or launder money for a Sarkic cult and moving it offshore. And you're also using your homeless shelters as a buffet for picking out the most vulnerable of society so you can ship them off at a profit to other Sarkic bastards. That is, the ones you don't use to rebait the trap. We've noticed your shelters and restaurants have no purchase history of any foodstuff that isn't seasonings or oil. No fruits, no vegetables, no meat. Thoughts on that, Lance?"
"Sounds like a grievous violation of even the most lenient of Foundation deals, Bernard. What do you gotta say about that, Anton?"
"You're wrong about everything."
Bernard chuckled. "Consider your next words carefully. The Foundation has a way of making people disappear."
Anton turned white. "But I'm a celebrity. You couldn't just explain that away."
"Normal people are easy." Lance shrugged. "But celebrities are a bit more fun."
"Wha-what do you mean?"
"Well, you're famous now, but what happens when everything starts going wrong? What happens if your restaurants start failing health inspections? Or your show gets canceled? Maybe the police find you ODing in your car with baggies of heroin and cocaine. Maybe your wife goes on vacation to some far-off hot spot and comes back with a bunch of new memories of you being a terrible husband and father and publishes a book about the "real" you. It's a crazy goddamn world out there."
"You. You wouldn't do that?"
"Lance and I have personally done each and every one of those things. You're famous, not untouchable, so you better give us a reason not to."
Anton sighed. "I have been breaking the agreement, but not how you described."
"Do tell."
"Those offshore accounts? I've been moving a ton of money to the Mana Charitable Foundation. And since you guys would freeze my assets, I had to do it under the radar. I've got all the documents to prove it in my office."
Lance and Bernard said nothing.
"As for the homeless people, it's not just patrons. It's my volunteers, people I know. My friends have been disappearing, colleagues who deserve every accolade I've received. I've spent thousands trying to pay for private investigators, donating to the police force so they'll investigate, and running ads for tips. I've been beefing up security and building shelters for them. There's something wrong going on under this city, but it's not me."
Anton cleared his throat. "As for the food. I'm a floraturge. I use that and my Sarkic knowledge to duplicate… well pretty much anything food-related. So the money can go back into the community."
"Sounds like we've got a regular Jesus of Nazareth here, Bernard."
"I don't know, Lance. His heart rate is steady and as best I can tell, his pheromones show he's not lying."
"I'm not lying. I really, genuinely am trying to make the world a better place, even if I have to use Sarkicism. I know you don't care about that. Heard about what you did to Sarah."
Lance opened his mouth to speak when the door to the freezer was torn from its hinges, revealing a large emaciated white figure. It had no mouth or eyes, just a series of black lines running vertically across a flat face. In a pouch on its chest, the body of a homeless man could be seen. As it reached for Bernard, the bear roared with all of his fury and slapped the monster's hand, cracking bones and splitting skin.
Lance leveled his revolver and prepared to fire when he heard bones splinter and wet flesh sliding apart from where Anton was sitting. When he turned his head, he saw Anton's face flush with fear, his hands clutching two escrima crafted from his own bones. Bloodless holes had opened on his wrists and he stood in a fighting stance.
"WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT!" Anton shouted.
Lance squeezed off three shots into the creature's chest. "I'm gonna say it's our kidnapper."

Lance leaned against the restaurant's bar, wincing and taking deep gulps from a bottle of vodka as Anton Ivanovich pulled a steak knife out of his abdomen.
"You sure you can fix this? I'd hate to bleed to death on the rug."
"It didn't hit anything, so I'm just gonna mold the skin back together."
They hadn't been able to kill the creature, despite the best efforts of a trained gunman, a Sarkic mage, and an 8-foot grizzly bear, but they had forced it to flee and sustained only minor injuries.
"How are we gonna explain the damages?" Anton asked.
"You've got insurance, right?"
"Of course."
"Then me and Bernard are gonna dress as waiters or dishwashers, leave the gas line open, and boom. You walk out with a minor head injury, insurance covers it, and the Foundation makes sure it all seems legit."
"Head injury?"
Bernard walked in from the back. "Do you got anything that'll fit a large grizzly bear?"
"What do you… Oh my God, you're… How did. What the fuck?"
Lance laughed. "Yeah, people think he's a human until he tells em he's a bear."
"What in the fuck. I just thought he was a really tall guy. With like a hair disorder."
Bernard smiled, in his own ursine way. "Common mistake."
Lance stood upright. "Alright," he turned to his partner. "I'm thinking 10cc of Paw."

Lance and Bernard sat on a bench across the street, watching paramedics load Anton Ivanovich into an ambulance as firefighters rushed around trying to battle the blaze. Bernard spoke first.
"He seemed like a solid guy."
"Yeah, a good heart."
"I don't think Command needs to hear about his activities."
Lance looked at his partner. "No. I will write a report on this." His face cracked into a smile, "But, I think I might accidentally lose it. Besides, we've got a new monster to catch."
"Yeah. Gonna be a long night, huh?"
"Wanna get some food? Maybe a coffee?" Lance sat forward. Bernard never turned down food.
"Deli?"
"Si, Oso."
"Still working on Spanish?"
"Better believe it, big guy."


The day that Agent Burkes had been waiting for had finally arrived, the one day that came around only once every two weeks. Expedition Day. At least, that's what he had begun calling it. It was his duty to go into SCP-4258 every two weeks and interview at least three patrons inside. He wasn't quite sure on how these interviews were helping the Foundation, they just took his data when he left the diner and sent him off onto some other mission. This expedition he had especially been looking forward to though, considering the events over the past week.
Not only had he been shot at by Global Occult soldiers, but he had also been nearly killed in three different breaches and almost subjected to a cognitohazard that would have quite literally turned him into a vegetable. He knew the danger of the job when he signed up, but he'd love to go one week without the threat of some anomalous creature eating his face off or the ghost of a confederate general attacking him in his sleep.
“It's fine now though,” he told himself as he watched a few scientists give him the thumbs up to enter SCP-4258. The week was over and it was time to relax on the company's dime. He climbed the stairs of SCP-4258 and quickly entered, closing the door behind him. Despite the dozens of times he'd been to the diner, he was still amazed every time he walked in and saw its bizarre patrons. Today seemed to be especially busy, nearly every seat except a few at the bar being full. He started to make his way to one of the closest stools, occasionally apologizing as he bumped into somebody's tentacle or scraped past a pair of mandibles.
“Ah, Mr. Burkes! Good to see ya again, how are you?” Freddy asked as he handed a plate over to what Burkes swore was a mummy. Freddy was the proprietor of this establishment and oversaw everything that went in on the diner. Burkes hadn't known him long, but he knew that Freddy was one of the good ones.
“Been better, Fred. Thinking about trying something new.” Burkes took a seat on the bar stool and set the tape recorder he'd brought with him on the counter. He was here to do interviews, but that was going to take a backseat to getting his food. Sorry but not sorry, scientists.
Freddy frowned slightly, handing off a glass of coke to John F. Kennedy. “Sorry to hear that, Mr. Burkes. Sounds like you've had a tough week.” His smile returned though as he gave a glance towards the kitchen behind him. “But I think I have something that might cheer you up, our Sunday Special.”
Well, it wasn't like he really had anything specific in mind for today's lunch anyway. “Looking forward to it Fred. Wait, isn't it Wednesday?”
This only made the elderly man chuckle as he wrote something down on a scrap of paper, sliding it through the kitchen window. “It's always Sunday somewhere in the multiverse, Mr. Burkes.”
Well, can't really argue with that. Freddy slid him a glass of water and turned his attention to a few guests that were patiently awaiting their turn to order. Burkes turned to his left and wasn't surprised to see one of the other regulars, an amphibious humanoid named Xeril, was seated not too far away. Burkes gave him a small wave and the man plodded over to him, a big grin on his fish-like face. “Hey Burkes! Here for more interviews?”
Burkes nodded and took a sip of his water. How the hell did Freddy even manage to make water taste so good? “Sure am. Sun never sets on the Foundation.”
“Damn, they really work you to the bone, don't they? Cheer up man, heard you ordered the Sunday Special.”
Burkes gave him a curious glance. Had Xeril order it before? “Is it really good or something?”
Xeril simply shrugged and patted him on the shoulder. “Something like that, you'll see. Seeya, Burkes.”
He watched as Xeril opened the door and for a split second glimpsed the world that the patron had come from, wetlands that looked as if they went as far as the eye could see. Part of him wondered what the diner looked like from the outside in that world. Burkes turned his attention back to the other patrons as he waited for his meal to be ready. Many of them he'd seen before, but there were a few he hadn't met yet. For example, in the farthest corner of the diner what could only be called a goblin was accompanied by a floating cat and a huge centipede that bore glowing runes over it's expansive body. He watched as they finished their meals and exited the diner into their own world, a library of insurmountable size with what seemed to be countless books.
His mind started to slowly drift towards libraries he knew of that matched such a description when somebody tapped him on the shoulder. He wasn't all too surprised to see yet another of the regulars, Agent Dark of a Foundation in another reality. “Hey man, you doing alright?”
Burkes smiled, he always enjoyed his conversations with Dark when he came to the diner. “Yea, I'm fine. Just tired, you know how it is.” He watched as the man took a seat next to him and gave Freddy a heads up that he wanted his usual burger and fries.
“Oh yea, I getcha. If there's one thing the Foundation has in common across realities, it's that they work their employees half to death,” he said with a chuckle.
Burkes nodded and took a sip from his water. “Amen to that, brother.”
“So, what'd you order this time? Burger?”
“Nah, something called the Sunday Special.”
Dark grinned slyly as he elbowed him in the side. “Never had it before, huh? You're in for a treat.”
“Yea, you're not the first to tell me that. Is it really that good?”
“Something like that. The best part about it is- Oh, looks like it's done.” Dark motioned towards Freddy, who walked towards Burkes with a bowl held firmly in his hands. He watched as the man set the bowl in front of him and immediately recognized the dish as just plain macaroni and cheese.
He gave Freddy a curious glance before turning his attention back to the meal. Was this really all the Sunday Special was? He had expected a bit more, truth be told. He tentatively grabbed his spoon and took a bite. Immediately, all his prior expectations were thrown out the window and into the wind. He was a child again, waiting patiently at the dinner table for his mother to serve her home-made macaroni and cheese. His knees were scraped and fresh bruises across his cheek slightly ached. He'd been in another fight with the neighborhood bullies, who had been picking on his little brother, Sam. It was all fine now though, he was back home and it was dinner time. He watched eagerly as his mother, a woman who always wore a smile, brought out plates of macaroni for him and his brother.
She set them down before both kids and immediately the smell of the cheese hit him, still gooey and warm. "Let it cool, you two," she said before heading back into the kitchen to make her own plate. Of course, they wouldn't listen though. Him and Sam were too entranced by the inviting smell, as they always were when their mother made her special macaroni and cheese. They both dug in, scooping large spoonfuls into their mouths. He was idly aware of his mother taking a seat nearby, mumbling about them both being little pigs. All his worries regarding the bullies and the pain of his battle wounds had faded away in the face of this dish made with his mother's love.
Burkes was jolted back to reality as his spoon scraped the bottom of the empty bowl. He was already finished, even though it felt like mere moments ago he had been served the meal. He peered up towards Dark, who leaned against the counter with yet another sly smirk. “Get why everyone likes the Sunday Special now?”
Burkes nodded, wiping his face with the corner of his napkin. He couldn't suppress the big smile that'd formed after eating the meal and neither did he want to. In this one moment, all his worries and stress had been wiped away completely. “Yea, I think I do.”
Dark patted him on the shoulder before heading for the door, giving him one last wave. "Seeya around, Burkes. Stay safe out there."
"Yea, you too." He watched as Dark left the diner, entering a world nearly identical to his own. For awhile longer he simply sat there, letting his meal settle in his stomach while he had some more of that damn good water. Finally, it came time to get to work. Grabbing the tape recorder he approached
a humanoid patron nearby whose body consisted of pure and beautiful blue flames.
"Hello, I'm Agent Burkes. Mind if I ask you a few questions?"

Two Hours Later
Burkes exited SCP-4258, immediately entering the decontamination showers located outside. When it came time to hand over the tape recorder to Dr. Barnes she gave him an inquisitive look. "You seem happy. Something happen in there?"
Burkes just shrugged, a small smile on his lips. "Just having a good day, I guess."


BEGIN LOG
"Doctor I don't think you can do this," Dr. Belinski shuffled his feet against the carpet. He knew there was nothing he could do, but it was at least worth saying something on the record for the sake of his reputation.
"Whatever you say, Andre. Anyway," the other man in the room spoke while putting on a fresh lab coat over his orange jumpsuit. "For the stupid records, this is Dr. Bright and I'm gonna eat a sample of 999 because I goddamn feel like it. Apparently, this test was approved by…" Bright glanced down at the packet sitting on the little folding table the doctors brought into the pen with them, "Of course. Redacted. It's always fucking redacted. Whatever. I was gonna do this whether they approved it or not. What are they gonna do, kill me?"
Dr. Belinski scribbled those last two lines on a notecard, then spoke again.
"Alright, Jack, go ahead and-"
"That's Dr. Bright, to you. We aren't that close yet."
"Apologies. Dr. Bright, please talk us through your procedures as you perform them. For the records."
Bright gently knelt beside the sleeping orange dome. In his hands were a plastic spoon, courtesy of the site's cafeteria, and a scalpel.
"So the plan is," Bright cleared his throat, "I will make a small incision in the membrane around 999, collect a spoonful of the orange stuff, and eat it. For some reason, O5 approves this despite it being so unprofessional, but apparently, I wasn't the only one that wanted to know what this fucker tastes like."
"And what is the goal of this experiment?" asked Dr. Belinski.
Bright chuckled. "I intend to prove that this little squish really does taste like tangerines, and not mandarins as Veridian and Andreas want us to believe."
"Right, and what is the plan for when this inevitably kills you?"
"Put the necklace on another D-Boy, I dunno. You guys always worry about me and I honestly don't know why."
"We just want to plan ahead, Doctor."
With that, Bright began making a small incision on the side of SCP-999. It seemed not to be disturbed. Bright then holds the spoon under the incision and catches a bit of the slime that seeps out before the wound closes itself up. He then turns back to Dr. Belinski.
"This is Jack Bright, preparing to eat some fuckin' Jell-O."
Bright stuck the spoon in his mouth and moved the small mass of 999 around with his tongue, making sure to get the full range of flavors. After a while, his mouth stopped moving and his eyes widened.
"Belinski…"
"Yes, Dr. Bright?"
"It's fucking delicious!"
"Any more specific descriptions for the record?"
"No, it's indescribable. Delicious is an understatement Belinski! This is the greatest taste I've ever tasted! And you know I've tasted a lot of tastes-ack-"
As Bright rambled on, the sample slid down his throat and caused him to gag. Both doctors fell silent and stared at each other. Belinski spoke first.
"Dr. Bright has, uh, swallowed the sample. He appears to be stunned but otherwise-"
Belinski is cut off by Bright erupting into a fit of laughter. Bright can be heard flailing against the floor, and SCP-999 is awoken by the sudden commotion.
SCP-999 squeals happily when it sees the amulet around Bright's neck. It reaches out to grab his hand and starts working it's way up his arm. it starts making a sharp squeaking sound similar to an old door hinge, seemingly mimicking Bright's laughter.
Bright is barely able to speak.
"God damnit! Not more- more- HA-! tickling!"
He returns to his fit of laughter, which is slightly muffled as Belinski turns away to close the report.
"This is Dr. Belinski, standing in for Dr. Bright as he is currently incapacitated. Bright successfully consumed a material sample from SCP-999, which seems to be tickling him from the inside, as expected. Descriptions of the flavor were lackluster at best, and since apparently, that was the whole point of this experiment, I'm declaring it a failure.
END LOG


Dear God, this cake is absolutely scrumptious. I really can't describe to you how good this cake is… but I'll try.
Before I was sent here, I was just some poor little kid in the jungle. I'm from a little village about twenty minutes out of Lelydorp. I lived with my mother, my two sisters and my little brother. We didn't have much room.
I'm not telling you this as some sort of sob story. Look at poor old me, grew up in the slums. I don't deserve to be locked up working for some shady company. I'm not looking for sympathy. I'm giving you some context.

Right now I'm eating what I've been told is Brooklyn blackout cake. The chocolate pudding is rich. The cake itself is so soft that it almost feels like it is melting in your mouth with every bite. There's a wonderful sweetness to this cake, but it isn't so sweet that it makes you sick to your stomach. A truly unique flavor. Decadent. Chocolaty. Moist. Perfection.
This is without a doubt, the best cake I've ever eaten.
I eat cake everyday. Just yesterday I had four cakes. A black forest cake for breakfast, a mooncake for lunch, angel food cake with blueberry sauce for dinner, and a red velvet cake right before being sent back to the dormitory. I've had an entire cake served to me for every single meal for the last fourteen years. Some of those cakes were absolutely delicious, others not so much.
Five years or so ago, I had something called a Smith Island cake. One of the researchers here, she was very excited about it. Said she was from the place where that kind of cake was invented. She took a slice of it before handing the rest to me. It was a deceptively simple cake. Thin little strips of yellow cake with fudge in between each layer. A healthy pour of fudge icing on top and some sprinkles for decoration. The icing was loose and dripped down, the cake ended up soaked in this wonderful flavor. Every bite was better than the last.
That cake was always the cake I liked the most. For years not a single cake lived up to that one. That changed this morning.

Must have been thirty five years ago when the war broke out in my end of the country. The government took out a bunch of dissidents. You had these armed resistance groups making attacks on military outposts as a form of retribution.
Rumor went around that our village was harboring some of those fighters. Wasn't true. Didn't matter.
One day I woke up to the sound of my mother screaming. I was young and dumb. Still a teenager. I thought that I'd run in and be her savior. Whatever it was, I could handle it. I was the man of the house. Nothing could stop me.
What I saw when I ran into the other room was a soldier using the butt of his rifle to beat my mother's face in. Her teeth were knocked out. Her eyes were bruised shut. She was screaming and crying in a puddle of blood.
The soldier looked up and saw me. I locked eyes with him for a split second. There was a deep anger in him, like he was a beast let off of his leash. I must have only been there for a moment, but I knew I'd remember that face forever.
I ran out the back door. I ran and I didn't look back. I ran until the gunshots were distant echoes and the smoke was just a little black cloud in front of the sunset. I never saw my mother again. I never found any of my siblings either. Lost, confused, distraught. Eventually I hit a road, which I followed west. I knew I'd reach the city eventually. When I got there, I found I was just one of thousands who had been through the same thing. Homes burnt down. Families missing. Alone and helpless. We all came seeking shelter.
The army men were there sorting people out. They were dressed the same as the man who I saw leering at my mother's bloodied face. They asked me where I came from, the name of my village, how long I'd lived there.
They must not have liked my answers. Within minutes I was in handcuffs.
The trial was a joke. Over and done with before I knew it. Life in prison for aiding insurgents. No chance to avoid it. I begged, I pleaded, I cried. Nothing could change my fate.

The first two years of prison were brutal. The next dozen or so were routine. That changed though, obviously. One day they asked if I'd like to work with some scientists. They promised better work conditions, warm showers, and good food. I said yes, mostly for the food.
First time eating here, I finished in seconds. It had been so long, I had forgotten what a warm meal was like. I had to fight back tears when I was done. I was using my spoon to get little bits of mashed potatoes off of my tray.
A man in a lab coat pointed at me. Next thing I knew, I was being escorted to another room. I asked the guard if I was in trouble. He told me that I was in luck. The room they lead me to had too many cakes for me to count. About two dozen men sat there, knives and forks in hand. Some of them cut the cake into slices and ate it piece by piece. Some of them just carved out chucks and shoveled them into their mouths. Others just ripped into the cake with their bare hands, licking their fingers between every grab. I felt a warmth. One I hadn't felt for a very long time.
The cake this morning probably isn't all that special. It's great. No chocolate lover like myself would ever complain. But the cake itself wasn't what makes this morning so delicious.

Three weeks ago they got a new group of prisoners in. I overheard a guard mention Suriname. As they're all settling into the dorms… I saw him.
That bastard. That fucking monster who took my family away. He was older now. His hair was gray. He was balding. Starting to wrinkle and shrink. But I never did forget that face. He didn't seem to notice me. He had already probably forgotten me. I was just one kid who ran away so many years ago. Nothing for him to bother remembering.
I sat in angry silence. He was so close, this horrible beast… Sleeping not twenty feet from me. I spent many nights thinking how easy it would be to walk right over and smother him with a pillow. Some nights I even stood up and thought about walking over, but I never did.
Late last night an alarm went off. This is not a common event. There's a feeling of dread and panic as the guards seemed to be missing. I ran off to the emergency shelter, as I was trained to do. This vile old man decides this is his chance to make a break for it. He knows there's a way out of the building. He could be out in the free world again in minutes. I watch him run in the other direction.
We're locked down for a good five hours. A guard limps over to let us out. He says some of us are going to be on clean up duty. Not twenty minutes later and I'm mopping the floor.
As I'm washing away the puddles of blood, I see his face one last time. Torso torn to pieces, missing an arm… I watch as he disappears into a body bag. Whatever killed him, I hope it was slow.
So here I am. Four hours of sleep, the stench of blood on my shoes, the sound of the siren still ringing in my ears.
Eating the best cake I've ever had.