“The moment I arrived at the venue, I felt an unusual sensation, something not experienced with any others I have met before—correction: that is, besides two.”

“Mind sharing, Mister Erickson? I wasn’t there for long.”

The heads mounted on the walls about the room started the two men down, watching from every angle. Geneses leaned back in the cushioned chair before the doctor and recalled the events. The office was quiet that morning, and the two sat across from one another with nothing but a low coffee table in between with a tape recorder placed upon it. Eye contact was simply unavoidable, causing Geneses to pry his eyes off of the spinning tapes. He shifted uncomfortably in his tweed blazer and flexed his hands on the arms of the oversized chair—the night before was the first time in months he had been in well-silly goose dress clothes.

Books encased the office and the foiling on their spines shimmered slightly in July’s morning sun. Atop every shelf was some sort of pelt or taxidermy prize. The early light faded to darkness as he recalled the event aloud with closed lids, blocking out the animals’ soulless stares. 

He had walked to the ballroom out of habit; the man hadn’t found eminent need of a car since he moved to the cities. The evening air was crisp and the warmth of the room was made known from the second he had pulled the large doors open. As he surveyed the ballroom he felt immediately unnerved, as his courteously late timing had caused him to be one of the last of the invited guests to arrive—the number of attendees, though small, was much larger than expected; about ten subjects were in the room, not including other persons and hosts as well. Before he had a chance to consider leaving, he was approached by a very forthright guest who stood awkwardly at seven feet, four inches taller than Geneses himself. 

“Hello!” he said warmly, gripping Geneses’ hand in a solid, three-pump handshake. 

“Good eve,” Geneses remarked awkwardly.

The stranger’s brown eyes were wide with excitement, much like a social dog pleased with new company. He was dressed similarly to Geneses and many of the other men in the room, sporting creased black slacks, white Oxford, and tie. His jacket had been abandoned at one of the tables lining the perimeter of the ballroom’s wooden flooring.

Geneses looked at the young man with his blue eyes and offered a weak smile, no matter how painful. He felt a sudden connection, as if they had met before upon eye contact with him. 

“I’m Derek. You’re Ewan Erickson, right? I’ve heard a lot about you from the professors here.”

“Geneses—call me Geneses, please.”

Derek looked at the floor. “Geneses?”

“Middle name.”

“Gladly. Come on, follow me,” he invited, walking toward the center of the room, filled with other tall figures.

Geneses followed closely next to him, lacking an independence of his own. “You said professors are here, correct? Who might those be?”

Derek stopped and pulled his fingers through his short-cropped brown hair. “You see the short ones?” he explained with a smile.



“The short ones?” the doctor verified.

“Shorter than the lot of us. No harm meant, surely, doctor.”

“Professor, please,” the old man requested.

“Gladly. —Then you made a toast as we took our seats at the tables.”

The professor rocked back at forth in his stationary seat a bit with ankle crossed over knee. “Yes, yes. Then my wife called a few minutes later and I had to leave.”

Geneses leaned in closely to the professor, causing shorter strands of his waist-long white hair to fall over his shoulder. “Surely you’re thankful that you did.”

“From what I heard, it was rather fascinating. I’d give anything to have been there.”

“Professor. There is always a moment where, when left unguarded, minds transcend reality and amble into the past, inescapable from the eternally diminishing scope of retrospect. Time moves forward, yet we drag our feet behind us. Should these things be public knowledge? Forgetfulness is one of man‘s most important defense mechanisms.”

“I can’t say I know what you’re on about, Mister Erickson.”

Geneses stood up and turned toward the door. Veering around again toward the man, he asked, “Have you spoken to Derek, yet?”

“No.”

“Maybe you should,” he said, approaching the door. “The story is more exciting from the others’ perspectives.”

The professor stood up and saw him out. “Thank you. Mister Erickson.”

“Gladly,” he replied, and the heavy door shut as he left the room.

The professor sighed in dismay at the man’s lack of compliance and rubbed his temple. “Derek Kennedy.”

It wasn’t before long until Geneses found himself upon the stone bench of the courtyard, face in palm. He squirmed out of his too-small blazer thinking all the while about his hatred for tweed. It was so old and stiff, something university tried to make him. Though knowledgeable, he was not wise. The man had no age—no experience in his 26 years—to even suggest such a thing. He couldn’t even be bothered to pretend to be any valuable source of information.

Geneses sensed someone sit next to him on the bench. “‘Sup, glow stick? Wild party last night!”

“Morrow, Kéran,” he droned in irritation.

The young boy next to him didn’t appear remotely affected by his sour attitude, so Geneses sat up and straightened his behavior. The two were vastly different—Geneses stood five inches superior and was seven years senior to the boy. Kéran’s dark skin contrasted Geneses’ pale complexion. His face was covered by the large shadow of the immense pile of messy black curls on his head. His dark eyes flecked with gold and blue peered forward.

“You know,” Kéran said, “I was free. Doc told me that they were done with me, man. Then all my damn plans were ruined last night when it all happened. Not like I had much plans back in the city. At least here we have food, housing—all that shit. But plans anyway, if you know what I mean.”

He looked down and fiddled with the fraying edges of his university sweatshirt’s wrist. The yellow light shone on his thumb rings and glinted a bit. The rooks rustled in the trees behind the two as Geneses took in what the boy had said.

“So they’re keeping you, as well, then.”

Kéran whipped his neck around and Geneses met his bewildered eye. “Dude. We was a rave back there. You know they ain’t playin’ when it comes to shit like that.”

“I suppose so. Did they keep everybody, though?”

“Nah,” Kéran spat absent-mindedly. “They let some of us go, the ones that wanted to, or whatever. Oh, and Korina, the colors chick. She didn’t really, you know, fit in. You saw, right, man?” He laughed briefly to himself. “Shawty all like, ‘Ahhh, what’s wrong witchuuu?’ Hilarious, bruh. She didn’t stick around for long, if you know what I mean.”

“I’m sure it was shocking, especially if she didn’t react the way we all did.”

“Know what’s funny, though,” Kéran started, “is that I’ve never felt so smart in my life. Kinda crazy, and I’m not sure if I liked it. I felt so brain dead afterward, like being hit by a bus.”

Geneses twiddled his thumbs. “I experienced fatigue afterward, also. The sensation was different for me, though. I felt like we were speaking without saying. I could look at someone and we wouldn’t have to say anything. I just knew. I’m not used to knowing without hearing.”

“I just ain’t know nothing. I kinda liked all the colors though.”

“I found that interesting, too. I wonder why we had different ones, though. I’ve heard of auras, but nothing like that before. I believe I’ve read that when certain bacteria congregates—”

“That shit on the bottom of my bath tub? I know!”

“—No,” Geneses said, suppressing a laugh.

Kéran stood up suddenly and said, “Well. Gotta go. Date with some fly chick on campus. You think she’s into people like us? I’m thinkin’ ‘bout a nickname: Glow Bro. It’s hot, right?”

“It’s confidential, right.”

“Yeah, can’t tell no one shit anymore. What about my mom? Mom cares,” he whined, dragging his feet.

“Your mother’s dead, Kéran.”

“Glow Bro knows, man,” he wryly cried from afar without looking behind him. Faking distress, he shouted, “Glow Bro knows!” loud enough for everyone in the courtyard to hear.

Geneses slouched in his seat. “Good riddance.”

“Good riddance.” That was exactly what she uttered the second Kéran left the shop after his first day of work. He was nothing short of unpleasant both in attitude and in presence. Geneses could remember clearly what she did afterward. Sighing, the woman locked the door behind Kéran and sidestepped to the left to drop the black metal shop window blinds shut. He sat quiescently on the couch pushed up against the adjacent wall and watched her pick up around the dim room. Buzzing over to the clothing racks, she rearranged the hangers by increasing size. Clutter was easily detected in the shop—the walls were white, the floors were black hardwood, and everything had a very particular place, as per Layla, the shop’s head employee who had already gone home.

Only when she was finished did she ask him, “Why didn’t I call the cops?”

He closed his book and cleared his throat. “You compassion reaches far beyond reason.”

“Thanks,” she sarcastically remarked, crossing her arms and walking out the back door of the shop. “Turn off the lights.”

He looked up over the rims of his rectangular frameless glasses at her back and nodded submissively, even though she could not see him.



“Good morning, Mister Erickson.”

“Good morrow.” 

Geneses found himself in Professor Langston’s office once more. He was more comfortable this time, sitting casually in the chair donning a grey v-neck tee with loose-silly goose jeans. The old man smiled brightly in the morning sun, warmly wrapped up in a black blazer. 

“Though it wasn’t much of my business, considering Robertson is the head of testing, Derek told me.” The professor laughed heartily and eyed Geneses. “Absolutely fascinating. Everything I’ve been hearing on break is right. You guys started began to luminesce?”

“I emitted blue.”

“Could you . . . show me?”

Geneses furrowed his brow. “I don’t think—I’m not—I can’t do it voluntarily. I’m near certain. From what I sensed, no one else had done it before, either.”

“Oh. I’ll probably stop by tomorrow’s tests.”

Geneses raised his eyebrows. “It’ll be intriguing if it happens again.”

Professor Langston glanced at the books sprawled across the table in front of him. “It will. It will.” 

“Don’t you have a class tomorrow?” Geneses inquired suddenly.

The professor picked up the cane that leaned up against his chair and shakily stood, pacing about the room. “Nah—no. It doesn’t interfere. I’ll come when I can.” He turned and looked from across the room at the younger man entrapped in the study, slouching over in his chair, studying his feet below him. “If you don’t mind me asking, Mister Erickson—why the long face?”

Geneses once spoke to a drunken man who had asked the same question. He was sitting much like he was in the study, but under the shelter of an enclosed bench at a bus stop in the middle of night. The rain poured down the sides of the glass panes and dripped onto his shoes from his sopping hair. People scooted over for him, afraid, but in simultaneous awe of his giraffe-like structure. Then someone courageously plopped down right next to him, shaking his head of all precipitation.

“Hey, man, why the long face?” 

He paused before opening up to the stranger. “Women.”

The middle-aged man seemed to sympathize, nodding along as he absorbed the ambiguous answer, bobbing his head along as he fished for a suitable reply. “Just do your thing. If it works, it works. If you’re puttin’ too much work to it without returns, trash it.” His necktie was adjusted loose and crookedly, so he dug his finger on the underside of it and swiftly silly goose it undone. He exhaled and filled the space in between them with the scent of alcohol.

Geneses forced his neck to twist his face toward the man. “I presume you’ve similar complications.”

“Ha. Yeah. But not anymore. It’s a word to live by, I’m tellin’ ya.” The man slouched back, letting his short brown hair drip down the glass behind him. “Yes, yes,” he slurred. “Some great case, this love, yeah? Not a person on the world that know why. . . .”

Some part of Geneses knew that the intoxicated man had nothing to offer him, yet another part of him thought he had a point: if it works, it works. He looked out at the flashing lights of the bus and tried to disregard the problematic shopping trip he went on earlier that day . Even if he did manage to find anything wearable for a date that evening with the gum-smacking retail employee, the girl of his dreams was far out of his league, anyway. He stepped onto the bus and rode silently home, calculating his odds at even a shot at love. He didn’t know what he was doing or how it would work, and after a few minutes of trivial planning, it had seemed as though it was he that had had the drink, not the man at the bus stop.



Leaves outside rustled among landing rooks, and he longed to be there by them, even if for a mere moment. Where was he? Home? The books surrounded the two men, imposing. Was, then, the avian beyond the condemned to freedom, conversely, unlike him? An eye for an eye, he thought, peering at it harshly with blue-bathed pupils.

“I apologize for being too forthright.”

Geneses myoclonically silly goose. “No, I apologize myself.” Pausing, he gathered his thoughts and adjusted his glasses. “Have you ever just felt out of place with yourself? Removed from your body like a spectator upon your own life?”

“Do I?” the professor crowed, ceasing his steps. “Every single day. But you can watch the world race by and stand in a static trance or choose to be once again dynamic.”

“This is true,” Geneses mused, stroking his bare face, then continuing on to clutch his throat momentarily in meditation. Fluttering his white-lashed eyelids, he blinked away the memories of his past life and attempted to place himself in the current. Today he was to participate in a skill test. Then he was to have lunch, probably back at his dorm, much like every day. Afterward, he would be under sharp eye, yet again. Not once had he broke this pattern since he had been at the university.

The doctor leaned against the back of his unoccupied chair and looked levelly into Geneses’ eyes. “When do you test next?”

He stood up. “In ten minutes.”

“Ah, then so I will see you off,” Professor Langston murmured halfway to himself. He turned off the tape recorder on the coffee table, then ambled over to the large wooden door and opened it.

“Thank you,” Geneses said, walking though it.

The test was rather informal this time, and it was held in the campus library. The overseer of the test was a man in his twenties by the name of Stein. He was a student at the university’s labs and wanted to have a private meeting that afternoon without the doctors as overseers and “just talk,” as he put it. 

Geneses walked into the library and scanned the room. In the center of it swung an immense pendulum suspended from the ceiling with a pointed weight which drew patterns in the pile of sand below it. On the left of it was the checkout desk and lining the walls to the right were study cubicles. Stein said that he would meet Geneses at the table closest to the checkout desk beyond the pendulum. He had located the table almost immediately, but Stein was not to be seen, and instead a tall female sat in what would have been his place. She was blonde and thickly built, drumming her left hand along the table and doodling in a notebook with the other. She was nothing like the stubble-faced, raven-haired Stein, so Geneses snooped around the area, searching for the student. He glanced back at the table they were supposed to meet at and accidentally made eye contact with the mysterious girl.

Her eyes lit up and she waved vigorously, motioning for him to come over to the table. He looked about him to verify that her gestures were directed at him. Everyone around was wrapped up in their studies, and the only person even remotely near him was a ragged-looking guy with a black afro and a fedora. Much to Geneses’ dismay, the only person she could be referring to would be him. But why? He looked back to her for verification and she nodded. Timidly taking his seat in front of her, he pointedly slouched over and glared at her. 

“Hi!” she whispered.

He chewed his lip and knitted his brows together, thinking about how cold he was in the library’s strong draft from the ceiling fans, rather than who was sitting right in front of his face.

“I said hi?” she shrieked again under her breath.

He snarled his lip and grunted.

“I’m from the party, remember? Alicia.” She smiled amiably and smoothed out her blue sweater.

“Yeah—no.”

Taken aback, she paused a moment before attempting to push conversation a little further. “Oh. Okay. You’re Ewan, right?”

He rolled his eyes. “Mmhmm.”

She nodded to herself with downcast eyes. “I’ve . . . Heard a lot about you. I’m sure you, uh, hear a lot, too?”

He glanced sideways. “Some things willingly, others not.” He exhaled. “Who are you, anyhow?”

“Franklin didn’t tell you, did he,” she mused, biting her lip. “It seems to him like we have similar skills, and he wanted us not only to talk with him, but to each other. He’s coming later, he said.”

“Stein, you mean? Fantastic.”

“You’re such a cynic, you know, Ewan. Lighten up a bit!”

He leaned in so close to her that he could smell the fading mouthwash in her bitter breath. Through a dark, hushed growl, he peered through his glasses and said, “Someone I know once said that to me—‘You’re such a cynic.’ Curious, also, because I was in a similar mood to mine now. From this one can derive that you don’t have to know me well to peg me as one.”

Alicia’s eyes narrowed as she, too, bent closer to him. Boring into his eyes with her rust-spotted green eyes, she held her position for a few seconds. Then leaning out again, she concluded, “You knew her well.”

“Perhaps.”

“What you know I know; don’t bother faking things, Ewan.”

Geneses silly goose backward and clutched his heart. “Such hostility!” he cried too loudly, earning glares and chastisements from students and librarians.

“Shh.”

“Kind, wise exhortations,” he spit sardonically. “It seems to me that I, though, do not know what you know.”

Alicia rubbed her temples with her thumb and index. “She was good to you, and you know it,” she said airily She peeked out from her hand and grinned.

“Oh, don’t feel satisfied, you quackish medium.” He crossed his arms and closed his eyes. “General statements,” he said under his breath.

“You remember it just like yesterday, and you’re recalling it now. You squeezed yourself into her tiny, beat-up car, already angry at the line. The post office line.” He jaw flexed as she thought intently, and she ran her hand through her short, flaxen hair. “It was rainy, and much like you are now with the sculptures atop the book casing, you were intent on ignoring her and instead concentrated on the squeaking windshield wipers.”

Geneses cringed then shivered in his tee shirt. “Hideous sound.”

Alicia flashed a smug grin and doodled her notebook. “Convinced now, birthday boy?”

He rubbed his throat. “Ugh, fine. What’s your agenda.”

“I was going to tell you that I’m no medium. As I was saying, if you try to see into other people like us, you can sometimes pick up on what they’re thinking. All you have to do is calm down and concentrate on understanding. It’s harder to do when there aren’t as many people around. But there’s a stronger link between people who have similar abilities, like us.”

“You’re cursed with remembering?”

“Every last thing I hear, just as yourself,” she said with a disturbingly blithe, lilted voice. “You’re a little distracted with this girl, aren’t you?”

“Presumably,” he sighed.

She silly goose her head to the side. “Do you—mind? Telling me about her?”

“That is a rather private subject—hey. Wait. Stop. Don’t try to read me like that.” He furrowed his brows and blanked out his mind.

“So you’ve caught on. Congrats.” She flung her hands into the air. “I can’t read anything from you. But I’d just really like to know—”

Geneses stood up. “What is this? Who are you, and why should you know so much about me? Tell Stein that he’s insane for putting me in the same room as you.”

“Hey, hey, hey—!” The man with the black afro flung off his hat and wig. “Geneses! Hey, Erickson!”

Geneses whipped his head around. “Stein—? Who is this? What am I—? Never mind.” He turned around and started walking out of the library.

  “Wait, wait, come back! Calm down, Erickson! That was great, guys!” Stein exclaimed, bounding after Geneses. 

“Forget it, Stein,” Geneses said, exiting the library. He stopped right outside of the door and leaned down a foot to the man’s level. “Only under supervision from Doctor Robertson from now on.”

Stein gave him a weary look and sighed deeply. “I’m totally sorry, man.”

Geneses gripped the wall next to him as a dizzying sensation overcame him. He remembered the day more vividly than any other. While he walking down the street on his way to his apartment after work, she was on her way back home from a wedding at the chapel. She was dressed carefully in tailored monochrome pieces, but he was donned plainly in black slacks, a white button-up, and a black vest—a typical busboy uniform. She had a brisk walk; he strode slowly. As she passed, her black lace parasol struck the side of his face, causing him to drop a notebook in his hands into a puddle at his feet.

Geneses smiled as he remembered her eyes. They were black, but wide and genuinely shocked as she quickly ducked down and brushed hands with his—beating him to the notebook. The ink letters had already began to smear and bleed, and she apologized with raw sincerity. Awkward as the situation was, he had never interacted with anyone that was as believably remorseful as she. Her hand let go of the limp pad of paper as he took it from her.

“I’m totally sorry, man,” she said again. “This looks super important to you and—”

“It’s fine,” he dishonestly told her on that overcast evening in the city, offering a weak smile. At first, he was absolutely devastated that five months’ work of lunch break poetry was potentially gone forever in that puddle, but her whole attitude toward the incident (and breathtaking looks) shifted his mood dramatically. “Really.”

She dispensed a business card from a pocket of her white trench coat—DIAMONDBACK DESIGNS, the same one she used through now. “I’m Diandah. What can I do to make this up to you?” she asked.

“Ewan,” he said, taking the card from her, slightly becoming embarrassed over the fact that he himself didn’t have a business card.



Not knowing what else to do, he told Stein the same thing he told her, but with a taste of spitefulness: “Uh, have no obligation. Seriously.”

And he made an engagement for coffee with the student, just as with her.

Geneses hated coffee.

“Thanks, bro,” Stein said, reentering the library to meet with Alicia.

Geneses pulled his snowy hair over his shoulder and slid his back down the wall until he was sitting on the floor of the hall in front of the library’s entrance. He groaned and knocked the back of his head up against the wall behind him. Pretending to care was much more difficult than being his callous, old self, and he had no idea regarding why he even bothered anymore.

“You know,” Kéran babbled, rolling over in his bed that evening, “that you’re gonna have to stop being an asshole and start being nice to people.”

Geneses slumped over in his own bed, opposite to Kéran’s, and continued writing on his pad of paper. “Not. Worth. My time,” Geneses hummed aloud in a sing-song voice.

Kéran sat up and scratched his bare chest. “I mean, I’m a silly goose. But you are on a whole ‘nother level of ass.”

“Should I entertain you and act like this is the first time I’ve heard this speech?” Geneses asked, wagging his wooden oblique pen in the air.

“Whatever.” Kéran laid flat on his back and stared at the blank ceiling with his mouth gaped wide open and emitted a long, throaty note until he ran out of air.

Geneses ignored it and dipped his pen into the bottle of ink clutched in his left hand and continued to write his poem. “Coffee, coffee—nothing rhymes with coffee?”

“Gothy.”

Tightening the elastic in his hair, he replied, “Goth-y? Frothy, yes. Wait. No, that won’t work; it sounds terrible. But no, gothy isn’t a word.”

“Remember that crazy guy that came to the shop when you and Di were there?”

“Haaa, which one?”

“That freaky one that Di knew. Twinkletoes.”

“Arba? Oh, yes.” Geneses rather enjoyed remembering the man, because he seemed to have an unusual control over Diandah that others didn’t. Setting his pen down again, he said, “He scared the crap out of me when she and I came into the shop.”

“Wait.” Kéran shook his head and faced Geneses again. “He was in there without you guys?”

“You and the lovely Layla didn’t lock the shop doors when you left. So I assumed he just walked right in and plopped him and his weird turkey self right down.”

“Shit, sorry about that.”

“It’s too late to bother with that anyway. When did that happen, anyway? May? Oh, yes, yes, he said it just like this: ‘Don’t waste words, Diandah; I came through the front door. I figured you’d be down soon after the girl and that ragamuffin left, so I made myself comfortable.’”

Kéran cracked up with laughter and had to stop and catch his breath. “Wait, wait, no. It was like this.” He cleared his throat and imitated Arba with the quote in a silly goose, nasally voice. “‘And who’s the Gothic nightmare?’ he said to me. Man, that guy had to have been smokin’ crack. Remember what he was wearing? That weird hat with the big-ass feather in it?”

Geneses sat up more attentively and laughed. “Oh, yeah, the red fez with the quail feather? He had the khaki-colored riding pants, too, with some over-the-top scarf. He was just so fey—I can’t really pinpoint it.”

“Man, he was just so silly goose!”

“You think so?”

“Are you deaf, blind, and stupid? Yes.”

“Di told me he was asexual, but I‘m not one to say.”

“Yeah, whatever, bruh. He was weird, and that’s all I have to say about that,” Kéran added, still laughing. “Man, we gotta get out of here. Those were good times.”

Geneses picked at his nails. “I can’t say that we can literally afford to, though, Kéran.”

“Bullshit, we could make it. We a place to stay. We got clothes on our backs now, and if we find jobs that have to do with food, man, we got food set, too.”

Geneses glanced at his watch. “It’s fifteen to seven.”

“And it‘s starting to get dark out, anyway. Are you sure you don’t want a flashlight, headlamp, . . glow stick?” Kéran grinned as wide as he could without hurting himself.

“No, no, no.”

“Well, I have a coffee date, too!” he cried, springing up and wading across the sea of clothes in between them.

Geneses looked up and raised an eyebrow at Kéran’s kneecap in his face. “Get a shirt on, idiot.”

“Done! Done!” He bent over and pulled a black tee shirt balled up on the floor and flung it over his head. “You come on, now, asshole,” he urged, facing the door.

Geneses placed the inkwell and oblique pen on the windowsill next to his bed. And stood up, sighing. “Done. Done.”

Kéran grabbed a zip-up hoodie from a hook next to the door and put it on. “Let’s go, man. Seven, right?”

“Yes,” Geneses said, walking past Kéran and opening the door himself.

Walking under the lower-clearance hall lights hanging above them, the two’s heads blocked out the light emitting from each one they passed. The dormitory reminded Kéran of a hotel that someone he knew once lived it. But it was more busy, more smelly, and had more people than Geneses cared for. They opened the door to the stairs and bounced down each step as they went. Three floors later, they were outside in the near-darkness. 

Kéran flipped his hood up as they walked down the path. “Shit, man, what are you gonna say?”

Geneses scratched his itchy short-sleeved arms shocked by the cool air and let his hair down to keep the chill off his neck. “I’m not sure. I can think on my feet, though. I’ve heard all of Di’s apologetic soaps that she watches in the morning. ‘Oh, Stein, I didn’t mean it! I’ve just been so stressed! You would understand, wouldn’t you?’”

Kéran cackled. “Yeah—no.”

They walked by a fountain and avoided the drama students rehearsing their lines dramatically upon benches. They were so absorbed with their rehearsal, they didn’t notice the raven and the heron pass anyway. “Please!” one screamed, “You don’t know!”

“Oh, I know,” Geneses said aloud to himself.

Kéran waggled his fingers in a display of over-exaggerated jazz hands. “The freaks come out at night!” he howled.

“And we’re no different?”

“Oh, come on, you know Glow Bro’s fly.”

Geneses stopped walking and let Kéran continue on. Once the boy noticed he was alone, he swiveled around and said, “What?”

He began walking again. “You are. Delusional.”

Kéran walked over to the side of the path and put his hand on the handle of a door. “We’ll see who’s crazy after this.”

Geneses stopped in front of the door.

“Ladies first,” Kéran insisted, “and seriously I can’t stand here all day.”

“What makes you think that I wouldn’t have you do that.”

“Get your ass in there.”

Geneses walked through, realizing that he was early. He owed nothing to anybody being early, and irritated, he sat at the nearest two-chair table. Kéran glided by and too the seat across from Geneses at the tiny square stand. “You got any money?” he asked.

Geneses furrowed his brow and drummed his fingers on the table. “No. And what are you doing, sitting here? I know you lied about having coffee with someone else, but do you mind?”

Kéran looked around the yellow-lit venue with people walking around it. “Glow Bro’ll find some hot chick, and he’ll get back to you later.”

“I hope Kéran has fun, then,” Geneses sarcastically remarked. “Get me some water, while you’re at it.”

Kéran scrunched up his face and mocked the man, then turned around to a center island with cups of water on it. He took two of the cups and brought them over to the table. Setting one before Geneses, he said, “There,” and plopped down at the chair once again.

Geneses rubbed his throat and said, “It’s a little quiet around here.”

“It’s Friday, so the music doesn’t start until seven-thirty.” Kéran slurped from the paper cup loudly while examining the room behind him. “Yeah, the dudes last week were pretty shitty. Someone gotta do some sort of shit-check before some of these people get up front.”

“Maybe it’ll be quiet,” Geneses mused, swishing the water in his cup from side to side. “I don’t like it when it’s crowded.”

Kéran rolled his eyes and opened them wide, tapping the base of his emptied cup on the table. “I. Know. Everyone does.”

“Little do you know, young one,” Geneses hissed, “that my first social with Diandah was in a painfully crowded place.”

Kéran cleared his throat and spoke in a comically low voice, “Oh, really, now, son.”

“Yes, really. We were to meet at seven. I came early, because I had nothing better to do after work. Chance I did, too, because it was very busy that night. It was First Friday on the block. I was a little distracted with staring at the multicolored mosaic on the tables at the place, so it startled me when her soft voice said my name.”

“Woah, she called you Gen straight off? Dude, nice.”

“No, she said Ewan.”

Kéran leaned back flung the hood off his head, exposing the messy pile of hair upon it. “Damn. I was hoping for a good story here.”

“I’m no compelling storyteller. You should know that by now. She didn’t know about my abilities, so I remember sitting there looking up at her and pretending to remember her name. I said, ‘Diandah, right?’ Di thought it was amazing that I could remember. I laughed and passed it off as ‘good memory’—if she had only known then what she knows now.”

“Did she have the crazy hair?”

“She had the same hair she had when we left—severe fringe with black streaks. White hair with a black underside. Mid-back. Her skin looked different in that light, though. It’s usually that grulla color, but it looked warmer. Different.”

“You’re delusional,” Kéran whispered. “And desperate, too.”

“Nostalgia almost killed me once.”

“We had it good.”

Geneses looked down and agreed with Kéran, but reexamined his words once they came out. Problems became more frequent the longer he lived in her apartment, and their last few weeks together were less than pleasing. “Attend this,” he lobbied. “It was not within my intentions for this situation to become what it has.”

“What kind of sadistic child grows up and wants things like this?!” she shouted at him through her tears.

He tried to grab her arms by the black watch cuffs she wore to hide her bony wrists, but she only tore away. “I—I’m not sure,” he quietly admitted as she turned around to her room and slammed the door. Geneses heard an aggressive blow on the wood once she was inside.

“Your mother’s,” she yelled into the wall.

Geneses opened his mouth to yell right back at her, but he then remembered the presence of neighboring apartment units. He paced around the room, unbuttoning his shirt as he went along. His feet stopped at the dirty window and frowned at the people walking on the street down below under lamplight, air-splitting neon, and the cut of fire—the burn at the end of a cigarette that accepts the lungs’ invitation to pave airways with black like the sky above them. They saw a firmament intruded by the dark grey exhalation of smoke and the incandescent cut-outs of lit windows. In one of these stood a man looking down with disapproving eyes who was thinking about the four-thousand chemicals in their tracheae. They laughed incessantly, paying no mind—who are they to think about an uninviting stranger?

Nobody.

He forcefully clattered the metal blinds shut. Nobody knew—nobody had to.



Geneses looked at Kéran and silly goose his head back—Stein was sitting before him and Kéran was gone.

“Ewan,” he said warmly, just as she had.

Eternal return had cursed him and paralyzed his thoughts.

A low screech sounded next to them; Kéran was dragging up a chair to the table, though he barely fit. He smiled the same dorky smile that he often gave Geneses.

Stein glared at the boy and scratched his hairy chin. “Karen, what are you doing here?”

“Kay-rawn,” he clipped. He straightened up and offered Stein his hand. “Nice to meet you tonight.”

“I already know you.”

“Yes, but these is different circum—cir—circus—”

“Circumstances,” Geneses assisted.

Kéran blinked. “Yeah. Those. Y’see, Stein, I’m his agent.”

Stein raised an eyebrow toward Geneses. 

The man could only shrug his shoulders, as he had no idea what Kéran was doing, either. “I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but my friend here is socially retarded.” 

Stein’s eyes drooped, but his hand twitched as it wrapped around the disposable coffee cup he had gotten. “You seem to lack any form of self-awareness.”

Geneses leaned forward. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

“Your lack of compliance in the past couple session has interfered greatly with the department’s research. If you don’t fix things, you will most likely experience a dramatic breach in privacy.”

“Oh, as if it hasn’t already begun—the recorder in your shirt pocket?”

Stein dug into his plaid flannel’s front pocket and set the recorder on the table between the three. “There.”

The background noises grabbed hold of Geneses’ attention. People chattered, moved about. The coffee machines hissed, filling cups with froth. 

“So, I suppose I just stopped by to tell you that it’s in your best interest to show to the test tomorrow. I also think that you should continue to talk to Alicia. She’s a good person, and I think that she can help you overcome your disorders.”

Disorders? So much for frothy conversation.

Kéran popped the top off of his coffee cup and felt the steam rise onto his face. He stuck his tongue out and ducked his head to taste it. He silly goose back, spilling some of the hot liquid onto his lap. “Ah, shit!” He set the sup on the table and blotted his baggy jeans with napkins.

Stein looked at his watch. “Right, so I have a project meeting in a few minutes. I just thought I would swing in and have a small chat, even though I couldn’t stay for very long.” He stood up and shook Geneses’ hand. “Thanks, Erickson.”

“That’s Geneses to you!” Kéran shouted after him.

Stein continued on to walk out the door without looking behind him.

Geneses looked back at Kéran, who had the coffee in both hands again and was flicking his tongue out at it. “Where did you find that.”

Kéran laughed nervously. “I found a pretty lady?” He looked behind him and waved to someone across the room. He stared at the coffee and scrunched up his face murmuring quietly to himself. “Eight ounces . . . Two-hundred twenny—five grams? Two twenny-five? Twenny-six. Poin’ eight? Half pound.”

Feedback sounded from a microphone up front. Someone held the microphone and kicked stray electronic wires at their feet. “Hello, and good evening, everyone!”

“Ah, shit, man. Let’s go.”

Kéran stood up with his coffee and walked toward the door with Geneses.

Geneses glanced at the cup. “Give me that.”

“Try it. It’s—hey!”

Geneses tossed the cup in a nearby garbage can and proceeded to hold the door open for Kéran. “Ladies first—and remember, I don’t have all day.”

“Nuunuh nuh—rah nuhna, nuuurgh,” Kéran mocked, opening the other door next to Geneses by himself, glaring.

The walk back to the dorm room was less interesting than the way there—all of the performers and practicers were making their way opposite of the duo, traveling toward the coffee shop for the entertainment. The dorm complex itself was quieter and less populated, which was appreciated on Geneses’ end.

As soon as Kéran opened the door, he flung off his clothes onto the floor and began to put his pajama pants on. Geneses did the same and crawled into bed early, turning on the lamp and drawing his attention to a book. 

“Bahaahaaa!” Kéran yelled as he jumped into bed. He laughed to himself and stared at the ceiling. “Hello, ladies and gentlemen,” he chattered in a radio announcer voice, “welcome to Club Bed with your mad man on mike, Glow Bro, featuring MC Snore a Lot. DJ Pillow’s gonna throw down the fresh beats with comforter on security, bruh.”

Geneses looked over at the boy and just laughed, then continued to murmur the words of his book aloud.

“Dude, stop that shiiit,” Kéran moaned.

“Club Bed stops for no one, even crazy white guys?”

He turned in his bed, gripping his comforter tightly. “You know that’s right. Stay fresh, be fly—stuntastic. I’m out.”

Geneses, unable to focus, shook his head with a smile and turned out the light.



“Shit—! Shit—! Shiiit—!”

Geneses silly goose from his sleep and opened his eyes. She shook his head and tried to open his eyes again. The outcome was again the same and he couldn’t see anything. It was still night and it was too dark to see anything. He turned his head toward where Kéran’s voice sounded.

“Oh. Kéran, what the—?”

“Dude, look at you, too!”

Geneses sat up in bed and looked down at himself. Blue tapering lines spiraled around his arms. Kéran’s body was indistinguishable in the dark, aside from the linear designs running across his collar bones and trunk like a circuit board. Two lines ran down his chin and dots were scattered about his shoulders and face. 

“Shit, it’s all over!” Kéran looked at the lines encircling his wrists and ankles.

Geneses got up and walked to the mirror hanging on the wall. His lower eyelid was illuminated in blue and seven dots curved up each of his zygomatic bones. “I need my glasses.”

He went over to the windowsill, put on his glasses, and returned to the mirror, standing by Kéran. A double-u shaped line hugged his clavicles. He noted a large circle of blue on his hip. He pulled the elastic of his night pants away from his hip and noted the dots running down the sides of his thighs. He walked over to the door and flipped on the light switch next to it. He looked in the mirror again at his face. The glow seemed more faint in the light, but his eyes were black like space. Kéran’s eyes were the same. Geneses rubbed his neck and crawled back in bed.

“Geneses, what are you doing?”

“Going back to bed.”

“How can you do that at a time like this?”

“Willpower. And a lack of anything better to do.”

Kéran huffed and turned off the light, crawling into bed just the same. He couldn’t sleep, though, so he bided his time by tracing the lines on his arms and wishing them away.

The morning came quickly for Geneses, and the morning light seeped through the blinds, coaxing him awake. When his eyes opened, he saw Kéran seated, hunched over on his bed. He had a pair of black skinny jeans and thick socks on. His hood was flipped up and underneath the body of his hoodie he had a white button-up shirt with the collar popped over his neck. “I can’t look at myself,” he whispered.

Geneses raised his arm for Kéran to see. “Look. It’s gone. You don’t have to worry.”

“I haven’t slept, man. Comforter was on security, but I guess he didn’t know how to bounce this one.”

Geneses yawned and rubbed his eyes. “How did you find out about the luminance, anyway?”

“I got up to take a silly goose, right. That mirror right there scared the shit out of me when I saw it. And yeah. No sleep since then, right. I counted the lines. Twenny-six.”

Geneses crawled out of bed and gathered his white-button-up shirt and vest from the closet. He rolled up the sleeves and rationalized his thoughts. There was no need to panic, because the department testing was today. He would ask Doctor Robertson about it and things would be fine. Kéran remained put on the bed.

“It smells terrible in here.”

“The stuff that smells like shit? It’s been like that all night.” 

He grabbed his toiletry bag and walked toward the door. “I’m going to take a shower. I’ll see you back here or at the lab. Whichever.”

Kéran fell over on the bed and murmured to himself, “Twenny-six lines. Eight dots. Two twenny-six poin’ eight grams. Half a pound.”



The lab was brightly lit with fluorescent lights, and luckily it had high clearance for the taller ones, such as Derek. Kéran entered the room and counted the people—eleven subjects and himself, two doctors, three students. He was the last one to show up. That was new, especially when Geneses was concerned. He rocked back and forth on his heels and shuffled the soles of his wingtip shoes on the floor when he walked forward again. It took thirty-three steps to get to where the rest of where the group was standing.

Geneses looked over at the boy walking toward him and noted that he was wearing the same thing that he was wearing earlier that morning, except with his hood down and collar folded back into place. He put his face into his palm and listened to the cognitive sounds of his company’s communication. No one said anything; it was all mental. He guarded his mind from anyone’s access, seeing as no one needed to know what he held inside.

Kéran stumbled over and took an open seat at a stool. Rubbing his eyes, he moaned as his wrist lit up in a blue glow. The bright lights in the room washed out the glow on most, especially the pale Geneses, but on dark-skinned Kéran it was very apparent.

“It smells like shit in here,” he commented.

“You should go back to he dorm and get some sleep,” Geneses whispered.

Other people with soft glowing designs on their skin began to chatter aloud, which gave the two more freedom to talk.

“I’m your agent, man. Club Bed can wait,” he blathered.

Geneses stood up. “Come with me.” Facing the rest of the group, he said, “We’ll be back shortly.”

Escorting Kéran out the door, Geneses looked around for a place to sit. Finding none, he continued walking and the two found themselves outside.

“Where are we going?”

Geneses swallowed. “I was going to say the dorm, but I changed my mind. We’re leaving.”

“We’re leaving?!” Kéran said as enthused as he could muster from his tiredness.

“Yes, but we have to go talk to someone first, if that’s okay.”

Kéran followed Geneses back into the building. “Alright, but make it fast. I’m dying here.”

The two knocked on the cracked door of Professor Langston’s office and invited themselves in.

“Ah, Mister Erickson,” the old man remarked, setting a book labeled Vibrio fischeri down on his desk. He ambled over to his seat in the large chair, and Kéran took a seat as well. Geneses leaned on the back of Kéran‘s chair and cleared his throat. No recorder was on this time.

“We’re not doing the project anymore.”

“Really, now, Mister Erickson? And your friend, too, um . . ?”

Kéran straightened his posture. “Kéran. Sullivan.”

“Mister Sullivan, too?”

“Yup,” Kéran said.

The professor crossed his legs. “Testing is right now. I was going to stop in later, but it seems that I no longer have to. What made you decide this?”

“I experienced a lot of stress. I don’t think that my knowledge is something of the other nine’s business. The constant monitoring was also a little overwhelming. The pheromones sprayed in the dorm room last night was the final deciding factor.”

“I told Stein and his partners not to spray that. It smelled terrible—did it work?”

Kéran burst out of his fatigued shell, “silly goose yes, it did.”

“I support whatever decision you feel is right, then, young men.” The professor stood to his feet and walked around with his cane. “What I I told you that I am no longer an educator here?”

Geneses shifted his stance. “I’d tell you that I already knew. Your last lecture was yesterday.”

The professor opened the door. “I got the ball rolling. Come along with it.”

Triumphant by nature, Kéran felt wonderful stepping onto the bus departing from the campus with his duffel bag by his side. It was quite similar to his days in the city where he responded to no authority and took every opportunity available to “stick it to the man,” as he put it. Geneses was more wary about his spontaneous decision, as both he and Kéran had only duffel bags on their laps and the rest of their allowance for the month in their pockets—nothing was waiting for them when they got back under the shadows of skyscrapers, but the comforting feeling of being smaller than something. Maybe if his problems, too, were smaller, fixing them would be a far more digestible undertaking.

The grass on the other side of the dirty window changed from green to brown to gone, and the sky faded to the smoky grey of civilization’s exhale. He watched the dotted white lines in the center of the road flicker as the bus sped down the road. The flickering slowed as the bus got choked in a bottleneck entering the city. He watched the sun began to set and its fiery light reflected on the windows of the tall buildings and exhaled.

“Welcome back to silly goose,” Geneses said to himself, looking out the window.

Kéran said nothing in reply, but instead snored a little and lulled his head to the side as the bus turned in an intersection and stopped for passengers to get out. As the handful of people filed out and others climbed on, Geneses reconsidered his true motive for leaving the university. Of course he didn’t appreciate being swabbed, probed, tested, and interrogated. But furthermore, he felt a strange longing to be here in the city where anonymity is not only attainable, but standard. No astonished looks from campus mates were given here. No “Hey, you’re that one guy—Ewan, right?” would be heard on any of the streets. Finally, though—and most importantly—he knew that one person was waiting for him in this swirling cloud of disregard that would gladly take both he and Kéran back, which would give him a chance to finally tell her how he felt.

Her shadowy imprint in his memory would finally cease its torment.

Nesting upon that thought, he decided where he would get off the bus once and for all. The night had fallen and blanketed the sky, but he could still find his destination very well. About twenty minutes later, he nudged Kéran out of his heavy sleep. “This is our stop. Gather your things.”

Kéran gripped the handle of his bag and stumbled off the bus. Once his feet hit the sidewalk and his wrists felt the chill in the air, he felt a sudden wakefulness that he didn’t have earlier. “Shit, where are we?”

“Four blocks away from where we need to be,” Geneses said, looking around at the bright neon lights and taking in the loud noises around him.

“Yeah, man, just hurry up,” Kéran demanded, zipping up his hoodie.

Geneses picked lint off of his pea coat. “Gladly.”

With these words, their bags, and nothing else, the two set off in search of solace. It was good to be back to the city again. The sound of the tires rolling against the pavement and the honking dialogue of cabs on the road was soothing to Geneses. He couldn’t hear himself breathe; he couldn’t hear himself think. His life of tedious, yet indulgent academia had been severed. He may never touch a book again, but it was debatably worth the sacrifice.

“We goin’ to her pad, Gen?”

Geneses stopped in his tracks and reoriented himself. “Yes.”

Kéran scratched his head under the hood of his jacket. “Right, so this is where we are.”

Geneses turned his head to the shop and approached the glass. He pressed his palms against it and looked inside. The blinds were not shut, and the room was completely empty. On the door of the shop was a sign that said HAUS DE ARBA, COMING SOON. The nonsensical jumble of languages was iconic. Geneses dug into his pocket and withdrew his wallet. He opened it, withdrawing a colorful card with flourishing text: HAUS DE ARBA.

“Andreas Viola,” Geneses read off the card that displayed the matching logo. “That can only be one—videlicet, Arba.”

Kéran ambled up to the door and stared at the words. “Boy ain’t playin’ no shit. Three months ago, he came up in here—now look.”

“Interesting circumstance.” Geneses felt his heart plummet. Diandah was a fashion designer, and her only income was from that very shop. She was very charming and worked well with people, so he was certain that she had found another job.

Kéran snooped around the alleyway. “Let’s out back, man.”

Geneses led Kéran through the back alleyway and behind the building to the stairs. Opening the door, he strode past the landlord’s office and to an indoor set of stairs at the end of the short hall. The third floor was a very short distance away. He approached her door with a quiet foot, being careful not to clomp up the stairs. Kéran followed shortly after him, running up the wooden stairs and making every sort of noise possible without opening his mouth. Geneses glared at him and softly knocked on the door. Three times, Kéran counted.

No one answered. He knocked more vigorously five times. He sighed and figured she was asleep, reaching into his pocket. He drew the key and tried the door. It swung open.

“Sup, Di? We crashin’ here, okay?” Kéran yelled into the apartment.

But no one was there. It, too, was like the shop and completely empty.

Kéran moved his eyes around and dropped his duffel bag on the floor. “What the silly goose, man.”

Geneses set his duffel bag on the floor and shook his head in disbelief. “I don’t know, Kéran. I really don’t know.”

“We ain’t got no place to stay,” Kéran stated, crouching down. “We should stay here.”

“That’s illegal,” Geneses rebutted, remaining standing.

Kéran looked up several feet at Geneses’ head. “How long you been grey?”

Geneses turned around and locked the door. The man walked past the kitchen and back to the center of the room, looked down at him, and slowly sat down on the floor. “What do you mean?”

Kéran fell over and sat in the middle of the scuffed hardwood floor, leaning against his bag. “How long has your hair been all white like that?”

“I started graying in high school. I was platinum blond, anyway, so I just let it go. I’ve always had long hair, though.” He thought about Diandah’s black and white hair, longing to touch it.

“Huh,” Kéran mused. “You ever think you got like that because you give too much shit about everything? You’re so uptight, and one day you’re just gonna die like that. I know it.”

Geneses slid down and laid down on the floor, using his bag as a pillow. Staring out the row of dirty windows in front of him, he said, “Tonight it’s different.”

“Good, bruh.”

Geneses pushed the memories of his love into the back of his mind. He wanted to see her, touch her face, but he had bigger problems to worry about. It was frivolous to think that she would be waiting here for him with open arms, anyway.

Meanwhile, Kéran curled himself into a ball and rested his head on his bag, as well. He thought about this empty place that he had never been in. It was larger than any place he had ever lived, et he stayed in it just like many of the places he had in the past. Why pay rent if you can’t afford it? He came along with Geneses with some sliver of hope, only to find that one could know everything in the world, and things could still remain same-old, same-old. The dust on the floor was the same. The cold fingers of empty darkness on his back felt the same. “Hope is shit,” he whispered to himself. “Nineteen years, seven months, twelve days, one hour, thirty-four minutes, twenty seconds. Nothing but shit to show for it.”

He closed his eyes on the empty room and looked backward without seeing.

The afternoon came quickly and slid through the windows, shining its light upon the two homeless men. Geneses stood, looking down out the window at the passerby, much like he did when he lived in the very space he was in. He weaved his head back and forth as he ran a hairbrush though his long hair. He thought to himself various things, such as where he could find a job to how long it would take for him to run out of shampoo—better yet, where would he find himself a place to shower and actually use it? His former job hated him; he was the least friendly waiter they had ever encountered. Perhaps Kéran had some ideas.

The boy awoke in the column of shadow behind Geneses. He had nothing to say about their new life as wandering hobos. Removing his jacket as he sat up, he unbuttoned his white shirt and tossed it on the ground. “Hot damn, I still smell like shit,” he groaned, then flopped back down on the floor, feeling its cool touch on his skin.

Geneses turned around from his self-absorbed reverie and shifted in the light so that it hit the boy’s back and shone in his hair. His white v-neck was brilliant in the light, but was dulled by the black vest which he wore around it. “Welcome to today.”

“Welcome to my world. How you like that now?” Kéran said into the floor.

“Uncomfortable, admittedly,” he said, leaning up against the windowsill. “But it is an experience, right?”

Kéran looked up. “You kill me.”

“You kill me,” Geneses reciprocated, pulling his hair into an elastic band. “Now get ready.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Kéran said, standing. “Young man,” he chastised in a low voice, “you’ve got shit to do, and you haven’t even started yet.”

Geneses adjusted his glasses. “Something to that effect, but regarding the both of us instead.”

“Haaa—! I forgot you’re a loser, too. Just like me, man. This is what happens when you silly goose off and don’t go to college. You’re just like me. I’m a high school dropout, and you skated through. But in the end it’s all the same, ain’t it?”

Geneses flicked an eyebrow up. “My grades in high school were atrocious. I wasn’t cut out for college. I knew the material, but couldn’t be bothered to do the work. So I didn’t bother with going.”

“Speaking of work,” Kéran mentioned, pulling a tee shirt over his head, “let’s go find that shit before we land in the shelter. And son, I’m not going back there again. Let me brush my teeth first.”

To their surprise, the water in the apartment worked, though cold, so they took care of their hygiene-related tasks and left, grabbing their bags and hauling them along with them. Geneses attempted to be silent while leaving the apartment, especially since they were trespassing the complex, but Kéran paid no mind and chattered all the way down the stairs, banging his bag up against the walls. Geneses thought they would never make it to the outdoor stairs, and when they did, his fit of nervousness left him.

“Where should we look first?” he asked Kéran, stomping down the metal grated stairs behind him.

“Man, I dunno. I’m just goin’ where you’re goin’.”

“Oh yes. That would get you far,” Geneses sarcastically remarked, turning onto the sidewalk.

The people were everywhere, plaguing the sidewalks and the streets. He felt like one of them, though he was almost two feet taller than some. Kéran was more at their level, but the mere association with Geneses made him a different person than he would have been otherwise. Together they were day and night, a clear contrast, only emphasized by close proximity with one another. Today they had the same goal, and nothing would get in between them and that.

The search was simple: they sought jobs, so they looked in the windows of every business they walked by. Kéran managed to pilfer a newspaper left on a bench, dropping his duffel bag to investigate its contents further. Geneses sat down on the bench and rifled through it for the advertisements, allowing Kéran to snatch the sports section from his hands. Geneses found that jobs were available, but none immediately nearby. He squinted under his glasses and read the names and addresses aloud as fast and lowly as he could.

Standing, he placed the paper back own on the bench. “Alright, we can go now. The closest is the laundry eight blocks away downtown.”

Kéran stood and dropped his section of the paper onto the sidewalk by the bench. “Man, you’re crazy. You sure you’ll remember it all?”

“Verily so,” Geneses admitted as he picked up his bag.

“Sucks to be you. Wewastin’ money on a subway ticket or bus pass?”

Geneses began to walk. “Certainly not. How else will be able to see if other businesses are hiring if we are unable to see their windows?”

Kéran kept walking and raised a brow, thinking about how hauling his bag would affect how fast his feet tired. He hadn’t run the streets in a while; his feet had become soft, very much to his own dismay.

Their first destination was a business by the name of Arianna’s Arrangements, a floral arrangement shop. There was only one position open, but Geneses obtained all applicable information, regardless. Kéran could not breathe in the delicate scent of the shop, so Geneses figured he would keep the job for himself if he absolutely needed it.

“Beggars can’t be choosers, Kéran,” he aphorized once they had left the shop, creasing the application between his spindling fingers.

The second place they went to was an old, run-down restaurant three blocks away. It clean, nonetheless, and specialized in Asian cuisine. It seemed very desperate for workers—three positions were open. One could only speculate the reasons why that was the case, but Kéran was eager to take the job as soon as they entered the establishment, marveling at all the foodstuffs in the buffet.

The third option Geneses and Kéran explored was an opening for two workers at an independent music shop. Though Geneses didn’t listen to music much and was more into neoclassical genres, he figured he could learn what the independent music scene was all about. Judging from the music playing overhead while examining the obsolete vinyl hanging on the wall, he formulated that low fidelity dry cuts from artists with aesthetics labeled “unique” were bound for success in the independent music scene. Kéran figured he would suggest anything with a sexually attractive woman on the cover. Indeed, he had trouble finding even that and deemed the whole genre garbage. He didn’t think that the job sounded so bad.

As the day dragged on and the sun changed directions overhead, the two had inquired about a total of six jobs on their side of town and gone to the store for food. Geneses was more frugal than his young and careless companion, so they got cans of beans and steamed rice. Geneses considered even the rice to be a bit of splurge, but regarded the purchase necessary for even a halfway legitimate meal because of their lack of access to a working stove. They also got small packages of paper cups, bowls, and forks. Kéran planned to toss them as he used them, but Geneses figured that each would be suitable for at least one or two reuses, depending on what was being eaten. The total didn’t come out to be much, but the two only had about one hundred dollars collectively left afterward.

Tired with aching feet, the two returned back to the empty apartment later that evening with their food in grocery bags. Kéran tossed his duffel bag on the floor and dug into the food they had purchased on the counter. Geneses meticulously divided the white rice into halves and gingerly scooped it into a paper bowl. He leaned against the counter, resting his head on the cupboards and staring out the row of windows across from him. He ate slowly and figured that if he refrained from inhaling the food like Kéran did, the meal would settle better and he would find himself more satisfied with less sustenance than he was used to, despite his rabid hunger.

He heard a strange slurping sound next to him and turned his head slowly to see. Kéran was leaned up against the counter also, but was quickly scooping heaps of bean-covered rice, with the juice from the can seeping over the sides of the fork. Geneses shuddered—bean juice. It just sounded gross. Looking down and ignoring Kéran, he chased the last grain of rice around the bowl with the outer prong of his utensil. He stabbed it and put it into his mouth.

“That’s it?” Kéran asked, scraping the bottom of his bowl for the last of the canned beans.

Geneses inverted his bowl and held it out from himself. “Verisimilarly . . . so.”

Kéran shook his head of hair and looked at his empty bowl. “So. Is that a yes? Or a no?”

“It’s a yes.”

“Why didn’t you just—never mind.”

Geneses set his bowl down onto the island bar in front of him and got changed into pajamas. The night bit at his arms as he sat down on the hard floor and leaned forth to rub his feet. They had arranged three interviews for the next day. Time could not be wasted, especially as aimless vagabonds.

Aimless? He thought again about Diandah. “It’s futile.”

“Whaaat.” Kéran peeled off his shirt.

“Oh. It’s unimportant.”

“You know that’s horse shit.”

Geneses glared at him.

“A-a-a-hem. I mean,” he started in a heavy British accent, “bullocks. Just bullocks.”

“Excellent, Kéran. Mere excellence.”

Geneses pulled his coat over his body and dispensed a travel pillow out of his bag. He disposed of his blankets when he moved in with Diandah and wished he had kept them. Even Kéran was burrito wrapped in a blanket tonight. Luckily it was still warm out and the only thing that was chilly was the floor and the occasional draft from the poorly sensed windows.

When Geneses was younger he was an only child in a nuclear family, but did not have a strong relationship with either of his parents, especially his father. Despite his laziness and vast immaturity, he was intellectually beyond them and affectedly spoke in ways which they could not understand, citing philosophers and economists in discussion. After he graduated with a 2.8 grade point average, and less than a year later his father died in his sleep. The funeral was appropriately on an overcast day—his mother was one for dramatics—and small, silent. During the outdoor service, he kept thinking about the priest, the priest. The priest could not give the final rites to the dead. What good was the priest when he was no good for his family.

His mother died of breast cancer three years later. She was only forty-eight. He hadn’t any particular dependence on her, so the feeling when she died was more numbing than devastating. He was one in the world, alone. The only person since then to wish him a happy birthday was Diandah, and even she was gone, albeit, he did not know where. Not knowing was such a vulnerability to people.

It had never occurred to him that he was an orphan until now, sleeping alone on the floor of an apartment that was not his own. Kéran didn’t count as good company, he figured. The kid snored too loud.

Just like Dad.