It wasn’t such disturbance of leaf and stalk that might herald the man’s return, but more woodlandy – some creature curious about the blood…his blood.

Gauging the effort required, he summoned what energy remained and thrust.

His right arm collapsed, the incline rolling him onto his back.

The unobstructed air was invigorating. He’d never appreciated that before. He coughed half way through a breath, spluttering blood.

He managed to avoid choking. He might just survive–

Now he could see the man hadn’t left at all.

The English side with the Native Americans and the Americans with the cowboys. The English build a wall. Using jeeps, tanks, and planes they fight for six years. The cowboys break the wall, but lose the war.

After the war a resistance forms and is sent to New York to disable the tanks controlling the security building which houses the president. Some get away, some are killed.

On the run for letting the poultry loose, my brother and I were making a hidden treehouse.

Later, we would have gone to the bank, devoured stolen nuts, nailed floorboards, as punishment. Together, we would have made jokes. Of weak spots on the fence and Granddad!

However, the treehouse being too feeble, our hands slippery from juice, hearts too unwilling, he fell to death.

“Please sit,” says the woman in flamboyant blue and green gypsy clothes. “I assume you want a reading.”

“Yes, good and bad.”

The woman takes Marissa’s right hand and reads her palm. “I don’t see a future for you. There will be no success or love in your life. You will die tragically and without warning.”

Marissa jolts in her chair. “I’m not up to this. Here’s your money.”

The incantation echoes through the rain forest, causing even lianas to cringe. “We have decided not…”

The shaman feels tears slow to a reticent trickle from still-closed eyes. His heart freezes with horror, sharp mind balking from interpretation.

“Vates!”

It takes a moment to understand he is being addressed.

Lids snap open. “Yes?”

“Did the Mystic Mushroom bring wisdom?” The bard asks, handing him a bowl of spring water.

Her training was very clear. If there was ever any doubt as to her immediate circumstances, she was to find a piece of written material. By looking at the words on the page, then turning away, then looking back, she could confirm whether she was in the waking world or not. If the words remained unchanged, she was awake. If the words had changed, it was a dream.

Each morning there would be either little to feed it, or surfeit enough for an unsightly spurt of growth. It all depended on the postman.

A particularly cruel epithet from an envelope’s maw tipped the scales.

“I can’t believe Amy is marrying that jerk! She said she loved me. That lying witch!”

Inebriated, he swerves in and out of lanes, his vision blurry. He presses on the accelerator just missing an approaching car. The driver honks his horn profusely at Johnny. Laughing, Johnny takes his eyes off the road and crashes head on into a tree.