“I suppose that’s how they got rich. Penny pinching, you know-” he looked at his friend knowingly. The other guy had a look of incredulity on his face. “But dude, rich people. Penny pinching for… what is it? He’s already getting five percent off what we give to the market. To shops, dude. Like what the actual fuck? How much more do they want? We won’t starve. I won’t starve. The business might not lose money, but I don't think it’ll make that much either. But who does this guy think he is?”

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Hur felt a tightening in his stomach. He clenched, breathed in deeply. This feeling, he thought he had gotten rid of it. After the rajah destroyed her, no, he didn’t want to think about that. He had suffered terribly. He had suffered terribly, he had found some purpose and direction that he felt that he had been lacking. It wasn’t that either. He had thought that by drowning himself in the task at hand, he could somehow forget her. Hur felt a heaviness in his head, almost as if the weight of the things inside were threatening to break the earth, to push the rest of him far inside, into the depths.

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I say that I let these things foment, but really, it’s probably an excuse to play my game over writing. But foment they did. I hope. There is such uncertainty in these things. On days that I don’t have an idea in mind, I try to take from outside. Things I observe mostly.

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Crows cackled overhead, trumpeting my arrival. The wind was cool, the ground beneath me the right interlude between soft and firm. There was an ant crawling up the side of the headstone. Trees lined the plots, gnarly branches spreading their fingers. The earth rolled off my tongue, tasting ancient and tired. The traffic was rumbling loudly outside, incessant horns, screeching tires, as motorcycles careened impossibly past cars. The tombstone was black with golden spires. Engraved in white writing below his father’s name:

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It was splitting. Gut wrenching. Mind blowing. Innards flying out of the stomach. It was splitting. It was absolute. It caused the darkness, it took away the light. It brought a high pitched scream, an intensity that was in decline, but it brought it back to full force, and with full strength. His stomach too, was in pain. It was empty, yet he wanted to throw up. Air. Again, and again, and again. Nothing but air. The pain was mind consuming. And he knew that it was a thing people said, and people had rubbed raw the meaning, rubbed it away, like rain on a stone, a stone by the shore, but this was the real thing. The pain was blinding, all-consuming. His forehead was breaking out in a sweat, his head was throbbing with pain. His heart was having palpitations. His palms were moist, sweat forming, even though it was a chilly morning. There was a sinking feeling in his heart, his lungs collapsing in on themselves.

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He threw his head back, and roared. Thunderclouds rumbled, lightning clapped. Everything stood still for one minute. And then it was all gone. Darkness. In the darkness, there was light. A red, glowing, maniacal light. Two pinpoints. They blinked. They opened. His eyes. Those were his eyes.

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The sky was dark, stormy, a midnight blue, pierced by white, flashing, blinding thunderclouds. Almost as loud as the clapping of thunder was the smacking of the pieces, barely recognizable, on the stone board, if stone could be purple. From it came a light pulsating like a heartbeat. Underneath those noises, the hissing of the shadows in the stands. No stands. Metaphorical, of course. But they were watching. There were always some watching. Even when they couldn’t be seen. And in those times, the men saw them regardless. They were sitting. Moves were made slower.

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He sighed. A breeze sighed softly in the wind. Mellow, soft, sad. He stood in his castle above the clouds, a castle so huge, you wondered why it didn’t sink below the surface of the earth, and yet, here it was. Above the clouds. But when you touched it, when you were here, you felt lightless. Minimal gravity acting on you. You felt almost certain that if you were to step into the lawns made of clouds, you would not fall. Almost. Certain. The wind that existed here was in a plane of being that made it smell like whatever brought you pleasant memories and associations. The castle was rounded, no pointed spires. Round. And weird shapes that structurally should have made no sense, should not have been able to exist, but here, they did. He scribbled on his notepad. Now furious. Below him, wind raged. Pushing down everything and anyone that came into its path. His room was large. Grand. A hall. A room where he saw the people that came to pay respects, and to ask for favors. This was where he entertained them. There was a glass mirror above. It was the shape of a breeze. This was what he was looking into, making a gesture with his hand as if swiping left. The images on the mirror changed as if they were channels. But they were so close. If you touched the glass, your fingers would push through the screen, and you felt like you would touch the things on screen. You were sure there was a screen. But there was none. The images did one of two things. They either fell farther back, out of your reach, or they let your finger touch them and pass through. You were sure this was real. This was happening. You did not know how. But you knew.

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He began to cough. It was mild. Slowly, with the insistent coughing, it turned into a rasping, drawn out cough. It began to get louder. It began to get harder. Rougher. Wider. Louder. Spittle began to fly from his mouth. His chest began to heave as if it were going through spasms. His eyes began to water. He began to gasp for air in between the bouts of coughing, those in-between periods becoming shorter and shorter. Eyes watering with tears. Chest feeling tight, drawn out of breath. Out drawn. Fingertips feeling a tingling sensation. He coughed, gasped. It stopped. He looked up, the sound of gasping the only thing running through his ears. And the heartbeat beating through them. Drumming through. It was racing, his heart. How fast, he didn’t know. But faster than when he drove his car when there were only fifteen minutes left to get to work.

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A lady looked at them curiously as they stepped out. He lowered his gaze. It was not polite to stare. Especially at women. Especially in this country. He turned around, half turned, and waited for his mother to come out the other side. She did, and walked around. “Mariya?” She called out to the lady. Loud. In that air of hers. He didn’t notice it then, but later, he would think about it. It was loud, he was sure that the guards and drivers standing at the gate would have looked. But he didn’t notice it then. Just in the way of this place. The lady nodded her assent, and in a voice just as affected, greeted his mother. They walked inside, he was behind them. It took him a little while, but he realized that the event had not yet begun. They were setting it up. The lady began showing them the trinkets that were hanging from the lights, the greens, the flowers, it was classy. Classily done. He really liked it. Especially the little details. The decorations included small glass flowers, and glass bird sculptures. Many of them. But not enough to make it look bad. Just enough that they looked pretty good. The bride's father walked out in a shirt, and casual wear. So, the event was not for a few hours. He seemed stressed in a cool way. Lounging but also a little fidgety. How do you explain such a thing?

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It scuttled across the grass. Slow, steady. Never faltering. The black bead that was the crux of its body was slowly driving along. The legs, thin, needle, insect-ish we’re driving it forward. Constantly in back and forth motion. The grass was wet, how it managed to keep its balance was beyond him. The dew sparkled in the red, drowsy morning sun. The blades of grass were crisp, the chlorophyll coloring them an achingly beautiful green. All was silent except for the silently whooshing wind. It was that strange time between the birdsongs and the waking up of humanity. Birds could travel to suburbia, but none of the other animals could. Birds had travelled to suburbia. Humans were not awake. He could smell the green, preemptively smell the waffles and pancakes that would come soon. The maple syrup, thick, sweet, his mouth watered. The gravel was cool and rough underneath him. He felt a tingling on his fingertips, what it must be like to touch the ant. Would it be still? No, it would not. But he wanted to see it bigger, no, not horror movie big bigger. But a little bit bigger. So he could run his finger across its back, feel the- would its back be smooth like an overly polished boot? Would it be rough like pebbles in the sand on a beach?

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He got into the truck. The seat was covered with dust, he could feel how rough it was, even though he was wearing thick jeans. He got into the truck, and let out a few coughs. The dust scratched his throat. His eyes were already watering. He got into the truck, closed the doors, turned the key in the ignition, the engine sputtered to life. He pressed the button to clean the inside, and the car used electricity to shock the air into being clean. The technology was old, the car was a few decades old. But it had been the best he could get. It did the job. It was pretty noisy though. It whirred. But you could barely hear it above the glowering crumbling fire. The cracks and snaps of wood. How did any remain? Scientists said that wood had accelevolved. It had grown fast, in tune with the fires and the disasters. In a few generations, they would need archaeologists to tell them that wood had once taken years to grow, that it was fragile, that it had not always been like steel. Even now, kids these days did not know or believe what wood had once been like. They hadn’t seen it. It made sense.

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The smoke crawled up his nostrils. Raw, red. He was coughing. His eyes stung. The glow was red, permanent. Even the shadows were flickering red. The windows were glistened by the melting oxygen in the air. The afternoon glimmered a glowering red. Still, they played on. On, and on.

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He scribbled on his desk alone at night. His chief didn’t see the point. “Go home, it's all over.” Frankly, he didn’t know why he kept on trying. There didn’t seem like much of a reason to. When the chips are down, they’ll all turn. Show you who they really are. His office was short staffed. Somehow, they still paid people. The governments continued to pretend nothing was happening as people began to loot stores. Some of the people he had known, people who had sworn to uphold the law, were now looting and rioting and robbing. Against what? To what end? If the world was indeed going to end, like they claimed, like everyone saw, then why did you want to succumb to the lures of capitalism?

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He sat and watched the child crawl around. He was eleven months old. He had learned to walk pretty fast, but he seemed to enjoy crawling more than walking. So far, at least. He was sitting in silence and watching his son in contentment. Soon, there would be birthday parties, there would be school, then high school, and the drama that follows, teenage years, there would be rebellion, disliking for parents. All of them go through that. But at least they would be together. Then there would be college, and he would be gone. His son would be gone for it. And when his son came back, he might be dead. Who knew if he’d live that long? Yes, there had been advances in science. In medical fields. But death did not follow a schedule. Death did not now. Death accepted graciously, benevolently, the efforts that humans put into prolonging their inevitable meeting with it, but that did not mean that death did not come for some of them sooner, and others later.

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It looked like a cat. It was too small. Swaying, scurrying. It was dark. The dawn light had not yet begun. The car edged closer, it was a dog. Small. Frightened. A collar on it. Was it a pet? Had it been abandoned? Had it run away? He passed by it, saw its face. Immediately, he knew that it was thirsty. The reasons as to how he knew came later. He felt a twisting in his heart. He looked around and then slowed the car down further. They came to a turn. He had to turn left. It turned right. He smiled as he saw what it had found. There was a puddle under the bridge. Then it came shuffling back towards the left. He got out. It stopped, shivering. Crouching. Ready to attack or run. Probably the latter. It looked at him, a manic, panicked look in his eyes. It was a he? He wasn’t sure. He didn’t want to look directly at it for fear that it might run away. He got out of the car. He looked around. He was by the old petrol pump. There was an attendant sitting at the far end, scrolling through his phone, looking thoroughly bored. The man in the chair hadn’t even glanced up. He got out of the car, leant inside, over to the passenger seat and picked up the package. The one that he had for situations such as these. It was four thirty in the morning. The only light came from the bright petrol pump. He walked slowly around the car to the side of the road. The dog looked back, and scurried faster away. He dropped some food on the ground. Way too much. But was there such a thing? It kept running. A little faster, it seemed. Or maybe it looked that way to him. He whistled. The dog stopped. Turned around, looked at him. He made cooing sounds. It looked at him, stood still, and then turned back around and left. He sighed, and got back in the car. He drove on, past the dog. He kept looking in the rear view mirror, hoping it would turn around. It did not.

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“You think we’d take this lying down?” No. We won’t. We’ve been in business for a while. Thankfully, we have some staying power. A decent amount. And we have some experience. If I were new, I might not know how to deal with your parries. But I have the experience of people with decades of it. And therefore, we know how to respond. To counter attack. So we’ve launched two attacks, and I’m going to put the fire you’ve set out today. So good luck to you, and may the odds be ever in your favor. You will need them. You might have been in this place for a while. Just like us. But we have over two dozen people, all of them bosses, some of them titans in their fields. How will you stand up to an army? Especially since you’re the one that picked the fight.

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“Oh, so you thought you could encroach upon my space and get away with it?”

That’s funny. You can’t. You’re not going to get away. The first one was just a feeler. You guys didn’t do anything. This next one is going to be fun. They sell a lot. And having you guys in that space is a little bit of a threat. Therefore, I’m simply going to do this. I don’t know- I kind of feel like a mastermind. Not criminal. It’s a dog eat dog world. That was punny. If I could track then real time, and had a monitor in front of me, then that image that I have in my head would be realized. As it is, I can’t, and I don’t. But the effect is the same. One is on her way to one. The other is on his way to another. I needed only one. Two might be overkill. But why not? I want to over kill you. Bury you in the ground so you don’t come back. We tested the locals. They’re terrible. You are the only one that isn’t. You need to be put down. Also a dog pun. The dog isn’t too much of a competition. The real fun is where the cats come out to play. And now that you’ve finally fixed your fucking cat food, the game is afoot. Game of cat and mouse. And we, I, am the day. You are the little mouse who doesn’t know that he’s about to be pounced on. Give me a minute, my phone is ringing.

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