Sarah and Kenny sat next to each other in the rest stop bathroom. It was cold outside, and they huddled together in the men’s room stall, desperate to feed off of each other’s warmth.

She trembled, and he pulled her close. His long brown beard — it had been months since the last time they had a razor — scratched at her head, through her filthy, blonde hair. 

She licked her chapped lips. They were raw from the weather and from her constant biting at them. “I’m hungry,” she grumbled out.

“I know,” Kenny told her. He was hungry too. In the still men’s room, their rumbling stomachs sounded like endlessly circling helicopters. Unlimited fuel. Destination unknown.

The rest stop had been their home for the past few weeks. So few people came down the highway at night that they felt safe here. Safe together. Kenny clutched Sarah’s hand with his. He could feel the last piece of jewelry the two shared — her high school ring. The gold was smooth against his rough hand.

“We could sell it,” he offered.

She shook her head no. She had been determined that no matter what she would keep it. It was her connection back home she had once told him. He had argued that it was a reminder of bad memories. That had upset her and she went the rest of the day without talking to him. 

“I’m just sayin’ we could eat. Get a shower.”

“I’m not selling it,” Sarah said flatly. 

Kenny pulled away from her. Angry. She turned towards him. Just as hot.

“We’ll make do. We make do.”

“Make do by starvin’ to death!” he screamed at her. He hadn’t meant to, but it came out.

Sarah moved away from him and kicked open the stall door. The ugly brown door swung open. “I need to stretch.” she told him. Her back towards him. 

He stood up behind her and watched her walk over to the sink.

“You need to put the past behind you,” he said. “We ain’t going back to it. We can’t. And you holdin’ on to food on your finger like that…” He paused. Searched for the words. “You need to be looking towards the future.”

Sarah looked in the mirror. It was hard to make anything out in the murky dark of the bathroom, but she squinted and tried her best. Tried to look Kenny in the eye. Tried to remember the way he looked when ditched class with him that they and they drove off away from their small lives and into the sun. 

But all she could see was his beard. 

And all she could hear was the rumble of her stomach.

And all she could say was “I wanna go home, Kenny.”

And she knew, by the time his name crossed her cracked lips, that he was gone. The bathroom door swinging behind him. 

Dearest Love,

I know it has been a while since my last letter. I eagerly read your letters every day. I wish I had good news for you, but…

I’m writing you this letter in case the battle tomorrow does not go well and our line falls and the humans advance on us. It’s been a scary night tonight, and our commanders feel that come dawn the forces of Man will have pushed past the barricade and arrive in town itself.

And if they do, well, none of us will be spared. At best I can hope to die quickly, with the honor of our forefathers and the spirit of our leaders. At worst, I will be lingering in a human cage. 

I still think about the day I left. When we stood outside, our bare feet on the rough sand. Your cold breath against my neck. You said I was crazy to join the Legion and that you feared this mission would be the end of me. 

I laughed (it’s been so long do you even remember my laugh?) and told you that we’d be fine. That the Legion would find an area and settle it without issue. What were my exact words? That we have the finest communicators and diplomats in the entire sector. 

And, yet, here we are. Day 87 and still no peace. 

All of my bunk mates are now dead. Picked off one by one via gunfire or explosives. At night, sometimes I can still here them in the big empty room. I’ve requested to room with someone, but that request has fallen on deaf ears.

If we can hold steady tomorrow, the commanders feel that we will have assistance by the next nightfall. That means just two days before rescue. Before we leave this mudball and it’s terrible armies, the might of which we were unable to overcome. Many of the remaining men think our forefathers would weep that we talk of such cowardice like retreat.

I think our forefathers would weep that we have lost so many of our brethren. But if I am wrong and they right, well,  I could care less about what fables and vapor think.

I long to leave this place. To return to you and your amber eyes and dry skin. To feel your embrace again.

I hope for our survival and those days for us to be together again. Alive. 

But if the worst should happen… We must prepare for that.. If the worst should happen, I shall wait faithfully yours in another life.

Your Faithful until the Stars Die,

Di’Am

“Okay. I’m only going to explain this once,” he said with a thick southern drawl.

I’ll always remember the drawl. I thought it was weird that of all people he had one, but then, I guess it makes sense.

He slid the cards back and forth, shuffling the blue-backed Bicycle playing cards. His dark red hands flexed, bending the stiff cards back with ease.

“We play one game. If I win… Well, you know what I get if I win. But… if by chance you win, then it’s anything you want. Understood?”

I nodded. I understood. One hand. One hand for everything. One hand to get out of here. I could feel the sweat moving down the back of my neck like a waterfall. My own personal Niagara.

He dealt out the first two cards. Face down. One to himself and one to me. My heart was a bass drum in my chest, pounding against my rib cage. I stared down at the back of my card and waited. The second one — this time face up — landed perfectly on top of the first card. The eight of diamonds. The red suit seemed to taunt me. 

I looked up at him. He smiled. His yellow teeth staring at me and I dropped my eyes to the face up card in front of him. The ten of hearts. “My favorite suit,” he added. 

I peaked at my bottom card. A five of clubs. Thirteen. Not enough. I thought about the beige piece of paper tucked neatly inside his jacket. About what would happen to me if I didn’t win. My mouth went dry. My throat a freshly formed desert. I croaked out the only option I had. 

“Hit me.”

And there it came. The next card. Face up. A seven of hearts. Twenty. I looked back down at his ten of hearts. Could I feel confident? Could I feel safe? I had no options. No choice. 

He cracked his knuckles and it sounded as if dozens of necks were being snapped at once. I licked my lips, and stared him directly in the eye and said, “I stay.”

He laughed that sickening laugh. That laugh I’d heard before on that clear, dark night when I signed that beige piece of paper. That laugh I hated.

He laughed and flipped over his bottom card. My heart sank.

“And stay you will,” he said between cackles. 

There’s a gnome under my girlfriend’s bed. She told me about it on our first date, over the ravioli at this little bistro on 15th street. I didn’t believe her at first — I mean, it sounds like a joke — but sure enough there’s a gnome living under my girlfriend’s bed.

I haven’t seen it yet. But I know it’s there. On the night’s that we stay at her place, I can hear it scurrying around beneath us. Originally, I thought she just had this weird way of snoring. Kind of like a scchk-sound. But no. It was the movement of the gnome beneath us. 

And, of course, when I check during the day, he’s never there.

She says he’s unpleasant around company. Always has been. Always will be. She says that he’s been living under her bed ever since she turned thirteen. In fact, he showed up on her thirteenth birthday. It was the first thing she saw that morning. The way she told it to me was that she opened her eyes and wiped away the sleep and there in front of her was this small, big bellied gnome, with a cherub face, and deep black eyes.

He smiled at her and in a calm, calm voice explained that he was here to live under her bed and from that moment, he’s always done so. 

I know, I know. You think I’m making this up, just like I thought she was making it up. But it’s true. I hear him down there every night and, I don’t mind telling you — this is just between me and you, right? — that I’ve become a little obsessed with him. We used to alternate spending the night at my apartment and then her apartment, but I put a stop to that.

At least until I catch him. 

I tried to leave out a video camera once, but he broke it. Just ripped the plastic casing apart and clawed at the wires. It was really quite a mess. My girlfriend was so shocked to see the camera gutted. She told me the gnome has never acted like that before and that I really must be upsetting it. I told her not to worry. The next camera I set up will be hidden. He won’t find it. 

She told me she’s afraid at what he’ll do next. That’s okay, I told her. He’s only a gnome. He’s not really capable of hurting us. She didn’t look so sure.

But I’m sure. He’s a gnome. Small hands, small body. Small feet. 

I mean, it’s not like he could climb up into the bed in the middle of the night. 

The man was tired. He had been tired for a very long time, and he would most likely be tired for the foreseeable future. 

He ran a wrinkled hand through his rough salt and pepper beard and looked down — far down — into the small pile of mud and rocks that sat at the base of the mountain. If he squinted he could make out shapes moving back and forth. Running from one pile of mud to the other pile of mud. All very mechanical. All very repetitive.

He remembered when he first came up the mountain. So many years ago. Back then, the twin suns hung in the sky and danced with each other. The heat from both of them scorched and picked at the ground. Drying away grass and vegetation. Cooking the world. 

And so he climbed up to the top of the mountain. It had been a perilous journey and had taken nearly a month to go from his little mud pile to the top. Those who went with him — two other brave men — had died shortly after they had started. One, lanky with big wide eyes, like a young deer, caught his foot in a crevice. He lost his balance and fell. The second man, more robust, a man of the wild, caught a foul disease and with no treatment, soon caught death.

But the man, the man with the beard, had made it. And when he reached the top of the mountain, he took a long hard look at the twin suns and realized that they were not exact twins. The one on the right was just a tiny bit bigger, a tiny bit brighter, a tiny bit stronger. 

So the man turned his attention to the one on the left and reached out from the mountain top, and took it into his hand. It burned the flesh and he grimaced in terrible pain, but he didn’t let go. He wrapped his fingers around it, forming a tight fist around the left sun that slowly choked the brightness from it. 

The oranges and yellows and reds left it and when he opened his hand, there was no longer a sun in it, but a moon. White and bruised from the pressure of his hand.

He let it go into the sky and watched it flutter into the night.

And then he began his new tradition of staring down at the little mud piles from the top of the mountain and wondering how to climb back home.