Black with One Sugar

Many, many years ago, there was a boy with blue eyes and black hair who had the bad boy attitude with a voracious reading habit and the last day I saw him, I left a book in his backpack with a note that he might or might not have read. He never called me back.

Years later, there was a girl with long black hair and brown eyes who played soccer and did not take any shit from anyone and was too cool for school who did not read books, but I wish I also left a note on her backpack the last time I saw her. We’re still good friends.

They both drank black coffee with one sugar. I tried it.

The crushes went away.

Latte with a Splash of Vanilla

I used to hate everything that made me, me. I'd hate that I am tall and lanky when I’m skinny but weirdly baggy when I’m not and my legs are too long no matter my weight and my hair too curly no matter the day and I'd perfect my white girl accent because people don't want to hear my natural accent, okay?

Now, all I hate is that I am as basic as a hot latte with a splash of vanilla on a cold day. I wear the leggings but have never owned the UGGs.

It’s okay. No one’s perfect.

Espresso with Ice Cream

Espresso without someone to tame the hit is reserved for coffee snubs1 and psychopaths. One day, I make a double shot but we ran out of milk. There’s ice cream in the freezer. It’s kind of the same thing, my partner says. Because ain’t nobody got time to go groceries when there’s coffee in front of them.

For the next week, regardless of milk status in the house, I drank my Espresso with vanilla ice cream until the ice cream carton was gone and I had gained, at least, five pounds.

I couldn't stop.

Matcha Latte (Counts as Coffee to me)

My life partner partakes in his own version of a ceremonial Matcha tea and, besides the slight worry that he might be appropriating a culture, it's the cutest thing. On our kitchen island, he boils the water and puts the powder in a wide cup, does the little thing with the little brush and serves two cups of tea in the small cups.

I tasted grass and looked at him like the heart eyed emoji.

Flat White

There is a coffee shop named the Busy Bee a few towns over, that once let us in five minutes before it closed. We hurried up and took the coffee to-go because Porch Fest was in full swing and there was a gorgeous violin playing her heart out on the opposite corner to the coffee shop and I didn’t want to miss one single note2.

It was the day I started thinking that, maybe, just maybe, I have a coffee problem.

Gingerbread Latte

My husband and I drove to the nearest Starbucks in the exciting town of Latrobe, PA three days in a row during Christmas break because I was deeply obsessed with their Gingerbread lattes, no sugar (ha). A light snowfall started while he came out, juggling two cups of coffee while I opened the car door with a massive grin because the flurries stuck to his hat and the tip of his nose.

While losing myself in gingerbread and not-sugar goodness, we drove to the nearest carwash, a big surfboard as a sign and the tagline Ride the Wave, and as weird as it was seeing a surfboard in western PA, it was weirder that it was full of snow.

We passed by rolling hills and open land in a spanking clean car under snow flurries freezing on our windshield and the heavenly smell of sugary coffee in our nostrils and heated seats in our asses.

That night, I gave him a kiss good night, and I told him I loved him like the smell of gingerbread latte in the middle of the lightshow of a carwash.

He knew every puddle that formed through Wickham Avenue while his mum carried groceries back home, telling him stories of faraway kingdoms, talking animals, and scavenger hunts. He never jumped on puddles or stumped any plants because he knew it’ll get him in trouble. Oliver Campbell hated trouble.

He was eight years old the very first time he fell in love with a guitar. Not that he knew what falling in love felt like then, but he’d seen movies. He was smitten by six strings and hollow wood.

These memories haunted Oliver Campbell as he stood out under a dirty bridge one dreary, rainy day 11 years later. He clutched his guitar case, hoping the rain would pass and his guitar stayed dry. He should try to keep himself dry too.

Oliver had not chosen to be homeless, but he hadn’t done anything to prevent it either. He had taken a duffel bag with some clothes, a couple of his notebooks, and his guitar. He went in circles around the neighborhood at first. He’d focus on the crevices between the stones. The rain pattering off the asphalt. It was all more interesting than his empty home. He didn’t remember the first time he slept on a street. Once he left, Oliver couldn’t walk back inside.

Oliver hadn’t written or spoken for months when he wandered into his first homeless shelter. Dark water seeped down from his body onto the shower floor. He refused to look in the mirror. He knew he’d see his parents in him. Still, he wondered what he looked like to passersby: a boy with a duffel bag and his guitar under a bridge, sitting on the sidewalk, staring into nothing.

Food made his stomach hurt at first. No wonder he felt weak; he hadn’t eaten for a while. He barely remembered how to grab the fork. His lips stung as the soup touched them.

Joselyn was the first person who asked him, “How are you, Oliver?” Words had no meaning to him. Just letters that made sounds. Joselyn didn’t push him, and instead, she said, “Lovely guitar you have there. Why don’t we clean it?”

Despite his best attempts, the guitar was filthy. Less so than Oliver himself. Too much mud and rain. Joselyn took care of the body while Oliver cleaned up the strings. Once every nook and cranny was shiny, Oliver put it back together.

Joselyn and Oliver admired the clean guitar with bright eyes and wide smiles. It was then when Oliver said, “Thank you.” His voice was strange. Letters slowly making sense again.

“One day, you’d have to play for me,” Joselyn responded.

Oliver liked her. Some days, they did puzzles together. Others, they went on walks. She didn’t ask him to talk, but instead, she’d tell him about the butterflies she loved. About the flowers that attracted said butterflies. About the soil that nurtured those plants. It had been more than a week when Oliver walked up to Joselyn and said, “I’d like to play the guitar for you.”

His fingers were numb and the pressure against the frets hurt. But one by one, the notes fell into place. The flurry of tones and notes blended to create magic. He let the music mend his broken heart. He hoped it fixed the soil that’ll let his flowers grow back and attract butterflies. Roses, he thought, most of all, he wanted his Dad’s roses back.

When he opened his eyes, Joselyn had tears in her eyes. “Were you a musician?” she whispered. Oliver nodded. “What happened?”

It had all been cause and effect, really, Oliver said. A series of unfortunate events. Because Oliver had been away in uni, his parents went on date nights. Because dinner went late, they got a cab back home. Because the cab driver talked on the phone, he didn’t see the red light. Because the other driver had been drinking, he had been speeding. Because his parents had been only children, he had no extended family and was now alone. And because he was alone, he started taking walks.

Tears spilled, silent and endless. Wet spots in his shirt. He held his stomach. He might throw up. The memories of his dad and his mum and the writing groups and the music lessons. The lovely words and beautiful songs Oliver had played before. The hours, days, months, years he’d spent being loud and lively without getting in trouble. Oliver was not coherent, but Joselyn pieced it all together. She breathed well that day, for she knew this young man named Oliver Campbell would be alright.

It took Oliver another month to sing. And once he did, he remembered his parents’ smiles when he used to sing on mic night.

Oliver started to go on walks by himself again. This time though, he walked around bars, reading their flyers. He memorized locations and schedules. Tomorrow, he’ll go to Lackney’s. Today, he’d make his way to the shelter, to take a shower, and have a good night’s sleep. He’ll sing and he’ll play his guitar for whoever was around that night.

A splash below his shoe startled him. His heart sank for he knew this one puddle. He skipped it everytime, but he was distracted. Even if toys now reigned all over the old garden patch, the puddles never changed. It either rained or it didn’t, and in London always rained.

“Are you the Campbell boy?” a woman standing by the front porch said. Oliver looked up, horrified. He knew the puddles only brought up trouble. “I recognized you from some old frames.”

Each step inside the house that had been his home was heavier than the first. It was all wrong. The sofa was not brown, but yellow, but it was in the same place against the living room wall. The small breakfast den now had a computer desk. The walls were pale green instead of white. It felt like a bad dream.

He had been staring at a photo wall of strangers when the woman came back, “I found an old box with these.”

The first photo had been of his elementary graduation. A young, gap-toothed smiling Oliver Campbell holding a certificate in the middle of equally proud parents. The second photo had been right before his Dad went on a work trip. Oliver didn’t remember which work trip it had been, but he had his dufflebag with him, the same Oliver now had. He held back tears. “Thank you. I… I’m sorry to bother you.”

On his way out, Oliver stood in front of the old garden patch. From all of his dad’s plants, only one remained: a gorgeous, neatly-trimmed rose bush. The reminder that the Campbells once lived an incredibly happy life there.

Clutching those photos, he made himself a promise: to make them proud, whatever it takes, Oliver. You get on the road, you play music, and you make them proud.

Lackney’s tonight. Tomorrow, he’d find another one. And he’ll keep it going, no matter where he lived, what he ate. Make them proud, Oliver Campbell, for the rest will fall into place.

All his books had fallen over, the echo of each one thumping his heart. If only he wasn’t alone at the library he would’ve ran, hands flipping above his head, screaming an octave higher than the higher pitch he’d ever screamed at.

“I don’t have much time, my friend. The wife’s waiting for me back home,” Otto said, moving his left wing close to his chest. Or so Damian thought. “Come on, friend. You got three anti-wishes. What’s it going to be?”

A yelp. That’s all Damian’s mouth mustered.

“What do you want to not happen? Jesus of fish, are you okay?” Otto’s scaly eyebrows raised up.

“I don’t wish… to ever die?” Damian said.

“Fine, whatever, boring. Don’t know what you’d do with that much time, but to each it’s own,” Otto responded, wings crossed on his chest.

“Ah, eh… cure Mom’s Cancer? Wait…” Damian said. “Don’t allow my mother to die?”

“Much better,” Otto said. “Last one?”

Damian thought. He really, really thought about it. What else would he want to never happen? He could ask to never run out of books to read. Eternity would drag otherwise. He could ask to never be bored. He could ask to never be unlucky, to never be ugly, to never be unkind!

He was not a bad guy, just overworked and lonely. So… “I wish to never be alone anymore.”

“Three anti-wishes granted,” Otto said, with the otter indifference only a talking, winged, human-sized fish could gather. “Tah, tah.”

Otto Nevermerer disappeared, leaving behind a dust of old books and the slightly familiar smell of fish.

Damian Turner returned home, to find his mother wonderfully healthy. He sat next to her and she talked. And talked. And talked. For the rest of time.

CRACK! The motion doors closed. The Wendigo paralyzed. Her hip, a joint she’d never noticed in all her centuries old, refused to move.

She looked up, caught her reflection in the security mirror: a stooped old woman in a pilled pink cardigan, hair the color of bone dust, eyes watery and ringed with purple.

She flexed her claws. There were none.

She bared her teeth. They were dentures.

She tried to roar! What came out was a thin, phlegmy cough.

A red-vested and acne-scarred employee pushed a long line of carts directly into her path. “Didn’t see you there, ma’am.”

“I wear the pelts of my enemies! And yours will be next.” She fixed her cardigan.

The worker didn’t break stride.

He’d know her wrath! For she was the undefeated, the magnificent, the insatiable Wendigo who would eat anything and everything alive in this world! Nothing would stop her! As soon as her hip let her.

Reveal Your True Self. The bright red poster under the florescent lights said. The Wendigo, who had worn a hundred faces and shed a thousand skins before, paused. “They’d fear me once more!” she roared.

She reached for a jar of cream, cracked the lid, and slathered it all over her. And extended her arms to welcome the fiery transformation. Anytime now!

The cream sat on her cheeks like mayonnaise on a corpse. The rotten smell of cucumbers made her gag.

A child stared.

A woman gasped.

An employee continued putting more creams on the shelf.

And the Wendigo left, moving between aisles, trying to find what was taken from her.

A red bag full of fleshy strings. She preferred when she stringed it herself, but it’ll do. For she was ravenous! She tore it open, bit in, and spat it out onto the linoleum, including the dentures. “What vile monstrosity is this?”

A nearby shopper recoiled.

Another nodded, resigned.

A third one looked at her and said, “They’re Twizzers, ma’am. There’s better candy out there, if I’m being honest.”

But the Wendigo heard nothing. She walked away, leaving the half-chewed bag on the shelf, hunger gnawing at her belly like rats in a grave.

Flesh. Food. Cardboard. Anything! The Wendigo wobbled through the aisles, her legs taking twice as long as the old ones.

Shoppers with tired faces, distracted eyes. Empty bins of Bargains and Deals. Whatever that meant.

The Wendigo thought, perhaps, that she understood them. And they understood her. Hungry. Looking for the next feast. For the next rush.

Perhaps she, too, was becoming human, and they were becoming wretched little Wendigos.

A man argued with his wife over which brand of toilet paper to buy.

A teenager cried over a broken phone screen.

An old man stared longingly at a display of cakes he couldn’t eat.

A flicker of kinship, a sense of shared futility.

But the gnawing void inside her only grew.

The snacks, the clothes, the endless aisles. None of it satisfied.

“One day, I’ll return to my magnificent form and eat you all out of your misery,” she growled.

The automatic doors slid open with a cheery beep, and the Wendigo shambled out into the parking lot.

Monstrous, invisible, and still hungry.

No one looked up. No one cared.

May’s short story challenged me in every way possible! I’ve been reading Cien Años de Soledad, and having enjoyed Mexican Gothic last year, I decided to test myself in a completely different genre and writing style.

I sweated the details on this one. Magical realism, poetry, fairy tale-sounding and, of course, set in New England. I’d wondered of some of the places nearby, so I let my mind run wild. Enjoy!

At the end of Huttle Street stood a castle unlike any other building in the world.

From afar, its granolithic walls rose behind manicured lawns that turned to dirt, where the crisp November air settled like a spell between fallen leaves. Each red brick-now weathered to dusty grey-shouldered a green slate roof punctuated by steeply pitched gables crowned with iron finials that clawed at passing clouds. The central cupola held a four-sided clock and belfry that spoke three times each day: once at midday, twice at midnight.

Only freshmen questioned the midnight bells, their fingers cramping over homework as the double toll echoed through the stone corridors. Some had called home, voices tight with irritation, prompting parents to telephone the headmaster with complaints of disrupted sleep. The headmaster called it tradition, a word that excused all manner of peculiarities. The most peculiar of all, a new headmaster had arrived, also puzzled by the bells. “Who’s in charge?” he asked, eyes glued to the front of the belfry.

“No one,” his predecessor said, “It’s the least of your problems.”

It was a rite of passage for all headmasters to furrow their brows at the castle’s oddities. Mr. Julian Larange had thought Mr. Percival Pensive was attempting humor, though the old man’s face had never creased with laughter in living memory. How could a bell toll without a hand to guide it?

During his first week, Mr. Larange had slept in the belfry, determined to unveil its secrets. He’d fought sleep until 11:59 p.m., only to jolt awake at the first midnight peal, heart hammering against his ribs. It must be the wind, he told himself, as he descended the thousand mismatched steps, each one groaning beneath his weight.

The midnight belfry, he soon discovered, was merely the overture to the castle’s peculiarities. Students whispered of voices heard during the darkest nights, spoken by the ivy that embraced the castle walls. These murmurs swelled boldest beneath the full moon, nearly coherent enough to be understood.

“The castle dreams in stone. The Moon drifts close, shattering hearts, then goes back into the dark.”

Mr. Larange instructed the gardeners to tame the ivy near the dormitories. With ladders stretching toward the sky and tools glinting in the sun, they severed every tendril and bagged the remains.

Only to stand slack-jawed the very next morning as the ivy clung once more to the walls, thicker than before.

“My father-in-law warned me about this ivy, Professor,” the head gardener confessed, hat twisted between calloused hands. “We can cut it every day if you’d like.”

On the second day of their battle against the ivy, Mr. Larange swore the castle wept-a guttural, cold, enigmatic cry that pierced the early morning dew. Considering the self-tolling belfry and the overnight resurrection of the ivy, he surrendered, waving away the gardeners. For he worried it brought more problems than solutions.

Snow fell as winter claimed the land, marking the beginning of the shortest days of the year. While the outside threatened with a melancholy of eternal darkness, the third-year students reveled in the castle’s embrace. “Winter quickens the castle’s heart, Professor,” they’d tell him. “It waits for the moon to descend.”

The castle’s warmth-a peculiar, white glow off the walls-filled every nook, every room, every inch of stone-clad ceiling. It was warm to the touch. Mr. Larange fretted over heating costs until he discovered, to his bewilderment, that the castle required none.

On the 21st of December, Mr. Larange spent hours expecting catastrophe, certain a portal would yawn open and swallow students and faculty alike. His heartbeat outpaced the distant drums of nearby carolers as he watched the sun surrender to night, his palms slick with dread.

The ivy stirred-not swayed by wind but moving of its own accord-reaching skyward with verdant branches. The castle itself seemed to wake, stones vibrating with gentle anticipation for a moon not yet in the sky.

And then, stillness. The Moon appeared magnificent, swollen with light, streaked with crimson and crowned in an orange glow. It hung impossibly large on the horizon, as if it had descended solely to visit the castle.

It was then Mr. Larange realized the drums played all around him. Its source, he found only the ivy, trembling in moonlight. The stone walls vibrating to the rhythm of the drums. By now, the celestial visitor had climbed higher, midnight approaching with silent steps.

Without warning, every light within the castle ceased to exist. The students made no sound of protest. For the ones that knew what came had told the ones who didn’t, and they all waited anxiously for the Moon’s embrace.

Mr. Larange missed the first meteor, a silver whisper across black velvet, bidding the castle farewell. But he caught the second. And the third. And all that followed, a cascade of falling stars. Venturing onto his balcony, he discovered students and teachers gathered at windows and on balconies throughout the castle, faces upturned in wonder. He was not alone.

At midnight, the bell tolled. One stroke synchronized with a meteor’s arc. Two, matched with another. Then three. Four. Five. Ten! The castle acknowledged the Moon’s celestial dance with a percussion of its own.

Mr. Larange woke up from the chilly breeze coming through his open door. Rising from tangled sheets, he closed it, savoring the inexplicable warmth that pervaded the stone walls. At first, he dismissed the night as dream-stuff, until he glimpsed his balcony where ivy once again flourished, untouched by shears.

Wrapping himself in his thick robe, he ventured into the hallway and stopped, breath caught in his throat. Green garlands and pine trees had erupted from walls and floors, as if the castle had grown into a forest overnight. He touched one, half-expecting to wake from this strange dream. The tree remained solid and fragrant. Fireflies-or something like them-danced among the branches, mimicking the Christmas lights he loved as a little boy.

The great hall below had transformed into a wonderland. Students moved through it, faces alight with joy. “The castle is happy, Professor,” they explained upon seeing his bewilderment. “For the Moon kissed it goodnight.”

Outside, snow covered the ground, light breezes lifting powdery crystals from ancient bricks. Bricks that had stood longer than Mr. Larange or any headmaster before him. Bricks that had witnessed generations come and go, withstanding the test of time.

For at the end of Huttle Street stood a castle unlike any other building in the world. This building was in love with the Moon, and the Moon loved it in return.

She married Cristobal in the same month her parents married, in the same church, just three days later. Someone else had a funeral on the 3rd of September. Her family had been talking about the nerve someone had died that day. How dare they?

Cristobal started the same job his dad had started around the same age. Because of inflation, it took Cristobal longer to save up for the same ring María’s mom had worn to her coffin — four months and four days longer. He sweat profusely, counting down the extra days.

The only difference María allowed herself was in a canister her mother had owned. While she had put rocks in it, María put her tips from her server job. See, María was exhausted of the mundane life that mirrored her mother’s. She decided she wanted a change. Her mother had thought of breaking the cycle but never had the courage to do it herself. “One step forward per generation, honey,” she had said. On the day María was supposed to get pregnant with Cristobal’s daughter (she was certain it would be a daughter), she walked into the pet shop with her trusty canister and got a dog instead.

Bollo was a three-month-old Golden Retriever puppy. She was in love the second he wag his tail and run around in circles. Bollo came home. The canister was left behind. He was adorable, just like every other Golden Retriever puppy. An endless pit of energy and fun. María had more than one breakdown over the responsibility that first year. Cristobal occasionally helped, but he wanted a daughter, not a dog, so it took some convincing.

When the daughter of her mother’s neighbor (who lived in her mother’s old home) asked about Bollo’s name, María said he looked like a perfectly baked bread roll, a perfect bollito, right out of the oven. María ignored her neighbor when she asked when she was having a bollito of her own in her oven instead. That was no one’s business but hers and Cristobal’s.

She walked Bollo on the same street her mom used to walk her on when she was a toddler. When María realized this, she crossed the street. Every night, Bollo fell asleep on her lap while she read a book. Cristobal, instead, fell asleep on the same sofa where her dad used to after a long day of work, watching the movies that had been on for generations. Otherwise, he bickered about his nonexistent offspring.

The bickering turned into arguments that became full-fledged fights that María tried to ignore. She felt new feelings that her mother had never explained about their generational home, their secondhand couch, even how Cristobal enjoyed it all. She couldn’t understand how Bollo did not make him happy, as he made her happy. She couldn’t comprehend how he was okay with the same job he and her dad did with a wife who looked like everyone else but wanted different things in life.

On a spring morning, Cristobal asked if she was happy. She wasn’t.

She wanted to travel, go to college, and see the world. She wanted to bring Bollo to a town with other dogs, teach him tricks, get him cute sweaters, and talk to strangers who also loved dogs. She wanted to have a doggy daycare and ensure Bollo had friends until the day he died. And once she grieved Bollo, she would start looking for another furry best friend to make her happy.

When she looked back at Cristobal, she saw tears. She’d seen no man cry before and didn’t know how to react. She asked if he was happy. He wasn’t.

He only wanted a daughter: to see her grow from a newborn baby into a woman who would one day find love at the same high school they met at and get married in the same church they did. He wanted to work at the same job his dad did, grow old with his wife, and die in the same house his family did.

So María packed her bags, put a bandana around Bollo’s neck, and left.

She didn’t know this yet, but in years to come, María would find a new town with lots of trails for Bollo; she would fall in love, be heartbroken, fall in love again, and work multiple jobs so she could one day afford her doggy daycare.

Bollo never left her side. They hiked together every Saturday, and she took him to the dog park, early in the morning before work. They got a small apartment in the basement of a nice family who occasionally sent leftovers and secondhand clothes their way and offered help anytime they needed it.

One day, María would meet Andrés, and Bollo would instantly approve of him; together they lived happily ever after.

By the time Bollo’s Doggy Daycare opened, Bollo didn’t run anymore but still enjoyed being surrounded by other dogs. His hips weren’t as good as they used to be. María would drag him around town in a little wagon cart so he could still enjoy trails, his tail wagging. María’s dream had come true. While it required much work, they were happy!

On one warm November day, María decided she’d bring back Bollo’s ashes home, to spread them near where he’d been born after all; she knew everything should rest where life began. The middle part being what mattered.

Change swept through María’s hometown, leaving her nostalgic. The corner she once knew was different, her high school closed, and her old home abandoned. She thought of Cristobal and hoped he found happiness where he belonged.

After one last drive past Bollo’s resting place, they left and never came back.