I walked Melissa to her classroom and handed over her books that I had been carrying. She stood inside the door and I on the outside facing each other. I smiled and told her to have a good day. It was the first day of school.

The hallways were empty. I went downstairs to the main office and placed all of the random stuff I carried on the counter, wishing I had a backpack. I told the guy behind the desk that I was here to sign up for some classes and register. “Yes,” I said, “I need to register for classes.”

He told me that all new students needed to see the nurse for a pregnancy test before registering. I knew I wasn’t pregnant and headed to the nurse’s office. Once there I found one empty desk and sat down, waiting for class to start.

Melissa stood before me and told me how horrible her current situation was and how much she wanted a change. I stepped closer to her and slid my arms around her slender waist. We hugged each other hard, I did not want to let go.

I told her that she should come to Fairbanks and live with B and me. She could sleep on the couch for a while. I knew that if she wanted to stay longer that B and I would rent a 2-bedroom apartment, would fold her into our family. We would do anything for her.

In the laundry room I met a man and his teenage daughter. I had never seen them before, but they said that they had just moved into the apartment upstairs. I was glad that the partying girls had left.

He went upstairs and I chatted with the teenager who turned into Melissa. She was very excited to have her own apartment and to be so close to me.

I went to Kara’s wedding. Kara stood at the head of a long meeting table in an elaborate purple and white gown. She held out her guestbook made of cake and frosting, and asked KatiAnn and me to bring it to the kitchen downstairs.

I took it to a corner of the room and waited for Melissa to arrive at the wedding. She needed to sign the guestbook cake before I put it away.

I waited and waited but she still didn’t show, so I went to get her. In her bedroom, the room we shared, I saw she was still in bed. Closer I could see four feet under the covers, hers between two male feet. I pulled at her feet and she rolled over off of the man.

He was much, much older than her. I chided her for being late to the wedding and for being with this older man. She seemed happy with him, and I knew she would not be staying wtih B and I.

I got onto a city bus and held out a quarter to pay for my ride. The bus driver nodded as I made my way towards the back still holding my quarter.

I saw Kelli sitting in the very last seat. Last time I saw her she had told me that we needed to talk. She was surrounded by many people and I instinctly knew that she would not be able to talk. She waved me back but there was no space for me so I sat in the middle of the bus.

I walked through a home for sale. The seller walked ahead of me listing the benefits of each room but I was not listening. I did not want to buy this home but did not want to interrupt him.

I sat back on the bus and Kelli got on a stop after me. She sat in the seat across the aisle from me. The bus was nearly empty. The seat backs were very tall, and we could barely see over them like when we were children.

I walked back to the last seat where she had sat earlier, figuring that she would want to talk there in “her” seat. She did not follow.

B and I agreed to drive Jason through town to pick up his truck. I drove my car and Jason went with B in B’s truck, following me.

I did not know exactly where Jason’s truck was, but knew that it was somewhere downtown. I pulled past a parking lot, backed up, and found a parking spot. The parking lot was deserted but for my car and there was no other traffic.

I got out of my car and could not see B’s truck anywhere. I walked down the street the way I had come looking for B and Jason. I thought I saw our truck turn a corner at the end of a cross street and started after them.

I turned the corner, and turned again at the next block. This street was in the middle of Autumn even though it should have been the middle of Summer.

All of the leaves were turning colors and falling to the ground, and many of the trees had either fallen into the street or were hanging extremely low. I had to duck to go under most of them. As I walked by Bob’s house I knew that he and his sin were the cause of the season change.

I walked through the trees by my grandparents’ home. I walked by my parents’ old house and saw dresses, my and Melissa’s old dresses, still strung up on the laundry line. I knew all of the clothes had been hanging there for years, since my parents had moved, and wondered if anyone would come back to this abandoned home and remove all of our belongings.

I walked up the trail we had used to get to the school bus and emerged at the bottom of my mother’s lawn. I walked into the basement door, up the stairs, and found my mom in the kitchen.

I went to her, crying, and told her how B had left me behind, hadn’t even waited for me to catch up. I was destraught and could hardly catch my breath from the giant sobs. I felt very angry and betrayed.

My mom explained that it wasn’t purposeful, and that he would be back. I could tell that she knew where he had gone, but she wouldn’t tell me.

I saw him drive up the road in a dark blue van and pulled into my mom’s parking spot. He grabbed a cup of coffee and sat down. He appeared very laid back and was not concerned about losing me. I yelled at him for leaving me behind, and he looked right into my eyes for the first time since he arrived and said, “It isn’t every day that your father kills someone.”

He and my mom knew what he meant by this, and assumed that I knew as well. I was furious that they wouldn’t explain. I yelled incoherantly through my sobs. I knew that my anger was not penetrating his nonchalance, so I flipped him off and walked away.

I was walking down an overgrown path that had, at one point, been used as a road. A new small red sports car drove by and honked; I waved at the driver.

I walked down Airport road and made a stop at the store. The small sports car idled at the main door and a man and woman got out of it. I knew her somewhat from high school, and recognized him as Adam.

I was impressed that he could afford such a car, but knew that it would not last long. I also knew that his relationship with the woman would not last long, even though they would be married soon.

A volunteer walked into our office and called everyone together. She announced in a soft voice that there were a group of moose on the street outside our building backing up traffic. She wanted us to not panic, but slowly make out way outside.

I could see through the shades a moose standing in the middle of the road. Outside I could see a small herd of them with yearlings standing further down the street in an intersection. Cars were stopped and doing all they could to maneuver around the animals.

We hid behind the TVC building and, peeking around its edge, could see men getting out of their cars with guns to shoot the moose. I thought they were starting something foolish.

One of the men standing on the other side of the cross street from us held a machine gun. He got distracted and excited with the scene going on a few blocks down and squeezed the trigger on his gun. It swung around toward our group and hit two people crouched by the building.

I screamed at him, “What the fuck are you doing!?” and rushed to help the injured people. I drug them inside the building. It looked like a parking garage on the inside.

When I was back outside I could see an army of men gathered by the dead bodies of the moose. They were not from our town, were not on our side. War broke out as they shot at us and threw bombs.

I started to hide behind a green electrical box, but the person in charge of our group promised a $50 bonus to the people who didn’t run and hide. I came out from behind the box and laid down on the ground.

The man with the machine gun grabbed a teen girl from beside me and, holding her up, had her shoot his gun at the intruders. She was hit by a bullet and killed instantly.

Each member of my group died until I was the only one left. No longer caring about any money, I crawled again behind the green electrical box and bolted inside as soon as I was able.

My high school band conductor was inside and ushered me towards the back where all of the band equipment was. Needing to know what was going on outside, I left him with the drums and made myself back outside.

Smoke hung in the air everywhere and dead bodies lay strewn on the ground. A bomb had exploded. I looked back inside the parking garage and saw a hundred people hiding inside scared.

I found Damon and we drove away in his truck. We pulled up to my mom’s house and Sam Wise got out of his car. He walked up to us and asked how we were. I gave him a giant hug, glad to see someone still alive that I knew, and told him about the war. I told him that my mom had died, and I went inside the house to gather provisions.

Damon and I headed back to the TVC. He parked his truck beside the building right on the street and we ran around its side just as his truck exploded.

We turned around and saw a plastic baby blue tornado form above his truck. It grew enormous and moved toward the end of the street where the fighting originated. Damon ran after the tornado and got sucked up and away.

Not many people could fit inside the parking garage because a bomb went off inside while we were at my mom’s. I jumped inside it with some nurses just as a bomb exploded outside.

The nurses were in a helicopter. I stepped over women on the floor and grabbed the only remaining seat on the side. The woman flying the chopper didn’t think anyone could fit there, but it seemed to have been made for me. I buckled myself in.

We flew to Homer. Over the base of the Spit the helicopter got lower and lower until we had to dump it in the slough. I unbuckled fast and swam to shore.

In our hose at the end of the spit I ran to my bedroom on the second floor. I put Melissa in the bed and told her to get some sleep, and then crawled in myself. We both wore long nightgowns.

I heard a noise and peeked out the curtain. It was a pitch black night but I could still see the army men gathered in the parking lot. They had conquered Fairbanks and had come to conquer the rest of Alaska. I closed the curtain carefully so they wouldn’t see the movement.

Melissa was too scared to sleep and wanted to sit in her rocking chair and read. She turned on her side lamp just as I was telling her not to. Now the men outside could see that someone was awake in this room.

I knew they would come for us so I hid in a large duffel bag among other clothes and boxes. A soldier came into my room and looked around.

He walked three steps down the length of the duffel bag to ensure no one hid inside of it. At first he stepped on my hip with his sharp boot heel, then just above my head barely missing my nose, and then further away from me. He turned around and came back, stepping in the same places.

I briefly wondered if this was how the Jews felt in Germany during the second world war.

The soldier laid on his stomach on my bed and looked through our earring collection. I peeked out of the bag and handed him and earring holder. He took it, said thanks, and looked right at me.

I knew I was caught, but hoped he would let me stay. He looked friendly enough.

Kara stood in my bedroom as I woke. She opened a large package she had just received in the mail and pulled out yellow flowery linens. She was very excited as these linens were antiques and handed down through her family’s generations.

They looked like something from the 70s to me, though I did not tell her that. The flower box on top of my chest of drawers had water pooled on top of the dirt. Which I found odd because I hadn’t watered it in a few days and it cannot rain inside my bedroom.

Kara held one linen up and asked if there was any place we could use it. I asked her what size it was, and she said it was a half-twin. I had never heard of a half-twin before. I told her that we could not use it because my mom sleeps on a California King sized mattress, Melissa sleeps on a Queen, and I on the waterbed.

She held the yellow sheet up, determined to find a place for it. The way she held it looked to me like it would fit over my small television. She agreed and was very happy to find a place for it. I left for work.

Lying in the hallway at school, I was talking with Melissa and Ryan when the warning bell rang. I wasn’t sure where my class was, but I stayed lying down to finish our discussion.

A man came up behind me and kicked my feet. I looked up and he told me that if I stayed down there much longer I would be late to class. His smile was very warm and he went towards his class.

I got up slowly and opened my locker. Ryan wondered who the guy was and why he cared. I shut my locker, stepped closer to him, and said that if an upperclassman wanted to talk to me, I was fine with it. And besides, he was pretty cute.

I headed to my class and had to go up a long flight of stairs. There were three other people going up the stairs towards the class too, all of us running late. I ran up the stairs as fast as I could, taking them two at a time. My textbook and notebook threatened to fall, but I managed to hang on to both of them.

The last bell rang while I was halfway up the stairs. Late, I bolted into my class. There were only three people in the seats, one of whom was the boy from the hallway. They turned to look at me.

I was laying in a hospital bed and had a baby. The nurse whisked my baby away for the standard tests, and another nurse helped me out of bed. I was exhausted and wanted to stay in bed, maybe take a nap, but I could not resist the nurse.

B and I were at a party, a very relaxed party with glasses of wine and women in heels. We sat on a couch facing another couple on another couch. He had the baby in her carriage.

He told the group how surprised he had been to find it had three legs. Three legs! I looked up, shocked he would say that about our child, and realized he was talking about the carriage. I asked him why those three legs did not have some sort of cover.

I realized that I hadn’t fed the baby since the hospital, and frighteningly wondered when that had been. I picked up my baby and tried to cradle her near my breast, but she squirmed and kicked much like my dog does when holding her on her back. I wondered how I would breast feed her with the bra I was wearing; I hadn’t planned this at all.

I excused myself from our small group and carried my baby into my mother’s computer room. I sat on her ancient couch and removed my top exposing my breasts. I held my girl so that her face was near my nipple, but she would not suckle.

I had no idea how to make her drink. I could feel the weight of the milk inside of my left breast, but had no idea how to make it come out. I put her on the couch beside me and pinched at my nipple. Nothing happened, so I pinched harder. I saw a bit of blood start to form at the tip of my nipple, and thought that could not be good.

My parents and I were standing in Melissa’s old bedroom talking when we heard sirens in the distance. The sirens got louder and louder, closer and closer, until I could see lights flashing outside Melissa’s curtained windows.

I knew that the fire trucks were in our parking lot, and wondered how Lacey was doing with the sirens. She was downstairs sleeping in my old room under the blankets, and I heard her start to whine and howl. I called her name and she ran to me. I covered her ears with my hands trying to block out some of the painful sound.

My parents and I walked outside towards the trucks, who had parked in front of my dad’s shop. Two firemen were inspecting the 500 gallon gasoline tanks.

They explained to me that the hoses were clogged and they needed to fix it immediately. They squeezed the handle to clear the hose of its blockage and asked me to do the other hose.

We pointed the hoses into the weeds across the parking lot, long powerful streams of clear liquid. I worried about getting the gasoline in my mother’s garden, knowing that her garden lay just bejond that patch of weeds.

I looked at my mother and she furrowed her brow, probably worried about her garden as well. The liquid streaming out of the hoses turned into a bronze color, more like gasoline should look. We let go of the handles and turned the hoses back towards our feet.

I was in a dungeon made of stone walls with my coworkers. We were attempting to have a staff meeting when a woman at one end of the table was struck with lightning.

She stood up and tried to serve the rest of us from a tray, but she was struck with lightning again. She wore a long, dark brown robe that looked like it came from Biblical times.

She kept trying to go about her business but the lightning kept hitting her. Each time it did she would light up a brilliant white. One of the men got up to try and shield her from it, but they and I were hit by one last large bolt, transporting us into a room all by ourselves.

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