She had matured, probably too fast for a girl of sixteen. Seznie wrapped her arms around her mother and buried her head into her chest knowing it would be a long time before she would be held like this again, so she made it last.

“Goodbye mother.” she said as they parted. Mizraim pulled on the long red locks of her daughter and tucked it behind her ear. “I’ll be careful, please don’t worry about me.” Mizraim’s laugh came out with an uncontrolled burst as she fought back the tears that were beginning to win the fight and roll from her eyes.

“Seznie,” her mother brought her close. “promise me you will look after your sister. If anything should go wrong, come back and find her. Do not let anything bad happen to her.” Seznie wanted to ask her what she felt but remained silent. She nodded.

She had always been closer to her mother than her father, but this exchange felt different from any she could recall. She stood before him and looked at his chin, her way of standing as if she was before a disciplinary council. He brought his hand under her chin and pulled her head until their eyes met.

“Seznie you have been such an example to your mother and I. I have seen you work so hard to excel and master the Medium, and I can say with no bias; you are the best student the Noord schools have seen.” a tear leaked from her eye. “I’m so proud of you.” All the compliments he had ever poured upon her head in the past were minimal to hearing him tell her this now. His hand had a gentleness she had never felt from her generally stern father.

“You promise me now. If things get rough, you will get out. Promise me.” Seznie nodded.

“I will father.” she turned and walked over to the cradle where her black haired baby sister was sleeping. “Goodbye Kya. With any luck, I won’t see you for a long time.” She said as she leaned in and graced her with a kiss on the forehead. Without looking back, Seznie walked through the door, leaving the Mavi name behind her.

“Do you smell that?” she asked. He could tell she was serious when he looked at her. Something in her eyes always told him when she was lying. Tilting back his head he inhaled deeply, closing his eyes to intensify his sense of smell.

“Something’s burning.” he answered, with a blink. Her hand found it’s way to her mouth and she gasped.

“The children!” he didn’t have a chance to stop her as she ran into the streets where he began to hear others screaming. Living under the structural support of the upper city was supposed to be the safest place for the ‘rot’ as they were referred as by those who so seldom had to venture into their trash filled streets.

He ran out after her to see several lights overhead, all fixed on the cause of the comotion. There near the top of the large stone support was a large mix of wires and packaging only a trained eye like his would recognize as a bomb. They intended to wipe out an entire sector, not thinking twice about those who also lived on the surface.

If you were to look into the sun for a long time and close your eyes, you would see the sun burned temperarily on your retina, watching this explosion had a similar effect, although it was coupled with the sound of a thousand cannons fired in unison.

Not being sure weather to cover his eyes or ears first made no difference as the ten thousand ton plate that supported hundreds of homes, factories and businesses ended everything he had to worry about as it all came crashing down on top of the screaming people below. The sound of a dam being destroyed and millions of decaliters of water raining down on them would have been the best way to describe it, had anyone survived.

Far away, at the eightieth floor of his home, stands the man, calm and indiferent to the chaos going on out his window. Opera playing softly in the next room, a pipe in his hand.

“It’s finished.” crackles a voice over his PA. He nods, and closes the curtain. That wont be the last time he gives an order like that, he says to himself as a smile crosses his face.

“The dream is always the same.” I mumbled. I had already rehearsed it to her several times and each time she responded in the same uninterested and emotionless tone…

“Tell me about your dream.” Even though she could not see my face, the corners of my mouth pulled into a frown and I rolled my eyes. It wasn’t that I hated this dream, it was just out of the hour I spent with her three times a week, I think she would have worked out what the meaning behind this nightmare was, and why the hauntings refused to let my tired, worn body rest.

“The stairs are old, used and painted in a reverse rainbow. I start on a violet step and the walls are black. As I begin my descent, I feel the room cool and I watch my breath escape my lips as a billow of smoke from a factory, inhuman and hot. The heat from my exhale scorches the tip of my nose and forehead as it passes by and disapates into the black vast above.

The indigo step takes me across the world at such a velocity the wind pulls back against my cheeks and feeds on the tears forming in my eyes. As much as they sting and instantly redden, I cannot close them for fear of falling…”

“Are you in the air?” she asks. In mid sentance my mouth hangs on the continuation of my tale.

“I am miles above a planet of blue, deeper that the ocean on a dark day.” I wait but she makes no sound. The clock on the wall reminds me that my one hundred and eighty dollars per session are slipping from my possession like coins falling from an open window… click… click… click.

“This world approaches at an alarming rate and I worry that my legs will break as I touch down, but my feet land solid and I feel no inpact. No jarring that creaks up your body and makes your teeth ache. I am simply there as if I had never left, but I notice that I had moved on to the blue step.

The wind has died and there is no sound, as if I had entered a vaccum. I feel weightless again, this time without the feeling of vertigo, the unease or fear that my life could end in an instance. I usually stay here, for this is bliss. I am watching a sunset and I feel its heat on my face and bare skin. I look down and realize that I am shirtless. My lucid, frail frame reflecting the sunlight back at such a close comparison, I feel that I may be burning it instead of the opposite. There is someone standing next to me, the same glow eminates from his flesh as it does mine. He urges me to go on.

As I step onto the green step I feel a comfort much like being pressed into my mothers breast. A welcome feeling of security and love. I feel understood even though I am not asking for anything or making any attempt of communication. As bubble floats by and I look at my reflection and I am shocked to see myself in a stage of infancy, and as any child would do, I reach out with clumsy and unsure fingers to pop the image before me. As if a dam had been destroyed, a thick flow of liquid gold floods from the bubble and begins to fill the now small room, where I am alone and I panic.

The walls are too close and the top is too small for my head to fit through. As I struggle to hold the only thing keeping me coherent, I open my eyes and see that the color has faded to the light you see early in the morning as the sun is on its way to rising. I am on the yellow step frozen, without feeling. I feel like a statue pointing to the east, awaiting the sunbeams to break me from my cold prison.

Suddenly I feel my heart pounding in my chest and my nerves are dancing. My skin prickles as if I had been deprived of blood and I am waking. I realize that as the sun moves into the sky, that time is moving quickly, and if I intend to reach the last step I must move on.

The orange step takes me to the top of a slide, one of those ones that spiral down, and just like the staircase resembles the rainbow, I slide down the same colors I had just taken the journey from. I feel the cold air and my hot breath as I pass the violet section, the wind that stings my cheek and jerks tears from my eyes on the indigo.

The blue section is coupled with the warmth of the sun on by shirtless body and I look around for the man, but I never find him. The green part takes me back into infancy, this time instead of the comfort and simplicity of that life I am frightened as I slide into the unknown. I open my mouth to let out a cry of dissaproval when I am submerged by the liquid gold that fills my lungs as I inhale. Rather than try and cough it out as on would react, I embrace it and I close my eyes as I enter the last portion of this ride.

I cross my arms across my chest and lay back as a vampire would in a coffin. I slide past the red section and onto the floor, that I slip across as you would a sheet of ice. I have reached the last step, a landing. I feel myself come to a stop and I open my eyes. I am alone, everything is black. I pull myself to my feet and I hear something behind me. I turn and see the man standing before me, and as he turns to face me, I wake up.”

I look over at her to see her looking intently at me. Her eyes are focused on my face, and her eyebrows are brought together, almost as if she feels sorry for me. The pen and paper are lying on the floor at her crossed feet and her hands are clasp in her lap.

“His face, what did he look like?” she asks me. Was this the same person I began this session with? Her voice carried an excitment I had never heard sung from her lips before.

“I’ve never seen his face.” I reply on an exhale as I stand. My time was finished and I pick up my parka and cane as I head for the door. I hear her chair groan as she sat back and let out a breath.

“I’ll see you on Monday Mr.Sorell.” she said. I turn to face her as I open the door.

“Please, call me James.”

I dug my hands deeper into my pockets pushing out the denim creases that always hid it from me. My tongue ran over my lip unconsiously as I began to perspire… it was gone. I checked my breast pocket in haste, but to no avail. I looked at the other riders on the subway with me and began making assumptions at the poorer people standing around me.

The subway stopped and I saw him flip it into the air as he strode from the car. My eyes narrowed and I pushed my way after him. Through the large crowd of people between the two of us, I watched him take long strides up the stairs made damp from the rain tracked in by the thousands of people. My short legs pumped me up after him and I watched my step as I didnt want to slip in my heels.

The rain was pouring like a headless shower and my clothing stuck to me like a prepared spagetti noodle, as I stepped out into the beehive of activity, just in time to see him duck into an alleyway. I hurried across the road, thankful the crosswalk was still flashing green and darted out of the flood into the cover of tall close buildings that provided my shelter.

I pulled my coat closed and shrugged off a shudder caused by the last of the rain running down my spine. I looked down the dark passage to the opposite side and let out a sigh. He was gone. Yet my curiosity drove me on, hoping he would be on the opposite side.

I was only halfway when I heard the gunshot and felt my chest tear open. A wave of nausea came before the pain began to radiate from the hole that was taking my life.

As I looked up at the man running out of the alleyway one last thought crossed my mind…

He stole from me twice…

The room was hot, dark and uncomfortable. I had been there for several hours and had quit wiping the sweat from my brow as it formed only seconds after it was gone. Occasionally a blink would cause a bead to coat my eyelashes. My glass of water had been drained twice and now I was alone.
“I’m waiting.” the cold voice brought me forward in my hard wooden chair that groaned under my frame.
“I still can’t think of anything.” I mumbled. I heard him sigh. My eyes shifted rapidly across the pictures that were tossed before me and my heart pounded in my ears. Each time he passed me the musky smell of Old Spice mixed with gin and sweat accompanied the moving air that followed him.
He stopped behind me and I heard his wedding band on his strong hand connect with the backrest of my chair as he rested his weight on it. Again the old chair creeked in protest. I was sure he was enjoying himself. This was just where he wanted me. I was his prey caught in a steel trap struggling the life out of myself in a foolish attempt to reclaim my freedom. While I tried to reason with myself for the crime, reviewing the gruesome pictures before me, he was smiling smugly. It was his idea of a good time.

The smell was overwhelming and I brought my hand over my nose and mouth to act as some sort of filter.
“Captain! They are all gone.” my best friend through all this sighed dejectedly. After once again scanning the blood stained fields I nodded in solemn reverence. I looked at the sky as it was filled with another shower of arrows, bringing my end in its aim. The pinch of cold steel followed by rub of course wood penetrated my flesh and I fell.
“So, it has come to this.” my labored breath allowed. As I lay feeling my life drain into the welcoming dirt below me a smile crossed my lips… in the clouds above me, the fanfare of my homecoming had just begun.
The rain washed my body as I left it behind.

I am empty. Swollen and cold. The power of my wake is frightening. My voice is only silenced in death and often heard miles beyond my physical presence. Many times I am mild, but your attention of me should never falter, as I am uncertain. So much hides beneath my endless matter, but I take no part in seeking for artifacts. I hold stories and rumors, legends and tales. In the still of the night you will fear me.
But at a moment, when I am weakened, and you dare trespass upon my nakedness, beware! Oh beware! For I am only away to gather my strength. And at the time I am ready, nothing subdues my army. You can see the rippling white stallions leading my troops of blue to beat upon your shores.

I can hear the coins jangling in my pocket as the spring in my step forces the small change from it’s lifeless rest in the lint filled denim pocket into flight and freedom. They sing a melody known around the world. To some, a cheery sound, while others the song of something once possessed.

The same song with many meanings. As I round the corner, my feet slow and I quickly silence the music emiting from my happy pocket by placing my hand on my leg. He looked at me and I saw the tired, longing look in his eyes. The same I had seen in many others and pushed by after dropping my eyes. But then stopped. This time it felt genuine, I turned and emptied my pocket into his outstreched hand. He mumbled his gratitude, something incoherent to me, but I managed a small smile. He too would soon hear the song that had accompanied me throughout the day. And as I walked away I heard the jangle as he flipped them over in his hand. After all, it’s all about the small change.