"You know your office at work is cold when you have to pack clothes for the day."

The Calvin Klien store was always freezing. Or maybe it was just that the "uniforms" they were required to wear were not warm. The Calvin branded jeans weren't bad, but the short sleeve tops were light weight fabric. Sally tried to keep moving, it made the day go by quicker and also kept her a little warmer. She pictured warm places and things as she folded the jeans wall.

She imagined a white sand beach as she took out the size 28 jeans, placed them on the folding table and began re-folding the pairs that customers had taken out to examine the size or the color or the "rip" patterns. She was barefoot, which was almost a mistake because it was late in the day the sand was hot after spending the day sucking in the sunlight. Between her toes the sand settled and sent waves of heat across her feet. Her hair blew softly in the warm breeze. She could feel it as it brushed her neck, loose and soften by a day of exposure to salt water and sun.

She imagined a big cup of hot chocolate as she re-ordered the boxes of men's underware by size. Pictured a large cup of homemade coco. The kind made with milk and real chocolate bits cooked together until the milk absorbded the chocolate and brought to an almost boil. She re-folded the underware that people had taken out of the box to examine and placed it back in its place while she pictured large scoops of fluff covering her coco. Drinking it slowly on the sofa while her cat napped nearby.

"blurry christmas morning shot"

Getting up early to start the fire on Christmas morning was one of his rituals. Before the kids would bound down the stairs and look on in awe at the spoils of a years worth of "being good". It was his job to make the house warm, the stove glowing through its glass windows. The wood crackling in the fireplace.

He kneeled in front of the stove, stacking kindling inside like a Jenga game. Reflecting on how even though he starts the stove every morning somehow on Christmas it doesn't feel like a chore. As though it is appreciated more, welcomed more. As though it would be noticed if this morning it wasn't burning hot.

The newspaper catches fire and begins to heat the kindling. He prepares the larger logs for when the smaller pieces have caught. He plugs in the tree lights and starts the coffee pot. It won't be long now until the sound of footsteps echo above him and the small voices saying "Santa came, Santa came" will rouse his wife from their bed and they will all join him by the fire.

"Kinda wishing I was Bill Murray in Groundhog's Day right now. Wouldn't mind living the last day of vacation over and over again."

The Tulip liked being one of many Tulips. How it's petals blended into the petals of the Tulip next to it. How it could disguise it's edges among the edges of many. When looked at from above you could not see below the tips of the Tulips to inspect their stems or leaves. The Tulip liked this. As though everything below the petals was a highly protected secret. The kind you can not say out loud even to yourself.

The Tulip did not mind the rain or harsh weather. It knew as long as it stood as one of many Tulips it would be safe. Strength in numbers. It did not fight for more sun. It did not stretch it's petals up and out blocking the Tulips next to it from drinking in the warmth. It took up only the space it was originally provided. It did not seek to be more then it was. And it was happy.

"It's a lazy New Years Day here. I am painting, and Luis is watching "Homeland". He's hooked."

Facebook post from January 1, 2012

You had flowers sent to my office for my 30th birthday. Calla Lilies, which when I called to thank you for them You told me were my favorite. I hate Calla Lilies. 12 years together and You didn't know my favorite flower.

You took me out to dinner to my favorite restaurant (You got that one right). A 5:30 reservation. On a Tuesday night. You would have thought they were offering a blue plate special when You just didn't know how to spend the time between work and dinner and so You just smushed the two together instead.

You didn't want to order dessert. You were full. All I had asked for was a candle to make a wish on.

You did have the courtesy to not text your mistress during dinner. I guess I should have thanked You for being so thoughtful.

You told me to pick out a movie when we got home. Something to provide noise until it was time to pretend to fall asleep. You told me to pick out any movie I wanted since it was my birthday. When I picked Beauty and the Beast, You said: "well anything but that".

"Could. Sleep. All. Day."

The orange cat moved from his place on the back of the couch to the seat of the rocking chair. Stretching his legs, first the front two together and then one at a time each of the back ones. He flexed his tail upward, straightening it for a moments before letting it fall again into its relaxed curl. He considered the small child playing the floor not far from his new perch on the rocking chair but didn't move again. Two full circles and then the orange cat restfully placed his body onto the cushion, tucked his back legs underneath him and extended one front paw on which he rested his head. With a last look around the room, his eyes closed again.

"Miso glazed wasabi black cod, like butter, over carrots and forbidden rice, oh my!!!"

Food used to the be important. Not in a nutrient needed sort of way. But as a way to define himself. He needed to be able to say that while eating beef carpachio with aged blue cheese and brandy soaked cherries he was lucky enough to enjoy a nice glass of Port. This meant that last night while you were home watching American Idol and eating some Kraft Mac and Cheese out of the pot you cooked it in he was doing something that mattered.

Lunch might be sushi, edemame and pan fried Goyza to start and then fresh baby hamachi, white tuna and whatever the special of the day was. Because if you are going to eat sushi, he would say, you might as well let the chef tell you what is fresh. And so while you ate peanut butter and jelly at your desk he was mixing wasabi with soy sauce into the perfect dipping location.

What he would never tell you. What you couldn't know. Is he hated eating out. Would have much rather come home to a warm house, the smell of chicken or steak or pasta cooking on the stove. A wife to ask him how his day was. A child to run to him. He would trade all the foi gras and Chateau Margaux, all the truffled infused french fries and calamari in orange sauce for a home cooked meal.

"one man can only do so much"

Jake and Mandy worked together at an accounting firm for 10 years before they decided to get divorced. 15 years of marriage evaporating like steam off a mountain lake during sunrise. Jake decided he was the one who would leave the firm. He had always wanted to move to Florida he said. Away from the cold of New York. Into the sunlight. So Mandy stayed. And even though her commute to work changed. She took a different train into the city now, and walked toward the office from a different direction. It was still their office. The elevator was the same one they once shared, the lunch spots places they had gone together. The worst was passing his office. Something she did every time she had to go to the copier room. Someone else sat their now. But it would always be his office. And no matter how many years passed she still expected him to pop into her office door to see if she wanted to grab lunch or a cup of coffee. The ghost of him more real then he had ever been.

"leaves for rome in four days and will NOT be sick!!!"

The Coliseum spread before her. So many years since men fought to the death, the floor now missing. decayed and fallen in on itself years before. All that remains are the support structures that now provide outlines of what the layout was below the floor. Green moss and plant growth covers the columns and cats bask in the sun in spots where lions once fed on the blood of man. She felt as though she could still hear the screams of battle. Of applause. Of horror filled gasps.

She ran her hand along the guard rail trying to picture the stands full of Roman men and women awaiting the emperors up or down signal telling if a gladiator would live or die. Tasted the air that once was filled with dust kicked up from chariots and the hope of slaves. It made her problems seem unimportant when compared to the daily fight for life made by so many in this very place. And even though the floor was gone and the last man had gasped his last breath hundreds of years before part of her felt guilt for looking down into the arena. That somehow even in this future time, just by being there, she was being a passive observer to something too awful for words.

"off to the beach ... who cares that its only 50....."

Spring could not come quickly enough for Casey. She had been tired of the cold and grey since it started last October and with the warming March air rolling in she felt a relief in the very core of her being. So on the first day that it was above freezing and not raining she called in sick to work, packed up the back of her Chevy and took off for the beach.

She was the only one there. The water lapped invitingly on the shore, the sand moved slowly underneath her feet. But if she closed her eyes she could here the laughter of children, smell sunscreen and melting ice cream and taste the salt water in her mouth. She set up her beach chair a few feet back from the waves and looked out at the abyss. Looked out into the ocean. Past the lobster pots and colorful fishing boats. Past the breakers and the islands that represented the last stop before a boat would find itself in open water headed for Europe. She sat and thought about all the things she wanted to achieve and how the cyclical nature of the ocean represented so much of our lives. She sat as the ocean tide came in, the water brushing at her toes and as the tide went out leaving mud flats behind. She sat until the sun set behind her and she could barely see the edge of the water.

"Im free! oh and look at these wings!!!"

Her wings were pink with gold around the edges. They were soft to the touch. The kind of wings someone would want to take shelter under until the storm passed. She had found a way to hide them from people when she needed to. Tucking them up underneath a shirt or a coat. Walking the streets like she was just like everyone else. With a well conceled secret. Another life drapped in someone else's cloths.

When she needed to she would wait until dark or go a private place and stretch her wings. Feel the freedom that she could know. Smooth the rumpled feathers back into place. Embrace the strength that surged through her body when they were exposed. It was just knowing that they were there. That they were hers. That was enough.

"Bagpipers on the street below my office. Because public drunkenness, ghastly food and hideous fashions just aren't enough."

They don't dye the Charles River green. The pollution from the old Polariod factory had long ago damaged the river so much that the city would not dare risk an added pollutant. The bars open early so women in green slitter and short shorts and frat boys in white hats and green beads can embrace being Irish.

In South Boston there is a parade. Green floats and bands composed of school children march in the street. And politicans drink without regard of it being a work day...since everyone knows the State House is closed for Bunker Hill Day the next day. It is a holiday people are proud of. Celebrate the heritage that every other day of the year they don't think about. Down State Street intermingled with the dramtically dressed and overtly drunk are bankers, consultants and other white collar workers unable or uninterested in getting the day off. Frustrated by the sudden swell of people and trash.

"Karma does not like me. But I'm more stubborn than she thinks."

The bird perches on the tender branch of a young birch tree that extends over a manicured lawn. Using its beak it preens the feathers on its wing. Stretching each feather closer toward the sun. Suddenly the forest seems still and the bird stands still - poised for flight at a moments notice its head cocked slightly to one side to improve hearing.

Suddenly from behind a large eagle soars. In its claws a small mouse ripped from the forests floor. The bird does not sense that danger is past now. It remains still in the sunlight, waiting for the forest to return to life again and signal it is safe to move on.

"Why do 13 yr-old girls care so much more about boys than college?"

The gym had been transformed into something more magical. Streamers fluttered down from the basketball hoops, crate paper cut into designs like snowflakes and pumpkins littered the normally blue concrete walls. It was the first dance of their 8th grade year. The boys hadn't taken it very seriously. Most were wearing the same outfits they had on at school. But the girls had all gone home. Borrowed nylons from their mothers. Put on dresses bought just for the occasions. Some even experimented with makeup: eyeliner put on to dark, lipstick that wasn't the right color for their skin tone, blush applied to make them look like dolls.

They hung together in groups, the girls against the folded up bleachers. The boys lined up against the back wall. Everyone waiting for someone else to make a move. For something to cut the tension in the room. Finally Jared stepped away from the walls and made his way across the empty floor. The girls instinctively separated. Spreading themselves out to make themselves more visible to him. Each hoping he would like their dress, their hair, their makeup, them best. Each holding their breath to see who he would choose.

"God I love girl scout cookies!"

Ashlyn wanted to be a girl scout from the moment she first saw one come to her door to seller mom cookies. She was maybe 3 or 4 years old and she remembered clinging to her moms skirt as she talked to the girl about the prices and types. Finally buying one box of Thin Mints. From that day on she asked, begged, cried to please be allowed to join. Her mother finally relented and enrolled Ashlyn into the local Brownie troop.

Ashlyn loved the uniform. Loved the idea of collecting badges for doing certain things. Loved that there was a physical commemoration of her accomplishments. As she grew up she moved up the ranks, until one year she too was ready to go door to door. She was so proud of her decorated shash. Her hair in two blond pigtails. Her mom waiting in the car while she would skip to the front doors of the homes of their neighbors and try to convince them to buy Thin Mints, Shortbreads and Carmel Delights. Amazed at how easy it was to sell something you were passionate about.

"in Miami. Not as great as it sounds."

March 13th (delayed due to flights and computer problems)

The Charlotte airport is full of people milling about as though urgency was not a word in their vocabulary. John plowed through them, his briefcase and rolling bag streaming behind him like ribbons. He never understood how the further south you go the slower people moved. He could empathize with it on a beach or in some historical location. But there is nothing to look at in an airport.

He chose to bi-pass the moving walk way and found that he was walking faster then those trapped on it. He shook his head. A mix of anger and desperation filling his body. Why did all these people feel like it was OK to move through life at a slow pace. Why was he trapped in some life that prevented him from just standing on the moving walkway. He wanted to sit back and smell the roses. He wanted to just take his time. But something in him wouldn't let him. Always on to the next thing. Always on the move. John hiked his briefcase higher up on his shoulder and cursed the airport for not having a McDonald's.

"How's everybody today?"

The airport is quiet. She has an early morning flight and so she glides through security and to her gate without encountering a single line. She finds the time to stop for coffee at the airport Starbucks. Paying more then usual for her Iced Cafe Mocha. In the souvenir and book shop she picks up the latest issue of People magazine, even though the laptop weighs heavy in her bag with work she should be doing. She waivers between maximizing her time and wanting to waste as much of it as she can.

At the gate she remains standing. Resting her briefcase on top of her small roller bag. Inside cloths and shoes, enough for a 3 day business trip. No bathing suit or shorts or jeans. No sign that she plans to have any fun or exhibit any personality on this trip. Just a black based wardrobe sprinkled with brightly colors shirts to display beneath the black suit, the black sweater. By the time the plane is boarding the area has filled a little more and as she stands in her first line of the day to board the plane she is happy to be one of a crowd. She puts her People Magazine inside a copy of the New York Times and settles into the flight.

"No more hair."

For years Kate had grown her hair out. Long and blond and naturally curly. People recognized her by her hair. Would see her on the street from behind and call out her name. "I thought it was you." They would say. She could only wash it once or twice a week or the curls would frizz to much. Every morning it would take her 30 minutes to go over her hair with a curling iron, smoothing out the rough edges.

But she grew tired of the morning routine and more she grew tired of her hair being the thing that people knew her for. She was so much more. And that was how she found herself one Sunday morning. Having just washed her hair. The blond curls starting to dry around her face into tight frizzy ringlets. The sunlight pouring through the window. Scissors in hand.

"Lovely lunch with Danielle:) Finally a Spring Break fun time!:)"

She spent her first college spring break in Portugal. There with three close college friends their plane touched down in Lisbon. The air warm and smelling of foreign flowers. They drank sangria in waterfront bars and road the train up and down the coast stopping in places like Cais Cais and Estreal. Cities that had magical names. The strolled stone streets that had been in place longer then their country had even been a country. They ordered food they couldn't pronounce and drank wine, because here 18 was the drinking age. They shopped in markets buying trinkets and memorabilia from street vendors.

It was in one of these markets in some small town whose name she never even knew that she bought the tiles. Colorfully hand painted tiles depicting majestic images of landmarks and coastlines. She was only 18 and had no where to put such tiles. She purchased 8 of them. Imagining them someday in her kitchen embedded in a back splash to framed and hung on the way of her study. They wrapped them carefully in rose colored paper and then again in bubble wrap.

She went home, finished college, moved into her first real apartment. The tiles moved with her. She would carefully pack and unpack the rose colored paper. Knowing someday she would unpack them for the last time. That she would give them a home. She rarely looked at them. Feared that how they really looked would somehow disappoint her memory of them. She kept them in her underwear drawer through 10 moves including two across the country. Until finally she unwrapped them safe in the home she now owned. She laid them out of the floor, looking at them suddenly with new eyes. And carefully re-wrapped them in the rose paper and returned them to her underwear drawer.

"Oh, and I am once again locked in my state Capitol building."

Jim bachelor party was held on a warm July night. The city was vibrant with activity, young girls out in short skirts and halter tops taking advantage of the warm air on their skin. Relishing in the glances the looks from the men who swirled around them like cotton candy in a machine.

Jim and his friends went to the bars they knew. The Red Hat. The Kinsale. The Shangrala. Celebrating Jim's last moments of freedom before marriage would become his coffin. Children, the nails. He had thought at first that he would seek out female companionship. Maybe make out with a college student in a bar or on the street corner. But it wasn't in him and he didn't know why. After the last bar closed the group headed back towards Cambridge Street to catch a cab. Drunk couples held each other up on the street. A girl threw up on a homeless man. And suddenly everyone in the group had to go to the bathroom.

The only open building at that time of night was the Massachusetts State House. And that was how Jim found himself inside the state capital at 3am. The halls empty, the corridors echoing with the sound of the groups footsteps. The lights dimmed to protect the artwork. Jim, unable, as always, to take it all in.

"home sick. yuck!"

The pain in her head couldn't just be a headache caused by stress and her long commute home. She was sure as she looked at her reflection in the mirror that it was a brain tumor. Or worse yet the beginnings of an aneurysm. Something that would kill her before she even realized it was there. The mole on her leg that had gotten darker with age wasn't a mole changed by the sun to simply be darker, it was skin cancer. Slowly eating away at her blood cells, mutating and changing, poisoning her body.

The thoughts occupied all her time. In the car on the way to work. On conference calls. While she was feeding her children, making love to her husband. Air embolism, Ebola, blood clots, tumors, cancer, infections, flesh eating bacteria, staff infections. It was all she could do to not be swallowed whole by the thoughts. She thought someday it would get better. That time would help. But instead new diseases just were added to the old ones. Measles, TB, Emphysema, Whooping cough. She didn't worry about her kids or her husband. Felt that they would be OK. It was only her who she seemed at risk. Only her.

"Have a cookie! The one I already took a bite out of."

Baking always made Carol feel better. Chocolate cookies, apple pie, cake with buttercream frosting and decorative roses. She filled her kitchen with the smell of love and kindness. Her pantries and refridgerator with jams and sauces and brownies. It gave her something to do. A way to pass the time between work and sleep. It made her popular in the office. She always had something to offer people. It made her matter.

"Wow... I would say that this is amazingly accurate? Wouldn't you? "

She was always surprised by how easy it was for her to read people. Understand what made them tick within minutes of knowing them. Knowing what words needed to be strung together in order to make sure she was able to get what she needed from them. Of course she was wrong sometimes. Made crucial errors about what she thought she knew. Made enemies.

If she knew what people wanted from her then she could fit that mold. She could be the best friend, girlfriend, employee, daughter. She knew it came at a cost. Knew that she had lost herself long ago. Pushed so far down, so far away that she didn't know who she was unless there was a person standing in front of her.

"Disappearing down the rabbit hole..."

March 5th

Jane wanted to be invisible. She didn't want the world to see her. Didn't want to have to get out of bed and face the prospect of making decisions like what she would have for breakfast or what she would wear. She didn't want to get in her car and drive to the train to go to work. Having to interact with toll booth workers, train conductors, fellow passengers. She fantasized about disappearing. Not of dying. She didn't want that. Didn't want to not be on this earth. Just wanted to be able to make her way through the world without the awkwardness of interaction.

She imagined she was Alice on her way to Wonderland. That somewhere, if she took the right wrong turn she would find herself in another place where she belonged. Where her words were understood where she was worthy of love.

"turned my back on sick baby to find she's eating the cable remote."

Jill DVRs the shows her husband doesn't want to have to sit through. America's Next Top Model, 90210, Teen Mom 2. Sometimes she watches them when she beats him home from work, or when he goes out with his friends. But he hates to even see them on TV. Gets angry to find her watching Gossip Girl, 16 and Pregnant, Road Rules Real World Challenge.

So mostly she sneaks out of bed in the middle of the night. Makes her way down the stairs in the dark. Avoiding the step that creeks like a teenager sneaking out. She moves along the shadowed hall and into the living room. There in the dark she can relax. Can exhale. She keeps the sound so low that she has to sit right up next to the TV to hear it. Her legs curled underneath her. A pillow clutched to her chest. And she watches: The Hills, Project Runway, One Tree Hill. And she is happy.

"has a very vivid imagination."

Kaylee saw butterflies and rainbows where others saw horseflies and air pollution. The glass wasn't half full. It was full. She couldn't help but only believe the best in people. There was no room in her world for disapointment and anger. She wasn't naive...just believed completly that if she saw the world the way she wanted it to be, instead of the way it was, then maybe it would become her vision.

When she was young horses were unicorns, skunks just unloved cats. Leprochauns weren't waiting at the end of the rainbow to guard their gold but to reward it with you. Birds sang the way they do in Disney movies. Her life was not what she had wanted it to be. But she hoped for something better everyday. She imagined the life she wanted to have, the same way she had imagined the unicorns of her youth.

"Lemme know if you want to come over! I love having company while I work!"

James rebuilt car engines in the garage behind his house. People from all over the state would call him up. They would have vintage Porches, vintage Mustangs, two door coups and jeeps. He would drive to their location, take a look at what they had and if the rest of the vehicle looked OK he would make them an offer. $25o0 for the mustang coated in rust that hadn't run in 10 years. $500 for the 10 year old jeep. $6000 for the 1979 porches convertible.

He would attach them to the back of his pickup. A late model Ford, and tow them back to his garage. They became like children to him. He worked tirelessly to restore their engines, their paint jobs their interiors to look exactly like they did the day they were purchased. No detail was overlooked. When he would finally finish them they would sell as soon as he started advertising in Uncle Henry's. Usually purchased by the the first person who came to see them. Because James was able to take something used and broken and restore it to the point that it wasn't just a car anymore. It was a moment in time. A dream deferred.

"Just realized its March."

The Ides of March are upon us. Nelson shivered as he buttoned his overcoat and headed out into the early spring morning. Snow still covered the ground like a safety blanket you can't give up. The ground crunched beneath his feet and he ducked his head from the wind as he headed toward the train station.

Even though he worked now as commodities trader his degree in Shakespearean literature always made him uncomfortable until March 15th had passed. As though the lines from Julius Cesar might someone slip from the page and infect his own life. He didn't anticipate being stabbed on the trading room floor but he did worry about all the other things that could cause his life to tumble down around him.

He turned out of his driveway. The path ahead of him clear. Lines from sonnets rang in his head. It was how he kept going everyday. Reciting the lines that had brought him such joy in his youth. Once shouted from rooftops of frat parties and stages and literature circles now condemned to the reverberation of his own head.

"They told us we had to leave at 4pm. I wrote the ACLU's number on my arm and stayed put. So did at least a thousand others. We prevailed."

Sometimes James wished that he could just think like other people his age. Or feel confident enough to speak his mind. He believed in his ideals just as strongly as his peers, but feared being ostracized - on Facebook, through email, in person - if he spoke them too loudly. So he learned to be quiet. He learned that the loudest voice doesn't always mean the best one. That disagreeing with the popular opinion can lose you a job, or girlfriend or friendship. He learned silence.

When everyone around him was rallying for Al Gore, he quietly cast a vote for Bush and if the topic of the election came up he talked not for whom he had voted. But about the lines at the voting center he went to. the inexperienced little old lady who took his ballot, the person in front of him who had been able to vote without ID because she new the volunteer checking her in. When people started buying hybrid cars to save the earth and stop global warming, he quietly bought the SUV with the worst gas mileage he could find. When asked about it he talked about the importance of 4-wheel drive where he lived, about how well it handled in the snow, about what a good deal he had gotten. He found that through simple deflection he could behave how he wanted and never have to answer for it. Never have to fight the battle out loud.

But it was when the Wisconsin protests started that he found it hard to keep quiet. He was against unions. Against pensions. He was in support of the Governor. He wanted to express himself. Speak out about all that was good about what the Governor was trying to do there. But the fear remained. The thing he hated about liberals was their inability to discuss things. It was always personal. Always about the individual. Sometimes, James thought, it has to be about the greater good. And with that in mind, he remained quite and waited for some other cause to lure the protesters away from the capital building.

"Just got home from girls' night out. I don't think I've been out this late since college."

In college she used to watch the sun come up more then go down. Often the first rider on the T when it started back up after its brief night respite. The click clack of the green line moving down Commonwealth Ave. The sun breaking over the skyline of the city. Still dressed in the outfit from the day before. Racing the sun to get back to her small apartment in time to shower, change and make her way to work. How many days since she had slept?

After work she would take the same T home except now it was crowded with people and cellphones. Everyone in a rush to get home, or not get home. Everyone in a rush to be somewhere else. She missed the early morning ride. Just her and the conductor until they reached the Harvard Ave stop when one or two others would join them.

At home she would nap while the sun set. Rise hours after the city had been cloaked in darkness and with only a quick glance in the mirror head out of her apartment. Towards him. Towards another sun rise.

"The pieces I had picked up are all back on the floor."

Every Thanksgiving the Holden family would build a puzzle. Over the years they built Monet paintings broken into tiny squares with bumpy sides, pictures of landscapes and monuments. They would never work together to build the puzzle. It was something completed in piecemeal, in between basting the turkey and playing with the dogs. In between the football games and the appetizers of shrimp and cheese.

They never talked about why they never sat down as a family to complete the puzzle. Somehow just knowing that they were all working towards a common goal was enough. By the end of the day after the stuffing and the pie. After the post dinner dog walking and before it was time for everyone to go to bed someone would click in the last piece. Then they would gather around the puzzle for the first time as a group and admire what they had accomplished. The simplicity and complexity of this simple toy. Then they would break apart their work and return the small pieces to the box.

"Friday nite cocktails in costa!"

Daiquiris with little umbrellas and pineapples and strawberries pierced with plastic pirate swords.

Vodka tonics with slices of fresh lemon and orange. Ice cubes shaped like perfect squares clinking in the glass.

Mint juleps filled with freshly mulled mint from rooftop gardens. Powered sugar and carbonated water. Fresh squeezed lime juice.

Dreams of something better mixed with fruit juice and ginger ale.

"Hmm.... Peep overload at A&P tonight??"

Peeps had always been his favorite candy. As a kid he would wait for Easter like most kids waited for Christmas. As he got older he would ration out the candy. Eating only one a week. On the days in between he would look at the remaining candy in the small cardboard box. Watch the bright yellow candy with its brown chocolate eyes from across the room.

When he got older he couldn't eat them anymore without feeling guilt so he began taking pictures of the candy. By then they were being made in multiple colors and shapes. They weren't just little ducks, now they were bunnies, cats, pumpkins. All in different florescent colors. He would like them up pinks and purples and yellows and blues. Unnatural colors for these creatures. He would put them in the grass and capture the vibrant contrast between the natural and unnatural.

"Nobody's clapping..."

Tinkerbell underestimated the work it would take to get a corporate job. She thought that if she brought light and positive energy to a position that it would be enough. She knew her limitations. She wasn't always good with other people, and was often jealous of other women. And math. She had never been good with numbers.

But since leaving Neverland she found a new type of independence. Free of the responsibilities of the Lost Boys and the wars with the pirates she was able to purse what she was passionate about. The problem was she didn't know what that was. So as she went from interview to interview she kept being asked the question: "why do you want this job?" And she never knew what to say. Never had the right combination of enthusiasm and experience. She felt like she was back in the nursery that night when Peter had to tell them to clap if they believed in fairies so she could live. Except now, no one was clapping.