The joke was funny six years ago. I think it’s time to, like, drop it.

Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – Family Values
Current Date: June 30, 2024

Character: Reynard Baltimore
Race: Human
Age: 33
Current residence: New York City, New York
 

---

It’s been years at this point, but I still remember fairly vividly how things were while I had to share an apartment with that one roommate to end all roommates. A roommate who wouldn’t let me have a key and who only allowed me to make payments for my half of the rent through daily sexual favours. I’d needed that apartment to be able to work at the Willis place since they didn’t want a live-in nanny and it was the only place around.

While he demanded his payment every single day and I was a less than willing participant, he didn’t seem to have much of a care in the world about anything else when it came to me. He didn’t ask to know about my job—other than the first time I was interviewed for the open room offer, more on that briefly—and he just didn’t ask anything that had to do with my personal life. So long as I didn’t make any messes anywhere, he didn’t care. He just wanted his daily payment and that was that.

Just that one tidbit—that I didn’t pay him any money for the room—on its own was enough to make me realize, once I’d gotten out, that he hadn’t really needed a roommate, he’d just wanted a daily fuck buddy, someone to technically hold in a hostage situation because they needed a roof over their heads.

On the day that I first met up with him about the apartment and the room for rent, he did ask the basic questions. Though his eyes roamed a whole lot, too. I didn’t think much about it. I was somewhat desperate for a place to stay that was close enough to the Willis’s place that I didn’t have to spend an hour on a bus every single day to get there, and then get back. In hindsight, it would have been better than what happened, but you can’t change the past.

I had all my spacers in because I’d just gotten out of my final meeting with the head of the Willis household about how things would happen. They were expecting me to start working within the next week and that meant finding an apartment close in that time frame. So, the open room offer was a bit of a miracle. He certainly did notice the spacers, and asked about them, I told him simply enough that at my job, I couldn’t wear my piercing and that seemed to be that.

The rest of that interview went well, until, just as we were parting, he asked me what I did for a living. It was the first genuine question to come from him. I mean, a genuine question that didn’t have to do with the whole apartment thing that we’d just worked out. By that point, I knew I had the room, but he’d told me that he’d have to get the lease from his landlord to calculate costs and everything, so I’d know more when I moved in, how much I’d be paying.

A risky move, I’m aware, but I was desperate.

But still, when he asked me that, I told him that I was essentially a home chef, but I was more of a glorified nanny than a chef—which was technically fine by me, a paying job was a paying job. He guffawed. He asked me if I wore the little all-black maid outfit with the white apron and all. I let it slide. I didn’t want to get on his case about how I was not a maid; I wasn’t about to go around cleaning their houses. I was taking care of the kids and making sure the whole family had three meals a day.

Even now, years later, I still remember that day and while I know I did let it slide back then because I didn’t want him to think I was possibly not a good match for the apartment, I can admit easily that while he might have found it hilarious, I didn’t really. It’s been more than six years at this point—more like double that by now—and I still don’t think it’s funny.

I can understand that a lot of people seem to mistake nannies for maids but they’re two very different things. On that point, however, I also know that in a lot of make-believe stories, people who worked for rich families—and probably even now in the very real world—all wore similar dark, clean uniforms, so be it nanny, maid, or hired help as I loathe the term servant, the so-called maid outfit wouldn’t have been all that far off though I also know that’s not what he visualized when he asked me that question, back then.

I think this one thing wouldn’t have stayed with me so long if he hadn’t brought it up every time that I came back wearing something other than my chef’s uniform. It got old quickly but, again, as I needed the roof over my head and was essentially being held hostage in a way, I just kept my mouth shut.

Final Word Count: 859

I suppose it’s easy to talk big when you have others acting on your behalf, huh?

Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – New York City
Current Date: December 23, 2022

Character: Reynard Baltimore
Race: Human
Age: 31
Current residence: New York City Ruins, New York
 

---

Being a loner by trade, if that’s even a thing and I bet it’s not, but it is now since I said so, I guess I’ve spent a lot of time just watching people. Not that I’ll go out of my way to stare at others and make them uncomfortable. I’d like to think that I might be at least a little subtle in my people-watching. If I see something from the corner of my eye, I might give it a quick, slight look but at times, it’s really just gonna happen.

So, I guess all I’m trying to say is that I feel like I’ve seen a lot.

Is my version of a lot, like everyone else’s version of a lot? I don’t think so. I remember how, to Summer, a lot was very little when I was faced with his definition of it. It did make me smile if a little sadly. I loved that kid, even though I couldn’t bring myself to check in on him when he was spending time at the hospital. I hated these places like you wouldn’t believe and I’m still not comfortable around doctors. Something that’s a little funny, when you consider things, in the long run, I’m aware.

Every year, on the near-date of when it all started and we lost him, I sort of spend time even more by myself because I feel like he deserves at least that much. Just one of my days in the year when I spend my day with him if you would. I wasn’t a great not-quite-brother to him by the end, but I tried, and I know he’d have argued with me as much as his energy would allow if I’d told him that I knew I wasn’t a good person.

Anyway.

When the world ended, a small part of me had somehow thought that a lot of the bad things that had made the world what it had been, would have gone with it. I know for a fact that this was a very foolish sort of thought. Even if you drop your population of billions down to a handful of hundreds, or even just a hundred, there will remain some bad seeds, I think that’s inevitable.

One of those bad seeds so happens to be the idiots who seem to think that bullying is something that should still be commonplace. Let me tell you something, you moronic asswipe, bullying is such a fucking waste of breath that they should just damn well dump you in a cell for an hour for every single word of bullying that comes out of your mouth. Maybe that’d cool you down a little. Insult someone? Time out. You’re acting like a child, you might as well get treated like one.

Now, I don’t tend to interfere when I see it happening, though. There’s that whole thing about me being a loner and while I can hold my own just fine, I would rather not have to be the one on the receiving end. Just last afternoon as I was making my way back to the apartment, I overheard something that sounded like a bit of a scuffle. Scuffles are things I avoid too. I might have looked the bad boy part when I was younger, and I might still prefer leather for the rare times I can get my hands on it—a rare commodity now and so hard to wash—but I’m not one to get into the middle of fights to break them up.

So, I mostly just kept walking, but it was hard not to overhear them talking. There were several people, but one was clearer than the others, going on about whoever they were talking to probably having an easy time talking as big as they did when they had others to act on their behalf. They made it sound like whoever was on the receiving end of those words was a gang leader or who knew what else.

I’m not going to lie, that’s something else I think we could have done with none of it really surviving the snow. Gangs, cults, and whatever else there is out there. I know I’ve heard about that one girl who believes she was thousands of years old and managed to convince a handful of others, but I’m pretty sure they’re all gone from the hub. I’ve seen what could pass for gangs roaming too but they’re harmless teens just getting together and roaming. At least, I think that’s what it is but what do I really know? I’m not the police and I have no intention of ever being that to anyone.

Final Word Count: 781

Seeing you play innocent makes me wonder how I ever let someone like you in my life.

Timeline/World: Through the Looking Glass – Atheria 2nd Generation
Current Date: November 21, 2057

Character: Reynard Baltimore
Race: Human
Age: 105, physically about 23
Current residence: Atheria City, Eresiel
 

---

There have been a couple more memory walks with Lucky. That very first was done on my own, I needed to know what I was getting into. Just before I left, I asked Lucky if it was possible to draw someone else into the memory walk. He gave me a patient smile, as though he’d expected me to ask that from the get-go and I might have huffed at him as he told me that it was possible. It took a bit of work if the person in question wasn’t really connected to the memories, but I think we both know that mine and Sachi’s lives have been intertwined for the vast majority of our past lives. I wanted him there with me.

Lucky had made it clear that the memories most likely seen through memory walks when done in pairs tend to be the memories where both are present. In a way, that suited me fine. I figured that we’d mostly be roaming through memories of the past lives we were both aware of.

I didn’t expect us to catch glimpses of memories that I had no idea even existed—even if that is the point of the memory walk. Most of the memories we saw were from lives before that of Kyung, which I had long thought to be my first life but clearly was not. Names were unclear in most of the memories and quite a few felt as bittersweet as the one from the dream. It’s as though a lot of our earlier past lives were lives where we didn’t get to spend all that much time together and by the time we had found one another, something forced us apart.

The third and most recent memory walk felt more bitter than sweet when it ended. It felt familiar in a way that made it clear to me that the memories were stirring somewhere in me, and it was possible that I would be sifting my way through them on my own, without Lucky’s help, before too long. It seemed to be perhaps a life or two prior to Kyung’s own and from what little we’ve gathered, it wasn’t a happy one.

We were late into our teens when we met and it wasn’t very long after that, that we parted ways. The memory feels muddled, there is a lot of anger attached to it and I don’t know if that anger is directed at him—which hurts, as I feel that I would never do that but I could be wrong—or directed at the other person that seems to be fairly present in the memories of that one life we’ve shared.

The anger is something about I felt played, how I was watching him play innocent while I wondered how I ever let someone like him in my life. We’ve had so much together, it doesn’t feel quite right that this anger I feel toward someone who might have played me, might be directed his way. I could be wrong; I know I could. It isn’t because the memories we have of the lives we’ve shared are all mostly sweet and good that we’ve always gotten perfectly well along.

I want to believe that this anger was directed toward the other person. A person that feels familiar while not really feeling familiar. It’s hard to put into words, I really don’t know how to explain it. Let’s just say that I feel as though this other person has been a thorn in not only my side, but his, for several of our lives.

I know it might be far-fetched but certain people—certain souls—are drawn together one way or another. It’s as though they’re all connected through repeating lives, and this is what happened. We’re like a storybook that’s not supposed to have a happy ending. Living our lives over and over again, always being forced away when we’ve finally found happiness by the one source of trouble—the one soul that seems to always find us.

Yes, it’s quite possible that I’m as wrong as I could be about it all and we’ve just been unlucky all of our lives, but the pieces are adding up and, well, I’m allowed to believe whatever the hell I want, aren’t I? No one’s going to make me change my mind on the subject and I’ve seen and sifted through so many memories that putting things this way just makes sense. At times, you just have to put two and two together, even if it adds up to four and a third.

Final Word Count: 767

You couldn’t have picked a better group of outcasts to hang out with if you ask me.

 
Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – New York City
Characters: Reynard Baltimore
Race: Human
Age: 31
Current residence: New York City Ruins, New York
Final Word Count: 773 words
 

---

Growing up, I spent a lot of time in foster homes. I would bounce from one to the other, never staying in one family very long. When I think back, I’m not sure if it was so much my fault as it was potential theirs as well. I mean, I was a loner, I liked being left alone. I liked leather, from a young age I had a couple of piercings and when I was old enough to find someone who could, I’d gotten some ink—I have no regrets about the ink and some of the piercings, over time, were removed and the skin there left to heal.

That doesn’t make me a bad person. It didn’t make me a bad boy. When I was old enough, I was, of course, dropped out of the system and I just did what I had to. I roamed the streets more than I probably had any rights to and I did that long before I was old enough to consider myself without a steady roof over my head. I didn’t like any of the foster families I was dropped into, I felt judged so often that it was just easier to deal with being cold and hungry outside than deal with them.

When I was sixteen or seventeen, I think, while at school, I’d found myself spending at least just a little bit of time with a group that saw themselves as outcasts. It’s not even so much that I ended up talking with them, it’s rather the opposite. I’d been settled in a spot and, little by little, other loners came to flop nearby and, before long, I guess that there were enough of us for something to form. Not that I acknowledged it, no. It was a girl, she looked older than the rest of us and for a while I wondered if she hadn’t had to repeat a grade once or twice. I never bothered asking.

One morning, she just sort of started greeting each of us as we eventually found our way to the usual spot. Most of the time, we didn’t even talk, we just spent quiet time all-around one another, but she seemed intent on believing that none of us could have picked a better group of outcasts to hang out with. We were the best and nothing was going to get in the way of it all.

I’m pretty sure that there were a few snorts of amusement all around, every time she started her little speech when someone new came up but what could we do? It was a prime real estate spot for the likes of us, there was an overhang way above us, so if rain so happened to fall from a certain angle, we’d have been fine, otherwise, there were few people there because it was a little out of the way and the only real downside, as I saw it myself, was the fact that there were no tables or chair anywhere, so settling down in the chillier weather wasn’t always a good thing.

It was why I’d picked it in the first place. I figured that no one would want to bother with sitting directly on the ground when it got cold enough to be uncomfortable. I’d perch on a tiny little ledge, it was fine by me and I was used to being uncomfortable in my own skin and with my surroundings. When they’d started coming, I’d let them, so long as they left me alone.

In the long run, I think I stopped spending time in that spot when I had to be moved schools because I was being dropped into one final foster family. The system was hoping that I’d behave better with this one. You know, not spend so much time outside, actually go in more than once or twice a week, the usual. I guess they were somewhat right about that, because that’s where I met Summer but that’s something else entirely. I don’t even want to think about that at this point, I just don’t. It’s a piece of my life that I’ve long since left behind and that’s where it’s supposed to stay.

I’m still a pretty big loner. Sure, my loner-group has gotten a little bigger, what with Sachi, Rei and Molochai for starters and I know that there are the people Summer spent his last few months of life with, too. I try not to think too much about that either. The kid had a shit life, but he was always smiling, it wasn’t right. Who I am to judge, though?

I’m telling you to leave it alone. I don’t need you to get me out of my own messes.

 
Timeline/World: Through the Looking Glass – Atheria 2nd Generation
Characters: Reynard Baltimore
Race: Human
Age: 104, physically about 23
Current residence: Atheria City, Eresiel
Final Word Count: 756 words
 

---

I didn’t have very high hopes of being able to sift through my past lives with the help of a memory walk. When I first spoke to Lucky about it, he told me that it was unlikely we would get positive results, since past lives are usually forgotten by the host. That made me pause, of course, it did. I’m well aware that past lives, for the most part, are supposed to be forgotten by the host, but my memories, and that of the lives I’ve lived before, are one big mess in my brain. I can usually make sense of which memory goes with which life but there still is plenty that I don’t seem to have access to.

Hence, the potential idea of a memory walk.

Still, I didn’t have high hopes. I was curious, more than anything else, about the dreams I had been having that clearly had nothing to do with the lives I was aware I had lived through. I know that I am a witch through and through and while not all dreams about all things witchy mean that they are attached to past lives, but it mostly seems to be the case.

I have dreams that have nothing to do with these things and I know that they are too fantastical to be anything other than dreams, but the ones I’ve been having over the last two or so years are steady enough in their subject and repetitive enough on certain parts that they do make me think they are meant more like memories than just dreams.

So, we sat down in his little office, plants everywhere and that just made me smile. I love a room that has a lot of green to it and that green better be natural. He walked me through his methods, and we settled.

Easing through the memories of the past lives that I was aware of was easy. We kept to the lighter path of the memories, the ones I knew were there. We hit a bit of a wall when we came to things just before Kyung. Lucky told me that these things really shouldn’t be forced. So I let it be, but we waited patiently for all of a few moments before it seemed as though that particular doorway to a life that was indeed before Kyung’s own came to open.

I’m still not sure as to what the name of that past life was, but we walked through memories that were near identical to the dreams I had been having and some that had nothing to do with any of the dreams but still had the same atmosphere and the same few people.

One particular memory felt somewhat bittersweet, and Lucky said that it seemed as though it was near the end of the timeline for that life. I was arguing with the same person from that one dream with the closet I remember struggling to hold shut and just laughing when it finally burst open. The argument seemed to be about something rather personal, but it was hard to make much of anything out.

I was telling them to leave it, whatever it was, alone. Something about how I didn’t need them to get me out of my own messes. That is quite a bit like me that, I’m not surprised. I’m rather set on making sure that I can make my way out of my own messes by myself. I’m still fairly private about a lot of things, though Sachi is rarely kept out of the loop of anything.

What made that memory bittersweet really is the fact that it seemed as though it might have been the last time I ever saw that person. I’m not even sure if that person might or might not have been Sachi. He’s been a presence in all of my lives so far, in a way, it feels as though it would make sense that he would be there as well.

We didn’t dwell very long. Lucky seemed uncertain as to whether or not it was a good thing that we could dip into past lives this way, since he’d never done it with anyone else before, but I’m in touch with those memories, so, for me, it hardly was much of a problem but I certainly wouldn’t have wanted him to feel uncomfortable or anything else.

It was an interesting trip down literal memory lane, though. I think I’d have stayed there a little longer if I could have had.

I guess in the end I only thought I was ready to let go.

 
Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – Family Values
Characters: Reynard Baltimore
Race: Human
Age: 30
Current residence: New York City, New York
Final Word Count: 737 words
 

---

Thinking about it still makes me want to cry and I don’t see that as a good thing, it’s just not. All it was, I’m sure some would say, was cake. It wasn’t just cake, though. It wasn’t. It was a cake that I had spent hours preparing. I’d seen a few posts online about this one cake that took 150 hours to make. Yup, 150 hours.

I normally would never have bothered but I wanted to, and it was for a special occasion. That cake had a sinful chocolate mousse, brown butter espresso, infused honey bourbon, hot chocolate cake soak and so many chocolate bars that I lost count. It’s really rare that I do anything with chocolate but yeah, I was curious, I followed the recipe, it took as long as it said it would but, in the end, oh, in the end, it was glorious.

Now, I like to taste as I go, so yes, I tasted every separate part as I worked on it unless we’re talking about raw batter because I’m not that much of an idiot so I had a fair idea as to what I was getting into when I finally started putting it all together and making sure it was as gorgeous as I knew it would taste.

So here I am, putting the finishing touch, even taking a photo because, hello, 150 hours of work! I pick it up to move it to the centre island in the kitchen so I can put it under its protective topper until we’re ready to cut into it and… thinking about it makes me want to weep.

I tripped.

That was a week ago.

Every time I think I’m ready to let it go, I tumble right back down into this hellish little bullshit hole where I remember the effort that I put into this cake only for the bastard to end up on the floor. These floors, let me tell you, they’re spotless. I could eat off of that floor, but I was so shocked by how I just somehow ended up dropping the thing when I tripped that I didn’t try to salvage it. It looked like a rightful mess, and it wasn’t right to eat it like that.

Yeah, sue me, I’m weird about that kind of shit and even if I know how clean those floors are, I still wouldn’t have picked up that mess to eat it up. I think I actually screamed. I’d have to ask Sachi but considering he came running into the kitchen, I don’t think I really do need to ask. I screamed and yeah, I cried. So many hours down the drain and we hadn’t even had a single chance to taste the finished product.

I’m still not ready to let go of the whole thing. I know that, possibly a month or three from now, I will very likely try it again because I just know it was supposed to taste like heaven but, right now? Right now, I can’t. Do what you will with the fact that I’m not ready to let go of days of work on a masterpiece that got ruined, even if, as some heathens would say, it’s just food.

It wasn’t just food and I’ve been preparing food—other stuff that doesn’t take days—for so long that I’m peculiar about what happens in the kitchen. I’m peculiar about what I throw away and I try so hard to use every part of a food item I’m using for a recipe. I have this thing about waste and yeah, that whole cake turned out to be a waste.

I know there’s another recipe going around for a 100-hour brownie, and I don’t know that I have the heart to even try it. The cake was something a little more. I don’t know how to explain it. I think that just pointing out that yeah, I’m just not a huge fan of chocolate, to begin with, is one of those things but that cake, I just had to, you know?

Just like I know I’ll have to again at some point. Just not quite yet. There’s a bitterness attached to that recipe right now and it’s going to take some time before I can let it go. I will, I know I will, patience is something I have plenty of and when I’m ready, it’ll be fine.

Your life is one big tragedy, but I’m here to help you fix that. Maybe.

 
Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – Family Values
Characters: Reynard Baltimore
Race: Human
Age: 30
Final Word Count: 758 words
 

---

People in stores need to learn to mind themselves. I mean, usually, my visits are all just fine and dandy and they’re even better when Sachi is with me but, for the most part, I actually like doing the shopping mostly on my own. We do the meal plans together but I know what I need to get. When he’s with me, we tend to buy more than is planned for but it rarely ever goes to waste, so I can’t really complain about it.

Over my last three visits, though, this one cashier has always been there and somehow I always end up in her lane and she just gives me this sort of sad look as though she’s seeing something about me that’s invisible to anyone else.

Just last morning, while I was snatching up a few things I hadn’t been able to get last time mostly due to time constraints, she heaved this big great sigh and told me that my life was just one big tragedy. It made me pause and blink at her. She wasn’t scanning my items; there was no one else behind me waiting so I couldn’t just try to urge her to move faster. I could have told her I was in a hurry but I don’t think it really would have worked out. Anyway.

She told me that she was sent there to help me and that just made so many alarm bells go off in my head. Anyone who claims to have been sent out to help someone they don’t know never sits right, not with me. It isn’t something, well it just isn’t okay, not as far as I can tell. Not with me. Though she did pause, giving me this almost sly look and finished that little statement of hers with a ‘maybe’. Maybe she’d been sent out here to help me fix my big-tragedy-of-a-life.

Wait. What. Uh, no.

I didn’t have any words for her, not really. Thankfully, someone else came to remind her that she was due on break so she placed her little ‘closed’ sign at the end of the register after my items, scanned my things, I paid and I left. So thankfully that was that.

Once I got home, I unpacked everything, paced for a while until I knew Sachi was likely to be off of any potential calls and expecting lunch and I took that in to him with my weird arse story.

We’ve decided that I was better off either going to another store for a little while or at least going with him because this is the better store that’s nearest to us. I can usually find pretty much every single thing I need in there and it’s actually within comfortable walking distance—at least, for me it is, I know he’d prefer I not walk but I’ve walked longer distances than this before and loaded down much more heavily than I’ve had to be since I started working for—with—him.

I don’t know what’s up with that cashier. I hadn’t even really noticed her up until recently and I’d rather hope that she didn’t pull this weird stunt on anyone else because it was disquieting and I’ve had to deal with a lot in my years as a nanny and chef. A lot. Trust me. Some families are demanding.

For now, I’m just glad that we don’t really need anything else. I know that I could turn to deliveries but I don’t want anyone else to pick my fruits, vegetables and meat items for me. I don’t care if they handle all the cans, frozen items and dry goods but the fresh stuff? I want to be there so I can check how good it looks, if it’s the proper weight I need for the recipes, if it has all I’m looking for in terms of, well, everything.

I’ve seen how certain stores work, as far as deliveries go. The workers in the stores don’t really look at what they’re picking up. They’re going to take the first package on top of the pile and add it to the bag they’re preparing and that’s that. It doesn’t matter if the meat isn’t marbled right or if that second nectarine in the basket is looking a little soft. They’re just there to pick up the items and put them in a bag.

I’d much rather pick my own stuff, so I’ll deal with changing stores or, you know, going with Sachi as needed.

I’ve always hated living in a small town. Everything you do is everyone’s business.

 
Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – New York City
Characters: Reynard Baltimore
Race: Human
Age: 29
Final Word Count: 706 words
 

---

People will complain about the pettiest of things. The sun is too hot. The food is too bland, the water isn’t cold enough. It’s little things. I’ve realized that, with some people, when they can’t complain about something that might be ‘currently’ wrong, they’ll find something to complain about as far as their past was concerned or they’ll just try to find something, anything, to complain about, just because they feel like they should.

Just this morning, I was minding my own business, ignoring everyone and pretty much everything but the little patch of garden I was tending to because yeah, I’m that one jerk who likes to tend to a tiny little garden, and I had people wandering on by just complaining about small-town life.

I suppose that you could compare life here now to small-town life but I wouldn’t really know. I’ve always lived in the Big Apple. But really, who has time to complain about how they hated living in a small town because somehow, you thought that everyone knew everything you’d do? I get that it’s quite possible but it’s still stupid. Maybe it’s just my normal behaviour that makes me think this way and more people worry about what everyone else might be judging them for their behaviour.

That being said, I know I’m not how I used to be. I changed thanks to Sachi. I’ve changed for the better but, most days, I’d still rather be that one guy everyone avoids if they can because I’m ‘bad news’. I’m not bad news, I never was. I acted as though I was because that’s how all my foster families treated me. They judged me on my looks but you don’t hear me complain about how they treated me, that’d be petty. What isn’t petty is taking a few moments to talk about Summer and how he didn’t really deserve to die and how I miss him. I’d be petty to claim that it isn’t fair that I had to force myself to face my fears to visit him in the hospital whenever he was getting treatments.

If you can’t tell, I’m in a mood. I’ve had to deal with an idiot earlier and it left me wondering just what I could do to him that wouldn’t come back to bite me in the arse but I know that it’s pointless thinking this way. I might look like a bad boy and I might really like being able to have my peace and quiet but I’m not the type of guy who’ll go out of his way to cause anyone trouble.

The guy was full of himself, walking around like he owned the whole neighbourhood and I had to tell him twice to watch his step because he’d almost stepped onto the tiny little plants I’ve just barely managed to save from the last downpour we had. I’ve managed to find a small bit of fencing to put around the area that I use as a garden but clearly, that alone isn’t enough to keep the guy from walking all over the place and doing whatever he wants. I wanted to deck him when he bitched about how I was taking up good real estate that could be used for something else. I mean, really? Here I am, with a garden that might be at most three feet wide by maybe ten long to make up for the fact that I kept it so thin, and he complains?

The garden is sitting right against the building and the main ‘road’ is nearly ten feet away from the building. Even when I’m settled right there, in front of said tiny garden, there’s still a good six feet of room that can be used to roam when people decide they’re idiots and they trample whatever it is that others have gone out of their way to try and create around the area where they now live. This guy, I swear, if he comes around more often, I’m going to have to do something about it and I don’t think that even Sachi’s patience will help me with the situation. There’s only so much bullshit I can take from someone I don’t even know.

You know, you can assure me things are okay all you want, but you’re holding your closet door shut and I can see it rattling, so… how about the truth?

 
Timeline/World: Through the Looking Glass – Atheria 2nd Generation
Characters: Reynard Baltimore
Race: Human
Age: 103, physically about 23
Final Word Count: 714 words
 

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One year later and I still have found little more about this odd reincarnation dream that has come and gone. Never quite the same, but the sense I get from the dream remains the same and there is some sort of comfort to be found in the fact that none of the dreams are actually nightmares. None of the dreams are bad dreams either; they merely are dreams, images of things that perhaps were.

I have to assume that is from a life I might have had before the one with Kyung. I don’t know if Sachi was in my life or not for that life if it is indeed a life and not simply my brain making things up to keep me entertained at night. Let me tell you, I am not fully entertained, not when you take into account that I could be dreaming about just about anything else but no, I dream of being a witch of sorts—one with a different gift than the one I had with Kyung’s life. I’m still not quite certain what sort of witch I might have been as all I’ve come to understand from the dreams is that I had no need for books or incantations, things came easily with a thought and perhaps a slight motion.

More akin to what could have been a meta power than that of a witch but I don’t believe it was a meta power, not really. In the dream, it feels similar to what my power does now and I am all witch. I am aware that most would quirk their brow at me, state that I must be a warlock, for I am male and male witches are warlocks but these would be semantic things and I refuse to be bogged down by semantics. I am a witch and that, my friends, is all there is to it.

One somewhat more recent dream puts me in a room similar to that which I’ve been in all dreams that pertain to this potential past life. I tell myself that it was the house I inhabited. The decor is very much based on nature and little else. There are so many plants, so many flameless candles, so many books that are for reading and history more than anything else.

In this dream, there is another in the room with me. I am leaning back against the closet door, holding it shut and it rattles behind me. I know that in the dream I’m actually fighting to keep laughter from bubbling up. The whole scene fills me with mirth and it is strange to imagine this scene happening now. I have no idea as to what’s in the closet. The person there, in the room with me, whose features feel so familiar and yet not, keeps on stating that while I’m assuring them that all is fine, they can see me holding that closet door shut. They can see the closet rattling and go on to tell me that I should just get it off my chest, I should be honest.

It is those words, from them, that makes the laughter pour forth and I step away from the door and it just bursts open.

Do I know what comes out of that closet? Nope. The moment whatever is in the closet comes out, I wake up. Mind you, I don’t wake up with a start, I don’t wake up startled, I just… wake up. I feel pretty refreshed, there are remnants of amusement still clinging to me and it just feels like one of those things. I’ve had that dream more than once and it never really changes. It might start a little sooner or later in the ‘scene’ but I always end up stepping away from the doors and they always open and I always wake up. It’s fine, in a way.

I figure, if I’m meant to know what it all means, I will, but as I’ve found so little, so far, in the year that I’ve tried to dig some into it, I don’t know that I’ll get much more information about the whole thing. So it’s all right, it really is. Whatever information that might come to be known, will and that’s that.

Listen, I know you’re upset, but please put down the baking soda before someone gets hurt.

 
Timeline/World: Alternate Earth – Birds of a Feather
Characters: Reynard Baltimore
Race: Human
Age: 28
Final Word Count: 769 words
 

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Baking for a living has had its ups and downs. Thing is, I don’t know if I could call it baking since I’m more of a hired chef than a baker but I’ve had to do a lot of baking, I’ve had to do a lot of cooking, but even before Sachi hired me, and things… changed between us, I was more a hired nanny. I looked after the kids, I made sure they ate; I made sure they got to school on time and finished their homework, all the while making sure that the whole family had the meals they wanted and deserved three times a day, plus snacks ready at all times.

I actually really loved this job, though my last one before Sachi was a bit more demanding as they demanded that I replace all my piercing with spacers and it was a frustration but I needed the job so I went with their demands. I still had my letter of recommendation from them by the end. Well, actually, no. That last family, I didn’t, but I had my letters from the other two families I’d worked with and I think I could have made it in most of any family out there but I was a little desperate to get away from my roommate at the time so I looked into slightly different job offers and here I am.

I’m not going to lie, there have been plenty of ups and downs, especially when I got started and those first few months but it was almost smooth sailing after that, I love it. I’d even be able to say I love him but that’s not something that’s hidden very well, I’ve started nearly wearing my heart on my sleeve with him and for him and it feels good.

I remember one particular event in the last household I worked at before coming here, though. It surfaces on certain days; I’m not sure what triggers it. It’s not a bad memory, it ended up with laughter all around and all of that because of a slip of the tongue on my part but it’s probably what was needed to defuse the whole thing. At least, that’s what I’d like to think.

There was this other nanny I worked with. I can’t rightfully remember her name right now but she was foreign and I always had issues saying her name and, not wanting to look like a fool, I tended not to unless I absolutely had to. We were on good terms so we didn’t have much of a use for names, I guess.

One afternoon, though, she came stalking down into the kitchen, clearly upset about something and looking on the verge of tears. I’d been working on a layered pastry that had been frustrating me for a while. Now, I don’t know why the baking soda was out, I hadn’t had any need for it and I usually was a bit of a clean freak as far as the kitchen was concerned. When she came into the kitchen, I think I sort of paused, I watched her for a bit. She was pacing left and right, looking almost like a lioness in a cage. I would have let her continue pacing had she not reached for that box of baking soda.

Now, there’s one thing I know is that some people, when angry, tend to throw things if they have them on hand and I was a little afraid that this would have turned into that. I don’t know why I said it the way I did. Was it the crime shows I’d watched the night before? It was so rare for me to watch them at all. It could have been but as I saw her actually raise her arm, I told her that I knew she was upset, but just the same, I asked her to put that baking soda down before anyone could get hurt.

I think her motion probably had been just done without thinking before she stopped right there, as though someone had turned her ‘on’ switch to off and she stared at the box in her hand as though she had no idea what it was doing there. She set it down, burst out in tears but after a few minutes, her gaze landed back on that box and instead of tears, it was laughter and just… at times, I feel like I’d just kept us from a disaster. The master of the house loved his kitchen spotless and washing baking soda off of everything would have taken forever.