Palmdale, Los Angeles, California

BEN BRIAR

"If I'm not considered presumptuous for asking, what happened to this place?" I broached. Opening a dusty cupboard, I found a single cereal box. It was covered in cobwebs. Upon closer examination, I found that the spoon on the front design of the box was photoshopped into the milk. It signified the worst type of cereals back in the 50s.

I would tell my father to put the cereal box back on the supermarket shelf if I saw crappy designs. He would ask me why and I would tell him that I have "X-ray vision" and can see the "badness in the box".

He would always chuckle at that. But his eyes were always looking out the window when at the checkout. Almost imagining the snow. And the moon flashes when Antarctica fell to night, and the beautiful aurora australis that glowed color in waves parallel to the water.

I could almost imagine it myself as I stared at the cereal box, connecting one memory to another transposed in the arrival of time. Probing my mind for threads to cross.

The whipsnap of a lighter ripped the threads from their sticking place and I no longer remembered what this cereal box meant to me. The old woman was lighting candles in the house as the windows had been blacked out by graffiti.

I placed the cereal box back in the cupboard, back in its dark seat.

The old woman said, "Well, after Jennifer went missing in the ice, her mother went into a downward spiral. I tried to comfort her, but her mother had nothing. She was a single mother, who lost their single child. I couldn't pick up those pieces - not even her boyfriend could help." She tucked the lighter away when all the candles were lit and sat next to me at a termite-eaten table. This was the first time I had heard of the boyfriend. Must have come after the mourning.

"And they would argue until their voices could be heard around the block. There was gossip around the neighborhood that they were going to break up soon, and I thanked the heavens for this auspicious decision because I knew the boyfriend wasn't doing her any good." She leaned forward, her demeanor changing to serious.

"But what happened next was... beyond me. Jennifer's mother leaves Cali and goes to Texas, without the boyfriend knowing. She's taken all of her boyfriend's money from his physical assets with her because he keeps the money in the house and doesn't bank it for some reason. She makes a pit stop at this wharf, buys a gram of benzos illegally and dies in a shooting. The boyfriend upon learning the news of her death never returned to the house again and left it to rot. But I told the council to back off and leave it untouched from being marketed, in the hope that Jennifer might be found alive and reclaim the home." The woman's impenetrable eyes and inscrutable countenance gave little away regarding the next parts of this retelling of events.

"Who was the shooter?" I asked.

"To answer that question, I must tell you another story, sir. This is quite personal to me. When I was a young lady, I used to have headaches."

I stared at a candle, the flame lingering in my mind's eye when I turned back to the elderly female.

"I believe it was because of my constant use of glasses. As soon as I started using them, my head would feel a gnawing at the front and a tugging at the back. Maybe it was also because I used to work part-time at an office because I was still underage for full pay, with a computer screen in front of me." She pushed a morsel of toffee candy into her mouth that she had kept packaged in her pocket.

"And I would sit there from afternoon to evening after a long day of school. But I loved driving my car to school, to work and from work. It was my parent's gift to me, rest in peace. My only memory of them. But the main cause of my headaches was something more along the lines of a higher being, nudging me towards a destiny I could claim. More of a threat of suffering to do its bidding." An acrid smell grew from the woman's mouth when she came to finish sucking on the candy and continue the story.

"This destiny was unbeknownst to me at the time. But in the morning of a normal school day, I found that my car was gone." Her tears welled up with tears, the candlelight reflecting off her broken water.

"I attempted to placate my parents, but they went to the police station to report a stolen car. Whereas I went across the road to see Jennifer's mother, only to come upon an empty house. She had stolen my car which I cherished with my life."

She swept up that water streaming down her cheeks in one motion. "The boyfriend had the only car that they shared and he was away for an errand. The only time she made a move to escape from her unhealthy relationship with her dearly beloved, she just had to steal my car."

I found a pile of drachma on the seat across from the old woman and placed it on the table to observe it.

"I knew exactly where she was headed as well because she would tell me about everything, except for the fact that my car would become a constituent of her getaway." They were Greek drachmas which were silver under the spray of rust and engraved on each, was the face of Alexander the Great.

"So I called a cab and told my parents, who were too busy at the police station to mind me, that I was going to work despite the loss. But I didn't tell the cab driver with an aquiline nose to go to my workplace, I told him to go to Texas where I postulated Jennifer's mother would be." I stuffed all of the coins in my shirt pocket, wondering if they were of any worth in this day and age. "I paid him using my savings and told him to drive as far as Texas spread across the land. I spotted my car parked near a wharf in Texas and told the cabbie to let me out of the car. See, my dad was a policeman. And the police have very expensive guns. So I took the AA-12, which is an automatic shotgun, from the trunk of his cop car, and brought it with me along the ride, hidden in the biggest backpack I could find in the house. By now, I have the worst headache I've experienced in my entire life. I've cried from losing my car in the morning which always gives me headaches, and I've had to listen to my parents over the phone and lie to them and then on top of that take the longest road trip with nothing to keep me from feeling sick. There's no medicine to keep it at bay. But the relief arrives when I go up the wharf and look out at that bay. A gracious and majestic sight, hindered by the swapping of drugs and money, the two blood sodden sins of our kind. I perform one sin that overrides the two."

"I take life."