Demolition Job by Lauren C. Teffeau

The drone camera feed telescopes open on Lady Bird Lake at dawn. Early risers cavort along the trail system for some fresh air and exercise before the workday rush. The cam surprises a grackle soaring over the water, and it veers off with an indignant squawk. Emergency klaxons blare, followed by, “Five minutes remaining,” in an automated voice. Distant cheers break out. The drone cam flies toward the sounds, panning across the expansive greenway weaving through the city.

“What you just heard is the countdown for the demolition of the iconic Sail Tower." The announcer's voice has a pronounced nasal twang, catching the attention of anyone who scrolls past this clip on their personal feed. "Our reporter is on scene where, I'm told, a flash mob has overwhelmed the observation area.”

Holographic tape encircling the demolition zone strobes every time someone gets too close to the skeletal building stripped clean of anything remotely valuable. The crowd swells with faces smiling in anticipation of seeing the once-gleaming thirty-five-story skyscraper reduced to rubble. Vendors wearing 3D printers on their backs pump out merch to commemorate the occasion.

A woman in a scandalous chartreuse dress faces the drone cam. "This is Galena Garcia for The Austin Chronicle. Here stands the last remaining artifact of the broligarchy era. A period of decadence and social strife that came to define the first part of this century. Once a prestigious landmark, this building is now a painful reminder of a time when tech companies extorted the American public of their privacy and economic freedom."

Squeals of joy erupt from the crowd behind her as a mariachi rendition of “Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die” starts up.

“But if this crowd’s any indication, no one is too upset to see it go. It will become a new nature commons, tying into the city’s network of parks, gardens, and nature trails, benefiting locals and the local fauna alike. While we wait, I have a special guest with me: Professor Strazds of the University of Texas who recently broke the language barrier between humans and grackles. Welcome, Doctor.”

A man emerges from the crowd with a grackle perched on his gloved hand. The bird's oil slick plumage ruffles as the drone cam buzzes overhead.

“Tell us, Doctor, how you’re able to speak to this bird.”

He brandishes a small touch screen. "With this. I speak what I want to say to Amsel, here, and the Gracklese Translator spits out the response.”

“Three minutes remaining.” Another wave of cheers.

Galena smiles. "Amsel, are you looking forward to having a new section of the city to call home?”

There’s an awkward pause as the program translates the reporter’s words into a series of squawks and squeals. Amsel cocks his head as he listens, then responds. Another pause. Galena’s smile grows more grotesque as she imagines all the viewers scrolling by as the translation’s processed.

Finally, the bird’s response emanates from the device: "Will there be breakfast tacos?"

An animated interrobang appears over the professor’s face, blocking a string of curses from the broadcast. "I was afraid this might happen," he says. 

"Yes, Amsel,” Galena says sweetly because the show must go on. “In addition to dedicated greenspace, approximately 5,000 square feet will be allocated for retail and dining, so there's a good chance breakfast tacos will be included." 

As Amsel listens to the Gracklese Translator, he puffs up his chest, spreads his wings wide. He flaps them once, twice, then lets out an ear-splitting croak.

"What's gotten into him?" Galena asks as Amsel jabbers away.

The translator repeats, "Breakfast tacos," over and over again.

Birds from the nearby trees answer Amsel’s call. Amidst all the croaking and clacking, a grackle divebombs the drone cam. Another swoops close, lands on the professor's shoulder, and pecks his ear. 

"Did someone say tacos?"

The reporter squeals as a handful of grackles and a couple streetwise pigeons sidle up and bump against her legs.

"I had a breakfast taco once from this trashcan by a big elm. You know the one?"

Amsel jerks at his lead to no avail as an annoyance of grackles descends upon the scene.

"I fought a dog for a breakfast taco and won.”

Galena turns to Dr. Strazds. "You never said this would happen in the screening interview." 

“Where are the breakfast tacos?"

"At least it's not mating season,” the professor replies. “I lost half my grad students last spring. Said it was a hostile work environment because the birds could not shut up about—”

Another interrobang dances across the screen.

The reporter grabs the Gracklese Translator and screams, "There are no breakfast tacos here!"

The annoyance is now a plague. A grackle tugs on her updo, another shits on her shoulder, but at least the whitish-yellow ooze compliments her outfit.

Someone in the crowd shouts, "Tacos, get your tacos. Brisket, kolaches, breakfast tacos and more!"

The birds start moving in that direction.

“One minute remaining.”

Tears run down the reporter’s perfect face, still smiling into the drone cam. "This is Galena Garcia, reporting on behalf of The Austin Chronicle, subsidiary of Rogan Enterprises, a KXAN Production." 

An interrobang fills the frame just before the drone cam cuts away from Galena. 

The automated voice counts down from thirty with nearly everyone joining in. 

“….3, 2, 1.”

An instant of utter silence. Then explosions slam through the building’s lower levels, followed by others strategically placed to ensure the building collapses in on itself. Before the dust settles, the crowds swarm the demo site to collect bits of rubble as souvenirs. 

"There you have it,” the announcer cuts in. “The scene at the old Sail Tower. Its transformation will usher in a brighter era for our fair city."

A grackle cruises into the drone cam’s field of vision. With a clicking trill, it careens toward the camera, knocking it askew. The rotors whine as it spirals closer and closer to the water.

"Stay tuned for —"

The End

Demolition Job (c) Copyright 2026 by Lauren C. Teffeau

How Alice by Heidi Kasa

You’re standing in the woods, staring at a common American red maple tree. Your chocolate eyes are drawn to the bottom of the trunk where bark splits in a teensy tent shape, big enough to fit your chipped yellow-nailed fingertip. You’re reminded of the much larger fire cavities, or goosepens, in Redwood trees—the spaces that look like a tree cave you can crawl into.

Your mind pings around like pinballs in a machine, and you try to follow each ball: deadlines for work-plink-constant housework-clank-kids-bang-spouse-clang-parents-clash-friends-smash-birthday planning-clunk. Adding any other stimulation, you then seize up and feel overburdened. You don’t know what to do with people’s constant needs that have followed you into the forest. Fuzziness around you buzzes like television static.

Truth: You’ve been asking yourself to carry more than one person can hold.

You feel too heavy for your own body and yet ready to fly apart. Disconnected and uncentered. You came to the forest looking for a stillness that you don’t feel around people. Out here, you’re hoping to get a break so these obligations don’t break you.

Yet nature is a constant seething surge. Earthiness is under and all around you, the thick smell of life carried through the air. Unstoppable plants and animals, in heaving wind and unrelenting sun, though the light is refracted by leaves.

Your eyes stray to the crack in the tree. Does it hide a world? You think of Alice in Wonderland, and in that moment you feel your stained shirt, your ripped jeans, and your olive body within them shrinking. Didn’t Alice have to eat or drink something? Consumption as a vehicle for change. Vehicle for change. Change. As you get smaller, even your thoughts decrease.

Now you stand in the woods but can’t tell. You stare above at the bark split of the maple tree, looming overhead like a giant circus tent. Your body wavers for a tense moment. Should you add the confusion and uncertainty of where you are and why this is happening to your heaviness? You look at your hands, which appear normal, but are miniature to the surrounding trees. Your hands—they can’t contain everyone.

Still, you’re curious. The desire to explore tugs your bony body forward.

You enter the cave, ducking and instinctively covering your head with your hand, thinking you’ll hit it on the roof. But there’s plenty of space; this cavern is a full-size room. As if you had passed through an invisible membrane separating two worlds, you feel a huge shift. Your weight moves into your trunk, your core, and you walk upright with awareness of your full power. The hole in the tree has sucked up your anxieties; the bulk settled amorphously around you is lifted.

Your feet tread on lush dark brown soil as you move further inside. In the middle of the cave, something bunched up looks like a contemporary art exhibit, appearing as gathered bones in the shape of a round cage. As you get closer, you realize they’re fingers of white roots reaching out of the ground.

You lie down in the middle of their clawing circle. The roots clasp around you, forming a hug, and press on your forehead between your eyes. Other strings search for tender, fruitful spots. Tendrils rove over your hips, tugging and touching down with the soft certainty of a dog nosing out which person in the room needs the most comfort.

The roots rock you like you’re in a hammock, lulling you to sleep. Strands continue to rearrange around you like active computer circuits. Waves of color pulse through the network. You’re connected. While you’re sleeping, a rainbow runs over you, and sounds like tiny bells tinkling.

Your deep breathing slows, then stills.

The roots turn electric blue and straighten like pins. Zip. Zap. They light up in small shocks all over your body, mini fireworks bursting on various pressure points, blinking on and off in irregular patterns. Your skin takes on a blue cast.

Your breath is stopped.

Are you dead?

A dash of madness on your tongue, in your eyes.

You awaken because the roots release you. The tree cocoon knows you are ready to leave one network for another. You smell like wood, dirt, fire—a wild creature roaming open air.

Your entrenched body looks upward. The center of the tree is an endless black like the night sky. Rising and moving outside, you wade through large blades of forest grass around you, each step bringing on growth. As your body enlarges, you feel a shrouded weight returning. The load distributes more evenly over your defined recalibrated shape, this time like a coat instead of a plank. You’re a charged being. Your full lips open and an electric shock comes out. You know how to answer people. The universe’s voice adds to yours. no. nO. NO.

No more onslaught.

You notice others stepping out of trees and also swelling. You turn to look at your tree, finding green pulsing bark, and reach out to feel it warm and light under your regular-size hand. You lean on the trunk, setting your worries down like a backpack. You riffle through the bag like you’re looking for a snack and some water. A plan. You don’t stop to think why you’re looking for guidance in the pack full of worries.

Out of the corner of your eye, you see a spigot forming in the trunk. Water trickles out. Nuts drop in a clump from branches above. As you watch, the tree bark rearranges itself into a map.

You ask, “anything else?” and light glows beneath the divisions in the bark, practically winking at you. You almost laugh.

Satiated and relaxed, your dark skin is refreshed like a baby. You shoulder your pack.

Feet away from the tree now, your hands curl. You feel the tree’s glow on the tips of your fingers, the beat of its heart under yours.

You step forward to join the others.

 

The End

How Alice (c) Copyright 2026 by Heidi Kasa

The Last Moon Tower by David Afsharirad

The Austin Energy maintenance truck parked itself at the intersection of Pennsylvania and Leona and chimed to confirm arrival. Tom stepped out of the cab’s air conditioning and into the heat of a mid-August night, almost tripping over a cardboard sign someone had left on the sidewalk: SAVE THE MOON TOWER, the bold black letters already starting to fade. He nudged it aside with his boot and keyed his radio.

“On site.”

“Confirmed,” his AI supervisor, AL, responded.

The moon tower rose above the intersection, a lattice of steel, its six huge bulbs casting an eerie white light from atop the nearly two-hundred-year-old structure. Once, towers like this lit entire city blocks, but this one was now dwarfed by resin-glass apartment buildings and the Keating Vertical Botanical Gardens.

Tom checked the work order again: Decommission.

The last moon tower was coming down in the morning. And it was Tom’s job to unplug it first.

He walked to the rear of the truck and keyed the lift controls. The cherry-picker whined as the boom unfolded, raising him toward the weathered control box twelve feet in the air.

The interior was a tangle of wires, some so old and brittle-looking that he hesitated to touch them, their insulation gone chalky. He pulled on insulated gloves, took out his multimeter, and checked each line in turn—live feeds, dead runs, and disconnected relics left intact from past refurbishment projects.

He traced the live lines back to the main disconnect.

“Primary feed located,” Tom said into his radio.

“Confirmed,” AL replied.

Tom threw the disconnect. Above him, the moon tower winked out, its absence almost unnoticeable amid the light pollution from the surrounding buildings.

“Disconnect successful,” Tom said.
“Confirm zero voltage on the feed,” AL said.

“Yeah, yeah,” Tom muttered. He touched the multimeter to the line. The meter settled at zero.

“Zero voltage confir—” Tom frowned as the needle twitched again. There was voltage present on a separate run he hadn’t touched. He followed the live line. It wasn’t tied to the lighting circuit at all.

“AL,” he said into the radio, “I’ve still got power up here.”

Tom traced the live line back past old repairs until it disappeared into a compact, unfamiliar housing bolted directly into the tower’s frame.

“There’s something else in here,” he said.

“Send an image,” AL’s voice came back.

Tom snapped a picture and sent it. When no response came, Tom waited a three-count, then said, “You there, AL?”

“Unable to identify,” AL said. “Cross-checking maintenance records. This may take a moment.”

As he waited for AL’s reply, Tom studied the thing. It was compact and seamless, about the size of a junction box, though it didn’t look like any junction box Tom had ever seen. It looked to be as old as the moon tower itself, integrated into the steel not so much like a piece of machinery, but like an internal organ. Every wire around it had been cut, replaced, or rerouted at some point, but the device itself—whatever it was—looked like it hadn’t been touched since the day the tower went up.

“You with me, AL?” Tom asked.

“Still unable to identify,” AL said. “Maintenance records refer to something called simply ‘the unit,’ dating back to the construction of the tower. Cross-checking with records of decommissioned moon towers.” There was the briefest of pauses, then: “Records include similar language for all moon towers.”

“You mean every moon tower had one of these things in it?” Tom asked.

“Correct.”

“And there’s nothing in the archive about what the heck it is?”

“Also correct.”

Tom let out a low whistle. “Better kick this up the chain,” he said. “Let someone with a fatter paycheck decide what to do about this.”

“Negative,” AL said. “No escalation authorized. Work order requires all power to be shut off prior to dismantle tomorrow A.M. Proceed.”

Tom hesitated. He looked up at the tower looming darkly above him. From this angle, it felt less like an antique and more like something built for another purpose entirely.

“AL,” he said. “It’s on a separate power feed from the lighting. Might be important.”

“Proceed,” AL said. “Work order requires—”
“Right. Okay,” Tom said. “All power must be shut off. Got it.”

He traced the live run again. It was sheathed in a material he couldn’t immediately identify. Set beside the strange housing was one more access point, a narrow old-style service block with a single insulated handle like a miniature disconnect, painted the same dull gray as the tower’s steel. It looked untouched.

Tom glanced at his multimeter. The line was hot.

He thought about calling in a human supervisor, assuming he could get anyone on the line at this time of night. Thought how that would go. Thought about the paperwork, the questions.

He reached in and flipped the handle.

There was no noticeable change, but something felt … different. A quality of the air, perhaps. Or a low-level hum you didn’t notice until it was cut off. The world seemed darker somehow, less alive.

Tom checked with his multimeter. For a fraction of a second before the reading fell to zero, the needle spiked, not a surge, but almost like a response, as if something had noticed the change. Then the line went dead.

“All feeds cut,” he said, forcing his voice into its normal register. Not wanting AL to know he’d gotten spooked, though of course the AI wouldn’t notice or care.

“Acknowledged. Logging.”

Tom waited for AL to close out the work order.

“Log entry,” AL continued. “Connection terminated by operator.”

“Wait. Connection? What connection?” Tom asked, though some part of him knew, the way you know, too late, that you’ve hung up before the other side has stopped talking.

AL said nothing.

Above him, the moon tower stood black and perfectly still. And if it had ever been anything other than an antique streetlight, it wasn’t anymore.

The End

The Last Moon Tower (c) Copyright 2026 by David Afsharirad

The Lepton and the Silver Lily by Michael E. Marotta

“Chengzhang,” spoke the sign, adding, “Hasna. YOU are SAFE at Lytton Springs where you build the you you want, like y’know?” The old man in a lightweight blue exo paused, then waved the luggage carrier up the steps into the lobby of the borganic clinic, and followed it inside. He needed fins and flippers before he could explore Lake Fredericksburg. He already had gills: they were adaptable. But flopping about is inconvenient, so he got rid of the fishfeet right after the trip to Dinosaur Ponds. Until tomorrow afternoon, he would be on his own born feet.
    In the morning, clad thin in short cottons striped gold and green, sitting on the wooden steps of the plasteel porch, he massaged his soles until the treads came up. He stood up when the wo-man stepped out of the clinic. Lepton looked without seeing and said, “Permit me. I am Lepton. Lepton Arbitration.” The wo-man returned his blank gaze. “I call me Silver Lily. Silver Lily Reflections.”
    “Silver Lily,” Lepton asked, “I splore down the road. Wuju-cuju walk with me?”

Silver Lily agreed. On Road 1854 facing southeast they enjoyed the warm December sun. After a hundred meters, Silver Lily spoke evenly and slowly. “Where ya been over fifty years?” 

Lepton replied, “Hiding undercover off the grid invisible. Hide a leaf in a forest. Now I need the borganic clinic to grow fishfeet for me. Here I yam.” Lepton looked with clear vision to see Silver Lily and Lepton said, “Last I saw you was ArmadilloCon 52. You don’t look a day over 70.”

The wo-man nodded hir thanks. “I was working on 60. You have been preserved.”

Lepton shrugged and then he said, “All the bio I can grow or buy and I still do physical training long after I left Camp Mabry.” 

Silver Lily shuddered and hugged semself and stepped away.

“What’s wrong?” Lepton asked.

“Mabry was a holding pen for the Red State. What a joke. Red. Better Red than dead cuz if you’re dead you cannot enjoy everything your leaders have given you.”

Lepton sighed. “I know,” he said. “I spent five years working and living in a gas station in Leander when the State Capitolists moved there to be closer to the bullion depository and made Inner Space Cavern the data center. The cabinet only took themselves. With virtual everything on cameras everywhere, it was not necessary to go into the office to bird dog your minions. The Panopticon was the Singularity. As a convenience clerk, I was invisible and otherwise hidden among the leaves.”

Silver Lily held ser fingers out and waved them in the air. “Dja ever learn t’play keyboards?”

“No. Why?” 

Se said, “I have a clip you can use tonight.”

“Thanks.”

“Small price?” se asked.

“OK,” Lepton replied. “What?”

“You are a 3M but you have no beard. Cosmetic or political? Don’t worry. I’m filtering.”

Lepton sighed. “I’m filtering, too. So we’re wavery acceptable. On a planet over three-fourths female I was going to be the last manly male man in Austin, but I went for the add-in.” He rolled back his shoulders. “No boobs. Zippy nipples though. Now I have more choices around the holidays.”

Silver Lily smiled. “So, you do have a what? tribe? clade? Peeps who know ya?”

Lepton stopped. And stood. “It was always too easy to be open with you. I had to guard myself.” 

Se raised ser tone, pitch, and eyebrows. “Against me?”

“Yalways scared me. And I liked that bout ya because it let me deal with yer spirit by waya yer brain.” 

They paused and shifted apart and quivered while they recentered themselves and then resumed their walk. Silver Lily a-hemmed and looked at the ground and then spoke in careful old school. “My wifeband died in the plague of 53. One way or another aging leaves you open. Before that, I was another wildly peopled writer. Flown to fencons until those zeroed out. Then I turned to engineering. All the scifi paid off big time when zillionaires wanted stuff. Only, they didn’t know what to ask for. Like I ask ya, how many open bids dja think I lived off promising FTL? Ya press the button. The thing takes off and disappears and thatchyer part of the bargain. They be paralyzed by internal displacements and dissonances not able to process what happened. We got camps fulla 50-year old zoomers.”

“I’ve been to some. They sell off their tech toys.” 

“When I see one trying to panhandle dillo dollars for kolache, I wonder if I put thirm there. So, now, I’m gettin my pluripotent cells harvested for new lungs. I wantedagat backinta running and the price was right and I had money from resale of an old trilogy and I showed good on a vid for some retrofelk. I wasn’t gonna do it but I looked at the money.”

“Never look at anything…”

“… you don’t want to sign.” They walked on. 

Lepton heard a small metallic squeak, looked deep into a distant stand of trees and jerked to a halt. With his right leg, he swept Silver Lily’s left out from under sem, grabbed ser waist and broke ser fall to the ground. They were hit by a blast of compressed air and noise from an autonomous Tesla two-four tank, an erratic aging robot left over from the neighborhood wars when the metaburbs broke free from Austin. It rolled forward, pivoted, and took aim. Lepton was on his feet, on his palm a black and silver cylinder. He fired at the tank. The jacketed mosquito shell pierced the turret and exploded inside. The machine stopped.

Lepton ran to Silver Lily. 

“I don’t need rescuing!” se said, kipping up, shaking off the dust, and striding back toward the clinic.

“Not now,” he replied.

  

The End

The Lepton and the Silver Lilly (c) Copyright 2026 by Michael E. Marotta

Like Black Confetti by Michelle Muenzler

Delaney stumbles as I help her to the railing of the observation deck just off the old trail along the Colorado River's northern bank. The gray waters churn restlessly from the recent floods, choked with debris, while the Congress Avenue Bridge looms silently overhead, its concrete pitted and worn with years of neglect.

Time. Time gets us all, eventually.

"Here," I say, holding my canteen out as Delaney collapses to the deck, dangling her limbs through the railing while leaning against the rest for support.

"I'm cold," she says, forehead pressed against a metal crossbar. Still, she takes the canteen. Manages a small sip before coughing most of it right back out.

I clean the rim with a sanitizing wipe, then take a sip of my own.

"Yeah, I know." I'd put another coat on her, but it wouldn't do any good. That constant chill that's harried her all summer is too deep now. Burrowed into her flesh like termites at an old house, brittling her from the inside out. "Won't be long, though. Sunset's almost here."

We sit a bit in silence, the sun slowly sinking in a red-gold haze. It's pretty, almost, the way it sets the water to sparkling just before the end. That last bit of glitter before everything is swallowed up by the dark. Most of downtown Austin is hidden behind us by the bank's rise and the old LINE hotel, but with each hard wind shuddering through the abandoned streets, the buildings groan in protest. It's the only sound, other than the hungry churn of the river at our feet.

"There used to be people waiting here," Delaney says. "Here and up on the bridge. Hundreds of them, back when I was a little girl." The words set her to coughing again, bits of blood speckling the railing.

I reach for the canteen. "More water?"

She shakes her head and rests it back against the metal. Her breath is wet, her eyes bloodshot.

When she finally speaks again, her voice is quiet. "You'll come back next year, won't you? Watch the bats for me?"

I bite back my first few responses.

Nobody cares about the bats anymore.

Or...

What's the point of watching the bats if it's not with you?

Or...

The walk's too long, my feet hurt, my back hurts, my everything hurts...

Or. Or. Or. There's half a dozen things I could say--and one thing I can't--but the only thing that matters is what she wants to hear.

"Sure. I'll come back next year. And the year after. And every other year, so long as there are still bats to see."

And there will be bats. Unlike people, the bats are doing just fine.

"Good," she says. "I've always liked--"

She jerks as another coughing fit seizes up her insides and sends her clutching at the railing while her body bucks against itself. I hover over, wanting to help but knowing there is nothing left to do now but watch. Watch as the Red Death chews through her and spits out whatever's left.

By the time the fit passes, she's paler than before, her shoulders slumped with exhaustion.

"I'm glad you're immune," she wheezes, her breath still not quite caught up. Her teeth are flecked in red. Her lips, also.

And there's something I really need to say, something I need to tell her...but I'm saved from having to say it by the emergence of the bats.

Just a few of them at first, skittering free of the bridge's underbelly where they've nested the long summer through. Then a stream of them. Then two streams, then three. Then more. Long spirals of bats rising into the skyscape, like handfuls of black confetti thrown against the coming night. And with their rising, a vast chirruping noise echoing across the river and setting my bones to ache.

Under cover of that noise, and of Delaney's wonder as she stares raptly at all those bats bursting forth into the fading light, I pull out my handkerchief and give a quiet cough. Then, just as quietly, I tuck the handkerchief back away. Unchecked, because I already know what I'll see.

"Like confetti," I say, swallowing hard as the bats wheel and sweep joyously overhead and Delaney looks on enraptured, fingers curled around the railing as though it's the only thing keeping her from flying off with them.

And together, the night unfolding inexorably around us, we watch the bats one last time.

The End

Like Black Confetti (c) Copyright 2026 by Michelle Muenzler

Open Mic at the Hole in the Wall by Patrice Sarath

JP slung her backpack over her shoulder, waiting for the Guadalupe Express at Lamar and Airport. She glanced up the tracks. The white light of the distant train looked like it was standing still.

The next instance, red streaked next to her, then slowed and banked along the curve, spoilers extended. 

One…two…three…

She fell forward between the spoiler and the vent and was sucked backward inside the train. 

She thudded to the floor hard, and rolled to a stop against a pair of legs. 

JP looked at them. Black dress shoes. Blue serge trousers. Her gaze traveled up. 

The conductor looked down. “Damn kids. You could get killed that way.” She reached down, pulled JP up and tapped her radio. “Rail jumper. Toss her at Dean Keaton.”

The train screamed as it went underground on Lamar and a second later rocketed out onto Guadalupe. 

The conductor kept a tight hold on her, and when the train slowed at the University of Texas, she pushed her off the train. This hurt worse than getting sucked inside, and JP kept rolling as the train thundered toward the central city, the whistle dopplering like a wounded demon. 

She stood on the platform, ragged, bruised, and bloody. Then saw movement – two transit cops, giving her a hard look. 

JP gave them her winning smile. “Hi, officers. How are you doing today?”

“You stay right there!”

She ran, taking the stairs to the lower level two at a time. 

But she knew she couldn’t lose them in the underground mall. The Drag, they called it. There were too many cops and too many cameras. She’d already been made – her face was all over the screens. 

She had to get to the street level. 

# 

JP pushed open a metal door that shrieked like it hadn’t been cracked in years, and squeezed through to the street, blinking her eyes in the sunlight, students looking curiously at the bloody ragamuffin who just came out of a door no one ever noticed before. She needed a place to hole up.

She almost didn’t see the small building, squeezed between shiny high rises. It had dark windows, a tattered awning, and paint that had once been yellow. The door was ajar and she went in. She looked around in the dusty twilight. Broken furniture. A corner stage and an abandoned bar. She closed the door behind her and found the rest room, covered with decades of graffiti and tattered band flyers.

Glass Eye. Joe Rockhead. Two Nice Girls. 

She latched the door and sat with her back to it.

A knock made her jump. 

“Well,” a man’s voice drawled. “You comin’ out to sing, or ain’t you?”

JP cracked open the door. A bearded old man smiled at her. “We figured you was here to sign up for the open mic.” At her expression, “Don’t worry about the cops. They think this place is closed.” 

JP followed him out to the main room. Now there was a warm light, a full bar, and a bouncer checking IDs at the door. The room buzzed with people, music, and energy. 

A band warmed up on the stage in the corner. 

“You play?” the old man said. 

“A little. What’s happening?”

“Open mic at the Hole in the Wall.”

JP sat at the last seat at the bar. The bartender pushed over a beer. JP went to take it and her hand went right through.

And only then she saw the faint flicker of the crowd and the band. 

The old man caught her expression. “Not holograms. Something better. Hush now. Poi Dog’s starting.”

The music started, there was a cheer, and people poured onto the tiny dance floor.

The old man handed her a bottle of Shiner Bock. When she hesitated he just nodded with a twinkle in his eye, and she took it. This time it was solid, and the beer was cold, and by the time the next band took the stage, JP was in the middle of the dance floor with the others. Sometimes she imagined she could feel the pressure of other bodies.

Shoulders. Coffee Sergeants. Reivers. 

Only when the last band flickered and vanished did she see that the bar was empty again. It was just her and the old man. 

“What was that?” she asked.

 “Resonances. Some places have ’em. All it takes is for the right person to come inside, and it all comes back.”

“Are you—”

“Nah. I’m something else entirely. Not sure what – I never did understand it.”

She looked around. “When was this?”

 “1970s, 1980s, mostly.”

“That’s a hundred years ago,” she said, feeling stupid. 

“Feels like yesterday. But you say you play.”

“I mean, not like them.” 

“No judgment,” he said. 

She opened her backpack and pulled out her mini keyboard and turned it on. She played a few chords. 

He reached over and picked up a guitar, tuning it. 

They played until dawn lit up the place. JP buzzed with tiredness. 

“Welp. Closing time,” the old man said.

“Are there other places like this?” She asked. “With resonances.”

“City’s full of them. Gone places, but they live on for the right people. Saxon Pub. Threadgill’s. Liberty Lunch. Club Foot. Anywhere folks gathered and created art and music.”

JP stowed her mini keys and picked up her backpack. When she looked up, the old man was gone. 

When she pushed the door open, she blinked at the morning light and the cool, wet air. 

A local train rumbled past her, and in its wake, a single sheet of paper flew in the wind, plastering itself against her boots. 

JP picked it up. 

Open Mic at the Hole in the Wall, it read. Every Monday. All welcome.

JP stuffed the flyer in her backpack, and took one last look back. But she knew she couldn’t stay. There were other gone places to find, and she had a train to catch.

The End

Open Mic at the Hole in the Wall (c) Copyright 2026 by Patrice Sarath