I peered into the tomb of forgotten souls as I cautiously slid the closet door open. Menacing boxes full of neglected memorabilia leered at me as I slowly looked from one to the other, reading the various classifications written in bold black marker: IMPORTANT, REALLY IMPORTAN, KINDA IMPORTANT, EH, MAYBE IMPORTANT,… Finally, I came to it. DOCU-IMPORTANT. It was scribbled on a tattered, beaten-up red Nike shoe box located on the top shelf.

As I reached up to carefully take the injured box down, the casualty tore open, spilling it’s innards of discarded documents onto my upturned face. The small box sighed with relief at the expenditure.

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The memories aren’t always clear. They never are. It’s like a first person shot on a cheap video camera uploaded to You Tube… grainy, digitized yet still sharp with little jerky movements interspersed with slow pans.

In high school I had a friend… Jay. He was unique, confident… Jay was thin as in British rocker thin with dirty blond wavy hair in a conservative 80’s style. Cloths are a blur (insert your own jeans, tshirt or button down [untucked, please], nothing 80’s cliche, though), but not the shoes. He would switch between his canvashigh-tops or combat boots. And his car… makes and models generally leave my mind as quickly as they enter… a yellowed/tan station wagon. Older with some rust and possibly faux wood panels. Later, it changed… I vaguely recall something newer dark maroon, but that’s the car my memory always inserts. Jay could… would cruise down the streets weaving between the various clicks. He could talk to anyone and get along with most. Jay was the artist in school… drawings and I’m not sure what else. And when our lives intersected at the heaviest, he worked evenings/nights in a car wash making sure the machines all ran and the coin changer was full.

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random idea…

he always had a sense of how he would die… just like in a song… ‘leaving on a jet plane’ but it was never more than a vague wave of anxiety

the oldest twin daughter wasn’t wired like others… born way too early, her brain developed/grew at differing rates… synopsis wired in different ways, firing unusual thoughts.  Some things were faster, better, others slower, different.  since the beginning, she felt how things were going to be… as she grew, the feelings became thoughts, facts, visions… she knew how things would be… bad things caused by single/simple decisions could be changed… but changing events that resulted from series of interelated decisions, random events almost impossible

the youngest twin was distant… emotions couldn’t be controled or grasped without slipping between tight fingers.  when her father died when she was 6, there was just more reason to close off the world of feelings.  she pushed through the following years head down focusing on logic, facts, later science… her goal clearly articulated in her own mind was to control, predict everything

the oldest son was a thinker, story teller and scientist.  he believed in right and wrong taught to him from his dad, believed in dragons and knights and sought ways to make them all real.  his passion drove him and his innate ability to bridge dreams with science using the building blocks of what came before enabled his gifts

the youngest son was the solver… as far back as he could recall, his sisters and brother missed their father.  During the phase (grieving phase, they called it), he would bring them together and in his quiet voice show them the way through.  he grieved, but his father quickly faded into vague images and a voice off camera on family videos.  they told him his father was a builder and he tried to emulate that… he would build rather than take… he saw the problems blocking others and showed them the paths through…

25 years later could they save their daddy, dad, father… should they… would they…

Shiny eyes stared into his as he kneeled, bringing his face level.  “I’ll miss you, daddy” as the whispered voice caught. 

“I love you very much and I’ll be back in just a couple of weeks.  I will call when I can and we can talk” he promised, his heart breaking.

The little arms, the “good arm” hooking him tightly around the neck, squeezed.

Lauren rushes up in a chaotic shuffle, wrapping her arm tightly around my neck at the last minute to keep from falling. That sparkle flashes behind her pink frames as she fights back a belly laugh.

“Broccoli!” she snorts!

“Broccoli…?”

“Broccoli, Floyd and Mona!” she bursts!

I pause… holding her out in front of me, I take the bait. “Broccoli, Floyd and Mona…?”

“YEAH! When I grow up!  Those will be the names of my kids! Two boys and a girl!” She breaks down on the floor clutching her side in hysterics, so tight breaths are forgotten.

“Those kids won’t ever be picked on…”

Seriousness freezes her laughter as she stares at me. “Of course not. Never.”

A heartbeat later… she snorts as she crashes to the floor in giggles… “Broccoli, Floyd and Mona!”

Maggie looked up and away so she could see me clearly in her peripheral vision. She tapped her lips with a short, thin finger. “When I grow up, I’m going to have 4 kids… ” She added decidedly “two girls and two boys”.Used to her level of planning, I inquired with raised brow “and their names?”

“Rosalina and Assabella… the boys Zach and Josh. “

“Assabella… hmm… those are good names.” Curving the corners of my mouth down as I slowly nodded my head, hiding my smile.

“And their friends will be the children of my friends.”

“And their cousins will be the children of your brothers and sister… ” I added.

“Oh, Thomas isn’t going to have children. He says he will never get married and I believe him.”

She’s so confident and I hope she’s wrong. I want all my children to grow up looking back fondly at their childhood, wanting to be parents…  making me a grandfather.

Kremhok Drel was born the only child of only children of only children dating back seven generations. His great, great, great, great grandfather was the seventh son of a seventh son and his great, great, great, great grandmother the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter. His parents, Rinbrahl Drel and Trinly Frinh, taught history and mathematics, respectively, at the Mrwist University. Mrwist was the capital seat of the Kingdom of Prilliad, made up of 14 island protectorates and crossing 8 continents.

1. Krem
2. father
3. grandfather
4. greatgrandfather
5. greatgreatgrandfather
6. greatgreatgreatgrandfather
7. greatgreatgreatgreatgrandfather

At the age of 5, Krem’s abilities manifested.
The last wizard to join the council of seven during the Glorious Age of Anarix.

In the beginning, it was the end of all we knew. The plague came out of the East spreading from rodent to rodent. Scientists spent two years finding a cure only to have the plague jump to another species. This cycle continued for