Hiii I'm Kai I'm a 16 year old non-binary person (biologically male if you need to know) I'm a huge theater geek I love all sorts of musicals my most favorite one is Newsies! I dress up as a newsboy for gender euphoria lol I also really like cartoons such as TOH(The owl house), Gravity falls, and Dead End Paranormal Park etc and I'd love to meet some new friends here if you have any questions don't be afraid to ask I'm still in school but I'll try my best to answer have a nice day and remember existing is hard but everybody you know is glad you're here! 🥰

I (28F) have been seeing my partner (27M) for 2 years ish minus a 3 month breakup period. I have been questioning my attraction to him throughout our relationship but have always complimented him. Sometimes they were honest compliments, and sometimes I questioned the honesty of what I was saying. He has expressed many times that he owes a lot of his confidence to me and praises me often for being supportive . This adds to my uncertainty and guilt. For context, I only recently started therapy for OCD.
The first point of conflict for me is his health, including his weight. I value health and fitness and want a partner who also shares this lifestyle which I know he does. When I met him he had already started gaining weight because the gyms had closed due to the pandemic. I think it is worth mentioning that he has an eating disorder and his all or nothing mentality with fitness triggered him to start eating poorly as well during this time. I figured it did not matter because it’s normal for us to fluctuate in our health throughout our lives and we cannot be perfect. Also, he was talking of getting back into shape and eating properly. 2 years later and he is doing exactly what he said he would. I’m proud of his determination and progress but I sometimes think I would not stay with him if he did not get back in shape. I remedy this uncertainty by comparing the current him to old pictures of him, when he was fit. It would hurt me deeply if he thought like this about me, and it hurts me to think this way about him 😞
The second point is his thinning hair. I don’t think I have an issue with him going bald but he currently styles his hair with a subtle comb over and I’m ashamed to say it gives me the Ick. I have tried to gently suggest a new hairstyle, one that doesn’t hide his hair loss but understandably he is struggling with his confidence and this is a major insecurity for him. I will even get frustrated with him when his hair falls out of place because it sends me spiralling, questioning his physical attractiveness. My thought process is why can’t he try to make himself more attractive to me so I can avoid these thoughts all together. Of course these are self centred and narcissistic thoughts which worries me.
We are moving towards marriage but I feel he deserves someone who would marry him in any physical state and not focus so much on his potential. I think the breakup was largely related to my anxieties and during that period I reflected a lot and missed him and all of his qualities. I even started noticing people with his features and found them attractive. I’m so lost and so uncertain. I just don’t know if my current thoughts are rational or not. Either way there is loss. If they are related to my OCD, I don’t know how to overcome it. If they are not then I feel that makes me a superficial and bad person, especially for stringing him along.

After months of suggesting to my wife that we should sit down and fix several "broken" things with our financial/retirement plan she agreed today was the day.
Here's the situation:
I am 50 and she is 41. Combined annual pay is $300,000-$350,000 depending on commissions and bonuses. (Last year it was $325,000)
We owe $411,000 on a 2.75% interest mortgage with 12 years left. We bought the house for $680,000 nine years ago and the Zestimate is currently $964,000. Great town, great schools in a HCOL area.
We have no debt other than the mortgage. We own a 10-year-old minivan that we bought with cash. My wife has a company car that we can use for personal transportation. We plan to keep the minivan hopefully for another 8-10 years.
I have $985,000 in a Vanguard IRA/Roth IRA 100% invested in VTSAX. My risk tolerance is "HODL forever diamond hands."
She has multiple 401ks, pensions, stock awards and an HSA totaling $828,000.
Each year she maxes out her 401k and HSA and I max out my Roth IRA.
We have $50,000 in 529 accounts with a crummy company for our two boys (ages 7 and 10) and contribute $200/month for each and pay loads and fees and it's just terrible.
We have $45,000 in a HYSA emergency fund with a credit union that pays 4% on the first $10,000 and 1% on the rest. Also not great.
We have $60,000 in checking.
We have a Schwab brokerage account with $81,000 invested 100% in VOO.
I wanted to do this deep dive so we can see where we are and come up with a plan to improve.
Here's what I want us to do:

• Rollover the crummy 529s to Vanguard and invest them maybe in VGSTX. I want to be somewhat fairly conservative with these accounts.
  
• Open a Vanguard IRA and Roth IRA for my wife so she can start maxing out the Roth, and go all in in VTSAX with it. If we did this we would be contributing about $40,000 annually toward retirement.
  
• Find a HYSA that pays better. I am considering Apple's new HYSA but open to suggestions.
  
• Have my wife roll over an old 401k with $700,000 in it to a Vanguard IRA. Struggling with how she should invest the money. In the 401k she is in a bunch of mostly low-cost index funds and bond funds.
  

Questions:

• What should we invest the kids' 529s in considering the short time horizon for this money? And should we be investing more toward their college?
  
• What HYSA account should we go with?
  
• What should my wife invest the $700,000 in in her Vanguard IRA? If it's up to me I'm saying 100% VTSAX but it's not up to me.
  

I should also say my one son is autistic and he may end up living with us forever and might not even use the 529. And my wife has MS and she may go downhill healthwise in later years, but she's good now.
Because of her MS we would like to retire early, me maybe at 60-62 and her at 51-53. I feel like that is doable but we'll see how it goes.

Any suggested places? Farms that work for solo ppl in their 40s that feel lost/depressed sometimes ;)

This is by far the best book I have read this year. I read this book apart of my high school English class, but still for an English class book, The Alchemist really stood out.
The book The Alchemist follows the main character Santiago, a local shepherd, through the Iberian Peninsula onwards towards the pyramids in Giza to find treasure. Throughout Santiago's journey, he meets new people, discovers himself, and learns about the world outside Andulasia.

Parent opened a Coverdell ESA account for me when I was a child through Etrade. Let me pick the investments. I bought shares in a few favorite tech companies at the time (2002). I didn't end up using these funds for college costs. Father is the owner, I am the beneficiary.
As I have recently come to understand, the account must be disbursed and used for qualifying educational expenses by age 30, or re-assigned to a new beneficiary.
I am now > 30 and have a child of my own. We did not do either of the above. The account is now valued at $100K+. Within Etrade, I can sell shares and disburse from the account, but I can't find any option to designate a new beneficiary.
Questions:

1. Does anyone know how a new ESA beneficiary can be assigned from Etrade? This seems different than the standard beneficiary process on a typical brokerage acct.
2. Did I lose the option to elect a new beneficiary after I turned 30?
3. If it's no longer possible to designate a new beneficiary, what's going to be the most tax-efficient way to handle this? I work full-time, AGI ~$120K.
   1. Roll over to a 529 in my child's name?
      1. I've avoided 529 because my child is special needs and I didn't know if they would be going to college. So I've only had a taxable savings account for them until now.
   2. Sell the holdings and move them to a taxable acct? This would be a taxable event and I think there's a penalty for non-edu use of an ESA?
4. Riding a recent updraft on one such high-valued tech company (NVDA), I don't know if this value will hold ... should I dump some of it and move to something like VTI? Afraid to make any investment changes until I can figure out the disposition of the account (how to keep it tax-advantaged).

This is something that the Death Battle G1 blog claims repeatedly in there Kratos vs Asura Predictions and after fact checking it it isn't true in the slightest. http://g1dbteamblogs.blogspot.com/2023/04/death-battle-predictions-kratos-vs-asura.html
​

Claim

"Atlas holds all of existence (Greek World + Underworld) up for 20 years he holds up the cosmos."

Atlas cannot physically hold up the sky/heavens/comso as the Pillar of the World is not physically connected to the sky/cosmos/heaven at all. The Island of Creation sits directly above the pillar. This is proven when Kratos took the Icarus Wings in the Great Chasm, he fell right on top of Atlas , and there is nothing physically connecting said Island to the heavens/cosmos. Making this claim both physically and logically impossible. There are only two sources that even suggest Atlas lifted the heavens, and neither are creditable . The events in God of War Chains of Olympus directly contradict the Atlas data entry in the Gow 2 manual, which claims Zeus, not Kratos, forced Atlas to hold the world.and Gow 1 novel only reference this once briefly in a metaphor which doesn't necessarily means it's literal. Aside for that there nothing the supporting it's not even shown being true in concept art.

Retrocausality essentially stats that the future can affect the past. It is an observed phenomenon. Wouldn't this put an end to the whole the universe couldn't have created itself argument?
https://www.iflscience.com/quantum-mechanics-how-the-future-might-influence-the-past-67913
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retrocausality
https://phys.org/news/2017-07-physicists-retrocausal-quantum-theory-future.html
"A physicist explained" What is quantum retrocausality? Retro-causality in quantum mechanics manifests purely as an interpretation of events. Interpretations rely on axiomatic choices for reality. “If reality has these properties, then this effect is retro-causal.” Therefore retro-causality is not something that one can make absolute statements about. That's why some people can see quantum mechanics as retro-causal, and others don't.
The best example of retro-causality in quantum mechanics is illustrated by Wheeler's delayed choice experiment. In more general terms, this experiment highlights “contextuality” in quantum theory; this means, what you observe is determined by the measurement. This manifests as retro-causal because the type of measurement can determine the way the system behaved before the measurement. The canonical example is the case of a 50/50 beam splitter and the photon. Does the photon behave like a particle or a wave at the beam splitter? A particle would take a particular output port, while a wave would take both. The answer is that it depends on the measurement context. If you measure the relative phase of the photon, it will act as a wave and act as if it took both exits. If you measure which arm the photon took, then it will act like a particle and only one detector will register an event, indicating the photon took a particular path. This strange behaviour is called contextuality, and is a purely quantum property. Classical systems have well-defined states independent on how they are detected. The contextuality of quantum mechanics suggests that the measurement determines the behaviour. This is of course retro-causal. Wheeler illustrated this by considering single photons from an astronomical source that can take two paths to the observer (via a gravitational lens). The detection in that scenario occurs thousands or millions of years after the emission event, yet somehow has determined a property of the photon far back in time.
Such retro-causality only results if you consider that some decision had to be made in the past to determine the behaviour in the future. However, you could equally consider that no “decision” was made in the past. Thus all measurement outcomes are possible in the future. This means that quantum objects are neither particles nor waves, but something else entirely. Once you adopt this position, there is no retro-causality. However, you have swapped one mystery for another.

I started a new job and have been quite stressed, my body is very reactive to it and I’ve noticed my period will just stop. Last year, it was not the same, it stopped for 4 months.
Does anyone else get this or is this a concern?

I’ve played the guitar for a few years now and I’ve wanted to get a new electric 6 string, any recommendations for a black one would be great! Thanks in advance!

I have a 20lb 4yr old neutered male indoor short haired tabby who’s had intermittent allergy responses since he was a kitten, but has otherwise been healthy. It’s mainly his paw pads, one or two at a time, but occasionally mouth too. His paw pad (metatarsal, but sometimes digits if it’s worse) becomes red, inflamed, flakey on the sides & firm to the touch. He’d seen 3 vets over the years who treated as if it was a superficial wound even after I explained the pattern and why I thought it was an allergy thing. One vet even questioned if I understood what the word inflammation meant and acted like she couldn’t see anything wrong with his paw.
Eight days ago a new vet agreed it seems like an allergy response and gave a Convenia injection for infection on one of the two effected paws + daily 5mg prednisolone for 14 days, then every other day for 3 days. He made it sound like he didn’t think it was potentially PCP or EGC since only 2/4 paws had issues. The infection cleared up within 2 days, and his back paw shows improvement, but the front paw pad looks looks slightly worse to me now with inflammation.
I’d previously thought it was flea exposure toward the end of a topical treatment cycle, but recently noticed Reveal chicken & broth only wet food caused a mouth reaction that cleared when I stopped the food. The paws started after the mouth flare and persisted even after the wet food was stopped.
Any general advice for ways to boost his immune system and/or determine the underlying cause of the response outside of expensive tests or biopsies? The vet didn’t suggest anything else and didn’t seem to think preventive measures were necessary yet. This has happened multiple times until it just spontaneously disappears, but isn’t usually as bad as it is now. He’s a little itchy overall and occasionally a few sneezes, but nothing consistent and no eye or ear issues. I only use plant based cleaning products, have always used wood litter w/out additives or fragrances, vacuum almost daily, use glass or ceramic dishes, etc. I’ve tried fish oil, but my cat won’t touch anything I add even just a bit to. Currently trying Nutri-Vet Multi-Vite multivitamin paw gel but have read and seen less than stellar reviews of the product. I intend on following up w the vet tomorrow when he’s halfway through his meds. I tried to attach pics like the sub rules ask for, but it says pics or links aren’t allowed. We are in the central US.

Location: New York
A couple days ago, I (20f) was taken by a police offer to a safe place after my parent had abused me badly as I was driving. The parent made sure to hit where marks would not be visible (scalp, privates, etc.) furthermore, they hit me such that there were no marks anyways. The officer told me that a "domestic disturbance" isn't enough to warrant an arrest. I am now living in a safe place, with all my other family in Illinois (they are otherwise unavailable to me). Before he left, the officer told me two things: first, that the paperwork can only be filed in the county I was in, and that if I wished, there was an option for me to send this incident to a judge who would decide if an arrest needed to be made. I can't have my parent arrested, because their job status is necessary for me to attend college. Without my standing as a dependant of my parent, I cannot afford what will end up being around 80k per year. I don't want them to get away with this incident, as they have in the past when police came, saw me bleeding, and did nothing. I have no idea where to proceed, and any help is appreciated.

I have a feeling that the game may have been tweaked a little. If that's the case, the changes I noticed are in the right direction.
I started a new mission in War Factory and happened to get in an intense gunfight at the road intersection between the steelworks and the refinery. I can't remember the sequence of events but at one point, with the alarm wailing, some unexpected jaegers started shooting from behind as I had my back to the road ingress (map boundary). I am not 100% sure but I think they came out of the brown door just by the road. Or they may have come from the back of a transporter. Either ways, this was a great added challenge.
Some time later I was in Rubble and Ruin, with most of the mission done, taking out the bunch of jaegers and officers in the hotel. At one point a vehicle stopped just outside and I was suddenly sucked into a survival-style last line of defence. I finally managed to survive the wave but not before being forced into a tactical retreat, having had to revive myself twice, and running out of medical. Another shot and I'd be dead.
Neither of the above happened to me before in those locations and more of this is how the game should play. Alarms and reinforcements should be in abundant supply and also be the most feared event.
But the strangest of all events was an invader achieving one of my objectives in Occupied Residence. I opened the door on the top floor, the one that allows access to Moeller's office, and got invaded. I was circling around looking for the invader (and the invader most likely was looking for me), when I saw the access Moeller office objective popping up. Of course, I quickly found the invader after that. I am not sure if the invader saw the notification, but it must have been a surprise to them too.
Anyone had any unusual gameplay experiences?

Hello there, my name is Gabriela and I'm a 22-year-old Mexican woman who loves cats, books, music, and movies.
My friends would describe me as an introvert who knows how to enjoy the quiet moments instead of always seeking out the right party. I have red hair (although it's naturally dark brown), light brown eyes, I'm 5'5 and I’m an average build with a few curves here and there.
I wouldn’t normally try and find love on a subreddit, but lately I’ve been trying to experience new things and who knows? Something good might come out of this (fingers crossed).
I recently went through a tough breakup and, although it still hurts sometimes, I am ready to try something new and see what life has in store for me.
I'm looking for someone who is funny, with a big heart, and who can communicate effectively. Someone who is mature, tolerant and with whom I can share experiences that can enrich my life. Someone who listens and shows interest in not only me but also my interests and hobbies just as I will with theirs. I’m mainly looking for something long term and serious, I’m not interested in hook ups.
My main activities revolve around reading, spending time with my cats, listening to music, and watching movies, series, and YouTube videos. I'm also open to trying new things as long as they don’t go beyond my comfort zone or put myself in any sort of danger.
Having gone through a difficult relationship, I'm looking for someone who is sincere, knows how to be kind, won't be narcissistic or self-centered and, most importantly, won’t give up on me when things get hard.
If you made it this far and you think you could be my special someone, please reach out to me; I would love to chat and see where this takes us.
Please be +23, thank you!

Going to do my best to keep this as short as possible. I have a full time job in health care and am currently back in school in my second semester of CS as a transfer student. I truly do not think I have the option to pursue an internship for 2 major reasons:

1. And probably about 90% of my concern. Leaving my job to pursue an internship is not feasible as my job provides me with all of my benefits (quite good ones that are difficult to walk away from) AND they are paying for my school with a tuition reimbursement program. After life expenses that we all gotta pay, I truly don’t think I could be back in school without my job paying for it (I think it’s important to mention that I absolutely live within my means)
   
2. Going back to school after a years off, I transferred to a new university, and because I am a transfer student with a preexisting degree, I only have CS classes left to complete and only have 3 semesters left. I’m already a junior and have just the very basic fundamentals of Java and Python, nowhere near the knowledge to apply in a real world setting.
   

I am wondering what my options are here, has anyone had luck asking professors if research hours are possible or if there’s anything else I can do as volunteer work 1 or 2 days a week, or should I maybe keep doing what I’m currently doing and just building up my skills and create a portfolio. Thank you for any advice

im 22 years old and are educated in the IT-supporteit technician area Located in Denmark,
And im looking into working on a oilrig in any kind of are(im not handy) but im deter because i have heard a buddy saying you can get pretty good pay and free time like 2 week on 2-3 week of,
one of the Reason for looking is because my current IT-support job is underpaying quite a bit, and i havent had any luck getting another job in that field for a year, and i wanna se if i can throw a lot into investments to make it a bit easier for me later in life.
and are motivated to try and work in new fields and maybe actually use my body instead of sitting behind a desk, but if there is any it jobs on a olirig that would highly prioritized.
any kind of feedback is appricated

As above. My car was hit whilst parked. Damage is moderate with several panels damaged, movement of one wheel/axle along with further damage and misalignment to all other wheels.
I have gap insurance should it be written off though I think a write off is unlikely.
Third party's insurance have been in touch, have accepted liability and are offering to run the claim and fix the car along with provide a hire car. I have notified my insurance (via an out of hours process) of course but am trying to determine the best approach. On the face of it the third party route seems like less hassle than going through mine to theirs but I'm not sure if gap insurance policies stipulate who's policy must be claimed from in the event of a total loss. I guess I'll have to declare the accident for several years going forward regardless of the route.
There doesn't seem to be a great deal written online as to the best answer so I was curious to hear any experiences, advice or horror stories

Sometimes when you look into the mirror, the mirror looks back.
William Bailey's forehead shattered the mirror like a sledgehammer. The last thing he remembered before he blacked out was the feeling that he was falling through the mirror. Sub-cranial hematoma, a concussion, maybe even a cracked skull--that had to be the reason for the strange feeling. The mirror was mounted on the wall just to the right of the bar, four feet tall by about three feet wide. As consciousness slipped away, common sense and his strong belief in the rational world told him that he couldn't fall through the mirror. He must have bounced his head off the wall and be falling toward the floor.
It seemed like just a second or two before William's eyes popped open. He lay on his back, on the hard wood floor of Fausto's, with Johnny Davis towering over him. Big Johnny probably wanted to finish him off, maybe kill him, and finally end their twenty-year-old feud. Either Big Johnny Davis and the ceiling lights above him were spinning, or William's head was spinning, but either way something wasn't right.
He raised his head and looked to his left, toward the bar. Except the bar wasn't there. Instead, he was staring at the bathrooms. That didn't make sense. It must be his brain that had gotten spun around. William turned his head and peered over his size-ten wingtips at the busted mirror. The wooden frame and most of the glass still clung to the wall, the rest sat broken on the ground. The bar had to be on his left. He looked again, and still saw the bathrooms. A brain bruise, maybe some fluid pressure building up might be the cause of it.
"Get up!" Big Johnny Davis said.
William looked up at him. Johnny stood behind him, just beyond his shoulders. Perfect place for him to stomp my head into the plank floor. Except Johnny Davis was holding out his hand.
"Come on, we've got to get out of here."
Davis looked scared. It was the first time William Bailey could ever remember Johnny Davis looking scared. William had always been scared of Big Johnny, but Big Johnny wasn't scared of anything or anyone.
Police sirens wailed in the distance.
Johnny glanced over his shoulder. William craned his neck to look where Johnny was looking, saw he was staring at the front door like a man terrified something bad was going to come through it. Big Johnny looked down at him again and pumped his hand. "Come on, get up. They'll be here any second."
"Who?" William asked. "Who'll be--" But before he finished, Big Johnny Davis reached down, grabbed him by both arms, and jerked him to his feet.
As he was dragged toward the door by the only man in town who truly hated him, William glanced up and saw the rusted metal sign nailed above the door. He had to have a concussion, probably severe; that had to be it, because the letters on the sign were backward. It said TUO.
As Johnny Davis pulled him out the door, William heard tires skid on the pavement.
"Where's your car?" Johnny asked.
William twisted away from the big man's grip, then turned to his left. "In the alley." He started to run, still not sure exactly what he was running from.
Behind him, Big John shouted, "The alley's over here."
William kept running but turned his head back toward Johnny. "I know where the alley--"
Something hit him across the midsection and toppled him to the ground. He got his hands up just in time to break his fall and managed to keep his head from slamming into the sidewalk. When he looked up he saw a shopping cart tumbled onto its side.
Once again, William found himself lying flat on his back, this time amid the spilled contents of the cart. It had been filled with junk: paper bags full of dirty clothes, canned food, bags of potato chips, a diamond shaped, orange road sign, and other trash that looked like it had been collected from back alley garbage bins.
The homeless man who'd been pushing the cart was scrawny, and wafer thin. His skin was the color of old shoe leather, and he wore a long gray beard, tangled and matted with food and bits of filth. He was sprawled on the ground next to his cart, half sitting up, staring at William with his bright blue eyes.
Car doors slammed, men shouted.
"You better get going," the homeless man said, as he cocked his head. "The police after you?"
Police!
Before William could assure the old man that the police weren't after him--he was a respected businessman and family man--someone behind him grabbed him under both arms and pulled him to his feet. William turned and found himself staring into the face of Johnny Davis. "The alley's that way," Johnny said, pointing to the other side of Fausto's. With one hand gripping William's jacket, Johnny dashed across the front of the bar toward the alley. The alley--right there, plain as day--on the other side of Fausto's, right where it shouldn't be, where it couldn't be. William had been here a thousand times. As you stepped out of the bar, the alley was on the left, Brockton's Ace Hardware on the right. Now everything was mixed up and in the wrong place.
Johnny Davis turned down the alley, dragging William behind him. After just a few steps, a spotlight flashed in front of them.
"Stop!" a voice commanded. "Get on the ground."
William couldn't see because Johnny was in his way. "Who's that yelling?" he asked.
Big Johnny stopped and William plowed into his back.
"Get on the ground," the voice boomed again.
William poked his head out from behind Johnny Davis's back. The blinding white light was in his face. He couldn't see a thing.
POP! POP! POP!
Gunshots.
Big Johnny sagged, then crashed to his knees. Instinctively, William bent forward and grabbed hold of Johnny. "What's the matter?"
More pops.
Johnny's big hand reached out and shoved William back toward the street. "Back door," he wheezed, then plunged forward onto his face.
William stood alone. Behind the white spotlight he saw blue police lights flashing. He was totally exposed.
POP! POP!
He saw flashes--little yellow spurts of flame--as something tugged at his jacket.
William had said "back door." What back door? Fausto's had a back door, but it didn't lead anywhere except to the open space behind the building used for trash and deliveries. Twenty feet of asphalt between the bar and the back of the building on the next block. William had parked his car at the end of the alley, but the police cars--or whatever they were--had the alley blocked off. The building behind Fausto's also had an alley that ran alongside it, but the owner had closed it off to keep the bums out. He'd put up a gate, padlocked it, and topped it with razor wire. It was a dead end.
Two more pops. Dead end or not it was better than standing here and getting shot. William turned and ran. He burst through the front door of Fausto's, dashed through the bar, past the shattered mirror, hit the back door at a dead run, and was outside behind the bar within seconds.
He could see the tail end of his car sticking out from the corner of the building, but with the cops blocking the alley, his car was useless to him. William glanced across the open space to the alley that ran next to the other building. The gate, the padlock, the razor wire--all still in place. To his right an overflowing garbage dumpster sat beside the back of Fausto's, jammed against the fire ladder.
The fire ladder.
An iron ladder bolted to the cinderblock wall.
William looked up. The top of the ladder was lost in shadow, but he knew it went up two stories to the roof. Last summer, when the toilet had stopped up, he'd come out back to take a leak and had stood behind the dumpster, peeing against the wall like a kid, one hand draped over the bottom rung of the ladder.
He slipped behind the dumpster. The smell made him gag. The bottom of the ladder was four feet from the ground. William reached up as high as he could, grabbed hold of the third rung, then hauled himself up.
Through the partially open back door came the sounds of heavy feet pounding on the hard wood floor of the bar.
Halfway up the ladder, he was exhausted--and scared. Shaking, he white-knuckled the ladder. Being more than ten feet off the ground terrified him. He needed a break, just a second or two to catch his breath. There was enough moonlight so he could see into one of the second story windows. Inside, junk was piled everywhere. Old barstools, a busted jukebox, furniture stacked almost to the ceiling. Years ago, old man Fausto lived on the second floor, but Jake, who'd bought the place from the old man and had decided to keep the name, used it for storage.
Below him, William heard the back door thrown open so hard it banged against the wall. He scrambled up until he reached the top of the ladder, then hoisted himself over the edge of the roof. Down on the ground a voice shouted, "There he is, up there."
Another gunshot. What the hell was going on?
The unmistakable sound of feet--fast feet, in shape feet, boot shod feet--scurrying up the ladder. Standing on the tar and pebble roof, William glanced around for something he could use as a weapon, shocked he was even thinking of such a thing. A five gallon plastic bucket was all there was. It stood upright, filled with rainwater. He picked it up and peered over the edge. A uniformed policeman was three quarters of the way up the ladder. Two more cops were right behind him.
William looked at the heavy bucket in his hands, thought about just dumping the water onto them but knew it wouldn't stop them. There was only one way to stop them, and that was to knock them off the ladder. He thought about warning them, maybe trying to scare them away. But they were cops. You couldn't scare them away.
So why had they shot Johnny Davis, and why were they shooting at him?
The first officer looked up and saw William staring down at him with the bucket in his hands. Their eyes locked for just a second and the cop stopped. In those eyes that stared back at him, William saw an almost maniacal determination that sent a shiver down his spine. The officer held his grip on the ladder with his right hand while his left dropped to the pistol resting in his gleaming leather holster. In one smooth motion he drew his gun and raised it toward William.
William Bailey tossed the bucket down the ladder. A shot rang out an instant before the heavy bucket thudded into the cop's head. Like a gruesome traffic accident happening before his eyes, William couldn't help but watch as the policeman fell, taking his two partners down with him. The last thing William saw before he turned away was a jumbled heap of black uniforms resting on the concrete below the ladder.
* * *
Hiding in the shadow of a telephone booth, thinking. Home. He had to get home. Had to get back to Marge and the kids. Maybe somehow he could explain what had happened. Vincent, his attorney, he would know what to do--maybe--but he was a civil lawyer not a criminal attorney. He wrote contracts and did personal injury on the side; he didn't get people out of jail who'd killed a cop by dropping a bucket of water on his head and knocking him and his buddies off the side of a building.
As the cab he'd been waiting for pulled up, William stepped out from the dark and climbed into the back seat.
The driver turned around. "Where to?"
William pulled the door shut. "Uptown. 1721 Audubon Court."
"Fare's gonna be about fifteen dollars. After dark, I gotta have the money up front."
"What?"
"Company policy." The cabbie shrugged. "A lot of drivers been getting stiffed."
William opened his wallet, pulled out a twenty and handed it across the seat. The driver took it and almost slipped it into his cash box, then took a second look at the bill. His face tightened. "What the hell is this?"
"Huh?"
With the bill stretched between his hands, the cabbie stared at it for a second then looked up at William. "You're either the dumbest counterfeiter who ever lived or you've been had."
"What you are talking about?"
The driver faced the bill toward William but didn't hand it back to him. "It's printed backwards."
William looked at the twenty-dollar bill in the man's hand. It looked like--it was--an almost brand new bill, nothing wrong with it as far as he could tell.
"Get out of my cab," the driver said.
William didn't know what the man was talking about but knew he didn't want to get out. This cab was his only way home. He reached for the twenty. "If you don't like that one I've got another--"
The driver pulled his hands away. "I ain't giving this back. I got to turn it in to the police." He dropped one hand behind his seat back, then came up clutching a pistol, an old German Luger by the looks of it, the muzzle aimed straight at William's face. "In fact, I bet they give me a reward if I bring you in with it."
William jerked the door handle and rolled out into the street. He sprang to his feet and ran, the driver's yells just background noise. Has everyone gone crazy or is it just me?
Home. He had to get home.
* * *
Rain. Driving, relentless rain. William was just two blocks from Fausto's. In two hours, that's as far as he'd gotten--one block an hour. Police cars prowled the neighborhood, shinning spotlights into every nook and cranny, lighting up every shadow. Everyone in Fausto's knew his name. He'd been going there three or four nights a week after work for years. The cabbie had his address. William had given it to him when he told the hack driver where to drop him.
Ten o'clock at night, with nowhere to go and no way to get there, William sat behind the closed Goodwill store, under an overhang that barely kept the rain off of him.
Huddled in the dark, head sunk between his knees, he hadn't heard anyone approach.
"You don't look so good."
Startled, William looked up, prepared to run again. It was the homeless man he'd knocked over outside the bar. The one with the shopping cart and the leathery skin. William relaxed a little. "Excuse me?"
The man pushed his cart closer. "You're not supposed to be here."
William looked around. "Why not?"
The old man grinned, half his teeth gone.
William found it nearly impossible to tell his age. The guy could be forty and maybe had lived a hard life, or perhaps he was a well-preserved seventy, pickled by a lifetime of booze. William waved him off, expecting a plea for money. "I can't help you."
The old man stopped just a few feet away. "Everything's out of place isn't it?" He had a strange lilting voice. Almost like an accent.
And he was right. Everything was out of place--from Johnny Davis to the cab driver--everything was wrong.
Strapped to the back of the old man's shopping cart was a plastic sign about the size of a loaf of bread. William recognized the sign, the words, the colors, the logo of a local supermarket chain, all were familiar to him, but the letters were backward, unreadable.
Rainwater ran down William's face. He pointed to the sign. "Why's it written like that?"
The old man looked at the sign then back at William. "Like what?" he said, then shuffled away behind his basket.
* * *
The rain came down even harder. William slouched in a darkened doorway across the street from Fausto's. Nothing made sense. Everything was messed up, backward, out of whack. Almost like this wasn't his home, like he was a stranger seeing it for the first time.
But that was crazy. He'd grown up here, gone to Brother Martin High School, dated Jenny Underhill who went to Cabrini, lost her to Johnny Davis, then got her back only to lose her again the first year of college to some kid who drove a Mustang. Two years later William married Marge at Saint Luke's. They had two kids.
This town was his home. He recognized it. He knew the people here, Big Johnny and Zeke, the bartender at Fausto's. But things were different, little things. John Davis for one. In trying to help him, the big man had gotten himself killed. That wasn't John Davis--at least not the one William Bailey had known since seventh grade. Everything looked the same but wasn't. Nothing was quite right.
But they knew him--or someone like him.
A strange sensation crept over him that made the hair on the back of his neck rise. Maybe he didn't belong here. Maybe everything wasn't as it appeared. Maybe this wasn't his home. But if that were true, then whose home was it? Another thought, even scarier seeped through his brain. If he was here, who was there--at his home?
Crazy.
William dropped his head into his hands. Just considering such nonsense was a waste of time. Yet, here he was scanning the street, thinking of going back inside Fausto's, back to that mirror.
Not much time to think about it. The bar closed at three AM and it was already two-thirty. When he'd left--run for his life with Big Johnny--most of the mirror was still in the frame hanging on the wall.
Something about that damned mirror.
But Fausto's was dangerous, so a couple of hours ago William had found another mirror. In the men's room of a twenty-four hour gas station. The Chevron on North Rampart.
He had approached it cautiously, afraid he was going mad. As he peered over the sink into the mirror, he saw what he always saw, his own reflection. Holding up his left hand, he looked at the image in the mirror, at the watch strapped to his wrist. He noticed that the man in the mirror wore his watch on his right hand. Just the opposite.
William stood in the gas station bathroom for twenty minutes before he worked up his nerve. Finally, he took a deep breath, leaned back, then slammed his forehead into the dirt-streaked mirror. The glass shattered and cut his head. Blood dribbled off the tip of his nose into the sink. His reflection stared out at him from the other side of the mirror, blood running down his face, too.
I have gone crazy!
So the gas station hadn't worked out. Ducking police cruisers, William had wandered the streets, his head reeling. What was he doing?
On the sidewalk, he found a sopping wet magazine that the wind had blown up against the side of a newspaper machine. The cover caught his eye. He picked it up. It was printed backwards, the letters reversed, words running right to left. The spine was on the right. As he flipped through the pages, he couldn't read a thing. Then William had an idea.
In the bathroom of an all night restaurant he held the wet magazine up to the mirror. Perfect. The reflected image was normal, spine on the left, words running left to right, all the letters printed correctly. He could read it clearly. But what did it mean?
Then he drove his head into that mirror. The glass cracked. Someone walked in, a skinny waiter wearing an apron. He stood gawking as William leaned over the sink with tears of pain filling his eyes.
The waiter looked at the broken mirror, then jabbed a finger at William's bloody forehead. "What the hell are you doing?"
"An accident," he mumbled, pressing his fingers against the fresh cut.
The waiter turned. "I'm calling the cops."
William Bailey ran.
Now he was huddled in the rain staring at Fausto's across the street. Because he had nowhere else to go.
He stood and walked toward Fausto's. When he was halfway across the street, a police car glided around the corner, headlights reflecting off the wet pavement. The cops in no hurry, just cruising. William forced himself to keep walking, not to run. One foot in front of the other. In the downpour, odds were that the cops wouldn't even recognize him.
But they did recognize him.
The police car slid to a stop as its high beams clicked on and its blue strobe lights started popping. Both front doors flew open.
Like a sinner seeking the sanctuary of a church, William ran straight for Fausto's door. As he burst inside, Zeke looked up from behind the bar. "William! What the hell are you doing here?"
He ignored the bartender, running right past him, eyes focused on the broken mirror and its busted frame hanging on the wall.
Zeke again, "The cops been looking all over for you. Say you killed two officers and--"
Behind him the front door banged against the wall. "Police!" a voice behind him commanded. "Stop."
But William didn't stop. He kept running--running straight for the mirror. Reflected in its fragmented pieces he saw two uniformed police officers behind him, heard their boots pounding on the wooden floor. Just ten feet separated him from the mirror. At full speed he took two strides then dove. He stretched his arms out overhead and tucked his chin into his chest as his feet left the floor.
He felt one hand hit wall and the other strike broken glass. Then his head hit. More glass cracked, more skin split.
Darkness.
* * *
William's eyes popped open. He was staring at the ceiling. Rough voices, even rougher hands. They rolled him over onto his stomach and jerked his arms behind his back. He felt cold steel on his wrists and heard the metallic ratcheting as the handcuffs tightened and bit into his skin.
He tilted his head up and rested his chin against the floor. Blood poured down the side of his face; he watched it pool on the floor then seep between the wooden planks. By rolling his eyes up he could just see the empty spot on the wall where the mirror had hung. Lying on the floor, three feet from his head, was the broken frame and the rest of the glass.
The two cops grabbed his arms and yanked him to his feet, sending waves of pain through his shoulders and wrists. As they spun him toward the door, one of the officers said, "You're under arrest."
"Why?" William asked.
The officer pressed his face into William's. "Murdering your family for starters."
"My...my family." William felt his stomach cinch and his bowels turn to ice. A thought he'd had earlier in the night echoed inside his head. If he was here, who was there--at his home.
As the cops dragged him across the floor, William glanced up and saw the rusted metal sign nailed above the door.
OUT.
He was home.