Welcome Home

by Eric Smith

  “Hey, I just figured it out. You’re Evan’s bro, right?”

  My pulse raced.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  He stared at me, and I couldn’t keep my eyes on his. I knew I looked guilty.

  He sighed dramatically, then leaned on the counter and lowered his voice, like he had a secret to tell me. “I think I see what’s happening here. You came to spy on me for Mommy. I’m a bad influence on poor little Evan. That sound about right?”

  I knew I was turning red, the way I always do when I’m nervous or embarrassed—I could feel the heat rising on my skin.

  “You have something you want to say?” He stared at me. “Speak up, Dunk.”

  Suddenly he was in front of me, leaning over the counter, his face right in mine. I was much taller than him, and bigger, but he was meaner and tougher. He reminded me of a coiled snake, ready to attack. Poisonous. Deadly.

  I shook my head no.

  “Right,” he said. “That’s what I thought.”

  I was frozen in place.

  “Run along,” he said, flicking his hand at me like he was shooing away a fly. “Go back to your mommy now.”

  I turned to leave, but he stopped me.

  “Hold up,” he said. “Rosenberg?”

  I’d forgotten I was still wearing my basketball uniform. Rosenberg was spelled in big white letters across the back of my red Langford Basketball jacket, just above my number—8. For all of Mom’s Internet security precautions, it never occurred to her—or me—that I’d been running around town announcing my school and last name on my dumb team jacket for years.

  “Rosenberg? Evan is fucking Jewish? I don’t believe this shit.”

  Jewish? The word, so repugnant the way he said it, replayed in my head.

  And then he twisted his left hand to reveal the tattoo on the underside of his wrist. A swastika. Small, but unmistakable.

  I’d seen plenty of graffiti with swastikas and the n-word. Since Dad’s announcement last year that the district attorney’s office would be cracking down hard on hate crimes, there were photos all over his desk at home. But still, when I saw Tim’s tattoo, I had to fight the urge to let everything I’d eaten that day make its way back up.

  Tim’s eyes flicked up to mine, and even though the blue was so pale, his seemed like the darkest eyes I’d ever seen. He thrust toward me suddenly like he was going to head-butt me. He laughed when I flinched.

  I turned and smacked the door open, ran down the street, got in my car, put it in gear, and drove. As I went by the pizza place, I saw him—Tim—holding the door open with his hip, watching me, my ten-dollar bill still in his hand.

  That night, Mom took Evan out to practice parallel parking. When they got home, they were yelling at each other—their new norm.

  After I heard Evan stomp into his room and slam the door, I went downstairs to find Mom. Typically, I’d steer clear of Mom after one of their arguments—her fuse was extra short, and I’d end up on the receiving end of her residual anger. But I had to risk it tonight.

  She was in the kitchen leaning against the counter, typing fast on her phone, probably updating Dad on her fight with Evan.

  I noticed Evan’s phone on the counter next to her, which meant the argument had been bad enough for her to take it from him.

  “Mom?”

  “Hmm?”

  “About that guy in Evan’s tribe. Tim.”

  Mom put her phone on the counter. I had her full attention now.

  “You were right,” I said. “I looked him up and he’s really bad. He’s some kind of addict and he was in prison—I don’t know what for.”

  She stared at me, her eyes wide. I’d convinced myself that telling her I’d gone to see him would distract her from the real issue, so I left that information out.

  “And,” I continued, “he has a tattoo on his wrist. Of a swastika.”

  Mom gasped. “What did you just say?”

  “He has a swastika tattoo.”

  She closed her eyes for what seemed like a full minute. Then she opened them and speed-walked to the electronics cupboard in the living room, fumbled around, and yanked out the cord to the Internet router.

  She turned to me.

  “I want you to keep this to yourself until I’ve had a chance to talk to Dad.”

  We heard Evan’s door open, and then he shouted down the stairs.

  “Mom, the Wi-Fi’s out again. Jesus. Why doesn’t anything ever work in this house?”

  His door slammed again.

  I’d never be able to get the image of him out of my mind. His arms splayed, the tattoo on his wrist hidden beneath his jacket sleeve, his palm open, and next to it a ten-dollar bill—my ten-dollar bill. Alexander Hamilton’s face was barely visible underneath handwritten numbers and words. In blue ink: our address. Below that, scrawled in all caps: game over, Rosenberg.

  “He was going to blackmail Dad,” Mom said, shaking, one phone in each hand—one hers, one Tim’s. “But I didn’t . . . it was an accident. I tried to take his phone and we fought . . . and the table was there. I didn’t mean . . .”

  I did what instinct told me to do. I said, “It’s okay,” over and over, and I helped her to the couch. When she started breathing normally, she showed me what was on Tim’s phone.

  Even though the video was dark, the kid in it was unmistakably Evan. At first it was just his back, a close-up of his arm spray-painting red on a gray background. Then the picture zoomed out to show what he’d made—a red swastika on the front door of a little white house. Then the video cut to a Muslim woman walking fast down a sidewalk, as if she suspected she was being followed. In the background, Tim’s unmistakable voice said, “Now! Go!” Then Evan was in the shot, moving quickly toward the woman. He grabbed the hijab from her head, pulling some of her hair with it. She screamed and ran, and Tim called after her, “Go back to the desert! You’re not welcome here anymore!”

  Tim cackled, and Evan turned toward the camera. Even though the video was too dark and grainy to see his eyes, I looked for Evan inside them, hoping he was still in there, that he’d had no choice, that he’d been threatened. It was the only way any of it could make sense.

  Suddenly I realized what I’d done.

  My fault, my fault, my fault played in my head. I thought I’d been helping, but I was the reason Tim found out our last name and who Dad was. I was the reason he was able to find out where we lived. I was the reason he was lying dead on our floor.

  Now Mom and I moved slowly, exhausted from dragging, digging, lifting. When we got to the top of the stairs where we would split up to wash away the hell of the last several hours—her to the master bathroom, and me to the hall bathroom that I shared with Evan and Hannah—we paused.

  I leaned on the wall because I wasn’t sure how much longer my legs could hold me up.

  I had so many questions—Would she tell Dad? What if Tim had sent the video to someone else already? What would happen to Evan now? But I knew she couldn’t answer those yet.

  “Why me?” I asked instead.

  Mom looked at me blankly.

  “I mean, why’d you call me?”

  She put her hand on my cheek and held it there for a second.

  “Because you’re the person, Jonah.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You’re the person I’d call to help me move a body.”

  She turned and went to her room.

  I showered off the sweat and grime and let the water run until the last of the dirt swirled down the drain. After I dressed, I heard the front door open, and I closed my eyes. Evan’s and Hannah’s voices filled the house.

  Natasha Sinel is the author of young adult novels The Fix, which was the YA Fiction winner in the 2016 Independent Publisher Book Awards, and Soulstruck. She graduated from Yale University and Universit
y of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, and was a director of business development at Showtime Networks. Born and raised in Washington, D.C., she now lives in Westchester, NY with her husband and three sons.

  “My son, whom we adopted, does not have my eyes or the shape of my face, but he has everything else—my heart, my soul, my love. My other two sons, to whom I gave birth, do not have my eyes or the shape of my face, but they have everything else—my heart, my soul, my love.”

  In Pieces

  by Eric Smith

  Arcas felt crushed.

  He was surrounded by people on all sides. They pushed and shoved, the mass of them ambling forward, the occasional foot stepping on his. Even if he wanted to turn around, to push his way back through the throngs of frustrated voices, it was hardly an option anymore. The only way out was forward.

  People pushed by, screaming demands, madly smashing buttons on the keypads that lined the teleportation platform, entering the hub. It was clear to Arcas that many of his neighbors had things to wrap up before everything went dark. He recognized many of them, carrying boxes and containers of all sizes, anxiously waiting along the walkway leading to the large, squared-off area.

  To Arcas’s left, a man in a long burgundy trench coat cradled a wailing infant in one arm while he leaned over, awkwardly pressing several buttons on the teleportation kiosk with his free hand. To his right, a woman looked over her station toward the platform, her eyes wide and smiling as she bolted toward the unloading ramp.

  A large man struggling with a nailed-up crate slammed into Arcas as he ambled by. The man stumbled, his large arms grasping the wooden box almost angrily. He glared at Arcas, and Arcas squinted at the box, which appeared damp on the bottom, stained with some kind of liquid. Any other day, he might have said something. Maybe turned to somebody. But not today. There was no time.

  “Watch it, kid!” the man barked before stopping to look at him. “Hey, where are your parents?” Before Arcas could make up an answer, the man shook his head and rushed off, clearly eager to secure his place in line, scrambling toward the shipping ramp that led down to the platforms.

  Arcas tried to peer over the people in front of him, to no avail. He could feel the heat pulsing from the glimmering golden orbs that lined the thick sheets of titanium suspended above the hub. Every few minutes, like clockwork, he’d wince, squinting as bright blasts of light burst from them, sending an expanse of white energy down upon the hub. As quickly as the energy blasts happened, they vanished, dissipating with a soft hum.

  People continued to bolt by, running up to the teleportation pads to pick up items of all kinds, as he glanced at the signs that hung around the transport hub. The messages were bold red and screaming yellow. A mixture of old and new signs, the fading ones made of makeshift materials, protesting against the use of the technology from citizens ahead of their time, while the new ones were sheet metal, hung around the hub with purpose.

  Arcas looked down at his feet. His sneakers were grimy, his socks mismatched, and he looked about, his feet shifting, embarrassed by his appearance. He’d had to take three buses to get here, traveling across the state, each mile bringing a bit of relief as he distanced himself from his latest of seven foster homes. The lumbering vehicle was, for the most part, full of people with a simpler destination. As he grew nearer to the hub, a couple of people with plans to use the trans-teleporter began filtering in, their eyes panicked, breath short and worried, muttering about packages, business, and the like.

  The entire trip, he flipped through his small datapad. Government issued, solar powered, tragically slow. The screen was cracked, bits of the digital device unreadable in the corners where the screen had begun bleeding a variety of colors circling a pool of black, like an oil slick on a puddle of rain.

  He could still see the feeds, though, news reports streaming through, right next to his two bookmarked notes. One was a news report from a few days ago, issued the day before he left. The other was an email that hadn’t left his home screen the entire month.

  An email he was having a difficult time figuring out how to respond to.

  AP, BREAKING [JULY 24, 2187]: After a three-month investigation spawned from leaked internal memos at TELE-CORP, INC., the world’s leading manufacturer of trans-teleportation hubs, platforms, and energy conveyors, the United States Department of Transportation has issued a country-wide shutdown of all teleportation devices until further study proves them safe.

  Experts in the fields of psychology, sociology, and even parapsychology are convening in the nation’s capital next week to discuss findings and next steps, and to analyze the evidence stacked against TELE-CORP, INC., and the practice of trans-teleportation. A reputable source states that several religious leaders have requested a presence at the conference as well, voicing concerns over the state of the soul.

  The question of whether or not a person continues to exist in between teleportation, and if the one who arrives is still the same person has provided plenty of fodder for existential discussion amongst the curious. But with the leaked internal memos from TELE-CORP, INC., revealing that the inventors and leaders at the company themselves were not sure, the Department of Transportation issued an immediate shutdown, allowing for only non-organic travel.

  What was once referred to as Teleportation Sickness, a seemingly harmless malady that left some travelers with new personality traits and tastes, from the harmless, such as disliking a once-beloved food, to the dangerous, such as violent mood swings. Has this side effect taken on a new, tragic meaning?

  Executives at TELE-CORP, INC. were not available for comment. However, USDOT issued a statement regarding the shutdown:

  “We’re not out to disrupt trade, ruin companies, and have possessions near and dear to our citizens lost in transit,” stated the United States Secretary of Transportation. “Trans-teleportation will be available for non-organic materials through Sunday, July 30th, and will be free for all citizens and business owners, until we can determine whether or not it is truly safe for [Click to Continue]”

  FWD: RE: RE: RE: So . . . I don’t know how to write this subject

  July 2, 2187

  (22 days ago)

  Orzrik Ibaldia orzrik.ibaldia@us.dept.gov

  to me

  Dearest Arcas,

  I understand your apprehension. Your birth mother and I both do. Know this. We are both beyond touched that you found us and reached out the way you did. And I apologize for how long it took to email you back in the first place. This was a big decision, for all of us.

  Should you wish it, our doors will always be open to a visit.

  [Download Rest of Message]

  Arcas shook his head, looking down at his datapad, his mind reeling.

  “Hey!” A voice shouted from behind. Arcas turned around to see a woman holding several large packages, an impatient scowl on her face. “Some of us are in a hurry, and you’re up.” She turned to the man in back of her, shrugging her shoulders with her arms full.

  There were so many questions floating through his mind as he stepped up to the panel, his fingers working the keypad, entering the coordinates on his fading tablet. Would it hurt? Would he be the same person?

  But if he wasn’t the same person, if he was someone new and the old version of himself ceased to exist . . . was it worth it?

  He looked around at the other people engaged in getting their mailings together and took a deep breath, finding his resolve. This was it.

  He hit send on the panel and leaped over the railing and onto the transportation hub.

  “Hey!” shouted a voice behind him as he ran.

  “Someone stop that kid!” screamed someone else. “Shut down the hub!”

  The protests rang out sharp and fast as his feet slammed against the titanium floor with a sharp bang. Pain shot up his shins from the impact, but he kept running. He was hardly an athlete, and
he started to feel winded as he approached the transportation pad. The heat from the pulsing orbs above him began to warm him all over as he moved forward, and he winced as the light from the energy beam illuminated the night.

  He stopped, his feet firmly planted on the metal under the transportation beam. He listened to the sound of the people in the hub retreating away as the beam warmed up.

  “Here I come,” he said, exhaling and closing his eyes.

  As the beam blasted down upon him, he whispered to himself:

  “Goodbye.”

  Eric Smith is an author, book blogger, and literary agent from New Jersey. His books include The Geek’s Guide to Dating and the Inked duology, a YA fantasy series. He’s a regular contributor to Book Riot, Paste Magazine, and Barnes & Noble’s blog, and currently lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan with his wife and menagerie of adorable animals.

  “I’m lucky. I was adopted as a baby and brought into an incredibly loving home. Growing up, I wrestled a bit with identity, trying to figure out who I was. But I was supported by not just my family, but an absolute wealth of friends who were as understanding as they were kind and uplifting. But not everyone has this experience. My sister struggled a lot. I didn’t know what to do. Why was something so easy for me, but hard for her? Because everyone tackles the emotional rollercoaster of adoption differently. And it’s important to tell stories like these. It’s my hope that these stories will help.”

  Peace of Paper

  by Courtney Stevens

  “When you get to a place where you understand that love and belonging, your worthiness, is a birthright and not something you have to earn, anything is possible.” —Brene Brown

  Denton Calgary asked me to say a few things about my life. Talking in front of people isn’t something I do, so I thought I might start with a quote and a story.