The jacket belongs to Winter/Spring 2010. She takes it out of the cedar closet because it’s autumn now and she needs to go outside. It’s still too big, the arms dangle over her hands, the bottom brushes the space below her knees. It desperately needs a wash, and she clucks her tongue, disappointed at herself for not having done so before putting it away for the summer. She sighs at the salt stains, the black gash marks from absently leaning against countless surfaces, swiped by car doors. Shrugging the jacket over her shoulders, she feels the weight of its synthesized warmth and instinctively ensconces her hands in the pockets. In the right pocket there’s nothing, only emptiness, smooth fabric, cold to the touch.  She presses her right palm flat against the inside of it, closing her eyes, trying to remember what happened the last time she wore the jacket. In the left pocket, her hand brushes something small, crinkled, wrapped around something hard and oddly shaped. She opens her eyes, left-handed fingers closing around the item, drawing it out of its cave for a better look. The smile appears as a reflex, inspired by the maple leaf shaped candy she now holds in her hand. The wrapper is still sealed. She thinks she knows where it’s from, who it’s from, ripping the clear plastic enough to pop the candy out. She holds the translucent, amber candy between thumb and index finger, staring at the small air bubbles paralyzed within. All this, and then she puts it in her mouth, closes the closet, bounds up the stairs, three at a time.

Evan’s never seen what it looks like for a car to wrap itself around a tree. Both fortunately and unfortunately for him, he never will. It’s hard to see anyway, when it’s your own car. Easy enough to know it’s going to happen, though. His foot, anchored on the gas pedal, eyes aloft, one hand loose around the wheel, the other busy exploring elsewhere. The recipe might be printed in variation, dependant on cooking styles and ingredients on hand, but Disaster always comes out the same. For Evan, the concoction uses a splash of the afternoon’s freezing rain, a dollop of bad habit, a pinch of bad luck for extra flavour. The wheels cruise over slick black, GoodYear’s rubber cure-all isn’t a hundred percent effective, there’s slippage into chaos and the innocent bystander of a tree trunk’s thick waist. Evan’s final thought is flung through the windshield, flying too fast to see. He wouldn’t want to admit that it was the finger in his nose, the one less hand on the wheel, that zested his fate. Lucky for him, nobody will ever know.

They’re queuing up outside, for him. He’s not even tempted to peer through the curtains and out the window. He already has an idea what he’ll see there.

Women. Beautiful women. Tall, short, blonde, brunette, curvaceous, androgenous, plump lipped, doe-eyed, pin-up, classic; all kinds.

He’s interested in them, but not why they’re there, because all those women want something from him. They want what’s in the velvet lining in the silver box with the antique mirror on top. The one resting on a small table in the banquet hall. They want what’s in the box to fit them and they want what comes with that. Him, for instance, and ownership of everything else.

He wouldn’t mind being owned by a beautiful woman, it’s just…

The feet.

So many feet. So many different feet. All sizes, shapes, levels of moisture, texture of skin, length and number of toes, smell. The bile burns the back of his throat as he swallows it down. The gathering is going to start soon and he’s going to have to face his disgust and discomfort in the worst up-close-and-personal way possible.

He marvels,  for the umpteenth time, how he could possibly be the end of the line for four generations worth of fetishists. And at least, this makes him laugh.

When life hands you lemons and you forgot your lemonade recipe, what are you expected to do?

Improvisation is the first thing that comes to mind. You know that you need to juice them. Do you go to the appliance store and get a hardcore juicer? Do you use the hand lemon squeezer? How do you make sure you don’t get seeds in the juice that you squeeze out of those suckers? Do you even have enough lemons?

Let’s assume that Life’s handed you a few pounds of them. Enough to make a good three pitchers full of no-recipe, improvised lemonade. A huge three pitchers. Now, you’ve got all that lemon juice out. It took a while, but you did it. You’ve got pruney, sour fingers and teary, citric eyes, but you have enough juice to fill those pitchers. The next step involves getting a large pot and putting it on the stove, filling it with the lemon juice and adding some sugar.

Here’s the hard part: how much sugar do you need to put? Do you add what you think makes sense? Do you add a little and then taste to see if you need to add more? You think that there must be some water involved at some point, to cut back the acidity of the lemon juice, to deconcentrate the concentration of sour. Life shouldn’t be so sour, but its given you lemons, so do you keep your ‘ade on the sour side? Do you stick your tongue out at Life and throw in all the sugar you have on hand? Is sweet the optimal goal? Is a sweet Life a happy Life? Is sweet synonymous with successful? Fulfilling? Special?

Or is sweet too easy? Do you need to keep it less sugared, add just enough to let you taste the goodness, but let the acid bite into your tongue with enough force that you can’t forget there’s always the other side, the less happy-go-lucky side, the side that forces your face to contort into the ugliest of grimaces.

Do you add something else to your lemonade, then? Do you throw in the bourbon you keep in the cupboard over the stovetop? Make it so it has a direct effect on your reality as you see it. Make it so it can tilt your perspective, blur your decisions, overwhelm and perplex your senses. Is this sensory overload lemonade? Are Life’s lemons really only a metaphor? Are they meant to provide lessons, second chances, motivations? Are they road blocks? Are they the inspiration to give in to madness? The bourbon you’ve grabbed sits on the counter and it’s going to stare at you until you decide if you want to be the good lemonade stand or the bad. The bad overcharges and over liquors. The good just wants to quench your thirst.

You can leave the bourbon out of it for the moment. The lemon juice is carefully simmering in the pot on the stove, sugared up with the perfect balance of just enough and not enough. When the sugar is melted and the pot is steaming gently, you turn down the heat. Lemonade isn’t supposed to be hot. Bring the pot off the burner and get your three pitchers ready.

Here’s where you might add that bourbon. Do you? Do you bastardize Life’s lemons? In a sense, yes, you should. Because you never know when Life will hand you more lemons to make lemonade with. You have three pitchers. Nobody ever said one of them couldn’t be blasphemous. You pour the first two pitchers. The sight of their rotund, transparent bellies full of soft yellow liquid is like a cliched ray of sunlight piercing your eyeballs. You can almost taste the lemon warmth. Those pitchers go in the fridge.

The last pitcher is still empty and that bourbon is relentlessly staring at the back of your head. So you realize that there’s no point in denying how much you want to go against Life’s plans. That bourbon is going in. You snatch-grab it and unscrew it and pour it into what’s left in the pot. You know you should taste it, check the bad levels, but then where’s the fun? You pour that third pitcher full and the lemony sunlight colour is noticeably ambered. It’s richer, fuller, and you can tell by looking at it that it holds more secrets than any of Life’s other lemonade.

You take those three pitchers and you put them into the fridge. You’ll know which one is dangerous and which ones are safe.

Life gave you lemons so you could make lemonade.

You certainly did.

“We pulled that off quicker than I thought we would.”

“I know, seemed almost too easy.”

“Agreed. There was a moment there, when you were maneuvering through those lasers, I really thought our planning hadn’t been thorough enough.”

“Thanks for the doubt, partner.”

“I’m saying I was impressed!”

“Oh, well, good thinking with the dog treats, those beasts were pretty rabid looking.”

“I never got that… You’d think PETA would be all up in the ‘starving-dogs-out-of-their-minds’ thing.”

“It’s been a while since I’ve seen the horde of angry rotweilers, you’d think with all the advancements in security tech…”

“Doesn’t matter, we got what we came for.”

“Oh, you bet we did.”

“So… Part Two. I’ll take the necklace and we’ll rendez-vous to split the payoff.”

“Wait, first of all, when were you the collector? And second, what necklace?”

“Come on, we discussed this, the more time we joke around, the less likely we’ll get our full price.”

“Right, you’re right. Always right.”

“Exactly, so… Necklace?”

“I thought it was ‘Girl With a Pearl Earring’…”

“Huh?”

“Vermeer?”

“You’re… joking?”

“I’m not?”

“Necklace. A pearl necklace. With a pendant inlaid with several pear cut diamonds between three and four carats each. That was the job. You were there for the briefing, right?”

“Uh…”

“Oh boy.”

“Got any more dog treats?”

“…”

“What should I do with this painting, then?”

This looks familiar. You know you’ve seen it before and it has nothing to do with the fact that it’s the library you’ve studied in since year one. It’s got to be around 2am, and even though you know you aren’t the only one with an exam in seven hours, it definitely feels that way. There doesn’t seem to be anyone else sitting at the other long, wooden tables, slouched over heavy tomes, eyes red and puffy. You’ve walked through this aisle among the book shelves at least thirty times throughout the day, looking for more information. Anything at all that might bolster the minimal amount of knowledge you’ve actually retained from class. So add it all together, yeah, it looks familiar.

But there’s this uncanniness that you’re trying to place. The way the lighting in the library gives off that old timey look after the sun sets. The way nobody else, even the few you’ve seen asleep on the couches in the lobby, seems quite aware enough of their surroundings. There’s a cold sensation prickling up beneath your shirt, beneath your skin, along your spine and it’s as you walk towards the end of the aisle, see another wall of books, try and decide which way to turn, that you remember why this looks familiar.

You saw it in a movie once. Twice. Okay, lots of times, though most of them you were higher than a tightrope walker crossing the Niagara. The cold prickling has reached the base of your neck and you know, without really knowing, that you shouldn’t turn around. You should go left, go back to your table, go back to pretending to study. Or at least fall asleep for a couple of hours. Except you do turn around, because you have to see, see before you pass out from something you’ll make up later so as not to admit that it’s fear:

Green slime, grinning back at you so hard its glowing. A floating mass that might be a head. Two spindly arms, reaching. Reaching for you. A sound, maybe you screaming? A pause, then it comes closer, closer still, too fast to react on your end. You can remember the wetness of the ooze, but that’s really it before the floor becomes your friend and the blackness makes you feel a little better.

“Have you seen them yet?”

“Nope, just saw the truck leave though.”

“They’ve got so much furniture! Never seen so many movers.”

“It’s a big house, hun.”

“It’s no bigger than ours, we don’t have nearly that much stuff.”

“They like stuff.”

“I mean we could certainly fit just as much, but really, three sofas? Did you see the size of that armoir?”

“I’m guessing they’ve finished the basement before the move.”

“And that dining room table? They must have an enormous family.”

“It might not all be going into the house.”

“Why wouldn’t it? And when were you over there to see the basement?”

“Well, that fence they built is pretty high.”

“I know! It’s outrageous! I can’t see anything past the sidewalk.”

“Maybe that’s why…”

“Don’t be silly, I’ve never seen a fence that tall. It almost reaches the second floor!”

“Not everyone likes to be spied on.”

“As if they don’t have anything they want people to see. It’s a beautiful house.”

“You would probably tear down the fence.”

“Really, it’s an affront to the community.”

“It’s an attempt at privacy. We don’t even know them.”

“Exactly! It’s suspicious.”

“Babe? Where are you going?”

“To make a pie.”

“But you don’t know how to bake.”

“But it’s what all good neighbours do!”

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC ANNOUNCER (V.O.)

The male is instantly willing to show off his newfound mate, staring blatantly at any and all who might be nearby. He makes no effort to conceal the desire he has for phsyical contact, entwining one arm around hers lovingly. He is showy, alert, yet also affectionate and endearing. The female is more aloof. Her eyes are directed skyward as though daydreaming of other things, or perhaps other potential mates. Her demeanor is pleasant, though one can only wonder if it is simply because she is being demure and compliant or because she has a rich fantasy life she would rather engage with. It is evident that, even despite popular belief, the female holds the control over the success of this budding relationship.

Lips ‘O’ed, he huffs a whiff of blue, and her face reacts. Scrounging and twitching and blurting out coughs, her lungs expand smog-filled and her throat prickles. He couldn’t give less of a care, little girls not being a concern. Rose water and peppermint boil and flood, his lips closing around the slender pipe, cheeks hollow, sucking in. The marigolds nearby giggle, the petunias are none too pleased. Little blonde girl keeps wrinkling her nose and this he finds entertaining.  Her discomfort his pleasure. Her nervous energy delayed in propulsion by his slothful languor. His rolling lolling form significant in freezing her task at hand. Thick rings of blue puff forward from his freshly rounded mouth and engulf her tiny head. Little blonde girl has lost her little white bunny. He wants to watch the flowers have their fun.

I stopped walking, but I could still hear the crunching of Doritos in Christian’s mouth as we both stood there. I had a pinkie in my mouth, in the middle of cleansing it of the neon orange plastic cheese flavour I’d been addicted to for the past ten minutes. It was an extra large bag, its brother and cousin and father and step-sibling had already accompanied us on our previous walks home from school.

“What the fuck?” Christian swallowed the Dorito he’d just been chowing on.

“No clue,” I said, reaching my hand back into the bag without thinking. I pulled out a full triangle, opening my mouth wide and shoved all three corners into my mouth. The sound filled my head and for a second I was watching my teeth wreck through the corn chip slowly and carefully, crushing and swirling the bits and pieces of orange around. It was gross, but cool and better than taking in what my eyes were really seeing.

“That’s a leg,” Christian shoved the chip bag into my hand and moved forward, his boots moving over the snow. The noise they made only echoed the one I was hearing in my head. Crunchcrunch Crunchcrunch… “Yeah, that’s so a leg.”

“A human leg? Nah, it looks like a dummy or something.”

“I never said human! Morbid, much? I just said leg.”

I swallowed the mushy neon junk that was left of my perfectly triangular bite and crunched my own way forward. It was definitely a leg alright, complete with foot at the end and everything. I didn’t want to get too close, and considering we stood neck and neck once again I knew that Christian didn’t either. I rubbed my freshly oranged hand over the side of my jeans, figuring I’d wack out the smear before I got home and Mom saw. I had some Doritos stuck in my back molars and I wiggled the tip of my tongue around trying to unwedge it.

“Marty you should totally touch it,” Christian told me, giving my shoulder a hard shove. I wasn’t expecting it and the bag of Doritos lodged out of my hand and flipped onto the snow, open end down. A small stream of half cracked chips trickled out, looking even brighter against the snow. “Aw fuck, I still wanted some.”

“Why should I touch it?” I asked stupidly. I wasn’t thinking anymore, really, I was staring at this leg poking out of a snowbank. From our vantage point it looked pretty smooth and slender, I figured it had to be a girl’s leg. A girl mannequin’s at least. Except that we were close enough to see that it had five individual toes, not the weird plastic molded look that other mannequins had. I wasn’t an expert, but I’d gone shopping enough with Mom and my sister to know mannequins didn’t have toes. Something nasty climbed back up out of my stomach into my throat. “Chris, that’s a fucking human foot.”

“Nah…” He paused. “Nah, nah, nah, no way, no way!” Christian shook his head violently, taking a step back. I took one forward, less because I wanted to, more because I had to be sure. I leaned forward as far as I could to get a better look. The nasty thing in my throat chugged upward. It took a lot of willpower to keep it there.

The foot was frozen in a weird angle, or it looked weird considering how the leg was sticking up out of the snow. I could see that a couple of the toenails were chipped, maybe from shoes that didn’t really fit or because whoever the leg belonged to had a bad habit of ripping her toenails off. I used to do that. I followed the foot with my eyes, looking over the toes, down into the arch, past the ankle, the calf, the thigh and stared hard at the place where it disappeared into the snowbank. I could think of a lot of things that might have been buried there, under the white stuff, under the leg. I tried to focus on none of them, tried just to think about the leg. It’s a leg. There’s a leg. Leglegleg.

“Let’s go home,” I said finally, standing up, swallowing hard to shove the nasty back down into my stomach. I knew it would come back up eventually, the whole way. It wouldn’t half-ass twice.

“Should we, like, tell some–”

“Home, yeah.” I started walking, stepping on the bag of Doritos. I moved past the leg and started right away trying to forget about it. At first, I didn’t hear anything behind me, but soon enough Christian’s crunching boots up-tempoed to catch up with mine. We didn’t say anything else, both of us starting the process of trying to forget what we’d almost found.