Magnolia Blooms & Sakura Petals
By
Rebecca Anna Coleman

Prologue

The whole house was asleep. Which afforded me a measure of privacy I did not have during the day. According to the wall clock on the kitchen wall it was twelve o' ten in the morning. A rerun of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex was playing in the background. And I was sitting at the family's computer. Trying my best to write something. I needed to write something. I had this burning desire to write something, I had ideas, but I did not have the voice.

Once in a Lifetime

You may find yourself
Living in a shotgun shack
And you may find yourself
In another part of the world
And you may find yourself
Behind the wheel of a large automobile
And you may find yourself in a beautiful house
With a beautiful wife
And you may ask yourself
"Well... how did I get here?"

David Byrne and Brian Eno
https://youtu.be/5IsSpAOD6K8?si=Lv15qT47qZL_R7hu

CHAPTER 17
I made sure I got our bosses to let me go to court for that one. I wasn’t needed as a witness, but the sight of a paramedic, in working rig, with a shiner, might help gee up the Bench.

Affray, assault, ABH times three, assault on an emergency worker, oh, and possession of a Class B drug, amphetamine to be precise; guilty, to all. He at least had the good grace to mouth ‘Sorry’ at me from the dock. Unfortunately for him, he was already on licence for burglary, so off he went to Cardiff for an en-suite holiday at someone else’s expense, and I got two hundred pounds in compensation.

Ed Note: The story veered off in a direction I didn't really plan. It gets dark in this chapter. There is language, and violence. Just a warning. If you haven't' been reading here's a quick catch up. It's 1994, small college town, two 20 year old's went looking in the underground for Magic and found it. ASHTON has spent her life suffering from gender dysphoria without the language to express it. Her new friend Marie has a talent for knowing things that people are trying hide, and a talent for folk magic. Garrett has fell in with the wrong crowd a satanist named Rick.

When the women were just in my dreams, they could be flings or dating coaches or whatever and they complemented my real-life dates with women. Having my women be in the real world, the women I’ve grown up with, some of them since kindergarten, and having them so devoted to me, there’s no question.

Old acquaintances provide more than just memories, they bring in new acquaintances.

Chapter Eight: Dressing the Part

Home at ten-thirty. Emily pays the cab while I get the keys. Inside, the house quiet - Jenna on the sofa with her phone, the monitor on the coffee table showing Theo's breathing steady and slow.

"He went down at nine," Jenna says. "Took the bottle fine."

Emily thanks her and counts out cash and I wait by the door. When Jenna's gone Emily sets the monitor to low and looks at the stairs.

"He'll wake in a few hours," she says. Not a complaint. Just the math of it, working out what the night holds. She takes her shoes off at the bottom of the stairs.

---

CHAPTER 4
“Anyway, what did Lynn say, Julia?”

I looked at her as she composed her thoughts, someone who had just shared the most literally horrendous personal information, and asked myself exactly how self-absorbed I must be. All of this was entirely down to me, in the end. Not Mary, not work, just me I wondered if there might be a way of rebottling the genie, for all of the very few seconds it took me to realise how stupidly unrealistic that thought was.

“Lynn? Oh, don’t worry. She didn’t spot a bra strap, or some unwiped mascara”

Next week is orientation for this year's new students, so here's something related.

The moment lasted about four seconds.