I tune the dial
and hear my ancestors:
Abuelas’ guffaws,
Abuelo yelping his Mexican love ballads-
in encoded transmission across the wires.

Somewhere a saxophone bends time,
slides through the gap between white and sepia,
between yesterday’s voice and tomorrow’s echo.

The signal flickers.
A child calls my name in a street I’ve never walked.
I answer anyway.

Static murmurs like a moth chewing through velvet,
unspooling beneath my skin,
where a compass of salt and carbon spins without north.

The radio spits out a poem I can’t read
but my heart translates.
Every frequency tastes of cinnamon, sofrito and rain,
of subway iron and paper money
and the smell of clean laundry
in a house I never lived in.

I think of the voices lost
in the spaces between stations-
the blacksmith, the seamstress, the ones who wrote letters
with trembling hands and no envelopes,
the ones who whispered their names to walls.

I drift through them like smoke.
I mumble then sigh, and the saxophone bends closer.
A white boy from Brooklyn asks me a question
in a language I almost understand.
We are the same song
cut in half and sewn back together
by electricity and longing.

The static thickens.
A piano crashes across the skyline,
notes falling like hail on my shoulders.
I press my ear to the speaker-
hear my own pulse answering the world.

I am every station, every frequency,
every lost signal that ever wanted to be found.
I am the sound of ancestors learning to sing
in tongues that will not die.

The dial clicks.
Silence.
I am alone,
but still muttering
in the spaces between stations.

The future clears its throat
just as it will refer to our names.
but keeps improvising.

Listen--
and bending the knees of their speech,
Measles of the humming nouns in the shadow,
time tapping its foot,
late again.

Tomorrow tastes metallic,
ike a coin held too long
between the teeth of chance.
Yesterday is still coughing dust,
won't stop telling stories
that start with almost.

I hear In towns practising echoes,
corridors re-enacting feet.
and without having taught their masters.
Doors gossip.
Elevators hold grudges.
Light clicks its tongue
against the windows.

Say the word now out loud—
feel the rejection of it to rest,
how it sprints the moment
you give it breath.

The future leans closer,
whispers through static,
beats on the ribs like a drum
stolen.

Hurry, it says,
but dances when we don't.

Obsidian feels the shape of the souls beneath her feet as she strides across the still-smoking stone. Lithified soles grate the jagged weld of ash and pumice as she quests for them.

Fifteen feet below, the heat of many final thoughts echo through the tuff. A marketplace perhaps, crowded when the pyroclastic flow entombed them.

The wind snaps at her scarves and dress as she slips them off, long gray flags billowing from her hairless body until she folds and weights them beneath her pack. When she is fit to subduct, Obsidian stomps her foot twice. A faultline cracks the stone. With grinding grating pressure and a flash of volcanic heat, she sheers downward.

The first human soul she finds huddles around a smaller one. Their bones are welded into a cavity in the rock, molded to the shape their bodies made on the cobblestones.

The smaller soul greets Obsidian ferociously. A little white ghost of a little white cat arches and spits. This ossuary belongs to Her Boy and Herself. Leave, leave, leave, the cat commands.

Her Boy’s memory burns with choking ash and the heat that flashed boiled his body and fused his final thoughts into glass. He cannot let Her bones go, cannot leave what’s left of himself without leaving Herself.

It has been months since the eruption murdered this city. The souls within it are still panicked, petrified, burning in their final moment. The tiny forge of consciousness at the ghost’s center jutters into awareness. A young man, wide eyed, his spirit superimposed with the cat’s as he turns to Obsidian. Grief twists his face.

“I was too slow!”

“Nothing living could outrun those flows,” Obsidian replies, her voice high with the cracking of half-liquefied glass, light spilling from her flaming core and through spaces shaped like eyes and mouth.

The ghost sees the tomb, the pile of human bones, skeletal fingers cradling feline skull, lithe tiny limbs tangled betwixt his ribs.

Her Boy moans and moans at this. Herself purrs to calm him, just as She always did when Her Boy felt overwhelmed. The bones are no more to her than a lost tuft of fur or shed whisker.

Molten and shimmering, Obsidian reaches out to the cat and Her Boy, offering them the only path she knows back into the world.

The boy’s ghost urges Herself toward Obsidian. “Take care of Her better than I did.”

The ghost’s hand wisps against Obsidian’s, and she sees him in flashes of intent and memory.

Why would he go back to the world? It had been hard for him all his twenty years. The Pyromancers’ wars had made soldiers and ashes of his mothers. The aunt and uncle who cared for him in their absence turned cruel after the funerals. They mocked his easy tears, his short round body, the slope of his nose and the lisp of his voice.

But then he’d been apprenticed to the old elixerist, who let him keep a half-drowned kitten he found in flooded streets after a storm. He fed Her goat’s milk and carried Her in the front pocket of his apron until She grew too big and bold to be contained—though She still slept against his chest most nights.

Every memory that made the world worth its woe was a memory of Herself’s antics, Her soft tufted fur and breathy purrs, Her blue eyes squinting up at him. Life had still been hard, for a poor and awkward apprentice with an extra mouth to feed, but he no longer viewed each dawn with dread of what the day would bring. Until their last morning was shattered by a pyromancer’s spell, bringing the mountain down upon them.

Herself hisses, dodging Obsidian’s touch.

“She won’t go without you,” Obsidian tells Her Boy. “Stay and rest together, or both of you come back with me.”

“Will we hurt?”

“We will never hurt again. At least, not our bodies.” Only that ache in Obsidian’s soul remained, that vacancy only justice could fill. She had been a girl, once, and sniggered at the first pyromancer when he came to her village to demand obeisance. Her people drove the scoundrel into the foothills and hoped that winter would see him to his end.

When the mountainside exploded and pyroclastic flows swallowed them all up, Obsidian knew whom to blame. She perished with her fury burning, burning, a tiny forge beneath the tuff. Centuries passed before the quakes of distant eruptions cracked her tomb and awoke her to a barren homeland, cities made toppled ruins, seas poisoned, skies raining acid. She had but to follow the devastation of the Pyromancer’s grasping heirs, the veins of ashen ruin stabbing into the heart of the world.

To stop them, she would need to awaken an army along the way.

“What’s left for us?” the boy asks. Revenge holds no allure for him.

“We who can no longer burn will save those who still can.” Obsidian gestures to the bones. “Your city lies in dust. All its people and cats. If not for vengeance, then for those cities yet unburnt: join me.”

The cat and Her Boy consider. He couldn’t imagine a world worth saving that did not have Herself in it, and on this point Herself agrees. Since She would not go without him, the boy’s choice is easy to make after all.

“Take us with you.”

Obsidian’s fire engulfs the tomb of earth. She teaches the pair how to mold bodies for themselves, blazing until their own forge-fires flare from orange to blue. Then she leads them up the fault and to the surface.

Under the shrouded sky, the facets of the boy’s new face resolve into astonishment.

Herself weaves round Her Boy’s ankles, glass clinking glass, as dark and sleek as She was once pale and fluffy. She squints Her forge-fire eyes up at him, purring.

Her Boy stoops and gathers Her to his chest. Together, they follow Obsidian to awaken the others.

The arrows pointed the wrong way, on purpose or by error, nobody could tell anymore. They stood on a sandwich board at the corner of Guerrero and a narrow side street, the board angled toward an empty apartment building whose front door stayed unlocked because locking it seemed rude to the past tenants who might return carrying bags of hope.

Aiko Tanaka noticed the arrows before she noticed the quiet inside the building. She noticed how the white paint had been brushed twice, thick at the tips, thin at the tails, the direction uncertain. She noticed how people slowed, turned, corrected themselves, sometimes followed the arrows anyway. That was the imbalance, the small harm that asked for attention.

Aiko worked for a nonprofit with a name that took a breath to say. She managed unclaimed items, a job that required patience and hands that could hold other people’s decisions without shaking. Keys without doors. Coats without bodies. A single shoe that made no effort to match. The items waited in bins, each labeled with numbers that meant time had passed.

She entered the building because the arrows suggested it, and because she needed a reason to step out of her usual path. The door pushed inward easily. Inside, the air held still, and the walls showed pale squares where frames had been lifted away. Empty apartments feel larger than full ones, Aiko thought, but she did not allow the thought to rest. Thoughts should work.

On the floor near the mail slots sat a box marked UNCLAIMED in thick marker. That word was not forbidden here. It sat heavily, like a fact that did not want to move. Aiko crouched and opened the box. Inside were apology recordings on small plastic devices, each with a single button. Someone had recorded their voice and walked away.

She pressed one. A voice spoke, uneven, careful.

“I am sorry for the way I left. I did not mean to leave the plants. I did not mean to leave the quiet.”

Aiko released the button. She did not play another. She stood and listened to the building. Pipes rested. Footsteps from outside passed and did not enter. The arrows had done their work.

***

Kenji Mori stood outside all morning, turning the board a few degrees at a time. He was the sign-spinner, though spinning was generous. He lifted, placed, stepped back, evaluated. His arms bore old mistakes, healed lines from earlier jobs that asked too much of speed. Bodies forgive mistakes, but they remember.

Kenji liked wrong arrows. They relieved him of the burden of being correct. Ask him where something was, he’d gesture toward the truth, even if his hand aimed at empty air. A small nonprofit handed him a shot; they leased one desk in a shared space above a bakery that hadn’t baked in years. The job was to attract attention to an exhibit about misdirection and care. The board was the exhibit.

He watched a woman enter the empty apartment building, watched her hesitate, then commit. Commitment mattered. He adjusted the board again, angling the arrows toward the building’s side wall now. A man with a backpack followed the arrows and stopped, confused, then laughed and left. Kenji counted that as success.

By noon his arms felt heavy. He leaned the board against his leg, careful with the paint. A volunteer brought water in a paper cup and asked how it was going.

“It’s working,” Kenji said.

“How do you know?” the volunteer asked.

Kenji watched the door. “Because people pause,” he replied.

The volunteer smiled and left. Kenji returned the board to its place. He pressed his thumb into a nick along the edge where paint had chipped. He thought about apologies, the recorded kind, how pressing a button could make a voice appear. He had recorded one once, years ago, and never sent it. The device sat in a drawer until he donated it to the unclaimed bin. Let it find its own home, he thought.

***

Inside, Aiko climbed the stairs slowly. The building had four levels. Each landing held a window with dust patterns shaped like long fingers. She opened doors as she went. Empty apartments greeted her with floors scuffed in arcs from furniture that had been dragged away. Outlets waited for plugs. Light pooled without reflection. This was observed reality, she reminded herself. This was not a symbol.

She found painted hearts on one wall, red and uneven, layered over older paint. The hearts were not clever. They were earnest. Someone had tried to cover them with beige and failed. The red showed through, insisting.

Aiko touched the wall with two fingers. The paint was dry. The hearts stayed.

In the third apartment she found a pile of unclaimed items gathered as if they had walked there themselves. Scarves, a cracked picture frame, a child’s shoe, only one. Aiko sat on the floor and arranged them into a line, then into a circle, then back into a line. Objects shift meaning when placed beside strangers. She felt it happen.

She pressed another apology recording.

“I am sorry for taking the lamp,” a voice said. “It was not mine. It worked better near my chair.”

Aiko stopped the recording. She laughed once, then stood. The laughter surprised her. Empathy drains you, she thought, but the idea came with a smile. She pulled out her phone, typed a note to her supervisor about the items. Didn’t hit send. She needed to understand the arrows first.

***

Aiko met Haru Sato on the second level. Haru wore a jacket too large, pockets heavy with small tools. He was collecting fixtures that tenants had left behind, with permission from no one. He believed leaving things unused was worse than taking them.

“You found the recordings,” Haru said.

“Yes,” Aiko replied.

“They show up here,” he said. “People bring them back. Or the arrows bring them.”

Aiko looked at him. “You believe arrows do that?”

Haru shrugged, then stopped himself, as if remembering a rule. “I believe people follow what seems intentional.”

They walked together through the apartments. Haru pointed out a sink that still ran if coaxed, a switch that did nothing. Aiko told him about the hearts on the wall. He nodded, as if that was expected.

On the top level, sunlight fell in a rectangle across the floor. In that light sat a box labeled CLAIMED, empty. Aiko felt a small loss at its emptiness. Objects shift meaning, she reminded herself. An empty box can hold relief.

Haru pressed a recording.

“I am sorry for staying too long,” a voice said. “I wanted to be certain.”

Haru released the button. “We all want that,” he said.

They stood in the light. Aiko thought of the nonprofit office, of bins and numbers, of how empathy exhausts when it has nowhere to go. Here, it moved.

***

Outside, Kenji saw the man with the clipboard return with another. The arrows were still pointing everywhere and nowhere. Kenji lifted the board and turned it so the arrows faced the building again. If there was trouble, it should be shared.

The men approached the door and paused. They read the arrows. They hesitated. One laughed. Kenji felt a small victory.

A woman exited with a scarf and handed it to Kenji. “Unclaimed,” she said.

Kenji took it. The scarf was soft, patterned with shapes that refused to repeat. “Thank you,” he replied.

She looked at the board. “You did this.”

Kenji shook his head. “I pointed.”

She smiled and left.

Kenji wrapped the scarf around the board’s leg, securing it. The object shifted meaning. It was no longer lost. It was part of the work.

***

Later, the building quieted again. Aiko descended the stairs alone, carrying a small device, one recording left. She stopped at the door and looked at the arrows. Kenji stood there, watching.

“You find what you needed?” he asked.

“I found what was waiting,” she replied.

She held out the device. “This one has no label.”

Kenji took it. He pressed the button.

A voice spoke, familiar.

“I am sorry for pointing the wrong way,” it said. “I thought it might help.”

Kenji stopped the recording. He laughed, then felt the laugh settle into his arms. “That’s mine,” he said.

“Do you want it back?” Aiko asked.

Kenji considered. He looked at the building, at the arrows, at the scarf. “No,” he replied. “It’s working.”

Aiko nodded. She stepped past him and walked away, not following any arrow. Kenji adjusted the board one last time, pointing both arrows toward the empty apartments, then stepped aside.

The door remained unlocked. The hearts stayed visible. The arrows waited, wrong and patient, ready to be followed again.

Step 1:
Sell your car the same way you signed away your soul; careless and hopeful—even though the deal is crap. It has always been crap anyways. This time though, you are not slaved to a desk chair, or trapped behind a counter, becoming a screw within the giant machine, functional but replaceable. Make a hasty scribble across the contract before your pen stutters. Convince yourself that all changes are temporary.

Step 2:
Get rid of your home. Throw away the untouched books, the expired face creams, the too-tight shirts you’ve waited a decade to wear. There’s nothing wrong with the number on the bathroom scale. Leave those five pounds alone. They might save your life one day. Pack up your childhood traumas and your parents’ expectations. Donate them to the closest museum. You never know. One day, when the world stops hurting, and injustice goes extinct, that evidence may make the best documentaries. Do not wait for it to happen though. There are always mortgages, and worries and tomorrows that will halt your steps. Get onto the first ship, train, plane. Best to slip away quickly.

Step 3:
Buy a basket. No, a sealable box. No, a titanium parcel. Excavate the shards of old dreams shattered by premature judgements and speculations of the future. Forgive yourself for becoming lazy, uncertain, or quitting too quickly. Forgive life for standing in your way. Collect those ghost echoes of enjoyments and piece them back. If they no longer fit together beneath your fingertips, rebury them. But this time, sing them a proper burial song.

Do not dwell on the what-ifs. Leave.

Step 4:
Stop pulling the all-nighters, you coffee-addicted-eyebags-drooping-to-your-ankles-nutcracker. Stop typing, scrolling, gluing your eyes to the lit up screens. None of that is real. You are on your way to your next adventure in life. Sleep when you can and once your ride reaches the next stop, get out. Go to the nearest park, run along the grass, smell a tree. Feel the wind pinch your face and the sun slap a bone-load of vitamin D into your body. Stretch the muscles from your butt to your calf, feel the space between your ribs. Listen to your stomach ache and scream, and beg to be fed and for God’s sake, feed it.

Step 5:
Breathe.

Step 6:
Let your body hair grow. Watch each keratin-filled structure push out of their follicles like the first shoot of spring, all glossy and thick and brimming with vitality. Accept them. Watch your body become primitive and natural and beautiful. You are part of the very nature you spent so long resisting. Stop fighting. Let yourself heal.

Step 7:
Breathe deeper.

Fill your lungs with all that free oxygen you clearly stole from those far-too chill trees, and when you exhale, let go of every construction you think is you. It is not. You are not. You exist only in the now.

Step 8:

You are reborn, different, free.
You are also homeless, hairy and alone.
You may be struggling, drowning or you have found inner peace but within the less traumatised cells in your new body there must be questions. What now? Where next? How to survive and maintain this life? What is the purpose of it all?
The best answer I can give you is: I don’t know."
Why are you even listening to me in the first place?
I am a random stranger on the internet. I cannot save you.