Comes now the story of Alma.

Alma was a young writer who had yet to be published. She felt moved by the literary greats: voices that echoed in her mind that she was one of them.

Alma went to school and got an education and wrote every day. She worked a full time job and would write novels and short stories on the side. No matter what she wrote and no matter how good the quality she felt it had, everything she submitted was rejected. Publishers, agents, literary journals, magazines: the outlet didn’t matter. But Alma did not quit.

One day the moon, seeing her dejected though determined, decided to help her. As she looked up in the night sky the moon told her that no one wanted to read her writing and that she was wasting her time.

Alma cried at the pronouncement. As time went on, she wondered if the moon was right and that she should stop. But Alma could not quit. She wrote on.

Alma worked and wrote. She made no time for a marriage or a family. She was dedicated.

Alma wrote short stories. Alma wrote articles. Alma wrote book reviews. Alma started blogs. Alma wrote novels and begged agents and publishers to read them.

But it did not matter. All were rejected. They were never going to let her in.

She wrote on, however. Deciding that she no longer cared for publication, she wrote for herself and continued to reach out to audiences. All she wanted, she thought, was an audience, a community of readership. Alma wrote for a blog she created and filled it with fiction for the world to see.

Alma tried to focus just on her craft and the quality of her story, but she could not ignore that there was no traffic to the blog. No one was reading her work. She wrote on though.

One day Alma woke up and she was 70. She looked through all of the content she had produced and compiled: short stories, novels, essays, poems and one play. If printed on paper, the mass of it would have equaled the scale of a mountain. It was probably the largest collection of stories that no one ever read and no one cared about.

Alma wanted to write on but decided that the moon was right. She had wasted so much time and no one cared what she had to say. Surrounded in an empty home full of her unwanted creations, Alma decided that it had been too much and yet not enough.

Alma poured kerosene over her papers, her laptop and her home. She lit a match and tossed it upon the waste.

Delicate. Soft. Fragile. A flower is all these things. They wither with too much sun and die with too little sun. They wilt with too little water. They collapse with too much water. Conditions must be optimal in order for them to live and thrive.

It is another thing too: beautiful. It sprouts petals of pleasant hues and equally pleasing scent. This attracts attention. Life fawns over its striking appearance and perfumed air. Birds, insects and a wide spectrum of creatures become captivated by the flower’s aesthetic existence.

Ugly. Invasive. Prickly. Sprawling. Clingy. Annoying. This is the weed. It grows in inconvenient places. It chokes off the spread of other, more appealing, plants. Stone, parched earth, a sun-bleached plain or a shadowy den. It doesn’t matter, the weed will take root and stand its ground. It will clutch to any surface and make it home.

It is another thing: tough. Life around the weed is, at best, indifferent to its existence. Yet it thrives. Some people detest weeds entirely and use chemicals, tools and their bare hands to kill them and pull them out by the root. Yet they live on. At every opportunity, the weed sprouts and lives.

The flower is equated with love, beauty and all the things that make life worth living. The weed is seen as a nuisance, a horde, an intrusion, and usurper. Chaos bred by chlorophyll.

With all of the necessities to keep it alive, the flower requires support. Birds and insects must help spread its pollen from one anther to another. People plant the flower in special soils and place them in areas where they get the proper amount of sunlight. They must be guarded, coddled and pampered in order to survive. Plants that happen to grow in their orbit are uprooted and discarded. Some destruction must take place for the flower to live in its beauty.

The weed needs no support. Root to stem, it requires no watch. It grows regardless of whatever attention it receives. It is typically eaten rather than pollinated. When the weed encroaches on something more valued, is is killed by poison or by force. But it does not care. The weed grows back, undeterred.

We see beauty and we feel that it is natural and born that way when in fact it was guarded and facilitated to be that way. We see ugliness and we assume it was born that way when in reality it is the sign of survival, grit and determination.

People tend to think that beauty is earned when it is actually given. People think ugliness is deserved when it is actually imposed. The flower is beautiful but because it is protected. The weed is ugly because it is ignored. Their appearance tells a story about their existence but the world takes the wrong lesson from it.

Delmino was born a slave to the owner of a copper mine. When he was able to wield a pickaxe and hammer, Delmino spent his days in the dark of a mine hacking away at the rock and ore.

In his time there were two types of owners: those who were utterly cruel and those who were less cruel and the difference was of minor degree. Delmino’s owner was among the most cruel. Punishments varied between whipping, cuts or burns on the back and in cases of a runaway, crippling by breaking ankles or shins. Any such punishment was meted out in such a way that slaves could still work even if hobbled.

Delmino was an indignant slave, fighting his owner at every turn. He felt his enslavement from birth was unjust and though he would work when ordered, he never stopped defying bondage. Sometimes he resisted through obstinance. Sometimes he tried to rally his fellow slaves in revolt. Though he never tried to escape, Delmino’s resistance earned him a collection of scars on his back and broken bones in his legs. The owner valued Delmino’s work too much to dispatch him or sell him.

With all attempts at ending his slavery a failure, Delmino decided he would escape. He waited a few months to allow his most recent injuries to heal. In that time, he planned his escape by saving up dried food and clothing for the journey. When he felt it was time, Delmino fled in the middle of night.

He traveled for several days, stopping only to sleep in caves, heavy forest undergrowth or even in trees. Eventually he came upon a farm that grew crops and raised livestock. Delmino felt like he should move on because he did not want to be enslaved again. He was approached by the farmer who asked him why he was there. Delmino told him the truth and said he’d run away from a copper mine where he’d been a slave his whole life.

The farmer said he could provide him refuge. Delmino could work in the fields and with the animals. Delmino said he didn’t wish to be a slave again and the farmer said he would be paid and if he chose, he could leave the farm if he wasn’t happy. The farmer added he was not in the habit of keeping slaves.

Delmino decided to stay and became a farm worker. He strained his back in the fields picking vegetables, cotton and fruit. He also worked the livestock, feeding them, milking them, slaughtering and preparing them for sale in the market. It was hard work, almost as hard as his life in the copper mine only now he was paid and had the choice in staying.

The farmer saw that Delmino was a hard worker and seemed to be a competent leader. He put Delmino in charge of the other workers as well as taking the animals and produce to market and negotiate a price. It was a responsibility rarely given to workers. Delmino accepted it and proved capable of bringing back a good price for the wares. Delmino was proud of his work and thanked the farmer for his trust.

As he took a cart of corn to the market one afternoon, unbeknownst to Delmino, he crossed paths with his owner who was looking to purchase a new slave for the mine. The owner hid from him and followed his slave hoping he could learn from others about who he worked for. Someone at the market eventually told the owner about Delmino’s situation as a paid worker on a nearby farm.

The following day, the owner visited the farm and demanded to speak to the person who managed it. Delmino appeared and was shocked to see his owner. The owner was just as shocked to learn that Delmino was the farm’s manager. Delmino tried to have the owner removed but the farmer saw the commotion and asked what was happening.

The owner hollered that Delmino was his slave and that he should be returned to the copper mine. He demanded that the farmer to hand him over. The farmer declared that Delmino was there voluntarily and that if he wanted to go to the copper mine, he would have to choose to. Delmino flatly refused. The farmer suggested there be some type of arbitration to settle the matter.

Thus began a negotiation between the farmer and owner about Delmino’s status. The farmer summoned a lawyer to oversee the bargaining. The owner said if Delmino would not return then Delmino should pay restitution for his absence and replacement at the mine.

During the discussion, the lawyer said nothing and only wrote things down on paper as everyone spoke. Ever so often the lawyer would look at the farmer with a knowing glance. As they hammered out the agreement, the farmer asked if Delmino could review it but the owner insisted that he shouldn’t. His view did not matter, the owner said.

The farmer invited Delmino to the room as they finished bargaining. In his presence, the owner signed the paperwork quickly followed by the farmer. The owner turned to Delmino and demanded half of the personal wealth he’d accrued on the farm. Delmino thought it was a pittance and was ready to pay it. But the farmer raised his hand and said it wouldn’t be necessary.

The owner looked confused and demanded what he thought was his due. The farmer said the owner should have read the paperwork more closely.

Three men physically grabbed the owner while another clasped braces on his hands. It was then that he learned that the agreement he’d signed was not a settlement for Delmino but a contract for the owner to provide indentured servitude for the farmer indefinitely. Delmino would be his overseer on the farm and would determine when his former owner had worked enough to earn his freedom.

Comes now the story of Quillen.

Quillen was raised in a less than ideal environment that was rife with violence and poverty. He developed a sense of survival through brutality and bullishness which he would use without compunction.

Quillen did not inflict his nature on others unless it was called for. But he did not hesitate to fight someone who threatened him physically nor did he wait to intimidate someone he felt was trying to swindle him.

His reputation spread and at some point the leader of a criminal organization approached Quillen and asked him to use his nature against those who owed money to said organization. Quillen accepted with the caveat that he would not hurt anyone who wasn’t in direct business with the organization.

Time passed, and Quinlan proved to be a capable enforcer. Many people who were in business with the organization feared him, but they also respected him. Quillen enjoyed the reputation but he did not abuse his status. For him, his job was simply a job. He went on to recruit other like-minded individuals who were capable of great violence as he was.

One day, the leader of the criminal organization approached him and asked him to murder a woman who had too much knowledge about the organization and they feared she would give details to law enforcement. Quillen considered the woman’s situation a grey area with the rules but decided she did not fit his criteria for his duties and refused to take her life.

The leader of the criminal organization was enraged by Quillen’s refusal and threatened him to do the job or his family would face the consequences of his inaction. Quillen relented because he loved his family and killed the woman.

Time passed, and eventually the line between who was subject to Quillen’s brutality became blurred. Quillen was not happy with the changes and told his boss that he would no longer work for the criminal organization. The boss fought against his decision and a bloody battle ensued with Quillen’s people against the organization. The war ended with a negotiated settlement that included Quillen paying a large sum to the organization so he could leave.

He tried to gain employment through legitimate means but it was often not successful. Quillen did not have skills beyond his brutal resume and it made it difficult to maintain a job. This put Quillen in a desperate situation as he wanted to support his family.

One day he was approached by one of his former associates with a job. There was a financial manager who needed someone to carry out murders on an infrequent basis. The man’s business included offering hedge funds to people and of the clients died before cashing out of their accounts, the man would receive their money.

Desperate for work, Quillen agreed to take the position. He was paid extremely well, and while he did carry out murders on people who were not connected to criminal activity, he did not have to do it often. He considered that the ratio of his salary to how many people had to die was acceptable. Quillen also liked the fact that the job came with the challenge of dispatching victims in a variety of ways to make them appear as suicides or accidents or natural causes.

This went on for many years, and Quillen earned a lot of money. His family was well cared for and he did not dole out too much murder. But he did not enjoy the work as the people dying were not aware of their connection to a scheme. At first Quillen tried to rationalize this to himself by saying that they shouldn’t be so stupid us to fall victim to this. But over time he accepted that none of them deserved their fate.

And while he was well compensated for what he was doing, Quillen realized that he was chasing somebody else’s dreams instead of his own. But in the absence of his own vision, he figured it was a dream worth pursuing so long as he was paid.

Sunile was a man born of a mundane disposition and due to that he chose a mundane profession of numbers as an accountant.

Years upon years upon decades his life’s work centered on reconciling outlays and expenditures. All of which came easy to Sunile. But while it made sense to him, he felt unfulfilled and could not shake the feeling that he was not serving a larger purpose.

Wanting the chance to relive his decision to become an accountant, he summoned the moon for a request to return to the time of his life when Sunile had choices.

The moon answered and as was the the moon’s disposition it granted his request though warned that while Sunile would be able to drift back in time, those around him would be in a state of confusion and would constantly second-guess his choices and words.

Sunile returned to his life and noticed that in his mind, he returned to the era of his life when he made choices about the direction of his life. However when he communicated with others, such as his wife or family members, he found that they rarely understood what he was talking about. When he insisted on trying to redo his education to pursue a culinary profession, others would tell him that he couldn’t and that he was too old and too frail to change the course of his life.

But as time went on, Sunile moved further back in time and found that he was allowed to change the course of his life. He became a chef and opened a restaurant which was successful.

The success was short lived however as Sunile continued to slip further back into his life until he was a child. Sunile was unaware that he was not given the gift of traveling back in time. The moon simply afflicted him with Alzheimer’s.

Sunile died, unaware that he had never regressed to a time in his life when he had choices. But he was ignorant of this and did not care. He died fulfilled to the confusion of those around him.