Its been said that sometimes, when a person experiences a tragedy, there is a part of his or her life thats

always dark. Some things that happen only affect us momentarily, like secondhand smoke blown in your face as you walk down the street, but others arent so easily dismissed. Its kind of like a heavy snow in the middle of December, and wherever the sun hits the diamond surface the snow melts away within a couple of days. But there are always shadows, and in those shadows are the piles of snow that never seem to melt or grow smaller. The aftermath accumulates and starts to eat away at the foliage and buildings it lays next to, nothing but a destructive presence that should have been melted away by the sun. And yet it stays. People are like that. Tragedy affects us all in different ways, and it stays hidden in places the sun doesnt reach. It just sits there and gets dirty, corroding the corners of your mind. Everyones got snow in the shadows. *** Kol Livingston had exactly $246.83 in the black leather wallet tucked into his back left pocket. Thirty-four of it had come from the can his friend Jack kept in the back of his trailer. The can had rusty holes all over it that made you feel like youd gotten tetanus just from looking at it. Jack was saving up to buy his girlfriend a puppy, one of those dogs you put in your purse to make yourself feel like Paris Hilton or some stupid shit. Jack could barely afford to keep himself fed let alone an animal, but Allison didnt want anything but that damn dog. So Jack started saving, putting a few dollars every day into the jar that, to him, represented happiness. Kol hadnt left it completely empty. There were still a few dollars left. After all, he and Jack had been friends since grade school; he couldnt just leave his friend with nothing. Another fifty had come from his step-fathers watch, the one Kol had pawned just because he felt like it. His step-father was always talking about how it made him look distinguished, but if it was really that nice of a watch Kol would have gotten more than fifty out of it. Either way, it was fifty dollars more than hed had an hour ago. Besides, Kols step-father was a dick, and theres always a certain satisfaction that comes with handing out justice to those that deserve it. The one-hundred and sixty-six dollars, eightythree cents had come from the church Kols mother forced him to attend every week. That was the problem with religious people, they were far too trusting when it came to where they put the money from the offering. It didnt take much investigation to figure out that it was left in a box outside in the foyer all afternoon before it was collected at the end of the third service. If God was as powerful as hed been told, he wasnt going to miss the money anyways. God will provide and all that. The black leather wallet felt heavy in his back pocket, and the weight of it was a comfort. The kind of comfort he needed when he was facing time spent with his family for the afternoon. His house was silent as he slipped into his house through the back door, kicking the remnants of snow off his boots and making sure not to wake either his mother or his step-father, Kol crept silently across the Persian rug to the door with a black and yellow radiation logo sticker. Closing it behind him, Kol kicked off his shoes, climbed on top of his bed, and reached up to unscrew the light bulb in the middle of his room. The cabinetry slipped out of ceiling easily, and he reached up into the ceiling and pulled out a large plastic bag filled with all the money hed taken over the last few months. The light he left hanging swung slowly in a haphazard circle, casting an almost animated shadow that crawled back and forth over Kols face. He fell down onto his mattress, took out his wallet, and began counting the wrinkled bills. *** Ashley Hutchinson had told twenty-seven lies that morning. Shed lied to her mother about where shed been the night before, shed lied about where shed gotten the new nail polish sitting on her dresser, she even lied about how old she was when she was filling out a survey for the student council. Ashley

didnt have any real reason to lie other than she just liked to. Shed lie about what she liked and what she didnt like. Shed lie about things shed eaten, places shed been, books shed read, even what color her eyes were. It didnt matter that all her friends insisted that her eyes were green, Ashley said they were blue. When she was little shed lie about how much ice cream money she had, what Pokemon cards shed bought, and she used to say that the scar shed gotten from the chicken pox was where shed been shot by a burglar. Of course, the burglar was never caught, and the police were still looking for him. Her parents didnt remember because they had been hit over the head while they slept and had been brain damaged. Sometimes people at her school would yell at her, trying to get her to admit that she was lying about the werewolf that lived in her backyard or her crazy grandmother that had killed herself and now haunted the attic. Sometimes if she didnt like one of her classmates, shed make something up that got them in trouble. One day Riley Tanner told her that she was ugly, and Ashley told Ms. Polasek that Riley touched her in a bad place. He was sent to another school. Every day, Ashley would keep track of how many lies she told, and she would tally them in a little notebook that she took with her everywhere. Right before she went to bed, she would count up her tallies and write a number in the bottom left corner of each page. Tuesday, March 15 87 lies. Friday, June 30 132 lies. Wednesday, September 23 183 lies. Day by day the tally number got larger, and Ashley got better at making sure no one knew that she hadnt said a truthful word since shed woken that morning. Shed spout off grades shed never gotten, famous relatives shed never met, but who called on her birthday, and boys who had flirted with her on the Main Line bus who didnt go to their school. One day she told a cheerleader friend that shed made out with Liam Sommers, and word spread so quickly that everyone in the school knew by the end of the day. Liams girlfriend broke up with him, and when he told Ashley to stay the hell away from him, she let the air out of his tires at the beginning of school the next morning so the rims would be bent by the end of the day. Of course she didnt know anything about it. Must have been a rival football team playing a prank. Two more tallies for todays page. Ashleys friend Kendall drove her home that day, and Ashley told her mother shed ridden the bus. Another tally. After hearing from the school about the incident, Ashleys mother dusted the fallen snow off her daughters cheeks, gave her a hug and said she loved her. Ashley said she loved her mother, too. On the way back to her room, the kitten charm hanging from the end of her pen casting a child-like silhouette over the pages, Ashley drew another tally. *** James Parker had been working the same job for 12,807 days. Thirty-five years total, with eight leapyear days. Every day hed go to work, come home, eat dinner, maybe watch some TV, and then go to bed. Sometimes on Saturdays hed go fishing or take his grandson to the zoo, and on Sundays hed dress up and go to church with his wife. Some Sundays she would stay home, and James would go to church alone. There werent many days when Sarah Parker left the house, and James liked it that way. There was something about the way the sun cast shadows on her bruises that made him feel a little uneasy. Somehow the darkness made them look heavier, more menacing. She deserved it most of the time. Some days he would just lose control if hed gotten into an argument at work, or he wasnt allowed to see his grandson, but most of the time she deserved it. After all, what was he supposed to do when she didnt do what she was told? When he came home from work, dinner should be waiting for him. She sat home all day, so why should there be dishes in the sink? Why wouldnt the laundry be done? Why wasnt the carpet vacuumed or the mantle dusted? Why should he reward laziness with kind words and gentle hands? James had lost count of how many times hed hit his wife. Sarah hadnt. Shed been hit five-thousand, three-hundred and eighty-two times since she married James in 1972. Forty years shed been married to James Parker, and he beat her at least once a week. Shed been to the hospital three times, and every day her friend Laura would try to convince her to leave James. More often than not, her bruises were in places where people wouldnt notice. On the days that she had black eyes, James

would make her stay home. Those were the days she didnt attend church. Sarah had learned quickly that makeup doesnt do much to cover split lips or swollen eyes. Every day James went to work, came home, ate his dinner, watched TV, and went to bed. Some days hed hit her, some days he wouldnt. Most beatings came on Wednesdays, after budget meetings. One day Sarah tried to hide on a Wednesday, and James beat her twice. She learned to never hide after budget meetings. If she didnt hide, she might be able to go to church on Sunday. So that Wednesday, Sarah made James favorite dinner, had it ready for him on the table when he came home at 6:05, and dressed in her favorite pale yellow dress that she usually saved for Easter Sunday. James walked in the door at 6:05 on the dot, and threw his briefcase on the side table in the hallway. His heavy footsteps echoed through the house, and Sarahs knuckles went pale as she gripped the edge of her chair. James entered the kitchen, freshlythawed snowflakes dripping from the tips of his hair, and curled his fingers into fists. *** Harvey Ballard had fourteen rooms in his house, each with a solid oak door. Only one of them had a lock, and Harvey kept the key around his neck on a thin silver chain at all times. Inside the locked door there was an antique desk, handed down through the generations by his great-grandfather Richard Ballard. It was made of dark cherry, with brass hardware and burl wood inlays that created a decorative pattern on the surface. It had exactly five drawers, two on either side, and one in the middle. Against the far wall of this room, there were stacks and stacks of magazines, newspapers, and letters that Harvey had received over the past decade that hed lived in that house. On the other, there was a window with a ledge that had a grey cushion that Harvey sat on. When he moved in, he set aside an entire room for the antique desk, and had a special lock made for the door. Inside the bottom left drawer of this desk, there was a pair of binoculars. Every day, Harvey would walk up to the room, pull the chain out from underneath his shirt, and unlock the door. Placing the key back around his neck, Harvey would reach for his binoculars and take a seat in his window. Since his home sat at the top of the hill, he could easily see all the families on his street, half-hidden in the grey blanket his house cast on those below. He had a regular schedule. First there was Tom and Jennifer Hamilton on the corner, then Julian Ramsey across from them, then Judge Bailey three doors down, and Paula Greenwood at the bottom of the hill. They were his top rollers, so to speak. For the first week that Harvey had lived in the neighborhood, he would sit in the window in the room with the desk, and he would watch his neighbors through his pair of Steiner binoculars. It wasnt long before hed found what he was looking for. Middle class suburbia was an easy place to find drama and unhappiness. But finding it was just the beginning. Harvey had twelve magazine subscriptions that he would collect and store in the room with the desk. It was there that he constructed the messages. He chose five or ten magazines, and then Harvey would open the middle drawer and take out his B size Exacto knife and a jar of rubber cement. To date, Harvey had sent three hundred and twelve messages, all ensuring that he would never have to get a real job. Carefully constructing the message until he was satisfied, Harvey would reach for the top left drawer which held his laptop. Clearing off the surface of the desk, Harvey opened up the laptop; he would open the chart hed created for the neighborhood to keep track of who had paid, and who hadnt. Inside the top right drawer was his Nikon digital camera, and Harvey would take pictures of the messages he sent to each house, upload them to his laptop, and put them in a file created for each family. It was the only way he could keep track of whom he was threatening and with what. Mondays he got paid by the Hamiltons (Harvey had discovered their tax fraud), Wednesdays was Julian Ramsey (the drug dealer), and Fridays belonged to Paula Greenwood (she stole prescription drugs from her day job at the hospital). Today was Thursday. He was supposed to get two-thousand dollars from Judge Bailey for the pictures that Harvey had taken of him with the hooker. Of course the Judge didnt know who Harvey was or where he lived, and so Harvey was regularly paid. But today Harvey noticed something else in the window. He wasnt just looking down at Judge Bailey (who was receiving yet another message in the

mail, the hem of his robe getting soaked in the snow-turned-sludge at the edge of the street). Judge Bailey was looking up at him. *** Hinsdale Baptist Church had exactly 356 members who attended regularly. It was run by a solid group of men that not only understood the business side of running a church, but had a deep love for the Lord. Every Sunday there were three services, one at 8:35, another at 9:40, and a third at 10:45. Though there werent many members, the pastor was only too happy to accommodate his congregation with three separate services, so that everyone had a chance to attend. Each service had five minutes at the beginning for everyone to catch up, then they sang three or four songs, and the pastor would preach for thirty minutes, and would dismiss everyone with a prayer at the end. Every week he saw the same faces, with only one or two new ones every month or so. There were the Johnsons, Mr. and Mrs. Williamson, they always sat in front. And right behind them were the Livingstons, with their son Kol who helped with collections. The Jamesons, the Rapps, and the Hutchinsons all sat in the third row, saving seats for their children Jake, Jessica, and Ashley who took their places up in the choir. And near the back were the families of the deacons, Mrs. Mason with her husband Stephen, Mrs. Pyatte with her daughter and her husband Todd, and Mrs. Scales with her kids and their uncle Harvey Ballard. Everyone was settling in and the talk had begun to quiet down as old Mrs. Carver started shushing the teenagers near the back. As the organ music began, Pastor James Parker took his place at the pulpit, flashing a winning smile at his wife in the front row next to Laura Johnson. Raising his hands to the sky, Pastor Parker beamed down at his congregation and bowed his head to pray.

*** Thirteen weeks later there was a headline on the front page of the Hinsdale Gazette, Congregation Dies in Freak Foundation Collapse. Pastor Parker was having an Easter Sunday dinner at his house later that night with his wife Sarah. In order to give himself enough time to prepare, he had combined all three services together so that all 356 members were inside the church. The fire marshal ruled it as an accident. There had been a crack in the foundation of the church, starting out exactly fifteen inches long. Every winter, snow would accumulate in the dark alleyway between the back of the church and the surrounding buildings. Melted water would creep into the shadows and fill the crack, thawing and solidifying as the crack grew larger, weakening the wall until it buckled after thirty-five years of neglect. There were no survivors.