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Matthew Detmer

Sometime a few years ago...
What Matt has always liked about Florida is how gently and subtly it eases into autumn.

True, it's mostly tropical year long, he corrects himself, with buttercup summers and temperate springs. But when fall and winter comes along, the region settles into a cooler sort of warmth, like a stream bathed in golden sun. It's hard to explain, but Matt has missed it nevertheless.

Jacksonville isn't very far now. He'll be to his new home within the day if he keeps up the pace.

It has been a quiet midmorning, white sunlight filtering in through the trees and flooding the small clearing where Matt had stopped to rest overnight. The grass is spotted tortoiseshell green from the shadows cast by the leaves, and there are millions of shy white daisies stitched into the verdant carpet.

Humming in slight amusement, Matt reaches for his backpack, rubbing leftover sleep off his eyelashes. His dreams had been vacant last night—he can't remember exactly what had happened, but all he knows is that it was very cold, very dark, and very quiet. The silence had been unnerving.

The half smile that had been on his mouth smoothes into a thin line.

His hand delves deeper into his backpack, rummaging around for a bottle of water and something to eat. But, as he reaches for a bar of chocolate, his hand brushes something...soft. Looking in, he suddenly realizes: it's a rose. From the funeral.

With careful hands, Matt takes the wilted flower from inside the bag. The days had taken a toll on the flower, whose petals are now a starved dark red. Curiously, Matt pinches one of the petals between his thumb and forefinger, velvet in the center but slightly dry at the edges now, and tugs it off before letting it drop into the grass.

She loves me, she loves me not.

Within minutes, Matt carefully dismembers the rest of the rose, one petal at a time, creating a lopsided halo in the daisy-covered grass. Dark angels robed in heavenly white.

Like velvet little corpses, he thinks with slight morbid fascination.

You tell me.

Presently, a light breeze drifts through the clearing, rustling the trees and the grass with soft, invisible fingers. The leftover rose petals lift slightly in the air before falling back to earth. The daisies however, young and bright with life, all seem to release their delicate petals into the wind's embrace; at once, the clearing is filled with tiny white parachutes, and Matt can almost imagine them calling out—"goodbye!", "goodbye!", "goodbye!"

And, in the midst of their farewells, Matt smiles, a somber curvature of his lips, and whispers something too— a farewell of his own. To his family, to his old life, to her, he isn't sure which.

752 McAllaster Drive. 

Matching the address engraved on the mailbox to the one scrawled on his slip of paper, Matt stops in front of a modest looking home. Well, house would be overselling it. It was more like a bungalow or a beach cabin than it was anything else. The residence itself was small, but the location was wonderful. It was little more than a few hundred feet from the water. He'd have to take shelter elsewhere during hurricane season, he thought begrudgingly.

The front yard is a small patch of green bordered by a short but aged picket fence, the white paint chipping in some places and patched up in others. The walls of the house are covered by a spider-web of ivy, and there is an old ash tree near the gravel driveway. Two old rusted bikes, one red, one blue, lie propped up against each other under the porch, if you could call it that, of the cabin's entrance in some attempt to protect the bikes from rain and weather directly. They were chained to the house's structure in some attempt at security, but Matt doubted that anyone had been here in a long time. What must have originally been brown shutters have faded to a light beige color, and the front door is a pale rendition of a once vibrant yellow.

Matt thinks to himself to his memories of this place when he was much younger when he notices the haphazardly parked bikes. He makes his way up the pathway to the front door. He wastes no more time and raps sharply on the door; tap, tap, tap.

There's no answer, of course. Not that he was expecting one. But always best to check for squatters. He fiddles with his keys, and wastes no time letting himself in. Upon entering his new home, Matthew habitually takes out his phone and messages Amanda that he arrived safely along with a picture of his new home. He waits one, two, five minutes. But his phone is silent.

Matthew sighs, resigned. With a heavy heart he sets his backpack and phone down on a dust covered table and begins the process of adjusting to his new life.

The present
Matthew absentmindedly and methodically partakes in process of chopping carrots.

It was one of Florida's many humid, overcast days. The skies intermittently blotching out the sun and threatening to rain like a mother threatening to take away their child's favorite toy. Matthew didn't have work today, so he had spent his morning doing some fishing and was now in the process of preparing food for lunch.

Matt held the knife with his dominant hand, gripping the blade with his index finger and thumb on the blade. His subordinate hand held the carrot firmly, his fingers curling in to protect them from receiving any accidental cuts. With the tip of the blade maintaining contact with the board, he raised and lowered the blade in an amateur's recreation of the tap chop technique. Matt was no master chef, but after a few years of living alone he had learned how to do most tasks himself. There was a soft tapping on the door that went largely unnoticed- the man thinking that it was little more than his wind chime in the breeze, maintaining his focus on his task. The second went much the same, but the third knock was much more pronounced, causing Matt to look up from the cutting board towards the door.

He wasn't expecting any visitors, at least as far as he was aware of. He got few to begin with, as his little home was nestled away in a small hole in the wall offshoot of a fairly sparse neighborhood. The area was more trees and leaf-litter than it was homes, and there wasn't a single paved road within a mile. A shock with through his body, and he looked down at his hands, seeing that he had sliced a thin and shallow cut into his gripping hand's index finger while he was distracted. He cursed, more in surprise than in pain, and put the knife down. He squeezed his injured finger with his uninjured hand, applying pressure to the slight wound, and knocked the faucet lever with his elbow to turn the sink on. When the water was running he released the injured hand and let the water wash over it.

"Just a minute!" He called, knowing he was taking some time to answer the door.

The water washed the excess blood away, revealing skin that was already scabbed and mending. He sighed, and shook the pain out of his hand. He reached for a hand towel and dried his hands, then started towards the door. In one motion he turned the knob and pulled the door open, speaking before even registering who was actually at the door.

"Little late for girlscout cookies, y'all aways seem to find me though. I'll take-"

The rest of the sentence dies in his throat.

"Oh my-"

Two wide brown eyes, lit golden by the weak sunlight that had at once pushed through the overcast, stare directly into his frozen face.

"Amanda?"

He remembered receiving a text from her for the first time in months saying that she was going to be visiting, but she never told him when or why or how. 

"-—it's you," he murmurs, and suddenly, he really is home.

He eventually invites her inside, and they sit facing each other across a wooden coffee table, a pitcher of water sitting stagnant in the center like a proverbial barrier of some kind. It's surreal— they've spoken once or twice, yet the silence isn't strange or unfamiliar at all; instead, it's filled with questions, it's filled with longing, it's filled with a strange sort of hope.

Matthew pours her a bit of water, and he clears his throat cautiously before speaking.

"I had no idea you were visiting so soon."

He had changed a lot since she had seen him last. His hair was longer, his skin was tanner, words are smoother, tone sensibly deeper, yet it still held a lilt of energetic youth. His broad hands surround his own drinking glass and it suddenly seems ten times more fragile. It's not that he doesn't know what to say; it's just that he has too much to say.

Where have you been, all this time?

"Where have you been, all this time?"

Henry Olin
Sometime a few months ago....
"Got any threes?"

"Go fish."

There was a sigh on the other side of the communicator and the edges of Henry's lips curled up into a sly smile. But they soon fell as there was a celebratory chuckle on the other side of the com.

"Got any sevens?"

"Damn."

They played on an honor code. One they had both agreed on. And it worked. They each carried their own cards for times like this.

"That's a book for you." Henry sighed. He was now losing. Badly. Some days peanuts, some days shells.

"Punch it, lizardman."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah..."

There was a moment of silence between the two. When suddenly some other FAMA agent chimed into their chat.
"These channels are for FAMA business only. Go Fish is not FAMA business."

Henry frowned.

"One banger eight turbo."

That meant channel 18. Eli grumbled and signed off from the channel they were currently on.

Henry sniffed, and whipped his snout with the sleeve of his suit. He was currently standing in a grocery store, perusing a stand full of pamphlets. He absentmindedly put his cards away, focusing on the task at hand. His index finger dragged along the various colorful and bombastically written pieces of paper, his claw bending some sheets as it caught them, but otherwise seemed to refrain from choosing from any of them. Henry didn't particularly like the idea of any of this. He then switched to channel 18. Eli was coughing.

"The fucking sign in noise scared the shit out of me-" Eli said in between coughs.

Since the incident that was the Verthaven disaster, Eli worked to take Henry off the streets. Initially he had been in Black Fall, now no longer a special agent and instead Agent Greenfield's spotter. One of the safer jobs- as he was now out of the line of fire in just about any place he would be realistically located. Greenfield, or Sonya as she had insisted he refer to her as (in the nonmission area), was good. Really good, and it was really nice to actually have someone who was in his same skill and experience bracket to work with because god damn it made life so much easier. The thing was, Henry was never really one for easy life. He largely did nothing, simply conversing with Sonya and Eli as they both did their jobs, feeling particularly redundant as he did so.

One pamphlet caught his eyes. It wasn't quite as vibrant as the others, having a somewhat more reserved and modern design to its features. FUN AND RELAXATION FOR EVERYONE IN CHARITY BEACH. it read across the top. He hummed, tapping the paper and then pulling it out daintily with his thumb and index claws. He unfurled the paper to get a better look at the pictures and text.

"What's Charity Beach like, Eli?"

There was another pause as Eli cleared his throat. He could hear some tapping on the other side. He imagined the lanky nerd at his so called battle station- tapping away on glowing keys in a dark room with a few others hooked up to their own computers and talking to their own operatives. His hair was probably a mess and his skin was probably extra pale. He could only imagine the bags under his eyes. The last several days days had been especially tough on everyone. And to be honest, it kinda sucked.

But, Eli is an insomniac. It's why RAVEN had hired him back in the day, and now FAMA. Henry often went for thirty consecutive hours or so without sleep on a semi regular basis. And Eli tended to be awake that amount of time no sweat. This gave the two a lot of time to bond as friends and co-workers when they were first paired together. Henry wasn't sure how often he slept. All he knows is the man is a genius, the insomnia isn't healthy, and he owes him a few beers.

"Just looked it up. It's in Florida, FAMA's got a base there, I'm sure there's plenty of eye candy and-."

Henry sighed. "Guess I'll go there then."

"Quick choice," Eli commented. "What sold you, the weather?"

"No."

"Henry, c'mon man."

"I know you already put me down for transfer there."

"Oh."

There was an awkward silence between the two. Despite their friendship, there was a solid chance Eli wasn't going to be paired with him again and Henry didn't like that much. The man's concern for Henry was extremely heartfelt, but Henry was a hunting dog by nature. Yes, a dog. Just not the kind you pet. He didn't enjoy the idea of simply retiring or calling it quits. Everyone knows you go to Florida to retire, then die.

"I'm just... I think they need you over there is all. The Happiness drug is taking hold. There's gangs and, well, you're the best around." Eli said, trying to justify his action.

"I'll miss this, is all." was all Henry said back.

There was another pause.

"So, got any ones?"

"Fuck you. Yes."

Henry was renowned for taking no vacations, so when his name had appeared in the FAMA transfer list, it had gotten out quickly that FAMA had finally broken the beast. Him, and the name 'Blackmore' showing up also raised some eyebrows.

Henry's included, when he stared at the list of individuals who had transferred to the Charity Beach FAMA location in the last thirty days. He frowned, and made a mental note to track the kid down and see what was up with it later.

"I don't know… I still think the coffee in the little shop off Clyde Morris is better. Nothing is imported or stuck full of preservatives there; they grow their own coffee beans and make it all from scratch. No one can make coffee like that lady. What's her name?"

He took a drink and lowered the still-steaming cup. "Carla."

"Yeah, Carla. Such a sweet thing… Did I ever tell you about the time she…"

Henry listened as the little old lady rambled on, continuing her seemingly never ending story, but he didn't stop her. He never stopped her. After everything they'd been through, he didn't think he'd ever tire of hearing another person’s voice. So she talked and he listened.

It was around midday, and the heat and humidity of Florida was finally at it’s peak. Henry basked in the warmth, more comfortable than he had been in years. He’d heard many things about the hot, sticky climate of sunshine state, but the locals obviously paid it little mind because streets were still full of people milling about. Men paused at store windows to look at possible gift ideas, women juggled bags as they herded children past stands selling hot chocolate, and lights strung up in the trees and around the storefront doorways twinkled merrily in the fading light. It was the summer season, the heavy feeling of rain already beginning to fill the air as the daily three o’clock storm built.

He had decided to come to Charity Beach about a week ago. Ever since his return from Verthaven, he'd been busy training and maintaining himself and the areas he worked. So much so that, despite his annoyance when scheduling told him that he wasn’t due to work for another week (something about duty days and mandatory transition acclimation leave) he had almost forgotten what it was like to have a cup of coffee and people watch. He tuned his ears and averted his eyes listening to other conversations in his area rather than the ever talkative lady.

"Maybe later we could go ice skating? I overheard some people talking earlier about how tonight was the first night it'd be open."

How about that, an Ice rink in Florida. Suppose there’s demand everywhere.

"Mmm… Hope you like snow cones, cause you’re gonna be eating my snowflakes."

"You're going down, Ethan."

The way her eyes lit up convinced him that ice skating was right up her alley. And that she never had been able to deny a challenge.

A child's tearful crying cut through the otherwise happy noises of the evening and he automatically looked to the sound. The girl had flopped to the ground and was throwing an impressive tantrum complete with flailing hands and feet, while the mother crouched down and scolded her. His mouth quirked, remembering a time when a six year old him had done something similar, but as the mother picked up the child and slipped through the crowd, his eyes drifted to something that caused the smile to fade and his back to straighten.

Drake Blackmore, in camo cargo pants, a white shirt, with a gold chain. Henry winced at the man's outfit, genuinely pained for the man's lack of awareness. He looked to the lady and gave her an apologetic smile. "Excuse me, ma'am, I have to go." The lady, suddenly stopping from her story, smiled brightly and waved him off. He fiddled with his pants, fishing out a few dollar bills to pay for his drink before setting off after the Blackmore.

When Drake went onto the pier, Henry hesitated, but continued- the wood groaning under his weight. He stopped a few feet beside Drake but did not lean on the fence, deciding that placing his weight against the flimsy guard rail would be a great way to end up going for a swim.

"Long way from home, Blackmore." He greeted. "Small world, huh?"
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