The City Between Us

"You're about to meet one Isaac Schwartz—age indeterminate, occupation unknown, forwarding address undeliverable.

His story takes place in the not-too-distant past in a tenement apartment building on the Lower East Side in New York City.

Once a tenant, Isaac is now a question mark. A man whose identity has been misplaced somewhere between memory and mail.

This is not a story of high drama or grand ambition. It's a story of a man trying to retrieve his mail. That's all. A simple task--unless, of course, the mailbox in question exists not in this world but in that gray zone of bureaucracy, broken buzzers, and tenement buildings where time moves sideways and tenants are evicted from their own pasts.

Step inside. Take a number. Check the directory if you like. But don't be surprised if your name isn't listed. For in this building, in this neighborhood, in this pocket of cracked brick and unsettle debts, the rent is paid in memory--and collection is always due.

You've just crossed over into ... Late of Ludlow Street.

Friday, May 2nd.

To understand how Paulie Macaluso became a symbol—of what exactly, no one can quite agree—you must first imagine him: a sixty-three-year-old window washer with a nicotine-scratched voice and the expression of a man permanently five minutes late to something meaningful.

You must then imagine him briefly dangling from the 88th floor of that very skyscraper—a feat he survived with the dubious assistance of two security guards and what he later claimed was "a divine wedgie."

This was not how prophets usually arrived.

But then again, Paulie Macaluso never asked to be one. He only wanted to see her again.

Not her, capital-H Her, the Virgin Mother who allegedly winked at him through the warped glass of The Helix’s 47th floor. No, Paulie wanted to see Celia—the one woman who had ever truly believed in him, right up until the ventilator took away her breath and the pandemic took away her name from every registry except his guilt.

The board, of course, had no use for nuance.

They wanted spectacle.

Sanctity with a sales pitch. A miracle that could be monetized and branded with tasteful font. Paulie, however, chose a different kind of resurrection: he ran.

Two nights later, beneath the sharp scent of window cleaner and moral crisis, Paulie snuck past Helix security—who were distracted by a flash mob of TikTok seminarians—and climbed once more to the 47th floor.

Not via the elevator, but the way he’d always gone: with suction cups, muscle memory, and a prayer uttered to no one in particular.

Just as Paulie reached the 30th floor, the walkie-talkie he always carried crackled to life. It was Miguel.

"Macaluso! What in the f**k are you doing up there?”

“What does it look like I’m doing, you Puerto Rican prick?”

“Who are you calling a Puerto Rican prick?”

“YOU! I’m calling you …!”

“You listen to me! I want you off of that building!”

“Not happening!”

“You know what kind of trouble you’re in?! You’ve got security going crazy down here! I’m gonna have you arrested!”

“You do that! The cops are on my side! The city of New York is on my side!”

“Don’t play ‘Man of God’ with me, Macaluso! I know who you really are! You’re a drunk! Dollars to donuts—you made this whole thing up for attention!”

“F**k you, Miguel!”

“Oh f**k me? Helix is firing all of us! Because of you! You put us all in danger with your b******t lies and your Virgin sightings! All because you’re a train wreck of …”

“I don’t care what you or anybody else thinks of me! I’m almost there. If you were half a human, you’d have a scaffold waiting for me on the 47th floor! So either do something useful or go f**k yourself!”

Paulie snapped shut his walkie as he climbed higher. On the street below, every New Yorker held their breath.

When Paulie reached the glass on the 47th floor, the city stretched below him in all directions—a spangled abyss of steel and flickering windows. The kind of view that made people feel either infinite or irrelevant. Paulie, for once, felt both.

He stood still momentarily, one hand braced against the window frame, the other holding a worn terrycloth. His fingers trembled slightly—not from fear of heights but from something more challenging to name. He didn’t know what he’d come to see, only that he had to see it.

He rubbed the glass in a slow circle, the cloth squeaking faintly against the warped surface.

Clarity doesn’t come to the calm. Visions—if they come at all—don’t visit the righteous. They find the broken, the cracked vessels, the ones who’ve run out of stories to tell themselves. Not as reward, but as rupture. Sometimes the soul opens not like a flower but like a fracture.

And then she was there.

Not the Virgin. Not light and robes and halos.

Celia—her reflection framed in the uneven curvature of the glass. No divine glow. No choreography of faith. Just her—eyes dark and steady, mouth drawn in the same quiet line she’d worn the last time he saw her, before the hospital, before the silence.

She looked at him the way she always had. Not with blame. Not with mercy. Just with that tired kind of love—the kind that says: You could’ve done better, but I know why you didn’t.

He cried then. Not loudly. Just enough for his breath to fog the pane between them.

Religious experiences, anthropologists have long argued, are a confluence of internal crisis and external metaphor. Some see angels during epileptic seizures. Some see ancestors after days without sleep. Paulie Macaluso, suspended between sobriety and sin, grief and guilt, saw the wife he lost.

“Celia," Paulie breathed, his hand reaching out unconsciously.

She didn't speak, but her eyes held his, full of the forgiveness he'd never allowed himself to believe possible.

Paulie felt tears streaming down his face. "I'm so sorry," he whispered. "I ruined everything. I should have been there. I should have been better."

Celia's image smiled—that small, crooked smile that had made him fall in love with her four decades ago. She placed her hand against the glass, palm out, mirroring his.

And then she was gone, leaving only Paulie's tear-streaked reflection staring back at him.

He stood there long, his hand still pressed against the glass, feeling a peace he hadn't known in years. Whether the vision had been real or just his grief-stricken imagination, something had shifted inside him—a knot untying, a breath finally released.

The sound of the walkie-talkie crackling broke the spell.

“A*****e! Are you there? Let’s get a move on! They're going to replace that window in twenty minutes!” Miguel shouted through the speaker of Paulie’s walkie.

Paulie nodded, wiping his eyes quickly. "I know. I need a few minutes more."

Miguel spoke cautiously as if Paulie might either attack or begin prophesying at any moment. "So... did She appear again? The Virgin?"

Paulie looked back at the window, now showing nothing but the afternoon sky and the buildings across the way. "No," he said. "But I saw what I needed to see."

Miguel sounded disappointed. "So what happens now? Everyone's waiting for your next miracle."

"There won't be any more miracles. Not the kind they're expecting, anyway. Listen, Miguel … I uh … I apologize."

“Yeah. All right, listen, Mac, just get your ass down in one piece."

Paulie smiled. “I’ll do that."

Ninety minutes later, Paulie Macaluso stood on the makeshift platform that someone had constructed in the plaza outside The Helix. The crowd had fallen into an expectant hush; thousands of faces turned up toward him. News cameras whirred, smartphones recorded, and somewhere in the back, Walter Kensington and his board members watched with barely concealed anxiety.

Father Domenico stood beside Paulie, clearly thrilled to be associated with the day's main attraction. Jasmine and Deshaun had somehow secured front-row positions, Jasmine's enormous hat now featuring blinking Christmas lights arranged in the shape of a halo.

Paulie stepped onto the small, makeshift platform near the plaza’s center, blinking against the glare of camera lights and the morning sun caught in glass. A murmur ran through the crowd like the wind shifting. Phones rose. Someone whistled low. A few folks clapped—not reverently, more like they were applauding a street performer they hoped might catch fire.

Paulie cleared his throat. His mouth was dry, and not in the usual hungover way. With a pang, he realized that he’d never spoken to more than three people at once unless it was to yell at pigeons.

“Anybody got a cigarette?” Paulie said, half to himself, half to buy time.

A ripple of laughter rolled through the crowd.

“Tryin’ to quit, Prophet!” someone yelled.

Another voice called out—older, gravelly: “Yo, Paulie! Did God say anything about the Knicks this season? We sufferin’ out here!”

Laughter again, louder this time.

And then—“Let me guess, your ex-wife was the Virgin all along. Real original, pal!”

The crowd howled.

“Yeah,” came another voice, dry as rust, “somebody check if the window washer union covers resurrection.”

Paulie smiled faintly. Not at the jokes—those he’d expected—but at the noise itself. The warmth behind it. New Yorkers had a funny way of being cruel with love.

He raised a hand, unsure if it was for quiet or balance.

“Alright, alright,” he said. “Easy. You got good material. But if you could shut up a minute, I—uh—I got something I need to say.”

To his surprise, they did, not out of reverence but because heckling’s only fun when your target fights back. Paulie didn’t fight. He looked tired. Honest. That was something even a city this skeptical could recognize.

“I ain’t a prophet,” he began. “I ain’t holy. I ain’t anything but a guy who’s done more wrong than right and ran outta time to fix it.”

A hush fell. The kind that feels like a held breath.

“I didn’t see the Virgin to get famous. I saw her—or I thought I did—because I was lookin’ for something. Something I lost. A long time ago.”

And just like that, the tone shifted. Phones lowered. A few brows furrowed. One or two heads bowed—not in prayer, but in that slow nod people do when they realize someone’s saying something real.

Paulie swallowed hard.

“Her name was Celia. She was the only person who ever saw me clear and didn’t look away. And I failed her. She died, and I didn’t even say goodbye. So if there’s any miracle here... it’s that I finally saw her again. Just for a second.”

A pigeon landed nearby and cocked its head as if listening.

“I don’t know what that window is. Maybe a mirror. Maybe a trick. Maybe grace. But I saw her. And I remembered what it means to be responsible for someone. And that’s more than I deserve, but I’ll take it.”

He looked at the crowd—not as a mass, but as faces, lives, people.

Paulie took a deep breath. "We build these towers, these monuments to our own importance. We think they make us special, make us matter. But they're just glass and steel. What matters—what really matters—is how we treat each other. The love we give or withhold. The harm we cause or prevent."

Paulie looked up at The Helix, its spiral form catching the late afternoon sun. "This building doesn't need to come down. It's just a building. It's what's inside us that needs changing."

A murmur ran through the crowd. This wasn't the fiery prophecy or dramatic miracle they'd been hoping for.

"So if you came for a miracle," Paulie continued, "I'm sorry to disappoint you. The only miracle I can offer is the same one available to all of us—the miracle of doing better today than we did yesterday. You don’t need visions or saints. You just need to do right by people while they’re still here. That’s the whole sermon. No choir, no punchline.”

He paused, let the silence stretch.

Then, from somewhere in the back: “Paulie, God is merciful! As a Knicks fan, I can swear by that!”

The crowd broke like glass—laughter, applause, even a few tears.

“But seriously, whatever you saw … we love you!” And with that, the crowd erupted with cheers.

Paulie let himself smile for real this time. Not because he was redeemed. But because, maybe, he’d started walking in the right direction.

Father Domenico shifted uncomfortably beside him. In the back, Paulie could see Walter Kensington's face darkening.

He turned to look at Jasmine and Deshaun. "Starting with me. I haven't been a father to my son. I haven't taken responsibility for my actions. That changes today."

Jasmine's mouth fell open in shock. Deshaun looked up at his mother in confusion.

"And to those who own this building," Paulie continued, his eyes finding Walter Kensington in the crowd, "maybe there's a lesson here for you too. Maybe instead of trying to profit from people's faith, you could use all this attention to do some good. Turn some of those empty floors into affordable housing. Create spaces for community. Make this building serve the city instead of just the wealthy."

Walter Kensington's face was a study in conflicting emotions—outrage warring with the sudden realization that Paulie's suggestion might actually be good PR.

"The Virgin Mary isn't going to appear again on the 47th floor," Paulie said, his voice growing stronger. "They're replacing that window as we speak. But maybe we don't need more visions. Maybe what we need is to see each other truly."

He stepped back from the microphone, suddenly exhausted. The crowd's reaction was mixed—some looked disappointed, others thoughtful, and a few openly wept.

Father Domenico leaned in. "That was... not what I expected, Paulie."

“What did you expect, Domenic?" Paulie replied in a whisper. “I gave them the only thing I had left. The truth.”

“That’s not what I meant. I meant what you said was fine. I’m proud of you.”

Paulie said nothing as he descended from the platform. The crowd suddenly parted for him. Some reached out to touch his sleeve; others watched him pass with curious eyes. Jasmine stepped forward, her earlier theatrical piety replaced with something more genuine.

"Did you mean that?" she asked quietly. "About Deshaun?"

Paulie looked down at the boy who shared his eyes and stubborn chin. "Yeah," he said. "I did. I can't change the past, but I can do better now."

Deshaun looked up at him warily, years of absence not easily forgotten. But there was curiosity there, too, perhaps even hope.

Paulie lingered at the plaza's edge after the crowd had mostly dispersed—some still lingering, unsure if they'd witnessed a miracle or a man shedding his skin. A breeze kicked up, carrying the smell of hot dog water, subway exhaust, and cheap incense.

His walkie buzzed at his belt.

“Prophet Paulie, you copy?” came Miguel’s voice, laced with the smug grin only long friendship can justify.

Paulie lifted it slowly. “Miguel. You firing me?”

“Firing you? You should be so lucky. I just talked to the office. Word from on high—meaning Lord Kensington in his penthouse kingdom—is that all the window washers' jobs are safe. And get this: we’re getting raises. Back pay, even.”

Paulie blinked. “You serious?”

“Dead serious. Turns out, dangling your ass off the 88th floor bought us all a little job security. Nice work, martyr.”

Paulie chuckled. The sound was rough but real. “Guess I should’ve thrown myself off years ago.”

“Don’t get ideas. Your miracle tour is over, brother. Tomorrow, 7 a.m., you’re back to work. Same squeegee, same grime, same complaints.”

Paulie nodded to no one, the walkie warm in his hand. Then: “Sounds good.”

“No different than the last thirty years, huh?”

Paulie looked up at the twisted glass glinting in the sunlight. The 47th-floor window was still warped, still inexplicable, and somehow still waiting.

“No. No different,” Paulie said with a smile.

© Michael Arturo, 2025

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Michael Arturo writes fiction, contemporary political/social commentary, parodies, parables, satire. Michael was born and raised in New York City and has a background in theater and film. His plays have been staged in New York, London, Boston, and Los Angeles.

Miracle in Midtown

MICHAEL ARTURO

·

APR 16

The Helix stood like a wounded animal in the Manhattan skyline—88 floors of architectural hubris wrapped in glass that caught the sun at angles that blinded pilots and scorched nearby buildings. Six months after its grand opening, the tower remained sixty percent vacant, its corridors echoing with the footsteps of maintenance staff and the occasional lo…

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The boardroom on the 88th floor of The Helix was decorated in what interior designers call "power minimalism"—all sleek surfaces, uncomfortable chairs, and a view that reminded everyone present just how far they could fall, which, given the current trajectory of their investment, seemed increasingly likely.

"Gentlemen, ladies," began Walter Kensington III, majority shareholder and chairman of the Helix Investment Group. "We are facing what the youngsters in PR call a 'challenging optics situation.'"

Six other board members sat around the enormous glass table, their reflections looking back at them with the same expressions of barely contained panic. Miranda Chen, head of asset management, tapped furiously on her tablet. Jackson Reynolds, the building's architect, stared moodily out the window at his creation—a building that was supposed to redefine the Manhattan skyline but instead had become a $1.8 billion punchline.

"Challenging optics?" Elliot Blackstone, a hedge fund manager whose voice always sounded like he was gargling with gravel, threw his pen across the table. "Walt, we're hemorrhaging money. We've got religious fanatics camped out in our lobby. The New York Post is calling us 'The Heavenly Helix,' and not in a good way. And now we've got a drunken window washer claiming divine visions on the 47th floor—the exact floor we're about to retrofit because the glass is warping from design flaws!"

"Actually," Reynolds muttered, "the glass is not warping. It's an intentional optical illusion created by the—"

"Can it, Reynolds!" Blackstone snapped. "Your 'intentional optical illusions' are why we can't lease half the building. Tenants get vertigo looking out the windows!"

Walter cleared his throat, his silver hair catching the morning light in a way that his PR team had once described as "trustworthy illumination."

"I believe," he said with practiced calm, "that we may be looking at this situation... incorrectly."

Miranda Chen looked up from her tablet. "The Archdiocese of New York has released a statement saying they 'take all claims of divine apparition seriously' but are 'proceeding with caution.' They've appointed an investigative committee. Their press release actually used the phrase 'alleged miracle at The Helix Tower.'"

"Alleged miracle," repeated Marjorie Williams, the board's oldest member and the only one who remembered the last three real estate crashes firsthand. "Do you know what happened to that sandwich shop in New Jersey where someone saw Jesus in a grilled cheese?"

"They sold the sandwich on eBay for $28,000," offered Raj Patel, their CFO.

"No, after that. The place became a tourist trap. Lines around the block. They're still in business fifteen years later."

Walter Kensington's eyes narrowed, the gears of opportunism turning behind his carefully Botoxed forehead. "Are you suggesting what I think you're suggesting, Marjorie?"

"What if," said Marjorie, leaning forward, her ancient pearl necklace clacking against the glass table, "our PR problem is actually a PR solution?"

The room fell silent as the implication rippled through the air like expensive cologne.

"You can't be serious," Jackson Reynolds finally managed. "You want to market a divine apparition? In my building?"

"Your building that no one wants to occupy," Blackstone reminded him.

Raj Patel, ever the numbers man, was already calculating. "Religious tourism is a multi-billion dollar industry. Santiago de Compostela... Lourdes... Fatima..."

"The Helix," Walter completed the thought, testing how it sounded. "Manhattan's newest sacred site."

"We'd need the window washer to play along," Miranda pointed out. "What's his name? Macaluso?"

"Paulie Macaluso," confirmed Walter's assistant, Gretchen, who had been silently taking notes. "Age 63, divorced, history of alcoholism, one illegitimate child, suspended from duty pending investigation."

"Perfect!" Marjorie clapped her hands together. "He needs money, we need a miracle. It's what the Japanese call a win-win."

"I believe that term is American, actually," Raj murmured.

"We'll have him go out and meet the public," Walter said, warming to the idea, his voice gaining momentum. "We'll turn the 47th floor into a shrine, with upscale dining and... and priests and nuns as waiters and service people!"

"I'm not sure the clergy typically moonlight in food service," Miranda said.

"Details!" Walter waved her concern away. "We'll hire actors—respectful ones. The point is, we rebrand The Helix from architectural disappointment to spiritual destination!"

Jackson Reynolds looked physically ill. "And what if the Mother of God fails to reappear? What then?"

Elliot Blackstone shrugged his expensively tailored shoulders. "Not a problem. Someone in PR will script the miracles. How difficult can that be? 'Be kind to your neighbor and go shopping.' That's one. 'Thou shall not kill.' That can be another."

"Those aren't miracles; they're commandments," Miranda pointed out.

"We need a real miracle!" Marjorie insisted.

"Water into wine?" suggested Raj. "We could set up a bar on 47."

"Too biblical," Walter said, pacing now. "We need something modern, something... Instagrammable."

"What about healing?" Gretchen offered, surprising everyone by speaking out of turn. "Macaluso touches people, and they're healed of—I don't know—minor ailments? Backaches? Seasonal allergies?"

Walter snapped his fingers. "Brilliant, Gretchen! Subtle enough to be believable, vague enough to be unprovable. We'll stage a few 'spontaneous' healings with actors and then let crowd psychology do the rest."

"This is the most cynical thing I've ever heard," Jackson Reynolds said, but no one was listening to him anymore.

"Someone go get Macaluso and offer him six figures to play along," Walter commanded.

Blackstone pulled out his phone. "I'll have security bring him up. I hear he's downstairs right now, mobbed by his new fans."

"Perfect!" Walter rubbed his hands together. "Ladies and gentlemen, I believe we've just turned the biggest real estate disaster in New York history into its most profitable religious experience!"

Meanwhile, in the plaza outside The Helix, Paulie Macaluso was experiencing something that felt like the opposite of a religious experience.

"THERE HE IS!" someone shouted as Paulie tried to slip inconspicuously through the crowd.

It was like someone had kicked over an anthill. Phone cameras swung in his direction, people pushed forward, and Paulie found himself at the center of a human whirlpool.

"Mr. Macaluso! Did you really see the Virgin Mary?" "Can you heal my cousin's eczema?" "Will you bless my lottery ticket?" "Is it true you predicted the end of the world?"

Paulie, who had hoped to quietly make his way to the 47th floor for one last look at the window, felt his sobriety slipping. He'd managed not to drink that morning—a first in recent memory—and now he was regretting his moment of clarity.

"Look, folks, I just need to—"

"LORD BE PRAISED!"

The cry cut through the crowd like a foghorn, and Paulie turned to see Jasmine Johnson elbowing her way through the throng, dragging young Deshaun by the hand, her enormous hat now adorned with what appeared to be hastily attached religious medals.

"LORD BE PRAISED!" she shouted again, this time directly in Paulie's face. "I saw JESUS that night you gave me Deshaun!” She oozed by his side.

Paulie's face went from pale to crimson. "Jasmine, what the hell are you—"

"HALLELUJAH!" Jasmine continued, playing to the cameras that had turned in her direction. "The father of my child is BLESSED! CHOSEN! A MESSENGER OF THE LORD!"

Deshaun, for his part, looked like he was contemplating running away to join the circus—anything to escape his mother's theatrical conversion.

"Jasmine," Paulie hissed, "yesterday you were telling everyone I don't pay child support!"

"The Lord works in mysterious ways!" Jasmine announced, then whispered fiercely: "So does my lawyer. We're suing you for a percentage of whatever you make off this miracle business."

Before Paulie could respond, Father Domenico appeared at his side, his collar slightly askew, looking like he hadn't slept.

"Paulie! Thank God I found you!"

“Thank you for keeping this on the low down, Dominic!" Paulie growled. "None of this would've happened if you hadn't gone to the press!"

Father Domenico had the grace to look embarrassed. "I only mentioned it to Cardinal Vignelli, who has connections to that family in Staten Island... you know, the ones with interests in construction? They were very curious about the building's... spiritual potential."

"Spiritual potential? I see where this is goin’!"

Father Domenico shifted uncomfortably. "The Church has always had a complex relationship with... er... miracles and their material manifestations."

"I'll give you a material manifestation right upside the—"

Paulie's threat was cut short as two large security guards from The Helix materialized beside him.

"Mr. Macaluso?" said the larger of the two, a man whose neck appeared to be an optional anatomical feature. "The board would like to see you. Immediately."

"The board? What board?"

"The Helix Investment Group. Top floor. Now."

As the guards began to escort him through the crowd, Jasmine shouted, "Don't forget us little people when you're swimming in miracle money, Paulie!"

Father Domenico called after him, "Remember, you're a vessel for divine grace!"

Deshaun, finally breaking his silence, yelled what sounded suspiciously like, "Get that bag, Fake Dad!"

The elevator ride to the 88th floor was silent and swift, Paulie sandwiched between the two security guards like a prisoner being transported to a very expensive jail.

When the doors opened, he was led down a corridor of gleaming white marble into a boardroom, which instantly made him aware of his scuffed shoes and the coffee stain on his shirt.

Seven people in suits worth more than his annual salary turned to look at him. Paulie had the distinct impression of being a specimen under examination.

"Ah, Mr. Macaluso!" The silver-haired man at the head of the table rose and extended his hand. "Walter Kensington. Thank you for joining us."

Paulie didn't take the offered hand. "Didn't know I had a choice."

Walter laughed as if Paulie had said something hilarious. "Please, sit down. We have a proposition that I think will interest you greatly."

Paulie reluctantly sat, feeling the expensive leather chair yield beneath him. The view from the 88th floor made his stomach lurch in a way that hanging from scaffolding never did.

"Mr. Macaluso," Walter continued, his smile never reaching his eyes, "we understand you've had a... spiritual experience at our building."

"Yeah, and I got suspended for it. Thanks for that."

"A misunderstanding," Walter waved dismissively. “We'd like to offer you a new position. One with significantly more... zeroes attached to it."

A woman with a tablet slid a piece of paper across to Paulie. On it was a number that made his eyes widen.

"Six figures?" Paulie looked up, suspicious. "For what?"

"For being our... spiritual ambassador," Walter said as if testing out the title. "The face of The Helix's new direction."

"New direction?"

"Mr. Macaluso," interjected an older woman with pearls, "what would you say if we told you that your vision wasn't an accident but... destiny?"

Paulie looked around the room. "I'd say you're all nuts."

"The Helix," Walter continued undeterred, "will become New York's premiere spiritual destination. The 47th floor—redesigned as 'The Miracle Level'—featuring fine dining, meditation spaces, and weekly appearances by yourself, sharing your experience, perhaps offering comfort or... healing touch to those in need."

Paulie stared at him. "You want me to pretend to be some kinda... holy man?"

"Not pretend, Mr. Macaluso!" Walter looked shocked at the suggestion. "Embrace! Embrace your... divine selection. For a very generous compensation package, of course."

"Plus benefits," added the man with the gravelly voice.

Paulie stood up slowly. "Let me get this straight. Your building's a bust. You can't rent the space. So now you want to use me—and the Holy Mother—to turn it into some kinda religious tourist trap?"

The room fell uncomfortably silent.

"That's... one way of putting it," Walter finally said. "We prefer to think of it as aligning market opportunities with spiritual experiences."

"I'm not doing it," Paulie said flatly. "I don't know what I saw yesterday, but I know it wasn't meant for... this."

Walter's smile disappeared like a summer bonus. "Mr. Macaluso, perhaps you don't understand. This offer isn't just generous—it's final. The alternative is a lawsuit for defamation, for violating your NDA, for trespassing..."

"I said no," Paulie repeated, turning to leave.

With a nod from Walter, the two security guards blocked the door.

"I'm disappointed, Mr. Macaluso," Walter sighed. "I had hoped we could be partners in this venture. But if you insist on being difficult..."

What happened next occurred so efficiently that Paulie barely had time to protest. The security guards grabbed him by the arms, and Walter pressed a button that caused a section of the floor-to-ceiling window to slide open—a feature that definitely violated several building codes.

Before Paulie could fully register what was happening, he was dangling by his ankles outside the 88th floor of The Helix, held by the two security guards while Walter Kensington leaned out casually as if this were a typical negotiation tactic.

"Reconsider our offer, Mr. Macaluso?" Walter asked pleasantly, the wind whipping his perfect hair into slight disarray.

Eighty-eight floors below, the crowd that had been gathered around the building's entrance began to notice the spectacle. Phones tilted upward, recording what appeared to be a man being dangled from the top of The Helix like a human fishing lure.

"YOU'RE INSANE!" Paulie screamed, his voice torn away by the wind.

"Just practical," Walter corrected. "Now, about our arrangement..."

As the blood rushed to his head, Paulie had a moment of perfect clarity—the kind that comes only in moments of extreme terror or profound revelation. The Helix spiraled below him, its curved glass catching the morning sun, and for a split second, Paulie saw what might have been a reflection in every window: the same face he'd seen before, the Holy Mother, looking up at him with infinite compassion and... was that a wink?

Walter called back. "Mr. Macaluso, have we reached an understanding?"

Dangling upside down, with blood pounding in his ears and the strange certainty that he was exactly where he was supposed to be, Paulie Macaluso made his decision.

"Go to hell, Kensington! I'll tell you what the Holy Mother told me, and it wasn't about turning her into a damn sideshow!"

Below, the crowd had grown, voices rising in alarm, sirens beginning to wail in the distance.

Walter's smile tightened. "And what, pray tell, was her message?"

Paulie Macaluso, window washer, alcoholic, deadbeat dad, and the most unlikely divine messenger in the history of New York City, smiled for the first time in what felt like years.

"Pull me up and I'll tell you. But you're not gonna like it."

They pulled Paulie back inside, his face the color of overripe tomatoes, his heart hammering against his ribs like it was trying to escape. The boardroom erupted into chaos—Miranda frantically checking social media as videos of the dangling window washer went viral, Jackson Reynolds appearing to suffer a panic attack in the corner, and Elliot Blackstone shouting about "unprecedented liability exposure."

Walter Kensington, however, maintained the eerie calm of a predator waiting for wounded prey to exhaust itself.

"Well, Mr. Macaluso?" he asked once Paulie had been deposited unceremoniously into a chair. "You were about to share the Holy Mother's message with us?"

Paulie's head was still spinning, but a strange clarity had settled over him—the kind that sometimes comes after narrowly avoiding death or, in his case, being used as human bait from the 88th floor.

"She told me," Paulie said, his voice steadier than he felt, "that this building is an abomination."

Walter's smile flickered. "I beg your pardon?"

"An abomination," Paulie repeated, the words flowing from somewhere beyond his conscious mind. "Built on greed, designed for vanity, standing as a monument to everything that's wrong with this city. She said it needs to come down."

The room fell silent.

"That's... not the message we were hoping for," Walter finally managed.

"Sorry to disappoint," Paulie shrugged. "But that's what she said. Three messages, three miracles. First message: The Helix has to come down. As for the miracles and the other messages, I guess we'll have to wait and see. Now, if you gentlemen and ladies don't mind, I'd like to go home before you decide to throw me off the roof for real."

Walter Kensington exchanged glances with his fellow board members. The calculation was obvious: a man claiming the Virgin Mary wanted their $1.8 billion investment demolished wasn't exactly the spiritual ambassador they had in mind.

"Security will escort you out," Walter said coldly. "And Mr. Macaluso? We'll be watching you very closely."

end of part three

© Michael Arturo, 2025

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Michael Arturo writes fiction, contemporary political/social commentary, parodies, parables, satire. Michael was born and raised in New York City and has a background in theater and film. His plays have been staged in New York, London, Boston, and Los Angeles.

The story was buried on page eleven of the New York Post, but it spread faster than a Queens fire on a windy day. By noon, it had jumped from social media to the local news, and by three o'clock, the headline "WINDOW WASHER SEES VIRGIN MARY IN MANHATTAN SKYSCRAPER" was flashing across the bottom of CNN.

Paulie Macaluso, who had spent his entire professional life trying to be invisible while dangling eighty stories above Manhattan, was suddenly the most visible man in New York.

"This man ain't no Jesus! He don't even pay no child support!" Jasmine Johnson's voice cut through the crowd gathered at the base of The Helix, her finger pointing accusingly at the tower as if Paulie might be watching from above. "Tell me, what kind of man has a vision of the Holy Mother and is a low-down mother himself?!"

Next to her stood Deshaun, their seven-year-old son, who looked bored and confused by the proceedings but perked up whenever a news camera swung in their direction.

"That's right! This deadbeat b***h owes me eighteen thousand dollars in back support! You want a miracle? Try getting that money out of him!" Jasmine had dressed for the occasion in her Sunday best, complete with a hat that could have doubled as a satellite dish, her voice projecting like she was auditioning for a Broadway musical instead of creating a scene outside a half-empty skyscraper.

Father Domenico, who stood nearby leading a hastily assembled prayer circle of thirty-seven worshippers (most of whom had never attended his church before this morning), winced every time Jasmine opened her mouth. This was not how he had envisioned the miracle spreading.

"Let us pray for Brother Paul in his hour of trial," Father Domenico intoned, struggling to be heard above Jasmine's continuing character assassination and the growing crowd of rubberneckers.

"Pray for his wallet to open! Pray for him to remember he's got a son!" Jasmine shouted back.

Miguel, who had taken a personal day to witness the circus, sidled up to a reporter from NYC Action News. "I can tell you this—Macaluso's been seeing things for years. Usually, pink elephants, if you know what I mean."

Social media was no kinder:

"Convenient timing for a 'miracle' at NYC's biggest real estate disaster #Helix #MiracleinMidtown"

"Window cleaner sees Virgin Mary... after 'cleaning' with José Cuervo #DrunkMiracle"

"Anyone check this guy's history? Probably trying to cash in. #ScamInTheSky"

By mid-afternoon, a peculiar assortment of humanity had gathered at The Helix's plaza. There were the devoutly religious, clutching rosaries and prayer cards. There were the cynically curious smartphones raised to capture any stray moments of notoriety. At least four individuals claimed to be representatives of various television producers, each promising Paulie (who wasn't there) exclusive deals for his "miraculous story."

NYC ACTION NEWS: “It’s part pilgrimage, part protest, part street fair down here at The Helix. While all denominations are represented, we do know of at least two Jesus and one Anthony Bourdain imitator arrested by NYPD for public disruption! Let’s break it down for you—some are calling it divine. Until all the facts are in—a Mother of God sighting must be taken seriously. Others? Well … this could be a publicity stunt. Father Domenico, affectionately known as the patron Saint of Organized Crime, says it’s real. Paulie Macaluso, the delusional drunk, has a history of fabricating whatever he can to get out of whatever trouble he’s in. And then there’s Jasmine Johnson and her abandoned son, Deshaun. They want their piece of flesh! Things have taken on a life of their own at The Helix this afternoon as the crowd awaits the return of whatever Heavenly vision the Holy Mother has in store for us today. Back to you in the studio.”

There were also three psychics offering to "channel" the Virgin's message (for a modest fee), a man selling hastily printed T-shirts with "I SAW THE VIRGIN AT THE HELIX AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS LOUSY T-SHIRT," and a woman with a petition demanding that The Helix be designated a religious landmark.

The building's security team, overwhelmed and underprepared, had established a perimeter with flimsy portable barriers that looked ready to collapse from the sheer weight of public curiosity.

The Helix's owners—a consortium of investors already hemorrhaging money on the troubled project—issued a terse statement through their spokesperson, an aggressively cheerful woman named Brittany who looked like she might shatter from the strain of maintaining her smile:

"We are aware of the alleged incident and remind the public that The Helix remains private property. The scheduled maintenance of the building's façade will continue as planned."

When asked if the building would allow independent verification of the supposedly miraculous window, Brittany's smile tightened to the point of facial paralysis. "We have no further comment at this time."

"What about the window? Are you replacing it?" shouted a reporter from the back.

"As previously stated, the scheduled maintenance will continue as planned." Her smile remained frozen while her eyes seemed to be sending distress signals in Morse code.

Meanwhile, Paulie Macaluso read none of this. He had been suspended pending an investigation into his "unauthorized statements to the press"—though he had spoken to no reporters, only to Father Domenico, who apparently had the discretion of a Times Square hawker.

His boss, Vincent Calabrese, had left two voicemails, each more threatening than the last:

"Macaluso, you better not be using this holy roller crap to get workers' comp or some kinda lawsuit going! You signed an NDA when you took this job! No talking about the building's defects!"

And later: "My lawyer says if you're using some religious angle to get around the NDA, we can still sue your ass back to the Stone Age! Call me back, goddammit!"

Paulie's apartment in Queens felt smaller than usual that night, the walls closing in as he paced from kitchen to bedroom to living room, ignoring the buzzing of his phone. Adriana had texted three times, asking if he was the "crazy window guy" everyone was talking about. Sofia from his building had slipped a note under his door asking if he wanted to "talk about his experience" over dinner.

The bottle of Jameson on his counter seemed to be the only thing that made sense. Paulie grabbed it by the neck like an old friend and twisted off the cap.

"Some miracle worker I am," he muttered, taking a swig directly from the bottle. "Can't even keep my job."

His phone buzzed again. This time it was a text from a number he didn't recognize:

Text: Mr. Macaluso, this is Evan Hirsch from Golden Hour Productions. We're interested in your exclusive story for our new series "American Visions." We can offer a significant advance. Please call at your earliest convenience.

Before he could toss the phone aside, it buzzed again:

Text: Paulie, it's Miguel. They're replacing the window on 47 tomorrow morning. Just thought you should know.

Paulie took another pull from the bottle. Outside his window, a police siren wailed, and somewhere down the block, a car alarm joined the chorus. The soundtrack of Queens on an average Tuesday night, oblivious to visions of the divine or the absurdity of a washed-up, alcoholic window cleaner being chosen as a messenger from God.

He looked down at his hands—calloused, scarred, and trembling. These were not the hands of a miracle worker. These were the hands that had pushed Celia away, that had failed to support a son, that reached more reliably for a bottle than for redemption.

The Holy Mother had made a cosmic clerical error. She had chosen the wrong man.

And yet...

He couldn't shake the image of her face in the glass, her sadness, her purpose. The certainty that she had chosen him specifically. Despite everything, despite his failures, despite his unworthiness.

Paulie set down the bottle. He grabbed his jacket and headed for the door. He needed to see it again if they were replacing the window tomorrow. He needed to know if the miracle was real or just another delusion in a lifetime of self-deception.

As he stepped into the hallway, he nearly collided with Mrs. Petrovich from 4B, who clutched her rosary and gasped at seeing him.

"Mr. Macaluso! I saw you on the television! Is it true? Did you see Her?"

Paulie hesitated, suddenly aware of how this simple question would define whatever came next. Finally, he nodded, his voice rough with whiskey and emotion.

"Yes, Mrs. Petrovich. I saw Her. Now I gotta see Her again before they take that window down."

Mrs. Petrovich crossed herself and smiled. "Then I will pray for you, Mr. Macaluso. God doesn't choose the qualified. He qualifies the chosen."

Paulie wanted to tell her that if that were God's plan, He would need a lot of qualifications for someone like Paulie Macaluso. Instead, he nodded again and headed for the stairs, stepping into the night and toward an uncertain destiny that awaited him in Midtown Manhattan.

Behind him, Mrs. Petrovich was already on her phone, speaking rapid-fire Russian, no doubt spreading the word that she had just met the miracle man himself. By the time Paulie reached The Helix, the crowd had doubled, with the faithful and the skeptical gathering to witness divine intervention or human folly.

Or maybe, just maybe, a little of both.

end of part two

© Michael Arturo, 2025

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other stories

Rainspell

MICHAEL ARTURO

·

JAN 24

A lone cab sped along the wet asphalt, its reflection shimmering in the waterlogged street. Inside, Lena pressed her face to the window, watching the city blur into streaks of light—like memories she couldn’t quite hold. She had come here chasing a name, an echo of her grandfather’s whispered stories. He had spoken of the Brooklyn Bridge as if it were a…

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Welcome to Michael’s Newsletter. Writer of contemporary political/social commentary, parodies, parables, satire. Michael was born and raised in New York City and has a background in theater and film. His plays have been staged in New York, London, Boston, and Los Angeles.

Michael also writes short literary fiction. Below is a link to his first collection.

FLATIRON and other tall tales

The Helix stood like a wounded animal in the Manhattan skyline—88 floors of architectural hubris wrapped in glass that caught the sun at angles that blinded pilots and scorched nearby buildings. Six months after its grand opening, the tower remained sixty percent vacant, its corridors echoing with the footsteps of maintenance staff and the occasional lost delivery person. The developers had hoped for a modern landmark. Instead, they'd created the most expensive failure in New York real estate history.

Paulie Macaluso didn't care. To him, it was just another job, another building to clean, another place to be alone with his thoughts and the bottomless drop beneath his feet.

“Macaluso! MAC! You weren’t late again, were you? Mac! I know you’re up there—I can see you!" Miguel's voice crackled through the comm unit as Paulie secured his harness to the scaffold on the 46th floor. "Boss is getting tired of your dumb-ass excuses."

"Tell him to find someone else who'll dangle from this death trap for what they pay me. Or maybe you’d like to try it sometime! Get your little Puerto Rican ass up here! You wouldn’t last six hours!" Paulie replied, slightly slurred. His hands trembled as he checked the cables, a combination of last night's whiskey and this morning's hangover.

"Jesus, are you drunk? At eight o’clock in the friggin’ morning?"

“F**k off! I’m in recovery!" Paulie squinted against the morning sun. “You’re talking to the best window man this city's got. So kiss my ass!"

Miguel sighed. At twenty-six, he treated Paulie with reluctant respect and constant exasperation. “Listen, Mr. Kiss-My-Ass, I need you to be alert and ready this week! They're talking about replacing the glass on the upper floors. Something about defects in the design."

"Entire f*****g building's a defect," Paulie muttered.

He began his work—spray, wipe, squeegee—his body remembering the motions despite the protest of his sixty-three-year-old joints and the fog of alcohol. Below him, Manhattan pulsed with its usual indifference. Paulie had cleaned windows for thirty-two years, watching the city transform from a vantage point few experienced, suspended between earth and sky, wiping away the collective grime of ambition and failure.

He'd been good once. At his job. At being a husband. Before the drinking took hold. Before Celia.

His phone vibrated in his pocket—probably Adriana, the waitress from the bar on 31st, wondering where he'd disappeared to last night. Or maybe Sofia from his building, who'd taken pity on him after Celia died. Or any of the women he'd used to fill the empty spaces in his life since his wife's passing during those dark months of 2020.

Died under mysterious circumstances, the neighborhood gossips still whispered. As if his grief needed the spice of scandal.

He ignored the phone and moved to the next panel, working his way toward the 47th floor—the floor that would make him famous in the days ahead.

The scaffold creaked as it ascended, the wind picking up between the buildings. Paulie felt the familiar vertigo, heightened by his hangover, but pushed through it. The 47th floor waited, its windows gleaming with unusual intensity in the morning light.

It happened on the third panel from the left.

Paulie was midway through a sweep when the glass seemed to ripple, like the surface of a disturbed pond. The cleaning solution dripped down in strange patterns, forming what looked like tears on an otherwise invisible face. And then, as he drew the squeegee downward, she appeared.

The Holy Mother.

She materialized in the glass like a photograph developing—robed in blue and white, her hands outstretched, her eyes meeting his with such intensity that Paulie nearly lost his grip on the scaffold.

“Jesus Christ," he whispered, “what the f**k!”

The apparition's lips moved, forming words Paulie couldn't hear. Her face was radiant with sorrow and love. Behind her, the city in the reflection wasn't New York—it was somewhere else, somewhere bathed in golden light, buildings adorned with gardens that defied gravity.

"Miguel," Paulie croaked into the comm. "Miguel, which one of you s**t stains is playing me this morning?"

“What now?" Miguel's voice seemed distant.

"On 47. The glass. There’s uh—f**k!" But Paulie couldn't finish the sentence. How could he explain what he was seeing without sounding insane? Or worse, drunk?

“Are we having another episode, Macaluso?"

An "episode." That's what they called the time Paulie had collapsed on a job site last year, sobbing uncontrollably, claiming to have seen Celia waving from a window in the Met Life building. His supervisor had written it off as delirium tremens, giving him a week's unpaid leave to "dry out."

But this was different. This was real.

Paulie stared at the Virgin's face, transfixed by her gaze. She raised one hand, pointing to the east, then to the west, then skyward. Three directions. Three visions, Paulie somehow understood, that she would reveal.

“Jesus, what’d ya doin’ to me? What’d ya want from me?!”

And then she was gone, leaving only the distorted reflection of the city and Paulie's weathered face—lined with age, grief, and addiction.

He finished the floor in a daze, his movements mechanical. When his shift ended, he didn't join the other workers for their usual coffee. Instead, he walked to the nearest church—St. Francis of Assisi on 31st Street—and sat in a back pew, trying to make sense of what he had seen.

"Been a while, Paulie," Father Domenico said, appearing beside him with the quiet movement that had always unnerved Paulie. The priest had known him for decades, had officiated Celia's funeral, had tried repeatedly to guide Paulie back from his spiral of self-destruction.

“Father Dom, I gotta talk to somebody. You’re not gonna believe this s**t. I saw something today. F****n’ blew my mind!" Paulie said, his voice barely above a whisper.

“At the bottom of a bottle, perhaps?"

“F**k you, too! Bottom of a bottle! I come to you in confidence! You’re supposed to be non-judgmental, you Holy prick!”

“Would you like to step into the confessional?”

“Nah, come on. This ain’t that. This is much bigger. But you gotta promise me, you’re gotta keep this on the lowdown. I do not want this gettin’ out.”

“Does this have anything to do with breaking the law, Paulie?”

“What?! Oh, man, listen to you! I’ve known you since how long, Domenic? Don’t get me started—you’re a bigger crook than half’a East Harlem, so shut the f**k up! Listen. You know I got s**t from Celia, who I loved like a Goddess, right? And I got that 20-year-old Black girl pregnant, and that was my fault, right? And I’ve done things I wouldn’t even begin to tell you, but at least I can admit I’ve sinned. Big time. But today, something happened that is like — I don’t know — a game changer.”

Paulie looked up. "I saw the Holy Mother in the glass—one of the windows—of The Helix Tower. I told you this was something, Domenic. I mean, I was up there—on the scaffold—with my squee-gee, and there she was. Real as I’m sitting here. I swear on St. Francis and every church in Manhattan!"

Father Domenico's expression didn't change. "Many find comfort in visions during times of grief, Paulie."

“Is that what this was? Because that’s why I came to you. Maybe you could just tell me this happens all the time. But she said something that …”

“The Holy Mother spoke to you?”

“Yeah. And isn’t it supposed to be Easter on Sunday?”

“It is Easter on Sunday.”

“Sunday is Easter Sunday, right? Well, there you go!”

“What is it you’re trying to say, Paulie?”

“I got three miracles to perform. Me. Of all people! It wasn't grief. And yes, I had a drink or two before I got to work but — my right hand to God — I was not drunk! The Holy Mother dead-eyed me through a reflection on the 47th floor of The Helix."

Father Domenico leaned back and crossed himself. “What exactly did She say to you, Paulie?”

Paulie leaned forward, suddenly urgent. His eyes filled with tears. “I can’t control this. I did so many bad things to Celia, Father. I destroyed her!”

“Take it easy, Paulie.”

“Maybe this is why! I can never make it up to Celia! This is why I was chosen.” Paulie stifled his tears and turned to Father Domenico. “She didn’t … talk, you know. The Holy Mother. She was communicating … I could feel her inside my head. She said she had three messages and three visions, but I don’t know. Miracles? I don’t know! What do I do? How can anyone expect me to be a messenger from God?!”

“No one is expecting you to perform miracles, Paulie!”

“Come on, Domenic, the Holy Mother isn’t f*****g around! I knew coming here was a mistake! I gotta get some real answers here! They’re talking about replacing windows on the Helix and if that disturbs the Holy ether or whatever the f**k you wanna call it, I’m fucked for life! Seriously! But first, I need a f****n’ drink.”

“Paulie, wait!”

Paulie left the church. Outside, the evening had settled over the city, the lights of the skyscrapers piercing the dusk like stars fallen to earth. The Helix dominated the midtown Manhattan skyline to the east, its spiral design catching the last rays of the sun. Paulie stood in silence, looking up at it.

end of part one

© Michael Arturo, 2025

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Support by hitting the like button or leaving a comment.

Michael Arturo writes fiction, contemporary political/social commentary, parodies, parables, satire. Michael was born and raised in New York City and has a background in theater and film. His plays have been staged in New York, London, Boston, and Los Angeles.

The Interrogation

Silence. A deep, suffocating silence.

Then—a high-pitched frequency, humming just beyond human perception. It dug into Irides’ skull, vibrating through his teeth and setting his nerves on fire.

Then—agony.

A sharp, electric burst ripped through his head—not through his body, not the kind of pain that scorched the flesh. No, this was different. This was inside.

The restraints held him as he convulsed, his muscles locking, his vision flashing white, then black, then white again.

His mind chip fizzled.

The implant—already altered, already unstable—rebooted itself, rewriting, recalibrating.

His own memories fractured—lines of code breaking apart, reforming, shuffling like a corrupted file trying to reconstruct itself.

Then—nothing.

The next thing he was aware of was the voices.

Low. Steady. Measured.

The interrogators.

One stood in front of him. The other just behind his left shoulder. Their holograms flickered slightly, their projected outlines too crisp, too precise.

The restraints were still tight around his wrists. His breath was shallow, his skin damp with sweat. His vision swam as his mind struggled to focus.

Then came the question.

"Who are you?"

Irides blinked.

His lips parted. A breath escaped. His voice, when it came, was hoarse but certain.

"Jabari Okoro."

A beat. The interrogators did not move.

The one in front of him spoke again. "Say it again."

He swallowed. "Jabari Okoro."

The second interrogator nodded slightly, as if pleased.

"Now tell us—who is Jabari Okoro?"

The words came easily, effortlessly, like pulling up an archived file.

"Born in the Free Zone of Lagos. Citizen ID #8901-332. Smuggled into the Eastern US corridor through illicit transport channels. Initially operated under false credentials. Entered Down Man in 2072. Integrated into local underground culture to establish influence. Created Chameleon Tech as a subversive tool against the state."

The words poured out of him—dates, locations, details—without hesitation.

"Primary intent: destabilization of national security. Ultimate objective: overthrow of the surveillance state through systematic identity obfuscation."

His heartbeat was steady. His breathing even. The weight of his past—of everything that had brought him here—felt whole, clear, absolute.

He had always been Jabari Okoro.

Hadn’t he?

The first interrogator glanced at the second. A barely perceptible nod.

The second interrogator leaned forward, voice calm, assured.

"And who is Irides?"

Irides—no, Jabari—felt a flicker of something. A static pulse in his skull, something half-formed, like a memory hovering just beyond reach.

Irides.

A name. A ghost. A distortion.

Not real.

Not him.

He shook his head. "Irides was a fabrication."

The interrogators let the silence settle for a moment before continuing.

"Why did you create Chameleon Tech?"

Jabari didn’t hesitate.

“To weaponize identity. To disrupt state control. To make surveillance obsolete."

The second interrogator tilted its head. "And do you regret this?"

Another sharp flicker in his mind—something distant, almost painful.

A whisper of music. A synth beat. Fingers moving across a keyboard. A city of neon and shadows.

Then it was gone.

Jabari Okoro exhaled.

"Yes. I regret it."

The first interrogator took a step back. The second adjusted its badge insignia.

"Tomorrow, you will make a public statement. You will denounce Chameleon Tech. You will accept your crimes. You will tell the world who you are."

Jabari nodded.

"I understand."

He felt nothing.

No fear. No doubt. No resistance.

Because he was Jabari Okoro.

Wasn’t he?

The interrogators turned, walking toward the door.

The lights above flickered. The restraints hissed softly as they unlocked.

And as they left him alone in the sterile, humming room, Jabari Okoro sat motionless, staring at his reflection in the table’s polished surface.

A man he no longer recognized stared back.

The Show-Trial

Irides sat shackled before the tribunal. The room was cavernous and cold, a manufactured spectacle designed for obedience, not justice. Floodlights bore down from above, bleaching his skin to a pale, sickly hue.

Someone had combed his hair to make him look more presentable for the cameras. The contradiction was sickening—dress him up just enough so the public could recognize the man they had once admired, then watch him break in real time.

He had spent days in the dark, surrounded by nothing but the hum of electric locks and the occasional echo of distant screams.

The cameras framed him perfectly. Every network streamed the event, pushing it to every device in the country. Children saw it on their tablets. Workers on break glanced at it on wall-sized screens. No one missed the lesson being taught.

The lead prosecutor, a thin man with a manufactured smile, stepped forward. His voice rang through the chamber, smooth and confident, like a parent explaining a lesson to a misbehaving child.

“State your name for the court.”

A pause. A flicker of something deep inside him—something distant, half-buried.

Then, his voice, steady and clear:

“Jabari Okoro.”

The reaction was instant.

The crowd watching from the ruined sprawl of Down Man erupted.

Gasps, screams, curses.

The screen in the square showed him—the man they had known as Irides, now reduced to a fraud, a government-planted ghost, a hoax.

The riot began in full.

Windows shattered. Buildings burned. And no one stopped them.

Because no one cared what happened to Down Man anymore.

The prosecutor smiled slightly at the sound of chaos outside, as if he had expected nothing less.

“Tell us, Mr. Okoro. Why did you create Chameleon Tech?”

“My technology was… misguided,” he said. “I sought to free us from Big Other’s grip, but instead, I created chaos.”

“And do you admit that Chameleon Technology directly threatens national security?”

Irides forced himself to breathe evenly. A trickle of sweat slid down his back. This was it—the moment they wanted him to submit entirely, to denounce everything.

He looked past the cameras, past the judges, past the carefully selected “public observers” who were nothing more than silent actors in this production. Someone was still watching somewhere out there—someone who hadn’t given up yet.

“Yes,” he whispered.

But there was one final condition.

In exchange for his supposed freedom, Irides was forced to relinquish all control of Chameleon Technology, signing over its patents, source code, and encryption keys. The revolution he had built with his own hands was no longer his—it belonged to the very system it had been designed to disrupt.

And then, the final humiliation: he had to confess, publicly and officially, that he was not Irides at all. He had to say, in front of the entire world, that he was Jabari Okoro—a fabricated identity used to erase the revolutionary and replace him with a criminal.

The tribunal chair nodded in satisfaction. The gavel slammed down, sealing his fate.

Chameleon Elite

Chameleon Technology was dead. Or rather, it had been devoured by the very system it sought to undermine. No longer an open-source tool of liberation, it was now a luxury product, accessible only to the wealthy, the powerful—the ones who had never needed it in the first place.

The media no longer condemned it. Now they celebrated it.

“Chameleon Elite 2.0: The Next Step in Digital Privacy”

Politicians wore it to avoid scrutiny, celebrities used it to curate their images, and corporations installed it as a security measure, rendering identity verification obsolete.

For the masses, surveillance remained. But for those who could afford it, anonymity became the ultimate privilege.

When Irides—now officially and legally Jabari Okoro—was released, there were no cameras, no welcome, no redemption. He stepped into a world that saw him not as a visionary, but as a pariah. The name “Irides” was forbidden. The system had rewritten him as a disgrace, an example of what happens to those who defy Big Other.

He was given nothing. No home, job prospects, or way to escape the fabricated stain on his record. Beaten by vigilantes who still saw him as the villain the state painted him to be, he drifted through the slums, surviving off scraps, sleeping in alleyways lined with discarded holo-ads for Chameleon Elite 2.0.

The irony burned. His creation, meant to free the people, had become the ultimate tool of the elite. The very technology that could have saved him now concealed his oppressors.

The Kidnapping

They came for him in the dark.

Jabari Okoro had been a free man for exactly seven days. Seven days of wandering the edges of a city that no longer recognized him, of existing as a hollowed-out version of himself.

Seven days of watching Chameleon Elite turn his revolution into a commodity, a plaything for the powerful, while the people who had once followed him—who had believed in him—were left to rot under the unblinking eye of Big Other.

He knew he was being watched.

But he hadn’t expected them to take him so quietly.

Then came the boots. The fists. The metal pipe.

He didn’t fight back.

Because he didn’t know if there was anything left to fight for.

The Tower

They dragged him through the skeletal remains of a once-great city, past the ruins of neon-clad alleyways and dead security cameras, past the charred remains of a riot that had meant something before the state twisted it into another cautionary tale.

Upward.

They climbed the last standing tower in Down Man, a crumbling skyscraper that had survived the 2051 fires and the subsequent collapse.

A monument to falling men.

And now, they would add one more.

At the top, the Unseen gathered.

Hoods pulled over their faces.

They were no longer individuals.

They were vengeance made faceless.

They threw him onto the rooftop, the concrete scraping against his torn skin.

No words were exchanged.

They had already passed judgment.

The Breaking Point

The first blow sent his head snapping back.

The second rattled through his ribs.

The third, the fourth, the fifth—he stopped counting.

His body wasn't his anymore.

Just a bag of shattered bones, a puppet being broken apart at the joints.

But the real damage wasn’t to his flesh.

It was to the chip.

A crack. A pulse.

The failing implant inside his skull hiccuped—a brief, shuddering misfire.

Then it rebooted.

White light flooded his vision.

Data scrambled and reassembled in microseconds.

Memories fragmented, reset, reconnected—not the ones the state had forced into him, but the ones they had buried.

The hands striking him belonged to his people—not his enemies.

The ones who had followed Irides—who had whispered his name like a prayer—were the ones about to kill him.

Because they believed the lie.

They believed he was someone else.

And in that instant, he knew the truth.

They had not just erased Irides.

They had weaponized his memory against the very people he had sworn to protect.

Big Other hadn’t needed to destroy him.

They had simply rewritten him.

And the people had done the rest.

His vision snapped into focus.

His mind restructured itself.

And as he spat blood onto the rooftop, the words left his lips before he even realized he was speaking.

“They played us all.”

Irides’ Fall From One World Trade

The wind tore past his face like the scream of history itself.

The sky above—gray, bruised, infinite—offered no comfort.

The jagged ruin of One World Trade had once pierced the clouds, a symbol of resilience, of memory, of the world’s attempt to rebuild. Now it served another purpose.

A sacrificial altar.

The Unseen, once his disciples, now masked executioners, had dragged him to its summit. There was no trial. No final words. Just judgment.

They didn’t see Irides.

They saw Jabari Okoro, the traitor.The liar.The one who bent the revolution into a loop and handed it back to their enemies.

They had stopped believing in faces.

And now, they would offer his body to gravity, in a ritual echo of those who fell in 2001 and again in 2051—those who had no choice but to jump.

This was his penance.

As he fell, the world seemed to slow.

The horizon blurred, the city beneath him warped. His brain chip, already damaged, scrambled in real time—glitching, seizing, rebooting, not in clean lines of code but in thoughts, memories, and questions too large to answer.

What is identity? What was mine? Irides thought in his final fractions of a second.

Who decides what we are?

And how long can control last when people begin to see the wires behind the illusion?

He could feel the flickering threads of Irides—the music, the movement, the face projected in defiance over Fallen Towers Park—beginning to surface.

And the scripted confession of Jabari Okoro fading into a smudge.

The world did not end when Irides fell.

No regime collapsed. No fire rose from the ashes. The towers of Plutopia still pierced the clouds, untouched by the flames of the streets below. The drones still swept their searchlight cones across the dark. The markets opened. The feeds flowed. The algorithms adjusted.

And yet—something had changed.

Down Man remained a ruin in every visible way. Power grids failed more often than they worked. Water ran cold, dirty, and infrequent. The only laws enforced were those of necessity and silence. It was a city that had learned not to speak aloud, because language, like identity, could be used against you.

But beneath that silence, something pulsed.

AYA

They called her Aya, though that name, like all names in Down Man, was only a suggestion. She had no tags, no records, no origin approved by the Identity Bureau.

She was the one watching from below, waiting for Irides to hit the pavement.

She had calculated the trajectory from the wind shear off the skeletal tower. Studied the drone footage leaked in fragments by rogue signal brokers. Mapped it against grainy surveillance from ruined CCTV archives.

She did not cry when they threw him.She did not scream.

She listened. And waited for Irides to land.

And when Irides hit with a thud, she waited some more—as if she expected his ghost might rise and reassemble itself pixel by pixel beneath the flicker of old neon.

When the crowd of masked mourners turned executioners finally dispersed—when the final chants had faded, and the ritual was complete—Aya stepped forward.

Alone. Unhurried. Unafraid.

She moved like someone completing a sacred rite.

She whispered, “We’ve made it such that falling may be the only way to rise. And may you rise again, Irides.”

And there he was at her feet.Crushed. Broken. Half-buried in the debris of his own mythology.A man is no longer just a husk of bone, blood, and legend.

But Aya hadn’t come for his face.His face had lied to the world, whether worn by Irides or Jabari.The face was mutable. A mask. A trick.

She had come for the thing that couldn’t lie.The part of him no state could fully rewrite.

His mind.

With steady fingers, she knelt beside the wreckage of the man they had tried to erase. Not with pity. Not even with reverence.

With precision.

She peeled away what remained of his scalp—torn, charred, glistening with heat—searching beneath the shattered skull until her fingers found it:

The neural core.Fractured, pulsing.Still humming like the dying echo of a song half-remembered.

It was damaged—deeply. But it was not dead.

Not yet.

Aya lifted it free and cradled it like a newborn heart. It was warm against her palm. The heat of memory refusing to vanish.

What are you doing? a voice asked in her mind—her own voice, doubtful, weary.What can you do with a ghost?

She had no answer.

Only this:

They threw down a man.But I’ve found a signal.

This was not an act of resurrection.Not yet.

It was salvage.It was refusal.It was a quiet rebellion against oblivion.

Because when they cast Irides from the tower, they thought the story ended.

But stories like his don’t end.

They scatter.They encode themselves into others.They wait.

And tonight, Aya was no longer waiting.

She slipped the chip into her coat.The body behind her was still.But something new was beginning.

Not a man.Not a leader.A seed.

Irides would not rise again as a man.

That age had passed.

But the codex that had once lived in his mind—part manifesto, part virus, part song—was still alive in fragments. Broken data. Stolen memory. Embedded truths too chaotic for Big Other to digest.

The system believed it had won. It had erased the name.But what it failed to erase was the idea.

The belief that identity, once freed from control, could not be caged again.

The people of Down Man still moved like ghosts. But there was a new kind of whisper in the alleys and between the walls—not one of fear, but of remembering.

Some said they’d heard Irides’ voice in the static between broadcast signals. Others found unauthorized patches in their facial scramblers—code signed with a symbol no one had seen in years: a prism of fractured light, shifting, like oil on water.

They didn’t know where it came from.But some began to smile when they saw it.Some began to wear it again.

Not on their faces.But beneath them.

Hope, in Down Man, was not something you claimed.It was something you passed, quietly, hand to hand, like contraband.Like the chip Aya now guarded.

It was not much.But it was enough.

A whisper.A spark.A seed.

So the struggle continues—one heart at a time.

And in the distant corners of the failing network grid, where no one is supposed to exist, a question still lingers like a pulse:

Who decides what we are?And what happens when we decide for ourselves?

© Michael Arturo, 2025

Read Part One below …

“Down Man 2084” is a Top in Fiction’s selection for Spec-Fict Short Series

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Welcome to Michael’s Newsletter. Writer of contemporary political/social commentary, parodies, parables, satire. Michael was born and raised in New York City and has a background in theater and film. His plays have been staged in New York, London, Boston, and Los Angeles.

Michael also writes short literary fiction.

Down Man

New York has always been a city haunted by its ghosts, and its skyline is a living memory of tragedies that shaped the nation.

On September 11, 2001, the world watched in horror as the Twin Towers collapsed. But for New Yorkers, one image became seared into their collective consciousness: the Falling Man—a lone figure plummeting through the sky, an unspeakable choice captured in a single, haunting photograph.

Fifty years later, on September 11, 2051, history repeated itself. Another attack, this time on One World Trade Center, sent shockwaves through the city. Explosions gutted the tower, and in the chaos, men and women leapt from skyscrapers, their silhouettes hauntingly familiar.

New York fell into a depression unlike anything before.

Lower Manhattan—once the beating heart of global finance and resilience—became something else entirely: a monument to loss, fear, and the fragile nature of human control. The survivors, left to rebuild in the ashes of another catastrophe, gave the district a new name: Down Man.

It was more than a geographical marker.

It was an elegy.

A reminder of the weight of gravity—both physical and historical. The place where men fell, and where hope never fully rose again.

By the 2070s, Down Man had become something else: a shadow city, a place where the forgotten gathered, where the system’s grip loosened just enough for humanity’s frayed edges to reappear. It was a place of refuge for the unpredictable, the nonconforming, the lost and the ungoverned. A lawless labyrinth of ruined skyscrapers, neon-lit alleyways, underground clubs, and defiant whispers.

Irides

Irides was grown, not born—one of the Test Tube Generation of the late 2050s, engineered by a society that had long since declared nature too erratic, too prone to deviation. His parent, a high-ranking cognitive scientist, had sculpted his genome with meticulous precision, embedding within him the latest neural interface—a mind chip designed to optimize cognition, regulate emotion, and ensure his trajectory aligned with the rigid architecture of progress.

His path was determined before he had even taken his first breath.

Yet something had gone wrong.

Or perhaps, something had gone right.

Somewhere in his early teens, the chip was altered—whether by a whisper of rogue code, a glitch in the sequencing, or an act of rebellion by an unseen hand. Whatever the cause, its effect was undeniable. The programming that was meant to mold him into an architect of the system instead unlocked something unpredictable—improvisation, intuition, sound.

While his peers streamlined their minds for efficiency, Irides heard rhythm in the circuits, melody in the data streams, music in the cold, controlled world around him.

By the time he was eighteen, he had vanished from the sterile corridors of the research enclaves. He reappeared in the decaying skeleton of Down Man—a place where the last remnants of human unpredictability still thrived.

There, he became something the system had never intended.

Not just a musician, but an underground legend in Down Man’s neon-lit ruins.

His hands wove across retro-electro keyboards, bending quantum-synced loops into something raw, something human. His music pulsed through the underground clubs like a heartbeat in the dark, a defiant sound against the silence of compliance.

But the city outside those neon sanctuaries was changing. The Compliance Acts had turned identity into a prison, and Big Other watched from every glowing screen, every drone’s unblinking eye.

Then came the night Irides was shot.

He had only stepped outside for air—a small, thoughtless act. But the streets of Down Man were not the streets of old New York. They had become something else—hyper-zoned districts where movement itself was a privilege.

A Sentinel Drone hovered down from the sodium-lit haze, scanning him with the cold precision of an unfeeling algorithm. It should have cleared him. But it hesitated.

Some buried line of code—some decision made beyond human hands—labeled Irides, the synth-musician, as an anomaly.

And then, without warning, it fired.

The shot seared through his side, a glancing burn. But it wasn’t the wound that changed him—it was what it did to the chip in his head.

A catastrophic malfunction. A reboot.

Irides fell to the ground convulsing, his vision fracturing into lines of code, the world around him reduced to raw data. A flood of information poured into his mind—architectures of surveillance networks, security firewalls, identity registries. The music that had once been his only refuge was gone, replaced by something sharper, something deeper.

Patterns. Systems. The invisible threads that held society in its rigid shape.

When he awoke days later, his hands no longer moved the same way. The dexterity that had once let him dance across synth boards had been shattered. The music had left him. But in its place, something new had emerged.

A gift. A curse. A path.

He no longer heard melodies in the circuits. He saw them.

The architecture of control, the latticework of surveillance—he could read them as if they were compositions.

And in this forced rebirth, he discovered the Chameleon Code.

The mind chip, once a leash, had become a gateway. The forced reboot had unlocked layers of encryption, hidden capabilities buried deep in its neural mesh. Irides saw the flaw in the system—the loophole they had overlooked in their arrogance.

As defined by the state, identity was nothing more than a dataset, a series of coordinates in a shifting digital landscape. It was not real.

And what is not real can be rewritten.

Through the underground networks of Down Man, Irides began to experiment. He developed the first iteration of Chameleon Tech—a protocol that could rewrite a person’s biometric signature in real time. Facial recognition scanners, retinal scans, and gait analysis could all be overridden or changed, like shifting frequencies in a song.

He tested it first on himself.

The results were undeniable.

One moment, he was Irides, the musician who had been branded an anomaly. The next, he was an unremarkable worker, passing through security checkpoints unnoticed. Then he was an old man. Then a woman. Then someone who had never existed at all.

The music had left him, but now, he was playing a different instrument.

A new kind of revolution.

A war fought not with weapons, but with identity itself.

He no longer needed to run.

He could simply become someone else.

The Chameleon Uprising

By 2084, Big Other had transformed the world into a digital feudal state. Every citizen was tracked, categorized, assigned a place in the machine. But Chameleon Tech had changed the game.

Irides had become more than a man—he was a myth, a ghost in the system. They had tried to erase him before, but how do you erase someone who can become anyone?

And now, he stood before the crowd in Fallen Towers Park, his holographic projection towering above them. The glow reflected in their eager eyes, flickering like the last embers of a dying firestorm.

“Big Other has divided us for too long,” he declared. “They have sold us fear, broken our unity, and told us to accept our fate. No more.”

He activated the Chameleon App. His appearance shifted—White, Black, old, young, male, female, something in between. Every iteration of identity flickered before them. The crowd gasped, then roared.

“We are no longer prisoners of identity,” he said. “We are Chameleons. And we will not be othered.”

The march began, surging through Down Man like a tidal wave. The unseen, the forgotten, the discarded—now visible, undeniable, unstoppable.

But as they reached Plutopia Plaza, the trap was sprung.

The riot police moved in, faceless in their unmarked armor. Surveillance drones circled overhead, their sensors calibrating. The corporate news anchors’ voices echoed from the towering screens above:

“The so-called Chameleon uprising has reached Plutopia Plaza. Authorities have identified its leader as Jabari Okoro, a fugitive hacker wanted for cyber crimes against the state.”

The system’s final weapon.

A lie.

An erasure.

Surveillance is not about security. It is about control.

And control is not about force. It is about perception.

Big Other perfected its greatest weapon for decades—not violence, but the illusion of truth. It did not need to crush revolutions with brute force. It only needed to convince people they had never begun in the first place.

This was how they dismantled Chameleon.

This was how they turned identity against itself.

But Chameleon’s strength—its fluidity, its ability to transform—was also its weakness.

If identity could be anything, then identity could also be nothing.

Big Other understood this. And so they played the ultimate shell game.

They manufactured a past for Irides.

They named him Jabari Okoro—a fabricated criminal, a digital phantom inserted into the system’s records. They constructed a paper trail that had never existed before, filling it with just enough truth to make the lie irresistible.

A low-level hacker. A fugitive with a history of cyber crimes. A radical seeking anarchy, not liberation.

And when they revealed this "truth" to the world, they did not attack Irides directly.

They attacked his followers.

They planted the seed of doubt.

And the momentum stalled.

Not because the people feared the authorities.

But because they feared the possibility that they had been deceived.

They had built their movement on the idea that identity was fluid, that it was a choice, that no single name or face defined them. But now, that very philosophy had been twisted into a weapon against them.

If Irides could be anyone…

If names were nothing more than illusions…

Then what proof did they have that their leader—their myth, their hero—had not been a lie all along?

Big Other had turned Chameleon’s own ideology against itself.

This was not a new trick. The machine had always operated this way.

In a world where every face was scanned, where every movement was tracked, the ones who controlled identity controlled reality itself.

They had erased people before—not by making them disappear, but by replacing them.

They had turned radicals into criminals.They had turned truth-tellers into conspiracy theorists.They had turned history into a flickering mirage, shifting at their command.

Now, they used the same tactic to break Chameleon from within.

They did not need to kill Irides.

They only needed his followers to question him.

Because once the seed of doubt is planted, once the movement begins fighting itself, the battle is already lost.

This was Big Other’s great irony—that for all of Irides’ efforts to make identity free, it was the system that had mastered its fluidity.

And so, the crowd wavered.

The unity they had built, the revolution they had dreamed of—it all began to crack.

Was Irides their liberator?

Or was he just another mask?

Revolution does not die when the enemy attacks from the outside.

It dies when the people start questioning whether they were ever fighting the right war.

He stepped forward, standing beneath the blinding holographic screens. His voice rang out, defiant:

"This is their lie. They use my past to bury our future."

But the machine had already set its plan in motion.

The first flashbang exploded.

The storm collapsed into chaos.

end of part one

© Michael Arturo, 2025

“Down Man 2084” was featured as Top in Fiction’s selected short series

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Welcome to Michael’s Newsletter. Writer of contemporary political/social commentary, parodies, parables, satire. Michael was born and raised in New York City and has a background in theater and film. His plays have been staged in New York, London, Boston, and Los Angeles.

Michael also writes short literary fiction. Below is a link to his first collection.

FLATIRON and other tall tales

Leonard Greaves had always believed in the sanctity of records. For over four decades, he meticulously archived the city's history within the labyrinthine halls of the New York Chronicle. Now, at 72, retired and ailing, he found himself surrounded by the very artifacts he once curated—newspapers, microfilms, and clippings that chronicled the relentless march of time.​

His apartment in Hell's Kitchen mirrored his mind: cluttered, organized chaos, where every item had its place and purpose. The neighborhood, once gritty and unforgiving, had softened over the years, but Leonard remained unchanged—a relic of a bygone era.​

On this particular evening, as the sun dipped below the horizon, Leonard sat hunched over his microfilm reader. The soft whirring of the machine was a comforting lullaby, a constant in an ever-changing world. He fed the film through the reader, eyes narrowing as the headlines from decades past flickered before him.​

But something was amiss.​

He paused, scrolling back to a headline that shouldn't exist:​

"Terror Strikes Twin Towers: Thousands Feared Dead"​

The date read: September 11, 1998.

He blinked. Scrolled again. Checked the date twice, then three times.

It wasn’t a formatting error. The issue layout matched the Chronicle's standard edition from that period. The byline belonged to a reporter he remembered fondly, long dead from cancer. There was even an image: one of the towers collapsing, grainy and gray.

Leonard gripped the edge of the table.

In 2001, he had been in Midtown, standing outside the Chronicle building when the sky tore open. The smoke, the dust, the smell. That was real. He knew it. And yet—this version claimed it happened three years earlier. A full article. A timeline. Quotes from witnesses, fire chiefs, mayoral statements. All of it.

He rubbed his eyes and walked a slow circle around his apartment, mumbling to himself. His place—cramped, cluttered, quiet—offered no explanation. Just towers of yellowing clippings, shelves of labeled microfilm, file folders stretching back to the Ford administration.

He searched for surrounding stories, the days before and after the 1998 article. Nothing unusual. No corrections. No retractions. But the more he looked, the more inconsistencies revealed themselves: a bombing in Jerusalem that he remembered as 2003 appeared dated 1996. A subway derailment he could’ve sworn happened in 1989 was now listed in 1991.

He sat down. Stood up again. Paced.

At the New York Chronicle, he was the man who caught the details before they became disasters. Misplaced datelines, inverted headlines, captions that didn't match their photographs—Leonard spotted them all. In the newsroom, he was half archivist, half oracle, with a memory so precise his editors trusted him over the masthead.

“You don’t miss a thing, Greaves,” his managing editor once told him, clapping a hand on his shoulder. “You’re the last line of defense between the truth and a typo.”

But nothing in his decades of work had prepared him for this.

In an act of desperate logic, Leonard turned to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing—the first attack. He remembered it clearly. Six people dead, a truck bomb in the garage. He had clipped and archived those stories himself.

He checked the reels.

Nothing.

Not a mention. Not a headline. Not even a weather report for that week. The gap was silent, like someone had cut it clean out of the record.

Then the lights in his grim little apartment flickered.

He froze.

A moment passed. The generator he’d installed—buried somewhere under old stereo boxes and city permits—hadn’t kicked in. Not yet.

And then the apartment fell into darkness.

Leonard cursed and fumbled for a flashlight. He couldn’t find it. The backup batteries were gone, the drawer empty. He moved through the dark like a man underwater, bumping into his own archives.

Outside, he heard a door creak open—soft footsteps in the hallway.

“Anyone there? What happened to the lights?”

Then a neighbor’s voice, sweet and low:

“Leonard? Is that you?”

Leonard froze.

“Who’s that—Louis? Louis, is that you?”

“Leonard, the whole city’s out!”

“Blackout? Oh, Jesus, I thought I was going crazy. Louis, thank God you’re here!”

Leonard squinted into the dark. A faint beam of cell phone light illuminated the figure of Louis—or rather, Loretta, dressed in a shimmering lavender blouse, black slacks, and a matching clutch purse tucked beneath her arm.

Her makeup was done with precision—lipstick, false lashes, contour. She was beautiful, poised, entirely herself. But every time Leonard saw her like this, he felt a curious dissonance, as if the hallway were a mirror turned sideways.

“Oh. You’re dressed,” Leonard said, breathless. “You scared me.”

She stepped closer, the phone casting ghostlights across her cheekbones. “You can call me Louis, I don’t mind. Was just heading out when the blackout hit,” she said. “Lost my phone signal. Thought I heard your door.”

Leonard squinted, “The whole city’s out? When did this happen?”

“Just now.” Loretta tilted her head, smiling gently.

He managed a nod. “Oh my God! Well, listen: help me find my generator, would you? It’ll only take a minute.”

Together, they fumbled through his stacks, shoulder to shoulder. Leonard barked directions; Loretta ignored them and found the unit in five minutes flat. Once the generator sputtered to life, dim emergency lights returned to the room. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to see each other.

Leonard, grateful and shaken, gestured toward the kitchen.

“No one’s going anywhere until the city figures this out. Do you want something? I’ll make tea.”

They sat at the small table, mismatched mugs in hand. A candle flickered between them, casting long, slow-moving shadows on the wall.

“Ever been in a blackout like this before?” she asked.

“Oh yeah. Twice, maybe three times, I think. 2003 was the last one,” Leonard replied. “New York was down all night.”

Loretta chuckled. “You mean 2000?”

“2000?”

“The millennial blackout? You don’t remember?’

“Oh, yeah, yeah, of course. When was that?”

“2000.”

“Yeah, I know. But when precisely?” He frowned. “I’m sorry; what do you take with your tea?”

“Nothing, plain. Thank you. Anyway, that blackout—I was ten,” she said, laughing slightly. “Living in Ohio with my parents. Saw it on the news. We thought the world was ending.”

Leonard said nothing. Took a sip of tea.

She noticed.

“What?” she asked.

“No, no, no. I was recalling … when …” Leonard’s voice trailed off as he stirred his tea. “Listen, um, Louis, I didn’t mean to, um, insult you before by calling you Louis.”

“You’re not insulting me. You know me as Louis. We’ve been neighbors for a while, Leonard. Come on.”

“Well, all right. You pass … very well.”

“Thank you. I work at it.”

“Oh. Well, Loretta.”

“Yes, Leonard?”

“Nice to have a little company during a blackout. Wonder how everyone else in the building is doing.”

Loretta looked around the place, “Wow, you’re quite a collector.”

“Yeah, did you know? Maybe I’ve never told you, I’m a … I worked for the New York Chronicle; the paper went under a few years ago.”

“I never heard of it.”

“Well, that’s what you see all around you here.” Leonard gestured vaguely at the stacked microfilm reels, the paper towers leaning like exhausted sentinels. “Catalogues. Dates. Clippings. Back issues. It looks like a mess, but I know where everything is. I spend most of my time going back. Checking for accuracy.”

He gave a short, bitter laugh.“This is what I do. It passes the time.”

Loretta gave him a smile—not amused, not pitying, just present. That was what made her different. She didn’t fill silence with noise. She listened like someone who’d had to fight to be heard.

Leonard hesitated, then asked: “Do you remember… the attack on the World Trade Center?”

She blinked. “Who doesn’t? You mean 9/11, right?”

“Yeah.”

“I was about eight or so. I watched it in homeroom. The teacher rolled the TV cart in. We didn’t even understand what we were looking at.”

Leonard’s face paled.

“So you’re saying you remember that before the blackout?”

“You mean in 2000?” she asked. “Sure. I was a kid, but yeah.”

Leonard’s tea rattled slightly in his hand.

“Leonard…” she said softly. “What’s wrong?”

He shook his head. “Nothing. Just… my memory.”

“You sure?”

He stared down into the tea like it could offer him a clue. “I had a good one. At the Chronicle, they trusted me to remember what the rest forgot. Dates. Layouts. When someone else couldn’t find the thread, they came to me. My mind was the vault.” He tapped his temple gently. “It was the only thing I had that was… sharp.”

Loretta took a sip and leaned back, relaxing her posture.

“Tell me about yourself,” Leonard said, changing his tone.

“I came to the city when I was twenty-one,” she said. “Worked coat check at a cabaret on 10th. A s**t-hole, really! They used to call me ‘darling’ and let me borrow dresses after hours. I’d walk home like that. Past cops. Past drunks. Past old men who looked at me with a kind of confused wonder.”

Leonard smiled faintly. “Like you’d stepped out of a dream?”

“Or into one.”

He nodded slowly, staring into the soft flicker of the candle between them.“You’d have loved New York before Giuliani cleaned it up. Before Bloomberg handed it over to the bankers. It was dirty. Raw. You could still vanish in it. In some ways …”

He trailed off.

Loretta cocked her head. “In some ways—what?”

Leonard’s voice was low, more breath than speech.

“We called men who cross-dressed transvestites.”

“Who did?”

“I did. Everyone did.”

A silence expanded between them before Leonard spoke.

“There was a place here in Hell’s Kitchen. The Mercury Lounge. Working class during the week, then on the weekends, something different. One Saturday night, I was … I met someone. And we fell into conversation.”

Leonard suddenly stopped, “I thought she was a woman.”

“Oh, interesting.”

“Yeah, maybe. I don’t know. We drank, we talked politics. She was brilliant. Confident. And she looked at me like she could see something worth keeping.”

“What happened?”

“I kissed her,” he said, eyes glassy. “I didn’t mean to. Or maybe I did. And she didn’t stop me. Not at first. Later… I don’t remember if it was before or after, but she told me her name wasn’t what she’d said. That she wasn’t what I thought.”

Loretta was still. Her expression unreadable.

“I left,” he continued. “Panicked. Didn’t ask her real name. Just walked out like a goddamn coward. Like she’d shown me something sacred, and I spat on it.”

Silence expanded between them.

“You wanted to stay,” Loretta said gently. “But you didn’t know how.”

“Yes,” he whispered. “And I’ve been trying to rewrite it ever since.”

Their eyes met.

She touched his hand across the table—warm, deliberate, genuine.

“That night didn’t disappear just because you walked away.”

He nodded slowly.

But something in him changed—like a current turning under still water.

“What if that night was the break?” he said, voice cracking. “What if that moment rewrote everything after it?”

Loretta’s brows drew down slightly.

“What do you mean ‘rewrote’?”

He stared at her now—not at her dress or makeup or the softness in her voice—but through her. Like he was seeing something overlaid on her skin.

“Does that mean you did follow her?” she asked cautiously.

His mouth opened, then closed.

He rubbed his eyes with the heel of his hand. The tension in the room thickened, but not from anger from recognition. A corner turned inward.

“When you spend your life organizing history, the last thing you want is a memory you can’t place,” he murmured.

Loretta tilted her head. “What are you saying?”

Leonard didn’t answer right away. He stood, walked over to his desk, and stared at the blank screen of his microfilm reader as if something might return to it. Then he exhaled slowly, eyes still fixed forward.

“I’ve been chasing inconsistencies,” he said. “Dates that don’t match. Events that don’t exist. Things I know happened… but are gone from the record.”

Loretta shifted in her seat, her demeanor softening slightly—until Leonard finally turned to her, and there was something new in his expression. Not just confusion but dread.

“I think it started with her,” he whispered. “That night. I don’t mean her personally. I mean what I did, what I didn’t do. I filed that night away like a mistake. But it wasn’t. It was… it was real. And I think the world punished me for burying it.”

Loretta didn’t interrupt.

Leonard stood again, slowly walking to the microfilm cabinet. He opened it, pulled a reel, and slid it in. The machine sputtered, flickered, and then steadied.

He scrolled in silence.

Then stopped.

“I saw the headline,” he said.

He looked at Loretta, eyes distant, voice dry and cold.

“The Towers. 1998. Not 2001. It’s a real article. In my files.”

He looked back to the screen.

“And now you’re telling me the blackout was 2000. Not 2003, like I remember. And the ’93 bombing? It’s gone. Like it never happened.”

He backed away, almost dazed.

“I thought I was chasing the past. But it’s chasing me. Rearranging itself. Hiding what doesn’t fit.”

He looked to Loretta as if she might confirm it. Instead, she just watched him with a quiet, tightening concern.

Leonard's breath hitched.

“The record is wrong,” he whispered.“Everything is wrong.”

Loretta pulled her hand back. Her voice cooled. “Leonard, what are you talking about?”

“No,” he snapped, rising. “You’re the one not remembering!”

“Maybe you’re just a little confused,” she said.

“And maybe you’re part of it, Louis!” he hissed. “You and her. You’re the same, aren’t you? You both wore the face of truth! But when I looked underneath—there was nothing there!”

Loretta rose slowly, jaw clenched. Her voice was steady but dark now.

“Leonard.”

“I kissed a lie,” he spat. “Thirty years ago. One time, that’s it! And then, something changed. The world’s been lying to me ever since!”

Loretta took a step back. “You kissed a person.”

“She wasn’t real.”

“You mean she wasn’t what you expected,” Loretta shot back. “That doesn’t make her fiction.” Loretta took a beat and then, “Did you have sex with her?”

“No! How dare you ask that?!”

“It sounds to me like something more happened!” Loretta spat.

Leonard staggered back toward the microfilm machine, panic flaring. The reel jammed. The screen flickered. He banged his fist against the casing, hard.

“You’re all frauds!” he shouted. “Every one of you!”

Loretta stepped closer, eyes hard. “You don’t get to erase people just because you’re afraid of what they show you.”

He turned on her, wild.

“What the hell do you know? You’re just a man in a wig!”

“And you’re a man drowning in your own lies.”

The microfilm reader went black.

And Leonard was left staring at his own reflection in the blank screen—fragile, shaking, half-erased.

The screen, thought dead, gave a mechanical groan. A soft flicker—then static. Leonard flinched. Loretta stood still, her eyes locked on him.

Then, slowly, a headline scrolled into view:

“MURDER IN HELL’S KITCHEN: MERCURY LOUNGE ENTERTAINER FOUND SLAIN”

Date: March 1993.

Leonard froze.

Below the headline was a photo—grainy, black and white—of a police cordon outside the Mercury Lounge. A name he vaguely remembered surfaced in the byline. Details blurred at the edges: suspect at large. The article ended mid-sentence as if it had been yanked from the page.

He staggered backward.

“No…” he said, barely audible. “No, that’s not—this can’t be!”

His hands trembled as he reached for the microfilm knob. He scrolled back and forth. The story remained. Glued to the screen like a wound that wouldn’t close.

Loretta stepped cautiously around the table. “Leonard?”

He turned on her with a suddenness that made her stop mid-step.

“You brought this,” he said. “Your being here—this—it rewrote the file.”

She blinked. “What are you talking about?”

He jabbed a finger at the screen. “This never happened. None of this happened! Not until you showed up. I didn’t kill her!”

Loretta frowned. “Leonard—”

“Don’t say my name like that.”

Her voice was firmer. “You think I control your machine? You think my being here conjures headlines?”

He pointed at her, desperate, unraveling. “You’re not just here. You’re part of this.”

In one jagged motion, Leonard stepped forward and ripped the wig from Loretta’s head, sending strands of styled auburn cascading to the floor.

“Louis,” he spat.

She recoiled.

“You’re not a woman. You’re just another lie! And now I have you here, trapped.”

Loretta stumbled backward as Leonard lunged. He was faster than he had any right to be—gripped not by strength but by something ancient and unspent, the kind of rage that outlives reason.

She grabbed for anything—a stack of files, a wobbling shelf—toppling a paper tower that collapsed like a broken ledger between them.

Leonard tripped, crashing into the debris of his life’s work. He grunted, knees splintering, as he crawled through the wreckage like a man clawing out of his own grave.

Loretta stood over him now, breathing hard. Her voice was shaking, but her aim was steady.

“I have you trapped, Leonard. And you’re going to confess to what you did.”

Leonard raised his head, blood in his eyes, his mouth trembling somewhere between laughter and a snarl.

“Confess to what?”

She stepped forward, towering over him.

“The police never even questioned you. Why would they? No one cared about men like her. Not in Hell’s Kitchen! When the Chronicle folded, you thought it would be the end of it. You never knew her name,” Loretta whispered, “but you remember her smile. The way she touched your hand. She saw you. Not the files, not the facts—you. You were never more afraid in your life.”

Leonard shook his head. His hands searched the floor for something—balance, maybe. Or denial.

“She waited for you outside that night. The bar was closing. She leaned on the lamppost like a question you didn’t want to answer. You don’t remember following her. You don’t remember what you said. But you remember… the sound her body made when it hit the alley floor.”

Leonard shook his head slowly. “It’s not true; it’s all a lie! I left her!”

“You left her alright; you left her dead.”

Her voice cracked, but she didn’t stop.

“You spent decades trying to file it away—like a misprint in the margins. Thought if you buried her deep enough, history would forget her too.”

Leonard whimpered, crawling closer.

“But she didn’t stay buried.”

Loretta’s breath was sharp now.

“She keeps resurfacing. In headlines that don’t exist. In files that rearrange themselves. In voices, you can’t silence. And now—”

He looked up at her, hollow, eyes shining.

“You see her in me,” she said.

Loretta nodded. Her eyes were no longer filled with pity—but something colder, resolute.

And then—

The lights returned. The city-wide Blackout was over.

The lights in Leonard’s cramped apartment blinked on all at once—kitchen, hallway, overhead—a sudden flood of electric daylight that stunned the room out of shadow.

Leonard gasped and looked up, caught in the shock of light. His pupils narrowed like an animal before the blade. His mouth opened. His hand clutched his chest.

“Too late,” he rasped. “It’s too late for the truth. Far too late.”

And then, he collapsed sideways with a final exhale, like a building folding into dust, his breath cut short and silent.

A long moment passed.

And the microfilm reader blinked once—just once—a brief blue flicker. Then it faded to black.

The room was still again.

Only Loretta remained standing, her torn blouse trembling at her ribs, strands of hair clinging to her damp brow. She looked down at Leonard’s body—not as a victor, not as a witness, but as the last living page in a long-forgotten archive.

And in that moment, with the machines silenced and the light returned,

the record was finally complete.

In the days that followed, the newspapers would carry an account of Leonard Greaves’ passing. They reported he had stumbled in the dark during the brief city-wide blackout and died of a heart attack. He was found by a neighbor who came to check on him. No other information was forthcoming.

© Michael Arturo, 2025

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Michael Arturo writes fiction, contemporary political/social commentary, parodies, parables, satire. Michael was born and raised in New York City and has a background in theater and film. His plays have been staged in New York, London, Boston, and Los Angeles.

Not long ago, I found myself in a forgotten friend’s loft, unsure of how I had arrived. The place felt more like the ruins of an obsession than someone’s home. Paintings were scattered with reckless abandon—against walls, windows, furniture, and across the floor as if the space had surrendered itself to them. Each canvas pulsed with color, fractured yet deliberate, a chaotic hymn to one of New York’s most iconic landmarks: the Flatiron Building—which loomed like a ghost outside the loft’s floor-to-ceiling windows.

Minutes stretched, then folded in on themselves, as I wandered between the canvases. An hour slipped, maybe two; I had no idea how much time had passed.

All the while, the artist, Jerry Greenberg, stood over my shoulder, breathing through his nose like a bull that had just crossed the finish line at Pamplona. This was his life’s work, a syncopation of otherworldly retro-futurism, a pandemonium entirely his own.

Greenberg himself was a paradoxical chap. His wealth afforded him the luxury of masquerading as a bohemian, yet he lived like a king, with a king-sized view of the Flatiron. He was the sort who craved fame yet despised its superficiality. The sort who saw himself as misunderstood yet took pride in just how misunderstood he was.

For him, art transcended Warhol’s quip, “Art is what you can get away with.” Each brushstroke carried existential weight—a puzzle he alone was destined to solve. The toll of this pursuit was etched in his scowl, a silent testament to his simmering frustration. He was a character, strutting about in a full-length paint-splatted smock, a wool scarf an old girlfriend had knitted, and a pair of Converse high-tops.

"I don’t recall ever seeing anything so familiar, yet so utterly strange," I admitted, my voice barely more than a whisper. It was as if I had stepped into a memory I had never lived—something known, yet unknowable. The paintings, the Flatiron beyond the window, even the air itself felt charged with a presence I couldn't quite place, as if I were witnessing something I had seen a thousand times before but was only now truly seeing for the first time.

Greenberg’s lips curled into a secretive smile.

“I paint only the Flatiron,” he said. “It’s all I see. It’s all I want to see. And to truly see the Flatiron, I must see it for the first time every time.”

My connection to Greenberg was a passing chapter in a New York minute—our acquaintance a byproduct of his ties to Alex Alessi, my forgotten friend.

I hadn’t seen Alex in years. At some point, I’d realized I must have sought him out on a whim earlier in the day. I suppose I had nothing better to do than to be carried by the city’s timeless pulse, but Alex wasn’t there when I arrived. He was just a name lingering on the intercom.

“Alex is gone. Where have you been?” Greenberg sneered after he answered the door and gave me the once over.

It was one of those New York things—time passing unnoticed until, all at once, it was apparent. I recalled a New Year’s Eve Party here. I thought then the loft’s floor-to-ceiling windows that framed the Flatiron precisely seemed fated to be an artist’s muse.

“Most people think they’re looking at an optical illusion,” Greenberg said of his work. “But even that’s not real.”

“You mean the illusion itself is an illusion?”

“I’m saying I’m not sure if what exists outside my window is even there.”

“No, it’s there. I just walked past it,” I said unsure if Greenberg was half-joking.

“Don’t patronize me,” he said dead serious.

“I was on my way here, and I looked up at it—”

“—and your mind registered it as the Flatiron, because it always has.”

“I then walked by it. Crossed the street.”

Greenberg shook his head. “You may have thought you walked by it.”

“What do you mean?”

“Of course, you walked by it—millions of people do. But don’t pretend you can see something that isn’t there.”

I let out a laugh. “I’m not following. Are you saying consciousness itself… is an illusion?”

“Yes, but I can’t speak for you.”

I sighed. “The illusion of the Flatiron isn’t that it isn’t there. It’s that it’s flat.”

Greenberg’s eyes flickered. “How would you know that?”

“I can see it with my own eyes!”

“Have you ever been on the other side?”

“Of course I have.”

“At the same time?”

I frowned. “That’s impossible.”

“Is it?”

“You’re either on one side or the other.”

“Then tell me—which side were you on? The long side? Or the short?”

I hesitated. I had no idea.

“To some, the Flatiron is a 12-5-13 Pythagorean triangle,” he continued. “A long side. A short side. So? Which side were you on?”

“How would I know?”

“Ah. Now we’re getting somewhere! If you don’t even know which side you were on, how can you be certain there is another side? To some, it’s a triangle. To others—a flat, one-sided structure that exists only in theory. And if it only exists in theory, how can anyone be sure it exists at all?”

At the risk of sounding like a tramp in a Beckett play, I responded accordingly. “Forget how many sides there are—or aren’t. If I walked by it, and millions of others walked by it—but it isn’t there—then what do you see when you look out your window?”

Greenberg took a moment, nodding as if I had just proven his point.

“Let’s say the mind registers it as real. Or maybe as something that appears real—like a rainbow.”

“But we’re not talking about a rainbow!”

“Which is why it’s worse! A rainbow at least acknowledges its own fraudulence! The Flatiron just stands there, pretending to be real!”

I let his absurd notion linger.

“Are you saying the Flatiron Triangle is New York’s version of the Bermuda Triangle?”

“No, jackass,” Greenberg snapped. “I’m saying I paint the Flatiron to prove to myself that it’s there.”

Greenberg saw metaphors in everything—graffiti-covered walls, discarded objects, the Flatiron itself. And he expected the rest of us to, as well.

“You ever read up on Pataphysics? The science of imaginary solutions?”

“Sounds like pretentious b******t.”

“Exactly! It’s the most sophisticated pretentious b******t ever conceived! It’s the paradox of contradictions! The science of imaginary solutions! The answers to problems no one asked! It’s a system built to explain the unexplainable, measure what can’t be measured, and solve what doesn’t need solving.”

Greenberg’s words hung in the air, heavy with meaninglessness.

The concept of imaginary solutions sounded like a smokescreen conjured by a delusional postmodern conman. Then again, an imaginary solution only suggests the possibility of an alternate one—and an alternate one does not necessarily negate a valid one.

The Flatiron itself seemed to whisper that every story had at least three sides. Was it a building? An idea? A shape people accepted without question? A long side, a short side, a hypotenuse—the mind registered its geometry without hesitation. But to stand on both sides at once? Impossible. As such, the Flatiron could be, in theory, both real and unreal.

Greenberg studied me, then changed the subject. “Wanna get high?”

I smirked. “I assumed you were already high.”

“Don’t be cute. Do you wanna get f****n’ high or not?”

I didn’t answer. He took that as a yes.

I came looking for someone else, an old friend. And you know what they say when you begin dredging up the past. You wind up chasing ghosts. So there I was, feeling very much like a ghost myself, who, by looking for one ghost, ended up being entertained by another ghost.

We sat among his canvases, the air thick with the scent of oil paint and turpentine. Greenberg lit the bong, inhaled deeply, and exhaled a cloud that curled toward the ceiling.

“I thought you and Alessi had a rift,” he muttered.

“I wouldn’t call it a rift. Things were said. We drifted apart.”

“So it was a drift, not a rift?”

“He was successful early on. I was struggling. You know how that goes.”

“Well, I have no idea where he is. Off to find himself, I guess. Europe, Asia, South America—he could be anywhere.”

“What’s his name still doing on the intercom downstairs?”

“He never officially moved out.”

“So, do you sublet from him?”

Greenberg sighed. “Yo, this is New York. People like to be left alone. They don’t want bounty hunters coming after them.”

“I’m just asking. Alessi and I were close once.”

Greenberg waved a hand dismissively. “Look, Alessi’s got more money than God, and I’ve got more money than God. Do the math.”

At that moment, amidst the canvases and clutter, I made a connection with Greenberg that defied explanation—a connection forged through the unending quest to understand what more money than God actually meant.

I leaned against a table. Greenberg, who had more money than God, lounged on a battered sofa that bore the weight of restless nights and, quite frankly, smelled funky even at a distance.

A stack of dog-eared philosophy books sat on the floor beside him. He took another hit.

“We never really hung out, did we?” Greenberg said, blowing smoke.

“I was the one lurking at Alex’s get-togethers. I always wanted to open an art gallery.”

Greenberg squinted at me. “I remember you now. But not quite.”

“Nice to be remembered for not being remembered.”

“Funny. You remind me of Alex. Both of you are sarcastic as f**k.”

“Alex was going to back me.”

“The art gallery?”

“Yeah. But it was just talk, I suppose.”

Greenberg studied me, then asked, “How close were you with Alex?”

“Inseparable, once upon a time.” I hesitated. “Did Alex ever tell you the story about his great-grandfather? He worked construction on the Flatiron.”

Greenberg exhaled, rubbing a hand over his face. “Alex’s great-grandfather,” he repeated, as if weighing the name. His usual sharpness wavered, replaced by something more introspective. “I don’t know, man. If this is some Ellis Island tale, I’m not sure what it has to do with—” He stopped himself, sighing. “Go on.”

I studied him, surprised. “Only if you’re really interested in imaginary solutions.”

Greenberg sat up. I nodded, choosing my words carefully.

“For Alex’s great-grandfather, the Flatiron wasn’t just a building. Laying its foundation, carving its bones—it was an immigrant’s rite of passage, proof that he belonged here. But somewhere along the way, the story of what happened during the construction of the Flatiron shifted—got twisted and blurred. I’m talking about the deaths of dozens of immigrant laborers. That never happened.”

Greenberg watched me closely now, “I’m not interested in something that never happened.”

Greenberg took a deep breath and softened. “I didn’t mean to be an a*****e. Jews, Italians—we all have stories, we all have scars.” His voice dropped. “Half my mother’s family was wiped out in Auschwitz.”

I felt the weight of it. “I’m sorry.”

“But that happened.”

Silence settled between us.

I shifted in my seat. “You ever hear about the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire? 1911. One hundred forty-six people, mostly women, trapped. Killed.”

Greenberg exhaled sharply. “Yeah, I have. Horrific.”

I hesitated. “Alex’s great-grandfather told his grandfather, who told his father, who told Alex, that men were buried alive during the Flatiron’s construction in 1902.”

Greenberg’s expression changed. His usual air of detachment wavered.

“The Triangle Shirtwaist fire was front-page news,” I continued. “But there’s no record of workers being buried alive while constructing the Flatiron.”

Greenberg held my gaze for a long moment. He turned slowly toward the Flatiron, as if waiting for it to offer an answer.

I pressed on. “Alex’s great-grandfather didn’t speak English. His grandfather barely made it out of grade school. So whatever was passed down—through the generations—might have been a misinterpretation of events.”

Greenberg’s jaw tightened. “It either happened, or it didn’t. No language barrier can misinterpret one for the other.”

“That’s what Alex thought. He spent weeks reviewing old newspapers and historical records. The Fuller Building, as it was originally called, never reported an accident that killed anyone.”

A flicker of something crossed Greenberg’s face—not skepticism, but recognition.

“So you’re saying the old man mistook the Waistcoat Factory fire for—wait a minute,” he said, his voice suddenly unsteady. “I’ve had nightmares about this. Recurring nightmares. I’ve had these nightmares even before I started living here. And since living here …”

He stood, his movements sharp, agitated. “No. I think Alessi’s great-grandfather saw something.”

A cold weight settled in my chest. “What are you saying?”

Greenberg raked a hand through his hair, his breath uneven. “I don’t know. I don’t f*****g know. But I swear on my soul—I’ve seen what he —”

The room felt smaller. Tighter.

“Who sent you here?” Greenberg snapped, out of the blue.

The question cut through me like a blade.

What was I doing here? And why was I remembering all of this now?

“I told you—I came to visit Alex.”

Greenberg shook his head, eyes unfocused. “I’m having an out-of-body experience. I dreamt this. It’s like you’re burrowing into my head and pulling it out!”

He spun, clutching his skull. “I might even be dreaming right now! Don’t go anywhere—I need to show you something.”

He rushed across the loft, rifling through a rack of unfinished paintings.

“This is my nightmare.”

He yanked out a painting and turned it toward me.

I went cold.

The image was uncannily precise—mourners or laborers, or some combination of both, dressed in black frocks, standing over mounds of sand and ash.

A trench. A collapse. A burial.

Greenberg’s voice had dropped to a whisper. “Tell me I’m a madman! But I’ve seen this in my dreams! It happens the same way every time. A trench caves in. Immigrant workers, buried alive. Their muffled screams, the suffocating dirt.”

He swallowed. “And then I hear music.”

I barely breathed. “Music?”

“Dancing. Singing. It’s New Year’s Eve at midnight.”

I shivered.

“There was a ballroom in the basement of the Flatiron when it opened,” he continued. “They were buried beneath the ballroom.”

He looked at me now, his face pale, his certainty terrifying.

“Then I wake up, go to the window, and see nothing but a mound of sand and ash.”

The room seemed to tilt.

Greenberg collapsed onto the battered sofa. He grabbed the bong and took a long, slow hit, exhaling through his nose like a man trying to calm himself down.

I stared at him, his paintings, and the Flatiron beyond the window.

A story passed down through generations—one that history had either erased or never recorded at all. Real or imagined. And if imagined—for what purpose?

And yet, I felt its presence.

Just as one could see the Flatiron in different ways—either as a triumph of architecture or a monument to an untold tragedy.

A triangle with long and short sides.

It’s all about perspective.

Greenberg let out a breath, voice softer now. “Nice to be remembered for not being remembered.”

I blinked. “What?”

“What you said before. ‘It’s nice to be remembered for not being remembered.’ I like that. I might have use for it somewhere. Do you mind? I’ll give you credit. What did you say your name was again?”

I hesitated. Then, quietly: “I didn’t say. Best to be an unknown than being never remembered.”

As I left Greenberg’s loft, I asked him to call me if Alex ever reappeared.

“Maybe we’ll all go out for dinner,” I suggested.

Greenberg scoffed. “I haven’t been to dinner since the Twin Towers collapsed.”

Outside, I looked up at his windows from the sidewalk, trying to see what Greenberg saw. Then I turned to the Flatiron.

The sun bathed its upper floors in golden light. But at the street level, the wind howled, slicing through the narrow intersection like a blade. For a moment—just a moment—I thought I heard something in the wind.

Whispers.

Cries.

Music.

Right where the wind split in two along the Flatiron’s protruding edge.

I decided to walk around it. A full circle. To see it whole for the first time in a long time. Maybe even for the first time. Which side was the long side and which was the short side?

I counted my paces as I moved north along Fifth.

As I turned the corner, the wind picked up, howling through the canyon of buildings. I struggled to keep my footing.

They used to say the Flatiron’s draft would lift women’s skirts. That men would be blown off their heels.

I had all I could do to stay upright.

My mind went dim.

I lost count of my steps.

By the time I circled back to my starting point, something felt… off.

I couldn’t explain it.

I turned back toward Greenberg’s building—drawn by something beyond logic.

I should have retraced my steps more precisely. Should have counted them again.

But instead, I crossed the street and headed for the entrance.

Something shifted.

The air around me.

The feeling of it.

I stepped inside.

And then I saw it.

On the intercom.

A name I recognized immediately.

Alex Alessi.

But how?

My heart pounded.

I called the concierge. “Mr. Borges?”

“Ah! Señor Alessi!” He sounded delighted. “It’s so nice to hear your voice again! When did you return?”

I felt a wave of dizziness.

“I… I’m sorry?”

“It’s been a long time, no? It’s good to get away. It gives you a new perspective.”

“Yes,” I murmured. “It does.”

“Did you enjoy Buenos Aires? I don’t return often enough myself. But do not worry, Señor Alessi! Everything is just as you left it.”

I swallowed.

“How did I… get home, Mr. Borges?”

He chuckled. “What do you mean, Señor? Do you need help with your luggages?” He always mispronounced luggage as luggages.

It made me feel right at home.

“No,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper. “Thank you, Mr. Borges.”

I stepped into the elevator.

The ride felt longer than I remembered.

When the doors finally slid open, I fumbled for my keys.

They fit the lock.

I turned the handle.

The loft was just as I had left it.

I crossed the room and drew open the curtains.

And there it was.

The Flatiron.

Always there. Never there.

A triangle with long and short sides.

It was all about perspective.

Generations ago, my great-grandfather, an Italian immigrant, played a role in constructing the Flatiron Building in 1902. His young wife—my great-grandmother—would later perish in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire of 1911. Over time, the two events became intertwined in my family’s retelling, history blurring into myth. Decades later, it fell upon me to untangle the threads.

When I shared the story with Jerry Greenberg—an artist who once crashed at my loft—he became obsessed. His imagination seized on the idea of men buried alive beneath the Flatiron, and soon, his canvases bore scenes of mourning laborers, ghostly figures entombed in ash and sand. Jerry had always sought to extract meaning from absence; perhaps his own family's past—marked by loss in the Holocaust—made him more attuned to history’s distortions.

Despite our differences—me, born into wealth and pragmatism, him, a restless artist chasing transcendence—we had once been inseparable. Our friendship thrived on long conversations, philosophical debates, and shared dreams. But as time passed, so did we.

Before he disappeared from my life, Jerry confided that he didn’t want to be overt in depicting loss—it was always there without being there. The past is inescapable, he said.

His words lingered, forcing me to reconsider my own inheritance. Had my great-grandfather rewritten his past, just as Jerry reshaped his nightmares into art? Perhaps, in telling himself a different version of history, he had found a way to live with it.

Sometimes, Jerry and I saw eye to eye, and our perspectives aligned. Other times, we looked at the same thing and saw something else entirely.

As I gazed down at the street below, a dark figure, his smock whipping in the wind like a tattered flag, stood at the base of the Flatiron. He moved methodically, counting his steps—one by one.

And then—he was gone, swallowed by the recesses of the building.

Jerry’s voice echoed in my mind, a lingering meditation on time, memory, and perception.

I turned from the window.

And I remembered—I was home.

© Michael Arturo, 2025

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Michael Arturo writes fiction, contemporary political/social commentary, parodies, parables, satire. Michael was born and raised in New York City and has a background in theater and film. His plays have been staged in New York, London, Boston, and Los Angeles.

In the days following the walk with Solomon, Elliot moved through his Park Avenue apartment like a man caught in a riptide—adrift yet restless, tugged by currents he couldn’t name. The walk had left a residue, a hum that wouldn’t quiet. He’d gone to bed that night with his notebook open on the dining table, pages scrawled with jagged lines and half-formed shapes. By morning, the euphoria had curdled into something heavier, a mood that flickered between exhilaration and unease.

Solomon’s words had planted a seed—creativity wasn’t about the sleek monuments Elliot Van Alen chased. It was about connection, about hearing the city’s pulse and letting it guide his hand. That realization thrilled Elliot, yes, but it also terrified him.

The tower he’d been designing, the one dismissed as “derivative,” had begun to morph in his sketches. Where it once stood rigid, a glassy spike meant to impress, it now softened—its base flared like roots sinking into the earth. Solomon had done that, with his talk of sound as structure, of buildings that didn’t just rise but lived.

Elliot saw it taking shape, a design that could redeem him, could silence the whispers of “has-been.” But with that vision came a challenge he hadn’t anticipated: to pull this off, he’d have to lean into something raw, something he’d buried beneath years of polished detachment.

This tower wasn’t his alone; it was theirs, a collaboration born from a blind man’s wisdom and a walk he hadn’t planned. That dependency gnawed at him.

What if Solomon’s insight faltered?

What if the design—their design—failed again?

Worse, what if it succeeded, and he had to admit he’d needed someone to pull him from the wreckage of his own stagnation?

The thought clawed at his pride, that old Van Alen entitlement he’d inherited like a birthright, the same pride that had once propelled him to the top and now threatened to drag him under.

Elliot’s instinct, honed by years of isolation, was to pull back. Distance was his refuge, a habit as familiar as the tailored overcoat he shrugged on each morning.

He’d distanced himself from Lena, his ex-wife when her quiet pleas for connection became too loud; from Claire, his sister, when her life’s milestones clashed with his deadlines; from the city itself, retreating to this high perch where the streets were just a pretty abstraction.

He sat at his drafting table, the apartment silent save for the faint hum of traffic far below, and tried to work. The lines wouldn’t come. His hand hovered over the paper, trembling slightly as if waiting for permission. He’d stare at the Chrysler Building through the window, its spire a silver rebuke, and feel the weight of William Van Alen’s legacy press down harder.

As a kid, he’d worshipped that tower, sketching it in crayon, dreaming of his own mark on the skyline. Now it mocked him, a benchmark he’d never touch—not because he couldn’t, but because he’d forgotten how to try.

Solomon had reminded him that his gift wasn’t in the name or the solitude; it was in the tether to others, to the city, to the stories humming beneath the steel. But accepting that meant dismantling the walls he’d built, and Elliot wasn’t sure he knew how.

By the third day, Elliot’s mood had darkened, a stew of frustration and longing. The pressure wasn’t just about the tower now—it was about who he’d become if he failed, or if he succeeded.

Irrelevance loomed, a specter he’d dodged for years.

By the fourth day, he stood at the window, forehead pressed to the glass, the cold seeping into his skin. The city glittered below, indifferent as ever, and he felt the pull of Solomon’s absence like a missing limb. He’d distanced himself, yes, but it hadn’t worked. The sketches stayed unfinished; the tower stalled in his mind.

The buzzer jolted him upright, a harsh buzz cutting through the apartment’s hush. Elliot hesitated, then crossed to the intercom. “Yeah?”

“It’s me,” came Solomon’s gravelly lilt, unmistakable even through the static. “Let me up, Van Alen. I’ve got something.”

Minutes later, Solomon swept through the door, cane tapping a staccato beat, his battered coat shedding the faint scent of asphalt and coffee. His cloudy eyes gleamed with fire, and before Elliot could speak, Solomon launched in, words tumbling like stones down a slope.

“You ever stand at the Flatiron, down where Fifth and Twenty-Third collide?” Solomon said, pacing the hardwood as if he could still feel the pavement underfoot.

“I was there today, just leaning into it, letting it talk. That old girl—she’s a wedge, you know, slicing the city like a blade, but she don’t fight it. The wind comes howling down Broadway, and she splits it clean, sends it swirling around her edges. You hear it—the gusts, the echoes off the limestone, like she’s breathing with the streets. I stood there an hour, maybe two, feeling how she moves with the chaos, not against it. That’s what your tower’s missing, man. It’s gotta breathe like that—channel the city’s howl, not just sit there pretty and deaf.”

Elliot blinked, caught off guard by the rush of it.

Solomon dropped into a chair, still buzzing, his hands gesturing as if molding the air. “I walked the whole damn triangle today, from the prow to the back, listening to how the sound bends. It’s not just a building—it’s a rhythm, a pulse caught in stone. You put that in your design, that give-and-take, and you’ve got something alive. Not another glass coffin like those new monstrosities—One Penn 1, all shine and no soul. I passed that too, felt its dead hum, and thought, ‘Elliot don’t need another mistake like that.’ No, this tower—it’s gotta sing, man. You hear me?”

Elliot nodded slowly, the image sinking in—the Flatiron’s wind-carved grace, its dialogue with the streets. He could see it: his tower’s flared base not just rooting it but funneling the city’s breath upward, a structure that danced with the noise rather than drowning it out.

Solomon’s enthusiasm was infectious, a jolt to his stalled mind, and for a fleeting moment, Elliot felt the thrill of possibility—a design that could rewrite his name in the skyline.

But as Solomon leaned back, grinning faintly—“Been working on it all day out there. Figured you’d want to know”—the spark dimmed under a creeping weight. That knot in Elliot’s chest tightened, not from the vision itself, but from what it meant. This wasn’t just inspiration—it was Solomon’s inspiration, another thread weaving him deeper into a tapestry Elliot had always stitched alone. The tower was theirs now, but the plaque would say Van Alen. The redemption would be his. And Solomon? He’d fade back into the city’s hum, a shadow with no credit, no claim.

Elliot’s fingers drummed against the armrest, his gaze drifting to the hardwood floor. He couldn’t shake it—the quiet gnaw of unease.

Finally, he spoke, voice low, halting. “I’ve been taking your ideas, Solomon. Your insight—it’s what’s driving this. And I keep wondering… what do you get out of it? My name goes on the drawings. My career gets pulled from the ditch. But you—”

Solomon’s grin faded, his head tilting slightly as if he’d caught the shift in the air. “You think that’s what this is about?”

Elliot hesitated, eyes flicking up to meet Solomon’s cloudy gaze. “I don’t know. I just—I don’t feel right about it. Like I’m leaning on you too much. Like I’m… using you.”

Solomon’s laugh was sharp, edged with something bitter. “Jesus, Van Alen. Every time I forget, you remind me.”

“Forget what?”

“That no matter how much I know, I still end up here. That some white man’s gonna feel guilty about taking what I give, because he’s afraid I’m his goddamn redemption story.”

Elliot flinched. “That’s not what I meant.”

“But it’s what you feel,” Solomon shot back. “You’re scared I’m the key to your comeback, and you can’t stand needing me. That’s your problem, man, not mine.”

The words hit like a slap—Elliot’s pride—Van Alen pride, sharp-edged and inherited—flared.

“If I was white, would you feel the same way? People gonna be talking about this—rich boy Van Alen found hisself a magic Negro.”

“That’s not fair.”

“That’s not fair is right! And that may not be your manner because of what I understand about you, it ain’t. But that’s coming, Elliot. That’s what they’re gonna be sayin’. And if you can’t handle your pride, you ain’t gonna be able to handle that.”

Elliot was silent.

“Fair.” Solomon snorted. “Nothing’s fair. You think it’s fair I lost my eyesight? You wanna talk about fair? This isn’t about you. It’s about that.” He jabbed a finger toward the window, toward the city beyond. “The place we both love. I’m not your m***********g muse. I’m just another pair of hands.”

The silence between them thickened. “That night you stooped to an old black blind man seated on a subway grate and asked him if he needed help—what did I say to you?”

“Don’t we all?”

“Don’t we all. Don’t we all! I thank you for everything, Mr. Van Alen. And I bless you from the bottom of my heart.” Solomon exhaled. “But, I should go,” he muttered.

Elliot’s chest seized. He saw it then—the walls he’d built, not just around his apartment but around himself, a fortress of privilege and solitude that had kept him safe, kept him separate. Solomon’s words sliced through: needing me. He’d spent his life distancing—Lena, Claire, the city—because needing anyone felt like weakness, a crack in the Van Alen armor. But that night, something had shifted. He’d walked out into the cold, restless, not knowing why, and found Solomon—someone unlike him, someone who saw the world he’d stopped seeing. That moment had cracked him open, and Solomon had been pouring light through ever since.

“Wait,” Elliot said, voice rough, stepping forward. Solomon paused, half-turned, his silhouette framed by the doorway’s dim glow. “Don’t go. Please.”

Solomon’s brow lifted, but he didn’t move.

“You’re right,” Elliot said, the words spilling out. “I’ve been scared. Scared of needing you, scared of what it means that I can’t do this alone. I’ve got this name, this life, and I’ve used it to keep everyone out. But that night—I didn’t know it then, but I was looking for something. Someone. And you were there. You’ve been there, seeing what I couldn’t, and I’ve been too damn proud to say it: I need you. This tower—it’s not mine. It’s ours. And I’m grateful, Solomon. More than I know how to tell you.”

Solomon stood still, his cloudy eyes unreadable, then a faint smile tugged at his lips. “Gratitude’s a start,” he said, his voice softening. “Awareness is better. You’re waking up, Van Alen. That’s enough for tonight.” He tapped his cane once more, a deliberate beat, and stepped back into the room. “Now, let’s talk about that tower. It’s still gotta sing.”

The Van Alen Building rose over the next year, a structure unlike any Elliot had dreamed before—a sinuous tower of glass and steel, its base flared to embrace the street, its upper reaches rippling like a caught breath. The critics called it a revelation, a dance of form and function, but Elliot knew its heartbeat: Solomon’s rhythm, woven into every line. The Flatiron’s lesson lived there—the way it channeled the city’s howl through acoustic veins, letting the wind sing against its skin. It wasn’t timeless; it was alive, a testament to two men who’d found each other in the city’s churn.

Solomon stayed—nights at the diner turned to nights in Elliot’s apartment, sketching by sound while Elliot traced the lines. Their friendship grew, a quiet thing of coffee and arguments, laughter and silences that needed no filling. When the tower opened, they stood together on its top floor, the city sprawling below, and Solomon’s hand rested on Elliot’s shoulder, a steady weight. “We did this,” he said, and Elliot nodded, feeling the truth of it down to his bones. The Van Alen name glittered on the plaque, but Solomon’s echo rang louder, a pulse that would hum through the steel long after they were gone—a connection as enduring as the city itself.

The End

© 2025 Michael Arturo

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Welcome to Michael’s Newsletter. Writer of contemporary political/social commentary, parodies, parables, satire. Michael was born and raised in New York City and has a background in theater and film. His plays have been staged in New York, London, Boston, and Los Angeles.

Michael also writes short literary fiction. Below is a link to his first collection.

FLATIRON and other tall tales

Other stories …

Zenith Solutions

MICHAEL ARTURO

ZENITH SOLUTIONS