I perused a map of a city I once knew fairly well. I was surprised at the amount of green on it. It was a large city that needed a large map that required a steady amount of unfolding and folding and unfolding again. There was green to indicate park; there was greener to indicate garden, I think. I was guessing. I couldn't find the key. There was green too to indicate areas where people met to engage in the esoteric endeavors that the cartographers felt needed to be memorialized like poetry reading. I looked for spots where I could fence. These would be identified by crossed swords, I figured. It was something I had wanted to do for years but had thought would be deemed effete by others. Now I no longer cared what others thought. Unfortunately, I couldn't find the key. I think it had been creased so many times it had gone unnoticed at bottom and finally seceded from the rest of this territory of paper.

Richard George is a Tulane graduate whose work has appeared in Mystery Itch, HASH, Toho Journal and The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature. When not writing, he works as a probation officer. He lives in an apartment in Toms River, New Jersey.