There are only three rules for survival: no contact with meat, dairy, or humans. He’s already broken two of them.

Breathing in. The lungs expand, chest tight. The air catches in my throat. Breathing out. The air slithers out, my eyes going, facing the paper. It is blank, void of anything but a red line and blue lines. My mind is already at work. What is it going to be?

A girl sits at a table in front of a coffee shop, eyeing the charming boy lounging next to her. They observe one another as if their friends don’t exist, his eyes catching hers like a blue wave crashing on the beach. “Well, I’m not ordinary.”

Allez means go, and I go. Allez is his title but he has no name. We work well together, he and I. Born of trying times, our relationship is as strong as the aluminum forged in it. Flying across stretches of hard-packed cement is what we do.