Nobody had jobs for him today, except someone who wanted him to rob a bank.

INTO THE DEEPEST SHADOW BY KAREN MASUDA 34THPARALLEL MAGAZINE ISSUE 45

The cell phone lit up his face, the bluish-white making him into a ghostly figure in the darkness of his tiny, tiny room. Gonta was so absorbed in the words in front of him that it was like he had been abducted from the present by them, taken to the brink of shadows.

“Would you rob a bank with me?”

The “me” was a nameless faceless person, gender, age, everything unknown.

Gonta’s frame of mind was one of curiosity rather than desperation. The ad for ways to make money fast had jumped out at him as he checked his mail. The little square light of the phone was his address, his home, the only rooted thing about him.

His lifeline, he used the phone for work. People could offer him jobs here. He had even been fired in a text message, “We don’t need you tomorrow.” They had been unkind anyway.

Nobody had jobs for him today, except someone who wanted him to rob a bank.

After a few seconds the phone turned off automatically and t…