Null Pointer

Full Pockets

Pocket
  1. Nell Frayne - Summerhouse Key
  2. Tim Mangan - Letter
  3. Aunt Alicia - Yarn
  4. Mr. Lynch - Empty
  5. Dan - Stolen Goods
  6. Jonesy - Notebook
  7. Regan - Carrot
  8. Mr. Darnell - Robin Key
  9. Mrs. Darnelll - $20
  10. Bobby - Quarters
  11. Harrison - Matchbook
  12. Spider Webster - Gum
  13. Andrew Belden - Dog Treats
  14. Good Samaritan - Hotel Keycard
  15. Bob the Pilot - Jet Keys
  16. Hallie Belden - Room Key
  17. SJSHS Custodian - Nails for Bikeathon Booth
  18. Nick Roberts - Pen
  19. Sgt. Molinson - Advil
  20. Benjamin Riker - Wallet

Nell Frayne - Summerhouse Key

Nell smiled, taking the summerhouse key off the hook and slipping it into her apron pocket. It had been rainy the past few days, but the sun was finally shining and she was looking forward to being able to enjoy the summerhouse once more. Win had called the night before. It was always such a pleasure to hear from their nephew. He reported that little Jimmy was growing by leaps and bounds. Win and Katje had begun shopping for his first big boy bed, which meant Nell really need to finish edging the bedspread she’d been working on as a birthday gift for her grand-nephew. She’d said as much to Win, who had laughed and said she was going to spoil his son. “But, of course,” she’d replied. “James and I never had children of our own, so that leaves you, and your children, for us to spoil. What else is a great-aunt for?” She gathered up her sewing, pinning the pocket with the key in it closed with the needle. It wouldn’t do to get to the summerhouse door and find the key had fallen out while she was gathering up the bedspread. That had happened before, and James liked to tease that she was getting absent-minded in her old age.

~

Tim Mangan - Letter

Dearest Timothy,

I know, I know, your full name makes you feel like you’re in trouble. You’re not; it’s just I adore everything about you, including every syllable of your name. I do wish you were here. I want to celebrate all of Daniel’s firsts with you. He’s growing up so fast! He’s going to take his first steps any day now, maybe even by the time this letter reaches you. I tell him about you all the time, and we look at pictures of you every day. When you come home, I want him to recognize you, and know you are his Daddy. And then we’ll share a whole new round of firsts together: our first dinner together at home as a family of three, our first night with a full house. Stay safe, so you can come home and share these moments with us.

One of the things I tell Danny is that you are away now to make the world safer for him to grow up in. I hold onto that, that you’re doing this for us, and for all the other families. Some days that helps. Other days I just wish you were here. When Danny smiled for the first time, I wanted to say, “Look, Tim! He’s smiling at us. He’s standing up on his own. He sat up!” So many firsts. I try to remember all of them when I sit down to write to you. I want you to recognize him and know that he’s your boy when you come home. I want him to be part of your life as much as I want you to be part of his, even while you’re off serving our country, making the world a safer place for little boys to grow up in.

I hope it’s worth it. I hope Danny will grow up to appreciate the sacrifices we’re making now, and not resent us—you—for not being a part of this early part of his life.

I’m sorry. I shouldn’t lay all this on you while you’re overseas. I don’t even know what I’m really trying to say. Can I still blame the hormones, or has it been too long now to keep blaming the hormones? We’re fine here, really. I’m not as depressed as I sound, and Danny’s healthy, and happy, as far as anyone can tell at this age. Stay safe. We love you. Come home.

All our love,

Sara and Danny.

“Gear up,” Timothy Mangan’s commanding officer ordered from the doorway of their barracks. “We roll out in ten.”

With a sigh, Tim folded the letter from home and tucked it into the pocket of his uniform shirt, right over his heart, where he always carried his wife and young son. He would stay safe. He would get home to them.

~

Aunt Alicia - Yarn

Alicia carefully wound a few yards of yarn around her knitting needles before slipping them into the pocket she’d made on the underside of her favorite shawl. PTA meetings were a necessary evil to get things done in the school district and community. She hadn’t been teaching this long to let society fail the children. She didn’t need to have any of her own to know her legacy and the future of the world depended on the children, and someone had to stand up for them until they could stand up for themselves. Heroic ideals aside, the meetings were—as anything that could be classified as a “committee meeting” tended to be—routinely boring and full of politics that slowed progress. That’s where her knitting came in. At least if she plied her needles as debate dragged on, she would come home with something accomplished. Helen was expecting again – God help her sister, because Alicia didn’t know how she managed with the two toddlers she already had – so Alicia’s project of the night was a nice simple baby hat, which didn’t require a whole lot of yarn, making it the perfect project for a meeting where she didn’t want to have to lug around her whole knitting basket.

Tomorrow night, though, when she could sit in her chair beside said knitting basket, she would have to get back to work on the baby’s blanket. The pattern had looked deceptively simple, but it was giving her fits. She had expected to have it done for the shower, and then make hats and booties for the baby’s arrival, but with the shower coming on quick, she’d decided to get the small items made, just in case she needed them to buy time to finish the blanket.

Alicia looked down at the knitting basket, the partially finished blanket draped over one side and skeins of light pink and pastel yellow yarn overflowing on the other side. Alicia had been rooting for a little girl from the very beginning (not that she’d tell Helen that!). She loved her nephews, but was eager for a niece to spoil with dolls and dresses.

~

Mr. Lynch - Empty

Ed Lynch dug his hands in his pockets, the threadbare material barely doing anything to protect his hands from the biting wind. A coat would be nice, but he couldn’t afford a new coat, and his wife’s coat didn’t fit over the growing bump where Diana’s younger sibling was growing anymore, so he’d given her his. He couldn’t have her running around in the cold without a coat when she was nurturing his child inside her, and inside their home, small as it was. Math had never been a problem for him. He’d never thought money management would be a problem. He’d never considered the possibility that a regular 9-5 job wouldn’t cover expenses. Never considered that his wife’s maternity leave had given her enough time to recover from the difficult birth of their first born and the health complications she’d experienced shortly afterwards, but that it wouldn’t cover his time off work, that he might run through his paid vacation, unpaid emergency leave, hit the out-of-pocket maximums on their health insurance, have raided all the savings they’d set aside for a day like that, only to find out that his employer saw the whole ordeal as a liability and let him go. They’d done everything they could to stretch what money they had as far as it could go, and they had made do so far, scraping together the rent each month, and keeping food on the table for little Diana at least, but they’d never been able to refill the savings account they’d had before Di’s birth. Truth to tell, Ed was getting really tired of empty pockets, of not having two nickels to rub together. He didn’t think even his math skills could budget for the child on the way. They should have taken more precautions against pregnancy, but…they didn’t have money for that, either. They’d find a way. They’d have to. He wasn’t going to let it get to a point where the State had to come in and take his children away because he couldn’t take care of them. At least he hoped it would never get to that point, but he could barely see how they’d manage with another mouth to feed, and if this time went even a fraction as bad as last time…. This time there was no leave, no health insurance, no savings to burn through. They’d be burning through their day to day money, the money that put food on the table for Diana, the money that kept a roof over all their heads. There was nothing he could do now but hope and pray, pray that this child would come easier, pray that money would suddenly start to grow on trees, pray that they’d find a way to provide for their children. So, he prayed like he’d never prayed before in his life, and he hoped with everything he had in him, and he shoved his hands into threadbare empty pockets, and prayed some more.

~

Dan - Stolen Goods

The pockets of Dan’s jacket were heavily laden with wallets, two watches, and a gaudy ring that probably wasn’t worth as much as the woman he’d slipped it off of thought it was. Dan couldn’t believe how little situational awareness his fellow New Yorkers seemed to have. When Luke had first set him to pickpocketing, he’d expected it to be hard. Surely you couldn’t just slip a watch off a guy’s wrist, a ring off a woman’s finger, a wallet out of someone’s very pocket, without them noticing. Yet it was surprisingly simple. New York’s congestion helped; everyone expected to be constantly bumped into and touched, but it was still way too easy. It made it no easier on Dan’s conscience. If anything, it made it worse. It wasn’t supposed to be this easy for him to steal from other people. That it was said what, exactly, about him? Was he ever the good person his mother had believed him to be? Or was he always the sort of person who could turn to thievery, only he’d been too young for her to notice? Fate or fortune, Dan knew one thing with certainty: his mother would hate what he’d become since joining the gang. He doubted she’d be able to forgive him for this, for walking through the city with a jacket stuffed full of stolen goods. It wasn’t just the thievery; it was the lack of remorse. Repentance was the key to salvation after all, and he had yet to repent. How could he? He regretted that this was his life, but it was, and this was the only way he had to survive, since he’d been abandoned by any other system, outside the gang, that was supposed to care for him until he was old enough to make it on his own without resorting to theft.

“What’d you get today?” Luke demanded as Dan turned down an alley that was the gang’s hideout of the week. They moved often, before anyone could report them to the NYPD.

Dan shrugged off the jacket, turning the pockets out as he turned over the stolen goods. Luke had the connection to the fence that would turn the goods to cash—after taking his percentage, of course. Luke bemoaned that percentage, but selling stolen goods without drawing the attention of the police was not a job for the casual criminal. It required networks, and contacts, and smarts, and experience. None of which were things Luke had, in Dan’s opinion.

Luke flipped through the wallets. “$63 bucks,” he counted. “That’s not enough, Dan. You’ve got to do better. We have to be able to eat. Do you want your brothers to starve, hmm?”

“It ain’t my fault no one carries cash anymore,” Dan complained. “Probably be easier to just steal the damn food.”

“Probably be easier if you just did your part. I brought you in as a favor, Danny boy, after your Mama died, God rest her soul, and all that, but you have to pull your weight or you are useless to us and I can’t protect you, do you understand?”

“Yeah, I understand,” Dan said sullenly.

~