By Scott Holleran
“Pull over,” said an automated voice.
So, the driver did. The woman in the vehicle made a mental note of the time and date on the windshield: 5:31 pm, February 14, 2029. She drew a deep breath. She waited.
“Name?” The voice came from a machine hovering near the vehicle.
“Sylvia Castiron,” she answered.
“Turn,” commanded the voice, which was neither female nor male. The driver complied, turning her face to the airborne vehicle. She heard sounds and saw a red light flash. “Verified,” the voice said. “You may comment.”
“I do not know the alleged infraction,” the woman said. “I wish to state that I own the Happy Child Company and that I am godchild to Sesame Flanagan.” She heard rotors and gears spinning and moving after she spoke. She said nothing else.
A few minutes passed. The machine rotated and moved around the vehicle, coming back around and moving closer to her face.
“You may go,” it said before disappearing in a whir.
The driver gave a few voice commands and her vehicle pulled forward. She looked ahead at the last shades of a pink-yellow sunset on the horizon and up, through the glass roof to the sky, into the deepening blackness and radiating stars above.
Sylvia Castiron said to herself: “Thanks, darling.”
She first met Sesame Flanagan in the Swiss Alps. Sylvia had been an intelligent girl who had wandered into the woods near her stepmother’s chalet. While descending a pine tree she had climbed, where she had marveled at the magnificent view of the lake below, the girl fell and tumbled down the hill into the pedestrian path around the lake. With pine needles poking from her blonde hair and scratches on her face and arms, Sylvia spilled into the way of a strange-looking old woman pumping her arms while walking around the lake. Entranced by this slender person with graying, reddish-blonde-brown hair who came barreling toward her, the child looked up and she stared.
The wrinkled woman looked down and asked in a low, scratchy voice: “What are you staring at, child?” And, in one sweeping motion, the woman spread her arms, scooped the girl inward and deposited the child onto a pebblestone lakeside bench. “Here,” she said, seating herself beside the child, “I could use a rest.”
She added: “And an audience.”
The woman spoke as if she was talking to herself. Only later would Sylvia realize that the woman was attuned to her audience of one. “My name is Sesame Flanagan,” she told the child, picking needles from the kid’s hair. “What is yours?” Sylvia answered and continued staring up at the woman who swept her away. “Sylvia. That’s a fine, bright name for a child.” She paused, resting herself. Then she said: “I’ll be on my way again soon.”
Sylvia remembered the morning well. Snow-capped mountains surrounded the placid lake. The air was crisp. The sun was bright. White clouds appeared like cotton balls against the vast blue sky. The pair sat in silence for a few moments, as the woman caught her breath and looked past the lake. The child stared at her sharp, jagged features. The woman seemed both peaceful and powerful.
“I don’t know any one who’d gain from knowing about my life,” she said plainly, “and I haven’t much time left here on earth.” She looked down and smiled at Sylvia. “Mine is a life worth telling about, too.”
She leaned into the girl and asked: “Would you like to hear it?”
The old woman waited for an answer. The girl nodded. She looked up and noticed that the eyes were old, but, when they looked over the water, they reflected the vibrant blue of lake and sky. Sesame Flanagan spoke easily with a sense of command—her voice was practiced. Her tone was jaunty. Her manner was a blend of grace and gruffness.
“I was born of an Indian father and a pioneer mother in a cabin made of logs well over a hundred years ago. I was odd then, too. Wild inside. I suppose I was strong like my father, Black Horse. He’d take me fishing by the river and bathed me there in the summertime. We sat on a log for hours baiting, catching and cleaning fish. I have such few memories of Kentucky.” She closed her eyes.
A smile formed.
“I remember lazy mornings and lively afternoons. I practiced birdcalls my father taught me. Like you, I liked to go off by myself and play in the woods. I’d climb the tallest tree and sit on a branch overlooking the river bend. I could see the whole county. I’d go around in moccasins my Daddy’d made from deerskin. Almost everyone in those parts knew Black Horse,” she softly croaked with pride.
“He’d lead us through the forest to the trail into town. There, he’d talk and trade. Oh, he loved to trade. I watched and learned. Wasn’t much older than you—maybe five or six years old—when a saloon floozy told me about the time my father rode in and took my mother from the settlement. I already knew the tale. My mother’d told me. She said she knew that she’d set her eyes upon the handsomest brave at the treaty signing. She knew, too, that he had been watching her from across the river while she gathered firewood.
“My mother had soft features and was a bit too sweet for her own good. She’d go into the woods, singing folk tunes and fluffing her skirts. She knew that Black Horse was watching from the river bank on the other side. When he rode in to take her, my mother was ready to go for the ride.”
Sesame Flanagan’s eyes gleamed. “Mary Margaret Mulligan,” she wistfully said to herself. “She had skin like china. He took her down river, where they made a home and he treated her like a princess. My mother was a happy woman.” Sesame explained that, one evening when Sesame was eight years old, her mother looked out the cabin window and suddenly crouched down and took Sesame by the shoulders, telling her straight away to hide under the floorboards. Before Black Horse made it back from town, Mary Mulligan was captured by Indians. When her father returned, Black Horse stuffed some food and a gun he’d taught Sesame to use beneath the floorboards and told her to lie low before he rode off to find Sesame’s mother. Later, Sesame heard he was rounded up with a tribe he’d been tracking and sent to live on a government compound called a reservation. Sesame said she never heard from her father or mother again.
“I was sent to live in an orphanage, where I was eventually adopted by Catholics,” she said. “The Flanagans. Fine people, though there were too damned many of them to bring me into the bunch. Until I was 16, I attended Catholic school, where I wanted to know about everything. When it came time to ask the sisters of mercy about my tingling feelings, the nuns scowled and sent me to Father O’Malley for confession. He asked for details and told me to come back, which I did that next Sunday. This time, he listened in the confessional booth and told me to meet him in the rectory. There, he forced himself on me. I wriggled free from under his robes, tearing off a piece of his cloth. I ran home.”
Sesame Flanagan laughed. “I fought back like my daddy had taught me. I had read about such things, so I knew that the police probably would not believe me. I prayed. It took me a while but I researched what I could do. After much contemplation and trying to go by the Church’s rules, I decided that I would take the trolley into town to tell the cardinal what had happened, since I’d read that the cardinal was in charge of the parish priest. One day, I walked into the cathedral and asked to see the archbishop.
“I waited for an hour. Finally, he came out and greeted me. When I told him what Father O’Malley had done and showed him the torn cloth, though, he said that he didn’t believe me—and I knew in that instant that he did. He told me that I was bewitching and to expect men’s advances. I went home and wrote a letter to the Pope. For months, I wondered whether he’d read it. One day after school, Mother Flanagan handed me an envelope. ‘It’s from Rome,’ she told me. ‘You’ve received a letter all the way from Rome.’ I wanted to tell her the whole story but I knew she already had too much to think about with so many kids and a husband. I took the envelope and went down to the river bank to read it by myself.
“I opened the envelope and looked at the stationery for a long time. It had the seal of the Vatican, so I knew that this was the letter I had been waiting for. When I read it, all I could make out was that I seemed to have done something wrong again, by the Pope’s reckoning. I was accused of tempting Father O’Malley and the archbishop and bearing false witness against both. There was more, too. I was excommunicated which meant I was kicked out of school.
“I didn’t want to hurt the Flanagans so I told them nothing. Instead, I packed my possessions and left home. I found my way to a small town up the river, where I met a peddler who was selling Persian rugs from his wagon near the railway station. I suppose he must have looked kindly upon me, because he gave me a piece of bread. We sat and talked for a while. Like we’re talking now.
“The peddler explained that he rode close to the tracks and would meet up with his trading partner in New York, then turn back and do it again. I told him that I thought I could earn my keep and help him at least until we reached New York. I pleaded for him to hire me.”
“I was shocked when the peddler did. Off we went, town by town. I fed the horses and, mostly, ogled fancy rugs when we stopped for exhibitions so he could sell them faster. He was a jovial fellow. By the time we reached New York, he’d tripled sales and I’d made enough to pay for passage on a steamship. I didn’t know where I wanted to go. After all I’d learned about rugs, Persia sounded grand.”
Sesame’s voice quivered on that last word, as if it was sacred.
“The world was changing,” Sesame Flanagan explained with a flat, definite sincerity. “Cars, women’s suffrage, a war in Europe. Women were starting to smoke, drink alcohol and vote. This was a new industrial age. A type of picture show called a movie became popular. I saw my first movie in New York before I left America.”
Sesame paused for a moment.
“I wanted to leave. I had no school, no church, no parents. The government had taken my daddy. Savages stole my mother. The Flanagans were kind people, too kind to be brought down by the church, which almost certainly would have happened had I stayed. And I wanted to see the world. Once in France, I went from village to village, cleaning kitchens, pantries and rich people’s homes. Working my way for 13 months and going by car, truck and train to Teheran. Do you know where that is?”
The girl, transfixed, shook her head.
“It’s the capital of Iran—which was once called Persia. That’s where I met Hossein. I was 18 and he was 23. We met on the bus. He had a thick, black mustache, which I thought made him exotic, dark and carefree. He taught me to laugh. In a way, he reminded me of Black Horse. We’d ride horses into the mountains above Tabriz and spend hours fishing with villagers. Then, we’d come back to Teheran where he was studying to be a doctor. I found work with a rug exporter translating contracts from Farsi into English. I lived in a room over the rug shop. Hossein would pick me up after work at the shop and we’d go out—strolling and holding hands along Teheran’s wide avenues, going to games, meeting friends at cafés. Oh, it was lovely. For a long time I thought I’d marry Hossein. He was Islamic, of course, so I made a point to read the Koran. It’s like the Bible—strict but more severe.
“Hossein was neither strict nor severe. So, I converted to Islam.”
“Hossein lost interest after that. He became a doctor and stopped showing affection. Though I did not wear the garb, I had converted because I loved Hossein and wanted to live a meaningful life. Soon after, I left Teheran and, feeling lost again, made the pilgrimage to Mecca, where I planned to do the Hajj. After I arrived, though, I was accused of being an infidel when it was discovered that I’d attended without a male guardian. I was chased out by a group of women.
“I met some pilgrims heading back to France and ended up in Paris, where I got a job in a dance hall. I became fast friends with another dancer named Lily, who encouraged me to take some acting classes and move in with her and some of the other girls. I appeared in a stage play. I did poetry readings. Lily was the only one in the audience who applauded.
“By then, the Nazis had come to power. I wanted to go home.
“Finally, Lily said she was sick of me keeping her up all night with my sobbing. She called me Sad Sesame. Lily arranged for me to be smuggled out of Paris with some Jews. It took weeks to arrange an itinerary from Paris to Amsterdam in a truck and then board a ship. Lily gave me a letter of introduction to a newspaper in Philadelphia, where the ship we were to board was bound. I still think about Lily. A bunch of us made it out. More of us did not.
“I ended up working as a secretary for the newspaper publisher. I learned all about the war, storytelling and how to serve an audience with words. And, for the first time in my life, I felt like my work mattered. The publisher kind of admired my being a young well-traveled actress with knowledge of Farsi, the Koran and Persian rugs. I think he liked having someone who was different around.
“One time, I was taking notes at a meeting with an advertiser, a Hollywood studio executive named Jerome Edelstein of Edelstein Pictures. He noticed me during a meeting about the studio’s ad campaign.
‘Loan me this gal,’ Edelstein told my boss at the time. ‘She knows how to type and take dictation and I could use someone like her.’ I figured he had a kept girl in mind, but I wasn’t a kid anymore. I was in my 20s by then. I looked as unusual as ever. Soft skin, sharp features, temperamental Irish bearing. Wild hair in three shades of brown, red and blonde. A name like Sesame did not help. The publisher didn’t want to lose me. He didn’t want to lose an advertiser, either. He said Yes. I was off to Los Angeles at Mr. Edelstein’s—or the studio’s—expense.
“Mr. Edelstein was different, too. He put me up at a boarding house for women. It was a few weeks before he invited me to dinner.
“I don’t think he knew what to make of me. I dressed smart and had a nice, round figure. I wasn’t girly, though. And I didn’t flirt. I didn’t know how. I came off like a virgin who’s too talky on the first date—which happens to have been what was true. I’d only been around a couple of randy priests and a pre-med Muslim, so I knew about sex only by implication. This turned Mr. Edelstein on.”
Sylvia’s eyes widened, which Sesame pretended not to notice. She kept talking.
“He wanted to know all about me. So, he invited me to his studio office on Sunset Boulevard, and I told him everything. I could see that he was intrigued. He sat back in his big, leather chair. He sized me up and down.
‘Great gams,’ he told me. ‘How about dancing in the chorus?’
“I did have some dancing experience on stage at the Paris hall. I said Yes. He smiled—a wide, knowing grin that told me I’d said Yes to more than dancing as far as he was concerned—and he put me in pictures. He came and watched me do a scene in an Edelstein musical exactly once. Jerome was watching my every move. I was not surprised when he proposed marriage.
“He was shorter, which didn’t matter. His height made him try harder, which made him exciting. His hands and his face were more expressive than other men’s. His gestures were larger, more pronounced. When he held a door, or a chair, or put a jacket over me, he had confidence. We were married within a few weeks.
“The picture broke even. The chorus girl numbers were as bad as I thought they’d be, another war was raging and Edelstein Pictures was making money turning out low budget fare about shopgirls, cowboys and femme fatales. Some of the films were good. I was in a few of those because, well, my husband wanted it that way. I managed the studio executive secretarial pool by day and was a Brentwood housewife by night. I was Mrs. Jerome Edelstein—Sesame Flanagan on the end credits—and I was having a ball.
“I think he liked my being and looking different than the other studio wives. He became head of Edelstein Pictures that first year—and he was a loyal husband—and I know he loved me. Jerome and I would sit by the pool on Sundays, read the papers and talk about everything—Nazis, Jews, Communists, labor unions, movies, stars, parts and profit margins. He liked what he called my grit. I know he liked my being eccentric. Probably because he was, too.
“He was first to suggest my playing a serious part—both in life and movies. I said Yes.
“A year later, I gave birth to a boy who came out of me like he’d been fired from a 12-gauge shotgun. We named him Buck, sort of short for buckshot. In pictures, I played doomed diva roles at first. I gained something of a following for my lacquered hair, which Jerome had dyed red as color came into pictures, sharp jaw line, and well-endowed figure they pinched into those studio costumes. Darling, I was box office.
“After that, Jerome wrote me a better contract, hired me some maidens and gave me creative control, which was rare for women in Hollywood in the Forties. I hit big with a picture called Marry My Sister, a light comedy that gets serious when the leading man goes to war. I was the kid sister waiting for him to come home which, of course, he did, and by then I was grown up and man-hungry. Marry My Sister starring Sesame Flanagan. Earned a lot of money, rave reviews, and an award nomination for a character actress named Mary Ann Duferolff, an older actress who became a true friend.
“Mary Ann played my mother in Heaven and Earth, in which I played a hardy farm woman during the Great Depression. She played a judge’s wife in Murder by Trial, in which I played the sister of an accused killer who is innocent, which my character comes to prove. Mary Ann played a fellow passenger in Miles to Salvation, a crippled airliner movie in which I played an heiress who must decide whether to leave a fortune to the husband she doesn’t love or to the artist whose paintings she adores. Mary Ann’s character gives my character support and wisdom. She never did win an acting award, but Mary Ann was always there, complementing my performances. She became like a mother to me.
Courtesy of Grok AI
“Edelstein Pictures’ profits grew. My roles got bigger and more daring. I became what they used to call a movie star. I put in my contract that Buck would be on set with a governess at all times. I played an Air Force pilot’s wife in Command the Sky—a nun in Blessed are the Brave—a dancer in Two for the Show—a prostitute in Portrait of a Lost Soul—a mother in Never Give Up—an aviator in Flying with Eagles—and in 1949 alone I played a scientist, prison warden and high society damsel. With Buck growing up and the studio doing well, Jerome wanted more kids.
“I didn’t.”
Sesame turned from Sylvia, who was listening intently. “That was the end of us,” Sesame shrugged, looking down. “He filed for divorce that week and took up with a fertile starlet. He fought for full custody of our son. He lost. I was at the pinnacle of my career.”
Sesame said this as a thought trailing off.
“After the divorce, I was awarded an honorary degree and asked to deliver the commencement address,” she turned and smiled at the girl beside her. “I talked about what being the best costs. By the late Fifties, Mary Ann had died, Buck was in college and I’d been cast as the lead on Broadway in a new play about a mystery author.”
Sesame looked across the lake and up to the mountains.
“After that, I portrayed heroic women. Somehow, I apparently acquired the status of an actress who’s a legend. I acted in stage, television and movie roles for decades after that. Then, some character roles. Once, I played the president’s mother.
“Jerome never forgave me for not wanting more children. He ran the studio, married again and had a couple more kids. Sadly, one of them died of a drug overdose. Buck didn’t do much better. He went to graduate school and led an anarchy movement. He was arrested for bombing a business and sent to prison for 15 years. After he got out, he moved to Vermont and lived on a farm. He hates me. I can’t honestly say I love him, either.
“I won’t say I never loved again because I did—twice. Once for real. I met one of those technology billionaires—a founder—who courted me later in life. He kept after me to headline an annual charity event. Eventually, I did. He was remote like Hossein, controlling like Jerome.
“When he asked me to marry him on the night I hosted the charity affair,” Sesame turned and looked at Sylvia and her words came easily, “I said No. Afterwards, I felt awful. Not about having rejected him. But about having an unfinished life, wanting more—so, I left the event right then and there. I walked a few blocks to an all-night diner down by the river. I ordered a burger and a beer. Put my purse down and sat down alone at the counter. Right there, looking out at the river, I had a moment of clarity.
“Then, suddenly, three thugs recognized me. They surrounded me at the counter. ‘Sesame Flanagan!’ One of them called out loud enough for everyone to hear. ‘Having a beer with us peasants,’ he said, looking me over, calling me horrible names. Whatever they had in mind, I reached down into my purse for a can of pepper spray. Before I could pull it out, I realized that I had help. Someone was standing behind them holding a gun. He pointed it at them and told them to get lost. They scattered like roaches.
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“I wanted to know everything about this stranger, more so after having had that moment of clarity. I offered to buy him a drink. He declined. I insisted on getting his digits.
“Fine,” he told me. “But don’t thank me.”
“That’s for me to say,” I said, taking his number.
“He ignored my messages. This made me curious. Most people demand my attention. Not this man, whom I had learned was an inventor. His name was Leroy Yamamoto.” Sesame chuckled.
“I kept at him, leaving funny messages, daring him to call me or I would hunt him. Finally, he called. We arranged to meet for coffee.
“We met in a corner booth at that same riverfront diner. I did most of the talking. He was quiet. But he laughed easily and his eyes were wild. I realized that I wanted him.”
Sesame laughed when she realized she was telling her story to a child. It didn’t stop her. “You see, when Hossein came to know that I wanted him, he let go. When Jerome realized that I wanted to be the best, not merely a wife and a mother, he let go. Leroy—I knew this when I gazed into those deep brown eyes—wouldn’t let go. He’d been waiting for his reward all along.
‘I’m not quick to use my gun,’ he told me. ‘I thought about it and did what I thought was best. I have to admit that I enjoyed rescuing someone who I know really deserves it.’
“I sat there listening, and I realized that he wanted me, too. It surprised me. I was old. I still had passion. I let him look me over with abandon. As we stood outside the diner, I told him that I liked him. Then, I said: ‘what are we doing tomorrow.’
“Leroy smiled and told me to be ready at five o’clock. I was—and I felt like I was twenty-one. Leroy came to me and stepped forward, extending his hand with a dazzling smile as if he could read my mind. I offered mine to him and he seized it, a bit strongly, which I liked. He pulled me into him. ‘Come,’ he said, ‘let’s go’.
Leroy took us to a planetarium, which was quiet. We entered the domed area and took our seats to look at the stars. Leroy told me about this constellation and that. The galaxies were poetry in his voice. He knew and spoke of the body’s blood gases, physics, his theories, what he does in the labs, what he studies, how he experiments and what he wanted to make. Leroy told me that man’s future is in the stars. I told Leroy that I believed him.
“I still do,” Sesame plainly said, putting her arm around the girl as the wind off the lake picked up and danced in her hair.
“What happened to Leroy?” Sylvia asked.
Sesame smiled and looked over the lake, her eyes coming to rest on the mountain range. Her gaze drifted up into the skies. She said then, softly, “that night, he proposed marriage,” adding, “a short time later, he invented a machine to test blood, which made longer life possible—it’s extended my life for years—and we’ve lived happily ever since. Well, at least until this world war broke out. Leroy’s planning our escape from this earth on a rocket.”
Sesame spoke as if she was talking about taking a stroll around the lake. “In fact, darling, I must go to him now.
“He’s at the launch pad—a car’s probably waiting at the lodge—and I must be on my way. We leave at first light. There’s more to do.”
Sesame looked at the girl with warmth and kindness. “I wanted to tell you about this life before I departed.”
“Why?” The enchanted child wanted to know.
“So you know that happiness is possible. You’re my godchild. Because, just for listening to an old woman carry on about carrying on, you have become something of a darling.”
Sesame Flanagan took a long, last look at the girl. “Sylvia,” she said. “My darling.” She leaned over, kissed the girl’s forehead and whispered: “The world belongs to you. Be your best and live to be happy. Don’t ever let anyone get you to stop. Have at it and make life grand.” At that, she rose, pulling the girl up and setting her down on the spot where the child had tumbled into the walkway. She slowly inclined her head to the darling godchild, turned and went walking along the path, quickening her pace as she pumped her arms and marched toward the lodge.
At dawn, Sylvia Castiron, asleep in her room at her stepmother’s chalet, woke to the sound of a low, vibrating rumble. She sprang from the bed and ran to the window overlooking the lake—in time to see a burst of rust, orange and yellow from behind the mountains. As the fiery cloud billowed, a rocket ship rose into the pale blue sky. Watching the rocket rise, Sylvia knew that Sesame and Leroy were on board. She knew they were heading for the stars.
That Sesame Flanagan’s godchild knew this would give Sylvia Castiron the strength to face rotating machines of the all-controlling state of her nation during the bloodiest world war to come.
As Sylvia Castiron now drove the vehicle into its designated spot on the city green, pulling her violet-colored cape’s accordion collar up past the bridge of her nose, Sylvia knew that seeing Sesame’s rocket rise had given her the impetus to create the Happy Child Company. Exiting the vehicle, sweeping her cape back with a swift gesture—suddenly becoming a slender, half-masked figure gliding across the city green in a cascade of the most brilliant shade of violet — she also knew that she had found in Sesame Flanagan the courage to envision and execute her own master escape.
In the sundown’s last light before the onset of nighttime and its oncoming curfew, Sylvia strode to the spot on the green where a camouflaged hatch led to the underground. After one, strong pull she had already disappeared under the earth — out of surveillance range — and had scanned the codes for admittance.
“Here we go,” Sylvia said to herself with a smile as she descended, darting downward toward the diamond-shaped center where the New Colossus was housed, filled with the first of many, many thousands of children who’d been hurried away to be fired up and launched into the New World in a matter of time.
For the final ascent, Sylvia unhooked the cape and collar as she pulled herself up to the corkscrew staircase that led into the ship. She could hear the countdown now, a recorded purr of Leroy Yamamoto’s strong, soothing voice, and she climbed the stairs in keeping with the count, stepping up and around and up and around with the powerful grace of a runner circling the track, her violet cape falling like a curtain into a pool at the bottom of the staircase.
It wouldn’t be long now, she thought, thrusting herself into the New Colossus and knowing in that instant that she, too, was the one to save the world. Pulling her chamber shut and hearing the sealant over the sound of the final countdown, she felt the rumble, closed her eyes and listened to the sound of the flames.
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The godchild and the first of the world’s godchildren—inspired by Sesame Flanagan and engineered by Leroy Yamamoto—rose at last, in the diamond-shaped New Colossus, ripping through the city green and tearing across the blackened sky in a streak of pink, yellow and blue. Other bursts would follow. Tracking and encryption would get harder. Smaller ships would make less frequent launches. But it was no longer too soon for freethinkers to steal away.
The New World had begun—once again upon a time.
***
Award-winning author, writer and journalist Scott Holleran lived in Chicago for 21 years and writes the non-fictional Industrial Revolutions column as well as short stories. Read and subscribe to his non-fiction newsletter, Autonomia, at scottholleran.substack.com. Listen and subscribe to his fiction podcast at ShortStoriesByScottHolleran.substack.com. Scott Holleran lives in Southern California.
