Lint and Misanthropi lived in an apartment with several other roommates who had each separately, but entirely thought at one point "boy, their parents sure did set them up for success."

When the D season hit (they called winter the D season [they being just Lint because Misanthropi had neither the time nor will nor effort {her doctor said she had a thyroid condition}]) they both depression drank in a living room (theirs but it was shared) usually.

One day, wonderingly,

Misanthropi: We need hobbies so we aren't just sad drinking girls.

Lint: Isn't that what your 20s are about anyway?

Here their roommate but also maybe friend? Jonbo joins them. He tells them that they're adults and they don't have to have hobbies.

"I know," thinks Lint aloud, ignoring Jonbo, "I should get into swimming."

"Swim is like swin except I think it's a word." Martha comments. She, too, had appeared, because maybe anxiety loved company. Maybe anxiety had a pheromone, was a pheromone.

They began jogging to the park where there was water, but became too winded to continue a block in and they decided that for all the hobbies in the world they'd picked the worst one. Their indecision left them glittering on the sidewalk, flushed flustered with emotion among the drudgery of routine around them. By then the entire house was following them, including the neighbors who lived downstairs, because apparently nobody had anything important to do (Jonbo was just a nihilist, however).

Meanwhile, in the park, Almenia-pia had found the time to decide to feed ducks. Unfortunately the misalignment of the seasons with her decision meant she had a bag of breadcrumbs and a frozen pond and no ducks. She threw breadcrumbs on the ice. Across the way a child watched.

"Almenia-pia" she heard the child cry. But the child had said nothing. She cursed her onanistic self-centric rotational tendencies with the word "fuck." This was it, however, this was the moment. The bag of breadcrumbs (panko) dropped from her hands. She wound up her body. The emotion surged through her, her neck craned, her new leg muscles contracted, she stomped, prepared for a lunge, wheeled each arm around, tossed her beret to the side, smacked her lips spastically, drained the color from her cheeks, spun like a ballerina or her own rotational tendencies, felt but didn't hear a ringing in her ears, grew 1/100 of a millimeter of toenail, dilated her own pupils, plumped with energy with the icy breath that wheezed into her lungs, tasted iron like a catfish in her mouth, sensed the flicker of a streetlamp a mile away, had a gust of wind blow against her visage, was struck by a certain ultraviolent light, painted a picture of demise in her head, then swan dived face first into the lake, breaking her neck, killing her instantly.

"Hubert!" a woman cried. The child was looking at the jagged fan of blood on the ice, but the woman had mistaken Almenia-pia for a man named Hubert and raced over to the body. When she saw that it wasn't her beloved Hubert, gone missing a half decade earlier, she lost interest and left because she didn't want to be the one that had to call the authorities or give any sort of report. It was the city. It was vast. It was bliss in a hemisphere, the blizzard anonymity.

Lil'Punkin, the child, would remember that moment years later in the last car of a train when the bump and swerve it makes at a slight incline reminds him of the noise of a swan dive and it drives him near insane, but he pulls himself back, hyperventilating, because he still has places to be, he's an olympic medalist, now, and there's a cereal deal waiting for him and nobody else left to fill that void. It's a post-athlete era, the knowledge economy has shrunk the importance of the corporeal into insignificance. The idea of being held more importance than actually being. Lil'Punkin, the champion diver.

Nana wore a trashbag to Merdonnor's final "Music Makes The People Cum Together" farewell tour because Lint told her it would be a moment, and also if she threw up it'd be ok, so it was ok to have too many shots beforehand. She did, and her legs were weak from the experience but she persisted. She didn't know Misanthropi because she and Lint had been childhood friends that just occasionally corresponded via a journal kept in the crook of a tree in their hometown. It (the book) was made of plastic so basically the pages you could write on with dry erase and then it'd erase if you weren't careful but also you could put it in a plastic bag. They were old now, sadder, wiser than they needed to be, knees shaking, bones aching, Lint had her living in nectar, Nana in quilts. That was why she didn't like wearing fabric.

The tour itself was everything she'd expected, and more. There was a pool where you could go swimming, though nobody did. A lot of people could also have thrown up in it, Nana thought, but they didn't. It felt like she was the only one who was close to doing so. It was hard to move. She'd forgotten why she came, she didn't even like Merdonnor and this trashbag wasn't as fashion forward as she thought when increasingly hungover, which was an interesting inversal, the trash bag, because on the other side was crumpled up newspapers she'd warm-glued to the inside to give her body more structure and to extend her sphere of personal space. Such a great invention, warm glue. She took a minute to be stupefied by memory.

Next to her was a man named Hubert who'd incidentally had his IV drips mixed up the night before and was actually a walking corpse. He figured in his post-life he might as well be among his people, so he went to the Merdonnor concert and got in for free, though for certain if he'd spent all of his currency getting in it would have been fine. He tried to focus on his new being as an undead, but all he could think about was his first love, a short (12 hour) lifetime ago, Linn, who raised swin.

"Swin is a word, Jonbo," Martha exclaimed, fascinated.

Misanthropi at age 7 had grown out of her misanthropy despite the encouragement for it to continue. It was mostly the loneliness on the swin farm that promoted her philanthropy and it wasn't something that could have been beaten, branded, berated or blended out of her, which quite frankly seemed like a borderline mental illness but could also have been related to her thyroid condition.

It was something she'd explore with her therapist Michaelangelo who was paid in birdseed because only the birds could fly their problems away, and they were the only ones who listened to him because all of Michaelangelo's patients were enormous narcissists.

The bird, Windera, had a specific route she'd take when she wanted Michaelangelo's seed. The routine was: the 3 tallest trees in the forest, look for them, hibernate for 10 hours in one (deeply lower that heartrate), pluck the feathers off of an eagle, drink the blood of a nesting starling, carry psychological burdens around the neighborhood, scattering them about to redistribute them, then return to Michaelangelo. On Wednesdays he had sunflower seeds.

"Windera, my darling, let me tell you petals three, all the time I have with thee, flower round, sun ray, will you be my heart today?"

"Squack!"

"Petal one, around this sun, three days ago, and nights yore, will the window break some more? The sun comes in, her will is shaken, Lydia Yampus has some bacon. Share she not, she is no saint, think does she, a notion quaint: 'Why,' she asks, 'am I so tragic, will you, Michaelangelo, work your magic. Make me whole, let me share, air my heart, to lay it bare. Broken window, see this light, the rapid shadow of my plight!' Hold her, like a glass, little bird, and fly, fly, fly."

Windera received a white petal from a gerber daisy. Lilliputian trifle girl not know how share. Windera wore the petal under a feather on her neck, puffing it out so it'd slot right in.

"Petal two: he wants to know the language of a star, to climb the lofty pillars through the night, the bane, it roils deep, and ripples far, when sleep is that which never seems to right. Dream one, navel gaze, throw the wretched star. You are to climb the pillar, fight the night. Bane is you, and you, it, you fighter far. To help him sleep a wink, for sleep is right. Lay low the night terror, it is nothing. Lay low, before his door, it is nothing."

Windera screes at the demand and flaps away before the third petal is given. Nevermore, no seed is worth this chore.

So Clint's night terrors continue unabated and he thinks the CBT his psychologist is prescribing might be the wrong CBT because it's neither an oil with an unvoiced instead of a voiced tap, nor is it any sort of cognitive behavior therapy, and he's truly questioning why now this therapy continues to be so expensive and dungeon-tastic. But he has no recourse, so he decides to ask his friend Lydia Yampus for money.

"Exqueeze me," she denies, "no, I need this money for..." but she mumbles a reason that nobody but God hears and he even he has to lean in a little more and rewind a few times.

"A jeep!?" God spits, "But, you don't even know how to dwive!" And it was true, because in the 7th grade, Lydia Yampus developed a fear of eggs predicated upon quite literally a butterfly effect. In Melbourne, Australia, a butterfly flapping its way through the city flapped its wings a little too hard, and somewhere in suburban Michigan, Lydia Yampus' family of 4 was swept up in a tornado. God was there, he shouldn't have been so surprised, but maybe he didn't quite have the visioning around the chain of causative events quite yet.

Her body remembered the fear, the jolt that brought her to her senses seemed to arise from nowhere. One moment she was having a nice breakfast of bacon and eggs, fluffy scrambled eggs on her fork, and the next it was up her nose buffeted by the wind and lodged inextricably. Her body was tossed around by the wind but all she could taste and smell were eggs. Truly a horror.

Like all traumas, it left indelible scars; anything that smelled vaguely of sulfur, meaning hot springs, inhospitable subterranea, and, because the eggs had really messed up the neurons of her smell receptors, in addition to traumatizing her, a hot engine of any car made before the year 1990, which included any car that her family could afford. Ergo she would never drive, and would never eat eggs with her breakfast, just bacon, which she also wouldn't share because bacon is expensive and hard to get full on. She should have been saving that money for bacon.

God took a moment to piece this together. He'd paused time for a little bit because the mystery of it bothered him enough that he replayed her life. The what felt like an explanation bothered him enough that he decided that he might change the molecular makeup of eggs so they wouldn't fuck people up so much. He remembered that babies sometimes had allergies to eggs too for no apparent reason because like, they were just eggs mere days ago so why are they having such a fuss?

In reassigning the molecular makeup of eggs, God ruined the taste of eggs for everyone except John Fart who ran a steel mill that "unintentionally" sucked a lot of birds into its furnace. Its main "bird-sucking"(tm) brand chimneys used a vacuum to pump in cool air to cool some of the molten steel for whatever reason steel needed to be cooled and it couldn't be done via a better medium than air, which was approximately every other medium except maybe like a blanket. Several of Michaelangelo's birds were sucked in and John Fart found that he liked the taste of eating their forlorn eggs. Sparrow eggs, robin eggs, bluejay eggs, eagle eggs, emu eggs, they were all delicious. They all continued to be delicious for him, so good for him.

"PBBBT" went Linnea's nasal system. She'd just developed a minor sinus infection 5-10 years ago, and when she slept it got dry, and the surge of bacteria or viruses caused it to infection-flare, and it was hard to clear in the morning. She'd tried saline flushes, mayonnaise, and good old fashioned old lady coughing, but none of it worked and she was forced to blow.

Some would say it's more of a choice to blow, but not Linnea. She was born that way, at least, according to both her and her most trusted sources, the radio, and her much younger sister Lint.

In the street, in line for Nectar, while she was merely minding her own business in the office people would look at her as if they were saying:

"BLOWER! STOP BLOWING!" and it was a little kind of sad unvalidation that frustrated her, wore her down until Lint saw it in her eyes each day, as if a piece of lint had caught in her tearduct and was bringing her to the verge of tears.

"You must tell them, so they, so that it's not true, so they can tell them differently, so they don't misunderstand," entreated Lint, "you don't blow on purpose."

"No," replied Linnea sternly, "let them live, they'll dig their own graves. God will judge them. PBBBT."

It was common practice then for the undead to dig graves because they didn't have to be paid wages and despite how poorly they were dug it seemed to be economically viable depending on how fresh they were and how much post-cleanup was required. Sometimes all that was needed was an extra shove after the service.

Their third sister Linnaya brought an edible arrangement she'd ordered from a service but it too was probably made by the undead owing to how it felt, smelled, and tasted. It had been a mistake to taste it after feeling and smelling that it was slimy. The occasion was nothing and it was actually quite suspect where the fruit had even come from because ordering at the time had a lax connotation that denoted both "ordering" and "finding."

"When I -PBBBT- am lain low by this illness don't make me -PBBBT- dig my own grave and definitely don't serve this rank fruit basket at my wedding. I mean wake."

Lint and Linnaya looked at each other in panic. Lint and Linnaya had entered a suicide pact already. They didn't know what it'd meant at the time but all they wanted to do was live in spinsterdom together if they weren't married by a certain age and they decided that was what a suicide pact entailed. Once they'd cleared the misconception about what a suicide pact was, they were too embarrassed to correct each other. Linnea had been too busy sniffing dirty surfaces to listen to their secrets and she'd missed out. There was no way she would have known about the suicide pact they'd entered without her.

Alillia the gerbil rolled by in her gerbil ball. The name had propagated over the decades after a complicated game of bananaphone coupled with poor radio reception had popularized it stemming originally from a story about a woman who swan dove into a frozen lake. Lint kicked the ball and it went flying across the room. Gerbils then were more durable than we might remember them to be.

"Mother will welcome you in the afterlife," commented Linnaya.

"Are you talking to the gerbil or Linnea?" asked Lint.

"I'm talking about Linnea, not myself," replied Linnaya, "also you should speak to me if you're addressing me and not Linnea. The homophones are enough to drive me batty."

"Pbbbt" huffed Linnea, except this time it was a fart.

"You're not the center of every conversation," she said.

"Who isn't?" asked Linnaya.

"Linnea," replied Lint.

"Linnea who?" she questioned.

"Linn--ai ya!" she was interrupted by herself when she dropped her cup of tea.

"Who's that?"

"Linnaya," she replied as she mopped herself up.

"Like, healthy Linnaya or the expiring one?" she wondered.

"Don't say expiring, people don't expire," she corrected, "edible arrangements expire."

"Expire this!" she blurt, putting up her fists.

"This conversation is expiring," she sighed.

Alillia the gerbil took the opportunity to return with a vengeance, breaking Lint's osteoporotic ankles. The lack of the proper mineralization of her bones and the blood loss was too much and she succumbed to her injuries. Linnaya and Linnea, both feeling confused, but obligated, fulfilled their suicide pact in the name of sisterhood and solidarity.

Lint was in no condition to dig her own grave, and as Linnea and Linnaya chose varied and horrible ways of disposing of themselves so that they wouldn't be undead but like certainly dead, and therefore they would also be unable to perform their last rite, the caterers brought a bare spread to the wake and the graves were dug by the next best thing to corpses, lazy bottoms who had been caught by the gay sex police for being cold starfish in bed and who had to do community service as repentance.

The gay caterers tutted, "a moan and a squirm today saves a dug grave tomorrow" (they were still working on it, but the sentiment there was enough to needle the lazy bottoms into glaring sourly, but little else).

The laws of the city of Nyork are numbered from 300 backwards because they didn't want to make anymore and they figured nobody would be able to remember more than 300 so they tried a little bit of whiteout to get rid of some of the more obscure ones, but it didn't succeed because memory is stronger than whiteout. Like all laws, they were written so people could live by themselves:

"No spitting on children" was law 241. They were down to 53 and they were getting nervous.

"Jonbo Salazar is the name given to the coolest peoples" was 251.

"No throwing littering public monumints" (it was missspelled and therefore useless)

Misanthropi's mother, Linn, was busy writing number 53 because she won a raffle on top of The Statue of Libertine.

"Oh, uh, no swin in the river," she decided, exiling all men from entering the waters of the river Mudson, decreasing its bacterial biodiversity by 4% in a matter of hours. The resulting algal bloom ravaged the bay ecosystem where the river emptied, but more importantly, the resulting frustrated dry men were then given to bouts of agonizing sedentariness, and instead of getting swole, or plowing bitches, they decided to visit the Whale Foods where Madame Pears was serving her 2 decade term of required community service.

"It's been a while," said Madame Pears to store regular, Bean Marie. "I see you."

Bean Marie had a free sample of brine shrimp with a wooden paddle served in a paper cup and, while she wasn't enjoying it, she was determined to consume it fully anyway.

"Madame Pears, what do you think of law 233, 'thou shalt just, not'?" asked Bean Marie.

"I think they should just not just not," replied Madame Pears. She was sweeping the floors because the whales were getting messy. A dry man stepped over the broom.

"But Madame Pears, what if thou just did? That'd be like breaking a law," Bean Marie scratched her head.

"Yes, but I think it's a good law."

"Really? How has it affected your life?"

"Mostly, it's stopped me and other people from like, just doing it."

"Just doing what?"

"Doing it to them."

"Ahhh," thought Bean Marie, and she placed a can of some more expensive krill into her shopping basket.

Madame Pears folded 3 towels into a pyramid and felt ennui, not killing her instantly but instead very slowly over a period of decades.

Her coworker Blubber Anna fought the feeling by sewing quilts that generated money close to cost and about $5 per hour of labor, which was less than enough for her to afford enough calories to live up to her namesake. She just liked quilting and that was okay in this day and age. Her assumption that life was safe and life was good was being challenged that day by the abundance of terrestrials so she decided to draw a bead on one of them from just beneath the toit of the dark spire that was this branch of Whale Foods. Drawing a bead on someone was code for put a bead on a string and then pretend it's rolling down a path and crushing someone based on your distorted perspective. As the plastic blue bead slid down the fraying blue yarn onto a quilt, it chased a man walking down the street named Jorge Borge who'd suffered from too much brand loyalty. The quilt was quite frankly hideous.

When Madame Pears started her 10 minute break, she sat beside Blubber Anna "Name three things that are catastrophic," she asked.

"Why? Do you want me to manifest them? That's how these things get manifested and you should be more careful about what you ask for."

"You look like 3 catastrophes that ate each other, why do you even care? Just manifest some disaster."

"Wow, like, I didn't ask to be attacked today."

"Oh come on, it's all in fun. We're all just Whale Foods employees waiting for the end."

"Okay, fine, here's one catastrophic thing: the world running out of brown sugar."

The stars aligned. In the distant past a fortune teller's mind's eye warped and witnessed this exact moment. The scroll and screed of history veered and the screen flashed red with the sound of a heartbeat. The world didn't run out of brown sugar.

"Cool that's not very catastrophic."

"But think about it, like, what would people sweeten anything with? And if like there's no easy access to um, sucrose then we'd all be in trouble, especially the diabetics, and that's basically genocide."

"Wait am I supposed to talk about something final solutiony now?"

"Anyway here's catastrophe number 2, we all forget what electricity is and all the electric infrastructure collapses because we're all just spontaneously dumb."

The lights went out and everyone screamed, including the whales, and in the medium of air their whale sounds didn't sound like a mournful song, it sounded like a series of wheezy meat squeezes. Nobody forgot about how electricity worked, though, but Blubber Anna was still scared.

"Let me tell you about the etymology of catastrophe," said Madame Pears while they sat in the dark. It was pretty spooks. "It's French and it comes from the words 'catass' which means easter and 'trophy' which means thing you win when you win. So basically catastrophes are like when Jesus came out from the rock or whatever for Easter and everyone celebrated except the Romans, they thought he was a catastrophe, and the Romans made French, so like that's where it comes from."

"Madame Pears you're so smart. Okay, I have to think of a third catastrophe." Blubber Anna was trying to thread her next bead in the dark. Despite the windows, the Whale architecture of the building let scant light into the room. It could also have been the aura of evil surrounding the black spire.

"Give it to me, Blubber Anna."

"Our systems of government and economic growth could be so intertwined that monolithic corporations control the vast majority's means of social mobility and strain our biosphere to a point of no return for an amorphous goal of keeping a teetering resource-sucking minority above us all but because humans are so durable we suffer because very little is enough to survive, and enough are complicit in the illusion of progress that there can be no real change."

Deirdre the bear was on vacation in Yellowstone, far from her home range of Grandmother Mountain. She had a lot of bear thoughts like "where is a good place to sit? How about right here on the ground?" that she would act on, then she would be very content with herself. Because this was a new locale, however, she was completely out of her groove. This caused her mood swings, anxiety, and an upset tummy. These would be easily treatable by human pills, and Deirdre knew this.

Denis had plenty of drugs but none of the exciting ones. He had seasonal allergies that flared in wild places and Yellowstone was one of them. As he was explaining to his family that this caldera was a volcanic site tens of thousands of years ago and would become a volcanic site again in the future his daughter Martha vomited from fear.

"Honey, you'll be long dead, don't worry," he comforted.

"But, Dad," she replied, "but what if a volcano comes up in our backyard I heard that happened to some guy in Maxico."

"Honey, well," Denis thought, "well."

"It could happen, couldn't it?" she panicked.

"Yes," insisted her mother.

Martha became shrill and began running into the woods.

"You follow her, I'll get the car," sighed Denis. Martha's mother rolled up her sleeves, took a swig from the flask from her hip, and started off after her stupid child.

"Martha, baby, stop running, come back, you're too fast, you'll get hurt! You'll catch a cold! You'll break your spindly child limbs!"

Martha dodged between trees, slipped in a stringfed stream, skinned her knees on some rocks, skillfully evaded her mother and her responsibilities. Her mother, lacking the agility of youth, stomped her way through, breaking saplings and upsetting the exasperating wildlife. Denis took the opportunity to roar into the wilderness via expensive sturdy offroad vehicle where he finished the job Martha's mother had begun by squelching any plant or animal, solid, gas, or liquid that dared get in his way. Several trees were crushed through the power of the car's engine. Martha, having been hidden behind one, was run over.

"BABY!" screamed Martha's mother as the car continued forward unheeding. But Martha was more or less fine. The tree had taken most of the impact and had bent over her in such a way that she had been sheltered. She was however, shaken.

The car pulled back around with various animals stuck in its fender. Martha's mother was patting her child's face. Denis dashed over with a first aid kit, but, in fact it wasn't Denis who had all the good drugs, but Martha's mother. Pulling a tranquilizer from her belt, Martha's mother heavily medicated her child. Deirdre the bear watched from nearby.

"Hey, can I get some of those?" she asked.

"AAH! A BEAR!" screamed Denis as he ran towards his killer vehicle.

"No, sir, I'm just a nice talking bear, no need to run me down, stop," pleaded Deirdre, "I just need a couple of those pills, okay? I know that sounds real bad, real shifty like, but I'm just a bear who's not quite feeling right and I just need something to calm me down and you all look like you have the ticket."

"NOT ONE STEP CLOSER," declared Denis, but Martha's mother coolly appraised the situation while Martha began drooling slightly.

"Just one, just one pill, I know it'll do me good. I just need one. I'll pay," begged Deirdre, "I got family relying on me out here and I need to focus to take care of them, you understand, right? You can't take care of your kids when you're off your game."

"I don't see any children," observed Martha's mother coolly.

"They, they're over there where's it's safer. I had to put them somewhere while that man was driving around like a maniac! You gotta understand. Just one pill" Deirdre was on the verge of bear tears now. It made her bare her teeth in human unsympathy.

Martha's mother sighed. "What have you got?".

"Signed autographs with celebrities," replied Deirdre as she pulled stacks of them out of a suitcase, "take your pick, anyone from the last 20 years who was anyone has taken a photo with me and left an autograph."

"Deal," said Martha's mother, and after picking a photo of Madame Pears from among the pile (she was in her bald moment) she gave Deirdre the bear a handful of central nervous system stimulants that ruined Deirdre's attention span but made her excellent at bear math.

Deirdre's career took a turn for the better as she became the only bear on earth to know how to do algebra. Though she sometimes missed the freedom of being just a regular famous bear, her new life as a test subject and sometimes substitute middle school teacher was comfortable, and her children were well taken care of in regular petting zoos (she'd raised them right). The scientists valued her for both her mind and her body and there were moments where that sensation approximated an appreciation of her soul, and there was little more she could ask for, yet, at times she did. What piece of her was missing? Why didn't she feel that fire, and who was it that could kindle it within her? It was an answer that she could never calculate with her bear math that haunted her until she thought of that time she'd met with a venture capitalist who wanted to invest in her future as a branded commodity. He was into micro-dosing, she remembered reading, and when she researched the topic a little more, she decided that it was worth a try.

"Do you have acid?" she asked one of her scientist caretakers one day.

"I have some distilled vinegar if you need it for an experiment, or something," her caretaker, Gina, replied, "it's just over in the lab I can go grab it. I didn't really know science was your thing, what an interesting discovery!"

"No, not that, I meant for like..." but Gina had already filed off into the lab to pick up a jug of vinegar. Moments later she returned, "I forgot to ask how much you needed, silly me, and of what concentration you wanted."

"Uhhhhhh," fumbled Deirdre, "I just wanted to... try some..."

"To taste?" said Gina, "Why, you've already had plenty of acids in your life, like, even lemon juice, or a nice berry, those are all acidic. Vinegar isn't a very tasty acid to have just plain."

Deirdre, rarely one to be tongue tied or to not speak her mind, began correcting, "Sorry, Gina, I meant the drug. Acid, the drug, because I want to try it to see if it'll help me. I don't know how but there's just something missing here and I need to feel something different, and I think it will help."

This was an odd moment of vulnerability for Deirdre, whose sentience had always been a soft spot for Gina.

"Have you ever been to Berlin?" Gina asked.

"No," Deirdre replied, and Gina took her paw, and led her out of the lab.

So there were these fufu crazies on the plane, and they had them guns because they didn't check for those good, and they were all GRR GRAH and like I was all don't tell me what to do and I bet I could like watchaw y'all heads off but also I was just a lil scared because I hadn't really like practiced this anywhere.

My boy Greel was like I wish I had my zapper on me so I could like ZSA ZSA ZSA them and they'd Undhdndhdndhndhn on the ground but he'd left it at home because of the weight limits on the baggage and the only spray I had was ssssshhhh shellac because I needed it to like stay aerodynamic but, thinking back, the SSSSHHHH on their faces might have done a good job anyway but it was also in my carry-on that they forced me to gate check because they sucked so I didn't.

Anyway, I was like sneakin sneakin sneakin cuz I'm pretty far in the back like thank goodness my manager got me them cheapass seats and like schhlup I slid into that bathroom to like collect my thoughts and like if they shot a hole in the plane wouldn't we all voom out and be toast so they can't shoot but then I heard a BANG! and was like oh shit they shootin'. But Greel told me later that it was just someone passing out and hitting their face on the tray table. But to me it felt like time was running out. I psyched myself up and was trying to find a weapon or whatever but all there was was blue toilet water and the schlup sound it could do which was like not a strong suck ok just a weak little baby suck.

This was an occasion for like BMMM heroismo, and heroismo was I right, so I schhhhlicht the door open, peeped out, and HOLY SHIT! ONE was right by me. I could be all like doodooDUUU ninja style right then and there so I went for it. I grabbed him around the neck and mouth and MMPH MMPH MMPH! him into the toilet with me and locked the door so I could WHAM WHAM WHAM his face into the toilet seat. Of course, those bathrooms aren't very soundproof, you could hear each bop honestly, and the others started thump thump thumping they way toward the door and I was like shit man, you in it now.

But chaos was like breaking out all over that plane then, cuz all it took was that one thing for everyone to be like AAAH! AAAH! AAAH! and then they started with the BROOM! ZSA ZSA ZSA! GRA TA TA and in the cabin the walls and the people had holes in them from bullets and shit's everywhere and there's more AAAH! and OOUNNNGH and SPLOBLBSLBLBLBSL and HSSSSSS of like all the air rushing out and like it was now or never so I WHAM! the nearest guy to me and it's just a normal dude oops but like courage owned the place and people left and right were like POW POW POW! taking matters into they hands BAM BAM BAM! because I had started this and there was no turning back or something I guess. I've never been prouder of all of us.

Course, there was still like RAT TAT TAT from the guns and people be like AAAAH! Still. It was like chaos like I said but people had started to use like luggage as both offense and defense and some of it was flying across the room where it went like BOOM into their faces and when they went down we'd run over and CRUNCH WHUMP their faces more so they wouldn't get back up because they was crazy!! They be pyew pyew at us on a plane!!! Trying to kill us! They needed to go.

And when that was over all the air was leaking fast right so we had to patch it up with whatever we could because we wasn't about to die from no plane crash after whupping that much ass and then we made the VOOM go down to like a ssss and it was such like a nervous trip back down there were people like blurggh unrggggh all around us and some weren't moving and some were and all we could do was like zzztt ztt schich up their wounds as best we could and it was just crazy I thought we would just nrrrrrrowwww into the ground at any moment but we didn't. And that's why I don't take planes no more, just trains.

"Lil'Punkin you're so full of shit, none of that ever happened."

"No, I swear, you had to have been there."

"He's just scared of heights. And that's ok. Lil'Punkin, it's kind of high, and planes are kind of scary. You could totally get sucked out if there were a real hole or something I think. Also, birds can get in the engines and blow them up."

"Thanks, yeah, exactly."

"What's your ideal proposal scenario, Jonbo?" asked the fortune teller, "You're a Jonbo Salazar. There's legal power in that name. You wish, the crystal magnifies the law, and we twist fate, together."

"Well," he said, scratching his chin, "after taking me to pound town he looks at me with spent lust in his eyes and says 'god I fucking love you.' He then asks me to marry him, but I say 'maybe' and am allowed time and space to make a list of pros and cons before I ask him if he's sure himself. He miraculously produces his own list of pros and cons; we are acutely sensitized to the cons that match on each list. They sting like fire, but, like water we go with the flow, and ultimately agree the qualitative pros somehow 'feel' better. The lists hover over the remainder of our relationship."

The fortune teller bit his lower lip in a grimace. "Are you fucking kidding me."

"I'm just organized," stated Jonbo, "I'm managing realistic expectations."

"The coolest peoples thinks he can't swindle an actual guy into liking him. He can't, like, silence the little voice in his head long enough to make it nice."

"Nope!"

The fortune teller took the opportunity to flip over the table, then vanish in a puff of smoke. The fortune teller's name was Gortune Deller. Like Jonbo, he felt his name guided him in a certain direction, but instead of fighting it, or trying to be better than it, he became it to the best of his ability. There was enough to fight, fate didn't need to be yet another. He was outside the back of his paisley tent smoking a clove while Jonbo rummaged around the smoke looking for his refund. The friendly but stupid elephant, Blue Peanut, walked by, a set of birds on his back each showered in flower petals. It was Blue Peanut's bath day, and in preparation they would inevitably require Gortune to tell if today would be a good day to wash. His keeper, Philtrum the Clown and also manager of the circus was close behind.

"Gortune, BAby, tell me about that sanitizer li-fe, give me that BIG WASH EN-ER-GY!" Philtrum exclaimed. Gortune stomped out his clove, stuck his head into his tent, told Jonbo to get out, then consulted some licorice sticks he threw on the floor (there was honestly no other use for the things).

"Blue Peanut will be fine today, and she will probably like the menthol soap."

"MmmMMM!" Philtrum replied and cavorted towards a cannon to be fired into the supply shed. Blue Peanut obediently followed.

Gortune felt complete, he'd fulfilled his destiny, and when he thought of how he could be of more use to the world, he could think of nothing else. What a good day. The sun was shining, the undead were slopping muck, his fortune telling robes were fitting particularly well that day, he told a useful fortune, his treasure was still safely underappreciated (he could just feel it). There was absolutely very little that could go wrong, or flag his spirits. Wow, what a great day. It was even the right humidity. His hair looked great, his lips were definitely not chapped, and it seemed like all the plants around him were just about at the right level of turgor, even the cacti which appeared to have held out and maintained enough of a useful lipid barrier to not suffer from overhydration. Gortune was careful to not get any of his finger oil on their leaves by not thinking about touching them. What a splendid strategy!

Nearby, two youths decided it was time to fight.

"Let's fight," stated one of them.

"Yeah!" agreed the other.

"Wait I'm foretelling doom if you two fight, so just cut that shit out," interjected Gortune. He didn't need his fortune telling capabilities to judge that.

The children did not heed Gortune, so he let out a whistle. The children spent the rest of the afternoon being punished by clowns.

"By golly, I sure do feel pretty low, punishing those children with inflatable toys and fake flower squirters," thought Anbert to himself once the children had run away, this was a recurring issue that he discussed with his therapist, feeling ambivalent about his job. There was no harm coming from it, just a few funhits to the kids, a little wet wet on the nose, tee hee, ha hoo, that was all, but it somehow didn't feel right.

"Oo, what a fun fantastic day! Washing the elephant SQUEAKY clean! And punishing some icky bad CHeeldren!" exclaimed Philtrum, patting Anbert on the back. "LOvely?"

"Yeah, real fun, lots o' laughs out loud," replied Anbert, "boy I've worked up a mighty thirst," he continued, taking his leave.

"Want any Company~?" asked Gortune.

"Naw, I'm 'right, thanks a million, though."

Anbert went to the beverage tent and got a Dryer brand nectar. It came in a fun bottle featuring its mascot, a piece of Lint, on this bottle, a depiction of her severed arm. That meant this bottle was arm flavor, or, bruzoberry. They were becoming collectors items now. As he was ruminating over his future, Anbert felt someone tie a balloon around his wrist.

"Careful! Too much soda and now you might float away!"

"Ha ha ha."

"Hu hu huu~"

It was Cashew Rizzo, the circus's resident miniature clown. What an impish young lad.

"How do you do it, Cashew?"

"Lots of stretching. Helps release all the toxins."

"Ah, you're right. Maybe I just need to stretch more."

So Anbert began stretching more. It improved his mood greatly and transformed his life, becoming something of an obsession. Each morning he'd stretch, and stretch, and stretch, until he managed to grow half an inch. He went on to obsessively spend every waking moment trying to lengthen himself until he was so loose his body barely held together and he began writing a self help book for people who didn't like having structure in their body. They became the noodlers and everyone was very confused by the connotation of either intelligence or lacking integral tendons and ligaments. When they met and greeted him at book signings they were enchanted by his unplaceable twang.

The year was several years ago. Lint had traded her mammary glands for a shot at fortune. She'd been told by an Important Person named Clint that they needed someone who seemed both practical and tragic to be the mascot for their nectar -- "you ain't got no honey so you need us," was the motto. They crunched some numbers and thought it'd be relatable and commercially successful.

"Well ok," thought Lint to herself. It wasn't as if she was doing much with them anyway. Nobody be suckin on dem tiddies.

So she went to go see some undead and had them chop off her mammary glands and wow her posture was so much better. She felt practically pre-pubescent and the continued lack of attention from anyone in particular continued to suit her.

The PR move exceeded all expectations and Dryer brand nectar took off as a household name, the anonymous unmammal mascot the leading call to action that let people know that it was ok for them to be both physically and spiritually dry and to be able to seek outside help to quench what parched them.

Superfans began emerging across the media, holstering bottles of nectar to their belts, showing siblings collector's malformed bottles, doing trick shots to open and drink bottles, grafting bottles to trees in hopes that they would grow, nectar baths, injections, transfusions, douches, becoming the unofficial drink of breast cancer survivors, it didn't end. Dryer attempted to take it in stride, giving little to no attention to the frenzy of activity that was inevitably arising from their highly addictive formula. Not thinking it would be such a deal, they'd already signed a contract with Lint to pay her per no-mammary image used on each bottle, and she was thus rolling in cash, but wasn't remarkable enough to be noticed in public.

This of course was great, but, naturally, there came a time when Dryer decided to try and expand their market with new flavors and attempt to weasel out of their deal.

"We're thinking about phasing out the photo, moving it over to a hyper-realistic depiction," explained Clint, "Think of it as a slight pivot in marketing; no, think of it as a new version of your best self. I think it's truly, utterly, incredibly beautiful, and truly a representation of you that we've spent a lot of time on and that we're all truly proud of. You will forever be the inspiration for Dryer Original."

At this point Lint had more than enough money to last her entire lifetime. Though she'd spent the majority of it on charity and her friend Nana's exotic materials quilting, she kept enough to keep herself above the poverty line for the rest of her life. For this occasion she didn't bother with a lawyer.

"Okay," Lint commented, "sure, whatever, that sounds nice."

Clint and his compatriots looked at one another, deciding if they were obligated to apprise Lint of their plans.

"Do you... want to see it?"

"Oh, sure. Why not?"

When they showed her the dazzling representation of a mammal-less siren emerging forth from the froth of the sea, gushing nectar from every other orifice, Lint was captivated.

"Wow, she's juicy," she decided.

"Wonderful, wonderful, so glad you approve. With the release of this new image, we'll begin our new product rollout of new flavors based on her body parts. For example, here's how we're showing our longan flavor:" Clint held up a figure of the siren's dangling eyeball, its optic nerve reaching out of the frame. "And of course, our new favorite flavor bruzoberry:" The siren's severed arm had a cartoon bone sticking out the top of it. "And... because we'll be using this depiction of a breastless siren, we'll consequently no longer need to use your photo. You'll be free to return to your private life, sans royalties, but we will absolutely compensate you with a generous one time inspiration and modeling fee."

"Yeah," agreed Lint, "sounds fine."

It was the first day of the new rollout when Jorge Borge entered a gas station off the freeway entering Nyork looking for his Dryer (now Dryer Original). Like three shafts from Minerva's bow each sense was shattered by the depiction of the new image on his favorite beverage.

"WHO IS THIS?!" he demanded of the unfortunate cashier, "WHAT HAVE THEY DONE WITH THE DRYER LADY?"

"I guess we got a new shipment in today. It's the new Dryer," the cashier reasoned, "new flavors and everything."

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN NEW FLAVOR? WHERE IS THE DRYER LADY"

"Look, it's just a new thing, I don't know, take it up with them," replied the cashier, gesturing around to no listening ears.

Jorge Borge dashed out of the gas station and continued down the street, thinking this was a mistake, a limited edition, looking for the old nectar lady he knew and loved.

"WHERE IS SHE? WHERE IS THE DRYER LADY? THE NEW STUFF DOESN'T TASTE AS GOOD." he demanded to multiple shopkeepers, strangers, and superfans. Nobody had a satisfactory answer. Jorge Borge took the opportunity then to fly off the handle and begin looting the city.

First was the world bank, ending the American financial monopoly, next was the world's store of helium, which was kept in a tower tied to the ground with a string, but, finally, before he and his angry mob reached the Dryer Nectar headquarters, Clint stepped forth.

"Stop, stop, please," he begged, "stop this senseless violence."

"SENSELESS?" Jorge Borge screamed, "THE TRUE SENSELESSNESS IS THE REMOVAL OF OUR DRYER NECTAR LADY."

Clint had had a cage erected in front of the headquarters where he stood. He beckoned Jorge to step in. Flanking it were hummers that seemed to be supporting the structure.

"No, no, you misunderstand," Clint assured, "It's a new page to turn for Dryer, a more modern future, a better future full of nectar, a cleaner nectar that is both more healthful and better for the world."

"I WANT THE OLD NECTAR." Jorge demanded forcefully, spittle flying through the air.

"But won't you see the beauty in the new logo?" Clint asked, "It embodies everything beautiful and good about Dryer nectar.".

Unplacated, Jorge Borge roared and the crowd roared with him. "Jeez Louise," mumbled Clint, "They're like some reactive sludge." Then, having placed a call earlier, he pulled forth Lint onto the podium.

"IT'S THE DRYER LADY," someone in the crowd screamed and collectively they dropped to their knees.

"Uhh," Clint turned to Lint, "Dryer lady, do you approve of the new motto and the new icon?"

"Yeah, she aight," shrugged Lint. She was feeling kind of over it.

"Is this, uh okay, superfan Jorge Borge?" Clint asked.

A look of indecision, confusion, and love crossed Jorge Borge's face as he looked between the bottle and the Lint before him.

"Oh, hold that thought," Clint said nervously. The hummers holding the cage up had been scheduled to retire that day at 9 AM PST and it was seconds away from noon EST. Workers emerged from the truck and began dismantling the cage as well as the hummer, breaking up the podium and the bars surrounding Clint, Lint, and Jorge Borge into elemental pieces of cardboard, papier mache, and tape.

"We gotta rebuild this to new standards," declared the workers to Clint who stood by, incredulously. They began erecting a new cage that looked more like the sails of a boat, but Jorge Borge's senses were offended.

"No, no, you're wasting good materials," Jorge explained, and he and his mob began rebuilding the city from what seemed to be the endless amount of paper, tape, and cardboard generated from the breaking down of the hummers and the cage, and thus was created the first public work of that century, the great plastering of the city of Nyork, which would hold them miraculously through several hurricanes and snowstorms, but would ultimately succumb to the great fires.

Fortnin dances every night every night every night, dancing dancing doo doo dight, my fair Fortnin.

When our Fortnin goes to bed, goes to bed, goes to bed, then our Fortnin wets the bed, wets the bed wets the bed.

Fortnin's godmom hates to clean, hates to clean, hates to clean, she's unrelated to anyone, only God-y.

Fortnin's Godmom's Godmom's god, Godmom's god, Godmom's god, is a god of a stepwell, my fair lady.

In the stepwell lives a sprite, lives a sprite, lives a sprite, in the stepwell lives a sprite, it wears nothing.

Someone told the sprite to clothe, sprite to clothe, sprite to clothe, so it got itself a quilt, made of pony.

Pony was a girl named Cube, pony cube, pony cube, Pony was a pony cube, then turned dog food.

Blubber Anna ate the dog food ate the dog food ate the dog food Blubber Anna ate the dog food, she was hungee.

Then she turned the pony fur, pony fur, pony fur, into a big lovely quilt then sold it for a loss.

Lonely only pony, lovely only doo, Pony was a cube, cubed into some food.

Jonbo clogged the walkway with his body, breathing heavily, he inhaled a napkin he had doused in deodorant, doing nothing for his exertion. Whence Jonbo come? The city, to this little college town whose walkways were meant for both walking and Victorian musing, so passers by suffered regularly. Brick by brick advanced each story, cultivated by knowledge, not fought for.

Years ago, SimSim walked these steps, probably. What was that feeling? Thinking about him in his prime, probably sexing girls and discovering things about himself, making mistakes, throwing up those messy relationships. Jonbo was no part of it, despite how he craned his neck, willed it to be so. Ooh it smelled like vinegar and he suddenly couldn't breathe so he danced in place until the embarrassment went away. What was he doing here?

He'd cut a deal with a fortune teller, he just wanted to be a witness; that would be enough, just a witness there, to feel the same sun on his skin, breathe the same fair air. Oof ouch owie, it hurt.

Jonbo began removing all his clothes and threw two handfuls of sumac over a lighter. They didn't catch. He suddenly felt powerless and whispered to himself, "He shells shellfish by the shell shore," over and over.

So in my head this went differently. I was not able to visualize; the wishes were just getting in my head, and they just sat there being insistent. I don't know if it was my lack of imagination as a child, they gave me lots of practice, I have siblings. We had an imaginary Jewish temple, its outside built with a post and Yentl system. We practiced our imaginary Jewish religion. We were dentists, constantly talking about plaque and calculus, we obliterated it with imaginary lasers, sparing the teeth because the lasers used ultraviolent light that only flagellated the tar-tar-tar.

We weren't dumb children. I think I just failed to imagine because it'd been a while, and there were just things in the world to learn and to learn about. Some of it was right, and some of it was wrong, and it was a problem when I learned the wrong ones, and it felt like I didn't seem to understand at the end. That's how my imagination died. When I hear ripping "wooh" noises I don't think it's someone pulling the ripcord really close to my head anymore, I think it's just me mishearing, and I ignore it.

I'm on the floor, but I rolled into the grass to get out of the way. That's normal here. It's college. Dslé, someone says. They must be Canadine because they have an accent, and they're apologizing when I'm the one in the way. They must be ready to be home. College is a long time.

The grass is moist in the way that grass is always wet, even though it's warm. Deep under me are a worm family living in wormland. They haven't eaten yet, but they're about ready to sit down to dinner. The worm children are building their worm Jewish temple as dentists. A child also suffers from nihilism because there's nothing else to do except imagine death, masturbate, eat pizza, smoke worm weed and lament past decisions. It was time for purification by singing, so I began singing into the ground at the worms. It sounds like whale song to them because of the medium of earth. They resolve to shaking, confused. My work is done. I spiraled after, realizing life is what happens between these hammers of essential sadness. Wooo, I low, it rumbles through my chest. It is only for me. Wooo.

There are three anchors that tie me to the earth, the left anchor of exhaustion, the right anchor of despair, and the tail anchor of habit. I am an art nouveau illustration, surrounded by golden sonic sigils in the grass. Security is called, but on this quiet campus they are slow. They raise the left anchor, they raise the right, the tail still drags behind me.

It's the United Nations now. They're filming an ad for PR featuring their members dressed up as the trendiest anime characters they could think of. Their host, Bill, is tasked with starring in the intro, pointing at stars as he walks forward, casually tossing his head back, audible "Bam!" The reel has no background sound, as they're going to add a jazzy tune post-production. They run out of budget before being able to do so, and the resultant ad involves Bill in a tuxedo walking down the hall wildly pointing at Genevre in a Sailor Bluto costume going "Zoom!" and her doing a sultry look silently. You do hear the steps of Bill's clicky shoes clopping down sterile tiles, though. He is offered no direction and the set is mostly confusion-as-confidence as the wheels of the camera squeak on through. Down the stairs is someone as Rurouni Kenshin. It's a crossplay moment.

Russia has no part in this. The head of their mafiya is their representative. His name is Andrei. Andrei is in love with Pascal, the representative from Canadia, and Pascal is receptive, though, Robert, who is a nobody who vies for his heart, is feeling some type of way. Lydia Yampus, the madame secretary is rooting for Robert because he told her about the best bacon. When she's taking public transit to work, she has scarlet hair, raven lips, and wears a hat frequently

Andrei has the cosmic inherited WW2 USSR power of being in the right place at the right time. In the hallway, hapless Pascal is pushed to the side by Bill, ruining the shot. In the resultant 2 seconds of disorientation, Andrei seduces him handily by insinuating himself into his life with his Slavic charm.

"Away with us, let us sex in the closet, forever," Andrei declares and Pascal makes an agreeable noise. Because Pascal is Canadine he is equally endlessly accommodating and polite. They proceed to the closet while Lydia Yampus is aghast by the audacity of this bitch. There are hours, nights, days of sensual "unh" from the closet, they become closely bonded and develop feelings for each other, bringing in additionally the representative from Germany who was also incidentally BFFs with Andrei.

"You need to go after what you want," encourages Lydia Yampus while Robert looks sad. She pours coffee into an imaginary mug, scalding herself in her distraction. The days following the fornication, Robert passes Pascal in the hallway and whines, "Wait I want to have weird sex with you too."

Pascal continues to be endlessly accommodating and polite and in a 2 stroke wonder, shoots his cumshot on Robert and Robert seems elated, though everyone else is sad because they see what's coming beyond just the jissom. Pascal returns to the warmth of Andrei's throuple. Pascal's cumshot is sentient but also continues to ignore Robert. They've finally wrapped the video shoot and Pascal's cumshot becomes the representative for Ireland because the prior representative tripped down the stairs in their anime heels and became incapacitated and therefore unfit for rule according to the laws of the Tuatha De Dannan.

It is minutes before the meeting. Brogue, Triclops, Anniversary and Fake Gambit are sitting in the front row. Fake Gambit stands up:

"If you want a cigarette, you gotta close your eyes and open yo mouf and stick yo tongue out"

The entire front row does it.

"Alright, help yourselves, they in the back, and you only allowed one if you're an adult, or you didn't begin your day inside someone (lookin' at you Pascal's cumshot) and if you want spirits, they also in the back, mon cheries."

Everyone helps themselves to a cigarette before the meeting and the ambient smoke eases societal, racial, and ideological tensions in the room via vision obfuscation. All anyone wants is to be loved and nobody is getting that except Pascal.

"The agenda of today's meeting is to deal with our failed ad blitz to recruit people into giving a shit," explains exarch Brock O'Hammers, "Bill, you did a fine job trying your best, but I think we needed more... money to make it work," he explains.

"Exarch," interrupts Lydia Yampus, "China is on the line, they're sending someone that needs help with their physics homework."

"No, madame secretary," waves Brock with his hand as if he were swatting flies.

"It's too late, he's already arrived," she explains, escorting in a Chinese schoolboy about the age of 8, but, honestly, who can tell. Brock sighs and sits with him, looking over his physics homework and jotting down various formulae from memory.

"Now," he explains in English, "it's a matter of understanding, that the wind creates a lower pressure based on velocity and the system around it creates a higher pressure out. Bernoulli. This is just like the time I helped rebuild Nyork. We worked, and like the wind, the faster we worked the more that came together more quickly. The secret to life is to be like wind. Just keep your head down and blow."

Brock makes a blowing motion. The Chinese student comprehends and finishes his physics homework given the unhelpful anecdote and is taken away by Lydia Yampus before she brings in another student needing help with biology homework.

"I know I'm paternal, but this is getting ridiculous," Brock bewails, why was it that China's students needed so much help? He stoops over, looking at the diagram on the page. It is of a snake licking a frog's butt with its tongue. Brock finds it mildly inscrutable. When he looks for help from some of his fellow United Nations members, they all appear to be too busy chain smoking.

"Lydia Yampus, can we get the reference video for this lesson, please?"

Lydia Yampus, potentially the only helpful person in this entire story, pulls out the reference video from the textbook and projects it to the world leaders' screen. After flickering virally, it plays an animated film: a frog sits by; a snake slithers up and licks its butt. Consequently, it lays a bunch of eggs and a larger, more sentient Egg eats one of the eggs, but can only manifest what animals the egg is. The snake-frog-laid egg is unfertilized and God can't hear it be an egg so the Egg is stuck. The answer to the question is eggs.

There is an angry chow chow outside sitting in the rain in the street and nobody wants it. It is Robert's pet but he does not know how to love.

Deirdre began her thirteenth hour in Berghain with the second half of a black pill. A loud American voice interrupted her post-ingestion musing on what it could have been in the steamy opal-lit windows of the second floor bathrooms. "It was probably ecstasy; it's all they have here. If you'd wanted the good stuff you should have gotten some bike messengered earlier. Why didn't you let me know?"

Deirdre turned to see the glittering silhouette of light, Gina, smiling at her, and wondered when she'd arrived, or if she'd actually been here the whole time and was just now peeling herself away from the gummy crowd. Her skin was dewy; everything was dewy; it kept her from seeing any new colors, which she mistakenly expected: this wasn't that kind of that.

Said dewy skin was on her shoulder now, a cool wet fish, it made her hum the oily sensation she saw. "What's a bear like you doing in a place like this?" As if she didn't already know, Deirdre thought, as she tried to decide what cue her lingering rationality was trying to give her.

"I'm here for you," Deirdre finally decided, pleased with herself, and put that fish in her mouth and began licking to warm it up.

"And the drugs and the dancing and the crowd and the bathrooms and the sex and the music," Gina replied sardonically. Irritated, Deirdre bit, and Gina attempted to pull her hand away, but Deirdre's firm bear lips kept it in place. Caught off balance by moisture on the floor, Gina slipped and was swept up into Deirdre's bear arms, narrowly avoiding snapping her wrist. Deirdre considered that her past past life as a dancer made sweeping Gina off her feet a reflex as opposed to a burden. The follow through motion was to sway, step, turn the techno beats into the waltz between the notes. There were enough substances in her system to dull the humming of bear math in this situation, yet she moved with practice instead of calculation, the sign of an organized childhood. Deirdre pushed past the hand washers at the trough, one-two-three, one-two-three, Gina was laughing, and that was the sound Deirdre moved to. It wasn't unwelcome, a big furry bump in a certain general sensory furriness.

"You belong here," Gina called to Deirdre, she was inches away, but elevated, there was no question about that; everything about her soared. Deirdre knew she was in trouble with this one, the bear intuition peeking through, yet she wanted more, knowing she couldn't help herself, wondering if this was some sort of dream inspired by everything leading up to this moment. She wanted to say something, but could only roar.

It was lost to the thudding of the music; the fog machines sprayed; she wished she were the music. Gina hopped from her arms and Deirdre saw the unfocused wave of each particle of her body. No, she wasn't the music, to her, Gina was the music: she'd come to this club to be the beat Deirdre marched to, woke to and lived for. Deirdre had come for answers, and had found the answer. There was no next, no approximating the shape of the hollowness inside of her, only here, her, until the day she died, which could have spanned any range from now until eternity.

Philtrum's neck hurt. His back hurt. There was something about his body that was just wound up by cortisol, and it felt like it stemmed from a disliking of Anbert's situation. Ever since Anbert had gotten that book deal, the circumstances surrounding his clownery just... weren't conducive to a good atmosphere. Philtrum voiced this opinion in what he hoped was an off-handed manner:

"WHAAAAle Anbert, your fans are, aren't they just, just the most... ok baby I'll say it, they're interrRUPTING your performances and HmmmmMMm... That's all a bit Le Tough now to handle wouldn't you maybe think??? Having to answer... LENGTHENING QUESTIONS while you do-done-did squart them so nicely."

"So sor', Mr. Philtrum, I didn't not know mean for it t'end up this way."

Anbert hadn't invited Philtrum to have a nectar with him but Philtrum had found a place by his side.

"No, no my dear Anbert! There's NOTHING to apologize for!!" Philtrum replied as he patted Anbert's very long arm, "And even if they were, all is forgeevn from the bottom of my big sweet heart, Anbert!"

"That's mighty generous of you. I got me a lot to apologize for, though, cuz I see how hard I'm making your life. You all have been nothing but kind to me since I became a noodler. But I get it. I fit into the clown car a little less. It's harder for me to hold up the brush we use to clean Peanut cuz my arm's so loose now. You all have been doing it. Y'all have been picking up my slack, and it's just not fair."

"My darling!" Philtrum reassured, "You do not UNDERSTAND the masonry of our fraternity!"

Philtrum looked over his shoulder to try and catch Cashew's eye. He waved him over.

"Cashew, my dearest, I've said the wrong thing. Help me make this all better."

"What," cut Cashew curtly. His hair was disheveled. There were bags under his eyes and he shook his arms frequently, as if they were constantly sore.

"Erm, nevermieend," said Philtrum, "you look like a piece. Take a nap."

"Can't," Cashew complained, "foreign, timezones, everything about this, my body isn't good."

"The German air ain't doing it for you?" questioned Anbert, "Have you tried stretch--"

At hearing Anbert utter the word "stretch" something suddenly snapped in Philtrum. "I SWEAR TO GOD ANBERT IF THIS SUGGESTION DOESN'T END IN PILING INTO A VERY SMALL CAR WITH 30 OTHER CLOWNS THIS ISN'T GOING TO WORK" he burst. When they looked at him with more than mere comic shock, he saw that the damage had been done, "oh, my, my, I'm sorry, I'm a PIECE of shit, I think I need to go."

Regrettably, Philtrum thought that this might have been a moment where stretching and taking a moment to breathe beforehand would have helped this situation. Too embarrassed to remain, he headed to Gortune's tent. The layout of the camp was disorienting. It took him too long to arrive.

"O WHY are we even HEAH," Philtrum begged Gortune, who was busy sitting and staring at a geode, "nothing is working out and we's a mess."

"Um, to bring truth, beauty and kindness to the masses."

"I mean, YES, but... like... truth and BEAUTY and UNIVERSAL..."

"The bear, remember?" Gortune replied, "Blue Peanut needs a friend and the stars say that his companion is here, in Berlin. Their friendship will open new horizons for the troupe."

It was not in fact the stars that had told Gortune this, rather, it was a swathe of news outlets and a series of deductive steps and his desire to go eat a lot of sausages that had steered this ship.

It all began when Gortune had been getting a massage from a German woman with farm arms. Her English was flawless and when she pushed on the right spot on his back he felt his eyes go out of focus. She was telling him a story about her hometown. He was half listening:

"...yeah, the girl and the bear were swanning around Berlin for several decades before anyone noticed anything was amiss. They were popular enough that they were depicted on a poster making out in the metro."

"Fascinating," Gortune uttered between breaths, "wait, what?"

"The girl and the bear, Berlin," the masseuse explained. Drat, she'd said something interesting but he couldn't recall her name. His normal prophetic tone required it. While trying to piece together a scintillating way to express his interest, the masseuse had already moved on to talking about currywurst.

"...and people say it's just ketchup and curry powder but it's not. It's a very special red sauce and curry powder that's like ketchup but not."

It piqued only his selfish human curiosity. But he found that often enough that such instincts dovetailed into the mystic.

"Philtrum," (presently), "you look stressed. You need a massage."

"What, was that the stars telling you that? Did the stone relinquish its SECRETS?"

"Philtrum, no, you just look unhappy. I know this lady back in Nyork that was really good at that sort of thing. I can try if you want."

"The MULTI! TALENTEd! FORTUNE! TELLER! I cans't wait to see this!?"

So Gortune cleared his table, flipped Philtrum over, and began slapping and poking and pressing pieces of him.

"Blue Peanut isn't going to, like, live forEVER, anyway," sighed Philtrum as he tried to relax. "We should just go h-home."

"You're just saying that," Gortune replied, "I know Blue Peanut is your everything. Don't pretend like you wouldn't want him to have the best life possible. Besides, we fit right in here. I'm surprised you don't like it."

"I don't know," Philtrum murmured, his words were becoming less expressive, despite Gortune's less than stellar skills, Philtrum was relaxing, "I think it's just... the here that follows us, me, not the here. We could be anywhere on earth and I'd still be this me, though what's around me changes."

"We should also see about getting you a new set of eyes while we're here. If they're anywhere, it's here. You and Cashew should go to a club."

"You think?" asked Philtrum.

"I think," Gortune responded, and stopped when Philtrum began snoring.

Lint, Misanthropi, Jonbo, and Martha were raising a trifoliate weed together. Lint watered it Monday Thursday, Misanthropi Tuesday Friday, Martha Wednesday Saturday, and Jonbo Sunday because he was least likely to go to church. It died within a matter of weeks after being overwatered and everyone was shocked. Blaming each other, assiduously, each of them spiraled into a deep well of introspection and malaise.

Lint already missed the plant. She gazed pensively at where it once was, mere hours ago, before it was thrown away.

"All good things must die" Jonbo consoles.

It doesn't console her. He tries again: "You die a hero or live long enough to become the villain."

He's running out of adages now: "Roses are red, violets are blue, when we're around, everything's poo."

"Jonbo did you kill the fucking plant?" accuses Martha.

"I have no agency, no purpose, if I did, it was incidental, a turn, a gaze, a breath in the grand dance of life and death."

How predictable.

"Jesus Christ Jonbo, can you just stop evangelizing the careless universe for one second?"

Lint turned her attention from her thoughts, nibbled on a scrap of brie, then wound her scarf around her head, covering her eyes.

"No, it's not Jonbo's fault, it's all our faults," she nodded from behind the scarf, "And, I mean, we all had agency in this too. If Jonbo was doing something wrong, not that he was doing anything wrong, nobody saw or could prove it, at any rate, and nobody is accusing Jonbo of doing anything wrong, we could have all done or said something."

"I didn't do it," assured Jonbo.

"But we did do it, we had a plan and a schedule and everything. We researched three leafed plants and kept the soil nice and moist and it looked like it shriveled up." Misanthropi reasoned, "Martha, you went camping when you were a child. You know about plants, right? Like, what did we do wrong? Should we have put it outside?"

"Ohhh, nooo," Martha dismisses. Nobody knew how to prompt her for something more helpful. She was busy putting the finishing touches on her 16 page labor report for her building maintenance job that nobody had asked for and they had decided earlier they weren't going to kick her when she was down.

"Why would it shrivel if it had enough water? This is the worst choice of hobby, totally, because if you don't do it, or if you do it, it dies."

"Yuh," Jonbo agreed.

Lint continued imagining a future with a plant and considered how heavily life flouts too many rules, and how the agency she imagined she had proved to truly be the illusion she feared.

Misanthropi served dinner. It was horse potato soup cooked with a defibrillator. Jonbo is the only one who takes more than a sip and it strengthens his bones while the others' demineralize owing to their lack of nutrition and too many tears and the biological tendencies of their sex.

Separately, they decide to surprise each other with a new plant to get over the old one. They each buy "easier," but more environmentally constrained plants, and the succulent gets left in the bathroom while the kitchen herbs are kept on a high shelf. The plant corpses accumulate, but with each failure they become more inured to death. Lint, seeking the only vitality she can reach, finds solace in Misanthropi's arms. It begins to become competitive, and when Misanthropi begins engaging in fetus play, wherein she pretends to nourish herself on Lint's bellybutton, Lint decides she's had enough and swears off most human contact for the remainder of her days.

Once upon a time there was a farmer named Hubert who lived by himself. His farm was known as the farm of 100 treasures because of how wondrous it was. So delicious and so sweet, these treasures captivated the attention of man, such was their power. His cows were some of the most fertile in the land. Each morning he'd visit his cow, pull its tail and pour milk straight into his cereal. One dark day, however, the winds descended from heaven upon his fields, stripping them barren until there was nothing left. Hubert had run inside and was safe, but when he emerged, he saw the devastation all around him.

"Why has this disaster befallen me?!" he bewailed. Nobody had the answer, but thankfully he had Jesus at his side.

"To replenish your land, you must seek a new 100 treasures; and for that, you must search for your destiny at precisely the right time."

At the right time? Hubert was confused, but hopeful. He began packing his things, knowing that at the very least, his destiny was not here. When he left his land to seek the right time, he walked by all that remained and he saw a single one of his 100 treasures. He packed it carefully away in salt for safekeeping.

Day in and day out, Hubert crossed the seas, mountains and cities. How cruel life was to him. He grew thinner, more haggard, more downtrodden.

In the summer, he wandered through an unfriendly city, as the sun made his shirt damp from the sweat on his back.

When he was near the end of his strength, he found a playful otter in a murky river. The otter uttered not a single word to him. Hubert was so thirsty, but the water did not look clean. Maybe the otter knew where he could drink. Hubert reached into his bag, and together they shared a little piece of the treasure that he stored. Instantly it became friendly.

"Dear man," said the otter, "so thirsty and so weak, do you need a drink for your parched lips?"

Hubert admitted he did, and the otter paddled away, leading him to a golden river with sweet water Hubert drank.

In the fall, he wandered through a forest, as the last of his summer rations began running low.

When he was near the end of his strength, he found a bear feasting on twigs and berries greedily. It stripped the bushes bare, leaving nothing for Hubert. Hubert reached into his bag, and together they shared a little piece of the treasure that he stored. Instantly it became friendly.

"Dear man," said the bear, "are you hungry? Share some of these sweet twigs and juicy berries with me."

Hubert admitted he was, and the bear moved to the side and shared the food from the bushes with Hubert.

In the dead of winter, he wandered through the farmlands, finally, as shards of ice formed in his growing beard.

When he was near the end of his strength, he passed by a chicken den. The chickens inside uttered not a single word to him. Hubert was so tired, and only had a little bit of his treasure left, but he reached into his bag, and together they shared the last little piece of treasure. Instantly they became friendly.

"Dear man," said a chicken, nesting with its friends, "so tired and so rugged, do you need a place to rest your weary bones?"

Hubert admitted he did, the chickens made way for him in their den. Inside, the chickens huddled up to keep his bones warm, their bodies giving him the strength he needed.

When Hubert felt that he may never find the right time, he finally arrived at the sea. On the beach, Hubert came across a woman and a salty wet swin, rising from the water.

"Come, my dear," called the swin, "won't you put some lotion on my skin?"

"No! No!" the woman wailed, "I will not put lotion on your skin. Leave me be! I've told you, and told you again, you leave now, blast!"

"But my skin is so soft, and your hands are as well, won't you humor me for a brief spell?"

"Get away! Get away! I have no love for thee! It is the swin I command, not the swin, me!"

"You've paid the price, but the price has raised. The waters swell and raise the wells. Like tides, the waters inside me swirl and twirl."

The swin was becoming aggressive, and Hubert sprung into action. After having spent so much time with the animals, he knew exactly what to do. He searched in his bag for his treasure, but alas! He had none left! Thinking only that it was he who had appeared here, at the right time, he dashed down the beach at the swin, threw it over his shoulder into the sand. Dazed and confused, it wandered away to find its fate.

"My hero!" declared the woman, "Thank you so much, this is my first year using swin to harvest, since my parents had perished! Who knew what sort of control they cherished. Forgive me, pray, let me introduce myself, I am Linn, a simple bean farmer, who now runs this farm alone. "

She grasped his hands and invited him into her home. She offered him a bean snack and entreated him to tell her his story. He did, telling the tale of the wind from heaven, the words from Jesus, and his encounters with the otter, the bear, and the chickens before finally arriving at the right time, here, to her farm.

"What a wondrous tale, and how skillfully you handled those beasts" she said. "Yet, have I not heard of you before?" she realized, "You are of the farm of 100 treasures! Truly, a farmer of renown, befallen with the ills of the world before it vanished in plain sight naught more than a year ago!"

"I am no farmer of renown, I simply had wonderful crops, which are now gone. My quest brings me to the world to seek new seeds, but I know not where."

"But you've just told me yourself, your talents and your courage. You don't need special seeds," Linn cried, "It is you, the farmer, you who knows how to treat man and animal and plant with love and care, you are the treasure. Your deeds have shown that you are no mere farmer, you can do anything."

The words struck Hubert silent. He could only stare at her, mouth hanging slack.

"You haven't touched your treat," she commented eventually.

"Why, it has indeed been easy!" Hubert mused. He thought upon the truth of her words as he took a bite of his beany snack. The perspective, and her food, they were both truly gifts to be remembered.

"Stay with me," she invited, "I saw how you dealt with that swin. We could do so much more, together."

He held her hand, and she played her lyre. She sang him a song that rang through her little cottage.

Thus began Linn and Hubert's life together.

(AN: Sorry! LOL! My M-Esperanto isn't as good as I thought it was and there were multiple mistranslations in the last chapter. Leaving it up for posterity but here's a corrected version below :)))))

Once upon a time there was a farmer named Hubert who lived by himself. His farm was known as the bok choy farm because, among other things, he grew wondrous bok choy. So delicious and so sweet, this bok choy also caused men to stand at attention, such was their power. He had some of the most fertile cows in the land. Each morning he'd visit his cow, pull its dick and ejaculate cow jizz straight into his cereal. One dark day, however, a tornado descended from the sky upon his fields, stripping them barren until there was nothing left. Hubert had run inside and was safe, but when he emerged, he saw the devastation all around him.

"Why has this disaster befallen me?!" he bewailed. Nobody had the answer, but thankfully he could @ his dear friend Jesus for advice.

"To replenish your land, you must seek a new batch of boy choy seeds; and for that, you must search for your destiny at the bean (farm)."

Bean farm? Hubert was confused, but hopeful. He began packing his things, knowing that, at the very least, his destiny was not here. As he went to search for whatever bean farm he could find, Hubert walked his last surviving piece of wondrous bok choy. He packed it carefully away in salt for safekeeping.

Day in and day out, Hubert crossed the seas, mountains and cities. How cruel life was to him. He grew thinner, more haggard, more downtrodden.

In the summer, he wandered through an unfriendly city, as the sun made his shirt damp from the sweat on his back.

When he was near the end of his strength, he found a playful otter in a murky river. The otter uttered not a single word to him. Hubert was so thirsty, but the water did not look clean. Maybe the otter knew where he could drink. Hubert reached into his bag, and together they shared a little piece of pickled bok choy that he stored. Instantly he became friendly.

"Dear man," said the otter, "so thirsty and so weak, do you need a drink for your parched lips?"

Hubert admitted he did, and the otter paddled away, leading him to a golden shower with sweet water Hubert drank.

In the fall, he wandered through a forest, as the last of his summer rations began running low.

When he was near the end of his strength, he found a bear feasting on cocks greedily. It stripped the bushes bare, leaving nothing for Hubert. Hubert reached into his bag, and together they shared a little piece of pickled bok choy. Instantly he became friendly.

"Dear man," said the bear, "are you horngry? Share some of these sweet twigs and juicy berries with me."

Hubert admitted he was, and the bear moved to the side and shared the fruit of the bush with Hubert.

In the dead of winter, he wandered through the farmlands, finally, as shards of ice formed in his growing beard.

When he was near the end of his strength, he passed by a group of chickens in a cottage. The chickens inside uttered not a single word to him. Hubert was so tired, and only had a little bit of his wondrous pickled boy choy left, but he reached into his bag, and together they shared the last little piece of pickled boy choy. Instantly they became friendly.

"Dear man," said a chicken, nesting with its friends, "so tired and so rugged, do you need a place to rest your weary bone?"

Hubert admitted he did, the chickens made way for him in their cottage. Inside, the chickens huddled up to keep his bone warm, their bodies giving him the strength he needed.

When Hubert felt that he may never find the bean farm, he finally arrived at the sea. On the beach, Hubert came across a woman and a lecherous swin, rising from the water.

"Come, my dear," called the swin, "won't you put some lotion on my skin?"

"No! No!" the woman wailed, "I will not put lotion on your skin. Leave me be! Lo, I've already told you, you must go!"

"But my skin is so soft, as well as your hands, my hen, won't you humor me again?"

"Get away! Get away! I told you! I do not love you! It is the swin I command, not the swin, me!"

"You've paid the price, now pay again. The humours swell and raise the fountain. Like tides, again, the waters inside me swirl and twirl."

The swin was becoming aggressive, and Hubert sprung into action. After having spent so much time with animals, he knew exactly what to do. He searched in his bag for his pickled bok choy, but alas! He had none left! There was nobody else, they were the only ones near this bean farm. He dashed down the beach at the swin, and suplexed it senseless into the sand. Dazed and confused, it became docile from the trauma.

"My hero!" declared the woman, "Thank you so much, this is my first year using swin to harvest, since my parents had perished! Who knew what sort of control they cherished. Forgive me, pray, let me introduce myself, I am Linn, a simple bean farmer, who now runs this farm alone. "

She grasped his hands and invited him into her home. She offered him a bean snack and entreated him to tell her his story. He did, telling the tale of the tornado, Jesus's pragmatic advice, and his encounters with the otter, the bear, and the chickens before finally arriving at her farm.

"What a wondrous tale, and how skillfully you handled those animals" she said. "Yet, have I not heard of you before?" she realized, "You are Hubert of Hubert's Bok Choy Farm! Truly, a farmer of renown, befallen with the ills of the world before it vanished in plain sight naught more than a year ago!"

"I am no farmer of renown, I simply had wonderful crops, which are now gone. My quest brings me to the world to seek new seeds, but I know not where."

"But you've just told me yourself, your talents and your courage. You don't need special seeds," Linn cried, "It is you, the farmer, you who knows how to treat man and animal and plant with love and care, you are the treasure. Your deeds have shown that you are no mere farmer, you can do anyone."

The words struck Hubert silent. He could only stare at her, mouth hanging slack.

"You haven't touched your treat," she commented eventually.

"Why, it's a piece of cake!" Hubert mused. He thought upon the truth of her words as he took a bite of his beany snack. The perspective, and her food, they were truly gifts to be remembered.

"Stay with me," she invited, "I saw how you dealt with that swin. We could do so much more, together."

He held her hand, and she played the liar. She sang him a song that rang through her little cottage.

Thus began Linn and Hubert's life together.

Boston's prayers were to Lolth, because he'd heard the name once and decided that one fictional god was as good as the next and it might help him do better on the MCAT. He'd built up his own mysticism around it, plastic katana the symbol of power, carnations the offering, violet the color of the altar.

"Dear goddess, bless us on this day," he uttered, waving dried oregano. He then began memorizing chemical compositions and strings of ecology that pointed nowhere before eating a meal of boiled boy choy with no sauce. He knew it was cruciferous but that was unhelpful.

His bike ride to the hardware store the next day was preoccupied by Venus, the heavenly body's gravitation making the hairs on the back of his neck prickle. He took it as a sign of the ignorance leaving his body, like one of those magnets Venus was, the important stuff, unmagnetic sand, or maybe this was more ionic than that.

A car broadsided him in the meantime, spraining both of his ankles so he could no longer pedal properly. While picking himself back up he was reminded of a time in college when he'd voted and left a hanging chad on his punch ballot, like his ankles, like his MCAT, they were all coming together. It was a good sign, auspicion for his test. Wasn't the MCAT digital?

From the seat of his new wheelchair, Boston watched as the test loomed closer. More oregano! More carnations! He was strapped for cash. Bok choy, no sauce, no bok choy, it was just fried air. Who was he? The smell of oregano wasn't food. Even he could understand hunger was not fortuitous.

Boston looked for means of income. He needed bok choy to survive, make it to the MCAT. He looked at his local university, found an ad for a study on implicit bias that paid enough for at least 5 bunches of bok choy. He signed himself up for it and wheelchaired his way over to the lab where they planted him in front of a computer that showed him a paragraph:

"Once upon at time there were BAD people called the Kilxyxn, who waged war. Down the way were the PEACEFUL Lambh, who traded to build their society, and across the mountains were the Poo. The Kilxyxn violently conquered the Lambh and decades later the Poo heard of this."

Boston was then flashed word associations and responded A for Kilxyxn or B for Lambh based on factual statements about the three peoples and in doing so pondered the meaning of them.

Inhospitable. A. Kilxyxn

The Kilxyxn were inhospitable. But, like, why were they like that? What was their story?

War-like. A. Kilxyxn.

Were the Kilxyxn resource poor? Did they engage in traditional violence? Maybe the Kilxyxn were in the pre-bronze age still and all they could do was prove themselves full of mettle by fighting with spears. Maybe they needed food and their population growth was outstripping their means of food production.

Terrorism. A. Kilxyxn.

But maybe it was something more essential. Was there something wrong, something broken inside of them? Maybe it was a bio-social interaction, a predisposition towards higher spaces, altitude having something to do with the alveoli in their lungs not doing well at sea level, and the Lambh having the only elevated land available. Certainly the realm of conjecture and fantasy, but still a hypothesis to entertain. God, real medicine was so fucking boring.

Peaceful. B. Lambh.

Maybe there was history there, an ancestral memory coded into their genes that made coexistence impossible. Maybe they had an overload of aerobic byproducts that made cohabitation impossible.

Trade. B. Lambh.

Maybe a trade deal had gone awry. Maybe the Kilxyxn discovered minerals in their own territory after making an unfavorable trade deal with the Lambh and were resentful. But whose fault was that? Surely what was past was past and it as impossible to reconcile. It was the right decision for the right time and the spread of the materials through their economy would have made any sort of reversal impossible in practice as well as ideologically.

Hospitable. B.

Or maybe the Lambh had something in their blood. Maybe the Lambh had special blood that granted eternal youth. That is a motivaton, because what more do we want than to be fed and warm and healthy? What about the pyramid of needs?

Violent. A.

But maybe the Kilxyxn were simply broken inside. Broke inside, broken side, brokencyde, ohhhhh that band.

These thoughts occupied Boston as he bought and ate his bok choy.

What were their linguistic traditions? B. Were 'Kilxyxn' and 'Lambh' similar etymologically? B. Their respective epics, maybe they could shed more light on their value system. Bok choy. Maybe the tales of heroes ended in complete extermination. A. Maybe there was no future for them or their planet and they realized that bloodlust was the only way to cover their fear. A. There's something clumsy about what you don't understand. Bok choy. What's more feared than the existential threat of what's outside? What's inside? A. Maybe there's willful ignorance happening, maybe there's some terrible inertia. B. Was this a series of days, years, decades, a way of life? C. What was the state of their environment, and whose guardianship could it flourish under? B.

The unsatisfying conclusion he reached was that the Kilxyxn had no more right to life than the Lambh and that who was he to judge the character of a society? Though he had been tasked with doing so, he was hardly qualified. What lens did he have to decide what was better and what was worse? The ugly answers and positions he explored were thoughts to be silenced. He meditated for a moment, and let go of the fictional societies, looking up in horror to see the series of A, B, and Cs he'd marked on the first 49 questions of his MCAT.

John Fart who runs a steel mill has two employees: Jacob Amy, and Amy Jacob. The memos are endless.

"Siding 19mm," noted a yellow sticky note on a computer screen.

"Sidimg 19wm" noted another.

"willimeters" aren't an actual unit, so when Jacob attempts to measure a "wm" he inevitably fails, and the popsicle stick scale model of a new bird-sucking chimney collapses on the emptiness of the measurement. Certainly, nobody is happy about it, especially Amy, of which the "mm" post-it note's penmanship is in. John Fart is mad because Jacob is making scale models on company time.

"Okay, so how are things going here?" Amy asks Jacob testily.

"Amy, Amy, Amy. Things are great. You don't have to worry about a thing. Who's telling you to worry?" Jacob smoothly interrupts, "Have I ever misled you? And if I have, haven't I always fixed it up after?"

Amy was annoyed by the dismissal, but she also was annoyed that Jacob had probably arrived at the correct solution for what she wanted to hear. The years had brought them close enough to make this all less unnerving than it really was.

"Jacob, don't play me," Amy attempts, "I see that pile of sticks behind you. I mean, it doesn't take a genius to see it's broken."

"Don't worry, I got it," Jacob says, holding up his spindly little fingers reassuringly.

As he turns to stick whatever he can back together with glue that isn't quite hot and not quite cold, he reflects on the idea that if he'd been the one to write "mm" he probably would have questioned himself in the same way. It seems the moment has passed without incident when Amy turns away, but the reaction takes a minute to simmer and Amy returns.

"Jacob, don't just... read my emotions and bullshit me what I want to hear!" Amy explodes, "I mean, you'll fix it, you always do, but,"

"But what Amy? I, we got it, don't worry! No sweat. I know exactly what to do. We just need to change this willimeter measurement to a millimeter one. See? Easy. I'll write up an incident report too if it'll make you happy."

"Yes, I mean, yes, I knew you knew that was the problem."

"Yeah, we're on the same page, here."

Amy standing there and Jacob looking at her meant that this conversation wasn't over. Amy didn't say anything, so Jacob filled the silence.

"So, what's new with you?" he asks.

"You didn't actually need me to tell you to change it to millimeters." she expressed thoughtfully, "You don't really need me for anything, do you?"

"Amy, we don't have to--we were just talking about what's new with you."

"You're saying you haven't needed me? That this is old news? "

"What?"

"You don't really need me here for anything, do you? Here or anywhere in your life."

"No, no, of course not. It was a simple mistake, Amy, and you were definitely right--" Jacob tried to maneuver.

"Why am I even here?"

Jacob fiddled with a piece of dried glue while feeling like silence was the best answer.

"Sorry," says Amy, "that's not fair, you don't have to answer that."

Jacob was relieved.

"...you're friends with olympic divers and textile moguls and I'm just friends with horses. I don't expect you to understand. And I know what you're thinking, that this, this, isn't a you problem, this is a me problem."

There was a sad, ragged resignation in Amy's voice and Jacob finally mustered something helpful to say.

"Naw," he replied, "naw, Amy, it's ok. Here, we have each other, in this eggy little steely world, and whether we like it or not, we're it."

Amy massaged hearing the status quo until it was surfactant to her emotions. Meanwhile, in the airs above, Windera's guiltily carefree life had her gliding over the "bird-sucking" (tm) chimneys, where she got some eggs sucked out of her. Because the egg was heavier than air, it fell out of the tube into the special matter collection pan, where air was separated from birds. The air would later go on to blow over the molten steel, creating the factory's famed "soup cooling method," which involves the wind blowing on it like it was blowing on a bowl of soup to cool it, resulting in very pretty windblown patterns over the surface, very aesthetic sheets of metal. John Fart eats Windera's egg with his lunch and nobody can stand the smell of it.

There was something wrong about that exchange but Linn couldn't quite put it together. It was late. Her daughter didn't usually text late at night. Why would she buy a pineapple at a gas station? Who was Hera and why had she never heard of her? Linn thought she knew all her friends. She oscillated on how much it bothered her, bothering her further that this was a bother. There was also something she was supposed to remember about this, but that impetus was evanescent, like the dream it felt like.

Linn had swin to castrate tomorrow, a truly grueling task, but why waste good worry? She tossed until Hubert slipped into REM sleep.

Meanwhile, the driver took Misanthropi's phone and placed it in his pocket. She sat attentively in the back seat in a mixture of excitement and fear. They passed fallow fields, moving on to wooded suburbs, low branches twitching in the mercury vapor streetlights. The driver turned, and a gate creaked open. Misanthropi stirred.

"We're here, miss," the driver stated.

"Pineapple is in season, isn't it," said Misanthropi unhappily. She could tell from the ecliptic, the barren trees, an unmemorable class in history, except a mention of the transatlantic pineapple trade. Maybe that was the misfortune that brought her here today. Thinking that would have taken the fight out of her, if she had any.

"Right this way, miss," the driver assured her. He seemed tired, too.

This was a home, she told herself. A rather large one, at that, an upper room, some soft light, and the front door, all class and white wood. She didn't remember stepping inside, but from out of the cold, it smelled like cream, chapstick covering dust. Before her was the antechamber, and then two adults, one harried, the other harried.

"Come in." A hand went around her wrist with enough strength to snap it, but enough restraint to not (barely).

She was led to a living room, plastic sheeting covered a couch, all of the furniture. A tea set had been prepared. There was no steam as it was poured. Nobody reached for a cup.

"Any bad apples? Genetic diseases? In your grandparents, cousins?"

Misanthropi was taken aback. "I don't know." Her mind was fuzzy, she was tired, and when she sat, she felt like she couldn't get back up.

"Skin cancer? Colon cancer? Autoimmune diseases? Diabetes? How are the eyes?"

"What?"

"What is your prescription?" it was clarified.

Misanthropi couldn't remember. Her eyes were pretty bad, but this entire conversation felt like a talk she would be having with her doctor. These people certainly didn't look like doctors. They weren't wearing doctor's coats. The confusion must have been evident on her face.

"Can you see this? How many fingers am I holding up?" Three, but Misanthropi still had her glasses on. She opened and closed her mouth.

"Look, it's simple," it was explained, "we don't need your exact prescription, but we do need to know how bad you are."

How bad she was? She considered while looking at her feet, "Well, I don't even say h-e-double-hockey-stick-a, I just say hecka, and even then, I try not to."

Her efforts were making the two people before her no less harried. "You're from a farm, right? Let me make it simpler," with a sigh, "we'd like to know what stock you are. What breeding you have."

Stock, farms, animals? Did they want to start a swin farm? Did they need her advice? It was a thread she could understand, but not one she could respond eloquently to.

"Me and mom and dad, we're swin farmers," she stated simply.

"Yes, yes, we know." It was the lady interrogating her. Her voice was hoarse, the flavor bitter, manic. "2 parents, 2 farmers, 17, good grades, 5'5", 123 pounds, autumn moon birthdate. Auspicious.

"But. Thyroid condition. Crooked pinkeys. Glasses. Moles."

The way she said them, Misanthropi felt like each was a direct and personal shortcoming. She'd done wrong simply by existing.

"Those are imperfections, but ones that you can live with; ones that can build character, or that can turn you into a good person."

Maybe so.

"She looks tired, dear. And so do you."

The woman looked at the man and then at the darkness outside.

"You will stay here, tonight."

So it was as she was commanded. Someone took her by the arm, more gently now, lifted her from her seat, showed her up a flight of stairs, passed a hallway of closed doors, to a guest bedroom where she slept. It was a fatiguing sleep; she had much to dream about, but no dream material to stitch together.

Half thinking she could have been home, she was tired when she woke. The apparitions before her, she thought it would take a few blinks. They didn't vanish. It was the man and the woman, just as she remembered them from the night before.

"You will meet Boston now," was the order.

This was a very militaristic experience. Misanthropi had barely swung her legs off the side of the bed before she found herself being herded down towards a room she had passed in the hallway. All the while, she could only think that she was in no state to meet anyone, honestly; her breath stank, her hair was all fucked up, she felt crusty all over. She had school. No, wait, she was on break. What was she even wearing?

None of this seemed to matter, as when she when the door opened there was no one within.

"This is Boston's room."

There were photos of him and his family on the desk next to a stack of oranges on a plate. He's young in those pictures, a baby in some, still. They looked like a happy family, posing together at a park, or in their garden, always outside, clothes always spotless. Girding those photos were ceramic statues she didn't recognize, and unburned incense.

Pushed in under the desk was a basic looking wheely chair, parked on top of an aspirational sports throw. A lamp was on, its only purpose now to look discolored against the white sunlight. On the shelf touching were figurines, robots, horses, boys with swords, an eclectic mix. Beside it, on the adjacent bed, was a stash of stuffed orcas, placed to the side of a tucked cover. The bed touched the corner of a room, the interlocking geometry of rectangles unbroken. The rectangle of air was opposite it, a window looking out into the estate driveway. Instilled in the room was the smell of fabric softener, not a float of dust in any shaft of sunlight, not a trace of messy boy. The only thing that seemed to be out of place was two stacked cardboard boxes, the top open. The woman reached in and picked up a sweater, it was green, and had the letters "UMD" on it. She placed it to her nose, inhaled once, and handed it to Misanthropi.

"This is what he smelled like," the woman said. It came out quieter, human sounding. "I wanted you to know that."

Misanthropi took a polite whiff. It smelled like laundered boy. She handed it back to the woman without comment, and with uneven movement she folded it before placing it back in the box.

For the first time since she'd arrived, there seemed to be no plan, no urge or order to force Misanthropi into action. There was just silence between Misanthropi, and the two adults not looking at her. Within it they all seemed to be waiting for something, but none of them knew what.

"Can I... go home now?" Misanthropi finally asked.

The woman finally answered,

"Boston's needs... Boston needs a wife with him now. He needs a wife to take care of him."

Boston needed a wife?

"Well, I sure hope he finds one then," thought Misanthropi. But he wasn't even here.

"Wait, me?" she then realized, "But, but, no thank you. But, I mean, I'm not ready to get married, yet."

Too late, she considered that her immediate rejection might not have been the wisest of ideas. The woman could have pushed her out the window, flew into a rage, ruined her future, or worst of all, told her parents.

"But, I'll be Boston's friend, if he wants," she backpedaled, "I can write him letters, we can go to the park together, have lunch, but I don't think I want to get married just yet."

The woman said nothing, and looked like she was trying to keep something inside that was breaking her. She peeped a little poot, and Misanthropi thought it sounded like a note of grief. But she composed herself immediately, nodding some sort of affirmation. No further details were required, knowing this was a promise neither of them would keep. She simply waved her hand, and before Misanthropi knew it, her phone was returned to her, and she was in a car being delivered to her home, all without even a scrap of breakfast.

"Oh mama."

"If you're ever in trouble, we need to establish a safe word, or something you can tell me in case you get into a bad situation. I am the only one you can trust, the one who loves you and forever will."

"What, like, pineapple?"

"Yes. Like pineapple. We just have to come up with a word that we can share that we'll know what it means, because mama will always look out for you."

"How about 'gas station'?"

"Okay, but that could be common. But it's okay, mama will keep you safe."

"How about if I mention Hera?"

"The Greek goddess? That seems pretty uncommon. Sure, Hera will be our secret."

"I love you mama."

"Mama will always be there for you."

Is it time to enact violence? thought Blubber Anna.

No, explained Nana, psychically.

The two had gone to the cinema together to quilt while being entertained. Blubber Anna had visited Whale Foods HQ where she'd picked up some designer dogfood made from the finest ponies and indulged the idea of zero waste by taking the remaining pony carcass to turn into a quilt. Nana supplied a special needle to pierce the hide, which happened to be medical grade and applied through a syringe instead of anything practical. What they failed to account for was that learning this new mode of quilting on the fly in the dark of a movie theatre was a terrible idea.

I can do one stitch every few minutes, and this thread is terrible! wailed Blubber Anna silently at the film. She could hardly concentrate on the plot! And the plot was evidently important, as the film was described as the spiritual successor to the spiritual successor of 2uentin Tarantino's last bathroom wall poem, and was full of American violence, but there had to be adequate buildup to it because it wanted to be parsed as art instead of mere base entertainment.

It was a surprise, then, when the on screen explosions started, and Blubber Anna was startled enough to drop her special sewing needle out of its syringe holder and into the theater seat where it became lost in the fabric.

Nana felt Blubber Anna's emanations of panicked hooey, hooey, hooey. Not wanting to get pricked, Nana and Blubber Anna decided it was time to make a graceful escape with their sheets of half stitched pony leather dragging across the seated row of movie theater patrons as they made their way towards the exit.

When the lights came on and the undead theater cleaners came to tidy up every sticky surface, one of them accidentally stabbed themselves with Nana's special needle. Feeling nothing, however, because they were undead, they simply left a chunk of themselves on it while picking out crushed skittles from between the ass and the back. Similarly, their undead state had left them with poor motivation and poor skills of observation.

The next patron to casually sit in the seat impaled themselves upon the needle covered in undead matter and caused a news cycle that shut down movie theaters and became the number one concern of mothers in the mid 90s, so profound was the impact it rippled several decades into the past. In honesty, the patron had been reaching for some of the sour patch children he'd spilled on the floor (something about that cascading sugar). Despite knowing better, he leeeeeaned to the left, positioning himself and covering the cushion with his body in a way that never naturally would have occurred had he not been trying to eat candy off the floor, and there was the undead covered needle. Aside from the potential for disease, there was something about filth that he himself did not generate that just really bothered him. He didn't realize what a hypocrite he seemed, engaging in even sitting in a movie theater cushion, already heavily christened with hundreds of farts.

I'm sorry I'm a fucking mess, Blubber Anna thought, recognizing that this was her fault and apologizing mostly to anyone who was watching the real time publishing of her thoughts. That would be No One, including God.

Nana considered ending her career right then and there, but realized that that notion was a notion of passion, which would have to be tamped down and decanted for later use. Nobody pointed any fingers at anyone except the undead, and it's not like they could complain. She had quilts to sell, and a quilt to make.

Blubber Anna was brought to Nana's quilting lair. The walls were made of quilts, and they fairly pulsed with stuffing. One could look at one angle, look away, and back, and see a separate panel from when they'd last looked. Blubber Anna was entranced, never had she been brought so close to quilty divinity.

None of these look very good, Blubber Anna told herself quietly. Yet she herself had contributed some of these squares. What did that say about her? She drew a bead on herself, mentally, and waited for Nana's orders.

With a gesture at the wad of pony skin, Blubber Anna doubted her taste once again, but resumed stitching a pattern into the skin. It was in commemoration of the designer dogfood she'd eaten earlier, a lovely set of meat grinder blades and a disembodied hoof flying off into the sunset.

When it was finished, Nana set it in a plastic case, and it would be several years before anyone deigned to pay its pricing. But Nana had been lazy, not updating the price to account for inflation. When it did finally sell, it was for a reasonable amount below market value, if market value could be consistently applied to pony fur quilts. It was sold to a goddess of a stepwell that had been shamed into clothing herself for the locals so they could stop their squawking while washing their laundry, abeyance pending actual civilization. She'd collected the money from the change children would throw in, charging double for the service of removing metals from the water and giving children hope.

A vow, then, Nana thought to herself, never again would she lose so deftly at a price.

Anbert stretched before every outing covertly in one of the many graffitied alleyways surrounding the clubs and Philtrum pretended not to notice. It was 11 AM on a Saturday morning. Ears to the ground, they snacked on doner kebabs near Sonnenallee among the morning club kids.

"They say there's a hairy scary baby beary BEAR in the river here!" exclaimed Philtrum excitedly.

"Well, Philtrum, there are lots of bears of all types in this city. Remember last time that happened? It was just a statue on the bridge right?" cautioned Cashew.

"I feel like such a spy! Rouged and heeled!" mused Philtrum to himself. He touched his cheeks and tapped his feet to nothing in particular.

"Mighty ineffective spies, I'd say. You still feel like one? Even after the mighty number of days we'd done been spendin' on this here chase? Kind of a lort to see still, I guess." remarked Anbert.

"Going on the HUNT for some beeeyers! Tra la la~"

The morning smelled of atmospheric water, fog from the river, living, but not clear. They finished their doner and wiped their hands on their clown pants and stood in a 2 block line to enter Greissmuehle. Bystanders recognized Anbert as the leader of the noodlers and before he knew it, he was being abandoned by his clown friends as he charismatically spoke of openin' up them jointses.

The line processed, and by the time Philtrum and Cashew arrived at the doors, it was deemed that they fit right in, and were admitted to the warehouse. The dew in the air from the morning mist turned into the dew of bodies and fog machines. Techno blammed through walls and out of doors as they opened. The radius of their clown pants offered them slight personal space that was quickly violated. Cashew was taken by the sound. Philtrum lost him within moments as one flow of the crowd drifted into the main dancehall and another headed towards the back garden. While Philtrum loved hearing the music's dark core, feeling the kebab trumble in his tummy, he had a duty to perform and he would attempt to not be dissuaded. He was pushed through an open door; he passed a wooden bar, and found himself suddenly in muted sunlight.

Around him were relics of childhood, a tire swing, a tower to climb, a wooden castle, a tiny food stand selling fries and beer. On the right was a slope down into an outdoor stage where they were ramping up to some electronica. Beyond was a line of trees, and then a river.

Philtrum couldn't help but be a little enchanted. He looked at the price of the fries, decided not to get any, then draped himself on an open swing. This was definitely a place for clownery, and he fit right in. He lay back and watched the overcast sky as it swung around the chains of the swing above him.

"Hieee, uh, können wir sitzen hier?"

Philtrum was at peace when a group of youth approached him.

"Oh, um, er, sorry, I, um don't speak German," he mumbled.

"Phew it's okay I speak English, I'm from America. Hi, I'm Aine. And these are my friends, Liam, Liam, Gen, Patrick, Shaun, Nils, Siggi, and Timur."

"Ooooh, well hellerm then!!!" Philtrum invoked.

An assortment of Australians and Europeans introduced themselves and took a seat with Philtrum. The swing swayed gently as one of them took the role of idle propulsion.

"I like your pants, and your squeezy nose," Aine complimented, and Philtrum blushed under his blush.

"Why THANK YOU!" he cried, "I'm DELIGHTED to receive such a compliment from such a lovely individual! You're absolutely SERVING graceful height and your plumpcious breasts and legs for days and that golden hip ratio! I couldn't stan harder. Cute pigtails too."

"Heee heee heeeee" Aine chortled through her teeth.

"I'm here with my circus troupe! Well, not HERE here, but you know, they're just around and I'm just having me a little good time. We're the GREATEST and most WONDERFUL things you could ever ever imagine. One day we're popping Cashew out a cannon and bAM! The next, it's me. Eeeee!"

"Ja. Ja." It was her favorite phrase she'd picked up.

"What brings you here to this LOVERLY place then?"

"Dance! Weeeee! I'm so glad you're here!" her eyes glittered.

"Yas! Yas! I'm SO glad you're here too!" Philtrum agreed enthusiastically and politely.

One of her group suggested, "hey, you wanna go to the castle?"

Philtrum sat up, saw another group of gaily dressed youth exit from one of the little chambers of the ground floor of the wooden structure. What a fun, claustrophobic space! Just like a clown car.

"Yah! You come?" Aine asked Philtrum. It seemed like a fun place to show off some circus skills, so why not?

They walked over to the tiny wooden chamber, and piled in. The only light was from a small circular window in the back of the room, but there was enough seating for everyone to be able to put down their tush.

"Well, this is fun!" commented Philtrum. Not much of a challenge, really, but there was still lots you could do in a small room.

Beside him, one of Aine's friends unwrapped a tiny piece of paper in a wallet. Inside was some powder. She sprinkled some on her hand, and then whoop! Down her face went and it was gone. What a fun magic trick!

"Do you want some?"

"Hmm, OKAY!?" chimed Philtrum.

She sprinkled some dust onto his palm because he didn't understand how to hold his hand and he proceeded to slap it up his red clown nose. It hit the back of his throat and tasted salty. Nothing happened as the rest of the room took turns smiling and sniffing.

That seemed to be the activity of the little room. Once everyone seemed satisfied, they opened the door again and went out into the open air.

"Doesn't everything um, seem a little more EFFULGENT than usual?" Philtrum asked. It was true, the bright light behind the clouds seemed a little brither, evrtgin seemed a little higher. It dindt seem like he was quite where he was, just a step above or behind or arondg.

Gnen took this moment to relfax on a square of wood. "She's in repose," her friend comments.

Unperturbed, they wandrd towards the stage whtougt her. The rmap is a little longer than he remembers. There's a handle to hold on to as they go down When he looks down at it it all looks a little bit like static oil under his hands. He remembers to listen for the music now, "Was that? ALWAYS? There?" he asks. It's dvine, truly deevine. The mus,c it is Effluvium of the soul. Effluvient, the music. He has to close his Philtrum eyes.

Fugacious the sensation of a warm body, wanting more and mror.

He has trouble opening hsi eys nd he feels evreyone around him but he is so FAR away. A pnaptoint in the sky and thers a stage where theyre mgrgn like angemone wavign and beyond the trees to the lfet is a river and that fiver called to hs herat like a jewel because in it a bear is swimign so so far away. Ah.

There was something about the daily trial of existence that wore away Deirdre's love of Gina, the love that now felt like absence. There wasn't enough memory to fill time, the terror of it was that it felt fast. Without the edge of drugs there, she was just her, and she was just her. Deirdre sought whatever it was that was just out of her reach, just at the edge of her consciousness as she came down, gone when she awoke, away as she walked and breathed.

Gina understood what was happening between them, and she paced her heart with the steadiness of the ocean, waiting for the ebb and flow of the emotion, come and go. This time, she knew there was some time and rhythm she heard that she knew Deirdre did not.

So Deirdre looked for it somewhere else, in whatever treasure trove of Berlin there was, she dug.

The answer she found was the answer of physical connection beyond the ordinary, in the hands of ego eimi, whose hands took control and deigned Deirdre his.

"You're cold. I see you shivering," he explained, he was master, the one who told, and she was a bear, but also his affectionately named katze. "You can be independent, like a cat, but even cats get cold."

He lifted the covers on his bed, beckoning her in. There he pet her fur, used his body against hers to stop the shivering. Same size as they were, she did not understand his furnace self and her nervous chill. She took the time to consider.

His pedigree was with flaw, and not without regret. He had assured her of his experience, however, the good and the bad, and told her of his love of bears and their love of him. "Some try it once or twice, and then decide this isn't for them. And that's okay," he explained. "But it takes time, the first time it is always boring, getting to know you, getting to know each others' bodies. It is like that."

"Bonnage?"

"Bondage," he corrected her in perfectly correct English. They'd met on a park bench overlooking the river, sizing each other up. When she spoke to him she was slumped in an endearing bear sitting posture. He had an air of confidence and normalcy. It was hard to read the situation, though everything he said was extraordinarily direct.

Ultimately, she didn't decide he wasn't crazy, nor did she mind if he were, but some part of her bear rationality and her average bear frame assured her she was reasonably safe in or from his hands. He seemed to think similarly of her. Before they knew it, she was at his house in the suburbs, she, unsurprisingly, naked, and he, surprisingly, naked.

"Your fur is like an animal's fur," he noted.

"Is that the idea? I mean, thank you, is that a compliment?"

He placed a collar around her, girded her neck with a leather restraint. "You are my animal, now. When you have this collar on you are mine. When it is off, we can be equals, but now, when you have this on..."

"Wait I have a question," she interrupted, "what if I don't want to? Actually, I guess that's why I'm here. I should go along with this," she espoused her inner dialogue: "This is going to be fun, right. This is going to be great. Do I? No this is fine. Gina has my number. I know where all the exits are in this house."

Her bear tongue licked her bear lips nervously. "Wait, but what if I'm stronger than you, do I just do it?" she asked questioningly, "wait is that part of the fantasy? What am I supposed to do now?"

He tied rope around her neck, lacing it down in even knots down her abdomen. "Are you supposed to do that? What kind of knots are those? Down the front? Am I going to choke?" she asked, "I mean maybe I like being choked and I never guess I'll know until I try and..."

"I know what I'm doing, he assured her."

The ropes encircled her vertically: they went under her and then up the back of her, and as he went, he created a diamond pattern as he wove the front and back lines together, of which the symmetry tickled Deirdre's sense of bear math.

"Do you need help with that? I think you're doing fine but it's always polite to offer help," Deirdre offered noisily. "I can turn, or I can hold some of the string if you want, or if you need me to put a paw on a knot so you can tie a bow that's ok too. Knots can be tricky to tie by yourself and sometimes it's just nice to be involved and I also want to be helpful so it's not like you have to do everything."

When he didn't reply she decided he was probably busy concentrating.

"Haha, this is all a little weird, isn't it? You, tying me up. It all feels a little weird, to me, like, physically and I guess emotionally. Isn't it a little chilly in here? Hmm hmm, ehh. Anyway, I brought snacks in case we're hungry after this because it sounds like effort and it's always good to stay fortified and hydrated or else we're going to be cranky later."

He then brought out a gag, ("Oh, neat," she noted). It was a full head harness made of leather that was supposed to go between her eyes and then around her head. With some finagling, the straps were finally tied in place (sort of).

"Look me in the eyes," he demanded. "I like the color of your eyes, so hot." Deirdre's skull and the near spacing of her bear orbital sockets made it so she could only concentrate looking out of one eye at a time. He kept jostling 3 inches to the left, and then the right.

"Thanks, you think my eyes are pretty? Do you think they're my best asset?" she wondered? The gag wasn't in nearly tight enough and he frowned. She picked up on this. "Oh, sorry, mgh? Mgh???" She still used her teeth probably where they shouldn't have been.

"You are mine now, my little cat. Listen to my voice. Do you feel pleasure now? Yes. You are just a little cat, all tied up with nowhere to go."

He continued painting a picture of his ownership of her and her inability to do anything about it. With further explicit physical direction, he prompted her paws to explore parts of his body. She rested them at his sides, unsure of what to do. Usually this would be an occasion to tear something to shreds, like a tree trunk or a smoked pork shoulder, but she knew that this probably wasn't the intended action. He was a little more explicit, putting one of her paws on his breast. "My nipples are very sensitive."

"Oh, okay."

He tightened the muscles around his eyes a second and she corrected herself, "Mgh mgh, mgh! (thank you, sir!)"

"Yes, that feels very good," he stated, then moved her paws for her in small circles in various areas. There was unexpected pressure on her limbs from the ropes as she moved and she nicked his nipple with a claw. He grunted.

"Sorry! Sorry!" she spat out the gag (it was easy with her bear snoot).

This seemed to signal that this was an occasion for more restraint, so he brought out some padded mitts and shoved her paws into them. They were loose around her, likely because they were sized for humans, and she was not one. He didn't press and his intent was clear. There was a bar behind her back that he tried chaining them to. Her bear body wasn't equipped to put her arms that way. They hung like little sausages at her side.

It occurred to her, finally, bear-sitting with her front paws loosely in mitts, a gag in her mouth, and with a man with a bloodied nipple in front of her, that the opportunity to "learn each others' bodies" may have passed and that this may been one of those experiences that couldn't be redeemed. Extricating herself gently without bearlike violence, she explained politely that she was very grateful for the experience, but that she thought this session was concluded. He agreed and went to go get a band aid for his titty while she tidied the equipment he'd used on her in nice piles to put away, sanitize, or air dry.

So she warmed in his bed, after, as they dozed. When they woke he looked at her with kindness in his eyes as he served the seed and nut bars she'd brought as snacks. She felt no closer to finding her answers as she paddled around the pool in his backyard. He joined her and she let him lift her in the buoyancy of the water, silently, as she lay back, staring into the sky.

I can feel the bacterial wetness in the air, feeling it around me seeping into my clothes, vapor from gastric burps and body sweat, gyrating on tabletops and gogo platforms, flung with abandon in any direction that I can see because, by now, the only pressure they feel is the pressure of their paychecks, pretend to dodge a glance I imagine, grab a drink I didn't remember ordering. Juicy, sweet, unidentifiable-in-the-lighting type beverage that holds my attention. Evidently I am behaving as expected. You know, kind of nervous, kind of clueless, wearing an accent piece either on my head or around my neck, some festive signalling on my wrist, either a leather bracer or a wristband of evil eyes. Trying to fit in. And right then I remember (imagine getting thoughtful in a gay bar, how droll) I'm here with someone. I can hear what my date is thinking, looking at me not looking at him: "Is he thinking about me?"

"I love this place," I tell. He's never been here before. I smile until my eyes close and aim it straight at him, take in who he is.

He's a blob of talking jissom. I'd been asked out by Pascal's cumshot, not even contained in a vial, he sloshes through the air by some unknown will, to court me, of all people. I attempt to figure out eye contact, but then think better of it. I'm glad to be wearing glasses.

A cumshot is trying to impress me, talking about world affairs and pineapple, talks about keeping a can of it around, just in case. Is he capable of eating? Where else would he get the energy?

"Wonderful," I comment offhandedly, "I love a man who's well-prepared." I underestimate the impact of my words. The cumshot gets excited, quivering gelatinously in a way that makes me feel extraordinarily unsettled.

"Sweet on me, are you, kid? I could be sweet on you, too, if you know what I mean," he confirms.

"Now, wait," I try and backpedal with a tone of caution in my voice, "I mean, let's not poke the poodle here, we don't know each other THAT well..." (Note: Poke the poodle is my personal slang for rushing things) I sit up a little straighter in my bar stool and wipe my hands on my pants. "I can tell you like to move hot and heavy and uh, I just wanted to let you know that uh, you know, I try not to like, do anything on the first date that I'd regret on the second."

"I don't ever know what you could ever mean," he replies innocently, and I am then overwhelmed by the levels of contradictions and lies in this situation, mainly stemming from the fact that Pascal's cumshot arrived on a not even first date. He seems to not be aware of the circumstances of his inception, however.

Someone slides between us, eyes all for the cumshot. I hear around the broad leather jacket on his back: "What's a handsome tablespoon of semen like you, doing out and about?" His voice is thick with lush flattery. "You have no business looking so delicious."

"Thank you, my dear sir, but I am not inter-es-ted," Pascal's cumshot waves away. The man with courage shrugs and slides into the nothing whence he came faster than I can process and I am returned to with steady intent. I pretend not to know what he's thinking.

"How's Pascal doing?" I ask. Pascal's cumshot leans back as if to stretch his arms.

"Ever seen a chow chow chase its tail, kid?" he replies smoothly, "It's a bit like that. He waits for Andrei, who loves German boy more, and he's gotta be ok with it. He's chasing that ok-ness. And the more he tries to chase, the tail doesn't get any closer. He can't get it together, I saw him in the break room the other day, Andrei walked right by him, kissed the German boy, and Pascal just dropped his mug, splat! Right on the floor. 'Sorry, so clumsy,' he said. He got kissed after but that wasn't enough. He had that tired look in his eyes, like he'd been fighting. That's what it was, though. He got carried away with his feelings without thinking it through.

"And then there's me. The little piece of him that lives outside of him. It makes him uncomfy like, cuz I'm another perfect moment of not thinking it through. That kid doesn't even know. One night I think it hit him that this ain't right somehow. So he turns up at my abode, still wearing his jammies.

"'To what do I owe this pleasure?' I say. And he has this look in his eyes like he needs something, 'Just coming to collect you,' he says all nonchalant. Well, that is indeed a grave thing to declare. Sos I calmly tells him then that I am my own person, now, and that when he did skeet me out, I was no longer his responsamability.

"Ever notice that men get crazy when they don't have control? I don't think he wants me, I think it was that something's not going his way and he needs something to go his way, even if it's just a little, just a little piece of control. Some of us got it. Some of us know we got the world in our hands."

And I'm thinking to myself that this slimy little cumshot is trying to make me feel at ease, tell me all about the locus of control in his life and how he's independent, detached from all that some-such nonsense, like wanting to recollect semen, that he was above it, and in his life, he was powerful and grand, spread like butter in the sun.

"Did he go away after?" I ask.

"Yeah he sure did! Must have seen how serious I was. Didn't bring no heat or nothing. What did he think I was going to do? Just hop back into his balls, lickety-split? Not a chance! I knew then though that I had to keep an eye out, for him and for me. An idea had gotten into his head and ideas like that don't easily come out. Now when he sees me I see back that look in him that seethes under the surface. I gotta be careful now. No telling what he's going to do.

"I met a gal on a mission like him, I knew because she had that same look, that smolder, but not the hot kind, kind of that cold smolder. Traded her ass in cuz a guy said she'd be famous if she did, she'd be a household name. It didn't work so good, though, and he disappeared into the night, and there she was, alone, poor, and assless. Well, one day she decided the only one of those things she could fix was the ass, so she went on a hunt for them, not knowing it'd already been tossed and was long rotting in a dump. She tore through all of Nyork, police records, medical waste records, surgeon reports, lawyers, private investigators, morticians, until she got answers. Knocked on half the doors in the city looking deranged, went into every neighborhood because she didn't fear nothin', dug through every record. Found it, eventually, and when she did she just up and disappeared."

I could only nod thoughtfully.

"Sometimes you shouldn't ever get what you want, is what I think," he finished.

I honestly didn't know why I was here. I hated it, this place, this situation, everything about it. Pascal's cumshot just reminded me of him, and it seemed that associating with him would only deteriorate what remained of our nonexistent relationship. I rashly think about blubbing the cumshot and wonder whether or not that would be considered multiple homicides. (Note: blubbing is my slang for flushing down a toilet)

"I'll be back," I comment; it was as good a time as any to use this up, not that there was a limit on how many times I was allowed to pee in a night, "going to use the little boys' room."

I enter and there's a woman, face as red as an overripe tomato, at the trough supportively lecturing to two daddies that are blowing each other:

"Like, I feel so much light in my soul when I see you and I want you two to see all the light in your life because there's so much fucking darkness sometimes, the darkest parts of the world can just feel like they're in your life. But, hey! Look at me in the eyes! Look me in the eyes!! You guys are doing great and sometimes the world just doesn't recognize it but I am for you today and I'm just telling you you're killing the game and you just need to keep on fucking trucking!"

I listen to the whole thing, and when she tries to go in for the hug, the blower holds up a peace sign to her while the blowee gives a thumbs up. She pats them on the back instead, and after wildly missing a high five with me, she boops my crotch with her palm.

Her flouncing exit behind me, I take the opportunity to tinkle on the daddies, since it seems that is what they are inviting. Another peace sign and a thumbs up.

When I'm done, I turn back out and see for the first time around me, greasy phantoms, wet as can be, shambling nerds moving their bodies to some shitty house with legs made of lead, swinging messy bangs in and out of their foggy glasses, escape artists of the physical and psychic variety, Norma, a sister of perpetual indulgence. Intermingling now with sweat is cigars, burnt sage from unwashed bodies (Note: burnt sage smells like dinner). I look through them back to the bar only to see Pascal there, arguing with his cumshot.

"Hey," I slide up, as cool as I can, but it comes out a whimper.

"Ben, bsr," Pascals says offhandedly, and turns back to his cumshot, "...t'devndra sale cit, tbk."

"And how is that any of your business?" his cumshot responds, before turning(?) to me, "Excuse this interruption of our lovely date," he announces loudly, "I couldn't ever forgive this rudeness if it did occur to me."

Pascal then turns to me with a searing look, you know, the kind that's all feline and hostile. My stomach lurches as it burns through me. I grimace, my mind tumbling with ways I could come out of this moment without a drink thrown in my face.

"L sul ndrat où t'dvrais alr c en mwa," Pascal spat.

"It's okay, sorry" I say pathetically, not knowing what I'm trying to apologize for. But I only want to save all of us.

"Look, kiddo, I don't know where you got the idea, but I am my own man, and there isn't a thing you can do about it, got it? And if you tried something, and I'm not saying that you would, but if you did, I would be in my rights to stop you, if you know what I mean? Now, I beg your pardon but I was enjoying a nice drink and some delightful conversation with the lovely Robert here."

"No, I," I explain thoroughly, but it's too late; Pascal lunges for his cumshot grunting a jumble of religious paraphernalia and iconography.

They say in times of panic time either slows down or speeds up incredibly. I can tell you it's neither, and it's more that the world goes bright white, and then gray. It's like, you're catching a knife, and then it's over. You know you did something, but it wasn't intentional, your hand just reaches out and touches the fine edge. It's not until later you notice you're sliced right through or astonished that you aren't. I hear Lydia Yampus talk about it sometimes, her mother instinct firing over nothing, or when she enters anaphylaxis when she eats a cashew. It's like her body moved on its own, and the people around her see her launch the rubber snake across the yard, or stab herself decisively with the epipen, but she doesn't remember it. "Wild."

Anyway. I don't know what cosmic force interposed me between them, but there I am, holding dear Pascal by his collar. I can feel his hot breath as he tries to get by me. He's stronger than I think, but I also appear to be stronger than I think, and our bodies are locked together. His cumshot is cheering me on, but all I want to do, all I've ever wanted to do is be closer to him.

I should let him go, I tell myself. This serves no purpose.

The magic of the gay bar takes over, and I want him as much as he wants his cumshot, as much as his cumshot wants me, and whatever that want is turns into a slap, a shove, more things that don't belong in civil society. There's heat on my neck, and it is of shame. But these were rights that were fought for, bricks had been thrown and windows smashed so we could behave badly in this bar, in this moment. I am a piece of history as I throw a bottle of beer, tip over a stool, have coasters thrown at me like cutting cards. The shame transmutes to rage, then joie de vivre, as this song plays just for me. I let life take me, wherever it pleases, because the only thing I want, the only thing I can't have, is beating me senseless for possession of his cumshot. There are no fights to fight, except the whirlwind I am in. Blows alight from the heavens and I cede to them, it goes again, bright white, and then gray.

There is an angry man outside sitting in the rain in the street and nobody wants it. It is Robert but he does not know how to love. He stirs an imagined triangle in a puddle, I goes to I goes to I goes to I goes to II goes to I...

Jonbo stepped into the square of moonlight in his cell and remembered:

• That hideous earth (scorpions)
• The popcorn sounds suddenly had an effect. The unseen stings felled his friends
• Gevas - canned whole onion including skin, not that delicious

It made him sweaty and sorry he was even here.

When Jonbo Salazar was young, he was quite pointless.

Through high school he'd dodged into astrology and Myers Briggs instead of confronting the obvious crisis of purpose in front of him. But when school was over, there was nobody to listen to his natal chart readings, nobody's personality to assess, nobody's palm to read.

So, he waited.

He waited for someone, or something that could possibly find value any part of him. He had to wait and listen for some part of the universe, he thought, some voice that would let him know what it was he could offer the world.

It wasn't long before he waited straight into a recruiter, who walked him straight into some sunny camp in the middle of nowhere, which sent him straight to some dusty country that was just as meaningless as home (but now with more danger). When he returned, the joy of being blessedly whole faded as he waited alongside society for some sign that there was something to wait for.

When he looked back at those days, years, he noticed that he'd traded his youth for... nothing of worth. He was just the same teenage boy, sifting through the stars, winding tighter and tighter circles around the grave. In addition, though, he now often heard voices, sometimes felt unknown emotions, malaise that came in waves.

• "Excuse me!" he beseeched
• Taking a stress shit in the corner toilet that surprised him
• Small vanity, hating the shoes he was wearing

Watching the square window elongate through the night, these ones had thick plastic on them. Different but same-like, they were high up, and the room would be cool during the day unassisted. What would his parents think if they saw him now? He hadn't spoken to them since high school. I'd be, I am, an example, I guess, of learning the wrong lesson. Everything after high school was that. Nonmutually breaking up with? My family? It was a time to do something out of character because I didn't believe in character.

There was something wrong inside of him, he knew, but he didn't know how to put a name to it, ask about what it was so he could find a cure. It was easier to just not think about it, and just do, do what was asked of him by someone at some time. There were others like him, some of them ghosts now.

• Pulling out armpit hairs and putting them in a pile
• A quote from Johnny T from decades ago, something like "if you can't do it, shut up" except more elegant
• Forcefully imagining the story of someone who'd suffered consequences from seeing his naked singing into the grass. Maybe they failed an exam, they were so distraught

There was one thing that had pinned him down. Something that had so thoroughly rolled him over that it became the only part of his life worth living. It was clumsy, late in life, confusing, misaligned, everything that Jonbo accepted about life's pointless vagaries, yet that somehow managed to rattle everything about him.

At Whale Foods they'd reached for the same can of krill and their hands touched. His eyes were limpid pools like the limpet pools around them. Conversation. Krill dinner. Being a fool for him, but thinking sometimes that's ok. The things they shared:

• A love of fart sounds
• Preferred method of travel, a train, but if going out they preferred to drive themselves
• Affected by the same video of mountain gorillas losing habitat

Even though he knew there was nothing there, the brutal realism that there would be no second dinner, there was something about this man that wormed its way into his heart and wouldn't let go. It was cloying and despairing and just full of neurochemical tricks, and it also gave him the fantasy of a future with all its trappings and love that he'd never imagined before. When the krill dinner ended, the only thing Jonbo was left with was his name. SimSim. From that, Jonbo took it upon himself to look up every single thing about him, his job, his past, his school, his star chart, his age, his hobbies.

And again he drifted, dreaming now of the day he would be saved by him.

(If you would like the worst ending please press next to continue to chapter 26)

(If you would like the happy ending please use the tiny book at the top of this page to skip to chapter 27)

Jonbo was transferred from one box to another. In the morning, his brother had paid bail and picked him up. What followed was a busy lecture in the car. "Our parables dictate that we--"

Around them the countryside was aflame because someone left the stove on.

"Nobody asked you to bail me out," Jonbo interrupted, "and if I'd have known the price was bible stories about who I'm supposed to be, and how I'm supposed to be him, just put me back."

"Actually, mom and dad asked me to bail you out, so technically not nobody asked."

Jonbo rolled his eyes.

"I'm sorry. You know me. I'm not good at making small talk. Or... maybe you don't."

Jonbo put no effort into attempting to pick up the conversational breadcrumbs his brother left for him.

"Where are you taking me?"

"Well, uh, are you hungry? Do you want breakfast? We can just--"

"No."

"Well, well, then, uh, I guess I can take you one of two places," his brother said decisively, "I can take you back to the bus station, you can buy a ticket, and it'll take you back to your city. Or, I can take you to church. We can pray together. Or we can sit in the gardens, and just talk."

Jonbo looked for signs of his brother's life. Though he was younger than him, there was a ring on his finger. His face was fatter, and he wasn't sucking in his stomach when he sat. He wore comfortable clothes, shoes that Jonbo also hated. There were aspects of familiarity, obviously, but what began as curiosity transformed into fatigue, the same desensitized way it's possible to look at magazines of strangers until you get tired of their face. What erodes you from the kid who played foursquare to the person who has a kid?

"Take me to the station. Thank you."

His brother looked annoyed. "Look, that wasn't really an option, so we're going to church, and you're going to talk to me, okay? I bailed you out and you owe me that much, at least."

Jonbo didn't know where there'd be a church around here, but he guessed that was the good part of a religion, it had churches everywhere. His hands were all sorts of not on the wheel, so he thought about Jesus steering them into a tree and then let blessedly aimless thoughts pass over him as he watched the flaming countryside pass.

They arrived in a small cathedral in the center of the town. Locals had heard of the raging fires and had begun stockpiling valuables in the nave in hopes of God saving anything of worth. There didn't seem to be a lot of space for quiet time in the building proper, but around the back, Jonbo and his brother found a stone bench to sit on, away from the busyness.

"So," began Jonbo's brother, looking at his fingers, "so."

Before he could open his mouth again, Jonbo took the opportunity to go on the offensive:

"You know, you said something when we were 15 that hurt me. Remember when you said that I wasn't a good big brother? That hurt. That really hurt. You were my best friend and I didn't... want to or need to hear that."

"Sorry," he apologized.

Jonbo's statement had mostly come from nowhere, but he didn't feel like stopping now:

"And when you and mom and dad, you didn't even try to stop me from going into the army. You all knew it was a dumb thing to do. You didn't even say anything, didn't even miss me."

"That's not true, we--"

"Not once did you ever, any of you ever reach out to me when I was away or even when I returned, but clearly you all somehow kept tabs on me or something, because you certainly knew where I was now and I'm not even surprised because it's so typical for you all to just go radio silent and then suddenly appear expecting something from me. Well, I don't have anything to give, okay? So just don't demand anything from me because you all have done nothing to deserve it, okay?!"

"Jonbo, that's not why I wanted to talk, I'm not demanding anything."

"Just, stop. Don't even pretend that you don't want some sort of explanation. This demeans both of us."

"Look, I haven't had it easy, either..." Jonbo's brother started, and thus began, Jonbo was sure, a long-winded story he didn't care about that mostly irritated him because this moment was about him, and being dragged out and pestered only to not be in the spotlight was singularly annoying. Jonbo thought, as his brother finished, that he was expecting some kind of empathy, which was quite impossible. He shoveled a little more coal into the fires of his annoyance.

"Don't even try to think that you've lived what I've lived," he snapped, "we're nothing alike and I hate that you're even trying to compare our struggles." Even while saying this, Jonbo knew that they were probably more similar than he thought but probably less similar than his brother thought.

"Well, maybe you could tell me a little where you're coming from, then," Jonbo's brother offered.

"Ugh, you just wouldn't understand," Jonbo huffed, and stood up. He'd had enough of this. "I'm going for a walk," he said, "Don't follow me."

Jonbo stood up and looked for a direction to proceed. The smoke was rising in the west and the air quality was beginning to deteriorate. His frenetic feet paced, jumped, mangled the earth in frustration.

Then he began to calm. In a minute, or an hour, he found the stillness in his heart, and when he did he looked up to find his brother standing beside him. He'd circled around to the side of the cathedral, and together they found themselves standing before a cellar door. Jonbo couldn't make eye contact, didn't want to say anything to ruin the fragile peace at which he'd arrived.

"Yo, wanna go see what's in the catacombs?" his brother asked, "I bet there's a cult there preparing for the end."

There was an earnest thread of connection there, something that touched a memory or a feeling: this could be like old times, going on an adventure together.

"I mean, sure, why not?" Jonbo replied. "Yeah I'm down."

With that, Jonbo's brother pulled open the cellar doors and they began down the stone steps.

SKIP TO CHAPTER 28.

It was SimSim! Wowee! Jonbo's long lost first crush heard about him being put in the slammer then came over lickety split! They had a connection (between their hearts) (that never faded) so he just KNEW that Jonbo needed help! He bust on through the popo, and rammed his way into Jonbo's cell with just the sheer power of his bronze, muscled body!!

"SimSim!" Jonbo whinnied, recognizing him instantly!

"Jonbo!" exclaimed SimSim and they embraced!

Behind him the coppers were rapidly approaching! SimSim mustered up all his strength and courage, picked up Jonbo in his big beefy arms, and tackled his way straight on through the evil coppers! He dashed through the hallways, veered around corners with perfect mental orientation, and then burst out the front door heroically into the middle of the night! Wow!

"My hero!" sobbed Jonbo! "I've been waiting for this moment for so long."

"I have, too, baby," SimSim said to Jonbo in his arms, "but we're not out of the woods yet. Let's go!"

SimSim's super awesome self-driving car pulled up in front of the police station at just the right time, then SimSim and Jonbo hopped right into the back seat while the car whizzed them away! In the back of the car, SimSim still carried Jonbo!

"I feel so safe in your arms," Jonbo said!

"You'll be safer if you buckle up! Safety first!" replied SimSim, so Jonbo, though loath to do so, extricated himself from SimSim's firm grip and buckled up next to him!

"I'm safer now!"

"Good!"

"SimSim, how will I ever repay you for what you've done? You've given me my freedom and a new lease on life!"

"How about a kiss?" SimSim replied and Jonbo was shocked. SimSim also blushed in cute embarrassment!

"But SimSim! I thought you liked girls, though!" questioned Jonbo!

"I like everyone!" SimSim replied!

"Wow!" exclaimed Jonbo!

So with some hesitation, Jonbo laid the faintest kiss on SimSim's lips, but then SimSim pulled him in and they made out FIERCELY! It was everything Jonbo had ever dreamed of, and more!

The car had been humming along, and when Jonbo finally descended from the heights of joy, he looked at SimSim lovingly! His face was perfect (like, REALLY perfect!), he had short brown hair (unlike flawed Samson!), glittering, intelligent eyes (full of smartness!), curved ears (good for listening to stories!), full lips (GREAT for kissing!), a chiseled jawline (like a statue!), and a nose (for smelling!)!

"Where are you taking me!?"

"To my secret hideout," SimSim replied, "I'd been building it, waiting for you this whole time, knowing you'd appear when the time was right and I could save you!"

"Wow!"

"It's in the middle of the woods behind a waterfall! Nobody will ever find it! I built it myself, hewing it out of the rocks! I even made a room for you full of baubles and beads and all of your favorite stuffed animals!"

"Wow!"

The car meandered through dirt pathways and passages between the trees. Jonbo watched raptly as they got in deeper and deeper!

"I'm a little scared!" he said!

"Don't worry, I'll hold you close and everything will be ok," SimSim said and then they cuddled the rest of the trip and Jonbo felt so good!

Eventually the car drove through the waterfall and Jonbo went "eep!" when it was pitch black! But then the lights came on and it was a HUGE cavern with plants and pillows and tapestries and friendly animals and colorful mushrooms! It was so beautiful and Jonbo was so overwhelmed that he began crying tears of joy!

"This is your home now, I can provide you with food and shelter and you can help me fill it with love! You won't have to worry about anything ever again and you will be here to be my companion!"

"Wow! You're fulfilling my every need!"

"As it should be in all relationships," explained SimSim, "one fulfilling all the needs of the other!"

THE END OF THIS NOVEL. CLOSE THE BOOK AND DO NOT READ ANY FURTHER.

So anyway, just in case you read chapter 27, SimSim's arrangement with Jonbo fell apart pretty quickly because SimSim was very easy to please, and that ease made Jonbo feel like he still had no purpose in life. Jonbo decided that if he couldn't be happy there, then there was no hope for him on this earth, so he offed himself and went to hell for his sins.

In that parallel timeline, Jonbo and his brother also arrive in hell after descending the staircase at the bottom of the cathedral.

"Is there a light?" Jonbo's brother asks. Jonbo feels the walls for a switch but he feels only smooth stones. The cellar door remains open behind them, but as they descend the interminable stairs the light is increasingly wan.

Jonbo hates the sound of their shoes as they clip clop down the stones, he feels like a dumb quadruped instead of the sexy worm he thinks he is and voices this opinion aloud.

"Maybe you should try stepping more softly," comments his brother, and it is mostly unhelpful and infuriating but Jonbo says nothing.

Jonbo's hand slides against the stones as they warm. He is uncertain of how long they've been walking, but proceeding seems easier than returning.

"How far down do you think this goes?" Jonbo's brother asks.

"I don't know," Jonbo says and there's more interminable silence.

"Hey, do you feel like these walls are kind of warm?" Jonbo's brother asks.

"Yeah," comments Jonbo.

They continue anyway.

"I didn't get to say that we missed you, earlier," Jonbo's brother said, to which Jonbo responded with a grunt.

"It was weird when you left because it felt like you didn't... well, you didn't want to be associated with us anymore.

"I don't know if that's the truth, or what the idea was, or how you felt or anything. I think we felt like if you wanted to leave then it's not like we could have stopped you. But we thought of you every day."

Jonbo's brother stopped, and Jonbo did too. Though they couldn't see each other, Jonbo turned to face the step where his brother stood.

"I don't believe you." Jonbo stated simply.

"Why?" his brother asked.

"Because my worst self doesn't miss any of you."

"Wait, why are you comparing me to your worst self?"

"Because... everyone is."

Jonbo's brother performed some sort of psychological calculation that ended with an arithmetic error and Jonbo began walking away from whatever his brother had wanted to say. Seconds later, his brother trotted down the steps, and his comment caught up with both of them,

"You just think you're so special," he accused, "you think you are just so special and different from everyone."

"No, you!" Jonbo rejected.

"Well, I hate to break it to you, but you're not."

"Wait, that was my point exactly, that I'm not special."

"What?" Jonbo's brother sounded confused and Jonbo triumphantly threw back:

"You weren't listening, I'm saying my worst self is pretty normal and you're agreeing. We're all terrible. Nobody is special because we're all just terrible. We're all killers, we're all selfish, we're all alone and nobody or nothing can fix us, we can just walk through this world damaging as little as possible, and most of us even fail at that."

Jonbo could hear his brother take a deep breath that caught at the end.

"Hey, does it smell kind of gassy to you?"

"No," Jonbo refuted obstinately.

"Well, it doesn't matter, I'm leaving and you're welcome to come with me or not. I'm done. I'm not forcing you to talk to me when you just made it clear that you don't want to and... you shouldn't be stupid and we shouldn't be wandering around down here anyway, this adventure is over."

"No, you're wrong again," Jonbo said, "we're together, really together, for the first time in a decade, and we're going to see this through."

At this point it seemed as if Jonbo liked disagreeing with his brother, but he assured himself inside that this was not the case. He heard his brother orient himself beside him, and they continued to descend in silence.

It's the watercooling hour where Lydia Yampus is wearing a dress that covers her boobulas, her pelvic triangle, and her bellybutton. She lets their imagination fill in the details. Is it an innie or an outie? Is it completely cattywampus? She is draped on a chaise lounge. Spectators discuss.

"Is Lydia Yampus an important character at all?"

"Are any of these characters important?"

"Do you think the bear will get what she wants?"

"What does she even want?"

"Is Gortune a good person or not?"

"Aren't Jonbo's issues more pressing? Like, shouldn't him being the coolest person count for something? Does that literally mean nothing even though it's written into law?"

"Are the laws even good for anything?"

"Are any laws even good for anything?"

"Is that a rhetorical question?"

"How is Misanthropi not in therapy? Didn't she literally get kidnapped as a child and almost ghost married?"

"Wait so did Lint literally fucking die in chapter 3?"

"Oh, shit, did we forget about Robert?"

"Why do these eggs taste so terrible? Why does this water taste like eggs?"

"Are the flames of hell tainting the mortal realm again?"

Jacob is having lunch with Nana and Amy because he wants to make them friends and he tells her about his modeling mishap with willimeters and isn't that just the funniest thing you'd ever heard? Haha.

"Amy is just the best. She keeps me honest and organized and always has the right post-it notes. Don't you think Amy is the best?"

"I just met her," replies Nana, "but I can already tell she is."

"She also loves horses and she pretty much is one. I saw her bathroom and all she has is Mane and Tail."

Jacob and Nana titter and Amy secretly churns with rage and embarrassment because Mane and Tail is just really good for conditioning ok? But this is what making friends was like, she tells herself, a string of tolerating insults to her character. She was the horse, being ridden. Sometimes the horse wears you down.

It would be worth it. After all, she needs friends so she could get them to drive her to the airport. I mean, why be friends if they can't drive you to the airport? Jacob had said that we have a microservice for that, something easy like daily desires could easily be broken down and compartmentalized and outsourced to strangers, but Amy wants the full friendship experience.

"I'm going to this get well party next week, for this guy named Mike and you should all come," Jacob says. "I think it's at a hospital, so, like, be cleeeean. I think there will be free stuff."

Nobody really knows what that meant so they just make sure to sing the birthday song twice when they wash their hands and then show up at the hospital in their Sunday Best.

Jacob is of course mistaken, and this is in fact not a get well party. It is, in fact, a fundraiser and memorial for Mike, and the entirety of the audience is full of beautiful, well-lubricated tech people.

"Money is so easy to make, but so hard to have. Does that make any sense?" Amy is told. She nods politely. They are serving mincy hors d'oeuvres and canopies and Amy takes one of the latter to rest under while she listens to this exhausting man. She doesn't know how much more of this she can take.

Someone then stands in front of a microphone on a stage and makes it shriek electrically. He then begins to address the crowd. "We will be hosting a panel of guest speakers now." They then proceed to speak in series, instead of a panel, but nobody seems to care.

One of the guest speakers is just a white guy from suburbia who was on reality TV once, who just goes up on stage and eats noisily for a few minutes. Someone calls him out with the MC's mic and everyone is forced to clap in encouragement for him to perform, but he doesn't, and he gives everyone the finger and leaves. Nobody can tell if that was the performance, so they generously assume it was, and begin cheering.

"Jacob," someone addresses him, "nice to meet you, I'm Clint, freelance marketer."

"How did you know my name?" Jacob asks. There is a man beside him. These tech people move like cats.

"Why, I just did my research," Clint replies, "I know all of your names, everyone, Jacob, Amy, and Nana. Nana makes quilts and you two work at a steel factory. Nice stuff."

"Cool." states Jacob, thoroughly unnerved. In fact, everyone knows everyone's name because that's what people do, they do unnerving research around everyone, including the people who are just there for the free food. "You said you were into marketing?"

"Yeah, used to be in juice, now freelance..." Clint takes note of Nana sipping on a bottle of Kumquat Loquitur flavored Dryer brand Nectar (there's a flapping tongue licking a kumquat on the label) and everyone misses his faint eye twitch. He then begins to make conversation about his job, and when he can tell they're losing interest he pivots to his theory about how peanut butter and jelly sandwich sex noises are an argument for intelligent design because how else could we make such perfect noises?

"Way cool," grins Nana, visibly uncomfortable but also fairly amused.

"But enough about me, tell me more about your extracurricular theories."

"Umm," Amy begins. Jacob senses something about horses, and, wanting to be the cool guy, he begins talking about model building instead. "I make scale models or our smokestacks out of popsicle sticks and this little thing I invented that I like to call 'warm glue' because he's like hot glue, but not as hot."

"That's actually quite fascinating. I've never actually heard of anything like it," muses Clint aloud. He then turns to Amy, "But you were about to say something, my dear?"

"Would you excuse us, a moment?" Amy asks and she pulls Jacob away forcefully. Clint and Nana begin chumming it out she Amy pushes Jacob over to a corner:

"Jacob, you little shit, I'm trying to make some friends here and you're not helping."

"What, I'm just breaking the ice!" Jacob complains.

"Did you or did you not JUST hear the man talking about his peanut butter and jelly sandwich sex noises? There's no ice left to break. I could have said I do foot porn on the side and he wouldn't have blinked an eye. That was my chance to just say whatever and gotten his attention."

"Okay, sorry, I get it," passifies Jacob, "I won't interrupt again. You got this."

"Thank you," she says.

"...But he was just talking to you, so did you have to drag me over here to yell at me when you could have just told him what you were going to say?"

Amy doesn't have a response for that. She instead attempts to return to Clint and Nana, but when they arrive it appears the two of them have gone off to watch a speech together and Amy becomes mostly fueled by rage anon.

They leave the mixer less good friends than ever, and when Jacob lies awake at night in his luxury apartment, he looks to the fan blades on his ceiling, insomnia from the deep questions of life.

"Do hotwheels get hot wheels?" he asks himself.

There isn't a knock on his door. It instead pops right on open and his two cats scurry into a hamper. Men dressed in black come in and Jacob is fairly alarmed.

"Who in the..."

But before he has time to orient himself, something large and heavy is thrown over him and he's tucked up and rolled away by his captors in a fine persian rug.

Passing the front desk of the luxury apartments, the concierge asks, "Didn't y'all just have a kidnap plot recently?"

"No, Misanthropi just made a questionable choice and got in an uncomfortable situation," the kidnappers state firmly.

"Alright then. Bye, have a good time!" the concierge helpfully waves.

"Thanks!" the kidnappers reply as Jacob's struggles and screams are muffled by the rolled rug.

In the getaway vehicle Jacob is unrolled into a back seat, hands bound, facing a man in a mask he doesn't recognize.

"What's the secret to the warm glue?" he asks. His directness disorients Jacob, but he situates the question as he finds himself.

"Wow, wait a minute, this must be important if you want this THIS badly," he remarks: "I'm not telling you."

"We have many ways to get what we want," the man in the mask states. He reaches behind himself and pulls out a Destruct Taco bag. It rustles with tortilla chips as he shakes it. But Jacob is wiser than that. He knows that if there are tortilla chips in there, it's all filler and no meat.

"No deal."

"Well, then," the masked man states and a bag is placed over Jacob's head.

(SPOILER: This is the chapter where I say Amy is actually a knight, not a horsegirl, and she saves Jacob but in a poem, and if you don't care for that sort of buffoonery just skip it)

Post-script:

Amy was returning Java to the stable in her croft when she saw Jacob waving to her from her driveway.

"Nice day for riding? No baddies to stomp?"

"None today, thanks!" she called, "...because I assume you're here and you're not kidnapped or held at gunpoint."

Her legs were stiff when she dismounted. Sometimes the horseman wears you down, sometimes the horse wears you down.

"I brought Destruct Taco," he said as he heavily shook a bag, "and it's definitely not a bullshit bag of chips."

She knew he didn't know her order but she smiled anyway. The valence of her heart was unsettled, but she was hoping corn product would fix that. Inside she cleared a space on her dining table under her loft and poured Jacob a glass of water from an antique pitcher.

"Thanks," she said as he dumped two burritos on the table and began mauling his like an animal.

"Unh" he grunted. She wondered, but didn't ask if he thought this meant they were even; you know, Java's gunshot rehabilitation and her multiple possible charges of manslaughter balanced against the wrong order from the taco place. The thought of what she did drove a throb of insanity across her features.

"So, what even is the secret to warm glue?" she asked to distract herself. Her shaking hands made it difficult to unwrap the tinfoil of her burrito.

"Mm," (he swallowed) "it's just ground up birds. John just eats the (shudder) eggs, so I turn the rest into glue."

"F-fascinating," she replied. He filled the intervening minutes with noisy grunts of gustation. It gave her the opportunity to calm herself. When he let fall a chunk of gristle from his mouth, she figured that was his onus fulfilled for a conversational initiative.

"How is Nana? How are you feeling about her? Are you two... good now?"

"Ah, yeah, of course. How was she supposed to know she gave just enough PII so that Clint could track me down? Anybody could make that mistake. And, what can I say? I'm a forgiver."

"We should chill again sometime, then, the three of us."

"Sure! If you don't mind cats, come on over to my place. We can watch a fight."

Amy ate the rest of her burrito in silence. She hugged Jacob before he left. "See you tomorrow at work."

The fruitful years on the farm ended after Misanthropi spilled the beans about the lessons her mother had taught her.

"So it's true, you never loved me." Hubert stated simply.

"No," Linn deflected, or confessed. "What does that even mean? What do you even mean?"

"You didn't fall in love with me, all those years ago, by the sea. You just needed me to help raise your swin. I'm nothing to you, just a convenient tool."

Linn, already flat-footed, managed to run through the most logical explanation in her head: "But... is that not enough? Are you not happy? Are we not content together?"

It was clearly not what he wanted to hear: "You never thought I was special, I was just a bumbling fool who looked like he could protect you."

"Hubert!" she exclaimed, "You are special! You are of course a talented farmer. And a charmer of beasts..."

"I know now!" he interrupted her, swelling painfully, "You think all men are swin. I am too! And that forever we are to be toyed with, so you can play the liar, trick us into doing your bidding!"

"I..."

"And why turn a trick on swin, when you could instead turn a trick on me, to raise them instead?"

Linn scrambled for an answer but could find nothing to immediately refute his claim.

"Why are you saying this? Why now?"

"It is because everything has become nothing! And you are the cause!"

His words stung her like a slap. Still reeling she tried to recover, "No! Think of what you are saying!"

This was evidently a blowout fight because Misanthropi watched her father pack his belongings in silence while her mother begged, pleaded, and bargained for him to stay. It was for naught. He left their farm forever on foot, carrying a single bag.

In the interim years, Hubert had become soft, and relied on the physical affection of his wife to derive the oxytocin needed to survive. He did not recognize this immediately, he only felt his strength begin to leave him, and a sickening, familiar cold begin to take hold inside of him as the days passed. It was the last thing he'd expected to happen. And he'd never quite suffered this way before, though certainly he remembered in his life alone. It was strange, when he'd touched Linn, he didn't think he felt anything special, other than the warmth of her skin, or (what he guessed he'd imagined was) the love she'd had for him. He did not notice that her biology sustained him until his body reminded him of her absence. His hair lost its lustre, his legs became frail, he became bent like a broken door frame. Despite his efforts, he seemed unable to achieve a healthy level of the hormone through any other means. Without it, he became weaker, and weaker.

"Linn!" he could only cry, dramatically shambling further from her, "Linn!"

It was only after he arrived in Nyork, shriveled and crawling, that an ambulance took him to a hospital. There, the doctors determined a way for him to be able to reach a chemical equilibrium via an IV drip of oxytocin, delivered in a constant, small stream indefinitely. Doctors had previously ascribed to the medical postulate that thousands had lived without love, yet none without water, yet here Hubert was, proving to be a historic medical anomaly.

Hubert spent the rest of his days a ghost, yearning to feel anything but the emptiness of his life without Linn, and the farm, until one day in a stroke of negligence, dyslexia, or mercy, they swapped his oxytocin IV with an oxycontin IV, and he began his unlife.

It's a Swedish cafe where her good friend Martha is sitting just inside on a communal bench. She gets up from her breakfast of a quinoa bowl and Marden's delight to hug her and have a one-sided conversation.

"So good to see you! Ok, so I have this problem where I just got married a few weeks ago and I'm going to law school. I got into UCLA but because of Adam if I go I'll have to spend half my time in LA and the other half in London. But I could also go to LSE and I think I could do it. I just know." Her friend Bean Marie starts butting in with her own problem but she can't listen to more than one at a time and her asian friend George is to her side. A man sits in her seat and starts eating her Marden's delight. Martha notes this and goes, "ugh ok this has totally happened before he'll like offer an interview or something in payment for food. Just don't take it and make him pay and I'll make him get me another one after."

"What makes you think you can get into LSE? Like, do you know anyone who could help you get in, or who could like, give you some insight into the admissions process..."

"So, I don't have, like, a background in trial law or law theory or anything but I think I can do it. Also I just have this really good feeling because I already have a connection to the city of London through Adam, it should go more easily, especially with like immigration. Mm! This quinoa bowl is so good." she looks to see it reduced to a few shreds of greens and some gelatinous egg bits.

"Hey, excuse me, are you going to pay for her food?" George's voice booms through the dining hall. The seats next to them are empty. The man sitting in Martha's old seat is near the back entrance. George points toward him, mere feet away.

He sprints out the door.

"The staff here just let this guy eat her food and they aren't doing anything about it!" George continues announcing loudly.

"We're so sorry, wait," a waiter says as they deploy a barista like a ballistic missile after the runner.

"What did you have? A Marden's delight? We'll make another one for you right away."

"Thank you."

"Hey, good catch." she says to George.

"Yeah he was like 'do you want an interview?' and I was like 'unh' and he must have been thinking like 'this Asian bitch.'"

"Anyway, my opinion, for what it's worth is that you should always just prepare for the worst, and you'll have a better outcome. You know, just like you did with that guy. It's praxis in action, yeah?"

She could only agree. This had been a long detour from her latte and she's started to get tired mopey, or annoyed grunty.

"The task today is rebranding 'rectangle' to 'linear square' because it tracks better against our target demographic" announced Martha's corporate overlord. She leapt to attention, saluting him with both hands and all ten fingers while slapping her pregnant belly against the tabletop (the amniotic fluid cushioning the blow). There was no further direction given, ("Wouldn't that be more like a rectangular prism?" someone was ignored) ergo Martha took the time to sit in her cubicle and attune her inner ear to the gossip around her.

"She is gravid with young"

"You mean she's preganté?"

"Yeah, whatever."

"Does she know what nads it has?"

"No, remember? All the helium's gone since that Dryer incident and they can't MRI anymore."

"Oh yeah but can't they ultrasound or anything like that?"

"She wouldn't have wanted loud noises or magnets near her baby anyway."

"Ugh, who would want to bring another life into this benighted place."

"Well, I wouldn't call it benighted..."

"What are you guys talking about?" she called loudly with her voice-voice.

"Nothing."

"We were just acknowledging the elephant in the room (you)."

Fatigued from the listening, Martha decided it was time for a snack. Bean Marie had brought her fishmeal from Whale Foods despite it not quite being food. She'd told her that it was used mainly as industrial fertilizer, but Martha signed it off as an incontestable pregnancy craving. One does not challenge pregnant women. It was on that occasion, however, that her water decided to break and she was rushed to the hospital.

"NOOooO" she keened as the baby bubbled out of her, "I was saving that for later!!!"

The unscheduled baby shower happened spontaneously after, via people mailing gifts to Martha, and she was left distributing a variety of thank you phone calls that she worried would sound repetitive. What she didn't think about was that it's not like people compared baby shower gift thank you messages, especially if they didn't know each other.

"Hi Sylvia! This is Martha. I just wanted to say that we got the gifts you left on our doorstep and we're, we couldn't help but open them, and we're delighted. With them. Anyway, Adam wants to also say thanks so I'll pass him--oh! Hi Sylvia!"

It was then that they'd pick up, halfway through the answering machine after confirming it was Martha, and she'd be roped into a several hour congratulatory phone call that wore out the electricity in her apartment so that she could no longer heat water effectively.

The postpartum stress on Martha's body made it so she had trouble metabolizing cold water, which, shockingly, cascaded into other problems that generally settled into a Confucian grip coloring most of her thoughts. She called her child ah yeung in order to disguise it from God as a lowly animal, so God wouldn't take it away. Her child would go on to singularly experience Cantonese as a language of demands, accusations, and metaphors.

When ah yeung was of group sports age, she signed it up for basketball prescribed to the following logic:

"Cabbage will help you grow. And you have to play basketball to stretch yourself out so you'll be taller!"

Her dumpy child would rather quite prefer proscription, but it didn't know what that was yet. Settling into years of being bad at team sports, ah yeung also entertained her wishes of classical music lessons, early bedtimes, a screenless life, paper shredding, and medium length hair:

"Don't cut your hair after new year's. The lunar or the solar. I'm not sure which one so we should do both, because it could cut the luck away. Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy. wealthy and wise. Don't look at screens or else you'll go blind. If you watch TV you'll get addicted and you'll be a turtle, carrying it on your back everywhere you go. Always shred your junk mail because you never know who's looking in your trash. If you eat chestnuts before you go to bed you won't have to get up to pee at night!"

Adam suffered similarly: "Your colon has 20 pounds of undigested red meat in it," so no more hamburgers.

It was at the impressionable age of 13 that ah yeung experienced its first true form of resistance. During a family outing to a park, sourgrass was blooming on a hill. It had never tasted sourgrass before despite having seen its peers consume many sprigs in what could only be described as a hecka cool way. "Don't eat that because it has dog pee on it," ah yeung had been told. The family had brought a ball with them, and Martha took the opportunity to miss kicking it entirely and slip on it instead, sending her tumbling to the ground. In the ensuing chaos, ah yeung grabbed a pee-covered stalk of sourgrass and jammed it in its pocket. When it returned home and ate the lemony weed, it had never felt more defiant, more powerful, and more addicted to the pleasure of self direction. That small spark of resistance ignited a flame that would continue for the rest of its life.

Haiiii!, it's me, God (◠‿◠✿). I don't haz a wot to do today cuz it's Sunday~ so I'm taking a bweak nao to teww u a wittwe bit about mysewf UwU. Peopwe say I haz a pwetty avewage buiwd (• o •). But I gots da biiig hearto!!! (✿ ♡‿♡) I wike gawdening, stonecutting, and studying wewigions, and my favowite cowwa is gamma wayz . My fwiends wud caw me a bit obsessed with my wowk, but what do they kno, am I wight? XDXDXD Teehee~ (⁎˃ᆺ˂)

Have u evew had a twadition that u buiwt by yowsewf, but that u couwdn't shawe wif anyone? I cud be dat someone fow u. (இωஇ ) And, in a way, u've awweady shawed it wif me, cuz I'm awways watching. XDDD I'm tawking to uu Cashewwwww. I kno awwww doze fantastica stowies u made up about da constewations, and I heaw u evewy time u count da steps up youw home gawden in youw head. (人◕ω◕) I'm a comfowtabwe being. You can be comfowtabwe wif me, cuz I awweady kno. <3

In dating, I kno some peopwe awe absowutewy wavishing. And I get it, thewe's something that can just stick to u about that, weew u in. Some of u awe quite seduced by da inewtia of beauty. (๑•́ ₃ •̀๑) As I am aww powewfuw, I can fix that. :D

OwO Am I a dog ow a cat pewson!? Hm. ._. Dogs awe ok. Dogs awe JUST OK, awwight!? (ʘᗩʘ\') I mean, I get it, they'we nice and obedient and some of u think they can do nu wwong, and dat's chiww. I just think they'we ok. 0w0 Cats awe fine too. FINE. (╯﹏╰）I'm suwe I'ww get awong with ur pets tho, dun wowwy about it. <_< >_> v_v

My favowite movie is Wiwaci. Cinematic mastewpiece! So good!!!!~! (●´ω｀●) But I suppose sevewaw of u might nut haz seen it yet. It comes out in da yeaw 2201 CE and I wespect and appweciate that some of u may nut exist yet, ow exist aftew da fouwth gweat fiwtew and u may nut undewstand da concept of fiwm. (；ω；) Maybe I'm being a wittwe too specific.

(❁´◡`❁) In my spawe time I wike to witness da showt incandescence of wife and watching watew tuwn stone to sand. Sawt watew is one of my favowite tings. You can just do so much wif it, so much goes on in it, and it awso feews gweat on da skin. (｀へ´)

I don't weawwy kno why I'm hewe. Teehee~ Isn't that so wandom!? (　'◟ ') I mean I guess I was just totawwy bowed and, wike, dis seemed fun. I shud, wike, u kno, say something about my favowite food, ow ideaw mate, ow someting, wight? :P

<{^v^}> I'm wooking fow my pawtnew in cwime dat'ww go on adventuwes wif me and push me to be a bettew being. My ideaw pawtnew wud be petite (maybe awound 300 feet taww ow wong) and atmosphewe independent. I iz not picky about age but matuwity is attwactive ( ͡° ᴥ ͡°)

If u want to get my attention, hmm, dat's a toughie! I'm pwetty new at this! ^_^ But I'm an open book! Feew fwee to weach out and I wiw definitewy make time fow u. I am powite, and omnipotent, so I wiw awways wepwy to evewy communication.（＾ｖ＾）

Cowpoweaw beings to da fwont of da wine. ʕʘ‿ʘʔ Bububu~~

In his crystal ball Gortune surveys a scene of ulterior motives. Anbert stretches his head behind his knees, ligaments ornate in their misconstruction before he deforms himself to line the roof of the clown car. Before the rainbow jalopy is a painted ramp over an enclosed pit where Deirdre roars with believable rage, and delivers impressive bear punches in the air. Philtrum the ringmaster screams at a crowd with equal zeal, expressing grandly with a rainbow wand. They cheer back, children bouncing out of their seats barely able to hold their excretions at the sight of the spectacle. To the side, just out of the tent's searing theatre lights, Blue Peanut noisily chews on watermelon shrapnel with a knowing smile.

"...The CAR will LEAP! OVER! The most S-SCARENING of BEEr-LEEN BEARS! ZEER-STORRREEER!"

"WOMP!" (Deirdre roars)

"EEEE!" (cheer the viewers)

Behind is a backdrop of cheerful horns, kazoos, and unknown percussives, pounding out an abrasively playful melody. A part of the audience is wound up with enough anticipatory energy that they begin stomping on their bleachers and making police siren noises. A child takes off its clothes and its parents are unperturbed. The sentiment turns from human, to crowd.

"Go! Go! Go!" they scream at the car, which seems to jerk with the erratic movement of a much lighter object. Philtrum prances, rotating in small circles around the arena, the car cavorts in a similar fashion behind him.

"Do you thEENK it can do it?!" asks Philtrum.

"JAAAAA!" thinks the crowd.

"I sayyyed, 'DO YOU THEENK IT CAN DO IT!?'" he taunts.

"JAAAAA!" thinks the crowd more forcefully.

"WHALE NoW," bursts Philtrum, "IF YOU THEENK so, Then This CAR needs ALLLLLL your energy in it, SO! I nEED you to FOCUS! FOCUS!!!! And CHEER with me!! READY!? LET'S! GO! LITTLE! CLOWN! CAR!!"

"JAAAAA!" the crowd screams. An educated, composed contingent manages to sound out the sentence Philtrum called. A further contingent begins a stadium chant (ugh, football hooligans). The clown car amps up the crowd, driving in tighter and tighter donuts until the rotational force lifts its 2 left wheels from the ground. A grand spectacle indeed, the clowns within are thinking fat thoughts and hurling themselves to the counterbalancing side. Someone opens a jug of gasoline and pours it out the downward window. The circle of fuel is lit and the flames lick at the side of the car; the clowns begin cooking much to everyone's delight. A flammable material ignites on the outer roof of the car and flames dance like witch's hair.

"WhoOAo!" narrates Philtrum, "the CAR is on FIYA! WHATHOWEVER will the CLOWnX EXCAPE!?"

On cue, Deirdre becomes incensed, rising onto two legs and clawing at the direction of the funtastic display, reaching up over the edge of her enclosure. A set of clown feet out the window make the car hop, rotate on its axis and spin into a grand placement behind the ring of fire.

"CLOWNS! WADDER YOU DOOO-EEENG!?" Philtrum screams in mock disbelief. The clown car responds by tooting its horn to the tune of the first 3 bars of "Mary Had A Little Lamb." The moment is at hand. Its back wheels screech as it revs its engine. The rooftop fire crackles loudly and throws blue sparks. The clown eyes squashed up against the side windows are glassy calm. At the tipping point of hysteria, members of the crowd jump up in their seats.

"SCREEEEE" the clown car releases its propulsion and blasts through the gas-fire ring ring, leaving flaming wheel tracks as it blazes up the ramp, and catches air.

It is obvious that the trajectory is wrong as soon as the vehicle's wheels leave solid ground. The car's nose dips forward nastily, the angle evoking a clumsily thrown brick. The flaming roof looks more like a malfunctioning kebab grill than a glorious mohawk. In that moment the collective imagination of delight shifts to disaster. Their fears are realized when, midway across the length of the pit, the clown car crashes face first into the ground and transforms into a blast pattern of flaming car parts, clowns, and, inexplicably, low quality salt water taffy.

The music stops and the crowd gasps. As their indecision begins to tip into panic, the horns return in force, the buzzes of the kazoos crescendo, and the wreckage of clowns, fire, and Deirdre break into a state of fabulous confusion.

"DISAS-TURRRRR!" cries Philtrum theatrically. The lack of panic in his voice further calms those who are thinking of fleeing. Deirdre begins swiping at clowns who dance beyond her reach with varied and entertaining clown acrobatics. Some vault off of cowering compatriots while throwing candy into the crowd. Some begin levitating via propellers attached to their hats and aerosol silly string in every direction. Yet others stand before one another and split like mirrored reflections. It is a cacophony of squeaky nose honks, combustive pops, angry bear noises, and kooky clown laughs. Deirdre sidesteps flaming debris, lolling strikes with her paws sometimes catching fabric, but never clown flesh.

"WHO-EVER will help DEAL with this DISASTROUSNESSES?!"

Philtrum then emphatically looks at the equipment with which he is girded. "Why, IT IS our HEROES BLUE PEANUT AND CASHEW RIZZO!" he declares. And answering his decree is an elephant's trumpet. "LEG'S GOOOOOO!"

Cashew Rizzo plummets from the ceiling wearing absolutely nothing. Attached to him, however, are an assortment of tools, including a pole, a muzzle, and a bouquet of flowers, and across his torso is an absurd amount of rope. At the very same time, Blue Peanut trundles into the arena, ears flapping, knocking down a wall of the enclosure and stampeding through the center between the scattering clowns and Deirdre alike. After his initial charge, Blue Peanut repositions himself and toots assertively. He squares off against Deirdre the bear, tusks borne forward, only his placid eyes betraying his calm.

In response, Deirdre's butt rises as she focuses all her attention on Blue Peanut. Her rump exposed, Cashew arms himself with a blowgun and fires a dart into Deirdre's hide with what is presumed to be bear tranquilizer, but is actually an ampoule of chicken broth.

On cue, Blue Peanut rears onto his back legs, and then drops them to the ground with an enormous thud, the entire floor shakes with the impact. A final trumpet, then he charges thunderously towards Deirdre! A great growl escapes her! The crowd is electrified as they are being pelted by candy. Just as Blue Peanut is about to squash Deirdre flat, she coolly pirouettes out of the way, raising her arms in mockery. Oops! When she brings them down, she finds a rope encircling her torso. It pulls tight, pinning her taunting bear arms to her body.

"CASHEW HAS HER! BLUE PEANUT! Help the OTHERS!" exclaims Philtrum. Easily enough, Blue Peanut turns his attention to helping clowns perform acrobatics among exploding car parts while more lassoos wind their way around Deirdre's body. She roars in defiance as she tips to the floor. Cashew prances over, throwing more lassoos in coils around her as he does.

Deirdre protests, "GRR! [Oo, no, don't tie me up, Mr. Circus man!!! Not in front of all of these people!]"

"ZERSTORER! YOU ARE UNDER MY POWAH NOW!!" Cashew explodes while he places his foot on her torso and pins down her neck with his pole.

"Ugngngh [Oh no, don't step on me with your clown shoes!!]" Deirdre protests, thrashing against her bonds.

"What a FIERCE! FIGHT! HE IS HAVEEENG!" Philtrum narrates, as Cashew begins getting rough with Deirdre. Cashew's restraints turn into a series of intricate knots out of the lassoos around her body.

"Huuuu, [It's so tight, Mr. Circus man!]" Deirdre groans. With Blue Peanut, the car's wreckage, and dozens of dancing clowns flinging candy to attract their attention, the crowd is honestly barely noticing Deirdre being trussed like a turkey, but Cashew is determined to put on a good show.

"I am your master and I am ordering you to roar," Cashew dips into a quiet register, the comment becoming a demand between just the two of them.

"Guuu, [Yes, master]" Deirdre whimpers.

"Roar." he ordered once again.

"WOMP--" Deirdre attempts, but Cashew snaps a muzzle into place on Deirdre maw before she can complete her roar. She writhes against her bonds.

"WHOAAA! HOW MIGHTILY IT STRUGLLINATES!!!" Philtrum cries.

Deirdre rocks back and forth to force the tension in her muscles to loosen. The ropes squeeze in.

"Yes, you're a good slave bear," Cashew whispers in her ear, "a very good slave bear."

Triumphantly he raises a hand holding multiple ropes. They pull Deirdre's limbs taught behind her in a stress position and she moans in her muzzle and wriggles her bear posterior. Additional pyrotechnics emerge from compartments in the ramps and expel multicolored fires. In a culturally sensitive moment, the horns and kazoos begin to play the German National Anthem.

"HE HAS SUBDOOOOODY ZERSTORER!"

The clowns assume victory poses, Anbert in the front, previously crumpled in a horrible shape, rises and straightens himself to a correct posture gloriously in a spotlight. He is covered in spaghetti, and, being the only clown with such good posture bedecked in noodles, eye-catchingly manages some slick self-advertisement.

Gortune rises from his crystal ball, having seen enough. He leaves his tent, locking the door by tying a knot in the ropes holding the tent flap closed. (It's surprising how boring occult artifacts are when left unattended. Gortune liked the power of being required). The minor delay on the crystal ball means the main tent is wrapping up its celebrations now and audience members would be exiting. The undead would be cleaning up and sticking the clown car back together with warm glue. He dips behind into Blue Peanut's main pen, stepping over the hay-cluttered open air poops. There's a fold in the back curtain that parts, and within he spies the first of many clowns cleaning up.

"Wonderfully done," he comments as he passes. The closed-eyed clown squeezes his honking nose before removing it.

Gortune enters the main dressing area. Some clowns, still in face, have removed their clothes and are splashing murky water from a barrel onto their bare bodies. Others are using solvents for their grease paint and looking more normal by the minute (well, as normal as any voluntary clown looked, he supposed).

Blue Peanut makes a path through the crowd towing a tied up Deirdre in a cart. They arrive at the center of the room where she's gently dumped out onto the floor. Amidst the flow of clowns Cashew unties her, asking her how she's doing and complimenting her on her performance. Gortune approaches, "Have a good time out there?"

"Yeah, that was really great. Really, truly," she says, her voice shaky as she rises from her stupor. "Can I get a pet?" she asks and Cashew pats her head while Blue Peanut uses one of his brushes on her back affectionately.

"Great show. Saw it in the crystal. Fantastic execution, you all held your own out there," Gortune compliments.

Deirdre rises back to attention as the ropes come undone. On her feet, she bows lightly to Gortune. "Thanks, had a lot of fun out there. Hope it showed."

"It certainly did."

Shaking her limbs a little to work out the kinks, she begins moving towards the back door. "If that's all for today, I'll be back tomorrow. Cheers."

As she exits to go off to live her regular bear life, Gortune turns to Philtrum.

"So... she really likes that. Deirdre. Really. She actually does."

"WeLl, you KNOW what they saaay, 'if he walks like a DUCK and smells like hOIsin, she's a PANCAKE!'" answers Philtrum sagely.

It seemed that made sense on some level, and there was no denying that even though Deirdre left after every show, she always came back for the next one.

Blue Peanut takes his leave as well, and Philtrum excuses himself from Gortune's presence to bring him another watermelon to smash and consume. It is Cashew lastly who approaches Gortune after gathering up all his rope and coiling it all nicely in a pile.

"Hey, I just wanted you to know," he comments to Gortune, "I'm so happy about the show. They're really great and everyone seems to be having the best time. Thanks for bringing us here, not that I ever should have doubted you." With a wave he shakes some tufts of bear fur loose from some rope and gives himself a pat on the back. Gortune feels the wheels of destiny click in place, and, gratified, then, he goes back to his tent to figure out the rest, whatever it may be.

Dear Nana

How are you I am fine

Dear Lint

I am fine how are you

Dear Nana

How are you I am fine I wil rit a leter to Midnight to

Dear Midnight

How are you I am fine

Dear Nana,

Today is my varey farst day of 1st grad. I am varey acsitde to go. My mom mad a penut budr sawich for me and then we want home and then we had dinr.

Dear Lint,

Today I want to peyano lesin and I playd Sprigthim Sun. It was rely god

(There are 4 rain-smeared, illegible pages.)

Dear Lint,

Today I played with Jennifer in reces. We played reporters. I was Luigi Lopez. She was Madame Pears. We were anoying! I am eating snack.

Hope to hear from you soon.

Your Friend, Nana

Dear Nana,

Sorry I'm so late on the reply.

Thank you for inviting me to your birthday party. I had a good time. I really liked your party favors.

I had to study for the special A program and my sisters called me a nerd. We got a sky dancer this week. Then I went to Joseph's house and we played on the trampoline where I did a backflip. We made lemonade with palm sugar. How is reporting?

Dear Lint,

I have not played reporting in a while. Today I hung out with Ursula. We have PE together. We both suck! My mom is teaching me how to sew like a princess. I will make your wedding gown when I am good. It will be very beautiful with sequins and doily. I played tag with Ursula. Do you want to play tag? How are your sisters? Midnight is fine.

Your friend, Nana

(There are 2 rain-smeared, illegible pages.)

Dear Nana,

Today in English class Ms. Clark told Ellen to "shut up!" because she kept talking when Ms. Clark was trying to explain what an expletive was. Oooo. Then she explained what irony was. Just kidding, I already knew what irony was because my sisters told me. Ellen cried and we got to go to recess early. Ellen deserved it.

English sucks, I never learn anything cool or important but I still get A's. Sorry about it. We'll never need to know what an expletive is though (just say shut up!!! No need to explain!) and I hate symbolism! What are you learning now? Do you have to read dumb books too? We had to read The Scarlet Letter where blah blah blah red rose (the stupid red rose is supposed to represent Romance. Who cares?!?!) My sisters say we'll watch set things on fire when we get to chem and I'm juiced. Science is way cooler.

Dear Lint,

School is fine. I don't get A's, but I think I like learning. It is tough, but I think it builds character!! My mom says I should do well, but sometimes I think I disappoint her. I do not know about fires. They sound dangerous and I would not want to be a part of that! What if it got out of control?! "Things that burn don't come back. Don't burn the things you love".

Dear Nana,

College apps are the worst. I don't even know why I'm doing them. I might as well just jump off a bridge if this is as good as life gets. I keep hearing "these are your best years, enjoy them!" And I'm like, "fat chance" because this can't be it. I refuse to believe it. Maybe you feel differently. (If you do, please tell me! I could be doing it wrong!!)

Anyway, thank you very much for the quilt! It looks like it could have come from a store! My mom loves it and my sisters and I use it to get cozy in front of the TV. My mom asked what it's made from. I told her it was from the lost and found box like you said! She thought that was so cool! Linnea said she recognized some of the brands and that they were hella old, which I thought just spoke to your resourcefulness. It's retro chic. Running out of room. Talk soon. Hugzo, Lint

Dear Lint,

Thank you!!! <3 I love that you love my quilt. I put a lot of love into it. I think my quilts are great. A lot of people say, "These are wonderful quilts!". And I can sell them for money. I am sorry you're not having a good time. I am glad you're going to college though. I am a little worried about my future. My mom says I should be. I think it is rubbing off. Wild suggestion, have you tried quilting? It is calming and you can sell them and we can be quilting buddies! If college doesn't work out, you know...

Dear Nana,

Long time no letter, so soz. You know all about what's been going on though, but I do miss writing in our book here. Not sure if you even remember, but hey, maybe some day you'll find this and have a good laugh? I just miss you! Even though we probably talk more than ever!

Let's see, what's going on now... I moved into a house in Nyork a few weeks ago. Found it from a random listing. Not really sure if I'm going to make it there. Well, I supposed this is what I wanted. You know, move to the big city, get more chances to roll the dice. Numbers game, right? There are 2 girls (Misanthropi and Martha) (what kind of name is Misanthropi?) and 1 guy (Jonbo) (what kind of name is Jonbo?) and we all seem pretty normal, other than our names I guess. No job yet, working on some photography but don't have any big hopes for that. Read a great article about diving in the bay for shellfish and might consider that. xoxo Lint

Dear Nana,

Got into a regrettable thing with Misanthropi. Fuck, I mean, there are a million people out there in this goddamn city but we decided to hook up and it's just fucking me up. Like, out of all the people, and all the possibilities, it was me and Misanthropi and it's not working. Sorry, I'm still kind of processing it and it's coming out weird.

When I see her, I feel a door close in my heart to all the possibilities of the world.

Dear Nana,

A guy told me they'd pay for my likeness if I chopped off my knockers. And you know what? I'm a crazy motherfucker and I said yes. Shit, even if it's a scam, like, what even is the point, you know? And on the one hand, what is going on with me? And on the other, aren't I just selling my tits for money? Except the actual tits, you know, not the figurative--nevermind.

If this works out I promise I'll send you some dolla dolla for that quilt life you got. At least one of us has dreams, and it'd be my honor to help you fulfill them. xoxo Lint

Dear Lint,

Holy cannoli! You did it! You have made it big! You know I love you, and you are so smart. I can believe it. I am sorry I have not seen this book in so long! I bought a can of Dryer regular flavor and it is really good! Congratulations! You are Famous! I bet it is amazing and I wish you so much happiness!

Love, Nana

Dear Nana,

I don't forget my promises. Go where we used to meet.

Dear Lint,

I thanked you in person. I thanked you on the phone. And I will thank you here again because it will never be enough. You are a true friend. I will be able to grow my quilts into a real business thanks to you. I have so many ideas, and I will help my mom pay off her bills. I will never be able to express my gratitude for what you've done. Remember when I said I'd make your wedding dress with sequins and doilies? Maybe I will not make that. But I can make you a quilt, and it will keep you warm at night.

Dear Lint,

I know you must be so famous now, and so busy. I am so proud of you. Each month when I receive your letter in the mail I thank you for thinking of me. There's probably so much you have to do. Setting aside a little money for me is very generous. I have been able to use what you have given to hire help, and to search for fabrics I had only ever dreamed of. Each quilt brings me joy and I have found others to help me sew even better things.

Dear Lint,

I love you. There is no need to reply. If you ever read this, I just wanted to let you know why I stopped cashing your checks. I make these quilts because I can. Then I hang them in my workshop or I store them away. I do not sell them because I do not have to, and this is a mistake. I need them to be a part of the world. I cannot be so selfish. And I need to stand on my own two feet without your money. Thank you for all your support over the years. I promise I will make you proud. You made it. I will too in my own way. I have friends, and workers, and networking, and I know I can do it.

Dear Lint,

You were even on TV. I hadn't seen you in such a long time. I guess you would be just as shocked to see me. I am back here for now. I can only imagine what you are going through. Life as a cultural icon must be complicated. I will call you and I will remember the better times we had in this book. Life has been hard for me, but I will be fine. I can do it.

Dear Nana,

Hey, what a crazy few (oh gosh, well, what is a few anyway) years. I've never forgotten that this was here. It's just one of those things that dives and surfaces every once in a while, like one of those whales. I'm coming up for breath, now, and to see a little above the water line. I don't think I fully understand it, but I feel it. Writing here, I only do it when I am so lost, and I need something, perspective, rain, whatever, to put me back on course a little. I feel my world shrinking, getting tighter around me as doors close. I wake up wanting less each day. But, I already know I can live without. That's what my 20s were for. I want more, I want to want more. If you see this, please call me. My number is the same. I've held on to it all these years somehow, through all of this. Can you believe Misanthropi did it? You didn't know her, only I did, I guess. A part of me is sickened. When I think about her I can't think but wonder if everything I've done, was it to try and one up her? Did she win in the end? Who am I, and what was it for? She doesn't even remember me I'm sure. Ugh, this journal shouldn't be therapy for me. I should just shush that voice inside, like I always do. Call me, okay?

Love, Just Lint

Dear Lint,

Writing here makes me feel close to you, even though you are gone. I wonder if we spoke enough words to each other. I know it will never feel like enough. I'm glad I had a friend like you in life. I'm glad I got to listen to your problems. I'm glad you helped give me the courage to make my life work for me. Thank you again for everything.

My fellow countrymen, I speak to you today as your elected leader, having bested my opponents in tests of skill, strength, and diplomacy.

Let there be no doubt, it was I who drove that Beachcomber, fired from the carrier. It was I who maneuvered that Beachcomber into that guy who was high on bathsalts. It was I who survived the vehicle exploding in a hail of plastic and glass. Few could have handled that Beachcomber, as it is simply a golf cart but with more glass that can go underwater. Thus I have proven my skill.

Let there be no doubt, it was I who negotiated my victory in the game of Hot Potato. We citizens are familiar with the game: a hot potato is thrown, and each recipient takes a bite of the hot potato as they catch it. The first to not be scorched when they take a bite wins. Should someone fail to catch the increasing scraps as they are thrown, they lose. I alone was able to convince my opponents to throw the potato to me at exactly the right time, and take the winning bite. Thus I have proven my diplomacy.

Let there be no doubt, it was I who finally invoked the seven-sided star of violence to obliterate the opposition before me. Where others were judged unworthy and cast aside, I alone was able to control the star, and channel its will to destroy those unfit for rule. Those hated ones were sent to the bowels of hell by my hand. Thus I have proven my strength.

I stand here before you not simply to revel in my victory. Rather, I am here to enact the legislation that I so promised. My first order is to make all suicide pills 3 parts, so you can see how you feel after having 1 or 2. My will be done.

Lil'Punkin's cereal deal raised the stakes, it turned out, and he was asked to dive into a volcano as an xtreme sport. "Has anyone done this!?" was the tagline and even though Lil'Punkin would be incinerated in the process, he had to admit that nobody else had done this.

"Y'all, dis nutsssszszs!" he declared to Greel. "I'm gonna be famous!"

"You already famous, Lil'Punkin. But you gotta do it. I get it."

"Yeah I gotta go out in a big bright light, SHOOP! or like a litty lit toke or whatever."

"Yeah I guess that would be some pretty sweet shit."

"Dude now that I think about it, you got me a little down with this, like, enablement of my demise, but also glad I gotchu on my side."

"Of course I think you dumb as shit, but what am I gonna do right? We all gotta go sometime, maybe better to do it in your prime."

"Man, yeah, it feels like our best years are behind us already."

"You really think that?"

"Yeh, it do feel like that sometimes right? I just think back."

A digital watch on a slender wrist reads 11:11. Four individuals stare heavy jawed at the stars. Street lamps drip the world yellow, but still allow the approximation of something grand, and velvet in the sky. Headlights casting move across the redwood facades of suburban homes. The lights atop flash blue and red. One individual, the one holding the basketball, begins dribbling, and the others attempt to move in a way that resembles a sport. When the ball is passed wide, the impression fails and someone shambles after it. Most thought silence would have been preferred, but some understand their vertical bodies against the flat plane of the basketball court is weedy, conspicuous. Someone's cargo shorts pocket is developing a hole from a roach burning through it. They don't feel it yet.

"You kids need to go home."

"Aww, man, we just playin some hoops," Zach was always the talker, "Nothin' wrong with that."

"Your parents must be worried," was the appeal. The look on his face though, we all knew he didn't mean it.

"Man, just let us be, man! We didn't do nothin'!" shut up Ryan, "I mean we was just playin'."

Lil'Punkin wanted to speak, but only managed a single, slow chew.

"I'm not saying you guys did anything. I'm just saying the courts are closed now. You gotta go."

He looked over and Greel had mad thizz face. He laughed.

"I don't make the rules, kid, and I'm not going to arrest any of you for trespassing. Just go home, now."

They headed in the opposite direction of home, but home was the ambient light pollution, home was you and your best friends feeling like you got away with something, hopping on each others' backs, discovering leftover drinks on the curb outside the bars, the endless movement.

"I like the way the city looks from here. Man, it's just so bright, like, alive. It just makes me feel good inside, you know? Like, I could just stand here, and the world could pass. Aw shit the swing up? Someone put it up, man. C'mon, get on it. I'll push you. C'mon."

The three of them pushed Greel on the swing, two of them tripping in the process. The sensation was the hairs on their arms brushing against each other, touching Greel's warm back. Greel was nauseated enough to fall off and slide down the hill through the fallen eucalyptus leaves. Their echoing laughter convinced him it had been fun.

"Man, what I wouldn't do to be back then, just one red naked lady, walking down San Pablo just one more time."

"We still here though. That's gotta count for something."

"Yeah I guess."

Unspoken between them was the knowledge that they'd never feel that good again. Life would proceed, diving, winning, losing, maybe even getting married, having a family, but it'd never be that good.

"You wanna swap ghosts or something?"

"What?"

"You know, swap ghosts, if you got any business left."

"Naw, man, naw."

"I mean it, really."

"Naw, naw... Really?"

"Yeah man, you my boy."

"Naw man! I ain't got any business left. I'm all set."

"You sure? You say that, but you're it, the champion diver, you made it."

"Yeah, it don't mean nothin'. None of it don't mean anything. I got you, and that's it. You'll be good though. The world wants to swallow me up and I'm ready. I'm really touched you wanted to swap ghosts with me though."

"Yeah no problem, man. Yeah. If you change your mind just let me know ok? You got lots of people rooting for you."

"Yeah, rooting for me to dive in that volcano. They got it."

"Aight."

"Aight."

I.

Tasted like sugar, surprised it tasted like anything because I washed it down with water, but the sugar stuck to my tongue. It is sweeter than I deserve. But all things start sweet.

II.

What is that blue square of light in the fog? It looks like God but smells like ozone. It feels like hope but sounds like sea. It is necessary to drown it. Drown it in something: the only thing that will bring joy after a hard life is children. My biological imperative was silenced, battered by memory.

III.

Your mother left after the swin became too much. Not to say your mother didn't try (when you were alone that became clear). You don't blame her. You were all grown up by then. Though it hurt, you learned quickly that she was as flawed as any human being, maybe more than most.

You left after the swin became too much. The only way you'd seen people leave was suddenly, and urgently. You went to the city because every road led there. You didn't know what the people would be like, but you couldn't imagine yourself in another sesame small world. Everything about it felt cold, but you didn't know if that was just your thyroid condition.

You imagine it was luck that allowed you to find a place to live. Maybe the universe thought it was time something had to work out. When you moved to the house there were 3 people there already, Lint, Jonbo, and Martha. It was hard to understand them, and they felt like strangers (they were). You didn't know what to do with them.

So you made dinner for them, which they ate, and you occasionally brought back little trinkets, which they enjoyed. When you brought back a third snowglobe, Lint stopped you.

"Well, why even bother with that?" she shimmied (somewhere along the way she'd become someone).

"To make the house more festive," you explained.

"We already have two," she retorted.

"You'll thank me later."

She then gave an okaasan laugh that she said she was experimenting with (you didn't know what that was until she explained it to you).

Later, when you suggested they try for a hobby, Lint caught a cold after running around trying to swim in winter.

"She's quite volatile and useless" you told yourself, but you took care of her anyway. You remembered fussing over a green gram potato soup she didn't enjoy.

She told you about her memories, growing up with 2 sisters in a little town on a hill. It sounded like her parents still lived there, happily, together. She'd just finished college and it seemed like she was ready to make her mark on the world. She said she was still trying to shape that mark: her experiences here were a laundry list of distractions. It all sounded a little frivolous. You wondered about how your paths ultimately converged in this location, in this moment, and for how long.

"I'm 19 years old" is the only phrase she remembers from her Irish class in college.

"That's great," you reply.

"I'm not actually 19 anymore, I'm 22, but the counting is weird and I don't know how to say that. Anyway nobody speaks Irish anymore, and I look 19, don't I? Nobody can tell."

"What if someone, uh, asks you something other than you age?"

"Okay, I actually know one more thing, 'A thousand welcomes to you!' And if I can say that, I could like, be a host at an Irish pub."

"But then you'd have to be not 19."

"Look, I clearly haven't thought this through, and I don't appreciate you poking holes in my logic. I'm sick. You're not allowed to be mean to me. Thank you for the soup."

She winked and you think you might have begun to fall in love with her. In some parallel circuitry, your heart began hurting for your family that had disintegrated. After your father left everything was colored by a stillness that could have been mistaken for calm. It felt like some sort of shallow grave for your emotions. Now it was being exhumed.

In your memory your father had grown plants. He was quite good at that. Having some, you thought, might be some sort of communion, or closure, so you bought some. It became clear quickly you had no such talents, but among them, when everyone else was gone, you sometimes touched a leaf against your cheek, smelled the soil to remind yourself that there was something out there. You know you were a fool when you kept buying them. But, you still had something to tell him, though you didn't know what:

"Father," you murmured, "I will always remember your name. Wherever you are, I hope you've found a home. Your love continues to nurture me. Forgive me for leaving the farm that you loved. Forgive those around me that I fail. If you're watching, keep me safe from danger. Mother, I will always remember your name. Wherever you are, I hope you've found a home. Your lessons are always on my mind. Give me the strength to face the unknown. If you're watching, keep me safe from danger." That way emotions were worn down, deep tracks that were easy to step into.

In your little sanctuary of withered shrubbery you thought you began letting go of those memories.

Lint noticed (how could she ignore the prayer circle of dead plants in their home), and when she did, it felt like she cared. From this forlorn, brown, crinkly corner of the house you decided it was her that you had been waiting for. She was the one that was supposed to figure it out with you, and it had taken you this long to see it.

You asked her, "Do you ever find yourself unconsciously acting on dreams from years ago?"

"All the time," she answered.

"And what do you dream of?"

"My sisters. They told me to lead an exciting life. I think I feel some sort of gravity from that, but I don't know from like, what direction. I dream of being someone, I guess. I dream of recycling olive oil bottles. A water hyacinth floating in a gold bowl. Driving off a cliff. Ten tears."

She then paused.

"What I dream of most often, though, is you."

You thought about some way to express the same, but she decided to kiss you first. That was euphoric, and terrifying. The days following, you held her hand a lot and forgot about the dead plants. The week following you couldn't keep your hands off of her. The week after that, you finally noticed you were in that parallel world where the real world just moved around you, and you had to exit it, together.

Being with her was like being ⅓ of a power couple. In that opposite flow, it didn't seem to make a lot of sense, and you somehow felt extraneous. You struggled to find what value you could add to her life, blind to the actual circumstances of your situation. Your sex became a bodily plea, some promise to yourself that you were what she deserved. This strategy failed quickly and dramatically, but by then it was too late. Something about her that held on to you with a monkey death grip. You thought it was love, and you were too embarrassed to continue. You began silencing the first and last thought of the day because inevitably they were both of her.

So she left, and you left. And you made it a point not to follow her, contact her, even think of her, so that all those feelings of doing the wrong thing could go down again, so that could be the last time someone left because of you.

And then she became someone. She actually did it. She had become who she was supposed to be, and every cartoon portrait of her on a can of juice was like a shard of glass underfoot, and all you could do was keep walking. You walked, ran, fast, slow. You stopped. It was at the moment of utter stillness, when the pain did not abate, that you decided it was your turn, then, to become someone.

Misanthropi became the mayor of a Nyork suburb through a series of backroom deals and unrelenting physical training. Her thyroid condition prevented her from truly becoming the violent colossus she figured she was destined to be, so she went into politics instead. The deal she swung specifically to get that position involved bribing a guy to do the dirty work for her, and then having him do the dirty work for her. The dirty work itself was a simple: give the current mayor some al pastor tacos for his rooftop lunch, and then lock him out of the building so that he would go and be digested by pineapple in the sun. They put their plan into action and it worked. Nobody suspected a thing. When Misanthropi ran as the dark horse candidate on the platform "At least I'm not dead," she won.

With her newly acquired political leverage, she held a raffle atop The Statue of Libertine. The plan, make it swin related: however many swin you could wrangle in 1 minute, you'd get that many raffle tickets, and the reward would be writing the 53rd law of Nyork.

"Wow that sounds terrible," was the feedback she received from both her constituents as well as her campaign managers, but she didn't care. Up the windy monument went the swin, chuffing and soiling themselves on the stairs. When they became unevenly distributed around the surface of The Statue of Libertine's aloft-cast dildo, Misanthropi declared the contest valid and allowed competitors to begin their ascent.

That's where she saw her, her mother, Linn, among the crowd. She'd thought herself spiritually prepared for the moment, but as soon as she saw her, the peace which she thought she'd cultivated through all those years of acceptance and meditation evaporated. The only thought that ran through her head was, "Oh my god," (Yes Misanthwopi???!?) "my new hobby is Having No Resilience" (Cawwy on).

Ever the invisible figurehead, Misanthropi was invisible to the crowd, who all had eyes on the swin. She had an out of body experience as she gave the opening speech, and before she knew it, swin were being suplexed into pens as participants scattered across the surface of the statue's dildo. It was, of course, her mother who'd won against all the frail cityfolk. They stood before each other, seized by uncertainty but stationed by ritual. She regretted this being exactly what she had wanted.

"This is where you give the woman her prize now," someone helpful murmured to her. Linn's lips were a thin line. Misanthropi clenched her jaw.

"What... what Advanced Cruelty this is," she wondered softly aloud.

"Give her the prize," murmured someone helpful again, nudging her side.

"Ahem," began Misanthropi, wetting her dry, dry mouth, "uh, Linn, you have thus wrangled the swin and I bequeath to thee the power to dictate one rule of Nyork. Name your rule."

"I'm sorry," Linn said.

"Uh, I said, 'I bequeath to thee the power to dictate one rule of Nyork...'" Misanthropi clarified.

"No, I'm sorry," said Linn again.

"???" went everyone.

"Miss, you're supposed to declare your rule now," offered that helpful someone, "these things have a structure, you know."

"Oh, uh, no swin in the river," Linn stated.

"No swin in the river!" declared the helpful someone, and everyone cheered.

Linn was ushered off the stage and Misanthropi reiterated the proclamation before stepping down herself. Unsurprisingly she found herself once again by her mother, the cheering crowds too exuberant to care.

"It was no coincidence that I'm here," Linn said.

"No." Misanthropi confirmed.

"I'm sorry," Linn reiterated, "I mean it."

"For what, specifically?" Misanthropi probed.

"I don't know, I guess, everything..." she slowly drifted and Misanthropi felt like she could have slipped right through her fingers. Linn took a few steps around a carved dildo vein. Misanthropi moved to follow, but the floor was slick with swin filth. She caught up with her, finally in the secluded shadow of the frenulum. The wind sheared against the stone.

"For... not being strong enough," her mother answered, finally, "I wasn't strong enough to keep at that life. I wasn't good enough to keep you. Know this: I release you, daughter, from ever having to think of me again. Please, let me go, forget about me. You never deserved to have me as your terrible mother."

The words Linn spoke made Misanthropi involuntarily grab for her, the long fall down before them.

"Don't you dare," came Misanthropi's shaking voice, "don't."

"What? Oh, I wasn't planning on jumping," Linn said.

"Oh. Good."

Misanthropi's grip relaxed on Linn's collar and Linn turned to face her daughter, marveling at how she'd grown. She must have looked older, too, more wrinkles on her face, bonier hands. Still good at throwing swin, though.

"I forgive you," breathed Misanthropi, "I've practiced saying that a thousand times, the words come easy, but the weight is still heavy. I blame you. I blame my stupid father, your stupid husband, who left a good thing. You, I will try to forgive. Him, I will try as well. I will try, someday."

But even though her hands no longer grasped her mother, Misanthropi felt like she was still holding on to something.

"Your father isn't here," Linn noted.

"I had spent time looking for him," Misanthropi noted, "I had hoped he would make an appearance, but I suppose swin are behind him."

"So you'd expect," came a voice from behind them.

One of the undead janitors that had been sweeping the swin filth over the side of the monument onto the onlookers below straightened itself. Its frame was particularly ragged, though its voice was clear.

"Linn," it uttered.

"...Yes?" Linn asked back.

"I traveled from farm to city to woods to shore to find you. I raised swin for you. I loved you."

"Who are you?" she demanded.

"At least, I loved who I thought you were." The undead dropped its broom took a step towards Linn. Her eyes searched for his, though they'd long since rotted away. There was something about it, the height, the sound of its voice, the color of the tufts of its remaining hair. No...

"Hubert?" The flesh of his face was no longer present. She reached to him and touched his sunbleached cheekbone. His mass of exposed tendons and metacarpals at his hand covered hers.

"I couldn't bear the thought that your love of me wasn't as pure as mine was for you. That your love was built on lies." Linn looked away, but Hubert held on to her hand. "That love was everything. And I could only think one thing. I asked myself, 'What can you keep as the rest fails around you?'" his head shook in her hand. "I kept nothing."

"Is that really you?" Linn wondered. She closed her eyes and when she turned back, the years fell back, the flesh filled in, the wind in the sky changed to a hot summer humidity, the peaceful sound of swin, she was young again, and she was happy.

"But I was wrong. I needed you. My body needed you. And you were right, when you asked that night if I was happy. Before that moment I was happy, and nothing should have changed that."

There was no distance between them. The bottom of his floating ribs touched her breasts, his corpse sheltered her from the cold. His voice shook with emotion, and Linn felt her eyes moisten with tears she'd never cried.

"In undeath I learned a truth. Nobody wants you as you are, you have to contort yourself into a shape that works. It is the way of the world. But I would work for no one, no one but you."

"I'm sorry," she whispered, and he touched his scrap of chin cartilage to her forehead.

"Don't be. Let's go back, let's go back and do it all again."

Linn gazed into his eye sockets, and held his cold, rotting flesh in her hands. They took a step, and then another, together. In uncertain time, the movement brought them over nothing. Raptly synchronized, they tipped sideways, and that nothing came to meet them. They fell over the edge, bound for eternity, together.

"NOOOO!" Misanthropi screamed, as she clutched onto the railings, they had left her, alone, again.

The cards yield a basic formula to power, mystic calcula. Cards, then, are used to measure to their limit, and no more. The result, of course, changes in value based on what you are measuring; a 3 of cups to the lonely man turns a life on its head. The same card presents the socialite a natural Saturday. One would think a larger life leaves more to be measured, more angles to explore. But beyond a certain dimensionality there is a resilience, some smearing that occurs to say "I had a good life," that cultivates an unshakeable peace. These were thoughts that Philtrum ruminated over the years.

Some bleary summer night, Gortune had admitted that a fortune teller's best talent was listening. Certainly, though, cards to show helped convince people there was more. He tried to convince them that his job was highly unromantic, yet in the same breath, Gortune explained the ritual around acquiring a deck of tarot:

"The possession of their power is imbued by the act of gifting," he said while fanning through handfuls of cards in clever motions. "Older decks become more powerful, but new decks increase the power in the world as a whole. Telling fortunes increases their power."

He lay a scattering in a cross and a line on the wooden table. When Philtrum looked, it was hard the hold the pattern. The cards were ancient in the lamplight.

"Let me show you what I mean."

As he pointed to each one, their individual attentions were pulled and fastened on separate cards. Each turned ever so slightly to a specific person at the table.

"Anbert, this is yours," Gortune said, he pointed to a card with a person on a snow white palanquin, "it's the Chariot, in reverse."

When the rest of the table looked to him, Anbert had a starry look in his eyes that Gortune held on to. Gortune uttered an unknown syllable, something moved between them like gravity, and when Anbert once again blinked, the stars were gone. Gortune repeated the ritual between each and every one of the people at the table, until finally he came to Philtrum.

"Philtrum," he said. There was a hypnotic invitation in his voice, "Yee--??" but before he knew it, Philtrum was collapsing inwards.

Before him was a card, vast against the empty horizon. It seemed to depict a person coaxing a set of pentagrams from the earth. Gortune's regal voice rose behind him like vapor, scattered like dust.

"The seven of pentacles," he explained, "long term view, sustainable, investment. You see a future beyond all of this, all these shows. But what?"

Gortune stepped beside him clad in soft purple raiment. Philtrum's mouth was gently agape.

"You've been here longer than I have," Gortune stated, purely human intonation. "I have to say, it's been a little hard to pick out your dreams. I know, though, that you have them. We all must."

"Da-rling..." was Philtrum's only reply.

"I would say, 'trust your instincts.' They serve you well, here, and what is here but life more vibrant?"

Gortune clapped once. Philtrum felt a jittering sensation upon returning to the table. The foretelling was evidently complete. As Philtrum scanned the pleasantly amused faces around him, he noticed that he was the only one that was somewhat unsettled.

The summer heat dissipated as the night wore on. Finally, and when it was time to go, Gortune pulled Philtrum aside.

"I think you should have these." It was his tarot deck, resting like a shelled creature along the length of Philtrum's hand.

"Why, Ooh, they, they're byooootiful, but, why me~?" he exclaimed.

"Call it a hunch." answered Gortune with a wink, "I just think you'll do good with them. Anyway, I can't be the only one around here telling fortunes."

"Well, thank you muchly for this loveliest of geefts. I shall CHERIsh it always, my DEAR dear friend."

Philtrum kept the deck close to him. More talisman than tool, he never did readings the way Gortune did. Gortune had the talent, after all. Philtrum could only listen.

As the years passed, Philtrum found himself pawing through the deck, trying to bring order to the cards. Not merely the order of numbers arcana, but of his own fortune. "Two of wands, Seven of cups, magician, ooh!" he whinged. It became a minor after-hours preoccupation. There had to be something! Had to be something that Gortune wasn't telling him! Barging into his tent, nerves atizzy Gortune would be dusting this, clicking that shut, folding something else. "Gortune!" Philtrum would demand. "Tell me the secrets!" And Gortune would say something calming but imemorable and then he would become eliptical and talk about his own predictions and premonitions. "Not even a HINT?!" Philtrum would finish, and Gortune would shake his head. It was something Philtrum accepted as something he needed to figure out on his own.

Philtrum thought he felt it come together when they met Deirdre. All his unspoken dreams, all the passing possibilities he'd let go of resurged. Though Gortune did not know it, he had reignited something dangerous and hopeful within Philtrum that only became stronger as he searched the city for the famed bear. Each failed excursion, each hour spent canvassing and researching, and bothering locals brought something closer to the surface that felt like a future. It took several months, but most anticlimactically, they finally found Deirdre picnicing pleasantly in a park with her friends.

"Deirdre, pleased to meet you." she said genially with a curtsey, "Also a foreigner here, charmed to meet others. What a colorful bunch you are."

"The bear," Cashew could only say, in awe. The attention around her had built her proportions to the mythical. It helped that she was the size of a bear.

"It is TRULY a PLEASURE to meet you," Philtrum returned with a bow. He then promptly found himself at a loss for words.

"Would you, uh, like a picture? An autograph?" Deirdre was reaching towards a suitcase and had produced a pen from somewhere within her fur. In the suitcase were various photos of herself in candid poses around the city.

"Deirdre has many fans across the city, I'm sure you're aware," her companion Gina informed them as they stared.

"Sorry," explained Cashew, "what Philtrum is trying to say is that we've been looking for you and we'd like you to perform in our circus and meet our elephant."

Gina and Deirdre looked to each other.

"That sounds like it could be fun," Deirdre answered cautiously.

As they worked out the details Philtrum spun the future in the deck of cards, the hermit, the three of wands, the nine of wands, the ace of cups, the seven of pentacles.

ah yeung was looking at a half mangled chicken and thinking the shreds of its hewn breastmeat looks like the white cliffs of Dover. It seemed that this was a yard full of chickens and they'd been cooked and entombed in enough ash that, even though they probably weren't edible, they looked it. This was its hard time.

"Don't them chicken cutlets kinda look like Mona Lisa's smile?" asked Greel.

"What could you possibly mean by that," asked ah yeung exasassperassperatedly.

"Idk man I just heard it once but I hear she got skin like milk, or chicken."

"...Yes, perhaps."

"I want you to Ezra Pound me," gasped Boston's aged ghost lasciviously into its ear, "right here, right now."

"Very well," ah yeung sighed, "'Something something So-shu god of the sea. Seals on the beach in circles of the white cliff...'"

"Ooh yeah, fleshling," Boston's ghost purred. He'd gotten weirder over the years, his prayers to Lolth keeping him on this mortal plane and shaping his ethereal desires. "Keeping it relevant, cliffs, chicken, mmm!"

ah yeung had work to do and its companions were being equally useless. It took a lick of the chicken it'd uncovered and discovered that it tasted ammoniated. "No good," it said as it spat, chagrined.

"Hey hey! Keep those tasty juices inside!" Boston's ghost admonished.

ah yeung stood up and stretched: there would be no more edible food to scavenge here. It looked to Greel and Boston's ghost, and they had enough tact to be sad with it.

"If wishes were horses then we'd all eat horse," Boston's ghost sighed, "or each other, but whatevs. Gotta keep those metabolic pathways running somehow."

"It's aight, we'll find something," Greel put a comforting hand on ah yeung's back. ah yeung smiled and put up a brave face. This wasn't the end, just a setback.

Behind it in the ashen landscape rose the ominous spire of Whale Foods HQ, the only edifice remaining of the plastered city of Nyork. ah yeung was one of the many who still roamed the streets, picking through debris for food. More than ever, the streets were crowded as the vertical space of existence became flattened, its denizens compressing onto the horizontal plane.

After they took a moment to step out of the ashen outline of the yard, as others had come to lick at the rotting chicken. "Do you think it's time to go?" Greel asked.

"Where?" asked ah yeung, fully expecting a useless but thoughtful answer.

"I don't know. Back home?"

It had been right. "To the suburbs? Never."

"K," Greel was resigned. There was no changing ah yeung's mind, "but like, there isn't anything to eat here."

"Doesn't bother me!" Boston's ghost replied. "I don't even need to eat anymore. But it'd be a shame if you lovely numkins perished. Ghosts have no friction. It's all slip and ectoplasm."

"We're going to make it work." ah yeung stated, there was of course the steely edge of determination in its voice. It was within its power to make something from nothing. It knew this was where it was meant to be. "We'll look in the next yard, and then the next, and if there's anyone to eat, or anyone to help, we'll do it."

"Yeah, you right, you right," replied Greel, "you the smart one as always. We should do good while we're here. Make our moms proud of us."

They spent the rest of the afternoon raking through ash and stopping by various encampments full of smudge-faced people sitting in circles. An endless string of introductions, cups of hot nectar from strangers of varying kindness. ah yeung found these acts familiar, they were the steadiness of obligation, rather than the disorder of thoughtfulness. Some strangers slept, some dreamed, some drew up plans to rebuild city (a different kind of dreaming, really), some talked about the spire of Whale Foods HQ and its role in keeping the city alive.

"In waking our dreams are held in place by the vice of reality," ah yeung commented.

"Yuh," agreed Greel.

"I'm bored," whined Boston's ghost. He had been complaining all afternoon. "Why can't we just get you a snack and then go have fun? Make some mixed corporeality porn? Go pick on some zombies?"

He rose from the ground and stuck his ghostly hand through ah yeung's fundament and made a squish noise. ah yeung was finding this attitude increasingly au moon foong seen.

"We need to have a purpose and do good in the ruins of the city," it reiterated.

"But why?" asked Boston's ghost.

"Because it's what all the protagonists and heroes do, and that's what we are," ah yeung nodded.

"I didn't figure I was anything near that. And you two don't really look the part, either."

"Yeah I mean I barely have any lines," agreed Greel.

ah yeung put its hands on its hips. "That attitude isn't going to get you very far. And I think it's all about perspective. We're as good heroes as any. I mean, we uh, embody all the right adjectives."

"What's an adjective?" asked Greel.

"It's how you describe something without it being a metaphor," ah yeung explained unhelpfully.

"Oh is that the one where you use 'like' or 'as' to compare things?"

"No, that's..."

"You're like a band aid floating in a pool that looks like a flatworm."

"I mean, that's a good simile, but it's not an adjective."

Boston's ghost interrupted: "It sounds like you two are going to spend the rest of the day discussing language or being heroes, so y'all go have fun then!" As he said this, he was already flouncing off into the crowd. The feel of him was teflon. Feeling the heat of him when he's close, but he disengages, non-stick, when he leaves. Nothing to it, don't look for more, while mystified about how whole and largely engaged, but untouched you are.

"Gortune this just iSN'T the business, you know?"

The seasons had turned. Philtrum had estimated several astrological cycles to have passed, or something, yet nothing was happening. Deirdre had simply become another temporary employee. She was putting on a great show, certainly, and pulling in a few more coins, but there was no great cosmic, or even monetary shift. Most worryingly, she seemed to have little to no interest in becoming friends with Blue Peanut.

"Like, it's NOT that I don't like what's going on?" Philtrum questioned, "But ISn'T This like, you know, like, you know, like, uHmmmm."

Gortune's lips creased into a small frown.

"Like, like, like!" Philtrum was becoming incapacitated by desire and embarassment. His tongue was struck dumb while in his lap he leafed anxiously through his tarot deck. Gortune rose from his seat and wiggled his pointy little fingers.

"Would you like a massa--"

"NO GORTUNE!" Philtrum blurt. "We've spent everything we had to get here! Each day YOU keep us each day we get further and further in debt. The bear is just getting her jollies and there's no new horizon for this troupe. You've steered us wrong. You've been all wrong!"

Gortune crinkled mildly and moved back behind his crystal ball diligently. He was thinking about something soothing to say, Philtrum knew, probably making up the name of some new star season, or some new fortune to read in the lines on his hand, or something.

"Philtrum," he noted, "that was a very coherent sentence you just spoke."

Philtrum remembered that there were several unfortunate images and behaviors that time had solidified into habits and identity. He had been flustered in the past, but the weight of the present was too much for him to be Philtrum the clown.

"Don't change the subject! We uprooted ourselves, moved across the world on this promise!"

"I never promised--"

"Stop lying! All of this was your doing! I can't, we can't, we don't have the MONEY to go back and..."

"But, what lies behind us? The only way is forward."

Philtrum grimaced.

"Forward to what!? All you've done is make promises about the future, with nothing to show for it!"

"That's the beauty of the future, it always comes, eventually. You, my dear, must just exercise the tiniest amount of patience"

"PATIENCE? On what Cosmic Scale may I find this PATIENCE? Your prophecy is spent. And it has been proven false."

"You don't know that for certain."

"Why!? Why are you being so difficult? CAN YOU NOT! JUST! ADMIT! YOU ARE WRONG?!"

"Can you know that for certain, as well?"

Philtrum roiled with rage.

"You! YOUUuuuu!" he blurt. The months of keeping up with the show in a foreign land, putting on the facade, feeling less certain than ever, all caught up to him at once. "I can't keep up with this farce. This is the end for us, Gortune. For you."

Gortune squinted at Philtrum and bit his lip. He composed himself. Then, with veiled kindness, exercised over hundreds of cranky clients, he explained as if to a child,

"I hardly think that this is the time to get rid of the circus's only fortune teller. I am the only one who can steer us towards that future. Unless you happen to have a plan?"

"Your talents are nothing but tricks and lies. I've been studying you all these years," responded Philtrum darkly. He took a step further into Gortune's tent.

"Well, that's very nice of you."

"No, I mean, I," Philtrum stumbled, "when you were telling your fortunes and thinking your thoughts, I could see them. I've learned your every trick and know the corners of your mind."

"Oh, very good."

"No!!! I mean now I will use your own cards against you! I, we don't need you anymore and I'll prove it! 'Tis time to to F-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-f-fuuuuuuuuuu-ight! Hut!"

At his utterance, red velvet curtains descended around the ring of Gortune's tent. The floor beneath eroded into a swirl of stars, and the furniture in the room faded from existence. Philtrum pulled his tarot deck from an unknown pocket, and Gortune's flew to his hand from oblivion. Philtrum took a step back, to where the door would have been, and Gortune retreated to the last curtain. The stars beneath them miniaturized into nothingness, and the room, empty of breath, awaited their moves.

"I invoke the powers of the cards. Lay bare the truth of the one before you like a burning mirror!" Philtrum called. He splayed his cards in a circle between his palms and with automatic force they snapped back together into formation.

"Glister, glister, snail sand slow, who's the one that we will know?" answered Gortune. A camera zoomed in on his eyebrows as he mouthed the words ominously.

Philtrum drew 3 cards from the top of his deck and threw them on the floor. They revealed themselves, the chariot, the hermit, and justice in reverse. Neon outlines of all three cards manifested themselves: a hermit, a chariot, and a scale constantly askew. At once they all three converged, crashed into Gortune in a flash of light. Gortune found himself looking up at his older sister.

Smack! Her fist landed heavily in his stomach and he let out a little epiglottal plosive. He was on his backside, then. Though he inhabited his body, he did not control it.

"What are you two doing?" he heard his mother's voice call.

"We're playing!" answered his sister, and the impression muddled into the futility of fighting against a larger entity.

"I know your older sister beat you up!" Philtrum accused. "Your coping skills stem from that, and you always had to feel like you know everything. But you know nothing!" Gortune picked himself off the floor, dusted himself off, and held Philtrum in his unconscious.

"So you would plumb the wasteland of memory." he commented. "Indeed, none escape their tales of sorrow, pain, and regret.

"I'm going to tell your story in seven cards." he passed the deck between his hands, visions of each face appearing and disappearing from his own. "The first is the ace of cups, in reverse." Gortune's single card illumined before him and an upside down grail arose from its surface. From it came singular red drops that fell into an undisturbed surface, each splash becoming louder than the last until it was deafening.

She held her hand bandaged tightly over a pot. The cut was bad enough that the bandage still seeped despite the pressure and the cloth.

"Mom we should go to the doctor."

"No, it's fine, honey." Her voice was strained.

"I can call 911."

"No." she barked, "no," then restrained, "honey, I just have to sit down."

She sat with a grimace on her face of what you now clearly see was indecision, panic, and regret. You sat on the floor beside her looking dumb until she mustered up the courage to put on a brave face and continue with dinner. The cut in her hand knit itself up into an ugly scar, and she winced every time she picked up the handle, the sound against the cutting board echoing again, again, again as you remembered she was making your favorite dish that night, apple salad.

Philtrum found himself staring at nothing. The field was empty. Gortune, seemed a thousand miles distant, his features indistinct. Though unsettled by the memory, Philtrum shook himself free and flipped through his deck with clear intent.

"You think you're, I'm not, nobody's, we all have mistakes we made," he puffed. "It's not news. We all make mistakes. I mean, it wasn't even my fault. None of... anyway, let's see how you like it!"

Before him he slid the ace of cups, in reverse.

The wind was on Gortune's face. Behind him was a gym, his family, his high school that he would never see again. He shed his graduation robe in a shrub and began walking. Every step he took was full of anticipation, underlined by the smallest bit of fear, overlined by the tiniest bit of mania. The day turned into evening, then into night, he shed his clothes, his skin, until he was nothing but a skeleton, until that shed, too, and he stood before Philtrum once again.

"Philtrum, stop," Gortune entreated.

"No!"

"Philtrum, we musn't fight. I know you're frustrated, but this isn't going to prove anything."

"I don't have to prove anything! I just want you gone!"

There didn't seem to be an opening to reason with Philtrum. With regret, and hesitation, Gortune played his second card. It was the two of cups, reversed.

The wind on your face blew up the side of the green hill. Below was a dark hallway you entered, following the clap of shoes against concrete. To your side were doors casting odd trapezoids of yellow light against the murmur of dreams. Those irresistible footfalls broke through with the irregular pattern of a human silhouette. You raced after them but before you could reach, each time, the door closed.

"Wait!" you cried.

The same voice answered each time.

"Don't touch me, damn!" and it spoke past you. "This isn't how it's supposed to work." "If you want those shoes you can use your own damn money!" Sometimes it was an order, sometimes it was entreaty, sometimes it was simply the sound of fighting. No matter how fast you ran, no matter which door you picked, you were never any closer to finding the source, stitching together the hopes and dreams of the one speaking.

"Wait!" cried Philtrum. He was no longer alone, he was out of breath, staring down the length of Gortune's card, two cups empty, upside down.

"How did you... who was that? Just... more of your vagueness and trickery! I'm not falling for it!" Philtrum exclaimed, though he was visibly shaken. How many times had people walked out of his life? How often had people he cared about gone where he could not follow?

He drew two cards from the top of his deck and flung them before him.

Tip-to-hilt, five swords crossed like a star. Beside it a wheel turned left. The figures interlocked like gears, turning against each other to grind.

Gortune sat in a mall food court eating fries with the last of his fortune telling money. Mere feet away was his booth, airing out the glass chamber of the presence of humanity cooking under hot mystic lights. Here in the real world he looked scrubby and smelled funny. This was also the day he... right. Just as he remembered, he rose from his seat, a trail of chewed gum following him up attached to the seat of his robe. His only good robe. He sat back down.

"You!" demanded a woman, her voice piercing into his personal sphere, "I wanted a word with you. I saw you last week and you said that Wenna was someone that I could trust."

"Ahem, uhh," Gortune mumbled, "yes, of course."

"Well that rat just told Beandra that I was the one taking staplers and I almost got fired." Clearly she was angry.

"Ah, mine heart aches with great sorrow..."

"Heart shfart. What I want you to know is that your fortune telling was wrong and I want my... I demand a refund!"

His robes were fresh out of coins. As gifted as he was, money conjury was not one of his talents.

"Er, ah, well, lest thou thinkest me less than a fortune teller extraordinaire, I assure thee, mine talents are unparalleled, but the complexity of thine fate rivals that of the very heavens..." he cajoled, "Mayhap fate has not run its true course yet..."

"All I know is that Wenna almost cost me my job and you said I could trust her. That's faulty advertising and you need to give me my money back or I'm going to call the police. The FDA. The business bureau. The TV. The news. All of them." she spurt. "This is a crime, you know." "Is it?" he wondered, "I mean, that is to say, fate works in mysterious ways, and thou must exercise patience..."

It didn't take clairvoyance to see she was someone fun and easy to rat out. In fact, he'd seen exactly what she'd said had happened, but at the time it seemed expedient to tell her what she wanted to hear. Such was the life of the fortune teller, limber between desire and reality.

"Like I'm ever going to see that little shit again." blurted she, "No. We're through and she can kiss my grits. And your shoddy fortunetelling needs to... be held accountable! I demand a refund!"

"Mine deepest apologies I offer to thee. I fear that the subtleties of fate sometimes elude me," Gortune stammered, "B-but I dare say I cannot offer thee a refund."

"And just why not?"

"I, uh, mall policy."

"Well then I need to speak to your manager."

What followed was the hot shame of explaining his pennilessness to mall management and an increasing debt. He should have seen this coming, but sometimes history was as important as the future.

Gortune felt his fingers and wiggled them. There, in his tent he remembered his place, and gathered himself. Philtrum was breathing heavily.

"Shams, all the way down!" he accused, "You needed us and we took you in, even though you're nothing but a... nothing but a waste of space!"

"Well, I hardly think that's the case," Gortune explained, "besides, that was so long ago..."

"Nothing has changed. You may have a few more tricks up your sleeve, but underneath is nothing, just a wheezing bag of wishes and platitudes!"

Gortune understood then that there was no right thing to say, here. Instead, he calmly opened the three of cups in reverse.

You survived because of your friends around you. The one whose crooked rictus dulled as his teeth browned, the one whose glazed eyes lazed. You remembered the smell of cold glue strongest. It made the smell of the warm shit and the filthy bodies bearable. You claim there was nothing to remember, but you do remember the sensation of feeling fully alive without the shackles of reality. Your heart pumped like it was full. You were almost as hot as the water pipe; when you touched it you dared it to be as warm as you were (a mistake you only made once, with the scar to prove it). When you came it felt like it wouldn't stop and it was just so, so warm and so, so wet. Closing your eyes meant dreamlessness, sometimes for days. But, now, there are times where you don't know if ever woke up, and that if you blink one more time you'll wake up in that crawl space, next to an empty bag of chips, hot water pipe on your right, ceiling two feet from your face in the dark. You are coherent now, and you look back at those days in a way you shouldn't, with fondness.

"Stop it!" Philtrum cried. "Stop it!"

Gortune knew precisely what he'd shown. It was weakness. It was doubt. It was Philtrum crawling up from nothing, but rather than being ennobling, it was screaming, it was full of fear. Philtrum flung a handful of cards on the ground, a restrained lion, a young man flinging a cup, a mess of swords and pentacles.

A note so sweet and so clear came from the stage. She was Penelope, he was Gerard, and Gortune was in the audience hearing her crystalline voice pine at his deaf profile. Her happiness was never to be, of course, as her need was unearthly, and he was just too terrestrial.

Something however, went a bit off script: a grand thud, and then... "AAAAH!" There it was, from the audience.

Gortune leaned forward in his seat, craned his neck with the rest of the audience members towards the sound. Already a group had risen, a man had fallen from the balcony, onto someone below. The singing stopped, and Penelope and Gerard were stunned. The din of gossip and speculation cluttered the air, until someone shouted, "Call an ambulance!", which instantly caused a sea of movement, generally pointing out of the theater. Gortune found himself swept up in the crowd and moved obsequiously towards the exit. Today he was nobody, or, worse, he was bad at his job through inattention.

No matter. The show was finished early, then, early enough that the trains were still running. Looking at his watch, and feeling his meagre wallet in his pants, he decided that it would be cheaper to try and catch the last train back to his apartment.

Gortune remembered that night, that long walk in the liminal hour between revelry and malefaction. There would have been a moment where he felt someone following him, he'd have started running, and the footsteps would match his. He would duck into an alley and it would have been nothing. Such was another unfortunate reminder of mortality, he thought, or maybe the first in his life.

But there was something wrong here, as the memory veered into speculation. He recognized the street, here, but a psychadelic figure opened its mouth and a neon butterfly came out. His feet didn't connect completely with the sidewalk. Each building he passed looked concave. The sky had an inexplicable absent quality.

"You can stop now," he said aloud, and with that the sensation was broken. The landscape collapsed back into his tent. Philtrum had picked himself up and seemed increasingly furious at the results of his plays.

"How did... you can't just ignore the cards!"

"That wasn't a reading, that was panic. If you want to understand, you'll have to focus. Like so." He drew a card and turned it in his hand, revealing the four of cups.

You saw her in the zoo one day. You don't remember how you got there. You just remember: strawberry blonde hair, kind brown eyes, and the gap in her teeth that you couldn't get enough of. Next to the chimpanzee enclosure she explained how they were our closest genetic ancestors, and when someone in a school group asked her if she believed in evolution, she patiently explained that she didn't understand the question. On her safari shirt was her name, pinned, "Moira."

"Hieee, uhh, hiie um, uh, um," you blubbered, "Errrr."

You'd followed her to the back gate of the elephant pen where she'd brought a bucket of watermelon rinds and hay to feed them. She smiled and waited patiently for you to get the words out.

"I just think you have the most BEAUTIFUL... face."

"Thank you," she replied briskly. With that, she figured your business was concluded, and closed the gate behind her in your face. You didn't quite notice because of the perfume of her voice. Outside the zoo, you asked if she wanted to get dinner. You'd waited for her all day, and she said, shockingly, "well, I suppose a girl's gotta eat!" Before you knew it, you had found yourself slack-jawed, onion ring in one greasy hand, Moira across from you sipping a vanilla milkshake. You were wondering what to say, and wondering to what degree she thought you were mentally deficient.

"Err, your job must be the most FUNnEST thing there could EVEr possibly be!" you managed.

"It's great." she agreed. "And how about you? What are you up to?"

"OoOh I uh, a little bit of this and um, THAT and er," you stammered, hot-faced.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Grocery store." you finally got out.

"Good, honest living. A splendid way to get some moolah!"

Finally a moment of pride and acknowledgment, what felt like the first in your life. She was right, there was nothing wrong with having a job, crawling out of the subterrene, finding a way to make it in this world. It was the first time anyone had ever said it, told you that you were living... honestly.

She must have seen you blushing. "Oh, I'm sorry!" she said, "I didn't mean to embarrass you. Do you not like groceries?"

"NO! no! nothing it's nothing Ehm! erm" you covered your cheeks and shook your head, "tell me um about your favorite animal! Here! At the zoO!"

Glowing, "Well, I love them each and all of them, the parrots and the penguins and the llamas and the tigers. Even when I have to clean their enormous or liquidy turds from their pens. We have a tiger named Oeuf, we feed her well and she doesn't bury her... well, anyway..." With each word you felt your heart open a little bit more. She told you tales of stinky sloths, frozen mice and headless chicks that were fed to the reptile displays, surly lemurs and other nocturnal nerves.

"I think my favorite are the elephants, though. They're really soulful and kind, and they remember us and like us. My bestie is Violettum, kind of like 'violent' and 'lett'em' I think, but he wouldn't hurt a fly. He's very talented, since he used to be a circus elephant that even traveled abroad and did shows in Berlin. I think they trained him to do like performances or something, but now he's just here living out his days."

You see right through her, then, vapor in the shape of a woman. Behind her phantasm is Blue Peanut and you begin doubting yourself.

"What?" you say.

"Hmm?"

You look down a your hands, the circulation in your fingers is beginning to return after the years of ruining them with cold glue.

"Violettum isn't... Violettum wasn't a CIRCUS rescue..."

"What are you talking about?" there's a hollow quality to her voice now, but then she snaps back into focus.

"Isn't... Violettum just a YOUNG elephant that... a YOUNG elephant who is... your favoritest?!"

She laughs like crystals and it's beautiful and as glittering as you remember.

"Violettum, my favorite, sure, but young, no way! He's an old man now, with the wrinkles to prove it!" Sobering up now, she clarifies, "The zoo thinks he has a few years left. Don't worry though, we'll take care of him. He'll have the best years of his life with us."

"You... you WAnted Violettum to have a... WONderFUL life."

"Yes, of course."

"A... WONderFUL life out in the world. He was boRN in the zoo."

Her face creases into an expression of confusion.

"I took him OUT when... I tooK him OUT when you told me that. When you TOLD me that dream, when we meet here."

"Excuse me?"

"I ASKeded you out for dinner, and you said le YES, and we're here and you told me that ViolettUM had never LIVED a life out AND you wanted him free and I DID. I DID that foR you becauSE It was My LOVE for you sinCE your HEART was so FULL already."

She positions herself towards the edge of the booth you two are sitting in. Your words are scaring her, and her posture begins to close itself off as her walls raise.

"I don't have half a wit of what you could be saying."

"It was the oNLY way I could PROVE it to you. PROVE that I, that I carED."

She stands up. "I think I should go. Thank you for the milkshake, sir."

"The ANIMALS were all you had room for in your heart. That dream... making that dream happen was the ONLY thing I could DO for you."

"You have a good day now."

"This isn't RIGHT!" you flail, you reach out and claw at her hand, she pulls it away and squeaks sharply as if you are undead. "BLUE PEANUT WAS YOUNG!" you scream and every single eye is on the disheveled teen clawing at the zookeeper as she grabs her handbag and exits the burger joint in a way that lances you with the knowledge that you are never going to see her again.

"NO!" you cry as Blue Peanut is framed in your mind's eye, old, decrepit in his pen. There is no recognition in his eyes as he lays down one last time.

"NO!" screamed Philtrum, as the spectre of Blue Peanut vanishes. There is rage, and pain, and fear in his eyes as he turns finally to Gortune.

"How did you know... why did you..."

"You are very alone in this world. We all are. Can you not see? We need to have a little faith, and stay together as long as we can."

He plays the five of cups.

You are in the pen, curled and decrepit. There is nothing but the barren moonlight. It is all gone. You are alone.

"Can you not see?"

Your fingers twitch, but he plays the six of cups, reversed.

You see the path that leads there, an unreal city, the desperate and the bleeding stretching out with ragged hands, each plucks something unidentified and precious from you.

"Is this how you want your story to end?" The last card he plays is the seven of cups, reversed.

You sit in an apartment unblinking at a TV. The fluorescence exposes the shirt which strains to contain your stomach. You smell old tobacco, old beer from no distinct direction. You do not recognize this because it could not be your life. But you lift one hand, and it is yours. You notice at once that it is your breath that labors, your weight that deforms the threadbare cushions. You do anything, anything at all the break free from the husk that houses your soul, but it is inert and you can only scream silently into the hollow chamber of your mind.

It is over suddenly, the energy unchained sends you to your knees.

"Now, I ask you, are we finished here?"

Gortune stands behind a clattering of grails, so smug, so imperious.

"Or would you prefer I continue stripping your soul bare?"

Philtrum rose shakily to his feet, trying to find his voice. His deck of cards was strewn on the floor, but he made no move to retrieve them.

"I suggest you not play with things you know nothing about"

"Well..." Philtrum swallowed.

"I foresee all."

"Well, did you foresee THIS?!" Philtrum shrieked as he reached to the side, plucked Gortune's crystal ball out of a pocket of reality, and hurled it with his truest aim towards Gortune's head. Gortune's mouth opened in a split second of panic before the crystal ball smashed into his temple.

Gortune's skull meets the rugs on the floor of the tent, rather than some astrological phenomenon. The red curtains vanish, and the decorations and accoutrements of fortune telling return to the now ordinary space. The aural nature of galactic nothingness filters out into the human world. It is once again a calm night at the circus.

Philtrum, however, was a man deranged. He tore through Gortunes belongings, throwing shit around everywhere. Incense, books, charts, swept to the floor, ripped off of walls. Pillows, kicked into corners, tables flipped and assorted cannisters and candles were opened and upturned. Philtrum was bodied rage.

This is it, he thought to himself, this is the end of this circus.

It was time to take fate into his own hands. If there was a show, it would have to go on without him. He began picking through the mystical detritus in the tent for anything of worth. As he rifled through Gortune's unconscious person, he found a sealed box in his thigh gap. It was heavier than he thought it'd be, and whatever was inside did not move when he shook it. Taking it in the crook of his arm, he exited the tent.

I'm going to make it out with something.

Back to his own tent to roll up a few of his belongings in a sack, then to Blue Peanut's enclosure he went.

"Blue Peanut and I, we're going for a bit," he explained breezily. And with that, he hopped up onto his back, and began riding him beyond the confines of the city. Opening the box, he found a pure brick of brown sugar.

An eulogy for Almenia-pia

Addito in mortarium satureiam, mentam, rutam, coriandrum, apium porrum sectivum aut si non erit viridem cepam. Folia latucae, folia erucae, thymum viride, vel nepetam tum etiam viride. Puleium et caseum recentem et salsum: ea omnia partier conterito, acetique piperati exiguum, permisceto. Hanc mixturam cum in catillo composurris oleum superfundito.

"And in dying, laughing, thinking, ruminating, calculating, trees for seasons are not green forever. Leaves latticed, leaves withered, time and life, a sleep ends but life. Lungs and brain, recent and searing: our every partner beside us, vinegar pipers in the end, permitting. Thus mix with our cat-like composure, our living supersession" - Columella 12:59

Almenia-pia often quoted the book of Columella. On her hardest days, I remember her carrying it with her, like a talisman, in her coat pocket. "Maybe it'll stop a bullet! This might be the day I'll need it!" Always for pragmatism, that one. (Pause here for laughter)

We are gathered here today to wish Almenia-pia a fond farewell and a safe journey to the afterlife, and to celebrate wonderful memories of her.

I knew Almenia-pia for only a brief time. We sat at the park together, watching birds. She was a quiet person, but I came to understand her through her gestures, how she enjoyed the soft intimacy of kissing hands, the way she'd squat when she was talking to a child. I understood, then, that she was a gentle soul.

Almenia-pia was born in the sticks before she made her way to Nyork. Though she was a shy child, she had big dreams of coming to the big city to become a salad dresser for the stars. She was able to live that dream, working through no less than 50 restaurants in this city, honing her craft to become one of the most eminent salad makers, dressers, and tossers in the city. There wasn't a single celebrity that would come through this town that didn't want to try her salad.

But the life and limelight of a professional saladier was never meant for her, she told me, and it had taken her half her life to realize that. When she retired, she escaped the celebrity and became the city's most avid bird watcher through every season. It was a much quieter life, and one that she greatly valued. When I visit the park today, I still see her sitting beside me, breadcrumbs in hand, cooing at the pigeons in the trees that haven't gone south for winter.

I fondly recall an evening I spent with her, three summers ago. I was peppering her with questions, and she was being perfectly polite. I remembered asking her something esoteric like, "Do you think God expects us to be good all the time to everyone and everything?" and she said, "The good book thinks it's time for you to hush." And she bobbed her head as she said it. That was the perfect moment for her, the image of her I'll have in my head forever.

Later that week she told me that God would forgive, and that he was the greatest forgiver of all. That scamp! She'd been listening, and ruminating that whole time, thinking of the right thing to say. She always thought of you, but she had the perfect way of making space for herself. It always came back to love, though. You would always feel welcome, always feel wanted. There wasn't an unkind bone in her entire body.

The birds knew this, and they loved her. Families of ravens would bring their young to say hello each year. Sweet Mobley and her chicks. They're so big now. They'd circle the park, bring her lost hairclips, even sometimes bring her some terrible tasting eggs. She'd found her people, and her selfless heart just gave, and gave, and gave. I give a prayer to God that she went out doing what she loved, feeding the birds, as she would have liked. I would ask for a moment of silence, for God's grace. (Take a moment of silence)

I would ask now that we raise our glasses to toast Almenia-pia. (Raise glass here)

May God bless Almenia-pia, and may she find the quiet moments she worked so hard for. (Drink from glass)

At the palm of the end of the mind, Robert plucks the fire fangled feathers from the weeping bird. It sings an inhuman song, and cries bronze tears that drip into the decor. Pascal's cumshot catches on the gentle wind, and Robert swallows it, gone forever.

The directive had been to go on and live a fabulous life without him. Forget him. Sever any thread that could have brought us together. In service of that, I had cultivated so much determination to make that initial end. And it became easier with time, the threads remained broken, separated by distance, age, time. But here I was, in hell, reacquainting myself once more with Pascal.

"Pkwa c-j ci?" he demanded.

Because you broke my heart, motherfucker, I thought. "Because you were a cold starfish in bed and didn't do your community service."

"CALISSSSSSSSS"

"FFFUUUUUCCCK" (we echoed the same sentiment)

So not only did Pascal end up in hell, he was in hell because he made nobody happy.

---

They were together again, finally. They were in hell, but they were together.

---

"I didn't expect to see you both here so soon."

"Well, we made a promise, you know, and we always keep those."

"What promise?"

"You know, the suicide pact."

"I, oh, that was just for Linnaya... but... well, I'm... I'm touched that you remembered, but also a little furious that you both would go through with it."

"I wouldn't say we had that many good years left in us anyway. I was already losing most of my braincells through my nose. She didn't have much going on. It was all downhill from there."

"I mean, but, life is a gift ya? I wouldn't have given it up if I'd had the option."

"You, the boobless alonelywoman, never thought about just giving up."

"I... I'm going to have to think about that."

"Don't overextend yourself, darling."

"Did you really have that much to tie up? I feel like you were all set."

"I guess, in a way, I was. Maybe that gerbil was just another crazy little accident that changed nothing at all."

"You were done, dear. So were we all."

---

This wasn't right. At some point the light behind them had vanished, and it felt as if their movement downwards was some sort of horrible peristalsis. Each step came involuntarily, foot somehow touching down onto the next unseen stone. The echo of those steps had become muffled in the velvety closeness. There were no cool subterranean odors, no evidence of living fungus, or ancient water. Jonbo opened his mouth to speak but no words came out. This was well beyond an argument between him and his brother, this nastily felt like a challenge to his mortality. How inconsequential their arguments where, how ridiculous his emotions were now beyond the shaking of his knees.