A Hazy Black Ring

8. You Are an Opossum Living in the Trashcan of My Heart

2022-05-18T18:03:40Z

Wednesday, July 18th—5:22 p.m.

1,131 words. Approximate reading time: 5 minutes, 39 seconds.

Cross-posted to gunwithoutmusic.dreamwidth.org/10962.html

Arnold carefully hooked the handle of his dutch oven and lifted it out of the embers in the fire pit, setting the pot gently on the ground before grasping it with two mitt-covered handles and placing it on the countertop. As he pulled off the lid, a burst of steam emerged, followed by the aroma of freshly-baked bread. Some vegetables from their garden, mostly beans and peas with a few peppers, still simmered on another pot hanging from a spit over the fire pit.

The back door to the house creaked loudly, and Arnold turned to see his two children, Ainsley and Corrin, bounding through the door with their puppy Jake right behind them. He smiled as the group made its way across the yard to the kitchen.

“That smells great, Dad!” Ainsley shouted, looking at the cast iron pot that his father was turning over to release the baked bread.

“Thanks, Ains,” Arnold said. “I’ve even got a special treat for us tonight. You guys wanna know what it is?”

“Yes!” the children cried together. Jake yipped a few times and started chasing his tail, feeling the excitement of the children.

Arnold reached up onto a shelf above the counter and pulled down a small packet about the size of his hand, showing it to the children. “This, kids, is what we call butter.”

“Budder?” Corrin asked.

“Yeah,” Arnold said. He unwrapped the packet, revealing the soft yellow-ish substance inside. “It’s a yummy spread that people used to put on bread all of the time. It’s pretty hard to find nowadays, but your mom has some friends that raise cows, and they use the cow milk to make butter.”

“Uhm, that’s cool, I guess,” Ainsley said, shrugging his shoulders a bit.

Arnold laughed. “Well, you’ll see. Your mom will be home soon and we’ll have dinner, and you’ll see what a treat this is. Now you two go play with Jake until she gets back so I can finish getting this all set up.”

The kids ran off to the other side of the yard with Jake, running around and playing without a care in the world. Arnold smiled as he watched them for a moment, then focused his attention on the cooled bread, slicing half of it neatly into thick slices, and wrapping the other half up with an old cloth napkin to save for the next day.

He gently removed the vegetables from the spit above the fire pit, his smile fading slightly as he looked up into the sky, seeing how low the sun was. His wife should have returned home from hunting by now, but Arnold did his best not to worry. Maybe her group had found something big and they needed some extra time getting things prepped and ready to take back home. Arnold’s thoughts became filled with meat, another rarity for them these days, since the few people left that kept livestock kept them for milk or eggs rather than for meat. There certainly wasn’t enough meat to go around, anyway.

But when his wife would go out with her hunting group, she would try to bring home something to supplement Arnold’s vegetable garden and whatever staples they could afford from the co-op. Usually it was something small—a squirrel, a wild chicken, or an opossum, perhaps—but on rare and joyous occasions, he might see her pull into the driveway with the basket of her bicycle loaded up with deer or horse meat.

Arnold was lost in thought, dreaming up recipes for deer meat, when his hand touched the pot of vegetables sitting on the kitchen counter. He cursed loudly as the flesh of his hand seared, and Ainsley and Corrin looked up in shock.

“Daddy’s fine!” he said, waving his hand around to try and relieve the pain. The kids looked unsure, but went back to playing. “I’m going to go to put something on this; you guys stay put, okay?”

“Okay, Daddy!” Corrin shouted, and Arnold walked inside the house, nursing his hand. He entered what used to be the kitchen before, but was now just an extra-large pantry. Rummaging through the drawers and cabinets, he found a first-aid kid and popped it open. Thankfully, there was some burn cream left in there. Not much, but enough for his hand. He opened the tube and gently pushed a small amount of cream out of the tube and onto his hand. He rubbed it over the burn in a thin layer before covering the spot with a piece of gauze and wrapping his hand up with just enough tape to keep the gauze in place.

It wasn’t until he was finally feeling some relief from the burn cream that his mind returned to his wife and her whereabouts. He glanced out of the window into the backyard to see the kids and the puppy still keeping themselves busy, and allowed himself to smile a bit despite his worry.

A knock on the front door snapped him out of his thoughts, and he cautiously approached the door, the worry rising in the back of his mind. He opened the door to find Joseph, a hunting partner of his wife’s, standing on the porch. Arnold knew from the look on his face.

“Seph,” he said in greeting.

“Arnold,” Joseph replied.

“It’s Kim.”

Joseph nodded sadly, and Arnold could tell that he was searching for the right words to say. Arnold himself was searching for words. He knew that there was an inherent danger in going out hunting, but Kim had been doing it for years without any problems.

“Arnold, I’m—” Joseph started.

Arnold cut him off. “Don’t, Seph. We both knew something could happen. Me and the kids... we’ll be okay. We’ll be okay. Just get back to your family before they start to worry.”

“Alright,” Joseph said. “You, uh... you know where we are if you need anything. Anything at all.”

“Thanks, man. I’ll talk to you soon.” Arnold closed the door quietly as Joseph turned and walked back to his bicycle. The moment the door latched, Arnold lost all of his strength and collapsed to the floor, sobbing. He sat there for a few minutes before doing his best to pull himself together and stand back up. He moved into the kitchen, looking out the window once more into the backyard.

In one corner of the yard, Corrin rolled around on the ground with Jake while Ainsley jogged around them in circles. Arnold watched them, desperately racking his brain for something to say, only coming up with empty platitudes that didn’t seem fully appropriate to the situation.

His eyes surveyed the kitchen, a small makeshift set of counters and shelves covered by a tarp just next to the fire pit where he cooked dinner for his family every night. Four thick slices of bread sat on the counter next to a pot of cooked vegetables and an open packet of butter.

7. Do What You Can, With What You Have, Where You Are

2022-05-05T16:43:19Z

Thursday, November 22nd—4:31 p.m.

1,031 words. Approximate reading time: 5 minutes, 9 seconds.

Cross-posted to gunwithoutmusic.dreamwidth.org/10534.html

Katie cursed as the match burned her fingers, dropping it into the fireplace and waving her hand around in a futile effort to stop the pain. “You’d think I’d know how to do this right by now,” she muttered to herself. She rubbed her cold hands together to warm them as much as she could and reached for the box of matches on the mantle, then slid it open. “Only five matches left. Shit, okay. Get it together, Katie.” She pulled another match from the box.

It took a few strikes, but the match finally caught flame, and Katie quickly tossed it onto the pile of papers that she had collected from around the house and twigs that she had collected under cover of night from her backyard. As soon as the match landed on the pile, the papers caught, and the flames started moving to overtake the twigs. Katie watched the fire, waiting for the right moment to add more wood. She watched an old photograph start to curl on the corner as the fire took it over, burning away the likeness of herself and her best friend, embracing each other in front of a roller coaster. “I can’t believe that was only five years ago,” she said quietly.

She had a pile of larger branches that she kept next to the fireplace, branches which she had also collected under cover of night from her backyard. She eyed the pile, thankful for the fact that she lived in a somewhat wooded area, and wondered if she had enough branches to last through the night, or if she’d need to rustle herself awake at 2:00 a.m. again to go foraging.

She sighed and tossed a few bigger branches on the fire, letting them catch before adding a few more. Soon, there was a small fire going in the fireplace, and Katie sat beside it, letting the heat warm her body through. She watched the fire burn through the rest of the kindling—more old photographs, pages from old magazines, some newspapers, whatever she could find lying around the house—and ignored the rumbling of her stomach. She had already eaten today, and she was running low on food. She couldn’t afford three square meals right now, so she just sucked it up and tried to deal with it.

It had only been seven days since Katie’s access was cut off. She hadn’t been prepared for it at all, though she sort of suspected now that no one was ever really prepared for it. No one really thought that they’d actually go through with it. But here she was, a dirty “dissident”, trapped in her home in the cold November weather with maybe a few more days worth of food, a handful of old books, a few tree branches, and four matches.

When it first happened, she was in shock. The internet had never gone down before, at least without some notice, and it was never down for more than a few minutes for maintenance. When it would come back up, everyone would jump back into their chat rooms and the next few hours would be taken up by people complaining about the internet access being down for five minutes, and how the maintenance schedule should be changed to be less often since there really shouldn’t be any reason for five full minutes of maintenance on the lines every two months.

This time, Katie waited five minutes, but the internet didn’t come back. She tried to call the customer support line, but couldn’t look up the number without the internet. It didn’t matter anyway, since her phone also appeared to be not working, like her signal was blocked. She wanted to check with her neighbors, but she had never really met them and didn’t know them, never mind the fact that going outdoors was effectively a death sentence.

So she waited, but the internet never came back. Her phone never started working again. After a day, her electricity was shut off and she started trying to learn how to build a fire in the fireplace that she never used. She risked going outside, into her back yard, in the dead of night to gather her twigs and branches and went through what she now realized were far too many matches trying to get a fire going.

Now, she was somewhat better at making fire, but she didn’t know how long she’d be able to make it last. She had to find some way to keep it going, or she might actually die from the cold. ‘What would be a better way to go,’ she wondered, grabbing a poker from beside the fireplace and poking at the branches as though she was doing something helpful, ‘Hypothermia or starvation?’

Katie idly poked at the small fire, disturbing it more than she should. “It’s not fair,” she said to no one. “I didn’t even do anything! I was only even there to try and talk some sense into them!” She had guessed that the problem was that one chat room. All those freaks that thought the Disease was overblown, that the quarantines were unnecessary. All those idiots deserved what had happened to Katie, and Katie took some solace in the thought that maybe they got what was coming to them, even if she had gotten caught in the crossfire.

Her stomach rumbled again, so she stood up and walked into the kitchen. She didn’t bother with the fridge, as all of the food in there would just make her sick. Opening the pantry, she surveyed the few items she still had. A couple of cans of vegetables, half of a stale loaf of bread, a few boxes of breakfast cereal. Something in the very back of the pantry caught her eye, something that she hadn’t noticed before.

“Score!” she shouted as she reached into the back of the pantry and pulled out a box of snack cakes. “I forgot I even had these.” She checked the date on the box. Still good. She reached into the box and pulled out one cake, unwrapped it, and ate it slowly, savoring every bite.

“Happy Thanksgiving,” she murmured to herself, as the flames in her fireplace receded into embers without her noticing.

6. Pursuit

2022-04-21T15:38:28Z

Friday, July 21st—5:22 p.m.

1,728 words. Approximate reading time: 8 minutes, 38 seconds.

Cross-posted to gunwithoutmusic.dreamwidth.org/10289.html

Jeremiah skidded his bicycle to a stop in front of the neighborhood park. It was a beautiful summer evening, with the sun hanging low in the sky but still hours away from setting. The air was stagnant and slightly damp, leaving every bit of Jeremiah’s skin that was exposed covered in a film of sweat and humidity, but that wasn’t unusual for summers, and Jeremiah kind of liked it, especially when an infrequent breeze would come by; the feeling of being cooled all over at once was one of Jeremiah’s favorite things.

His gaze roamed over the park, taking in everything. There were benches with wrought-iron frames, pieces of rotten wood holding on desperately in a few spots. There was a playground filled with faded and weather-stained plastic equipment that hadn’t been used in decades. In the center of the small park stood a fountain, bone dry and filled with leaves, topped by a statue of some man whose left arm and nose had broken off years before. “Old No-Nose,” Jeremiah and his friends had always called the statue. There was a plaque on the fountain that might have elucidated the man’s real name and history, but Jeremiah had never read it. The park had been completely fenced in for as long as he could remember, so the only people that might have gotten a chance to become familiar with Old No-Nose were definitely up to no good.

A lot of people complained about life in the Burbs, but Jeremiah loved it, for exactly this reason. There was so much cool stuff to be found here. The park, his parents had told him, didn’t have a fence around it at one time. Parents in the area would take their children to play on the playground equipment, watching them from the benches and chatting with the other parents. Young couples would carve their initials into the trees with a knife, a symbol of an everlasting love that would maybe last a year or two.

People of all ages would toss pennies into the fountain, which was filled with water, wishing for all manner of things. The base of the statue would shoot out water in beautiful arcs into the pool at the bottom of the fountain, and it would all recirculate and run in that loop without stopping. Jeremiah’s parents didn’t remember the real name of Old No-Nose, so he must not have been a terribly important figure.

Every time Jeremiah rode his bike by the park, he’d stop and admire it. For Jeremiah, the park was essentially an art installation, something to be looked at but not touched. He would imagine the park full of life and people, and would wonder what life might have been like back then. His parents told him stories, but they were just that. Sometimes, he longed to be in that world.

But Jeremiah maintained a good balance between fantasy and practicality, so he would stop at the park and imagine for a while, then would continue on to the task at hand. As such, he pulled away from his imaginary world and continued along the road toward his original destination.

He pedaled along for nearly fifteen minutes, quite a trek from his parents’ house, the whole time thinking about the park. At one point, he had asked his parents why the park had a fence around it. They talked about a pandemic that had torn through the country about thirty years before. Everyone was scared and didn’t know what to do, so most people stayed at home for a time and avoided contact with those outside of their immediate families. Public gathering spots, like the park, were fenced off and closed down to avoid what was seen as “a temptation to gather.”

Eventually, they had told him, people got used to the idea of not going to the park. The kids basically forgot they had ever played there, and the parents were somewhat thankful to not have to deal with wrangling the children to get them to the playground. So no one bothered to take down the fence and re-open the park. After The Split, there wasn’t anyone that wanted to be responsible for it, so it just stayed that way and no one really cared. Jeremiah had learned about The Split in school, but that was the first time he had heard about any pandemic. Then again, he was never really excited about History, so he might have just missed it.

It was strange to Jeremiah that no one really cared about the park, but in a way, he enjoyed it, like the park was his own private thing that only mattered to him. It was nice to have something that was just his in that way, and he was hoping, as he rode along the road toward the river, that he might soon have something else that was just his.

He had been searching for months, when finally an advertisement appeared in the local circular with the words “FOR RENT” in bold at the top. He scanned the rest of the advertisement, and it looked perfect. It was close to his parents’ house, so they would be nearby if he needed them, but not so close that they would feel the need to constantly check up on him. The price was right on what he could afford with his job at the co-op, and the advertisement specifically said, “river views.”

When he told his parents, his mom cried. She kept saying that she wasn’t ready for her baby to leave. His dad was proud, though, and reminded his wife that Jeremiah was 18 now and deserved to have a place of his own. He wasn’t a baby anymore.

Jeremiah rolled his bike up to the bridge over the river, glancing around to see if he could find the right spot. There, right in the middle of the bridge, stood a man by a red sport utility vehicle. The man waved to him. Jeremiah waved back, and rode his bike to the center of the bridge, stopping next to the man.

“You Jeremiah?” the man said gruffly, and Jeremiah nodded. “You were supposed to be here five minutes ago.”

“Sorry,” Jeremiah replied. “I, uh... got caught up in something. Is this it?”

“Yep,” the man said. “She’s a beaut, huh? Decent location, too.”

Jeremiah looked out over the river. “It sure is,” he murmured, watching the sun, large and orange, hanging just over the treeline.

“Alright, I’ll give you the tour,” the man said, all business it seemed. He pulled open the rear passenger-side door of the vehicle and gestured for Jeremiah to take a look inside. Jeremiah poked his head inside and looked around. The rear seats had been folded down, and there was a plush mattress on the floor, taking up most of the rear of the vehicle.

Some shelving units had been attached to the sides and back of the inside of the car that would make a good place to store his clothes, books, and a few snacks. There wasn’t any place for perishable food, but Jeremiah had noticed a small food shop just before the bridge, and there were a few community wood-burning grills scattered around, so it wouldn’t be too much of a problem for him to just stop at the shop on his way home from work and supplement some of the free produce he’d get as a benefit of working at the co-op.

“Glove compartment locks,” the man said. “Alright place to keep your valuables.”

Jeremiah walked around to the other side of the car, where a tarp had been set up, attached to the side of the car on one end and to two posts on the other. An old Adirondack chair and a small metal side table sat underneath the tarp, just next to the rear door for easy access.

“Yeah, there’s a porch, too. Nice view of the river. You want it?”

“I think so,” Jeremiah said. He was nervous about jumping into something and feeling a little pressured, but he did really love the apartment and thought it would be perfect for him. “It looks really nice and it’s in a great spot. Why’s the rent so low?”

The man sighed, steeling himself for another lost lead. “A/C don’t work,” he said. “Or electrical.” Jeremiah pulled a face unthinkingly, and the man hurriedly added, “But look, the windows are all manual so you can still roll ‘em down! And there’s always a breeze on the river.”

As soon as the man said it, Jeremiah felt a breeze come through, cooling the sweat and humidity droplets on his skin, and he smiled. “Hell, alright,” he said, suddenly excited. “I don’t mind that. Let’s do it!”

The man grinned, relieved. “First, last, and security,” he said. “$600.”

Jeremiah pulled out his wallet and reached inside, pulling out six bills and handing them to the man. The man quickly counted the cash, then reached into his pocket and pulled out a set of car keys. He tossed them to Jeremiah, who caught them deftly. “Alright, she’s all yours,” he said. “You miss a payment and you’re out.” The man climbed onto his own bicycle and started to pull away. “The buttons on those keys don’t work!” he shouted as he rode off.

Alone again, Jeremiah walked his bike around to the driver’s side of his new apartment. He reached into his bike’s storage pack and pulled out a chain with a lock on it. Weaving the chain around the bike and through the handle of the front driver’s side door, he secured it in place. He took the key and locked and unlocked all of the doors several times. He climbed into the back and lay on the mattress, staring up at the ceiling with a smile, relishing in his freedom. He was finally his own man, finally an adult. He was chasing happiness, so sure of himself that he would find and catch it soon.

He climbed out of the rear driver’s side door of his apartment and settled into the Adirondack chair on his porch. It squealed a bit in protest, but was sturdy and held his weight just fine. He took in a deep breath of the river air and watched the sun slowly slip down below the horizon, painting the sky red and orange as it left the day behind, and wondered what exactly Old No-Nose would think of him now.

5. Kuchisabishii

2022-04-01T20:06:54Z

Wednesday, June 19th—2:14 p.m.

1,214 words. Approximate reading time: 6 minutes, 4 seconds.

Nelle sighed and grabbed another handful of potato crisps, her greasy fingers crushing a few of the smaller crisps into crumbs. She moved her hand toward her open mouth and shoved the entire handful inside in one smooth, seemingly well-practiced motion. The voices had been particularly active today, and it was getting on her nerves.

It was hard enough for Nelle to deal with the voices when they were just quiet mumbles in the back of her mind, but when they started getting more active like today, it was all Nelle could do to keep from just screaming endlessly to drown them out. It sounded like they were arguing with each other this time. She very rarely could ever make out actual words, but she could feel the “mood” of the voices, and often found her own mood shifting to match theirs.

The best way to drown out the voices, Nelle found, was snacking. She never really felt hungry and usually had to remind herself to eat something, especially when she got very focused on something like work or a new VR game. But when the voices started getting too loud or distracting, she would always reach for a bag of crisps. Or pretzels. Or cookies. Anything that would crunch loudly enough that the noise of snacking would take precedence over the voices.

She wiped her crumb-covered fingers on the leg of her pants before grabbing her mouse and moving the cursor around the screen, clicking on a few things, opening and closing windows in an attempt to fool her job’s remote screening software (which knew what she was doing but also monitored her productivity and decided, in its artificial wisdom, to let Nelle goof off when she wanted to as long as she got her work done). The arguing voices got louder in Nelle’s mind, and she shoved another handful of crisps into her mouth, chewing as loudly as she could. Still, a few words came clear to her this time, with the crisps doing very little to cover up the shouting voices.

“...new technology ... can’t figure ... need to just ... move on … just keep ... forever?”

“...forever ... can’t believe you ... trapped ... give up? ... options; still ... can’t give up...”

Nelle started frantically shoveling crisps into her mouth, crunching them as loudly as she could. She didn’t like it when she was able to make out words. They sounded almost like they were trying to guide her, even if she couldn’t figure out exactly what they were trying to say. But so ghoulish, she thought! Every time she could hear actual words they were talking about being trapped and giving up.

Nelle felt trapped sometimes, of course. It had been nearly four years since she’d left her house. After the outbreak, her job went remote-only, and (understandably, given the seriousness of the pandemic) stayed that way. She had her groceries delivered and she was signed up for the highest-tier VR subscription. She had some VR friends that she enjoyed talking to, and did daily video meetings at work. She had food and entertainment, and a little socialization, which was all she really needed. Still, it would be nice once all of this was over and she was able to touch her bare feet to the grass and feel the sun shining on her face. It had been far too long.

When she was feeling extra daring, Nelle would set her alarm for 2:00 a.m., when she knew that no one else would be awake and that the voices would be quiet. She would climb out of bed, slip over to her bedroom window, and slide it open about halfway. She would put her face to the opening and breathe deeply of the outside air. She knew that she was taking a risk of getting sick or getting caught, but she found sometimes that she couldn’t help herself.

The voices were telling her to give up, she thought as she crunched through her last handful of crisps. “So I’m trapped and I should give up?” she asked the voices, wondering if she might actually be able to communicate with them. “Give up on what?”

“...love her ... miss her ... only alive ... can’t talk ... eat...”

“Love who? Miss who?” Nelle asked. “What am I giving up on?”

“...can’t give up ... All I know ... won’t give up...” the second voice said.

“...can’t do...” the first voice responded angrily, and then both were silent.

Nelle let herself sit quietly for a moment, waiting for the voices to return, but they didn’t.

“I don’t understand,” she said to the voices that were no longer there, feeling more afraid of the voices than she ever had before. She looked down at her bag of crisps, completely empty after only half an hour. She didn’t feel like she had eaten a whole bag of crisps. She wasn’t hungry, but she wasn’t not-hungry, either. “My brain is so messed up,” she whispered to herself, then dragged her body out of her computer chair and down the stairs to the kitchen.

She opened the pantry and surveyed her stash. Bags upon bags, boxes upon boxes of various snacks filled up the shelves. She reached up to grab an already-opened box of extra-crispy chocolate chip cookies, and just as she did, she felt something brush across her hand. She shrieked and dropped the box, checking the back of her hand and ignoring the cookies that had strewn themselves across the kitchen floor.

“Just a bug or something,” she whispered to herself, rubbing the back of her hand and only half-believing what she was saying. “Christ, I’m losing it. Get it together, Nelle! They aren’t talking to you; it’s just your imagination. You’re just a little stir-crazy. Other people deal with this all of the time.”

Nelle grabbed a new box of cookies, leaving the opened box on the floor, and shakily climbed the stairs back to her bedroom-office. She sat in her bed, ripped open the box and the bag inside the box, and began to munch mindlessly, trying to get her thoughts off of the voices, now that they were quiet again.

“...up, Nelle...” The voice was calm this time, not angry or fighting. It whispered to her gently, sounding both familiar and alien at the same time. “...up...”

Nelle screamed. She had wondered when this day would come, ever since the first day she started hearing the voices, and finally it was here, it seemed. She had cracked. “So I should just give up on life?!” she screamed into the void before shoving another cookie into her mouth and crunching on it loudly. “Is that what you want?!”

“...please, Nelle ... up...”

Nelle screamed again, and threw her box of cookies at the wall opposite her bed, letting them scatter where they would. She held her hands over her ears and squeezed her eyes shut, knowing that it wouldn’t do her any good. Phantom fingers faintly ran over the back of her hands.

“...up, Nelle ... give up ... love you...”

She opened her eyes, releasing her tears and feeling them cascade down her cheeks. “What is wrong with me?” she whimpered. The dresser opposite her bed flickered out of existence.

“...love you, Nelle ... please just w—”

Nelle began screaming again, drowning out the voice for what she hoped would be the last time.

4. The Axe Forgets; The Tree Remembers

2022-03-21T15:16:59Z

Monday, August 12th—7:38 p.m.

1,913 words. Approximate reading time: 9 minutes, 33 seconds.

Rhian stepped into his bedroom and softly shut the door behind him, then walked over to his bed and promptly collapsed onto it. He had told his parents that he was tired from his first day and wanted to get to bed early, and, while that was certainly true, he didn’t feel like going over the whole story with them. It hardly seemed worth it, anyway. His dad would just give him some grief about not being “adaptable” and say something about needing to “learn to adjust to a new way of life here.”

Rhian had heard it all before. Whenever he’d complain about being stuck inside all day over the summer or how VR wasn’t like the real thing, he’d get a big lecture from dad about what a great opportunity this was for the family, how Rhian shouldn’t be ungrateful, all that sort of stuff. Dad didn’t get it, and mom wasn’t much better.

Over the last few months, she’d basically become a completely different person. Rhian still remembered his mom how she was before, when she’d come in through the back door with dirt under her fingernails and sweat dripping from her forehead, proudly proclaiming that the tomatoes were coming in well. Or when he’d find her in the kitchen, flour covering her apron, and she’d smile at him and have him come stir the batter for the cake she’d been making. He had lots of memories of mom as a caring person who loved her family and loved life.

Now, she was basically a zombie. She hadn’t left the house once since they got here, not even to do the weekly grocery shopping. She let dad handle all of the “outside of the house” things. She would wake up in the morning, drift soundlessly from her bedroom to the couch, and turn on the TV. There she would sit all day, locked to the news channel, until it was time for bed, when she would drift back to the bedroom for eight hours of unconsciousness. Rhian asked dad about it once, and he just said that mom needed some time to adjust, just like Rhian, and that they should both be extra helpful around the house while she was adjusting.

It didn’t seem to matter; mom was pretty much stuck. Rhian felt stuck, too, but he wasn’t sure that it was in the same way. In any case, he knew that he wouldn’t get very far talking to her about everything, which was pretty crappy since she used to always know what to say to make him feel better.

Rhian stared at the ceiling for a few minutes, trying to revel in the silence of his bedroom, but unable to get the day’s earlier events out of his mind. He rolled over onto his stomach and slid a hand underneath his mattress, fishing out an old pillowcase and emptying its contents onto the bed. Inside the pillowcase was a worn composition book with the words “RHIAN’S JOURNAL—DO NOT READ!” scrawled across the front in red marker, and a pencil that had been well-used and hand-sharpened.

He knew that he wasn’t supposed to have this. Something about the rules of this place; paper journals were not allowed. His parents set him up with something on the VR where he could do his journaling electronically, which was allowed, but Rhian didn’t like the electronic journaling VR space. It didn’t feel private and it just wasn’t the same as writing his thoughts out on paper. Rhian had been using old notebooks and composition books to journal in for as long as he could remember, and he wasn’t about to switch now. He hadn’t been able to stop his parents from purging all of his old journals, but he did manage to hide this one from them. Or at least, they hadn’t said anything if they did know.

He opened the composition book and flipped to the first blank page. He gripped the pencil in his hand and began to write:

“Dear Journal,

“Today sucked so hard. I really hate this place. Dad keeps saying over and over that life will be easier here, but I don’t know what was so hard about life in the Free States. I thought maybe that going to school would make me feel better. At least they do school in-person here, too, so I figured that gives me a reason to get outside for at least part of the day.

“But today was my first day. First day of eighth grade, it’s supposed to be a big deal! Getting to be big man on campus and all that stuff. The eighth graders at my old school loved to make sure we all knew who the big kids were. I was kind of looking forward to getting my chance, you know? But now I don’t even know if I wanna go back.

“I guess I’ll start with the fact that school uniforms are the absolute worst! Why can’t I just wear what I want to? I complained about it to Dad this morning and he just laughed and was like, ‘You’ll get used to it.’ I don’t want to get used to it! I miss just wearing tee shirts and jeans or whatever to school. I don’t wanna wear a stupid button-up shirt and fancy slacks and shoes that hurt my feet.

“And don’t even get me started on the face covering, that’s what basically killed my entire day. You won’t believe the crap they do here; it’s unreal. My old school never would have been like this. Okay, so let me tell you exactly what happened:

“I was just sitting in class, minding my own business, listening to the teacher, you know. And like, this freaking face covering! I’m not used to this stuff. You’d think that other people would get it and maybe cut me some slack, since the teacher thought it would be a great idea to let everyone know that my family was allowed to come over here from the Free States. Well it made everyone give me some nasty looks.

“And so I’m sitting there, and this face covering is really bugging me and I had to scratch my nose. I tried to scratch it through the covering but whatever this is made of, I dunno. It wasn’t working, okay? So I was like, ok well my nose itches so I gotta take care of this, and I pulled my face covering down just a little bit and let my nose out so I could scratch it.

“Well this girl Suzie saw me do that and she like screamed. I mean it! Like she had seen a monster or something! And she goes, ‘Ms. Johnston, Ms. Johnston, that Freebie just showed his nose!’ and then the whole class just turned and stared at me. It was so freaky! But that’s not even the worst of it.”

Rhian sighed and stared at the paper. He didn’t really want to think about it anymore. But he remembered what his fourth grade teacher had said when she gave him his first journal, a beat-up old spiral notebook with a picture of cat and the words “You Can Do It!” printed on the cover. “Rhian,” she said seriously, “we’re living in strange times right now, and I can see a lot of promise in your writing assignments. I want you to take this notebook and write about your life. Every day. And when you’re older, maybe you can use it to tell your story to the world.”

Rhian didn’t really know about that at the time. He lived a pretty regular life and didn’t think that anyone would care to know about it. But it made sense to him now. Maybe someone would be interested in his story. So he took a deep breath, let out another sigh, and continued:

“So the whole class was staring at me and the teacher says, ‘Okay, Rhian, you know the rules. Time out, now.’ And then everyone went, ‘Oooooooooh’ like I got caught doing something really bad. But I didn’t know what ‘time out’ was. Like, ‘time out’ is for little babies. I’m 13! But I don’t want people to think I’m some kind of bad kid or something, so I got up and was like, ‘I’m sorry, where do I go?’

“And the teacher said, ‘Come up front to me,’ so I went up there and she put her hands on my shoulders and walked me back to the back corner of the room, where there was this glass booth thing, like a phone booth you see in those old movies. And she opens the door and tells me to sit in the chair there.

“So I sat down and I was thinking that she would just close me up in there or something for a few minutes to make me ‘learn my lesson’ or something, but instead she took this thing off the wall that looked kinda like a VR headset and she plopped it down on my head, then hooked the chin strap together so it stayed on.

“So of course I couldn’t see or hear anything but I just figured that she hadn’t turned on the VR thing yet and all of a sudden I felt her tying straps around my wrists so I couldn’t move my arms! And then she flicked a switch and I heard a little beep in my ears but I still couldn’t see anything. And I heard her voice come on over the headphones and she said, ‘Okay, class, now on the count of three, everyone hold down the Record button on your desk panel and let’s remind Rhian of the rules.’

“Then she counted to three and all of a sudden I heard all of the kids in my class screaming in my ears. ‘ONLY A FOOL SHOWS HIS NOSE OR MOUTH AT SCHOOL!’ they all screamed together. Then there was a click and it was silent for a second. Then I heard them all screaming again. Then again, then again. It sounded exactly the same every time like it was on a loop, and it just went over and over and over until I couldn’t even think.

“I couldn’t see, I couldn’t move my arms, I couldn’t get the headset off, I just had to sit there and listen to the other kids scream at me over and over, ‘ONLY A FOOL SHOWS HIS NOSE OR MOUTH AT SCHOOL! ONLY A FOOL SHOWS HIS NOSE OR MOUTH AT SCHOOL! ONLY A FOOL SHOWS HIS NOSE OR MOUTH AT SCHOOL!’

“It was really scary, journal! I don’t even know how long she made me sit there. When she finally untied me and pulled off the headset she had to drag me out of the booth and the school nurse was there and he took me back to his office to lay down on the bed back there for a little bit. When I could think again, I remember sitting up on the bed and he looked at me and said, ‘First time out?’ and laughed.

“I really hate it here. I want to go back to the Free States. I want to go back to my friends. I don’t wanna go to school anymore. But Dad’ll make me. And Mom won’t say anything. This really sucks.”

Rhian sniffed a little and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand.

“But I guess, if you think about it, it’s really all my fault,” he wrote. “After all, only a fool shows his nose or mouth at school.”

3. Morgenmuffel

2022-03-03T21:38:52Z

Monday, February 1st—7:45 a.m.

1,849 words. Approximate reading time: 9 minutes, 20 seconds.

The bedroom lights turned on, slowly brightening as Michael’s handheld tablet began playing soft instrumental music. The music swelled with the lights, welcoming Michael and his wife Cindy to the new day.

With a swift motion, Michael reached a hand out from under the blanket and slammed it down on the tablet, quieting the music. He sat up and immediately moved his hand from his tablet to his forehead, groaning softly.

Next to him, Cindy stirred and rolled over to look at him with bleary eyes. “Mike? You okay?” she croaked out before clearing her dry throat and sitting up.

“I’m fine,” Michael replied tersely, rubbing his temples with the index finger and thumb of his right hand, and using his left hand to prop himself up in bed. “I must have not slept well last night; I feel—” He hesitated. “—fucking exhausted.”

Cindy smiled a little and started to climb out of bed. “Well, Mr. Grouch, it’s time to get up and get ready for work. Want me to make you some coffee or something? That’ll probably help you feel better.”

“Fine,” he grumbled. “I’m just going to hop in the shower and then I’ll be down.”

Cindy crossed to the other side of the bed and gave Michael a quick kiss on the top of the head. “Don’t take too long; we’ve gotta get the kids up and ready for school, too!”

Michael groaned and hauled himself out of bed just as Cindy was closing the bedroom door behind her. He couldn’t remember the last time he had felt so bad. He wasn’t normally such a grouch in the morning, either. As he made his way toward the bathroom, he could feel that his balance was off, like he had been spun around in circles for five straight minutes and sent on his way.

As soon as he made it to the bathroom, he grabbed onto the doorframe to steady himself, and huffed a bit. He just slept badly. He needed a shower and a cup of coffee and he’d be back to his old self again. When he flipped on the light switch and looked at himself underneath the fluorescent lights, though, he knew something wasn’t right.

Those lights never made anyone look good, for sure, but Michael looked... bad. He wasn’t sure what to make of it. His skin looked pale and his eyes were watery and bloodshot. How Cindy didn’t notice was a bit of a wonder, but then again, the lights in the bedroom were a little more forgiving.

Michael stared at himself in disbelief for a moment, then shook his head quickly, coming back to reality as he moved to turn on the shower and step inside. The hot water really did make him feel quite a bit better as it ran over his body, easing the dull aches he was feeling all over. He was starting to think that he actually did just need a shower and a coffee when he felt a tickle in his throat and coughed.

It sounded wrong. Michael had coughed before, but this cough wasn’t anything like the coughs he had made when he accidentally inhaled a drink or when he laughed until he couldn’t breathe. The new cough was, for lack of the appropriate word coming to Michael’s mind, bubbly. It sounded like there were bubbles in his throat and the coughing was trying to push them out.

Suddenly even more worried, Michael turned off the shower and started to dry himself off. He stopped to steady himself a few times as the dizziness came and went, but managed to finish the job and get dressed for work. He glanced at himself in the mirror again. He looked tired, but that was it. The bubbly cough was just a fluke.

But he still felt the bubbles in his throat.

He cleared his throat as much as he could before heading downstairs to find his wife and his children, Lyle and Erica, who were already awake before they really needed to be. Seeing his family there together for breakfast was always a bright point of Michael’s morning. He smiled a little, despite the worry and the bad feeling, before tousling Lyle’s hair and leaning down and giving Erica a kiss on the cheek.

“Feeling better?” Cindy asked as she handed Michael a cup of coffee.

“Yeah, I’m alright,” Michael muttered, trying to mask his worry with gruffness. “Just tired still. Gonna be a rough day at work.”

“Well, drink that down and get some energy in you. I’m going to go get showered and dressed. Can you make sure the kids get dressed and start school?”

“Sure,” Michael said, sipping his coffee.

“And don’t forget to mark the board! The last thing we need when you’re tired is some surprise test!”

The board. Of course. It was extremely important to keep the board updated, Michael knew, especially out here so close to the border. He finished his coffee and gently prodded the children up the stairs to their rooms so they could get dressed and start their school lessons, then moved to the small table by the front door. He picked up his face covering and wrapped it around his head a few times until only his eyes were visible, and tied it in the back securely, before opening the front door and stepping out onto the porch.

There, just next to the front door, was the board. Every house had one; they had been put in place by some government officials just a few months earlier, after a recent wave of new cases had cropped up along the border.

The idea was simple—in order to streamline operations and to better protect the population, people would no longer be required to go to their local testing center each morning, and would instead simply mark on the board whether anyone inside was currently experiencing symptoms of the virus. Testing officers would patrol each neighborhood daily, checking the boards and determining which households to randomly test. That is, they would randomly test households that were marked as not experiencing symptoms, since asymptomatic cases were among the most common.

Michael didn’t exactly know what happened if the testing officers saw that a household was experiencing symptoms. IQ, most likely, but he’d never seen it happen before in his neighborhood. He did know one person that had been IQed, however. That was back in high school for Michael, when kids were still going to school in person instead of over VR. His buddy William Jepps had been talking to him after school one day, saying that he wasn’t feeling so hot, but chalked it up to over-studying for the upcoming exams.

The next day, William didn’t show up at school. William lived in the same neighborhood as Michael, so Michael had decided to check on him on his walk home. As he passed the Jepps residence on his walk, he noticed that the front door was wide open, and carefully snuck inside to see what was going on.

The house was devoid of any life, but it appeared that everyone had left in quite a hurry. In the kitchen, there were still plates on the table of half-eaten food. The television was turned on in the living room. When Michael checked the bedrooms, it seemed as though the Jeppses had even neglected to take their clothes with them when they left.

It was an eerie sight, but he didn’t know what to make of it at that point. Returning home, he spoke to his parents about it, and they told him that the Jeppses had been IQed (after severely admonishing him for entering the house in the first place). William had caught the virus somehow and his whole family had been removed for both their and the neighborhood’s safety. They were sent to a Quarantine Camp, his mother had told him, to get better, and they’d be back and right as rain in about three weeks.

Michael never saw William or his family again.

As he stared at the board, he wondered about William and the Jeppses. He wondered what would happen to his own family if they had to be IQed. He read the notice at the top of the board:

“ATTENTION: TO ALLOW US TO BETTER SERVE YOUR COMMUNITY, PLEASE INDICATE FOR NHD TESTING OFFICERS IF ANYONE IN YOUR HOUSEHOLD IS EXPERIENCING ANY OF THE FOLLOWING SYMPTOMS:

“Fever, Cough, Dizziness, Shortness of Breath, Fatigue, Headache, Muscle Soreness, Itchy Palms, Nausea, Heartburn, Severe Gas, Watery And/Or Red Eyes, Intestinal Upset, Frequent Urination, Infrequent Urination, Ingrown Toenails, General Malaise

“IF ANYONE IN YOUR HOUSEHOLD IS EXPERIENCING ANY OF THE ABOVE SYMPTOMS, PLEASE MARK YOUR BOARD WITH A RED ‘X’ USING THE PROVIDED MARKER. IF NO ONE IN YOUR HOUSEHOLD IS EXPERIENCING ANY OF THE ABOVE SYMPTOMS, PLEASE MARK YOUR BOARD WITH A BLACK ‘O’ USING THE PROVIDED MARKER. ANY HOUSE WITH A BOARD NOT MARKED BY 9:00AM WILL BE SUBJECT TO TESTING AND POSSIBLE IMMEDIATE QUARANTINE.”

Michael double-checked the symptoms list. Yes, he had a few of those this morning. Not nearly all of them, but a few. And the board did say “any of” the symptoms. The shower and coffee hadn’t done nearly enough to quell his symptoms. And so, the internal tug-of-war began between honesty and hope.

The last thing that Michael wanted to see was his entire family get IQed. Cindy, Lyle, Erica... they hadn’t done anything wrong. No one really knew exactly what happened at the Quarantine Camps, least of all Michael. Everything they were shown on the news made them seem like nice places, where people effectively got a free three-week all-inclusive resort-style vacation while they recuperated from their illness. But thoughts of William rang in his mind, and he wondered how many people would notice if his own family was simply disappeared in the middle of the day, never to return again.

At the same time, it seemed highly irresponsible to lie about not feeling well. For all Michael knew, it might not be the virus, but something different. Surely the officers would just test his family and everyone would come back clean if he was honest. There was, of course, the fact that, if he did actually have the virus, he could spread it to... well, he didn’t know who exactly. He never had a reason to leave the house; Cindy did all of the grocery shopping. Although, if he passed it to Cindy and Cindy passed it to someone at the grocery store, that could cause some serious damage, and Michael didn’t want to be responsible for murdering half of the surrounding neighborhoods due to his selfishness.

As he stood in front of the board, wrestling with his sense of self-preservation, Cindy came down the stairs inside the house. “Geez, Mike, get in here and shut the door!” she shouted out to him. “You’re going to get us all sick!”

He glanced inside through the open front door and saw his wife smiling at him. He coughed again, another bubbly cough, as quietly as he possibly could, to avoid any neighbors hearing. Cindy was so beautiful, and he loved her and the kids more than anything.

With a trembling hand, Michael reached for the black marker fastened to the top of the board.

2. What Really Matters

2022-02-14T17:58:58Z

Thursday, December 12th—12:22 p.m.

1,845 words. Approximate reading time: 9 minutes, 13 seconds.

A light snow fell on Schubert Fulton as he quietly snuck behind the school gymnasium and pulled his vape pen out of his pocket. He lifted up the bottom of his balaclava, took the opening of the pen to his mouth, and pressed the button on the side of the pen, listening to the quiet crackle as the pen vaporized the cinnamon-flavored liquid. He waited a moment before slowly inhaling the vapor and letting the warm cinnamon full his mouth and his lungs.

He pulled the pen from his mouth, held his breath in for just a second, then emptied his lungs into the cold air with a plume of heavy vapor. The nice thing about it being so cold outside was that it was a lot easier for any teachers that saw it to just write it off as an exhaust fan or something, Schubert reasoned. Plus, he didn’t really have to worry about anyone following him to his private spot here and giving him away.

He had no sooner begun those musings than he heard the crunching of footsteps on snow coming around the side of the gym, and he knew he had been caught. He pulled his balaclava back down and shoved his vape pen in his pocket. Getting caught skipping class was one thing; getting caught vaping on school property was quite another. Maybe he could get away with a lesser sentence if it looked like he was just hanging out back here and avoiding Chemistry.

As the footsteps crunched closer, Schubert tried to calm himself down, and leaned up against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest in his best “playing it cool” impression, though he kept his eyes locked on the corner of the gym. Finally, he saw a young girl come around the corner.

“I thought I saw you come back here!” she exclaimed.

“Oh, it’s just you,” Schubert replied. The girl was Carrol Ewart; she had been in a bunch of Schubert’s classes, and he had a little bit of a crush on her. She had a little bit of a crush on him, too. But of course, they hadn’t really talked too much about it. It didn’t really make a ton of sense to act on it for either of them, since they lived in different neighborhoods and wouldn’t be able to really see each other outside of school.

People in school thought they were a couple, the way Carrol would hang on Schubert in the hallways during class change, the way Schubert’s eyes would light up when she came around, but it wasn’t really like that. It didn’t matter what either of them actually wanted. There were ways of doing things. They couldn’t be.

“Don’t be mean, Shooby,” Carrol chided him.

“You really sound a lot like my mother sometimes, you know?”

Carrol huffed. “Just because I’m asking you not to be mean? Ugh, whatever. What are you doing back here, anyway?”

“Same thing you’re doing,” he said. “Skipping class. Chemistry sucks. Caborn’s an ass, too.”

“Okay, I’ll give you that Mr. Caborn is a bit of a jerk. But come on; chemistry’s fun!” Carrol said. “And I’m only skipping class because I was worried about you. You’re hardly ever in third period and I don’t want you to flunk out.”

“Never said anything about it to me before,” Schubert replied. “Besides, who cares if I flunk out?”

“I do!” Carrol responded, a little too loudly, and Schubert motioned at her to keep it down.

“What the hell, Carrol? Do you want us to get caught? I’m skipping, you’re skipping, let’s just chill and hang out together. We’re not missing anything, anyway.”

“Look, I just don’t want to see you throw away your future over one teacher,” Carrol said, moving closer to Schubert and wrapping both of her arms around his right arm, pulling herself close to him. Schubert tensed up a little at the touch, then let himself relax into it.

“Well, whatever,” he said. “Okay, okay. I’ll stop skipping Caborn’s class. Better?”

“Better,” she replied.

“But for now, might as well enjoy the time. It’s not like we can sneak back in or anything. Gotta wait for the bell to ring and slip into the crowd.”

“Yeah,” she said. “Might as well. I’ll hang out here with you. Get back to your vape already.”

Schubert’s eyes widened as he looked at Carrol. “I’m not gonna rat you out,” she said, “but you gotta be more careful. I could smell that from a mile away; it’s not exactly subtle!”

“Nah, it’s cool,” Schubert muttered, and rested his head against the gym wall.

“Come on, Shooby; it’s fine. Did you know that I’ve hit a vape or two in my time?”

“You’re joking!” he said, and Carrol shook her head.

“Nope; I like the way they taste. They help me relax sometimes when I’ve been up all night studying. It’s not a big deal. I don’t care if you vape.” She rested her head on his shoulder and looked out over the small patch of woods behind the school.

Schubert shrugged. “That’s cool, I guess,” he said, and cautiously slid his vape pen out of his pocket with his left hand. He pulled up the bottom of his balaclava again and took a hit off of the pen, covering both Carrol and himself with the cinnamon-scented vapor as he exhaled.

“Smells good,” she whispered. “Strong, but good.” She looked up at him, and he looked down at her. Their eyes locked, and Schubert smiled, despite himself. He saw Carrol’s eyes drift downward before she gasped a little and pulled away.

“What’s wrong?” he asked her.

“Nothing,” she said. “It’s just... well, I don’t think I’ve ever seen your lips before. It's kind of a shock, really.”

“Wait, really?” He thought for a moment. “Well, I guess that makes sense. We don’t ever see each other outside of school.”

“Yeah. Still, it’s kind of weird if you think about it too much, huh?”

“I guess so. Just the way it is,” Schubert responded with a small shrug, before taking another hit off of his vape pen and covering their world with cinnamon again.

“Sure. But I guess it’s different with you, you know? How people are always acting like we’re together and stuff. How could you be my boyfriend and I’ve never even seen your lips before?”

“Stupid stuff,” he said, looking off into the woods. They both watched the trees silently for a moment, the only sound the occasional crackle of Schubert’s vape pen. “I like you a lot, you know,” he finally said, breaking the stillness of the air.

“I like you, too, Shooby,” Carrol said, pressing herself more into him and rubbing her face against his shoulder. “You know that.” Her balaclava tickled Schubert’s bare cheek, and he pulled away from her slightly. She took it as a cue, unraveled her arms from around his arm, and leaned back against the wall. “But we can’t do anything about it, so what’s the point? Can I get a hit of that?”

A little surprised, Schubert handed her his vape pen. “I had no idea you were so wild,” he said with a smirk, and watched eagerly as her hand moved up to her neck, lifting her balaclava above her mouth so she could take a hit. “Never seen your lips before, either. They’re nice.” He smiled at her.

She smiled back. “Yours, too,” she whispered, and Schubert watched as her cheeks turned red. “Anyway,” she said, desperate to change the subject, “don’t think this means that I approve of you skipping class. I mean it; I’m not going to let you throw your future away by flunking out of high school. You’re too smart for that.”

Schubert laughed a little. “Sure, okay.” He looked up at the sky as though he was searching for an answer he wouldn’t find. “But like, who cares? Who needs this stuff? None of it matters, anyway. Graduate high school and then you can go to college and then you can get a job where you chatter away for hours in VR meetings doing nothing productive and not making a difference at all. Just seems so pointless to learn all this stuff and then turn into a mindless drone like my parents. There’s gotta be something better than that.”

“I mean, yeah,” Carrol replied, “I don’t want to turn out like my parents, either. But you know we don’t have a choice. Sometimes in life, you just gotta do what you’re told by people who know better.”

“Sucks,” he muttered. “But I don’t care. I got a plan.”

“Oh, yeah? What are you gonna do if you flunk out of school?”

“Get the fuck outta here,” he said. “Go out to the Free States. I heard my parents talking one time; they didn’t know I was listening. Pretty sure I got an uncle out there or something.”

“The Free States?!” Carrol exclaimed, before lowering her voice to just above a whisper again. “Are you crazy? First of all, you know that’s just a name, right? That place is a hole.”

“You don’t know,” he said. “None of us know. I wanna find out. Gotta be better than here.”

“Okay, I guess I don’t know for sure, but I do show up for history classes, so I probably know better than you.”

“I show up for history,” he said. “It’s pretty cool sometimes.”

“Besides that,” she continued, “How would you even get there? You’ve seen the news; you know what they do to people who cross the border illegally. Serves them right, of course. But there’s no way you’re going to get a pass if you’re not even getting good grades in school.”

“I don’t care,” he responded. “I’ll figure it out. I just hate this place. And like... I was thinking maybe you come, too.”

“What?!”

“Yeah, we’ll both get out of here. Go out to the Free States, get ourselves a farm or something. Fend for ourselves.”

“Schubert Fulton, you have lost it!” she cried, and shoved his vape pen back into his hand. “If you think that I’m going to throw away everything I’ve worked for in school for you, you’ve got another thing coming. I’m already working on college applications and my grades are stellar, and—”

“And you’re here skipping class, hanging out with a delinquent.” He smirked again at her, just a little. “Carrol, none of that shit matters, don’t you get it? That’s just you being a good little pawn in their game.”

“Alright, genius,” she said, looking right at his eyes. “If none of what we’re doing matters, what does?”

His gaze met hers, and then he looked down at her lips; she still hadn’t pulled her balaclava back down, and he wanted more than anything to remember those lips, just in case...

He leaned down and pressed his lips against hers. Carrol’s eyes widened for just a moment, then closed as she leaned into the kiss. She had her little wild streak, but she'd never done anything so daring before. Sparks flew through her body as they held the kiss for a short time before Schubert pulled away. When Carrol opened her eyes again, he was staring right into them. She looked down and saw his lips, curved upward in a gentle smile.

“You.”

1. Black Rainbow

2022-02-02T18:31:50Z

Tuesday, March 11th—10:43 a.m.

1,392 words. Approximate reading time: 6 minutes, 56 seconds.

“You can’t be serious with this,” Elaina said as she walked into her editor-in-chief’s office, holding up a few sheets of paper covered in text. Howard, the editor-in-chief, looked up from his computer at Elaina with an exasperated facial expression, and motioned for Elaina to close the door to his office behind her.

Elaina shut the door quietly, and continued, “I can’t believe you’re asking me to put a positive spin on this, Howard. How the hell am I supposed to do that?”

“Look, Elaina,” Howard sighed, “I get it. The world’s going to shit and it’s tough to make some stories look good, but these sorts of stories in particular need to have some sort of positive take on them.”

“Seriously? It was bad enough when there was a shortage of aluminum and I had to turn a story about empty beverage coolers in stores into a fluff piece about how people were having trouble finding their favorite soda and having to settle for the generic. But this, this is—”

“I’m gonna cut you off right there, Elaina,” Howard said. “This is your job, so you either need to do the work assigned to you or you need to start drafting a resignation letter.”

Elaina opened her mouth to protest, but Howard raised his hand up to stop her. “The station doesn’t want to lose you; you know that. But that doesn’t mean that you can just come in here and tell me how to present the stories.

“Obviously, we want to make sure that the people are informed and aware of what’s going on in the world around them. That’s our main focus.” Elaina nodded at that. “And sure, pumping in a little bit of fear-mongering helps keep our ratings high,” Howard joked. “People like to be scared, a little. But what people don’t want is to be completely terrified.”

“Okay, Howard, I get that,” Elaina responded, “But it really seems irresponsible to try and make a nothing-burger out of the fact that shelves are empty in grocery stores and that reps are saying they aren’t sure if they’re going to be able to fill them back up. I don’t want people terrified, either, but I’d like to see them be prepared.”

“I know, but you should know better than that,” Howard said. “It just doesn’t work that way. What’s that line from the old movie? ‘A person is smart; people are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals and you know it.’ We have to report the news, okay? But we don’t have to report it in a way that’s gonna cause riots.”

Elaina sighed heavily. “Alright, fine. Just... help me out here a little bit. What do I do? Just read out the facts in a chipper voice and act like everything’s okay, or what?”

“It’s all right there in the report from your sub-editor. The fact checkers have gone over everything and okayed it. Just play up the fact that government experts say not to worry, and that they’ve already come up with a solution to the problem.”

“Sure,” Elaina said with a derisive chuckle. “They’ve solved the problem by only allowing certain people into the grocery stores now. I guess it’s a little easier to keep the shelves full when you’re telling a whole segment of the population that they can’t eat anymore.”

“Hey, now, careful with the tone,” Howard warned. “Those people made their beds. And it’s not like they don’t have a choice still.”

“You’re right. Sorry,” Elaina replied, then glanced at her watch. “Shit—we’re going live in about an hour. Alright, let me go get my thoughts together and then get into hair and makeup. Thanks for talking this out with me, Howard. I’m feeling better about it.”

“Glad to hear it!” Howard said as he stood up from his desk and walked around to the door, opening it for Elaina.

“Thanks again,” Elaina said as she walked out of Howard’s office. “I won’t let you down, How.”

She made her way back to her desk and sat down in her chair with a sigh. She took a few moments to read over the facts of the story again, then began practicing her opening quietly. When she thought she had it down, a good mix of “serious news story” and “genius dog can do math,” she typed up some copy and sent it out to the Teleprompter operator, then slipped over to hair and makeup.

While Elaina was getting her hair done, she eyed the stylist, a young woman in her early 20s. “Hey Jenn,” Elaina said, catching the stylist’s attention. “What do you think about this? Reports we’re getting are saying grocery stores are running out of food.”

Jenn looked slightly uncomfortable. “I don’t really... I mean—look, I’m just a hairstylist. What I think doesn’t really matter in the long run, right? Is the government doing anything about it?”

“Yeah,” Elaina replied, but something in Jenn’s eyes made Elaina think twice about elaborating. It was always the same with Jenn; she didn’t ever seem to have thoughts of her own. That scared Elaina a little if she thought too much about it, so she just tried not to think about it.

“Well, that’s good,” Jenn said. “Then there’s nothing to worry about, right?”

“Right,” Elaina muttered. After her hair was done, she headed back into the newsroom and took her seat at the desk in front of the cameras.

“You got my copy, right?” she asked the Teleprompter operator. He nodded and smiled at her. She smiled back just as the producer came bustling in.

“Alright, everyone!” the producer shouted. “Let’s get ready for the news! We are live in 10... 9...”

Elaina took a deep breath and looked into the camera, twisting her lips into a smile. ‘I’m doing the right thing,’ she thought. ‘I’m doing the right thing, I’m doing the right thing. The people need to be informed but not terrified. And I need to keep my job.’

“3... 2...” the producer pointed at Elaina and the words on the Teleprompter started slowly scrolling while Elaina read.

“This is Channel 3 News at Noon; I’m Elaina Steamer. Today’s top story: experts warn that you may see less food on the shelves the next time you go to the grocery store, but that may actually be a good thing! We'll tell you why.

“Also coming up: President Crupps announced today that government health experts are working on new protocols to keep you and your family safe during this difficult time. Channel 3’s Noel Channing sits down with Dr. Brooks Acker to find out what we need to be doing to combat the virus.

“And meet the brave rescue pup that ‘rescued’ her owner by dialing 911. That and more, today on Channel 3 News at Noon.” She shifted her chair to face Camera Two as the title graphics played and waited for her producer’s signal. As soon as she got it, she began speaking again.

“Some grocery stores have been reporting that their shelves have been emptied and they aren’t sure when items are going to be restocked. However, our sources inform us that government experts have already worked out a plan to alleviate the strain on grocery vendors across the country. Effective April 1st, those that have not been inoculated against the virus will no longer be allowed access to grocery stores, including big box stores that also sell groceries.

“This news comes on the heels of a recent announcement that only inoculated individuals are to be allowed in entertainment venues such as stadiums and concert halls, and many experts are hailing this news as a good thing, as they are hopeful that more people will decide to get inoculated against the virus, as the inoculation rate still hovers at around 85% of the population.

“I’m joined now by Noel Channing, who had an opportunity to sit down with Dr. Brooks Acker to get full details on the new protection protocols coming from the NHD. Noel?”

“Thanks, Elaina. I sure would hate to roll up to the grocery store on April 1st without my inoculation code!” Noel exclaimed.

Elaina chuckled and said, “That’s right, Noel, and should serve as a reminder to our viewers to make sure that their apps are always kept up to date. So what do you have for us on these new protection protocols?”

“Well, Elaina, I spoke with Dr. Acker about the new protocols that are coming from the NHD over the next few weeks, and here’s what he had to say...”

"Weekly Grocery Trip"

2022-01-05T20:31:17Z

Originally posted on Dreamwidth for LJ Idol Minor+. I'm cross-posting this here to LJ now because this is the piece that I'm planning using as the basis for most, if not all, of my entries for the upcoming LJ Idol: 3 Strikes. I may or may not come back to this character.

1,369 words. Approximate reading time: 6 minutes, 44 seconds.

It was 11:32 in the morning on Thursday when Maralyn left her home for her weekly grocery trip. She was two minutes behind schedule, which obviously made her a bit anxious. It meant everything to be on schedule, and she worried that she might not have enough time to get her food and get back home. Still, she had to make her best effort, because she needed food and had no other options.

She crossed her arms over her chest and hurried along the sidewalk toward the grocery, thankful that her house was normally only a five-minute walk away. Certainly she could still make it by 11:35 if she tried hard enough. While she walked briskly along her very familiar path, she let her eyes wander a bit, surveying the neighborhood.

Maralyn really enjoyed these Thursday walks; it was such a peaceful time of day. It felt good to be out in the open air, especially during the beginning of winter, when the air had a little bit of a chill and the leaves—little remnants of autumn—decorated the ground, not yet touched by the snow. Despite the fact that it was statistically more dangerous to be out during this time of year, Maralyn still looked for the beauty in her surroundings.

Her gaze moved from the ground up to the houses of her neighbors, and she thought she saw the door of one of the houses open just a crack. She shivered a bit and quickened her pace, wishing that her husband had accompanied her this time. She felt safe enough, but always had a slight tinge of trepidation every time he said he preferred to stay home (as it happened, his favorite television show, Captured, in which hundreds of contestants were locked in an underground bunker and performed humiliating feats while competing to stay in said underground bunker, aired on Thursdays from 11:00am to noon, and there were some weeks where Krystian just couldn’t pull himself away after the first half hour to join Maralyn on her grocery trip). Still, it was just Maralyn on the street, and she wouldn’t see another person until she made it to the grocer, so she knew she didn’t have too much to worry about.

A delivery drone flew overhead carrying a small box—no doubt a new VR headset for Angela, her neighbor three doors down—while playing a jaunty tune from tinny speakers. Maralyn found some comfort in that, as it had been a while since she’d been able to connect with Angela, since her VR headset had gone on the fritz a few weeks prior. Maybe Maralyn would finally be able to set a hangout date with Angela.

After leaving her neighborhood, Maralyn turned the corner and hurriedly continued onto the grocer, which she could see just around the bend. When she finally reached the door, she glanced down at her wrist and noted the time: 11:35. Elated that her quick pace had made up for her lateness, Maralyn smiled a bit to herself. She reached into her pocket and pulled out her phone, opened up the grocery app, and held up her identifying barcode to the scanner by the door. The double-doors slid open, and she stepped inside, being careful (as always) to stop on the first green square of the conveyor belt just inside the doors. After she was inside, the doors slid closed again, and Maralyn heard the comforting “click” of the lock to let her know that she was safely inside.

Exactly ten feet in front of her was Carmen, Maralyn’s “grocery buddy,” since their weekly shopping trips coincided with each other’s. She didn’t know too much about Carmen, since they lived in different neighborhoods and weren’t part of the same social circle, but Maralyn enjoyed seeing Carmen consistently every week. It was the consistencies in Maralyn’s life that really mattered to her. Carmen glanced back over her shoulder and blinked twice at Maralyn in greeting, and Maralyn blinked twice in return. Carmen turned her head back to face front, and the conveyor moved slowly forward.

At 11:38, the conveyor moved Maralyn to the front of the line. She held up her phone, still open to the grocery app, to the checkout scanner. The scanner read her barcode, and within ten seconds several bags emerged from the carousel beside her, containing everything that she had ordered on the app the previous day. She glanced toward the exit to see Carmen walking through the doors with her own groceries. Carmen again looked back and blinked twice. Maralyn returned the goodbye (all-purpose gestures like the double-blink were so convenient; it’s no wonder they’d become popular over the last few years) and grabbed her bags. After Carmen had disappeared from view, the conveyor pushed Maralyn gently toward the exit. She walked through the open doors, which closed and clicked behind her, and made her way back up the sidewalk toward her house.

By 11:43, she was over halfway back to the safety of her home, but stopped her walk short when she noticed a car on the road in front of her neighbor Angela’s house, and saw that Angela’s door was open. Maralyn’s heart dropped a bit when she thought of what was about to happen. She had seen this a few times before on the nightly news (and on the morning news and the news at noon, obviously), but had never been witness to it up close before.

Maralyn stayed still on the sidewalk as she knew to do; it was acceptable to be a few minutes late returning to your home with extenuating circumstances, and this definitely counted as extenuating circumstances. She certainly couldn’t risk going directly past Angela’s house until the threat had gone. She shifted her grocery bags to one hand, and used her free hand to check her face covering, making sure that it was properly adjusted, then watched as two people in head-to-toe sanitization suits carried a sedated woman out of the front door.

It must have been Angela, Maralyn reasoned, though she didn’t look very much like the Angela that Maralyn knew from their VR hangouts. The sanitization workers loaded Angela into the trunk of the car and closed it tightly, then one worker entered the driver’s side of the car and started the engine, while the second worker went to Angela’s front door, closed it, and pasted a large yellow notice on the front. As the second worker returned to the car, Maralyn glanced over and saw in bold black letters, “QUARANTINED—DO NOT ENTER” on the sign. Her gazed moved down a bit to the small package that had been left on the porch.

She shook her head and waited for the car to leave the area. She almost couldn’t believe that Angela was Diseased; but then again, she must have done something against the regulations set forth by the Health Authority. After all, keeping to the schedule was what was keeping everyone safe.

Maralyn made a mental note to not bother with setting up a hangout with Angela anymore (really, she couldn’t believe she had even been thinking about associating with someone like that) as she started walking back to her house. She glanced at her watch: 11:46. A few minutes late due to extenuating circumstances was one thing, but she didn’t want to end up like that horrible Angela, flaunting her disregard of the schedule. She broke into a light jog to get back to her house as quickly as possible, raced up the front stairs and hurried inside, slamming the door behind her.

The wind blew the leaves around gently as Samuel walked down the street on his way to the grocery. He could have sworn he heard the front door of a house a short way down and across the street, but that was of course impossible. It was 11:47 after all, which was inside his assigned weekly grocery slot. He adjusted his face covering and continued down the street toward the grocery, glancing nervously at the houses of his neighbors.

LJ Idol: 3 Strikes

2022-01-04T14:54:08Z

Here's my official declaration that I'll be competing in the upcoming LJ Idol: 3 Strikes mini-season. Don't all of you get too excited at once.

My hope is to use this mini-season to expand a little bit on the fictional universe I created in my last piece for Idol Minor+, most likely in the form of vignettes with various characters as opposed to one large continuing story.

If you're interested in signing up (and why wouldn't you be), go here and do so while the getting's good!

If you're interested, I posted the piece that I plan to use as the basis for most of my entries in a public entry on my LiveJournal: "Weekly Shopping Trip"

"Epiphany"

2021-11-04T16:09:48Z

1,461 words. Approximate reading time: 7 minutes, 18 seconds.

I wrote this for LJ Idol: Minor+, which is going on over on Dreamwidth. There's no polls, no voting, no eliminations, just a weekly prompt and writing, so it's never too late to join in if you're interested.

I awoke before the sun that Saturday morning, and waited impatiently for it to begin to rise so I could begin the trek that I had been planning on since the middle of the week. In a previous life, I may have sat on the porch drinking a beer and smoking a cigarette at five o’clock in the morning and feeling sorry for myself. That morning, it was just the cigarette, still a bad habit and a vice, to be sure, but at least it was somewhat more socially acceptable.

The dogs, fed and happy, wrestled with each other in the backyard while I looked on, looking for signs of too-rough play, ready to shout at them to separate if things got serious. I finished my cigarette, lit another, and rolled my head from side to side, stretching out my aching neck muscles, trying to release the tension of the week.

As soon as I saw the first beams of light begin to color the inky sky, fading it from black to dark blue, I went inside and gathered up my supplies. I loaded my pack with more snacks and water than I knew I would need, because it never hurts to be prepared, and set it on the floor next to my chair, where I pulled on my hiking socks and boots and laced them tightly. My toes protested slightly, as they always did when I put on my boots, angry that they could not spread out as much as normal. I shook off the uncomfortable feeling, and massaged my neck before grabbing my pack and heading out to the car.

The sun crept its way over the horizon and watched over me lazily as I drove east toward it, and my eventual destination. When I pulled into the parking lot at the trailhead, I was relieved, though not surprised, to find no other cars there ahead of me. It had been a particularly rough week, and knowing that the chances of coming across another human being on the trail were slim put me at ease. I was here for solitude and peace, and, while the trail was long and had many different paths, it was also popular for hikers that lived in the area, so it was rare that I didn’t come across someone else while hiking, regardless of the paths I took or didn’t.

I exited my car and breathed in deeply, taking in the smell of the dew on the grass and the slight chill of morning, neither of which had been wicked away by the sun just yet, before diving headfirst into the forest in front of me. The trail welcomed me like an old friend, and I it, as I stepped deftly over and under familiar roots and branches on my way to the first fork, the first decision I would need to make on my path to guidance.

Going right would lead me along the river to the great wooden bridge that crossed it, or further to the mud pits that were once part of the trail, before they had been washed away by the rains, where I had once traveled through waist-deep water trying to find my way to drier ground. Going left would lead me deeper into the woods, to walk beside the equestrians for a mile or so before our paths drifted apart again. I had taken both roads before, at one point or another, and both roads eventually led to the same place and back again, so I made the decision to go to the left, having decided that the path I chose really made no difference. I felt the tension leaving my neck a bit as I made my way toward the horse trails, hoping to still find nobody.

The miles passed—thankfully—uneventfully and quietly, and I soon found myself at another fork in the trail, and another choice to make, another method of finding destiny. Going left would mean walking along a connector to another trail and would put me in a completely different parking area than the one that my car was in, so that option was really not one. Going straight would take me through deep woods and to the highway, where I had walked before along the paved bridge over the river to the fishing spot and the trail entrance on the other side, praying that I wouldn’t become the victim of someone’s momentary lack of attention to the road. Going right would take me down to the river and the great wooden bridge, which would in turn take me back to the parking lot, and back to my home.

I sat for a while on the covered bench in the clearing that marked the fork, mulling over my decision. The sun was hovering much higher in the sky now than it had been when I first entered the cover of the canopy, and the air was beginning to heat up quite a bit. I pulled a Lärabar from my pack, unwrapped it, and pretended it tasted anything like the flavor listed on the wrapper. I took a few sips of water and stretched out my aching shoulders, releasing the tension that seemed to have traveled to them from my neck by way of heavy hiking pack.

I had gotten the solitude that I was looking for, I reasoned, though perhaps not the epiphany that I had come to expect from solo hiking trips. But maybe epiphanies were reserved for the times when I really needed them and weren’t something to be sought after directly, so I made the decision to make my way toward the great wooden bridge, watch the river for a few moments, and head back home with the knowledge that at least I had gotten some time to think and some fresh air.

I made my way along the wide, straight trail, with the trees on either side reaching out to each other and clasping branches like old friends. Their leaves glowed brightly as they accepted the sun’s rays on my behalf, letting only a few bright shafts break through and onto the ground, leaving me dazzled. A half mile felt like only a few steps as I lost myself in the storybook feel of it all. I was surprised to find myself nearing the bridge so quickly, and shook myself free from the wonder of the path I walked. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a path that I hadn’t seen before, despite the numerous times I had walked this loop.

The recent months had seen little rain, and this area that was usually flooded over was now dry. The ground changed from dirt to sand, and the sand seemed to form a path that was maybe not technically a mapped trail, but was a trail nonetheless. Intrigued, I turned away from the wooden bridge that would lead me back home and walked into the pristine sand, my boots sinking down softly and leaving behind evidence of my excursion for other hikers to see.

I walked along the path, feeling the tension dissipate from all of my muscles as excitement and anticipation took over my body, recalling earlier days when the trails were much less familiar and comfortable. I traveled for some time, seeing nothing but more trees, sisters and brothers of those I had already known before, when suddenly there was a break. The trees disappeared and the ground spread wide before me into a large, grassy clearing.

To my left was a small pond, home to several newly-born islands, left uncovered by the lack of rain, their once-muddy shells baked dry by the sun. To my right was a small grass-covered hill with a single old oak tree bursting from the top of it. Though it had seen better days, the old tree was still a sight to behold, and I wondered how many years it had been here alive at the edge of the pond, watching the water rise and fall over time, and how many years it had been dead, but still keeping watch.

The oak tree’s bare branches held dozens of large birds that I recognized as turkey vultures, and my eyes followed the lines of the tree to the base, where I noticed several other vultures on the ground, picking over the bones of a medium-sized animal to find any rotten meat that their brethren had left behind. The vultures on the ground hissed and grunted as they ate, while the vultures in the tree branches stood watch stoically and waited for the right time to go off in search of more food.

I dropped my pack to the ground and sat at the edge of the clearing, watching the vultures feast and the mud islands bake in the sun, waiting for my epiphany to come.

13. Making Fire

2021-03-10T14:46:39Z

I wrote this for Survivor: LJ Idol, happening over on Dreamwidth. We're at the final four, if you can believe it! I'm one step away from the finale and I'd love to make it past fourth place this time! If you enjoyed this piece, please consider going over to Dreamwidth and voting for me (playing as gunwithoutmusic) in the Immunity Challenge poll here. I really appreciate the support!

1,475 words. Approximate reading time: 7 minutes, 22 seconds. Audio version here.

I hear the click of my mother’s lighter and my attention is drawn away from the book I am reading and over to it. I watch the small flame dance and flicker as she burns the end of a thin cigarette. She lifts her thumb, and as soon as it appears, the flame is gone. I can’t help but be a little disappointed, but I know that I’ll get to see it again.

I’m always mystified when I see fire. Here in my childhood home, we have a gas stove, and one of my favorite pastimes is to put my small hands on the dials and turn them, hearing the click-click-click that comes before a whoosh of blue flames emerging from the burner. I knew about the blue flames; I must have learned from someone, but the knowledge of the origin of the knowledge is lost to me. I just know that the flames that burn blue are hotter than the flames that burn orange and yellow, like the flames from my mother’s cigarette lighter, or the flames from the fireplace, when my father lights the starter log and creates a fire that burns all night.

I like to sit in front of those fires, too. Watching the flames move around in the wind, so delicate, but so destructive, reducing the wood to ashes with a cacophony of crackling sounds. These two things seem so at odds. I can extinguish the flames of my birthday candles with just a small gust of air from my lungs, but the flames in the fireplace must be guarded by a metal screen, lest they escape and destroy our home.

A weekend comes when my parents are out of town, and my sister is at a sleepaway camp. Rather than go with them, I tell them that I want to stay with my neighborhood friend Chris for the weekend. I’m only eight years old, but I suppose that I’m mature for my age. And I’ve spent the night with this friend before. My parents trust his parents and my parents trust me. They give me a key to the house in case there is any emergency reason that I need to use it, and send me on my way, to the other end of the neighborhood, where I should stay put for a few days.

Chris is not a good influence on me. He’s a decent friend, but he’s one grade higher than me, which of course makes me think that he’s so cool and smart and mature, which of course makes him think that he knows better than me and makes him know that he can get me to go along with any of his plans.

The afternoon is sunny and Chris’s mother has tired of us playing video games in their bedroom all day. She kicks us out of the house unceremoniously and tells us to find something to do. Chris suggests we go back to my house, since we’ll be all alone there and can find some fun stuff to do.

My plan is to make smoke bombs—you can spray some oven cleaner onto a sheet of aluminum foil, then ball up the foil and put it out in the sun. As soon as the sun heats it up, the foil ball will give off a lot of smoke. I like pretending I’m a ninja, escaping from a terrible situation, using my smoke bombs for cover.

Chris has other plans, though. I turn the key in the front door lock and we both enter. My mother’s cigarette lighter is sitting on the table by the couch, and there is a stack of old newspapers in the dining room. Chris suggests that we build a fire, just for fun, in the fireplace. We can use the old newspapers and my mother’s lighter.

I’m nervous but excited about the idea. I love seeing the fire, and I’ve never had the opportunity to try and control it before. This is a big step for me, and at eight years old, I feel like I should be able to build my own fire. We crumple up several sheets of the old newspaper and throw it into the fireplace, then set it aflame with the lighter.

It burns quickly and disappointingly. After an initial burst of flame, the paper quickly turns to ash and the fire disappears. We throw more newspaper in, lighting it again, trying to see how big of a fire we can get. It all burns just as quickly and just as disappointingly. I find myself wondering what I can burn that will stay lit, so I can watch the flames dance and flicker, and I hold the lighter against the living room carpet.

Click, click, click. It’s hard to get the fire to come out when the lighter’s upside-down. Click, click, whoosh! I manage to get the flame working. I hold it to the carpet, expecting a giant tower of beautiful flames to leap from the lighter, with no plan of how to extinguish them if it becomes a problem. The carpet, however, is made of nylon, and just melts and chars slightly in the spot where I hold the lighter.

Finally over the disappointment and boredom, we leave my house again and find new adventures.

My parents come back home after the weekend, and just as I’m returning from Chris’s house, the ice cream truck comes by. I pull a dollar from my pocket and purchase a Mickey Mouse Ice Cream Bar. No sooner than the ice cream trucks leaves do I see my father exit the front door and walk toward me. His face is red with a combination of fear and anger. When he reaches me, he grabs the ice cream bar from my hand and throws it away from me as far as he can and orders me into the house.

The fear comes over me as I enter the house and he takes me to the fireplace, where bits of charred newspaper cover everything. We both look from the fireplace to the carpet, where the charred spot announces itself. My father asks me what happened, and I tell him honestly, despite my fear of the consequences I didn’t foresee when I was playing firestarter a day before.

From my bedroom, I have a window that faces the front of the house. I’m grounded, of course, so I sit here at this window and stare out into the cul-de-sac, watching the other neighborhood kids play. I see my father exit the house, get into his car, and drive away somewhere. A short time later, I watch him return. After he enters the house, I wait for a moment and then hear a knock at my door.

My father comes in and tells me that he wants to show me something. We go together, into his car, and he drives and drives and drives. He drives past any place I’ve ever seen before, to a neighborhood that I don’t recognize. I have no idea what we’re doing here.

He comes to a stop in front of a small split-level house, and tells me to look at it. The house is still standing, but there’s no garage door. The frame where the garage door should be is decorated with black, shadows from the flames that removed the door. Inside the garage are four bikes. Two are large bikes for adults, and two are smaller bikes, suitable for a person my size. All are charred and twisted and barely recognizable.

Everything else inside the garage is completely black. I ask my father, “What happened?”

“The same thing that might have happened at our house when you were playing with fire.”

My cheeks burn a little bit. “I didn’t know.”

“It’s okay. That’s why I wanted you to see this. You were lucky; we were lucky. It could have been worse, like this.”

“I’m sorry, Dad. I didn’t know.”

“It’s okay. You’re okay, and that’s what matters. But I want you to be careful. Bad things can happen if you’re not careful with fire, if you try to start fires without an adult around.”

“Okay, Dad. I’m really sorry.” I sit in my shame for a minute, staring at the burned-out remains of this family’s garage, as my father quietly watches on. “Hey, Dad?”

“Yeah?”

“Was everyone okay?” I turn away from the carnage to face my father for the first time.

He looks at me for a moment, and I watch his face twist up a little bit, as though he’s thinking of the right words to say. I feel the nervousness creep up inside of me, and I feel like I already know the answer to my question, when I look at him and see him thinking.

He thinks for that moment, then says, “Let’s not worry about that right now. You’re okay, and that’s what’s most important to me.”

He puts the car back into gear and slowly drives us back home.

10. All the Fixins

2021-02-10T19:11:59Z

Written for Survivor: LJ Idol, happening over at Dreamwidth. We're down to the top 6; how exciting! The poll is here, please head over there and throw a vote my way (I'm playing as gunwithoutmusic).

"Thank You"

349 words. Approximate reading time: 1 minute, 44 seconds. Audio version here.

Do you remember
The first time we crawled through
Your bedroom window
To sit on the roof?
We played Emmylou Harris
On your cheap turntable
And watched the people
Playing tennis across the street.

We didn’t talk much,
Just sat and listened and watched.
Emmylou may have
Stumbled into Grace,
But I was too busy
Stumbling into love
To think about Grace myself.

Do you ever recall
The first time we pressed ourselves together
In your twin bed,
The shock of our sudden love affair
Leaving us with no choice,
Forcing us into pretzels,
And sleeping like that?

Do you think about
The birthday trip to
That German restaurant,
The car getting a flat
On the side of the highway,
And that guy we both found cute
Helping us put on the spare?

Or our first Thanksgiving,
When we were so proud
Of being Adults?
It was the first time you
Cooked a turkey,
And I made non-traditional sides
Because we were just
Special, “cooler” than our parents
With their non-brined turkeys
And their non-fried green beans.

Do you ever ruminate
On the time that Charley came in,
All winds and rain,
Flooding our coastal town
And trapping us in our living room
Without water, or air conditioning,
But with open windows
And the first season of
The Pretender on DVD?

Do you remember
Any of the things that
Linger in my mind?

Do you remember me?

I wanted to reach out,
To find you again,
To see how you’ve been,
But mostly to see
If you think of me
With the same frequency that
I think of you.

I wanted to be strong,
A person I had never been.
I wanted to be brave,
I wanted to be funny,
I wanted to let you know
How much you touched me,
And to find out
If I did the same for you.

I wanted to see
If my presence in your history
Was a bright and shining spot
Or if the pages of that chapter
Had been closed forever,
Left to gather dust
Beside the other memories
That never cross your mind.

I wanted to reach out
And tell you.

So I did.

I swallowed my fear
And I moved myself
To the place and time
Where we were together,
Where you changed me,

Where you helped me
Create a life that I could be proud of,
Where you helped me
Learn that love was not futile,
Where you helped me
Be a better man than I could have been alone.

I told you everything,
And waited for you to
Tell me everything, too.

But you replied, “Thank you,”
And I knew.

09. Uncomfortably Numb

2021-02-01T16:07:49Z

This was written for Survivor: LJ Idol, happening over on Dreamwidth. Voting is going on right now here until the end of the day today (I know I'm late; it was a long weekend!), so I'd appreciate your support if you liked this entry (as a reminder, I am playing as gunwithoutmusic over there). Please also read and vote for any other entries that you enjoy; we all really enjoy the support!

"'21 Bonnie & Clyde"

1,123 words. Approximate reading time: 5 minutes, 33 seconds. Audio version here.

I’m exiting my office building’s parking garage when I notice a ladybug climbing up the inside of my driver’s side window. It’s not really an unusual occurrence to find a bug in my car every now and then, but usually it’s some kind of fly or a spider or something. I don’t really see ladybugs too often. Many cultures believe that ladybugs are a good omen, and represent love, prosperity, or good luck. So she isn’t unwelcome here; in fact, I kind of like seeing her. But I’m not sure that she’s ready to come all the way home with me, so I crack the window a little bit to give her the opportunity to jump ship. To my surprise, she just climbs to the top of the window and balances there. It seems she’s enjoying the ride more than I expected her to.

As I enter the highway, part of me wants to roll the window back up; the air outside smells of asphalt and rubber, with the exhaust fumes from the truck in front of me pouring in through the window for an added bonus. But the ladybug seems to be really enjoying herself, and if I closed the window, well... she probably wouldn’t enjoy that very much. I can’t bear to harm her when she hasn’t done anything but keep me company on my long commute, so I keep the window open and deal with the stench of the highway outside.

I named her Bonnie, which I guess makes me Clyde, the two of us just riding along together, her without a care in the world, me with more than enough cares for the both of us. I carry us both twenty-five miles along the highway toward my home. For me, this is a normal, everyday commute. For Bonnie, it’s basically the equivalent of me going around the entire world four or five times, which is really quite a lot to think of, when I look at things from her perspective.

As I take my exit off the highway and come to a stop at the red light, Bonnie hops off of my window and flutters away into the world. I could swear that she waves goodbye to me before leaving, but maybe she is just doing something that ladybugs do. While I continue on the short drive from my highway exit to my driveway, I reflect a little bit on this experience.

At first, I feel a bit sorry for Bonnie. I’m sure she wasn’t planning on being carried all the way across the world. When she took refuge in my car, she surely didn’t think she’d be forcibly ripped away from the world she knew. Did she have ladybug friends or a ladybug husband and a few little ladybugs at home? It’s sort of a shame, taking her away from all of that.

But then I also find myself envious of her. She hitched a ride with a complete stranger to a strange new world that she had never seen before. Sure, for me, it’s just a long-ish commute between work and home, but for her it might as well have been a rocketship to Mars. And how confidently she just leapt from her space shuttle and carried on! I wish that I could be like her.

A new life sounds really wonderful sometimes. It seems like day in and day out, nothing ever changes. I wake up, get dressed, and go to work every morning. I search for a new job and shirk my responsibilities to my current one for eight hours, then I drive home, greet the dogs at the door, have dinner, watch some television, and go to sleep. I wake up the next day and repeat myself. The only difference is the weekends, but even those generally follow some kind of formula. It feels oppressive sometimes. Other times, it feels like nothing, like I’m some sort of robot or worker bee, chained to my routine and watching the ladybugs fly away on grand adventures.

So, yeah, it’s easy to find myself envious of Bonnie. I find myself thinking that it would have been nice if I had been born fifty years earlier, in a time where one could just up and disappear and start a new life in a new town. Go by a different name, shed your old skin and begin again. And with no one any the wiser. It seems like an impossible task now, intentionally disappearing without a trace, but I’ve read enough stories where someone did just that, in a bygone era, that I can’t help but wish for that freedom sometimes.

The freedom to disappear. To leave any unhappiness behind. To find adventure in every day. To pursue happiness as my God-given right. To be, not a new man, but a complete one in myself. If I could be more like Bonnie, maybe I could be completely happy, all the time.

But, as wonderful as those thoughts can be at times, I don’t really feel like they’re very productive. I can’t pursue happiness. It isn’t a hunt or a chase. If I chase happiness, it will always elude me.

That’s not to say that I can’t ever be happy, or that I shouldn’t strive to be happy in life, but that I’ll never find the happiness that I seek if I go hunting for it, reinventing myself, disappearing from my life, “starting over” while dragging behind me a footlocker filled with skeletons that is always tied to my wrist. I have to find happiness in my present. I have to find happiness in the here and now, and hold fast to it while I follow the path that the fates have decided for me.

It’s too easy to let myself become numb to the good things in life while placing the bad things under a magnifying glass. I can’t let myself do that. If I do, I forsake the here and now, and the here and now is everything we have.

I pull into my driveway, finally home after a long day and a long drive. I take a deep breath and exit my car. As I put my keys in the front door and turn the lock, I hear the pacing of my two dogs, excited to see me (or maybe just excited to get dinner, but I’m sure they missed me, too). I open the door and assume a defensive stance while they bounce around excitedly and slam their bodies into mine in a bizarre form of greeting.

I take in the here and now for just a moment and I can’t help but smile. Maybe it’s the same every night, but honestly? It ain’t that bad.

"Wounds"

2021-01-20T17:10:27Z

183 words. Approximate reading time: 1 minute.

This was written for Survivor: LJ Idol, which is currently happening over on Dreamwidth. You can vote for me (playing as gunwithoutmusic) as well as read the other entries and vote for your favorites here. Thank you in advance for your support!

I see you there,
Licking your wounds,
As though licking a wound
Ever made it better,

As thought I don't
Have wounds of my own
That I tend to
Only when you are asleep,

When the world is quiet
And I can focus my thoughts.

But you can still see them.
I know because you pick at my scabs
While I swathe yours in cotton
So they can heal properly.

Sometimes I think you are my penance,
And I am whipping myself
At your misguided direction,
Punishing my present for my past

When the room is dark
And I think no one can see.

And maybe that's my problem.
I place the blame elsewhere
And focus my efforts on you
Rather than myself.

But maybe it's your problem, too,
That your eyes are blind
(Perhaps willfully, perhaps not),
Or too inwardly focused to see

When my life is filled with light
And you come to take it away.

Whatever becomes of us,
Of your and me as individuals
Struggling to untangle ourselves
From the straps of the baggage

We cocooned each other up in,
May we emerge as ourselves, but better.
Will we emerge separately or together?
Only time will tell.

My only hope for you
Is that one day,
You take a look in the mirror
And you finally see your own face.

05. Caught in the Web

2020-12-10T16:09:11Z

“Quest for Earth”

1,504 words. Approximate reading time: 7 minutes, 31 seconds. Audio version here.

It’s a particularly bright and sunny day when I pass the homemade sign nailed to a utility pole that reads, “TRUMP COUNTRY U.S.A.” in large block letters on a red, white, and blue background that is more reminiscent of the French flag than the American one (a point that I would hesitate to make to the signmaker). I have learned to put the political opinions of other people somewhere outside my mind, because, let’s face it, all I can do otherwise is just let myself stew in self-righteous anger and scream about not understanding people. And I’ve lived the angry life, where every small slight was a massive affront to my identity, where everyone was an idiot and I was the only sensible person on the planet, where a person almost missing their turn in their car and brake-checking me was an intentional personal attack. I’m done with that, worrying about other people and their opinions of me and of the world. It’s inconsequential to the majority of my life.

Still, every time I drive out to this forest and I see that sign, I cringe a little bit. Thankfully, the same sort of people that will post those sorts of signs and refuse to take them down even after the election has been decided are not the same sorts of people that frequent the hiking trails, so I don’t think that there’s any worry of running into any of them, despite being in the heart of “TRUMP COUNTRY.”

It’s with these thoughts in mind that I nearly miss the turn into the trailhead parking lot and brake-check the person behind me. In my defense, the trailhead parking lot appears as if literally from nowhere, and I nearly miss the turn every time. And I was distracted by thinking about that sign. As luck would have it, the brakes of the car behind me work quite well, as does their horn. In a certain sense, you might say I’m doing them a favor.

I don’t even know why I’m here. My friends couldn’t join me, so I’m doing this one solo. I’m not concerned; it’s only five-and-a-half miles, so I should be done in about three hours, give or take, and I’ve done this trail before, so I know that it’s extremely easy to follow. I sit in the car for a moment and look at the deep forest directly in front of me, taking a moment to breathe. I tell myself that I have nothing to be worried about, and just like that, I don’t worry. If only it was that easy, right? But I drove all this way and I packed all my supplies and everything, so I feel as though I don’t really have a choice. Plus, I’m out here for a reason, I know; I just have to figure out what that reason is.

I start along the trail, which is blissfully devoid of other humans, and let my mind go blank, surrendering myself back to the wild, back to my roots. Or something like that, but maybe slightly less poetic. I take in the trees, the birds, the butterflies that are all around me and try to find my reason. Is that why I’m here? Just to take all of this in? It’s been a week since my last hike, and when I found out that no one else could come with me, I just stomped my feet and said, “Fine; I’ll do it myself then!”

Good old Sean. Never change, man.

I’m about halfway to halfway when I realize that I didn’t actually let anyone know where I was going. For one second after I have this realization, I’m in heaven. ‘I’m out here all alone and nobody will ever be able to find me,’ I think. After that second has passed, however, my thoughts change to, ‘I’m out here all alone and nobody will ever be able to find me!’

But, like with any trail, the only way out is through, so I resolve to keep pressing on until I reach my destination, and maybe figure out what the hell I’m doing here all alone where nobody will ever be able to find me.

A little past halfway to halfway, my bladder informs me that I have Nature on Line 1. I haven’t seen anyone else on the trail today, but still, it’s probably not good trail etiquette to stand right there and relieve myself, so I tell myself to hold it until I can find a spot to step off of the trail and take care of business. But I’m pretty deep in the woods right now, so it’s not exactly easy to find a good spot where I can be relatively well-hidden from any possible passersby while still being able to keep my eyes on the trail itself.

Finally, I come to a point that seems good enough. The forest on the side of the trail is fairly open, but there are a few palmetto plants a couple of steps off the trail that it looks like I could duck behind for a quick second. I take five steps off of the trail, and turn around to see that I can still find it. And, like a good friend, the trail is still there.

I turn back around, trying my best to make it an even 180-degree turn, and take two more steps to go behind the palmetto plants. Palmetto plants, as you may not be aware, as I certainly am not aware, make excellent homes for spiders. Spiders, as I’m sure you are quite aware, make excellent webs for their homes. So it is without this knowledge of palmetto plants and spiders that I find myself trying to push through a small group of plants, and it is also without that knowledge that I find my face covered in spiderwebs.

I lift my hand to my face to pull away what I can of the spiderwebs, forgetting that I had been using that hand to hold back a palmetto leaf, which promptly returns to its original position upon my release of it, and smacks me in the face with a rustle reminiscent of derisive laughter. I remind myself that the only way out is through, and push again through the palmettos and finally do my business.

When I turn to head back to the trail, I realize that nothing at all looks familiar. There is no well-trod strip of earth to be seen; only dead pine needles scattered everywhere. There are no landmarks to use as a guide; only a seemingly-endless sea of identical palmetto plants and pine trees. I’m a slower processor, so it takes me a second before the thought finally crosses my mind: ‘I’m lost in the woods.’

Then, a second later, ‘I’m lost in the woods and I’m out here all alone and nobody will ever be able to find me.’

I hear a whisper from somewhere close to me. “Don’t panic, Sean,” the voice says, and I panic in instinctive defiance before I realize that the voice is my own. I realize that I need to listen to myself, so I do my best to remain calm and try to get myself back on the path. “You only took a few steps off; you can’t be that far away from it. Besides, surely if you stay headed in one direction, you’ll hit some part of the trail eventually.”

I push my way through palmettos and tree branches, thinking to myself that I don’t remember having to push through quite so many things on my way to this spot. I turn around a few times and go back and forth, pushing through (I hope) different plants and branches and surveying the area, looking for any sign of the trail.

After what I think is hours, but is probably only minutes, I push through a group of palmettos and see it: the little stripe of earth that marks my safety. I drop to my knees and nearly kiss the ground before thinking better of it; after all, returning to safety after this harrowing experience only to die from some weird infection or something is probably not the best course of action. But I do let myself stay there for a moment, deep in the woods, rooted to this little stripe of earth, until my adrenaline goes down, and I can quell the panic that is filling up my heart.

Just as I stand up again and brush myself off, a man appears around the corner of the path ahead of me. He smiles and waves as he walks by, and I smile and wave back, then continue on my way.

When I finally emerge from the woods again at the end of the five-and-a-half miles, I gleefully hop into my car and make for home. When I again pass by the sign that reads, “TRUMP COUNTRY U.S.A.,” I smile a little to myself, somehow grateful that I have the opportunity to see it again, and I say aloud to no one, “Maybe other people aren’t so bad after all.”

I wrote this for Survivor: LJ Idol, which is happening over on Dreamwidth. I forgot to cross-post it here in time for the poll, but that ended up not mattering due to technical issues, anyway, so it all worked out. If you're interesting in following myself and other excellent writers, feel free to check out Survivor: LJ Idol on Dreamwidth!

04. A Bridge You Must Cross

2020-11-30T15:34:29Z

“Quest for Spirit”

1,682 words. Approximate reading time: 8 minutes, 24 seconds. Audio version here.

This was written for Survivor: LJ Idol, which is currently happening over on Dreamwidth. If you enjoy this piece, I'd appreciate a vote to help me stay in the game. We are still working in tribes, and mine is at a bit of a disadvantage this week, so I'd also appreciate a vote for the other members of my tribe:

eeyore_grrl
flipflop_diva
gunwithoutmusic (me)
impoetry
minikin25

Voting is taking place here. Thank you for your support!

* * *

Despite the literal warning signs that we passed on the road to the beach, we were still somehow surprised when we were greeted at the end of Pier 13 by a large penis—that is to say, a man wearing a t-shirt and nothing else. He smiled and waved at Tyler, Marie, and me, and we smiled and waved back as we passed by him on our way to the beach.

“Wow,” Tyler said, “That sign wasn’t kidding when it said, ‘Warning! You may encounter nude sunbathers at Pier 13!’”

“Did you know about this?” Marie asked me.

“Nope,” I replied. “There were a bunch of five-star reviews of this hike on the app, but no one actually wrote out anything.”

“Well, whatever,” she said. “It’s still a beautiful afternoon and the beach is gorgeous and, well... I mean, a penis is a penis is a penis. I’ve seen plenty before; it’s not really a big deal.”

We continued hiking down the shore, passing a few couples that were also out on the beach. Strangely enough, every woman was completely covered nearly from head-to-toe, and every man had on a shirt and no bottoms. I guess this is the nude sunbathing dress code for men, covering up your chest and letting your bottom half go free, like some sort of topsy-turvy world. I also guess that the men were a little more excited about the idea of nude sunbathing than the women.

Tyler spoke up. “You know, I don’t think I’d mind coming back here with just Sean and doing a little nude sunbathing of our own.” He gave me a little wink and I chuckled a bit.

Marie said, “Hell, I don’t care! Dicks are all the same pretty much; we could strip down right now and enjoy the rest of our hike au naturel.”

My heart skipped a beat and I pretended I didn’t hear that.

* * *

When we entered the Canaveral National Seashore area, we didn’t have the option to pay for a day pass; it was “pay for a week or turn around and get out of here you filthy hippies.” So I paid the twenty bucks to get us in, even though we only were going to get a few hours’ use out of it.

Unfortunately, that meant we ended up with a pass that was good for the entire week, and I had some time off of work coming up, so Tyler suggested that we get our money’s worth and come back. And by “come back,” he specifically meant to Pier 13, where we could get our nude beach life on. I, ever the cheapskate, agreed, because I’d be damned if I was going to spend twenty bucks to hike on the beach for an hour.

I spent the next few days looking at myself in the mirror, mapping out every imperfection, flexing my muscles in a senseless effort to make my flab look a little more... palatable to the senses. Tyler spent the next few days getting more and more excited about being naked on the beach.

I ordered us some new beach towels and tried to get myself excited about it, too. But, for all of my blustering, I’ve never really been a very brave guy. And for all of my memories of the seashore packed to the gills with regular-looking people, for all of my rationalizations that I am not the center of the universe, for all of my meditations on the fact that no one is there to ogle or ridicule my body, I was still nervous. I told myself that I was prepared for this, that I was going to do this, only to have a little voice inside me say, “You’re not gonna do it. Wuss.”

When the day arrived, I anxiously packed my bag with our beach towels, some snacks and drinks, and some sunscreen. I’d like to say I decided that I was going to be brave, and just let loose and have some fun. After all, we were going to be hours from anyone that we knew, and I had to believe that anyone that patronizes a nude beach is accustomed to seeing all different types of naked bodies. I’d like to say that, but I still hadn’t decided yet. I still wasn’t sure if I could actually do it or not.

It’s funny, having to rationalize the idea of being natural in nature. Having to tell yourself, “It’s okay to be naked.”

* * *

When I was a kid, I couldn’t stand wearing clothes. And I loved nature, in my own special way. I have vague memories of being a toddler and going outside to play with Josh, a neighbor boy that was around the same age. The second we were both outside, all of our clothes would immediately come off and we would sit around playing in the grass and the mud (I’m sure my parents absolutely loved that), eating dirt, you know, the kinds of things that stupid kids do.

At home, I was always running around in just my underwear. I probably would have been naked all the time at home, too, if my parents hadn’t compromised with me and told me that I didn’t have to wear clothes as long as I wore underwear. But, knowing me, I’m sure even that was a struggle most of the time.

It wasn’t until I was around nine or ten years old that I started getting really chubby. I was fairly average-sized up to around that point, although I was still a little bit bigger than my peers, because I remember being made fun of as a kid for being a little fat. My interests as a kid were mainly reading and cooking. I liked playing outside with my friends when we lived in a neighborhood that had a bunch of other kids around the same age as my sister and me, but I could (and frequently did) spend all day with my nose buried in a book, only stopping to grab a snack from the kitchen to tide me over through the next few chapters.

When I was nine, we moved from that neighborhood into a new construction development far away from all of my friends, and there weren’t any other kids in the neighborhood yet, so I didn’t have much to do with myself other than read and cook (and eat).

I made some new friends at my new school using my patented “self-deprecating humor” method. I found that people enjoyed it when I would make fun of how chubby I was, when I would laugh at the jokes made at my expense. People like people who can make and take jokes, so I let my skin crystallize in an effort to be liked. It worked to a degree, but I recall many moments spent in front of the bathroom mirror after a shower, analyzing my body and wishing that it could somehow be different, that people would look at me and not laugh.

And for all of my preaching of “not giving a shit what others think about me,” I carried that with me into adulthood.

* * *

So there we were again, just Tyler and me, in the parking lot outside of Pier 13. When we pulled in, I saw at least ten other cars parked there, and felt a lump in my throat. I had been hoping that maybe at eleven o’clock in the morning on weekday, we’d have a little bit more privacy. But we were here and Tyler was excited, so I shoved my nervousness down.

We unloaded our supplies from the car, and crossed the parking lot to the boardwalk. It was a beautiful day, with the sun high in the bright blue sky, and unseasonably warm, but not deathly hot like most days in Florida. Honestly, it couldn’t have been a more perfect day for nude sunbathing, which is probably why the parking lot was so full.

We moved quickly down the boardwalk and onto the bustling beach, looking through all of the different bodies to find a place to lay down our beach towels. Once we found a nice open area, we set up our little camp. Tyler immediately and excitedly jumped out of his clothes, and my eyes followed his cute little bare butt as he made his way into the ocean.

“This is amazing!” he shouted to me from his spot in the water. I absent-mindedly dug a few toes into the sand as I watched him having the time of his life. I glanced around and saw so many people without a care in the world, laying on their towels soaking up the sun, swimming in the ocean and enjoying the beautiful weather, walking along the shore with only their t-shirts on.

And I noticed that no one was looking at me. And I noticed that no one was looking at Tyler. Everyone was just doing their own thing, living their best life, and God damn it, I could live my best life, too. I looked at Tyler again, watching him splash around for a moment before coming back up to shore, naked and dripping.

He flopped down onto his towel and looked at me as I fussed over our portable radio. “What are you still doing with all of your clothes on? Come on, stop futzing around with that radio and get comfortable!”

The little voice in my head said, “You can’t do it. Wimp. These people are going to judge you. You’re too fat for the nude beach. Your body is an embarrassment.” I took another look around at the other beach-goers, and how free and happy they looked. At how free and happy I could be if I just pushed that little voice aside.

So I pushed that little voice aside. I let my inner child take over. I pulled my shirt up over my head and tossed it onto the beach towel. Okay, so far, so good. Just like any other day at the beach.

“That’s it, babe, you got this!” Tyler encouraged me.

I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and hooked my thumbs underneath the waistband of my swim trunks. ‘No going back now,’ I thought, and let myself be free.

03. Smash and Grab

2020-11-16T13:06:02Z

“Quest for Water”

3,092 words. Approximate reading time: 15 minutes, 27 seconds. Audio version here.

It’s amazing to me that I find myself excited about the idea of going on a trail. Marie, Tyler and I check around and decide that the St. Francis Trail in the Ocala National Forest will be our weekend’s destination. St. Francis is around eight miles long, and—as a group, supposedly, though I’m not really consulted—we believe that we can easily manage that. I’m not quite sure about that, since the memories of the last weekend, and the first trail we went on as a group, are still fresh in my mind. But still, that trail was seven miles, and we did manage it. And there is a not-so-small part of me that is both eagerly and anxiously awaiting going out into the woods again. Most of me is, as per the usual, fairly apathetic about everything, but that part that both wants and fears hiking is there nonetheless.

As we discuss and finalize our plans, my mind keeps returning back to the previous weekend, to the Black Bear Wilderness Trail that almost killed us. We were so wildly unprepared, but we were bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, so I guess that counted for something.

Upon arriving at the trailhead, we parked in a small lot that already housed several other cars. Marie had done the research on the trail, and said that her understanding was that this was a good trail for groups, families, that sort of thing, and that it was usually pretty well-populated. The number of cars in the parking lot certainly attested to that. We exited the car and headed for the trailhead. There was a short boardwalk section before we hit the loop, and right at the loop connector was a large sign with a map posted of the trail:

BLACK BEAR WILDERNESS TRAIL — 7.1 MILES — 3–4 HOURS

Tyler took one look at the sign and said, “Seven-point-one miles? That’s not that bad; we’ll have that done in like an hour!” The sign said “three-to-four hours,” but I had never really done a trail like this before, and Tyler sounded confident, so whatever.

It’s not like any of us are really experienced hikers or anything like that, but our harrowing experience last weekend seems to be burned in my mind. The others seem to be more excited about just going on another hike. I guess it’s getting me excited, too. But I still find myself wondering if we know what we’re signing up for here, if we really understand the responsibility we have to our bodies and our spirits that goes along with a long hike like this. I mean, God, we could have died last time!

Tyler decides that we’re going to commemorate our hikes on the whiteboard on Marie’s back porch. In big green letters, he writes “BLACK BEAR WILDERNESS: 7.1 MILES.”

He thinks for a moment and then says, “What do we remember from this trip? Let’s make little notes so we can keep track. Let’s see, I mainly remember seeing the river.” He writes down “RIVER” on the whiteboard.

Marie says, “It was really hot and there were tons of people!” Tyler writes down “HOT PEOPLE” on the board and laughs at himself a little bit before adding in a comma between the two words.

I think for a moment, and say, “No water.”

As we stood there deciding which way to go (left or right, right or left, it’s all a loop so does it really matter?), a man came hiking along back to the connector, having just completed the loop. He had a daypack on that was packed to the gills, poles in each hand, a big hat to protect him from the sun, heavy hiking boots and thick socks, and he smelled heavily of sunscreen and bug spray. He waved hello to us and continued on his way back toward the parking lot.

After he was out of view, Tyler laughed a little. “Wow, that guy seemed way over-prepared for this, huh? Come on, you can’t possibly need that much stuff for a little trail like this.” I glanced down at my worn sneakers, basketball shorts, and plain t-shirt. Hmm. We decided to go right, and continued on our way, our sneakers leaving treadmarks on the sandy ground in our wake.

“Okay, yes, that’s right,” Tyler says. “We were really not very well-prepared for that trip. Remember that guy that we passed right at the very beginning and how we made fun of him? I feel a little bad about that.”

We probably should feel a little bad about that. That guy was smarter than us for sure.

“So, we’ll just make sure that we’re better prepared for this weekend,” Marie speaks up. “I’ve got a backpack and some ice packs so we can load that up with whatever we need.”

“I’ll go ahead and get myself a pack, too,” I respond.

Tyler chimes in with a, “We should probably get new shoes, too. I definitely remember my sneakers not being very good on that trail.” I cringe at the thought of how much this is ultimately going to cost, but I nod in agreement, anyway, and start scrolling through Amazon on my phone in an effort to find a cheap backpack.

At around the one-mile mark, I felt the tiniest itch of thirst in my throat. I wasn’t dying or anything, but I could have gone for a sip of water. That’s when I remembered that we left the bottles of water in the car. ‘Great,’ I thought. ‘Well, I suppose we only have six miles to go, and then I can get a few gulps of hot car water. I can make it.’

We passed by a couple, a young man and woman around our age. Marie smiled and said, “Good afternoon!” The woman, her face red with heat and covered in sweat, scowled at us and continued on her way, her significant other giving us a quick look as if to apologize while he tried to catch up.

“Damn,” Tyler said. “What was her problem? We’re out here on this beautiful trail on this wonderful sunny day and we try to be nice and get a scowl? I mean, come on.”

At the two mile mark, my thirst really started to pick up. Tyler and Marie were thirsty, then, too. But all we had were those two bottles of water in Marie’s car, two miles away from us in one direction and five miles away from us in the other direction. I spoke up to remind everyone that we still hadn’t reached the point of no return; we could stop the madness and go back up the trail in the other direction. Marie and Tyler were groaning and complaining, but both remained determined to do the whole seven miles. “We’re so close to the halfway mark,” Marie said. “We just have to hit that point of no return; we have to give ourselves no choice but to finish.”

‘Ugh, fine,’ I thought. ‘I guess if everyone else can push themselves, I can, too.’

So we’ve settled on the St. Francis Trail to be the follow-up to Black Bear Wilderness. There’s a part of me that honestly expects that it’s not going to happen, like we’re all just talking a big game, but we’re actually going to end up spending our Saturday out on Marie’s muggy back porch, wiping the sweat from our brows as we play our five-hundredth round of UNO.

Still, the backpack I ordered came in, along with the special hiking socks and ice packs I added on to get that sweet free shipping. Tyler and I have gone to the mall and spent way too much money on hiking boots that I fear will only get used once, if at all. I made sure to pick up a couple of cases of bottled water while I did the grocery shopping, and also got some bug spray and sunscreen.

There’s no way anyone can say I’m not prepared. I’m really hoping that the sequel will be a little bit better than the original.

It was only about half a mile after the two-mile marker that everyone started really feeling it. Climbing up and down little hills, over giant tree roots, and balancing on a precarious dirt cliff where one wrong step meant a drop straight into the river really kind of takes its toll, you know? That was also around the point that we stopped seeing other people on the trail. I knew that meant that we had passed the point where most people give up and turn around. I was a little bit proud of myself, and a little bit bothered by the fact that my throat was dry, my feet were hurting, my socks were wet, and my shoes were muddy.

It’s hard to believe now that these are the places that give me so much joy and inspiration, that these are the places I can’t wait to go to, that I spend every weekday living for the weekend. That particular Saturday, Mother Nature stole all of my thoughts away from me, leaving me with only two things on my mind: the steady plodding of my feet and the need for water. It was a slow burn, taking over a quarter of the trail to really catch up to me, but it feels like a real smash and grab when I came to the sudden realization that I hadn't pulled my phone out of my pocket for a photo in nearly half an hour.

Had I been in a more rational state of mind, I might have been offended by this robbery, but my state of mind didn’t really allow for taking offense, so I just continued on: left, right, left, right went my feet on the ground.

At the three-and-a-quarter mile mark, I managed to croak out, “We’re still not at the point of no return yet. We can still turn around and get back faster.” It was futile, I knew. Everything that was going on in my head was surely the same thing that was going on in Marie’s head, and Tyler’s head. And by “everything that was going on in my head,” I mean the only thing I could think about was the movement of my burning feet along the trail. The scratch in my throat that was getting progressively worse and worse. The blind desire to just get through this, at any cost.

Finally, we hit the point of no return: the three-and-a-half mile mark. Technically, the point of no return was actually about five-hundredths of a mile past the three-and-a-half-mile marker, but who’s counting? We were close enough to say that we had no choice but to complete the loop to get back.

At this mile marker was a small pavilion with a couple of picnic tables. Tyler insisted we stop to rest. I insisted that if I stopped moving, I would never start moving again. So we continued on.

The thirst was maddening, it was the worst part of the whole thing. It was like I was experiencing real thirst for the very first time. Maybe I’m just being over-dramatic, but I could have sworn that I felt my throat closing up, giving up on the idea of ever being hydrated again and just resigning to allow me to die in the most horrible way imaginable.

But still, most of my thoughts had been stolen; I was working on pure instinct and adrenaline. Left, right, left, right, my feet kept moving, my legs kept lifting. I had no idea how I was doing it, but I knew that I had no choice. I just really wanted a sip of water. And here we were, right next to the river. God, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t tempted. Tempted to just jump in and drink that muddy water until I drowned.
But I didn’t. I mean, not only would that be terribly irresponsible of me to go and drown on the side of the trail, but then that would also mean that Nature won, and I refused to allow myself to give in to Nature, no matter how she tried to beat me down.

It’s the day of the St. Francis hike, and Tyler and I are at home prepping before we have to meet Marie. I’ve got the backpack loaded up; we’ve got our bug spray, we’ve got our sunscreen, we’ve got ice packs for the water, we’ve got snacks, we’ve got water. There’s no way we’re not good, right?

Tyler picks up my loaded backpack and exclaims, “Damn, this is heavy! Who is going to be carrying this?”

“I mean, I’ll do it,” I say to him with a shrug. “It’s really not that bad; I’ve got probably twelve bottles of water in there, but that’ll lighten up as we go through them on the trail.”

“No freaking way,” Tyler says. “Twelve bottles of water? That is way too much; we’ll never need it. I think that maybe two bottles each is going to be more than enough.”

Maybe I should trust my own judgment, but the pack is kind of heavy, and Tyler’s made it clear that he’s not planning on carrying it much. So I take out six bottles of water, leaving just two bottles each. Sure, this will be more than enough.

We eventually moved away from the river: left, right, left, right, left, right, God I’m thirsty, left, right, left, right, just a little water would be great, left, right, left, right. My thoughts wouldn’t come back to me. My words were all missing. My appreciation of the natural beauty around me was gone, dried up like my throat. All that remained of me was the steady drumbeat of my feet marching along the ground. I could barely feel my feet at that point (which was, quite honestly, a blessing), but I’d be damned if the reverberations of their movements didn’t shoot through my entire body, continuing to overtake my thoughts and leaving me like a soulless automaton, my only mission to continue moving forward toward the water I knew would be my payment for my sacrifice.

Left, right, left, right.

At around the five-mile mark, we passed another young couple. It seemed we were reaching the opposite side of the loop and had moved past the point where people give up and turn around. The couple smiled and waved at us, and we scowled in return, the only expression our red and sweat-covered faces could manage.

I suddenly found myself relating to the woman we passed at the beginning of the trail. She had looked similarly unprepared as us, and similarly determined to just get through this horrible torturous experience. I suddenly found myself understanding the hiker we had seen at the start of the trail, with his pack full of water and snacks, with his proper footwear to keep his feet from feeling like they were going to fall off at any moment. I suddenly found myself extra-annoyed at Tyler, his, “We’ll have that done in like an hour!” bubbling up in my mind from underneath the constant left, right, left, right, left, right. At that point, we had been in the hot sun without food, without water, for nearly three hours.

Tyler and I make it to Marie’s house around thirty minutes late. She’s already prepping, too. Her backpack has plenty of room for the subs we’re planning on picking up on the way to the trail, and she’s got extra ice packs to keep them cold until lunchtime. She also has some bottles of water that she’s planning on bringing, but we’re all so sure that we have enough, and that we’re not going to repeat our mistake from Black Bear Wilderness. We’ll be plenty hydrated this time around, we all assume, as Marie takes the extra water bottles out of her pack to make a little more room for our lunch.

I definitely trust my judgment on this one. Definitely. It’ll be fine. We’re good. We’re ready. We all pile into Marie’s car, and make our way to the Wawa for our little pre-trail pit stop.

Finally, after what felt like days, we reached the near-end of our journey, approaching the loop connector. A group of twenty-somethings passed by us. The young woman at the end of the line had a look on her face that seemed to indicate that she was already miserable. If only she knew what was in store for her, I might have thought, had I something on my mind aside from water. As it was, I just eyed the water bottle hanging off of her backpack, wondering how difficult it would be to just snatch that from her, and how much water I might be able to drink before she—no, that would be wrong, right?

We reached the car, and I finally stopped moving. It took every bit of strength left in me to remain standing until Marie could unlock the doors. I threw open the back door and collapsed into the seat, as Marie and Tyler did the same in the front. I clawed desperately for the first bottle of water I saw, and quickly drank half of it before handing it to Tyler. Tyler finished the bottle, then we cracked open the second one and split it between the three of us.

The hot water burned and soothed, and tasted like nothing I had ever had before. My throat was screaming at me to spit it back up while my brain was screaming at me to just get it down. But even after I managed to choke it all down, I was still thirsty. The pay for this mission was meager at best, and quite disappointing. We drove back home and limped miserably into the house, trying desperately to cool down, hydrate ourselves, and soothe our aching feet. It felt like we had seen death and come back from the brink, but only just.

On the drive to St. Francis, we talk eagerly about the hike. Eight miles, that’ll be easy, we all agree. We did seven miles last weekend, after all, and we’re better prepared this time; we have proper footwear, we have (supposedly) enough water, we have snacks, we can do this.

We pull into an empty parking lot at the trailhead and check our gear before starting off on the St. Francis trail. Tyler and I have on our brand-new hiking boots. I’m carrying my backpack, loaded up with a small bag of trail mix and two bottles of water each. We think we are prepared. We think we can do this. We think it will be no problem.

We’re three miles in when the water runs out and the thirst starts to kick in.

I wrote this for Survivor: LJ Idol, which is taking place over on Dreamwidth.

Voting is currently going until Tuesday for our current immunity challenge, and I'd appreciate a vote for me and my tribe if you like my work (eliminations are decided by tribe, so the more votes for my tribe, the longer I'll be able to stick around). Read all of the entries and vote for your favorite here!

My tribe is:
bsgsix
eeyore_grrl
gunwithoutmusic (me)
halfshellvenus
impoetry
lawchicky819
megatronix
minikin25
wolfden

02. Keel Hauling

2020-11-04T13:35:52Z

“Quest for Air”

1,400 words. Approximate reading time: 7 minutes. Audio version here.

I’ve got nothing.

I need to find some peace, some solitude, some time to be on my own, with myself, away from the pressures of daily life. I can’t find inspiration amongst the laundry and the dishes and the errands that seem to be ever-present, pulling my mind in too many different directions. I need to be centered.

I take myself to the forest alone, to the place where I’ve always been able to find inspiration before. I hope to come back from this exhausted and rejuvenated. I hope for that ache of loneliness to solidify the words in my mind. What I find instead, is the death of solitude by a thousand cuts.

The trailhead parking lot is full when I turn in and I grumble a little internally. If there’s one thing I dislike, it’s seeing other people on the trail. It kills that sense of being one with nature, and (if I’m being completely honest) I hate having to throw on a smile and shout, “Good afternoon!” with a cheery tone to someone who is just starting their hike after I’ve already gone five miles and am on my way back.

I shoulder my pack and start along the trail, already annoyed at the fact that there is a group of people maybe twenty feet in front me and a group of people maybe twenty feet behind. Does anyone enjoy this, seeing a bunch of random strangers following them on the trail? It kills the whole experience for me. Still, I press on, because I know that at a certain point, less experienced people will give up and I’ll finally find that peace I’ve been looking for.

The mood, then, becomes set by the first family I pass on the trail. A mother and father with two elementary-school-aged girls are just standing as a group in the middle of the trail while a third daughter climbs a tree that has fallen across the path. They see me coming and move to the side, and just as I am stepping over the fallen tree, the father tells his daughter to come down, and she screams. Right into my ear.

I’m still walking. When I hit a fork in the path, I go left, hoping that maybe everyone else will go right. Moments later, I am attacked by a dog with love; he’s jumping on me and begging for attention. This certainly seems familiar, since I have to go through it every evening with my own dogs.

“Sorry!” his owner says as she makes the barest of efforts to pull him off of me. “He just gets excited!”

I smile despite myself (the dog is pretty cute, after all), and I reply, “Oh, mine are exactly the same way,” before continuing on the path. I take a few deep breaths and try again to find my center.

Behind me, the scream of a baby (like, someone thought taking a three-month old baby out on a hike was a good idea; wonders never cease) peals out like church bells, interrupting my thoughts again. The lilting soprano of the baby’s mother joins in, “You’re okay, Andrea; you’re fine. It’s okay, Andrea; don’t worry.” I chuckle for a second at the thought of a baby named Andrea, a name my mind typically reserves for thirty-something-year-old women and not adorable little babies, but the universe is determined to stop any thoughts.

While baby Andrea screams in the background and her mother does nothing to rectify the situation, from somewhere beside me comes the temper-tantrum screaming of two young children. I don’t even know where they could be, these two children, seeing as how I am on the path. Their voices seem to echo throughout the woods, coming from all directions. The rumbling basso of their father starts up, “This is why we don’t ever do anything! Because you guys always want to do stuff and then you throw a fit when you don’t get your way and you stress us out!”

I don’t know where these people are, these players in this unholy symphony. I feel like I’m trapped in a horror movie; no matter how much I pick up the pace in an attempt to get away, the screaming of baby Andrea seems to come closer and closer, while the father and his temper-tantrum children surround me from all sides. Where exactly are they? It’s driving me crazy. This is not what I was looking for.

Still, I must press on. I’ll find it eventually; I always do. It would be quite a bit easier to find it if I could stop passing people every thirty seconds. People, dogs, babies everywhere. I don’t understand it. What are all these people doing here? I’ve never seen this many people in the woods before. I’m starting to feel like they were specifically placed for me, at these specific intervals, just to interrupt my thoughts every time they begin to coalesce.

Honestly, I’m a little sick of it. Is it too much to ask to have an entire state park to myself for a few hours? Really? Is it?

I feel like I’m drowning here. I come out here for peace and quiet and solitude and I find screaming babies and unbothered parents and adorably annoying dogs and their equally unbothered parents. But then the thought crosses my mind that maybe drowning is what I’m supposed to be doing right now.

When I go out into nature, it always finds a way to give me exactly what I need. I came out here wanting to be alone, but apparently I need to be bothered, I need to have my thoughts interrupted, I need to pee and I can’t risk stopping off of the trail because of all of these people.

There’s a moment of quiet and I step off the trail to take care of that last thing. No more than a few seconds after I finish and get back on trail, a lone hiker walks by and gives me a funny look. I sigh internally and hope that he enjoyed the show, then I decide to just give in. This is what I’ve been given; I might as well let myself experience it.

So I close my eyes and plunge under the water, holding my breath and waiting for the inevitable drowning. I let my concepts of peace and solitude by torn apart piece by piece, with every excited dog and every shrill scream of a child, with every couple that is clearly completely unprepared to be out here (seriously, they’re wearing jeans and long-sleeved black t-shirts in 84-degree weather), that was obviously dropped here without warning by the universe to keep me underwater.

I give myself to the water; I give myself to the rope that pulls me through it. I let the universe take over and stop trying to force it, hoping that I’ll emerge from the other side and find air, and life, again.

Two-and-a-half miles. That’s how long it takes me before I’m wrenched from the water, coughing and spluttering. I’m in a beautiful open area, the sun is shining, no one else is around, and things are finally, blissfully quiet. Conveniently, there is also a covered bench here. I whisper a small prayer of thanks to the universe for finally giving me exactly what I’ve been asking for this whole time: just a little peace, just a little quiet, just a little room for inspiration to come in and give me something beautiful to put down on the page, something awe-inspiring, something funny (but with just a little bit of heart), something real about the human condition and the things that we all experience in our lives, you know, something relatable.

I stop for a rest on the bench, and pull my notebook and pen out of my pack. I breathe in deeply, feeling the air filling my lungs for the first time in miles, and feel the inspiration wash over me. I open my notebook and put pen to paper as I feel my creator side take over. It’s almost automatic, when I can feel myself getting into a groove. The pen drags itself across the paper and I just know that I’ve got the perfect opening line for my newest insightful and beautiful little slice of genius. I read it back, almost excited to find out what my mind has come up with after all of this torture. And there, in bold black block lettering, reads:

“I’ve got nothing.”

I wrote this for Survivor: LJ Idol, which is taking place over on Dreamwidth. Voting is now open, and every vote for me and for my tribe helps bring us one step closer to a challenge win. If you liked this piece, consider supporting me and my by voting at this link: https://www.dreamwidth.org/poll/?id=24810

My tribe consists of the following contestants:

bsgsix
eeyore_grrl
gunwithoutmusic (that's me!)
halfshellvenus
impoetry
lawchicky819
megatronix
minikin25
wolfden

There's a lot of good writers this time around; as much as I'd love the support for just my tribe, I would really encourage everyone reading this to go over there and read and support any of the contestants! More readers is a good thing for anyone!

01. Quest for Fire

2020-10-24T16:22:59Z

1,262 words. Approximate reading time: 6 minutes, 18 seconds. Audio version here.

This was written for Survivor: LJ Idol, which is taking place over on Dreamwidth. You can vote for me (playing as gunwithoutmusic) and read the other entries and vote for your favorites by clicking here. I'd really appreciate the support!

After a quarter of a mile through the oak canopy, we emerge into a large open area, with tall, thin pines sparsely dotting the ground and waist-high grass threatening to choke off what’s left of the trail, returning it to a time before our brethren thought to cut a path.

I feel a single raindrop land on my arm. For a second, I worry. That’s so like me. We’re prepared for rain, but we also have four miles left, and the last thing I want to do is hike four miles in wet socks and boots. Still, worrying never made anything change, so I let the rain come. It does so in the form of a light mist, which, as it turns out, is quite welcome. It’s a hot day and we’ve been walking for hours, passing through multiple ecosystems, each one vastly different from the next, each one its own little world.

We move like invaders, but these worlds welcome us like old friends. The rain never strengthens past a light mist, the sun remains in the sky and shines down on us, and I feel refreshed and loved by the world around me. We stop for a moment here, just over the halfway point of our hike. I drop my pack to the ground and raise my arms to the sky, saluting the sun and feeling the stretch in my shoulders, that good pain that reminds me how exhilarated I’ll feel after all of this.

I shake my head in a futile attempt to release the combination of rain water and sweat that is soaking my hair, and I can feel my hair moving when I do so. It’s a bizarre feeling, something that seems insignificant, but leads me to reflect on where I’ve come from and where I am.

My hair’s never been this long before. I haven’t had it cut in over six months, at first because we weren’t allowed to get haircuts, but now because I like seeing the growth. I like seeing the outward change that reflects the inside. I like the way it curls up in the back and can never quite lay flat on the sides. I like the way it makes my balding less obvious. But it still shocks me when I shake my head and feel my hair moving.

I’m thirty-five years old, with the spectre of thirty-six looming just around the bend of the new year, and the thought crosses my mind that I’m not quite sure when exactly “mid-life” starts, and whether or not I’m in the midst of a “crisis” right now. I feel as though I’ve lived long enough for my regrets to finally outweigh my dreams, and isn’t that what a mid-life crisis is born from? If someone had told me a year ago that I would find myself miles deep into the state forest with my two best friends, saluting the sun and relishing the feeling of the rain in my shaggy hair, I’d laugh and say, “Sure, now pass me those cookies.”

But here I am.

This isn’t our first hike, and it won’t be our last. Our weekends have changed from spending all of our time on the couch playing video games to being outdoors, pushing our bodies to their limits and somehow finding the energy to go further. We soak in the sun, the rain, the trees, the flowers, the wildlife, everything we can, and pray that it will hold us for six more days, until we can find ourselves back home again, among the pines and the oaks and the palms. Something has changed in our lives. An invisible catalyst is pushing us out here; every weekend we all feel the pull, we all feel the need to get back to this place where we can feel both completely alone and part of something bigger at the same time.
All three of us are here searching for something.

We’re all on our own quests; the location may be the same, but the reason is different. I can’t speak to the reasons that my friends find themselves out in the forest. I don’t know what the call of the wild said to them when it spoke. As for me, though, I’m on a quest for fire. I’m tired of living my life with regrets. I’m tired of feeling old. I’m tired of feeling disconnected from the world around me. I’m tired of feeling tired.

These moments, where I can feel that good pain coursing through my muscles, where I can feel the cool rain soothing my burning skin, where I can know I am close to my limit, but have no choice but to push myself further, are the moments that remind me of who I am, or maybe who I should be. Out here, I’m able to forget about my regrets and my dreams, my past and my future, and just… be. There’s no greater feeling for me than just existing, just being here now.

I used to think that I would love to go back in time, back into my teenage body, but with all of the knowledge I’d acquired over the years since I was just a chubby nerd in high school. Back then, all I wanted to do was create. I wanted to paint, I wanted to write music, I wanted to be a poet, to be an actor, to give myself to the world and find love in return. I always felt like I could have been more than I became, if only things had gone a little bit differently. If only I had tried just a little bit harder. If only I had allowed myself to.

As an adult, I loved the thought of being able to do things over, do things differently, do things better. I loved the thought of being able to take the raw talent that I had back then and just add in a little bit of drive. But there’s no going back to that place. There’s no undoing the actions I took, or the actions I didn’t. For a long time, I lived my life with that philosophy, and allowed it to keep me down. I let my fire be extinguished by the fact that my past formed my present, which forms my future, and I resigned myself to a life without art, without nature, without love. And what is life without love?

I can’t ever go back, but I want that fire in my belly again. I want my dreams to outweigh my regrets again. I want to be bright-eyed and naive; I want to believe that I can do anything. That’s why I’m out here. I want to believe. Every time I find myself out here, in a strange mix of solitude and company, cradled by the tall grass and the pine trees, I find inspiration. I find my ability to create again. I remind myself that I might not be able to get rid of my regrets, but I can stop creating new ones and I can start creating dreams again. I can get that fire back.

I will find it.

The rain has stopped, and our break stops with it. I grab a bottle of water from my pack, then I slide the straps back over my shoulders. We’ve still got four miles to go. We’ve still got more worlds to see and be welcomed to. I still have dreams to create. As we wind our way through the sea of tall grass and back into another oak canopy, I feel a spark form in my belly, and a smile form on my face.

Spice Rack

2020-09-18T15:56:17Z

950 words. Approximate reading time: 4 minutes, 45 seconds.

There is a spice rack on my kitchen counter, comprised of eleven glass jars suspended by twelve metal hooks arranged in a four-by-three grid. Each jar is unlabelled, and each jar (including the missing twelfth jar, I assume) is filled with expired spices and covered in a thin layer of dust.

I have no idea what the spices are that are in those jars. I must have known at one point, but the years have left the spices flavorless and odorless, so I really don’t know just from looking at it if that’s basil or marjoram, or if that’s smoked paprika or just regular paprika. When I originally set up the spice rack, I foolishly told myself, “I am an expert cook; I can tell what these spices are by scent alone,” and proceeded to haphazardly fill the jars with whatever spices I had lying around.

Now, I just kind of glare at it whenever I walk by, and I keep my spices in the plastic bottles they were purchased in, in the cabinet just above my spice rack. I could clean out the jars and start anew, but instead I just glare at the spice rack and curse the inconvenience of my cabinet “organization system” that means I can’t see all of my various spices at a glance.

I’d love to just get rid of the spice rack altogether rather than allowing it to torment me through each and every day. But it was a gift from my husband, and so remains to serve as an example of what I do with gifts that I receive. How many things have I received over the years that I desperately wanted only to find that I didn’t really need them in the first place and would never use them?

Especially expensive electronics.

I can’t count how many times I’ve been gifted a tablet, a laptop, a phone, a smartwatch, whatever, only to spend probably a week playing with it (with much gusto, I might add), then setting it down somewhere and never picking it up again. Well, I do eventually pick these things up again, in order to look at them, shake my head, and say, “Wow, I really wanted this but then I never used it. Well, I should probably start using it again since I do have it, even if the technology is now outdated. But for now, I’ll just put it in this closet where it can gather dust and rot away and not be thought about.”

I remember when my husband and I were living in our one-bedroom apartment, and I told him that I would absolutely love a spice rack, to make things easier on me when I was cooking. So he purchased me this spice rack and I spent the first day filling it and setting it on the counter, and then I decided that I didn’t really feel too much like cooking anymore and started ordering delivery pretty much every day.

Can I blame the spice rack? Of course I can, though that’s probably not fair. It is an inanimate object, after all, and has no real motivation to make me fail in the objectives I set for myself. But I’m not interested in fair. I’m interested in blame-shifting. So I carry this spice rack around with me and let it remind me what a terrible person I am every time I walk into my kitchen.

I try to cover it up by piling up dirty dishes in front of it, but eventually I have to wash those dishes, and when I do, there’s that spice rack, just sitting there all inanimate and emotionless. And there I go, thinking about how awful I am and how I can’t manage to use gifts that people get me.

Part of me thinks that, as long as I got some enjoyment out of it, the gift was worth it. But then part of me thinks that everyone that’s ever given me a gift and seen it fall into disuse immediately looks at me with complete and utter disgust, and thinks to themselves that they’ll never put any thought into anything they give me again. Which is fair. But I can’t bear to be thought of that way.

So I continue providing this terrible spice rack a home, despite the constant attitude that I feel coming from it, slapping me in the face every time it catches my eye and seems to shout, “Remember me? Your husband bought me for you because he loves you and you’re too messed up to let anyone really love you!” What a dick. I really want to get rid of it, maybe get a new spice rack and start over, but then I also wonder what my husband might say in response to me getting rid of the spice rack.

He might say, “Oh, are you getting rid of that gift I gave you? What a surprise; you can’t hold onto anything that reminds you of love.”

Then I might say, “Don’t be melodramatic; it’s just a spice rack.”

Then he might say, “But that spice rack is a token of my love for you and the strength of our marriage, and you’re prepared to just throw all of that away, for what? A little counter space?”

Then I might say, “You’re absolutely right; I’ll put this spice rack back where it was and think about using it in the future.”

So really it’s just as easy, if not easier, to let the spice rack just sit there and judge me. Sure, I could get myself another spice rack, but would I even really use it? Better to have this constant reminder of what a bad person I am than to try and start fresh and change.

Thank You

2020-09-11T15:08:19Z

369 words. Approximate reading time: 1 minute, 50 seconds.

Do you remember
The first time we crawled through
Your bedroom window
To sit on the roof?
We played Emmylou Harris
On your cheap turntable
And watched the people
Playing tennis across the street.

We didn’t talk much,
Just sat and listened and watched.
Emmylou may have
Stumbled into Grace,
But I was too busy
Stumbling into love
To think about Grace myself.

Do you remember
The first time we pressed ourselves
Together in your twin bed,
The shock of our sudden love affair
Leaving us with no choice,
Forcing us into pretzels,
And sleeping like that?

Do you remember
The birthday trip to
That German restaurant,
The car getting a flat
On the side of the highway,
And that guy we both found cute
Helping us put on the spare?

Do you remember
Any of the things that
Linger in my mind?

Do you remember me?

I wanted to reach out,
To find you again,
To see how you’ve been,
But mostly to see
If you think of me
With the same frequency that
I think of you.

I wanted to be strong,
A person I had never been.
I wanted to be brave,
I wanted to be cool,
I wanted to let you know
How much you touched me,
And to find out
If I did the same for you.

I wanted to see
If my presence in your history
Was a bright and shining spot
Or if the pages of that chapter
Had been closed forever,
Left to gather dust
Beside the other memories
That never cross your mind.

I wanted to reach out
And tell you.

So I did.

I swallowed my fear
And I moved myself
To the place and time
Where we were together,
Where you changed me,
Where you helped me
Create a life that I could be proud of,
Where you helped me
Learn that love was not futile,
Where you helped me
Be a better man than I could have been alone.

I told you everything,
And waited for you to tell me everything, too.

But you replied, “Thank you,”
And I knew that I was alone.

What Can Happen in a Second

2020-09-04T14:04:39Z

1,989 words. Approximately 9 minutes, 56 seconds.

When I was a junior in high school, my father’s company decided to cease operations in their Atlanta branch. Because my father was a valuable employee of the company, he was offered his choice of branches to relocate to. One of the choices would have sent us to Fort Worth, Texas; one of the choices would have sent us to a planned community in Maryland; and one of the choices would have sent us to Orlando, Florida. Because my sister was in college in north Georgia at the time, my father ended up choosing to relocate to Florida so as to remain within driving distance of my sister. The relocation was due to happen over the summer in between my junior and senior years of high school.

For a seventeen-year-old kid, the prospect of picking up and leaving the life I had managed to create for myself was not enticing in the slightest. Here I was, master of my domain, getting ready to enter my ultimate year of high school, in which I could really basically run the place (I was filled with hubris even as a teen). So I hatched a plan with a friend of mine to relocate myself to her house as my family relocated to another state, that way I could finish out high school in the same town in which I came into myself.

Things worked out well in the beginning. My friend’s mother was a nurse and worked the overnight shifts. This meant that she would be asleep all day and gone all night, so my friend and I were basically completely independent. I had a car, and free rein to do whatever I wanted to. I had very few required classes left in school, so most of my senior year was to be taken up as a library aide, where I would effectively do nothing for a quarter of the day and get class credit for it. It was, for all intents and purposes, the dream.

Unfortunately, the fates dictated that I not, in fact, live the dream, and when my friend’s mother announced that they were being kicked out of the house they were renting and were unable to afford a three-bedroom apartment, I found myself whisked away to a new town and a new school, where I didn’t know anyone, where the schedules were different, where I was missing classes Florida required that Georgia didn’t… I was apoplectic, with good reason if I do say so myself.

So it should come as no surprise that, in the spring of 2003, I made the decision to attend my senior prom at the school where I had spent three-and-a-quarter years (nearly a fifth of my entire life at that point) already. My parents gave me their blessing, and, knowing that my 1988 Ford Bronco that was a hand-me-down from my grandfather wouldn’t make the trip to Georgia and back, handed me the keys to my mother’s car to use for the trip.

Things went well, for the most part, with the drive. I’m no stranger to driving long distances, and I actually quite enjoy solo road trips. I listened to whatever music I wanted to, I had drinks and snacks provided to me by my mother in case I got a little peckish, and I had a plan laid out for how exactly I would get up to Georgia.

My mother, ever the worrier, told me to make sure that I took the interstate bypass around Macon. She said it was faster to go that way anyway, and safer, since I didn’t have to go through a city center. I, ever the not-worrier, told her that I would of course take the bypass.

But as I got closer and closer to Macon, I found myself checking the highway maps at the rest stops. It certainly seemed, to my untrained eye, that avoiding the bypass could save me some time. After all, the bypass completely looped around the city and then reconnected with the main highway just north of it, whereas the main highway was just a straight shot through the city.

Surely, I thought to myself, it would make more sense to just go through the city. So I adjusted the route in my mind, and when I came up to the exit for the bypass, I breezed right by it, satisfied by my smart thinking and time-saving abilities.

Just after I passed the exit and began to drive into the city, clouds gathered above me, and a light mist of rain came down to blanket my car and the highway around me. Had I been seventeen years older, I might have read that as a sign to turn around and just take the bypass. I might have understood that maybe listening to my mother’s advice wasn’t a bad thing.

But I was not seventeen years older. I was just an eighteen-year-old kid that thought I knew better than everyone around me. So I proceeded on my self-selected route, determined only to “make good time” getting to my grandparents’ house. I was about four hours away from my family in Orlando, and about four hours away from my family in Atlanta, when I realized my hubris had gotten the better of me.

Driving in the right-hand lane, I found myself behind someone that was moving incredibly slowly (by which I mean they were driving the speed limit in the rain), and I felt the need to pass them. I glanced into my rear-view mirrors to make sure that it was safe to do so, and saw a tractor-trailer in the left-hand lane coming up behind us. It seemed, to my untrained eye, that there was plenty of space in order to safely do this simple passing maneuver, so I conveniently ignored the message that “objects in this mirror are closer than they appear” and began to move over into the left-hand lane.

In my memory, everything that happened next is stretched out into an almost endless period of time, but it really happened over the course of probably a few seconds.

As I moved my car over to the left-hand lane, the tractor-trailer continued to gain on me. The roads were slick, and there was no time for the driver to slow down. I moved my car to the left, and the front of the enormous truck clipped the back-left corner of my mother’s small Altima. I watched in shock from the driver’s seat as the world outside my windshield shifted and turned.

Every muscle in my body tightened as the driver’s side window exploded inward, sending bits of glass scattering all over the car. The bag of chips that I had been munching on similarly exploded, leaving the inside of the car looking like the aftermath of a birthday party featuring a pinata filled by a person that hates children.

And I was greeted by the grill of this truck, spewing hot air into the car, leaving the left side of my face feeling kissed by the non-existent sun.

This was not the first car accident I had been in, and it (surprisingly) wouldn’t be the last. I am lucky enough to have the ability to quickly assess a situation and calm myself down if I feel that remaining calm is warranted. So, as the truck dragged my car down the road, I turned my gaze to the passenger window, and I thought to myself, “Well, fuck; I guess this is happening.”

I relaxed my body, content in the knowledge that being all tensed up wouldn’t really make this situation go away, and watched through the passenger window, idly wondering whether or not the truck driver had even noticed me, and whether or not I should be worried about the fact that we were approaching a small overpass. My wonderings were answered by another blast of hot air, followed closely by the airbag deploying in my face. I did, as it turns out, need to be worried about the small overpass, as the front end of my car was in just the right position to hit the guard rail and be completely ripped off. I don’t really know that the airbag deployment helped, per se, but it did at least alert me to the fact that something else had gone very wrong.

A few hundred feet after the overpass, the truck slowly came to a stop on the side of the road. Shaken, but apparently not injured in any way, I climbed over to the passenger side of the car, pushed open the door, and stepped out of the car. I had only a moment to survey the damage and feel the light misty rain on my face before the truck driver jumped from his truck and screamed at me about what an idiot I was and how much money I had cost him.

So there I was, a four-hour drive from anyone that I knew, standing next to my mother’s twisted shell of a car, being berated by a fat, greasy man in his mid-40s. I don’t really remember much about that. I think I just sort of tuned him out after a while. I don’t know what he thought screaming at me would really accomplish, but I knew that there wasn’t anything I personally could do at that point, and I didn’t need that extra stress. So I just stood by the side of the road and pretty much gave up on life.

When the ambulance arrived (I don’t remember calling one, and I doubt that truck driver would have given enough of a shit about me to call one, which… fine, whatever, I was walking around unharmed), I felt that I had no choice but to take a ride to the emergency room. I mean, I guess I could have stood there on the side of the highway for another several hours waiting for someone in my family to come get me, but that seemed unwise, so into the ambulance I went.

I sat in the emergency room waiting room for over an hour. There were no other people waiting. When the doctor finally took me back to examine me, there were no other patients in any of the beds. I thought maybe they were busy initially, but, the more I think about it, the more I’m remembering that I only recall seeing one other person (the doctor) during the entire four-hour period that I was waiting for my grandparents to come pick me up.

So it is now apparent to me, as an older and wiser man, that I had been transported to some episode of The Twilight Zone and was in very real danger of having some ironic twist happen to me, like my entire family coming to get me and somehow also ending up in wrecks with tractor-trailers and maybe we were all actually in that waiting room the whole time but we couldn’t see each other because it turns out it was purgatory.

But in reality, I just sat around and stared at the wall for a few hours until my grandparents popped in and carted me back up to Atlanta.

I did manage to make my senior prom still, although one of my other friends had to drive, for obvious reasons. And my parents saw the car before me (reminder: it was a twisted, crumpled shell from which I shouldn’t have escaped completely unscathed), so they were just so happy that I was alive that I didn’t even really get into too much trouble. All in all, I’d say things worked out about as best as they could in that situation.

And I’d like to say that I came out of it with a newfound wisdom and cautiousness while driving, but it would take a few more incidents (par for the course for me; the six accidents before that could have just been crazy flukes and had nothing to do with my driving abilities, or lack thereof, as the case may be) before I really learned my lesson.

Promptness

2020-08-31T11:57:44Z

I had mentioned, in one of my personal posts, that I was looking for ways to get myself to continue to write, post-Idol. My understanding is that another mini-season is coming up soon, in the vein of what I had talked about wanting to see from Idol: basically a series of exhibition matches, where no one is eliminated and everyone just writes.

I've said before that I probably wouldn't do another regular season of Idol. I may have been too quick to say that; I really do sort of miss it and I can see myself competing again in another regular season. This season was hard on me, emotionally and mentally, but I think I am strong enough to handle it again. I think the thing that really scares me is the thought that I won't be able to top Season 11's performance again, that I'll sign up for another season of 130 people and end up in, say, 125th place. Would that really happen? Probably not. Making the top 4 this season means that, in the next regular season I compete in, I would have some name recognition, so I'd be pretty much guaranteed to get to at least the halfway point, assuming I didn't run out of gas before then. But still. I could find myself getting easily demoralized by the process.

Then again, the next time a regular Idol season rolls around, I might be a much stronger person and able to weather an earlier elimination much more easily. After all, I did get to the top 4 this season, so I know that it's not for lack of talent that I might get the boot early next time around.

I suppose it's not really worth talking about, though. One never knows what may happen in this life. I have a real issue with over-analyzing everything that ever happens to me, and trying to think of every possibility for my future, so I don't ever find myself surprised by something. But that's so unrealistic. I don't think I'll ever be able to stop myself from doing that completely; it's just the way my brain works. But I can harness that power for good, I think. I just need to work out that muscle some more.

Anyway, there is a big chance that I may enter this upcoming mini-season, whenever it is announced. It seems more up my alley right now to not have an actual "competition."

In the meantime, I have decided that I'm going to give myself prompts to write about. My plan is to give myself a prompt on Sunday or Monday, and give myself until Friday to write something and post it here. The idea of writing fiction is causing a minor feeling of panic in me (even though this is a project of my own design, for me alone, and there is absolutely nothing at stake), so I may stick to what I know, for right now anyway. It's more important to me that I just be writing, rather than trying to force myself into a box. I can save that for Idol.

So, with all of that out of the way, my prompt for this week is:

What Can Happen in a Second

If anyone wants to join me in this endeavor, please do! We can play it like Idol and you can put a link to your entry as a comment on this post, if you like. I'd love to see stuff from the other writers on my friends list, as one of the things I enjoyed most about Idol was the reading.

My entries about the prompts and my pieces for the prompts will be public entries, so that if anyone feels like joining in with me, they can. Otherwise, be on the lookout for more from me toward the end of the week. In opposition to my attitude during Idol, I will most likely take the whole amount of time I'm giving myself, because otherwise there's not much point. Maybe this will help me learn to self-edit better without over-editing, which has always been a problem for me.

31. Open Topic

2020-08-19T18:20:03Z

2,100 words. Approximately 10 minutes, 30 seconds. Audio version here.

I know that I’m supposed to do free writing by longhand, but I don’t really have a notebook or anything that I can write in, so I’m doing it through the computer screen. Does that work as well? Is there some magic inherent in writing it out longhand? I know that it’s definitely better to physically write out notes and stuff, because our brain doesn’t really hold onto things as easily when we type them, but does it work the same for free writing, too? I’ve never free written; I couldn’t tell you. I guess I’ll find out after I’m done with this free writing session. I think that you can definitely type more stuff in thirty minutes than you could hand write in thirty minutes. And by “you” I mean “me.” I can definitely type faster than I can hand write.

Is this supposed to be giving me ideas? I’m supposed to just write and write and write and not stop for thirty straight minutes? I’m at work; I don’t think I can do that. I’m stressed out a little right now. I guess it’s supposed to be like, “Write whatever you want!”

Oh, I’ll write whatever I want, alright. I’ll write whatever I want for thirty straight minutes and we’ll see if it goes anywhere or gives me any ideas. This sort of feels like the way I always write, though, just without an idea to start from. I keep thinking about breathing, writing about breathing, writing about breathing? Writing about breathing? What could that be? How do I write something about breathing? How do I look myself in the eye and say that this piece is going to be about breathing? Where can I go with that anyway?

It’s been five minutes. Five minutes. Can I do this for another twenty-five minutes? Do I have to? I know that I read about this technique and something about it stood out to me. I don’t know exactly what it was, but it seemed like a good idea. It seemed like things were pushing me to do this, this free writing thing, to help me come up with something really, really excellent for this piece.

But all I can think about is breathing. Breathing, breathing, breathing. It’s so important when I’m doing yoga. Was I thinking I might relate this whole thing to yoga? Yoga sucks right now. Maybe I’ll get better at it, but it sucks right now and I’m not good at it and it’s hard as hell to keep breathing when I’m doing yoga.

Stupid video yoga instructor, all smiles and light, telling me to breathe easy while holding myself basically upside-down and twisted into a pretzel. She doesn’t have any trouble breathing, why should I? I know why she doesn’t have any trouble and I do, but I don’t really want to talk about that. Is that what I’m supposed to talk about? I mean write about? I always write like I’m just talking to someone; maybe that’s why I like to say, “talk about,” instead of “write about.”

Oh, crap. My mind went blank for a second. I was trying to write and then I just... didn’t. It’s been another five minutes already. I think. When did I start this? I don’t remember now. That doesn’t bode well. How long am I going to keep going with this until I’ve convinced myself it’s been thirty minutes? Fifteen minutes? Twenty minutes? Has it been thirty minutes yet? No, just one more minute.

This sucks. My head is swimming and I can feel the ideas there, so many ideas of things to write about, but I can’t just grab one and put it down on the page. I don’t feel good about anything I’m thinking, about anything I’m doing.

In the back of my mind, over and over and over and over again, I just keep hearing, “breathe, breathe, breathe, breathe.” My mind really wants me to write about breathing. How do I write about breathing? How do I make this funny, how do I make this compelling, how do I prove to myself and to other people (that are just reading this and judging judging judging) that I have what it takes to really put something great together?

Breathe, breathe, breathe, breathe. Stop telling me to breathe. Stop telling me to write about breathing. I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to breathe.

There is it again, blank. When I tell myself I don’t want to breathe, I go blank. It’s like my mind is giving me a big, “hey, screw you, too, buddy!”

Breathing. Drowning. I remember drowning. Or almost drowning. Twice, as a child. When I was a toddler, I fell into a pool and drowned. I remember it, actually, in a vague, dreamlike sense. It’s very hazy, this old memory, but I remember it. I remember the feeling of sinking, sinking, sinking into the water. I didn’t know what was happening. I couldn’t breathe. There was light above me. Where was everyone? A hand reached down and grabbed me, pulled me up. I don’t remember anything after that.

I remember drowning. When I was seven and I went to the water park with my friend and his parents. I was in the wave pool. It was nice and calm for a few minutes, then the waves would start for a few minutes, then it was nice and calm again.

I wasn’t supposed to be back there. Little kids aren’t supposed to go past a certain point; the waves are too rough for little kids to be in safely.

But I didn’t have a choice. The waves pulled me back there. I remember being against the wall, struggling to keep my head above water. I was a decent swimmer but I couldn’t keep my head above water. I couldn’t breathe. Someone grabbed me. Some nameless stranger saved me and took me out of the pool. We climbed up a side ladder and he helped me into a chair, where I waited for my little heart to stop beating so quickly and wondered where my friend and his parents were.

Breathing, breathing, breathing. It’s been another five minutes. Is that fifteen now? I’m close. This is maybe a little easier than I think.

People like me.

People like me. Breathe, breathe, breathe.

I could make this the piece. Just this. Thirty minutes of free writing, thirty minutes of just getting into my brain, thinking about breathing, thinking about drowning, thinking about all of the times that I’ve died and been reborn. Not in a literal sense, but you know, spiritually. Maybe in a literal sense, too. My husband thinks that every time we have a near-death experience, one version of us actually did die, but that’s a different universe than the one we’re in, so I don’t know what good it is to really think about it.

How many times have I died? More than I can count. I’ve drowned, I’ve been locked inside a burning house, I’ve flown through the broken windshields of cars, I’ve slashed my wrists on purpose and on accident, I’ve died so many times. But I’m always reborn. I’m always just here. I’m always just me.

But shouldn’t I be being reborn into something better? Breathe, breathe, breathe, breathe. Shouldn’t I be something different than the person I was before I died? Maybe I am, maybe I’m not. I’m so damned stubborn that I think that maybe I’m just willfully defying the universe, its signs, and its attempts to reset me, to rebirth me. Maybe that’s why I’ve died so many times.

But if I had a catchphrase, it would be, “don’t tell me how to live my life.” I won’t let anyone tell me how to live my life, least of all some obscure “universe” or “power that bes” (Bes? Is? Power that is? The powers that be). I don’t want to be beholden to some mysterious entity that thinks it knows what’s best for me better than I do.

What sucks is it does know what’s best for me, I think. I should have listened when I was told to leave early and be there for the water heater repair. I could have caught the damage the contractor did and I could have had him fix it while he was still there. Now I have to deal with the company again and I have to fight and I have to be tough and I don’t want to be any of those things. I just want to be nice, I just want to be happy, I just want to breathe.

I want to hold my yoga pose and breathe, and not feel like I’m dying. Am I dying when I do yoga? Are there versions of me that go into downward dog and promptly have a heart attack and collapse on the floor? I could believe it. I can stand to lose a few pounds. But that’s why I’m doing yoga. That’s why I’m trying to breathe. I do feel like a different person every time I finish a yoga session. Maybe I’m dying. Maybe I’m dying every single day. Thirty days of dying for weight loss. I should market that.

Blank again. Five more minutes. What is that I’m up to, twenty now? I’m pretty sure that I’m at twenty. So, ten more minutes and then I’m good. Still thinking about breathing. Can’t stop thinking about breathing. But that’s what this whole thing has been about, after all, hasn’t it?

Breathing, breathing, breathing. Dying over and over. How many times have I died? How many times have those around me died? I’m surrounded by death, it feels like. My best friend died. My other best friend died. My family is dying. My husband’s family is dying. Everyone is dying all of the time. Everyone has cancer, everyone is sick, everyone is old, everyone is dying. It’s all I know anymore.

That’s not true. It’s not all I know. But it feels like I do it a lot. Dying, that is. Breathe, breathe, breathe. Gotta breathe if you don’t want to die. Gotta keep typing if you want to have any chance of getting anything usable out of this experience. I meant to type “experiment,” but I typed “experience.” What does that tell me? What is the lesson there?

What is the lesson in anything, ever? Why am I always dying? Why can’t I just read the signs and know what they’re saying to me? Everything is so conflicted. Do I put myself out there, do I hide myself away, do I follow this path, do I write about this thing, do I not write about this thing... strategy, strategy, strategy.

Twenty-five minutes. I think I can get through this. Should I make this it? Should I make this my piece? I kind of want to. I kind of want to say, “Screw it.” I kind of want to say, “Here. You get what you get.” But even if I do just make it this, it doesn’t have to be “you get what you get.” Even this nonsensical rambling can have some value. I always want people to have more insight into my thoughts... What if I was just... this? What if I was just raw?

Would it make a difference?

I don’t know what I’m hoping to get out of anything anymore. I had plans, I had goals, but they seem to shift by the day, the hour, the minute. Maybe it wasn’t me that had those goals. Maybe the person that had those goals is lying on his living room floor lifeless, waiting for someone to discover him. Maybe I’m a new person now, with new goals, with a new direction.

That seems... like a strange way to think. I know I’m dying, all the time. When I drive forty-five freaking minutes to work and forty-five minutes home... how many times have I died on that commute? How many Seans have been left on the side of the road so that this particular one may live? And what does this particular Sean have to give that’s so fucking special and important that all of those other ones can die just to keep me going?

They all had hopes. They all had dreams. They all wanted things to be better for themselves, for their friends, for their family. They all wanted to breathe.

It’s been thirty minutes. I guess I can be done writing now. I don’t know if I got anything out of this, but since this morning I haven’t been able to get the last line out of my head, and that’s as good a starting point as any other.

“I close my eyes, and just breathe.”