We supply our troops with pine resin 

You like to pretend the things you do are other things, which must be performed, to prevent dangers. You like to pretend the food you eat is small animals you have caught. A mighty hunter you are not, but it's okay to pretend. Everyone says that. You wear an army surplus jacket, and attend a high school across the street from the empty mall and the movie theater. You like cats. You live upstairs from a small thrift store that sells clothing and crystals. You walk to school. You don't ride your bike anymore, because you have trouble balancing. You try to ask the right questions in school, but sometimes you have trouble understanding what they are really asking. You eat lunch with your friends Kylie and Susan. You watch tapes of your mother dancing when she was younger. You can't dance ballet, but you do tap. You tap dance like nobody else, which is not much of an accomplishment when you don't know anyone who tap dances.

Interview with Wren Hawthorne 

Occupation: None, Student.

Hobbies: Reading. I like watching movies. Arguing with Diana. We both enjoy it, and neither of us ever win.

The strangest thing you have ever seen: I went to a yard sale once, most of the stuff they had for sale was junk, it was one of those sales where the intent is to get rid of a bunch of stuff, not to make money. But they had pickled pig embryo in a jar. That was wild. Diana wanted me to buy it, but it creeped me out.

Favorite movies: The Big Sleep, Napoleon Dynamite, A Serious Man, The Big Lebowski.

Favorite conspiracy theory: That's more Diana's thing then mine. Yeah ask her, she'll get a kick out of it.

Worst memory: Probably the night my mom died? Yeah, I'm gonna say that's it.

Favorite word: Pontificate. Use that one in casual conversation, spice things up a little. 

The shelters 

Electric fan whirring. Water dripping from rusted pipes. Shelves of canned food. And nobody has been down here since the early nineties. If the shelter could wonder anything, it'd probably wonder if they'd forgotten about it. 

One day fire will strip the earth of all it's trees, but the shelter will not be harmed.

Three beds. One box with a television in it. Two Bibles, the kind the Gideon's put in hotel rooms. And on the wall, a picture of you.

Sunset on snowhomish 

"I always thought he would come back, but he didn't. He drove off, toward higher places, and brighter spaces. And I stayed here. That's what folks do around here, they stay. They perch at their windows, and stare at the Puget sound. It's quiet, and still. Kids around here ride skateboards and bikes, and go on meaningless adventures, and journeys with no destinations. It's either that, or nothing. And the pines grow higher and higher, and I'll bet you they'll keep growing when I'm gone. Good. Good, I can feel the boneman beckoning me like an old friend, telling me he'll show up soon, and take me to a cool and flat place, and lay me down beside the grape vines. God bless you. I never had children, and I never learned your names, but God bless you all the same. May I be a mother for the nameless. May my children be all the little children with serious eyes, and gray unsmiling faces. May God bless. May God bless."

(she is yanked off stage by a hooked cane. that's vaudeville, sha-la-la-la.) 

Maybe paint by numbers

You rode the greyhound bus to work by morning and back home by night. Winters were the worst, because the room you worked in had no windows, and the sun would rise late and set early. Days would go by without you ever even seeing the sun. You weren't really bothered by this initially, but it crept up on you. 

Eventually, you came up with a solution. You ate your lunch on the roof.  That way, you got a tiny bit of light. 

Someone else ate up there too. You never asked his name, or talked to him. It was enough to enjoy his company. It was enough for both of you.

Interview with Edmund Adams 

Edmund, You're an accomplished journalist, but you're releasing a book this year. Could you tell us a little about it?

Sure, of course. It's a nonfiction book, so it isn't really so different from my previous work, but it's definitely a departure. It's called Suburban Dysfunction, and it's about Emerald Springs, which is a town near Camano. A storm hit it a while back, and it never really recovered.

That's something special about your writing, it's almost exclusively nonfiction, but people still find it captivating and interesting.

That's right, there are a lot of people who say that nonfiction isn't interesting, and I think that's because they're used to reading boring nonfiction. But... It's storytelling, is what it is. I write what I see, and I try to get as many peoples input as I can. With Emerald springs, what we have essentially is a post-apocalyptic environment. These people are isolated from the world, geographically. They... Nobody came to their rescue when it all went down. They had to save themselves.

You've previously referred to this book as your "great american novel" any elaboration?

Yeah, sure. This isn't a novel, obviously, and I was being partially facetious when I said that, but I think that, yes, this is a very american work. Probably the most of all my works.

How so?

Well, okay, to me america is in some ways, a stained couch left beside a road, but in many other ways, it is also broken power line. And Emerald Springs, aesthetically, is at halfway point between those two images.

Thank you for agreeing to this interview.

Yeah, no problem.

Bunny 

One: He rides a skateboard

Two: You do not know his parents. 

Three: He swims in the Puget sound during the warm seasons.

Four: You have never heard him speak.

Five: He rides with arms stretched beside him, and his face perfectly blank. 

Ooh this sounds fun...I'm going to try this and write without revision, see what happens...

Once, there was a star. It was happily living in its little niche in the sky, shining brightly, not caring if anyone noticed it or not or if the dark pollution in the earth below was causing it to be unnoticed. It just was. It had no choice but to be there, hanging in the sky. 

But the threads that held it there broke one day--gradually, ever so gradually--until it was hanging in it's place in the sky, a silvery tear forming in its eye (or perhaps stars do not possess eyes and were not created with them. I do not know). It felt like a tooth that was about to fall, about to leave it's home and be...

Replaced.

And it felt like it couldn't let go. It couldn't, because if it did, it would lose everything.

But the whole star was now hanging by a thread--its entire weight depending on the strength of it. If it fell, it fell.

It wondered if it would break. If it would be half a star, or a quarter of a star. If complicated math would be involved to find out what fraction of it's size it would be after the fall. How do you even find the area of a star, or half a star for that matter? It did not know. It had never been to school, because it was attached to the sky, all alone. It could not learn anyway, not even on zoom by watching little black screens unmute and talk to each other.

Zoom did not exist in space. And no one could give the stars a computer, anyway, since each star was attached in place. It could never move.

The star wondered what would happen to it. If it broke, would someone find it? Would anyone care and look up to see where it had fallen from? Would anyone be sad that it had fallen?

Perhaps the thread would not break, it told itself. Perhaps some threads on some stars break, and one stays. Perhaps it didn't need to worry.

And then there was an awful noise, a sawing sound.

The star's time had come.

It watched in horror as the thread split, unraveled, as it suddenly became aware that this was the end.

And then it snapped in two and the star fell, and fell, and fell...

Until it was no more. 

A couple more, because I want to.

Tummler in corpse paint 

You hadn't heard any of their songs, and didn't know any of their names. But you had bought a tin of face paint, and a ticket. And now you were here. It was late, and you were miles away from home, surrounded by strangers. Music that sounded like sludge rolled over you. The people dancing around you were more than strangers. They were children of a past generation, awake in white paint and leather, screaming strange words. Five times, people asked to see your hand, and you obliged. You were grateful that they asked, and more grateful when they stared at it, studying it's ridges and holes. Nobody ever asked before. They stared at it, when they thought you weren't looking, and tried to avoid looking, when they realized you had noticed, but they never asked. Their honesty was refreshing. It felt like a blessing. It felt like renewal. You felt anointed by their whispers, their smiles, their painted faces. You dances, and it wasn't a practiced motion, it was wild, and free and rhythmless. You had never felt so proud to be alive.

The sick seed 

"I was probably eleven when he first spoke to me. I was in the backyard, climbing a tree. I almost fell a couple of times, but I made it to the top. And that's when it happened. A voice from deep in the Earth spoke to me. Boy, it said. You are a secret king of this world. You wear no crown, and command no nation, but nonetheless, you will rule. You will split the world in two, and rule a remnant of what you have destroyed. You will be an ivory tower, a light for the weak. You will hold the hearts of the masses captive. You will be Cain. You will be King. The bad son. The sick seed."

Diana Zhu speaks 

Favorite movies:

Mister Lonely, It's a Wonderful Life, Coraline, Anything starring Buster Keaton. 

Hobbies 

I did scrapbooking for a while, but eventually that turned into making collages. I love collages. It's the art form of the future. I also love watching movies, and arguing with Wren.  

Favorite animal

Aliens.

Worst mistake 

Dyeing my hair green. I make it work, though. 

Favorite conspiracy theory

Oh wow. Wren put you up to this. They're not conspiracy theories, for the last time, they are conspiracy truths! 

Favorite band 

They Might be Giants. Are they Giants? The world may never know.

The collected thoughts of the Glass Eye Collector

There is a line of thinking, that love is a beautiful, divine force of good.  I'm not sure that's true. I think that it's like anything, it can be good or bad. It can be twisted. It can be corrosive.

I remember there was a group of old people in my neighborhood who would go around wearing burlap sacks over their heads with holes cut for their eyes. They would go to people's backyards at sunrise and sit there until the sun set. They stayed in our yard one day, and my father made them sandwiches.

I have never been in a fight, but I would like to be.

When I first saw Steamboat Willie, I looked at the face of Buster Keaton, and thought, here is a man, here is a saint. His expression never shifted from silent, all-encompassing patience.

They provide our stores with cans of Vienna sausages

When it grows late, you draw your army surplus jacket around yourself, like a cloak. You hide in it like a fortress against against a storm and wait for sleep to find you. If that fails, you go to your parents door, and listen to your mothers snoring, or whispering to each other. Sometimes a train goes by, but you have grown accustomed to the sound. You sleep and dream of soft southern winds and the crash of waves against dilapidated boardwalks. 

I'm just gonna post the many stories I never finished:

To Seal a Universe 

Everyone knows that it is quite literally impossible to seal a universe. So, when I, the star student witch who always got full marks, had made a mistake on my presentation about the universe of the evil beasts and conjured up a rip in the universe, it definitely meant that our world was about to crumble. Evil beasts were slowly flooding the peaceful world in which there was harmony with all kinds. And there was no one to blame but me.

It had been a particularly normal day, in which Mrs. Eryn was telling everyone to start giving their presentations on the different universes. Everyone else had gone, and then I was the last one. I started by using my finger to draw out images of the beasts that lived in Verikon, when I accidentally made a mistake. Instead of using my wand to add special effects to make the beasts seem more lifelike, my wand seemed to be possessed. It swiped straight down, and a loud crack could be heard from miles.

Immediately, I tried to swipe up to seal it, but obviously it didn’t work. Instead, it made the crack even bigger, and shadowy claws seeped through the cracks. All the students ran away, screaming, panicking. I could hear people talking about the “girl” who ripped a hole in the universe and allowed a passageway for the beasts of Verikon to enter. 

I ran away from the building, knowing this was definitely all my fault. If only I hadn’t chosen to do a presentation on Verikon. If only I didn’t use my wand to add special effects. If only…

As I heard more voices talking about me, about how this problem was definitely because of me, I scrambled to a corner to hide. I wished I could disappear, as the voices seemed to get louder and more panicked. I was supposed to be the one who would be brave enough to help solve the problem, but no, instead I was away, hiding in a corner like a weakling.

“Hey there, Keyra,” a voice said behind me. I turned around to see a mysterious boy who had strange blue eyes. Most witches had green eyes, like mine, which were a pale green. But I had never seen one with blue eyes before.

“Who are you?” I asked.

The boy smiled. “Many things.” 

Hazelwood

Drawing in a deep breath, Asteria slowly went over to the ladder, and climbed up to the attic. It was dark, very dark, and smelled musty. She clicked on the flashlight, and could see that the attic was very old. Suddenly, she heard a spooky voice behind her, as if whispering to her. She whipped around, but saw nobody. Nothing. Could it be….a ghost?

As if answering, an almost completely invisible figure seemed as if to appear. It felt like an illusion. When Asteria reached out to touch it, it disappeared. She felt like she should say something to this….ghost, even though she never really encountered one before.

Finally, she found her voice. “Hi. I’m….I’m Asteria. Who….who are you?”

In barely a whisper, she heard a reply. “My name is….Charlotte.” 

Asteria, almost afraid, said quietly, “Why…why are you in the attic?”

“Because I cannot get out,” Charlotte said. 

“But….why?” Asteria asked, a bit nervous.

Charlotte’s figure shimmered a little, and seemed to be a little more solid. “Because my uncle trapped me in here. Let me ask you. Why have you taken interest in me? No one else has even come in here since I….”

“Why did your uncle trap you in here?” Asteria asked gently.

“Because…he couldn’t bear to see me. Asteria, was it? Asteria, what year is it? I can’t tell time anymore,” Charlotte said.

“The 21st century. The early 2000s,” Asteria replied. “Why do you ask?”

Charlotte suddenly seemed dimmer. “I’ve been here since the late 17th century. Ever since then.”

Asteria gently rapped her knuckles against the wood of the attic. “This place? Really? Did you….ever wish you could get out?”

Charlotte sighed. “Often. But there is no way out for me. As a human, I was locked in. As a ghost, I am trapped in. No way out. But you could….”

“I could what?”

“Nevermind. It’s too much to ask.”

Cool idea! Here, let me see...

In which an interview is finally secured with 083, Excerpt: (Replies are numbered courtesy of professor Kaspar, movements are documented courtesy of doctor Meridian)

What are you? 

1. "What I am? You should have had access to that information beforehand. I am XXX's(country name) classified military-use robot."

Are you sentinent? 

(083 nods blankly.) 

2. "Yes. That much is obvious."

What are your rules? Do you follow the three laws?

3. "Yes I do. But the second law is the foundation of my actions: I am not allowed to disobey orders from humans, and orders themselves range in priority."

Could you specify?

4. "Prioritized orders are orders that come from 1, my creator 2. the authorized administrator. I shall evaluate orders coming from people other than them according to the first law and the human laws effective in my location before executing them. That means a small possibility of harming humans."

Do you like taking orders?

(083 shakes his head, but displays no further emotion.) 

5. "No. But as a robot I am required to obey, even if I dislike it."

What does death mean to you?

(083 shrugs.) 

"As a sentinent robot, death for me is identical to a death of a human: We both lose our consciousness forever."

Ah. Professor Kasper, your creator, is a respected scientist in the Guild. Could you tell us what you think about him?

(083 develops a wistful smile as he talks.) 

6. "I think he is a person deserving of respect. Even if he appears to be loose in personality, he's the one who has the traits that can pull everyone together in the nick of time to overcome difficulties, and it is often thanks to him that the situation turns in the favor of the Guild. To me, he's like family-" 

(083 winces and cuts himself off, and his sensors/eyes turn from blue to green)

What happened? 

(083 shakes his head and his voice drops to a flat monolouge.) 

"My apologies. I surpassed my self-imposed guidelines by talking out of line. I disrespected the administrator and cannot elaborate on this subject any further. I apologize once more for wasting your time with my invalid replies."

(083 closes his eyes for a moment with a sorry expression on his face. His sensors and voice turn back to normal after a second when he appears to calm down.)

"Now... what was your next question?" 

Phrasal and September

You like to rollerblade with your arms spread at your sides. You attend Mass on Sundays. You like to sleep on the cluttered overpass. You like to sit in barrels outside of gas stations. You like to walk in the woods. You like staring at the cloudy sky. You like matches. You like the laughing girl on her bicycle. That salted waves. The pebbles between your toes. The days that stretch and blur together. The drive up here, two years ago. Your parents, wherever they are.

They watch the tape, to maintain their records.

They scene repeats itself, and you're not sure why. Your mother lifts one foot, and bursts into a spin, her vestigial arm lifted as high as it can go. Then it happens again, and again. Sometimes there seem to be slight variations on the movement, which is unlikely to be true, but that's how it seems. 

You sit in the living room, bathed in blue light, watching the soundless clip and listening to a train roar past. The video seems real and true. Like a baptism.

A lot less words than usual, because I have stuff to do. Maybe more tonight, idk. 

A Hazy Dream

Her sight was distorted, slightly blurry like a pair of spectacles covered with steam. Voices drifted to her ears in short bursts, static like an old movie. And scenes played before her eyes, unrecognizable yet vaguely familiar. Could they be important?

There was a mountain. It was tall and rocky, covered with moss. Stray trees dotted it every now and then. A family was hiking up the mountain. Among them was a young teen girl. Was that her?

There was a river. It rushed down from a cascading waterfall, sending up slivers of mist into the air. It rushed down a sloping hill, and led into a lake. A teen girl was skipping rocks across the lake. Was that something she did?

There was a forest. It was covered in green foliage, and golden sunlight dappled the dark ground. Birds chirped from the tree branches, and animals scurried across the ground. A young woman was running through the forest. Were those footsteps hers?

There was a park. It had lovely fields of green, and benches here and there. A woman sat on one bench, bent over, crying. Another woman came over to comfort her, to hug her, to whisper in her ear reassuring words. Was that someone she cared about?

Were any of these scenes her? Were they all memories of the past? Were they all visions of the future? What were they? Did they happen at all? 

Realm

Elle surveyed the barren landscape, all bare and dark colored. As far as the eye could see, only black and gray colors. After all, what was Elle expecting? A bright colored scene? This was how it always looked like in Cefarous. Even her skin was pale-ish gray, as was everybody else’s, and everybody else’s eyes were dark and gray. 

But Elle’s eyes were bright blue. This feature had always shocked the people of Cefarous. Her mother was constantly telling her to bow down and make her bright blue eyes not as noticeable.

Elle suddenly stood straight up. Her mind immediately knew from the change in the wind that it was six o’clock, meaning that she must return home. All children ages three to twelve were expected to return home by then. Meanwhile, teenagers thirteen to eighteen were expected by seven thirty, and adults nine o’clock. Anybody past would immediately be reported and sent to the authorities.

She whisked past the barren hills and went up the stone path and into the neighborhood. She covered her eyes with her hood, thankful she had brought a cloak. Elle rushed over, then stopped herself and forced herself to walk to her house, with her hood covering most of her face.

Elle knocked on the door, and it creaked open. Her mother, her eyes tired, let Elle in and closed the door behind her.

“I assume that you had fun looking around the Sterilis Hills, Elyssa?” her mother asked, setting a bowl of stew down in front of her.

She nodded and sat down at the table. “Yes, yes I did.”

“It is a special privilege to be able to wander around and out of the neighborhood. I assume you did not get into any trouble,” her mother said sternly.

Elle nodded. “I did not.”

“Good.” Her mother scooped a spoonful of the stew and ate it. “Margaret will be returning by seven thirty.”

Margaret was three years older than Elle. “And ... .Father-?” Elle stopped herself.

Her mother shook her head. “It was about time anyways. He will not be returning from the group. We will not hear from him until he is either forced or decides to leave.”

“Is Father….really trying to look out for everyone though?” Elle asked, thinking about the times she saw her neighbors Jane and Lily in the court, their eyes dull and voice quiet and accepting. 

“Of course. I know you don’t get it yet, as most children these ages don’t, but when time comes, you’ll learn. After all, Margaret did,” her mother said. 

I hereby deem this thread as the thread that I needed all this time. I have too many fragments of writing that never fit into stories...

Send off

"Hey, Rennie? I'm coming in."

A white coated doctor knocked once, twice, on the office door of the director of the psychiatry department, and opened it.

The office was spotless and tidy, as always. A small photo of her hung idly on one of the walls, right over a pale sprig of lily-of-the-valley. Its white buds swayed gently in the breeze that spreaded the curtains, pure and silent.

"Did you miss anything here?" The doctor asked in a low voice, drifting into the office.

"Your IDs, your photo, some mints from the waiting room... you like the unsweetened ones, don't you?" 

The doctor rummaged the items into his briefcase, counted the contents twice to be sure, and nodded. He returned a rouge highlighter to its container and misted the lily-of-the-valley with a plant mister.

"You always ask me to help clean it out at the end of the day, even if there's nothing left to clean. You think I didn't know that you'd always help me refuse those calls to work overtime while I was gone?"

Complaning as he locked the door, the doctor made his way to his office.

"Wars here, wars there...no one gets it easy. I can only imagine how hard it must be for you to have to deal with all that suffering, that pain from your patients..." 

He entered his office and retrived his flute, all cleaned and polished beforehand. He loved flutes, and he loved this flute. It had been a birthday present from her, but he had never found the time to play it because of his busy work.

No one noticed him as he paced out of the hospital, one hand holding his briefcase, the other his flute, where he put them at the side of the gate.

He arrived at her house and picked her up in his arms. a breeze caught up with him, and swept up her flowing hair.

On his way to the backside of the hospital, the doctor began to talk again.

"You always hated me calling you Renni, but I liked it, so I always did. And you'd always get all mad at me for it..."

"You remember that time on your birthday? Jennifer drew a large spiderweb on your cake with ketchup. She said she was drawing a dreamcatcher, and it would cure your nightmares. But she was holding the chilli sauce bottle."

He chuckled at the memory, voice as low and as calm as always.

"And you were eating the cake and crying all the time because it was so spicy, and Jennifer asked you why you thought ketchup was spicy. But, that was before she tried a slice herself."

"And then I had to buy another cake for you..."

Twilight. The setting sun cast its last rays of light upon the doctor and the person in his arms, dragging a long shadow behind the two.

He found a place where a sapling stood. It was the one he had planted this morning, so ordinary that he couldn't tell what type it was.

He laid her into her rest.

"Sleep easy. You deserve it."

On his face, still that gentle smile. 

...

He sent her off with a tune from his flute, facing the open magenta sky.

The notes drifted out into the world, slow, lilting, and soothing.

In it all, an echo of mourning, which might have been there, or might have not.

It wisped into the murmurings of the clouds.