Trampolines + Boys

If you recall, I stumbled onto the amazing idea of the Hecto-Gram while writing the intro to last week’s story, and ever since then the imaginary fans in my head have been leaving comments that they want to hear more about the Hecto-Granny multiverse, but there’s a problem. The idea is short, I might have already used up the whole thing.

My solution was to use a short story I wrote about my grandma’s passing in 2009 as the intro to stretch the idea, but as I was searching I came across another short story I wrote on the way to my friend Jill’s house.  It was raining lightly, somewhere between wiper settings where you can’t quite turn them off, but the lowest setting is still to frequent, and the wipers chatter and screech across your windshield like a bare-skin on a metal slide. Just as I was turning off of the main road and heading up the hill, I noticed three 7-8 year old boys half-jumping half-wrestling on a slippery trampoline out in the rain. Pure joy radiated off them. I caught some of the beams and it still makes me smile to remember them.

Jill died this week. She was like a sister to my mother and like aunt to me. Without Jill’s assertion that I would make a good teacher, my life would be undeniably different.  

I’d like to post this story I wrote in March 2010 in memory of all the time her boys and I spend roaming the woods playing make-believe, and to the beauty of her, and the beautiful, joyful, greif-filled living of life.

                            ~Tyler McNamara

Trampolines + Boys

(original title: Wrestle Mania 3,000)

"This Sunday! Sunday! SUNDAY! In the DEATH CAGE ARENA. Forget the ring. ForGET the octagon! Forget cage matches with the razor wire along the top, 'cause these wrestlers are taking it to the next level in the only round ring in the federation. THIS IS WRESTLE MANIA 3,000!!

"Here comes Jonathan the Bouncinator stepping into the ring. Tonight’s battle is going to be a three-way fight to the death—"

"…But if anyone says time out’, you have to stop."

"Yeah, I know. A four-way fight to the death where time-outs are okay if it’s an emergency!"

"Cause remember last week when Cameron—"

"Cameron the Head-butter, stepping into the ring!"

"—Yeah, when Cameron the Head-butter used his signature butt-to-face move and knocked out your loose tooth and you called ‘time-out’?!"

"Yeah Andy I remember. Wait, Cam don’t introduce yourself, that’s the announcer’s job. In the only cage match—"

"This is only a net. I wish we had a REAL cage."

"Yeah what is this? Wrestle Mania for fish?"

<laughter>

"Guys stop it. You’re ruining the announcer’s speech! Wait, don't fight yet!"

<SHOVE>

"How come you get to be the announcer?"

<SPROING!>

"What did you get from the tooth fairy?"

<GRAPPLE>

"Because it’s my trampoline. Five bucks."

<PUSH>

"SO? We should take turns."

"NO WAY!"

<TRIP>

"The tooth fairy isn’t real."

"Oh those are fighting words! ...and it looks like the Bouncinator is lining up for a… wait hang on… lining up for a… dude stop, I can’t rocket-bounce you if you keep moving around."

<Skreek... Skreek... Skreek...>

"No Duh! Andy the Tripper doesn’t let himself get caught in a rocket-bounce!"

"The Tripper? I thought you were The Leg Jam."

"I was, but then you kept calling me ‘Toe Jam’."

"That wasn’t me. That was THE BOUNCINATOR!"

"HA HA! That’s right! And right now Toe Jam looks like he’s about to get a… FACE JAM!!"

<CRACK>

"OW! GET OFF!"

<PUNCH>

"Oh no, now the Head-butter is coming in for the coup d’état."

"Stop using the announcer voice. Guys, I'm the only announcer!"

"Woah, what’s that?"

"It’s the secret move the Head-butter learned while he was away training in China!"

"Oh is this the one your cousin taught you?"

<Skreek... Skreek... CRUNCH!>

"OW! NO JUMP MOVES! AHHHHHHH! MOOOOOOM!"

"I didn’t MEAN to; the trampoline is slippery! I SLIPPED!"

"Slipped like THIS? OOH, that looked like it hurt!"

<TRIP!>

"OW! Dude, its time-out!"

<PUSH!>

"NO! No one CALLED it!"

<GRAPPLE!>

"The Bouncenator’s Mom called it."

<SHOVE!>

"I didn’t hear—"

"BOOOOOOYS! It’s freezing and raining out here!"

"We’re not cold!"

"Come inside please!"

"Come ON mom!"

"I don’t want your parents getting angry with me when you all catch pneumonia! COME INSIDE!"

"…"

"…"

"...okay."

"Dude, my mom could take your mom in Wrestle Mania 3,000."

"Ooh, look who’s talking tough now that we’ve left the ring. We’ll settle this next time Toe Jam!"

"I’m The Tripper now."

"Boys, wait by the door. You're soaking wet. Stop! You’re getting water everywhere!"

"Sorry Misses Bouncinator."

<LAUGHTER>

"Hey let’s make a fort!"

"Nah, let’s play hide-and-go-seek NINJA STYLE! WHAAAAA-CHOP!"

Hectogram + Flight

Exciting news!  I finished my 6th draft of the novel and I'm currently in the process of interviewing editors, which is terrifying like allowing someone's ghost to enter your body so that you can experience pottery with your true love.  (sweet totally current movie reference bro! Thanks me!)

The other exciting news is that I'm back at it! Writing whatever comes to mind from two words. The words this week  "Hectogram + Flight" were generated by a random word generator. Though the word hectogram actually refers to a holographic being comprised from the sweetness of the top 100 grandmothers. What? Did you think Heaven's like some big retirement home made of clouds? Heck no, the capital G puts sweetness to good use!

"The Hectogram has peered into the multiverse and has absolute knowledge that you tried your hardest Tyler. Here, have a warm cookie."

"Thanks Hectogram..." *crunch crunch crunch*.   "uuuh huck! Bees phaspe beble'fiph!"

"The Hectrogram reminds you not to speak with your mouth full."

Or if you use a regular dictionary Hectogram just means 100 grams. But I did a little play on words. Instead of using the Latin route of gram (gramma: a small weight) I'm using the Greek route, which is also gramma but means "something written". Like in the word telegram. So without further ado, or abject digressions I present: Flight. Written in 100 words.

Fused furcula expands by half of its original width providing structures for the supracoracoideus, which shortens extending the wing. But self-generated aeronautic locomotion is about more than huge pectorals and highly complex beta-pleated keratin knives cutting through the air. It’s about understanding and occupying the world in three dimensions. No earthbound creature knows the sensation of dancing with wind; a capricious partner rarely experienced as a single entire entity, whose body is sliced into turbulent eddies by myriad branches, and compressed into waterfalls rolling off the sides of every building.

Heavy in bone, naked of feather I can only fall.

Busy Signals

Some exciting things happened while I was on vacation... 

I got reinspired to get back into editing the novel (I've only got a few chapters to go)... actually inspiration wasn't what was really preventing me from doing that, but I got redetermined to work on the novel regardless of whether I had an four hours, or forty-five minutes.  In doing so I came across a section I had forgotten about and got to experience reading it for the first time, which is such a trip.  Maybe the niche I should try to get into is being the writer who writes novels while in a fugue state. 

Bah, I recognize that fantasy; that's the same thing I was talking about in that rant in part one of Guillotines + Playgrounds. 

The other thing that happened on vacation, was... well this requires backstory: A few years ago I met this writer, Jonah Baker, out there (in New Mexico) and I ended up helping him think through some of the science fictiony parts of his novel.  This year he asked to collaborate on a comic book he's writing set in the same world. I haven't written dialog for a comic since The Vultures, which was about a family of vampires who prey exclusively on murderers and serial killers. Not a bad concept considering my buddy and I were fifteen when we came up with the idea. Anyway so I'm told my piece will be set at a steampunky version of the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, but I may cool the steampunk down a bit make it more like victorian Waterworld. Forget steam, let's keep the water in its liquid state. So anyway that's exciting.

And finally, the house my wife and I were waiting to move into was finally made available to  us, and while it's in no condition to move into, we've been pouring all of our non-working hours into fixing it up.

Here's a little visual sample of what we're up against: 

This is the bedroom, out of which we had to rip a disgusting purple shag carpet. It wasn't originally though, it became shag from years of having never been vacumed. It had a layer of dog hair and food felted into it. Getting that out improved the smell greatly. The walls were a faux wood panelling that just drank sunlight like a little kid slurping down the purple milk after a bowl of Fruitloops. So I'm ripping all that out and the plan is to repaint with Venetian plaster.

I tell you all this to illustrate that I'm very busy, and feeling like the RFF project is taking time from other endeavors, and I am suspending regularly schedules updates. Though I hope to keep using this site to let y'all know what's going on with my ongoing creative projects.  And if anyone wants to volunteer to record an episode of RFF Read it For You, please let me know.

-Tyler 

Airports + Vacations

Hey Everyone out there patiently awaiting my Wednesday update and the Tuesday edition of Read it For You. I probably should have warned you all ahead of time, but I’ll be on vacation for the next three weeks. I’m writing this from the Delta terminal waiting for a flight delayed by 2 and a half hours, which means we’ll miss our connection (I’m traveling with my wife and two other friends) in Atlanta.

Normally it might be annoying but thankfully it’s happening at the beginning of our trip, and not on the way home, and I’ve always wanted someone to put me up in a hotel. As in, “Of course your flight and hotel will be covered, we’re just honored that you’re coming all the way here to speak about Reality Fan Fiction.”

… Of course I’m imagining they put us in a nice hotel, but I suppose it’s possible they put us up is some pay-by-the-hour hotel by the freeway, in the Chain-smoking suite, by the elevator, the ice machine, and the “crying babies only room”, otherwise known as room 251.

I just made that up, that’s not a thing. Babies don’t get their own room. Anyway I’ll let you know all about the accommodations and whether the breakfast they offer is continental or incontinental.

In the meantime, I invite you my dear readers to create your own RFF story in the comments. The first person gets to start the scene, as folks arrive they will add to the story! Adding dialog or a new characters, or whatever. Just remember the cardinal rule of improvisation: “Yes, and…” What this means is that you’re not negating what has already been added to the story, you’re agreeing with what has already been established and adding to it.

Your story is about: Where was Tyler invited to talk about RFF, and Why?

Guillotine + Playgrounds (part 2)

4

“A wizard knows these things,” I said, handing the wand back to him, but he was unwilling to take it.

Using his bangs like an invisibility cloak to hide behind he said, “They were calling me a muggle because I didn’t have a wand, and I didn’t know how to make one, so after this boy Cain was cursed, I took his.”

“Cursed? I thought he was dead?”

“He is. It was the killing curse, Avvv....” His mouth clamped shut.

“That’s unforgivable!” I heard myself say, outraged. I had stopped pretending. “Who cast it on him?”

He shrugged, “It happened before I started. I asked about it, but no one saw it happen.”

“How…” I was about to ask if we could bring him back to life, but I quickly remember that my son didn’t even know how to make a wand. I looked out the window at the sun on the horizon. We had about 40 minutes until it would be too dark.

“How about you and I take a trip to Ollivander’s and get you a wand of your own?”

He looked confused, “Ollivander’s is back at school. The hole in the fence by the backstop is Diagon Alley, only the 7th graders are allowed to go outside the playground.”

I look at him astounded, “You think such a well-to-do Wizarding family like us wouldn’t have a floo?” I winked at him.

In the back yard we began to walk the borders of our small property. To the east, our land abutted an abandoned farm lot, and the line between the tall grass of our yard, and the edges of the untamed wild was blurry. Somewhere in the mass of weeds was a stone wall that I was afraid of hitting with the lawnmower, and was therefore bullied by the weeds into mowing less and less of the yard. Maybe if I kept up with the mowing it wouldn’t get such a running start. The south border was our sleepy avenue lined with young lindens. To the west was a row of overgrown shrubs nine or twelve feet high, which had been planted alongside a fence, but had long ago incorporated the chainlink into their branches. To the north was a white cedar fence, greyed by time and put up long before we moved in. Pulling on a particularly straight branch of the evergreen shrub, he asked, “Mom, what kind of bush is this?”

“It’s a yew,” I said, remembering the day my father had taken me to another tree, identical to this one, and pointed at the bright red berries saying, “Never, ever eat these.”

His little nose crinkled up in revulsion. The branch sprung back up as he released it. He walked the opposite direction. “I think I want a goldenrod wand like Cain’s.”

“Any of those with the yellow flowers." I pointed toward the weeds.

His eyes quickly found the straightest one and his hand beelined toward it. “Aah!” He called out pulling back his hand and clutching it in the other. The cry felt like an icy bullet.

“What happened?” My maternal danger sense flared and I immediately saw the perpetrator. It was the only weed bobbing from disturbance.

“Something bit me,” he looked toward the overgrowth with a tinge of fear.

“No. You just got chosen.” I handed him the small paring knife and pointed to the rose briar, growing straight up, battling the goldenrod for sunlight.

“That?” He pointed at the thin, green stalk.

I shook my head 'no'. “In there.” Around its base were straight dead stalks no more than 20 inches in length. “Rose,” He crinkled his nose again. “Rozsa, rho-don, draa-gon.” The spark of imagination caught and lit. “You must reach into the maw of the dragon and cut a wand without getting your arm bitten off.” Who am I? I thought. I’m actively encouraging my son to get scratched to hell in a bramble bush.
“It hurts.” He showed me where the other pricker had ‘bit’ him.”

“I thought you wanted a wand.” I shrugged, and turned back to the house. “Let’s go inside and get ready for bed.”

Behind me there was a sharp hiss of pain, but when I turned around he was already running toward me. The bramble wand was clutched is his barely scratched hand.

In the house, we cut off the cruel-looking thorns, and burned out the pithy core using a six-volt battery, and a carefully split pencil.

“We never did anything this cool in science class!”

“That’s because this is dangerous.” I meant to say it as a warning, but ‘dangerous’ came out sounding like a synonym for ‘awesome’.

5 

It had been raining all morning. The school activities director called me up and told me I wouldn’t be needed to help supervise at afternoon recess. It would probably get cancelled because of rain. A few hours later the sun came out, and I again received a call from the activities director, who apologized for the last minute notice, but would I be able to help out after all.

Puddles still lingered on the plastic seats of the see-saws and the swings, pooled at the bottom of the slide, and the rain had washed away all the chalk hop-scotch boards. All of the wet seemed to push the children off the structures, and into the center of the playground. The sandbox’s green hard plastic cover had yet to be opened, and Cain had sprawled himself across it dramatically. I watched, proudly as my son approached Cain, announced to everyone than he had found the resurrection stone in Gaunt’s shack. He pointed across the school grounds to the sports equipment shed.

“That’s Hagrid’s hut,” one of the children pointed out.

“Not that,” he answered, “There.” He adjusted his aim toward the pitcher’s mound. “It took me a while to figure out that the baseball diamond, was actually a clue to the stone’s location.”

Nice touch.

“Wait, don’t!” Called one of the girls, who I later discovered was Cain’s twin sister. But it was too late. He touched the stone to Cain’s chest, and the boy rose, taking in a very convincing gasp for air.

Cain looked around as if getting his bearings. One of the children asked, “Do you remember who did it?”

“Give him a minute,” my son said, handing the goldenrod wand back to Cain.

“But if someone here cast an unforgivable curse, we need to have a Wizengamit, and send them to Azcaban!”

There was a long silence as Cain looked at each of the onlookers faces, scrutinizing each one. Finally Cain’s mouth opened and there was a loud SKREE! The inhuman sound frightened me for a moment before I realized that it was just the see-saw, which a couple of younger children had decided to use at the cost of a wet bum.

Cain locked eyes with his twin sister and seemed to remember something. “How could you?” He bellowed at her.

She raised her wand defensively and backed away, but she was already surrounded by a gamut of sticks. “I didn’t mean to say it! It just came out! I was— I was—”

“Un…For…givable.” Cain reminded her.

“Expelliarmus!” One of the older boys commanded, and Cain’s sister’s wand went flying through the air toward him.

“HEY!” One of the mothers yelled at the congregation of wiz—I mean children, “No stick fighting!”

“They’re not…” I started to explain, but she was already marching across the playground toward them.

I heard one of the children say, “Dementors!” under his breath and all of the children scattered. All except Cain’s sister, who just stood there, locked in this woman’s angry glare.

“If I see you throwing sticks again you’re going straight to the principal young lady!”

As the girl stared up into the face of this older woman, I watched as the energy, the wildness, the innocence was sucked from her. She nodded despondently, walked over to the half-sphere climbing structure all made up of triangles, and sat down inside it. She didn’t look scared, and she wasn’t crying. Somehow I could tell she was coldly plotting her escape.

The older woman stomped back over to where I was standing. “Didn’t you see them stick fighting?”

“I... I didn’t,” I said and shrugged.

“Well. Pay more attention, we need to keep them safe!”

I nodded, but inside all I could think was, Muggle.

Guillotine + Playgrounds

Sometimes, in the moments where I’m totally lacking inspiration I’ll search for a random word generator, get it to spit out five words, and mash them together until I feel that spark of inspiration. These are the two. Don’t worry about the content, there aren’t any underage beheadings.

1

     There was a boy lying face down in the dirt. Immediately my heart leapt into my chest and my mind started racing through possibilities: that he’d fallen off the bars and broken his neck. No, his posture was not akimbo; he hadn’t fallen. The alternating scream of metal on metal from the children on the swings made me think he must have been running in-between swingers and gotten kicked. Children have been killed by concussive blows to the heart before. Something about the timing interrupting the ventricle rhythm, but that wasn’t for me to diagnose. I’m just here to watch over them, make sure they’re not bullying each other or doing anything unsafe. Then, as I carefully wove in between the see-saw and the sand box, I wondered the why the boy lying alone. Usually when someone gets hurt you see the telltale ring of kids standing around the scene, looking either scared, or ashamed, or concerned. Seventy percent of the time the first kid to talk did it. I hurried in closer and, to my great relief, saw puffs of dirt and the wood chips by his neck moving with his breath.

     “Hey kid, you okay?” I had to resist the urge to lay a hand on his back, only the nurse is allowed to touch the children. The boy very subtly shook his head, working his face deeper into the dirt and woodchips. 

     “Can you tell me what’s wrong?”

     “No. I’m dead.”

     I tried to feign despair but my personal relief got mixed in, “Oh, no. How did that happen?”

     “Avada Kedavra. Go away or they won’t let me play anymore.” I didn’t understand the first thing he said, it sounded like he was speaking another language, but “Go away” was loud and clear... except that he said it as quietly as he could. 

     “It doesn’t look like anyone is playing with you now.”

     “That’s because I’m dead. Do you play with dead people?” 

     “Well, how do we get you back alive?”

     “You can’t, I’m dead forever. GO AWAY.”

2

Later, after the bell rang and the playground cleared. I related this story and found myself surrounded by a circle of laughing parents.

“I don’t see what’s so funny.”

One of the mothers who had strawberry blonde hair that didn’t match her dark eyebrows said, “I’m laughing because I did the same thing a few days ago. Only I tried to used logic to prove to him he wasn’t dead.”

“Oh, you're talking about Cain.” One of the father’s said. I couldn’t remember his name, but thought of him only as Yoga Dad. “Last spring his name was Thor. His real name is Armond, but he won’t answer to his real name. He’s more dedicated to that than the wizard game.” 

“What’s—” I stopped myself from saying: wrong with him?  “What's the wizard game?” 

“It’s impressive how many of them play it,” said Eyebrows, “Basically all the 6th and 7th graders are playing it.”

Yoga Dad noticed that Eyebrows hadn’t actually answered, and before I had a chance to ask again said, “It’s based on these books about wizards, I’m surprised you haven’t heard about them, basically they all run around pointing sticks at each other and calling adults muggles.”

“My son’s in sixth grade, why didn’t he mention this to me?” I tried to sound curious, but it came out sounding hurt.

“Because—” Yoga Dad began slowly, as if carefully choosing his words.

I cut him off gasping, “Oh no, I’m a muggle!” The parents laughed again, but stopped when they realized I wasn’t being facetious. I turned to Eyebrows. “You said you tried to logic him out of being dead a few days ago?” She nodded. “So he’s been just lying on the ground during recess for days in a row? Why doesn’t someone save him?”

“That’s a better question for your son, as far as we know it isn't possible.”

3

That night, as I watched him pushing the kale around his plate searching for any dressing-bloated raisins he might have missed, I decided I couldn’t ask him directly. I wouldn’t be able to handle him pushing me away, even if was just with his eyes, and even if they were partially veiled behind the hairs the hung in his face. God, he needs a haircut. The silence, periodically shredded by the scratching of the fork across his plate, stretched on until I asked, “Hey buddy, how are you liking this new school?”

“It’s good.”

“You meeting some nice friends?”

“Yeah,” he said, unsure. I recognized it as the doubt that he could trust anyone to like him. “Mom?” He looked up at me with his big eyes and I knew what he was going to ask. “Why did we have to move?”

We’d had this conversation a hundred times, but sometimes it takes a hundred-and-one for something to sink in. I was about to tell him, but something came over me. I say ‘something’ like I didn’t know. I knew. I had been reading chapter summaries all afternoon, I’d made it through four of the seven books and had enough crazy ideas swimming through my head that I was probably going to have wizarding dreams tonight.

I sighed, “Hey buddy, we’ve been over this before haven’t we?” He nodded. “There’s a rumor that You-Know-Who is back, and mommy wants you to be safe.”

He looked confused for a moment, then his eyes grew wide. “It’s okay, I’ve been practicing.” He started to get up.

“Finish your dinner before you leave the table.” Without pause he finally stuffed the kale into his mouth, and quickly walked to his school backpack, hanging from a low coat hook on the kitchen island. He pulled out a stick, and brought it to me. It was a dried shaft about a foot long, with a strange bulb the size of a lollipop at the top of where the handle would be.

Laying it in my hands gingerly he said, “This is my goldenrod wand.”

I turned it over. I pretended to appreciate the weight of it. I gave it a few practice flicks. I sighted down the length of it, and stopped. “What’s the core made out of?”

His eyes dropped to the floor. He didn’t know, and knew it would be useless to lie to me.

“This wand didn’t choose you, did it?” Pushing the game so far felt a little dirty.

“How did you know?” he asked.

The letters C-Ʌ-I-N were scratched into the topside of the bulb. They barely looked like letters, more like runes. “A wizard knows these things,” I said.



...To be continued

Excuses + Moving

     Hey folks, sorry to skimp out on another week of RFF. I didn't realize this Summer was going to be so crazy. This week we’re moving out of our place and into friends’ houses because the place where we were planning to move hasn't had its closing date yet.

     Last night we, my deputy and I, were talking about all the crazy moves we've done over the years. When we moved down to New York, I moved down first taking the bare essentials (toothbrush, computer, guitar, bike), just so I could start my new job. Then when she was ready to move down we found a place together and we borrowed a friend’s car-trailer which is only maybe 10 feet long, but they can’t lend us their ball-hitch because it’s rusted to their car. They can’t lend us the car because they need it that week, and I can’t get the hitch off without breaking something (most likely myself). Next we notice that her landlord has a ball hitch on his car, so we ask him if we can borrow it, he say “yes”, but it’s also rusted to his car. So we borrow his entire car to drive 3 hours away to another state.

Great guy.

I know that we managed to load a box spring and mattress, a futon, three desks, a computer chair, all our books, our bikes, and clothes, bookshelves, and winter equipment (skis, snowboard, snowshoes [I like winter]) on this trailer, but I don’t know how. I remember that it looked precarious as hell, but everything was so Tetrised together when you pulled on anything the whole trailer moved. It reminded me of the image in my head of when the Joad family left the farm in The Grapes of Wrath. Everything was piled up on that truck, and when they needed more space, they built up the sides and piled on more.

Loading my sci-fi collection into boxes make we really want to finish my book, and long for the fall when I’ve got my mornings back so I can get into it again. It sucks that books takes so long to write; my life has changed three times since I started. There are things that were relevant to my life then that the characters feel, which I’m not so interested in now. There are things I’ve learned with experience that I want to include, but if I do that I’ll never stop writing it.

Keep following, keep reading, keep telling your friends. If I get a good following I’ll leak chapters of the novel over the winter.

-Tyler R McNamara

The Dewey DEATHcimal System

The Library was quiet. That’s dumb. Of course it was quiet, but I mean it was EXTRA quiet. No one had come in in hours, and when they did it was only to rent freaking DVDs.  Sorry, it seems like I’m complaining about no one picking up a book anymore, and you’re thinking, “Wow, big surprise a librarian thinks people don’t read enough,” but that’s not what I’m getting at.  I just thought it was relevant to WHY I was combing through the non-fiction stacks so carefully.

     Every year there’s a library book sale, and the books in it are generated from these searches. We go through the electronic system and see which books are collectors, and which are movers. Sorry, that’s library jargon. I wonder if that’s jargon for all libraries or just ours? Anyway, what I mean is collectors just sit there collecting dust. They’re books that have a borrow score that’s dropped by 15.4 or more over the last five years. Obviously, movers are the opposite. Sometimes if we see a book that’s trending toward the collector scale, we’ll put it on the ‘read of the week’ display shelf to try to generate some interest and save it. Rebecca, one of the other librarians, keeps managing to save this schlocky novel The Wind Through her Hair. The book is one of thirty crap novels written by Janet Johnson, which is the pen name of some guy named Randy Wentworth, who apparently thought a woman’s name would sell more books than a guy name Randy. Well… I guess he thought right, because that thing jumps off the shelves whenever Rebecca puts it out.

     Sorry, I’m off topic again. So I noticed that A life of One’s Own, was starting to become a collector, so I went to fetch it for the ‘Read of the week’ shelf, but it wasn’t there. I double checked to make sure it wasn’t… sorry I’m doing it again. I’ll skip ahead. While I was combing the non-fiction stacks for it, I found this hardcover, bound in black canvas with no title, author’s name, or any writing on the side. It didn’t even have a Dewey decimal code taped to the spine. The book just looked like some common book stuck on our shelves. So I pulled it out. It looked relatively new, not excessively dusty, and there was no spine fade, which you’ll get on some of the older volumes. The front was marked with big, gold lettering that made me cringe. At first I thought, at the title: The Death of a Librarian. But then I realized the shiver going down my spine wasn’t the creeps, it was the font. This was the kind of type Daniel Steel would use, and I thought: What is this doing in the non-fiction stacks?

     I brought it back to my desk, and ran a search through the library system, but it says, ‘I’m sorry, nothing with that title can be found’. Then I realized it didn't credit an author so I started looking on the first page for an is-bin, or a Library of Congress code, but it's missing all of that information. The first page is just the title again. It was obviously self-published, the pages were not library quality, but none of that matters. I turned to the second page and started reading. The writing was loose and too casual, and it didn't even start with any character description, it just seemed to drop straight into the action. Action in the sense that a verb describes an action, not like the car-chase kind. It wasn't to my taste: I like to know who I’m reading about before I can really get into a story, even if it is fiction.  The first page described the non-fiction stacks of a library, and a librarian finding a book that doesn’t belong there. She takes it back to the computer and when she can’t find it in the system, she begins to read it.
The book had a beautiful depth of detail about specifics of the library, and they all matched this library perfectly. Reading it gave me the eerie feeling of being watched. I stopped and looked around. For a moment I considered calling out something like, “Hello?” But it felt too damsel in distress so I went back to reading and --I swear to God-- this is what I read next:

     “This is describing MY library,” she thinks, feeling the hairs rise on the back of her neck. No longer sure she’s alone in the library she stops reading, and looks around. There’s no one there. Or at least no one she can see. She thinks about calling out, but doesn’t want to act the victim, and goes back to reading. Now she’s gotten to the part of the story where she’d reading exactly what has happened, and now exactly what is happening. “What the hell?” She thinks. “This has got to be some kind of prank,” and closes the book.

     I read it, thought it, and did it.

She opened the book back up. “Did IT make me think that? Or is it just recording what I’m doing? NO, I’m in control,” she swore to herself and slammed the book closed before reading the end of the paragraph.

     A moment later she opened it back up and finished the paragraph, just to make sure it said that she slammed the book. She closed the book again, this time more slowly, trying to catch a glimpse of the next… “Oh my God!” She thought.

     It’s a prank, it’s a good prank I’ll give the bastard that, but regardless, it didn’t belong in my stacks, even if it did seem to be non-fiction. A book needs an author, a publisher, a copyright notice, an is-bin, and most importantly a Library of Congress Control Number. I picked up the phone and started to dial the director, when I read the title again The Death of a Librarian, and I got an idea. I hung up the phone, and flipped to the last of the 300-or-so pages to cheat and read the ending. The page was blank. The last ten pages were all blank. I kept flipping backward through the book; the last hundred pages were blank. I flipped faster and accidentally flipped past hundreds of texted pages and stopped.

     “You have to believe me!” She shouted to the director. “Someone is trying to kill me!”

     “It’s just a book, Rebecca. No one is trying to kill you.”

     I closed the book with a sigh of relief. Thank God, the prank isn’t for me. I turned it over in my hands appreciating it for what it was, and called the director.

     It rang twice.

     While I waited my eyes glanced at the clock. Goodness, it’s already 1:30.

     It rang six times. Wasn't Rebecca supposed to be in at noon?

     Where’s Rebecca?  I thought, and the director never answered the phone.

Apocalypse + Oral History

Thanks so much for this week’s motif suggestions, but I'm going to play around with a concept of my own this week.

     “The scientists kept calling it global warming so when it started getting colder everyone figured it was just an early winter. But then it started snowing down south. Georgia, Florida, Mexico. The roads needed plowing all the time, and for a while, the plow drivers were heroes. It the Wild West commerce and communication all relied on the train, but in the days of the early ice age people lived and died by the snowplow. There were passenger plows, freighter plows with 18 wheels, communication plows, and mail plows (and boy did that make the federal postal service angry). Those drivers that didn't kill themselves in the first year with calories, caffeine, and cocaine lived like Wall Street fat cats... for a time. When the plows ran out of places to push or dump the snow, a man named Ron went to the president with a plan to use the snow to construct ice tunnels over all the major roads.”

     “What about planes?” asked the little girl, turning from where she sat by the fire.

     It cast an orange-yellow light from the cinderblock hearth in corner of their Manhattan apartment, which lit her grandfather’s face with a happy glow and made his wrinkle lines all the more deeper as he smiled and said, “Anyone ever tell you you’re too smart for your own good? Where’d you hear about planes?”

     The girl pointed to the lowest shelf where her small stack of children’s books lived. “A day at the Airport!”

     “Very good Sara’k.”

#

     “Airplanes had been grounded as soon as the first blizzards started. Emergency trips were attempted, but only one in nine ever reached their destination. So this plow man, with the help of the government’s oil and all of his friends started building the first tunnels over the roads. The original plan was to keep them big, but when I was a little girl, they realized that the ice age wasn’t going away any time soon—”

     “Grandma Sara’k? What’s an air-plane?” The heavily wrinkled face before them scowled, and eyed the group of children.

     “What do they teach you in that school anyway?”

     Not realizing the question was rhetorical they all started bouncing excitedly on the carpet of furs, and all talking at once, “How to make fire with wood and friction!”  “The laws of Has and Take!” “How to skin an animal, and tan, and sew!” “How to—”

     “Yes yes, those are all well and good things that every child should know, but what about History?”

     The flap of the hut lifted for a moment, letting in beams of orange and pink light that cut through the dim light of the small tallow lamp, and an adult man, dressed in deerskin ducked into hut.

     “History is dangerous,” the man said.

     “Not nearly as dangerous as ignorance,” Grandma Sara’k replied.

     “I agreed to let you tell this story so they would know why rules like Has and Take are important."

     Grandma Sara’k interrupted, “—and so that when they reach the Age of Choice, they actually have a choice to make.”

     “What choice? I want to choose now?” “Me too!” “Me too!”

    “Hush!” the man commanded, “I only came in here to tell you to keep your voices down, and listen to Grandmother Sara’k. Children who do not have patience do not catch food.”  The room was so quiet one could have heard a pin drop, if anyone besides Sara’k remembered what a pin was.

#

     “Just as my Grandmother Sara’k told me many years ago, and as her grandfather told her before, you have reached the age of choice.” The woman they called Grandmother, more because of her role than her age, paused. Looking out at the fifty or so young adults, men and women dressed in their finest leathers and linens, adorned with months of delicate beadwork.

     She continued, “You have lived in this community only as partial members, we have taught you, trained you, fed you and clothed you. You have done your part and paid back all that was given to you except the cost of your birth, which can never be repaid. But today is the day you are given the freedom to choose your home, and choose your path. You have heard the stories about the time before. About the dark times, and the cold times. You have heard about the level of technology humankind had achieved, both the good and the bad. You have heard about why this community chooses to live simply, beautifully small lives. And you have heard stories and seen people from other communities who choose to search for, relearn, and rebuild the old ways. Who dream of one day flying through the air in huge metal birds, and having lives that demand they do so.” She was relieved to see many heads shaking with disapproval. “You don’t need to choose today, but once you chose to join another community you may not return.” The Grandmother began to cry, and did not hold back her tears. Her own son, Wolf Spider has chosen to go, and everyone still remembered the day he tried to come back. “You may not return,” she repeated. “Do not come back to show us the ease and simplicity of hunting with black powder, or sewing with metal needles. You will believe you are helping us, or maybe even saving us. You are not. You are offering us a slow poison, which won’t kill us for seven generations.”

#

     “I had tried to go back twice. The first time to show them what civilization had already remembered, and what it was capable of, and the second time because I wanted to come home.”

     One of the boys who surrounded the old man in the alley loudly complained at one of the other boys, “You said he could make fire without matches!”

     The youth responded, “He can, don’t interrupt!”

     The young man stood, puffed out his chest and challenged the old man. “Well then DO it!”

     Wolf Spider sat there, unaffected by the young pomp, and waited.

     “Maybe Mr. Spider will make a fire after the story?” The smallest of the boys offered and asked at the same time.

     “Well his story’s lame, and I bet he can’t even make fire. Come on guys.” Seven eights of the posse stood, and started walking away with the loud boy.

     Of the two boys who remained one called after them, “Wait! He knows about some kind of poison that’s killing us!”

     The second boy comforted the first saying, “Don’t worry, I’m staying.”

     The first boy sat back down. “Keep telling your story Mr. Spider. Tell us, is there a way to get cured of the poison?”

     Wolf Spider took a flask from his shirt pocket. He didn't know where the shirt came from, it was from the island certainly, but he didn't know exactly where, only that machines had somehow made it, and that machines used electricity. He knew about growing flax, and processing flax into thread and weaving that into linen, but he couldn't figure out how electricity turned into clothing. He took a long pull on the flask and put it back, “Yes,” he lied, “But it’s not going to be easy or comfortable.”

     After three hours I still haven’t gotten to the place I thought I was going. It’s funny how writing like this is not storytelling. It’s like taking a roadtrip. When I first started driving west I thought I was going to California to see the ocean, but when I got there I ended up discovering something else entirely more interesting. When I started writing I thought I was talking about stories passed down the generations. The punch line was going to be a child living natively off the land, singing the Alka-Seltzer jingle from the 60s as if it were a Mother Goose song about swimming. Plop-plop fizz-fizz…

     Maybe, if this ever turns into something longer (afraid to use the word novel), I’ll use that idea.

Sorry there've been no Read it for You updates, I've been swamped directing summer camp. Also, I'm working on getting a guest reader for last weeks story just so you don't have to listen to me all the time.

~TM

Parkour + Chase Scenes = Carkour

Can you tell I spent all morning Sunday watching trials bike stunts?

     Nestled in the space where a normal radio would be had been, a police scanner sat and squawked about the accident on the bridge ahead of them. Her tires squeaked, almost with joy, as they slowly climbed the polished granite curb. A low growl rolled from Her dual tailpipes. Not upset, but hungry. For speed.

    The cars in front of Her, bound by laws of state and nature, were bumper-locked and watched Vedoro Green with envy. Their operators pulled out cell phones to capture the infraction, but She wasn't street legal anyway. One didn't need license plates to differentiate Her from the 260 million other passenger vehicles. She was one of a kind. Sure there were others that shared Her chassis, but it was what She could do that set Her apart.

     A route was recalculated with the 'pedestrian' option selected. Heads turned when she drove by, but never more so than as she drove along the empty sidewalk, dashing up to 30 mph and power sliding to angle in between the railings of the public library. For a moment it was clear to the onlookers that her tight ground clearance of 5.3 inches was not enough to climb the first step. She seemed to whine in frustration as it would require a tow truck to back out of this tight situation between the rails and the traffic, but the sound was not that of a spoiled princess, it was the whine of a compressor powering up the hydraulics. Suddenly, with a sound like a can being crushed, She raised up to a height of 9 inches, higher than a Ford Ranger, and began climbing the stairs. At the top of the stairs was a bronze statue of some long dead war hero, mounted atop a gelded horse, heroically raising his sword aloft. As She drifted around it She shat long, black rubber burns on the white marble.

     A tall elderly woman with short, freshly permed, burgundy hair, and large glasses on a gold chain ran out of the library and shushed Her as she sped off to the west along a pavement walkway toward the library's dedicated parking lot. But the Librarian's anger turned suddenly to fear, "Look out!" she yelled after Her. Ahead the pathway was blocked to traffic larger than a golf cart, by waist-high marble obelisk. The hydraulics crunched again, launching the passenger side into the air. Balancing on two wheels She navigated the gap, entered the parking lot and fell back down on all fours. She growled approval, and tore though the empty parking lot toward the "Entrance" side of the automated toll booth. Her tires squealed, perhaps in fear as they saw the quickly approaching tire shredders protecting the lot from toll dodgers.

     She checked traffic both ways, but never slowed down, and as she was about to drive into the iron teeth of the shredder, the hydraulics crunched and She jumped clear over them, not even touching the sidewalk on her way to the street. Taking a sharp 90 She found herself momentarily facing an oncoming garbage truck, but nothing so stout could out maneuver her. Finally the police scanner crackled with an alert about Her off-roading on public land. Because of the accident at the bridge the cops were just blocks away, not only to dodge them, but also to continue following Her GPS guidance She took another sharp 90 down an alley so narrow it threatened to scratch Her mirrors. She danced like this from alley to alley across five blocks while the Bears chased sightings of where's She'd been. Neither traffic, nor stairs, nor narrow allies blocked her passage until she pulled out onto a wide boulevard and into a construction zone her GPS wasn't aware of. On both sides jersey barriers blocked off the entire boulevard. In front of her the bare orange of a high-rise's iron skeleton rose out of a dirt lot, crowded with heavy construction equipment, stacks of I-beams, piles of gravel, and beyond lay the canal. Thank goodness it was getting dark and the construction crew had left.

     The scanner chirped about the alley She had just emerged from, and low-voiced  officers had already deduced her exit point. She wasn't trapped, She just had to get creative. After a recon lap around the construction lot, her tires bit into the dirt and took a running start toward a modest pile of gravel launching her through the air and onto the second floor of the high-rise. From this height She could see a barge lumbering slowly down the canal toward Her, if She accelerated fast enough She could clear the gap and use the barge a mobile bridge. Carefully knocking over a few sheets of ply-wood which leaned again one wall, it collapsed in her path and formed a ramp. She backed up as the barge drew near, and when the moment came she burned out her back wheels building up engine RPMs before catapulting forward like an F-14 off the deck of a aircraft carrier. Feet from the ramp She realized she wasn't going to making it. She didn't have enough height. At the last second the hydraulics crunched and threw the rear tires into the air, forward kick-flipping Herself through the air and gaining the height she needed to land on the highest stack of shipping containers.

     Just as the radio was squawking about disappearing cars and scrambling the eye in the sky, the garage door was closing behind her. Carefully the little one in the back seat was unbuckled and lifted over a shoulder.

     As the door was quietly closed a voice said, "Shhhh, he's asleep."

     "Thank you so much for driving him around the block. Sometimes he just won't go to sleep without a little car ride. I hope traffic wasn't bad."

     A shrug. "Nothing we couldn't handle."

     Then the eyebrow went up. "You didn't have anything to do with that accident on the bridge?"

     "No. We kick-flipped over the canal and skipped that section."

Counseling psychology sessions + Sonic the Hedgehog

Thanks to Katie for this weeks suggestion, I found it more difficult than I was anticipating. Also, sorry for the week of silence. I we went camping for our honeymoon and didn't bring computers.

On the top floor of the Sega Enterprises building, there is a small office in the middle of the open building layout with no windows, and a wooden door as heavy as the feeling Yuji carried in his chest. He felt like he was in trouble, as if he'd been falsely accused of some ugly crime.

"Welcome Yuji. Please, make yourself comfortable."

Yuji sat on the edge a long leather couch, rested his elbows on his knees and tried not to make eye contact with the strange western doctor. He had big round eyes that were positioned too close together, idiotic round glasses, and a bushy mustache that made him seem powerful and dangerous.

"Is there anything in particular you would like to talk about today?"

His Japanese was passable as far as vocabulary was concerned, but there was something offensive about the way he pronounced everything back in his soft palate.

"Īe."

He made a note on his big aluminum clipboard. "That's quite alright. Is there anything that's been bothering you?"

"Īe."

The doctor took a deep breath and leaned back in his chair. "Yuji, I know this can be difficult. You and I don't know each other at all, yet I'm asking you to talk to me as if we were harmonious. Let's start slow. Watashinonamaeha aru Doctor Robert Nicks, I work for Sega Technical Institute back in the U.S.."

Yuji slid farther back on the couch. "I'm a programmer, I write code for the Sega Mega Drive."

Doctor Nicks smiled. "Good. I understand you're having trouble coming up with a concept for your new game?" In reaction to Yuji's tensing up, he pulled his question, "Never mind that. Do you have any hobbies?"

Hobbies? Yuji thought, looking around Doctor Nick's office he noticed that he had furnished the walls with many wall shelves. Each shelf varied by length and height starting at around waist level, and they weren't arranged parallel up the wall like a ladder, but randomly, at different heights and intervals. Yuji imagined he was six-inches tall and had to climb to the top of the wall by jumping up the shelves. "Coding is my hobby."

Yuji passively argued with Doctor Nicks over the nuances of a hobby while looking at all of the things on his shelves. There was the obligatory shelf of awards, diplomas, and certificates. The sturdiest shelf was occupied with thick books with long English names. But all the others were taxidermy of various sizes and shape, all of them protected under glass bell jars. The shelf closest to them held a blue bird with a rosy chest perched on a branch. Above that was a chubby little brown bird with a short, upturned tail, and big white eyebrow stripes that made it look very serious. On another shelf, perched on the side of a grey and weathered piece of barn board, was a small white bird with black wings and white spots, it had a black crest, a black chinstrap beard, and a tiny spot of red at the back of its head. All the other shelves were covered in eggs. Nests filled with green eggs, or blue eggs, or spotted brown eggs. There were Ukrainian painted Easter eggs, and golden eggs, but most of them were actual bird eggs.

Yuji had stopped paying attention, but Doctor Nicks hadn't noticed yet. "...is to calm the chaos of your thoughts. Thoughts can be very powerful and if one can focus that power--you're looking at my nature collection." Nicks rose from his chair, "This is a fine example of focusing the chaos into something productive." From the most central shelf, he took something that Yuji has glanced over at first-- thinking it was some kind of giant burr--from under its bell jar. He cradled the spiky object in his hands and as he brought it closer to Yuji, he could see the spiky ball had a tiny mouse face.

"This is the prize of my collection," Doctor Nicks said. "This was my first taxidermy I ever got. My brother got it for me in Africa. It's my favorite. Atelerix albiventris. Hejjihoggu."

Yuji shook his head, "Hari Nezumi." Needle mouse.

A small bell chimed. "And that's the end of our time today. Next time I'd like to talk more about finding things that refresh your creative energy."

Pressure, Yuji thought, feeling a wave of creative energy wash over him. I know exactly what I'm going to do about this new project.

Nursery Rhymes and Petty Crimes Part II

     It was Friday night, and Ryan found himself wandering the South end, the streets were empty, deserted, and dark. He could feel the beat of steady bass vibrating the cracked sidewalk under his feet, but couldn't locate the right factory or its entrance. Gabriel's instructions had indicated the abandoned mill. There were two and he had just circled the entire chain link fence surrounding the one. The other, even farther south along Canal had long coils of razor wire in addition to the fence, and seemed less likely. As he passed the gate where the fence was bound tight with thick chains and a heavy master lock, he noticed a laminated sign screwed to the fence with the same kind of star-shaped bolts they used on bathroom stalls. It was a notice saying that the city had condemned the building because of health risks... blah blah blah. He had already thought of texting Maria, but she had never come by the Trader Joes to pick-up her phone.

#

     Maria wasn't grounded, but she might as well have been. She had set up her proxy parents to call the night before the rave and when the phone rang, Mary ran to get it, and quickly handed the cordless handset to Joseph. Pretending to occupy herself with the puzzle on the big card table in the living room where she had always felt the nonexistent TV should have been, Maria listened in on the one-sided conversation. Maria didn't see Joseph smile often, which he did when he realized who was on the other end. Their small talk drove Maria almost to hysterics with the suspense, but finally Joseph said, "Tomorrow night? I'm sorry, but Maria isn't available then."

     Maria felt her heart leap into her throat. She couldn't control herself and she asked, "Why not?" while he was still on the phone. The look he gave her had fire and brimstone too it and she knew she would pay for it later, yet he answered the caller, "Her brother Anthony is getting baptized Saturday morning.  I appreciate you offering to drive her home early, but I don't want her staying up too late and you know how girls can be at a sleep over."

     Anthony, the most recent, and youngest child in the house had been there for six months, which Leah and Joseph considered part of the family, and as such, he was to be baptized. Anthony even said he had already been baptized before, but it didn't matter. Joseph explained to him that It was part of the custom of joining the family.    

#

     There was a flash of blue light around the corner of the warehouse across the street, and Ryan felt his chest flutter with hope. He raced toward it and nearly stumbled into a small group of college kids. The men in the group were dressed fairly normal save one whose bleached Mohawk was tipped with glow-in-the-dark highlights. The women were bedazzled in plastic bracelets, short shorts, metallic bras, or vests, and the tops of glow sticks stuck out of their pockets. "The Queen of Tarts--" one of the women began to tell him.

     "Arabella," one of the men chided, "Look at this kid. He doesn't have any X."

     Ryan shook his head to confirm, then asked, "You guys know where you're going?"

     In answer one of them shined a UV flashlight at the sidewalk behind them, briefly revealing a crude drawing in black-light paint of a small rectangular brick wall, and a ladder above it.

     "Up the ladder and down the wall," one of the women recited.

#

     The trail of black-light paint led them down an abandoned and dry branch of the canal and up a cement culvert big enough for a car to fit through.  Along the left side of the wall someone had written in black-light paint, "Girls and boys, come out to play; The moon doth shine as bright as day..."

     Inside the club the music itself was a rowdy toddler who just wanted to play. It slammed into Ryan's chest, pulled on him impatiently and wrapped itself around his feet. His head immediately began to bob in rhythm as the toddler pulled him into the ocean of bouncing bodies, and bare skin. Before being fully immersed in the undertow, Ryan looked around for Maria but the flashing lights, the laser show, the jumping spinning glow-in-the-dark tribal body-pant orgy created a camouflage for the senses that pulled his eyes every-which-way. They wanted to focus on everything and nothing. Specificity wasn't an option. The sound and light crashed over him and the current carried him into the middle where he saw a trail of dancers with red balloons hanging out of their mouths. He followed the trail to a greater concentration of red balloons on the edge of the crowd and found Gabriel.

     "Heeeeeey, Red Horse 3!" Gabriel shouted into Ryan's ear.

     "It's not three... the '3' is the 'E'." He shook his head, "Never mind. The trilogy is dead. No one calls me Red Horse anymore. Have you seen Maria?"

     "Sorry Red Horse. Why? You need some milk?"

     Some high school girls shouldered past Ryan and make a quick exchange with Gabriel of money for balloons. "No. I guess I'm worried about her?" Ryan watched as one of the girls immediately put the balloon in her mouth and crushed something inside it. The balloon expanded, the girl relaxed her lips and inhaled whatever had filled the balloon. Her jaw went slack with euphoria, and the balloon fell to the floor. Her friends caught her, laughing, as her legs turned to jell-O, and pulled her back into the sea of bodies.

     "Worried?" Gabriel smiled, "Look around you, this is a safe place built on the tenants of peace and love!" Ryan looked past the smoke machines and mirror balls and saw a old mill building, rusting and falling apart. "Beside," Gabriel yelled into his ear, "That bitch is smart and tough as nails."

#

     Anthony squinched up his face as the priest poured a small trickle of water on his forehead, and part of it ran down into his eyes and rolled off his cheeks. The priest said, "God the Father of our Lord, Jesus Christ has freed you from sin, given you a new birth by water and the Holy Spirit, and welcomed you into his holy people."

     Maria leaned close to Josephine and whispered, "Isn't this supposed to be on a Sunday?"

     "Maria, shhhhh! There was a wedding scheduled."

     The priest said, "As Christ was anointed Priest, Prophet, and King, so may you live always as a member of his body, sharing everlasting life. He now anoints you with the chrism of salvation!"

     All together everyone said: 'Amen'. Well, all except for Maria who whispered to Josephine, "Did he say the: 'Jizm of Salvation?'" Maria braced for an elbow in the ribs, but when none was received she turned to look at Josephine. Her head was bowed as if in prayer, but she was looking at her hip. Maria leaned forward and saw the glow of a phone.

     "Unbelievable." Josephine shook her head, "Why couldn't you invite your Sunday school friend here? Then you could whisper your little dirty jokes to her."

#

     When Ryan exited the backdoor of the Trader Joes his head with still throbbing with a steady bass thump, and his bloodshot eyes squinted and grimaced at light of day. Maria was by the dumpster waiting for him, "You look like shit!"

     "Maria," he said excitedly, but her confused expression stopped him from running up and hugging her. "I was... I tried to find you last night, did you get out before the cops showed up?"

     "I never went. My parents were water-boarding the devil this morning--" Ryan looked confused. "My brother got baptized, and I couldn't get out last night."

     "Oh, good."

     "Good? You look like you had a fucking awesome time! I feel all left out!" Ryan handed Maria her phone and its charger. "Keep the charger here," she told him.

     "No. I'm done, I can't take care of your phone for you anymore."

     "You owe me three months!"

     "My boss is getting suspicious!"

     "Liar. You fucking owe me."

     "Fine, you want the truth? I saw what your red balloons were doing to people last night..."

     "So? What do you care?"

     "I feel like because I am helping you, that I was responsible. Maria, what if someone died last night? I couldn't live with myself."

     Maria glowered at him and took the phone out of his hands.

     "I... care about you Maria."

     "I have enough older brothers," she spat and walked away.

     Ryan called after her, but she didn't turn back around. He went back to work. Before I could've at least kept an eye on her, he thought. His phone chimed with a text:

     Madonna2000: Eeper Weeper, chimney sweeper, Had a wife but couldn't keep her. Had another, didn't love her, Up the chimney he did shove her.

     R3dHors3: What does that mean?

     R3dHors3: Hello? What the fuck does that mean?