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secretgamergirl · 5 months

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How a Computer Works - Part 2 (Logic and Memory)

For those coming in late, I am writing a text-only explainer of how a computer works, starting from the absolute basics of running a current through various electronic components. We covered that much, and the reasons I'm doing this, back in part 1, where we also sort of left off on a glib little cliffhanger about how once you have logic gates, you're there, right? Well the thing of it is, getting to a point where you can easily make all the basic logic gates actually was really huge, historically, because the next big step to making a computer was already handled by weird math nerds hundreds of years before the physical hardware to make a computer was properly available.

As far back as 1705, math nerds were publishing papers on binary math. That was based on nerding out over the I Ching if you really want to trace things back, and the first time anyone really sat down and tried to build purely mechanical computers was back in the 1800s they had this all figured out to the point where I'm looking at a diagram from Ada Lovelace in 1842 that definitely covers more than I'm going to get to here. So, let's start catching up there. First though, as always, I have to remind you this blog is basically my job right now, and I'm dependent on some percentage of the people reading these posts to go throw me some money on patreon to continue to be alive, so I can write stuff like this.

Logic Gates

We talked earlier about the actual physical components needed to physically build a computer, at least of the sorts we've been using for the past hundred years or so. But really, all you need to make a computer is logic gates, a way to plug values in them, and a way for them to show some sort of output. We're doing that with clever tricks to make conditional electrical connections, but you can use anything, really. Clockwork, falling water, migratory crabs stepping on pressure plates, groups of people agreeing to poke each other's shoulders, or just mathing it all out on paper. All you really need is a consistent way to set up all the fundamental logic gates... and math nerds will note that there's a couple you can build all the others from if you're in a real bind.

So let's go over them again real quick. All of these take two inputs and give an output. We can call those inputs "on or off" "flowing or still" "yes or no" "true or false" or of course the popular "1 or 0." In terms of a computer, as we build them, the first option for the inputs is "if I follow the electrons getting pulled this way all the way down, I'm going to hit a big relatively positive charge" and our output is going to (hopefully) lead towards a big negative charge so we'll have a complete circuit and lights will like and all that. Again, we are going to just ignore how the actual movement of electrons is totally doing the opposite of what we're calling "input" and "output" here. You could build logic components where things really move the way that makes intuitive sense but... we didn't, and we're stuck with that.

So the first and easiest gate we have is the OR gate. An OR gate takes its two inputs, and it's looking for at least one that's on/yes/true/1 whatever you want to call it, and if it has that, it's going to pass it along as it's output. So like, we've got two wires coming in, if either or both is connected to a positive charge, we're passing that connection along, maybe through an LED so it can light up and she how cool we are on the way to a negative charge, but if neither connects to a positive, we're not lighting our light, so, we're passing along off/no/false/0. Simple. Gonna stick to just saying 1 and 0 past here for reasons of laziness. So, 0+0=0, 1+0=1, etc. But maybe we don't use + because that gets confusing with actual addition. So we'll just say 0 or 0 outputs 0. 1 or 0 outputs 1. 0 or 1 outputs 1. 1 or 1 outputs 1.

Then we've got AND gates. Here we pass along our 1 or whatever you want to call it if and only if both our inputs are 1. Just one or the other isn't going to cut it, it's gotta be both. 0&0 outputs 0. 1&0 outputs 0. 0&1 outputs 0. 1&1 outputs 1.

Then we've got the oddball of XOR, or exclusive or. If it wasn't a bunch of STEM people naming these we'd probably say like, "either" vs. "and/or" but this is for when we want exactly one of our inputs to be 1, not both. So, 0 xor 0 outputs 0. 1 xor 0 outputs 1. 0 xor 1 outputs 1. 1 xor 1 outputs 0.

Then we've got the evil twins of those, NOR, NAND, and XNOR. These give the exact opposite outputs their N-less cousins do. 0 nor 0 outputs 1. 1 nor 0 outputs 0. 0 nor 1 outputs 0. 1 nor 1 outputs 0. NAND outputs a 1 any time it isn't getting two 1s. XNOR is particularly badly named since it's outputting a 1 if and only if its inputs are the same as each other and "SAME" would both make more sense and have the same number of characters, but conventions are what they are.

Anyway, point is, if we can construct these six things and string them together, we have all our bases covered on every sort of behavior we could possibly want in terms of taking two inputs and spitting out an output, but the only immediately obvious use case there is if you want to hook multiple light switches up to control a single bulb in various ways and really screw with people trying to figure out what's up when they enter a room and flip a switch, right?

Well, we could also throw some diodes in and branch off from each switch into multiple gates controlling multiple lights with different switch combinations with each bulb following different logic. Especially when you remember that we can use the output of any given gate as the input to another, but what about something actually useful?

The Incredible Power of the S-R Latch

So... here's an actually useful thing we can do. We can store a value for later by looping it in with itself. Check it out, they call this sucker a set-reset, or S-R Latch, and all we need is to take two NOR gates, branch a wire off the output of each, and cross that over to be an input of the other NOR gate. So gate A is taking what we're going to call our Set wire as one input, and gate B's output as the other, and gate 2's going to take what we're going to call our Reset wire, and the output from gate 1. So uh, what does that do?

Well, let's do the math here. If we're just feeding 0s into S and R, then gate A is getting a 0 and let's say, for now, a 0. It's a NOR gate, so feeding in two 0s outputs a 1. So... gate B is getting a 0 from R, and 1 from gate A, so yeah, it was in fact putting out a 0. Hooray, that guess was right, nothing funky's going on here.

Now just for kicks, let's hold down a button for a second to connect to something and make S a 1. OK, NOR gate A now has a 1 and a 0, so it's outputting a 0... and gate B is taking that 0 and the 0 it had from R, so, it's a 1 now, and that 1 goes back to gate A, so gate A has two 1s, which doesn't change how it's putting out a 0 so, no further changes to keep track of there.

Well cool, let me just let go of this button then. Oh well NOW instead of getting a 1 and a 1, NOR gate A is getting a 0 and a 1... but whatever, it's still outputting 0. It's gonna keep outputting a 0 unless it has two 1s after all, that's what a NOR gate does, and uh... huh. It's kinda stuck now isn't it. Doesn't matter if S is a 0 or a 1, gate A is stuck outputting a 0 and gate B is stuck outputting a 1! Gate B is the output we care about here if that wasn't clear. We've rigged it up so that yeah, if there's ever a point where S gets pulled positive/set true/set to 1/turns on, that output gets stuck as the same, and the only way to get it back to a 0 is to go and put a 1 into R. The whole thing's symmetrical so we shouldn't have to step through all this. A ends up outputting 1, so B ends up outputting 0, and R no longer matters.

Well that's all pretty cool, but hey, just to be thorough, what happens if we put a 1 on both S and R at the same time? Well, if A was outputting 1 B gets two 1s, so it outputs a 0 to A, so that's a 1 and 0 for A so it gives B a 0 so B gives A a 1 so A gives B a 0 so... oh we broke it didn't we! In pure logic land this is some sort of paradox. In real life there aren't really any 0s and 1s just wires at different charges and components that don't work right when those aren't steadily in certain ranges so... it resolves SOMEHOW but uh... let's maybe avoid this whole situation.

The S-R latch sucks! Let's make a D flip-flop!

Well one simple thing we can do is have another input wire in the mix, we call it Enable, and we AND it with S and R before we send them into the latch so a 1 can only get in there if we give it the green light. That seems like a good sort of design to use with everything we do with these gates actually. When a wire's going towards a cool setup let's AND it with an enable signal that has to have a 1 or else it's going to stay giving a 0, keep it from getting up to anything. Maybe more than one enabler even.

You know what else would be nice though? If we didn't need two to send a 1 down one wire to store a 1, and a 1 down another to store a 0. If we're doing this whole Enable signal thing and making sure nothing happens otherwise, what if we just like, branched off our set wire, ran that through an inverter, and put that into R? That'd just make it so we can have some sort of Data line with whatever value on it, and whenever we turn on Enable it gets stored, right? Now it's a D latch.

Plus we're never going to have a 1 on both of those inputs, right? Well see, this is one of those situations where we have to deal with the whole perfect logic of 0s and 1s thing doesn't quit fit with reality. It takes SOME time for that inverter to invert (and technically some time for signals to travel along these wires, but less when there aren't neat components). So turns out if you have a wire branch out, send one end through an inverter, then plug both into say an AND gate, every time you change what's on that wire there's going to be this super short little burst of a 1 coming out of that AND. That's very inconvenient for us right now, but it's a cool hacky trick to have in our pocket if we ever want to time something to just do something real quick at the very moment the voltage on a wire shifts from low to high.

We can pull the same sort of trick with a capacitor then a resistor going to a low. Also I should never say "at the very moment." There's values on all these components and mathematical relationships, and when you're really building these things and needing precision timing (because with a computer we want things happening in a very specific order, but VERY FAST) you need to actually do that math. And you know, it's actually very handy for out purposes of avoiding that 1 on both inputs issue if we do something like that, so OK, new design from the top here just for a clean visualization:

We've got a line with our clock signal (I'll get to that in a moment). We run that through the capacitor-resistor-to-negative setup to get this quick little pulse every time the clock line ticks up to positive. Now we split that out to AND gates A and B. We've also got a Data line, it's gonna have whatever. We also split that off, one line going to gate A, the other going through an inverter and into gate B. AND gate A's output goes into an input for NOR gate A, along with the output from NOR gate B. AND gate B's output goes into NOR gate B along with NOR gate A's output. You can wrap all that up in a little box now and so long as we remember to make changes to that data line out of sink with the rising edge of our clock signal, this all works super great. Change the data, pulse the clock, data gets latched in to our new thing we're calling a D flip-flop. We've got a wire coming out the other end from NOR gate B's output that's just gonna hold whatever value until the next time the clock pulses and we check our input again, and we can use AND gates to skip the check if we don't want to read a new value in, or don't want to send that new value off somewhere else.

What's this about a clock?

OK, so, we want our computer to do stuff. Our computer can really only ever do one thing at a time, because the only thing it can really do is latch values into setups like we have above and messing with two inputs being positive can make logic gates go screwy. So like we already did with the D flip-flop we can totally time things along the rising and falling edges of a charge flipping constantly between high and low values, and time everything off that. And we don't even need to do any extra work for that because it JUST SO HAPPENS that smart people worked this all out before any of your fancy transistors were even a thing and the electricity comes right out of your wall in this neat sine wave pattern that peaks 50 or 60 times a second depending what part of the world you're in on the assumption that any electronics that need any sort of timing can work with that.

And I mean that actually is true but screw that we're building a computer. We rig something up to convert that to DC and then we pump that into a chunk of quartz or something. See there's this thing called the piezoelectric effect where the structure of certain kinds of crystals makes them change shape when you run electricity through them then snap back and release it. So you grow a quartz crystal exactly how you want it and lock it up in a little box and run electricity through it, and it'll start twitching away in there at a speed dependent on the voltage, and you just hook in another wire and you get these nice steady alternating high low pulses. Or something close enough to that anyway.

And we're "reading values in" and "passing them along" how?

So we talked about enable lines before right? Like with our D flip-flop there, where we ended up only committing changes to what was latched in when there was a clock pulse? It's easy enough to just have more AND gates for more conditions. Like let's say for the sake of argument and convenient numbers we set up, oh, 8 of those D flip-flops. They each have their own data line, they're sharing a clock, and we're throwing another AND in on the clock line to a shared Read Enable line. We have a 0 there, nothing's going to happen. We have a 1, things will happen when the clock pulses, specifically we latch in whatever's on the data line. Now let's also have an Output Enable line, and we'll AND that in with the output of every flip-flop, and in the interest of being lazy, let's have each flip-flop's output just loop back and connect to it's own data input line... maybe have some diodes in there so it's a one way loop, we probably have some in here but you know, best practices.

Anyway let's take some really really long and we'll call these our bus lines. Each of our 8 data line connects to a bus line. Elsewhere in the computer, anywhere else we're going to have data sitting around in fact, those also connect to these 8 bus lines. We might have a set of 8 flip-flops to hold some set of data for just a little bit, or for a long time, or connected to some switches or buttons, or just some LEDs or other kind of output, whatever. Everything connects to the bus, and everything has enable lines to pull in whatever values are on the bus and to push out whatever onto the bus. We definitely don't want have more than one thing trying to push stuff out at a time, we also definitely want to do that whole pull-down resistor thing to make sure everything on the bus defaults to 0 if we aren't feeding in a 1, and we probably don't want to be reading from the bus at the exact moment the data on it is changing as a best practices thing, ideally, but oh, quick sidetrack there.

Let's say we have some a clump of these flipflops, we call that register A, we have another we call register B, and we build some little module that treats what's in both of those like an 8 bit number and adds them together, we call the output of that our sum register. And say we get lazy, we leave the sum register's output enabled, A's input enabled, and we've just go 00000001 stored in B. Now every time the clock pulses and updates our math function, the sum increases by 1, feeds right back into A, and the whole thing ends up counting up at the speed of the clock. There's simpler ways to make something count up, but, hey it's a thing you can do. And a thing you probably don't want to do, so don't leave those pins enabled all over.

In fact, if you really wanted to be safe, you'd maybe want to just like put a pull-down on every enable line and have them all lead to a big control zone where you're just sitting there holding a live positive wire in your hand and touching it to whatever one thing you want enabled at a time. Seems like a pain though.

Why not use an addressing system?

OK, so how about this? What if we organize everything so we've got like, our big longterm memory area, and we have a bunch of these registers of a flip-flop for every line on the bus, and then instead of a simple enable pin for each register, we have a unique little access code for each? Let's have oh... 4 dedicated data lines just for managing these, right? So one of these is oh, memory address 1001. So we just have lines carrying those values, and we XNOR those with our address lookup lines, then we AND all those together, and use THAT for our enable.

I already covered how XNOR makes way more sense if we just call it SAME instead, right? We're only going to pass a 1 to the set of ANDs at the end if we've got a 1 and we're getting another 1, or we've got a 0 and we're getting another 0, and if we pass a single 0 to the ANDs, they clam up and don't enable things, but if we pass the whole value, we're in.

We can use a similar address coding thing to activate cool little function models too. Like that thing I mentioned in the tangent for doing addition? We have some operation code to enable to output on whatever memory register has a number we care about and make register A in that math module read it in. Another to plug a value into B. Another to output the sum to some memory address we want to store it in. We can set it up so these get checked for if someone sets toggle switches corresponding to the code and locks it in with an enable button, or hey, we can set up one of those big blocks of addressed memory, lay the whole sequence of actions we want out in that in sequential addresses, and then just have some function that adds 1 to itself every clock cycle as a line counter, and enable the outputs of our program counter to dump out those stored commands out to our opcode and memory address lines when their number gets called at the deli, as it were. Hey, make one of the commands write to the program stepper and it can even skip around.

And... there you go. That's how a computer works. There's more stuff I could, and probably could cover, like how to rig up a program counter and an addition module and maybe some sort of real output display. Not to mention how to actually, practically, compress all of this into a reasonable space so you don't just have a few thousand transistors soldered together in a giant tangle with the nightmare of keeping contacts from touching. I'll probably get to at least some of that in some future part 3. In the meantime, I learned most of what I'm sharing here by actually for real building my own computer using a kit and series of instructional videos from eater.net which is just the homepage of some cool guy who, yeah, posts long explainer videos on this stuff and sells electronics kits you can follow along with. I don't have any advertising deal going here or anything, he's just genuinely a good extra source of info for getting your head around this stuff. And again, if you thought this was a cool read or you're just feeling generous, throw me a little money maybe?

CONTINUED IN PART 3

#computers #computer science #logic gates #electronics #education

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mignonricciardo · 2 years

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august | dr3

chapter two

thank you all for the love <3 here is the long awaited second chapter to august [NOTE: currently unedited, but I really wanted it up]

notes: day three and four (8.1k words)

warnings: cursing, allusions to smut, mentions of grief, lots of emotions, discussion of daniel losing his seat

here is chapter one!

Day 3 of 19

By the time the night settles over the now quiet house, my brain has finally calmed down enough to let me read the manuscript glaring at me from the corner of my dresser. Water droplets smear some of the red ink, and crinkles in the paper appear along periods and commas. I can hear Michael laughing on the phone down the hallway, surely trying to catch up with his girlfriend back in London. A part of me feels guilty for pulling him away from her on his break, but there’s no point in raising it. Michael and I both would do anything for Daniel—someone who was always finding a way to be there for us—even if that meant sacrificing his break to travel halfway across the world to return to the infamous beach house. If this was something Daniel felt he needed, both of us were ready to be here. All it took was a phone call, and my walls were crumbling like clockwork.

Daniel’s room is empty as I pass, the door wide open and lights off. His curtains are pulled open, revealing light from the pool beneath his window. I take another glance down the hall to make sure he isn’t around and Michael is still occupied before heading into the room to peek out of the window. Only one deck light is on over the blue pool, but I can make out Daniel sitting on the cool tile. He’s slouched in on himself, but I think I can see his lips moving. Is he on the phone? I can’t see any earbuds in his ears or his phone in his hands, but his lips continue moving. His hands taps gently on his thigh—he’s singing. I grin to myself as I watch him, tapping his hand on his thigh and slight smile pulling at his lips. I start to head down toward him, leaving his bedroom behind me as I pad quietly down the wooden stairs. As kids, Daniel always loved music and used it to match all of his moods. I’d even caught him once out by this pool after being rejected by one of his pre-teen crushes listening to I Miss You by Blink 182.

“What are you listening to?”

He looks up from his spot on the pool deck, leaving his palm open with his iPod sitting squarely in the center of his hand. He shrugs his shoulders, pulling one of the earbuds from his ear and holding it out to me. I sit next to him on the pool deck, chills erupting across my arms as the sun sets beyond the house, and put the earbud into my ear. I hold back my laugh as the crooning notes of the Blink 182 song come through the wired headphones.

My shoulder bumps his as he doesn’t answer my question, “This about the bonfire?”

“Jack shouldn’t have told you about that,” Daniel pouts, keeping his eyes locked on a pool floatie drifting across the blue water.

“Why didn’t you guys take me?” I throw back at him, feeling equally as upset as he is. “You left me here to read with my parents.”

“You’re too young still, Cal,” Daniel answers without hesitation. “I don’t trust anyone there with you.”

“I’d be fine, Daniel,” I nudge him, but he catches my elbow with his hand.

I freeze as his fingers grip my elbow, and he shakes his head briefly as he finally turns his head to meet mine. His face is serious, lacking his usual grin and signature dimples. I freeze beneath his touch, eyes stuck on his as he drops my elbow, “I don’t trust anyone there. Ask me again next year, and maybe I’ll take you.”

“I’ll talk to her next time,” I answer, trying to cover the butterflies in my stomach. “To Adriana. She’s dumb to reject you like that. I’ll yell if I have to.”

A smile tugs at his lips, and the butterflies in my stomach nearly explode as he laughs at my comment, “I’ll keep it in mind, Apples, but I think next year I won’t care anymore.”

“Well, I won’t forget it,” I start. “We’re in this together.”

“That we are,” he grins, nudging me with his elbow as we settle into the song.

We sit there for a while in silence, listening to whatever pops up on his iPod. He scrolls through on the device, fingers circling around the button in the middle, and I watch as he skips through songs he loves before settling on She Will Be Loved. My jaw drops open as it starts through the wired headphones.

“You love this one, yeah?” he says nonchalantly, avoiding my eyes as he looks down at the screen.

I nod wildly, “It’s one of my favorites.”

“That’s what I thought,” he says quietly, leaning into me slightly. As the song progresses, both of us humming along to the radio hit, he speaks quietly, “Thanks for checking on me, Cal. You’re the best. I don’t care what Jack says about you.”

It’s a mirror image of two nights ago, but this time our roles are reversed. Daniel sits on the edge of the pool, bare feet barely dipping into the warm water to avoid getting the ankles of his sweatpants wet. He’s wearing different clothes than this morning when I passed him wordlessly in the kitchen as he picked over his breakfast, and his hair is still a bit damp at the back of his head from his post-training shower. The air is cooler tonight, a biting chill coming off the ocean, and he sits with his back to the wind. His oversized sweatshirt swallows him whole, and his unruly curls sit wildly on top of his head. It’s evident his fingers have been tearing through them all day. He is singing along quietly to whatever is drifting from his wireless speaker, and I stand back to listen to him as he sings. I linger in the doorway for a moment, the two mugs in my hands warming my fingers and blanket draped across my arm. He turns to look at me when my slippers scuff on the deck, and despite the unfamiliar look of exhaustion written on his face, he smiles gently as I approach. I reach a hand out with a mug of hot chocolate, and his fingers brush mine as he takes the cup from me.

“It’s not from Greenhouse,” I start as he takes a sip of the hot liquid. “It’s just from whatever was in the kitchen, but I thought you’d like some.”

He nods as I sit next to him, smile softening around the corners as the warmth of the hot chocolate spreads, “It’s perfect. Thank you.”

I drape the fleece blanket over his shoulders before sitting next to him, and he laughs gently as I do. He looks younger with the blanket bunched around his neck and shoulders—like a child wearing a too large jacket. The pool deck is cold. The chill flashes through my sweatpants as I sit, and goosebumps are starting to erupt before I’ve even sat for an entire minute. The breeze ruffles my hair, and I dig my hands deeper into the sweatshirt sleeves before wrapping them around my own mug of store-bought hot chocolate. I turn to watch Daniel—to see the sapphire reflections from the pool on his skin—but he’s already turned to the side to look at me. His eyes are hooded, and where he’d usually have a joke to tell or a grin on his face, there’s nothing but exhaustion as our eyes meet. The stubble on his jaw is dark in the blue light, and the bags beneath his eyes are evident. I’m trapped in his gaze, eyes flitting across his face before returning back to his umber stare, and goosebumps spread on my skin as my shoulders shudder.

“Are you cold?” he whispers suddenly, and before I can even dig through the haze in my brain to answer, he’s scooting closer to me on the deck.

The outside of his leg presses to mine, and he relinquishes one corner of the blanket to wrap around my shoulder. His hand lingers across my back as he tucks the blanket around me before returning to his side. His forearm brushes mine as I try not to drop the mug in my hand. Warmth spreads from every point of contact between us, blooming across me as a defense against the cold, and I scold myself for falling victim to my body’s response.

“It’s colder than I thought it’d be,” I whisper gently, eyes looking back at him. “Thank you.”

He nods in agreement, fingers drumming against the ceramic mug. It was Dad’s favorite mug here. He swore it was the best because his drink never went cold inside the ceramic meant to look like the ocean. The dolphin emblazoned on the side made him laugh because it was clearly for summer tourists. Not us winter visitors bundled in sweatshirts. Dan’s nimble fingers rest over the dolphin, and the rose tattoo on his hand peeks out from beneath his sweatshirt sleeves. I get to look at him properly now with his eyes cast down toward his drink. He’s biting the inside of his cheek, something he always did as kids when there was something on his mind. The familiar divot appears just above where his dimples are, hidden now by dark stubble.

“You can talk about it if you want,” I nudge him gently with my elbow, slotting it into a space in his ribs. “I’m here if you want to talk about it. Even if you just want to dump whatever it is that’s bothering you, I’m here, Dan.”

“How have you always been able to tell something is bothering me?” he grins for a moment, airy laughter as he looks at me.

“You bite your cheek or your lip. You do it when you’re thinking about things and focusing. There’s a little divot in your cheek that isn’t quite where your dimples are,” I start, finger pressing into the spot on his cheek gently. The dark hair on his jaw is rough against my fingertip, and his skin is warm despite the biting breeze. He breaks into a smile when my finger pokes his cheek, laughing quietly and letting his dimples appear.

“I didn’t even realize I did that,” his voice is gentle, heart a little lighter, as my finger falls back to my lap. “You really know me better than myself, yeah?”

“I’ve known you forever,” I whisper, voice trailing off as we both look back to the pool. “We’ve been close a long time.”

There’s a stretching silence, full of nothing but the crashing waves beyond the house. I’m pressed into his side deeper as I tighten the blanket around my shoulder, and I’m ever-aware of the way our elbows slot together in between us with each sip of hot chocolate. We sit like that for a while, lost in our thoughts and basking in the other’s warmth in the unrelenting breeze. It’s like clockwork every time we’re at this house—some magnetic force drawing us together. It’s easy, and it’s comfortable. It’s dangerous, I remind myself, but the sounding warning bells are quiet when I’m near him. God knows how long our comfortable quiet stretches before he sighs gently, looking down at his hands and mug.

“When did we stop telling each other everything?”

He avoids my gaze as his fingers drum against the mug in his hand, and my stomach twists into knots at his question. I take a steadying breath, thankful he doesn’t twist his head to look at me as I gather strength to answer his question.

“We got older,” I attempt to shrug my shoulders beneath the tight blanket. “We aren’t 15 anymore.”

Both of us are aware of the unspoken truth between us. We broke our own hearts by trying to love each other. Daniel sighs as he glances back toward the mug in his hand, and after a stretching silence, his voice rasps after taking a sip of his drink.

“It’s not enough to just love something, is it?”

It’s hard to focus with his knee knocking against mine, but I answer quickly, “It depends what it is that we love and how we love.”

His silence stretches for a moment, long enough for the weight of my words to sink in but not so long that I become concerned with whatever is stewing in his head. He leans back into the blanket cutting across his shoulders, jostling me with him, and my elbow falls into a space tucked between his bicep and his ribs.

“It’s not enough to love racing anymore,” he whispers, and his voice is so quiet I barely catch his words.

“You can tell me what this is about, Dan,” I scrutinize the details of his face beneath the ambient blue light. “You’re scaring me a little bit.”

He takes a deep breath before he speaks, and his arm presses into mine, “I’m losing my seat. With the team, in the sport, forever. I don’t know, but I think I’m done, Cal, and I don’t know what my life looks like without it.”

He could have dropped a bomb and opened up a crater where the pool is in front of us, and I would have been just as shocked. His words leave me frozen as I try to wrap my head around what he’s saying. Instead of finding comfort, more questions let loose from my brain.

“Is that what the last two days have been about? The phone calls?”

He nods, voice hoarse as he speaks, “I’m so sick of listening to people on the phone and trying to negotiate different things. I sure as hell didn’t think my break would be like this. I could see this coming, but I didn’t think so soon. I thought I’d have time to figure out my life without racing.”

This version of Daniel—a dejected Dan with worry lines and faint traces of dimples—is one I’m not used to seeing, and it’s jarring. With some hesitancy, my arm loops around Daniel’s, linking our elbows together beneath the fabric of our respective sweatshirts. My hand crosses his forearm to rest on the back of his hand clutching his mug. My thumb brushes over the rose tattoo spreading across his skin, and even with all the pressure surrounding him and thoughts swirling in his head, he turns to me with a tight-lipped smile.

“I don’t want to tell you I’m sorry because there’s nothing I can do to change it,” I start, distracted by the warmth of his skin beneath mine. “But I am sorry, Dan. I’m sorry this is happening now and happening this way. I’m sorry there’s nothing else I can really do but be a distraction.”

“I don’t want you to have to feel like you need to do anything,” he whispers. “After all the shit I’ve put you through, I don’t even expect you to sit here and try to comfort me, but you are. It says a lot about you, Cal. You’re a good person, even after everything.”

“Daniel,” I whisper, scared my voice will betray me as all the buried memories and emotions threaten to break the surface.

His eyes catch mine now, and I feel the pit in my chest drop to my stomach. He doesn’t look like himself, but I’m sure I don’t look the same either. It’s easy to forget how much both of our lives had changed since that fated last meeting before he left to return to Europe. He joined a new team, was unable to visit home for nearly two years, and faced constant criticism and doubt. I had taken on a new job and faced the loss of my dad. Neither of us are who we were the last time we found ourselves in this position, drawn together like moths to a flame.

“I’m sorry, Apples,” he whispers, voice hoarse despite the smile cracking his lips as he uses the old nickname. “For everything, I’m sorry.”

And there it is. Our unspoken, understood rules not to discuss anything that had happened between us had cracked. Daniel Ricciardo is more than my first love. He was my first everything growing up, and even into adulthood, those lingering traces of his fingers on my skin or memories of late night phone calls still haunt me. Reminders of what was good, and flashbacks of where it went wrong. I could count on two hands the run-ins over the years—the attempts at making something work only for a destined implosion. My hand tightens over his on the mug, fingers falling in between the spaces of his warm digits and blue ceramic.

“You know, when Dad passed, he asked me what had happened between us. He asked me why I hadn’t been talking to you,” I whisper, throat closing at the memory of my father. “I don’t know how he knew we weren’t speaking like we used to. I told him you were too busy with racing, and it was true, Daniel, but I could never hold that against you. It’s who you are.”

“But is that all I’ve ever lived for? Who am I without it?”

The tears in his eyes nearly break me. They sit above his lashes, ready to spill over on to his cheeks, reflected blue like the pool water beneath us. His hand moves from my touch, turning gently to intertwine our fingers and press our palms together. His thumb catches the hem of my sweatshirt before resting on the back of my hand. I’m lost in his gaze, and my brain goes fuzzy with his calloused touch resting against my hand.

“Let’s find out, then,” I whisper, face heating beneath his gaze. “On this trip. We’ll find out who Daniel Ricciardo is, beyond the visor and the track and the fame and the travel. I know who you are, Dan, but it’s time for you to find out, too.”

His warm gaze holds my eyes, and for a moment, it feels like how things used to be. I’m suddenly 7 years old, tucked under a blanket next to a newly 9-year-old Daniel. We’re arguing about something despite his arm around my shoulders, and Jack is off in the distance riding his skateboard. He calls for our attention when he tries to kickflip, and we pause our argument every time to watch him try the trick. Despite our arguing, his lopsided grin grows with every passing moment. I catch a glimpse of that Daniel now. To keep it lighthearted and ignoring the hammering of my heart, I add on, “Or I can try to crowdsource a team. I don’t know how yet, but we’ll make you a seat. Scuderia O’Connor.”

He laughs despite his watery gaze, and my cheeks glow prideful at being able to make him laugh and make his dimples appear. His hand squeezes mine, “I’d love racing for that team. Team colors would be blue and green, yeah?”

I nod my head, “You still remember my favorite colors.”

I’m trapped in his gaze, feeling pinned beneath his brown eyes and his grasp on my hand. I’m hyper aware of our proximity beneath the blanket and our bodies pressed to the other’s side. The warning bells that my brain was desperately trying to sound earlier are still silent, but even I know that deep down I should be hearing their familiar ringing.

He doesn’t move, eyes blinking as they soften into sleepy remnants of his wide-eyed gaze, “How could I forget?”

His fingers brush a piece of loose hair back from my face, fighting against the wind as he tucks the wispy strand behind my ear. His fingers graze my cheek as they return back to his side, and I’m grateful once our eye contact breaks—I finally feel like I can breathe again. I’m not sure how long we sit in silence, fingers still pressing into each other for warmth. The breeze ruffles my hair, but with my face pressed into Daniel’s shoulder and blanket blocking the wind from my cheek, I manage to fall asleep in our silence. Daniel notices when my breathing slows and my hand goes limp in his grasp. He doesn’t wake me, and he doesn’t let go. He relishes in the quiet moment for as long as he can stand the howling wind.

I used to fall asleep during all of our movie nights. Every time Daniel wanted to show me a movie (usually Fast and Furious), I would promise him I’d stay up, and every time, I’d end up falling asleep on the couch next to him. He never woke me to finish the movie, and he never stopped trying to show me more and more of his favorite movies. It was an unspoken understanding between us—he’d pick a movie, and I’d sleep right through it. He’d shake me awake gently when the end credits were rolling, and I’d always find myself with a foot tucked beneath his knee, a head on his shoulder, or my arm slung across him. Our moment now reminds him of every movie marathon at the house, and when he looks down at me, he’s suddenly reminded by dyed-blonde hair and manicured brows that I’m not that girl anymore. He’s not that boy.

“Cal,” he whispers, nudging my cheek with his shoulder. I open my eyes slowly to look at him, lashes thick with sleep, and my cheek doesn’t venture far from the warmth of his shoulder. I notice my hand still in his, but his words distract me from flexing my fingers, “Let’s get in and go to bed, yeah?”

I nod, but both of us are slow to pull our hands back to our sides. He unwraps the blanket from his shoulders, tucking it around me before he stands on the deck. He steadies me as I follow, feet stumbling on the edge, and I mutter a quiet thank you as his hands fall from my hips. He carries both of our mugs, motioning for me to go ahead of him, and I relish in the warmth of the house as we cross the threshold. There’s more distance between us in the kitchen than we had all night by the pool, and without him in my space, I’m able to think clearly. I lean against the counter as he drops the mugs into the sink, and he turns to look at me from his leaning stance against the metal basin. Neither of us say anything, eyes meeting in the dimly lit kitchen. The air is filled with so many things that each of us want to say. I remember when you played me my favorite song without asking. I remember when you kissed me at the beach bonfire I begged you to take me to for years. I remember when I met you in France. I remember how it felt to think you loved me. Daniel’s face holds just as much, his bottom lip tucked in between his teeth as his brown eyes travel over my own features. I can still feel the indent of his shoulder against my warm cheek. After a moment of our silence, I whisper a goodnight, forcing myself to turn away from him and head toward the stairs to avoid breaking my number one rule.

“Don’t forget,” he grins as I climb the stairs with the blanket still wrapped around me. “Tomorrow is day one. You’re going to help me figure out how to live.”

“Just promise me you won’t get a crush on me in the process,” I laugh, a lighthearted joke to bring the smile back to his face. “This isn’t year 10.”

He hesitates for the briefest moment, grin taking root and eyes tracing the soft curves of my face, “I wouldn’t dare.”

Day 4 of 19

I toss and turn all night. Everytime it feels like my brain is finally turning quiet and my eyes start to close, I jolt awake with the memory of Daniel’s words. I wouldn’t dare. Lopsided grin and messy hair. Those dimples poking through. Once I finally accept I’ll be getting no sleep as memories—both good and bad—replay over and over of all the times I let myself fall into the trap of Daniel Ricciardo, the sun is starting to rise with the sky turning into a soft glow. The gentle dunes of the beach are cast in a pastel orange light, and the waves crash gentle just beyond the house. Rather than lay in bed and continue my back and forth between awake and asleep, I decide on an early run that would surely turn into a walk to take my mind off whatever it is that is happening between Daniel and me. I need out of this house to think clearly. Trainers in hand, I pad down the hallway toward the staircase quietly. Daniel’s door is cracked, and I’m extra cautious as the floorboards creak beneath my weight. Once I finally make it to the bottom of the staircase, I let go of the breath I was holding.

The house is quiet in the early morning hours, and a chill creeps through the window panes as they creak in the brisk wind. I pause in the kitchen to grab a water bottle from the fridge, and my eyes land on the two dirty mugs in the sink. The dolphin is practically staring at me. I linger as I stare at the two mugs, rings of chocolate settled in the bottom, and my mind drifts back to last night. I groan when I remember how good it felt to be pressed into his side with our fingers touching. What happened to being mad at him? I tear myself away from the kitchen, bracing for the wind and what is surely going to be a miserable jog.

The air is brisk, wind whipping off the coast and grabbing at my clothes, but I welcome the chill as it stings against my cheeks. For a few moments, I relish in the breeze swirling around me and watch as the sky turns from lavender hues to eggshell blue and pale orange ribbons. Once I’ve put off starting my slow jog long enough, I take another look at the sky before sticking earbuds in. Motion City Soundtrack starts immediately in my ears, and I quickly realize Daniel had shown me this song years ago. It seems I can’t get away from him, but I turn up the volume another notch as I take off down the trail where we used to ride motorbikes.

Not long into my slow pace, and my chest is heaving as sweat prickles at my hairline. I was never the athletic one of the bunch, but I always tried to keep up with the boys. Michael would be laughing his ass off if he could see me right now struggling through a jog down the beach. I turn the music up another notch to drown out my own gasping breaths, and my pace begins to falter as I circle around the trail and back toward the house.

“Callie!”

I stop my already-slowing jog, listening again as someone yells my name. Is that Daniel? I tug one of the earbuds from my ear and turn around.

“Couldn’t sleep either?”

Daniel is approaching me from the path cutting behind the house, and his wild curls are held back by a cap. Sweat is gleaming on his forearms in the still-rising sun, and patches of his shirt are sticking to his shoulders and back. I struggle to tear my eyes away from him and focus on a response, especially with the way his chest is rapidly rising and falling as he searches for air from his undoubtedly much harder run.

He’s grinning when I finally break my gaze from his body to meet his eyes. I shake my head, feeling a blush crawling up my cheeks, “Didn’t sleep at all. Got a lot on my mind.”

“Me too,” he nods, chest still heaving and taunting me. “I didn’t know you were running again.”

“I’m not really,” I answer with a shrug. “I just felt like getting up rather than lay in bed and do nothing.”

Daniel is silent for a moment as he takes in my appearance now, lifting his cap to run fingers through his damp hair before letting the cap settle back over his curls. His pause feels deliberate, and I’m overly-conscious of my body language in revealing I feel his eyes on me. His eyes meet mine now—a fair trade off after my own moment of looking him up and down—with a soft smile.

“I still have my morning workout if you’d like to join me,” he starts. “I wouldn’t mind the company.”

“No Michael this morning?” I raise my brows. “Isn’t he your trainer?”

Daniel laughs, leaning in slightly as he glances back up at the house, “Between you and me, I’m trying to give him the break off. His only break during the season, and he’s still spending it with me.”

I catch his cologne wafting off him despite the sweat still gleaming on his neck, and I force my answer to remain normal despite my body’s very abnormal response, “You’re finally acknowledging how annoying you can be? Pinch me, I must be dreaming.”

He laughs loudly—a full belly laugh that sends him even closer toward me. I can’t help the smile on my own face as he laughs, and his voice is still a touch raspy from the early morning hours, “A few days, and I’m already subject to your comments?”

“We agreed we wanted it to be like old times,” I remind him, feeling an unease creep through me at the implications of what we used to be.

Just the thought of what was and what used to be makes a pit in my stomach open up, and to get so close to having to speak it out loud is no help. Daniel catches it, too, and a look passes over his face that I can’t quite decipher. I used to be able to read his mind as kids—all the way up until he left for Europe. The smallest twitch of his cheek or flutter around his eyes, and I knew what he was thinking. After our stare lingers for a moment too long, he shakes his head gently and his smile returns.

“I wouldn’t want it any other way,” he nods, but the smile doesn’t entirely reach the corners of his eyes. He turns away from me as he braces his hands against his back, stretching his torso as he looks up toward the brightening sky, “So, you down to join?”

“Am I joining or watching?” I respond, watching as the outline of his abs disappear beneath his shirt when he returns to a full stand.

He grins, “Motivating. When I slack or complain, yell. You’ll enjoy it.”

I follow him around the front of the house with a grin, “You know me so well.”

Halfway through the workout, Daniel's speaker is blaring some hip hop as he swings a kettlebell. Every time he huffs and complains in between sets, I scold him. He always responds with a laugh and sometimes a middle finger, but he continues with the seemingly grueling workout. I lean against the fence, perched on an old patio chair, and try my best to keep my staring to a minimum. Every time he is focused, eyes boring ahead as he concentrates his energy into the workout, my own eyes can’t help but stare at him. I was doing well keeping my cool, but when he tossed his shirt to the side, I lost all sense of decorum. My fingers itch to trace the new tattoos on his skin, and I try to keep my eyes from his tensing abs and clearly sculpted hips disappearing beneath the athletic shorts. Daniel lunges again with the kettlebell, dropping to the ground with a huff as he places his hands above his head. I give him a moment to catch his breath before speaking.

“Did you have to take your shirt off? It’s cold out here,” I scold him.

He chuckles breathily as his chest rises and falls, “Why? Like what you see?”

“You’re a pig,” I laugh to cover the blush rising up my cheeks.

“I try my best,” he grins. “I know I’m irresistible. It’s okay, Cal, you can admit it.”

“In your dreams, Dan,” I shoot back, finding joy in our lighthearted conversation.

The heaviness of the past few days, all of the bubbling emotions and memories, eases with our back and forth. It’s truly like the old Daniel and Callie—the best friends who could barely stand to say a nice thing to one another. It’s comforting, even if I am watching him in a very un-bestfriend-like way. After a few more sets in his workout, Daniel finally calls it, collapsing on to the lounge chair next to me. I can smell his cologne mixing with sweat as his chest heaves, and the rolling in my stomach indicates that I need to get some space from him before I do something stupid and let the rest of my defenses crumble.

“What’s on the agenda today?” he asks, snapping his fingers in front of my face when I take too long to answer.

I shake my head to clear the images from my brain, stumbling over my words as I start, “The weather isn’t looking great. It’s supposed to get colder.”

Daniel grabs my forearm, grinning broadly as he looks at me, “You know what that means?” I look at him clueless, my slack lips and furrowed eyebrows clearly showing my confusion, and he answers swiftly, “A movie day!”

“Daniel, I-”

“Please,” he whines, hand wrapped around my wrist and leaning in toward me.

I’m trying so hard not to look at his shirtless torso, but with him this close, it’s difficult to avoid. Finally, I agree to his request, sending him back inside after he grins, “Go shower. You stink, asshole.”

“You secretly love it!” he grins as he saunters toward the house, plucking his discarded shirt from the ground as he enters through the garage.

I throw my head back against the chair, groaning as my hands cover my face when the door shuts. I nearly jump as Michael approaches, head spinning to see him jogging up the path.

“You’re so in trouble,” he laughs, turning away from me as I swing a fist but miss his ribs.

“Go call your girlfriend again. I’m sure she’d love to see you after your run,” I fire at him.

He only continues to grin, “Not as much as you’d like to see him.”

“This is your fault, you know,” I call as he walks toward the front of the house to complete his run. “If you weren’t so damn good at your job, he wouldn’t look like that!”

“You’re welcome!” he calls before disappearing around the corner.

After my own shower, I head down the stairs in sweats and a long sleeve shirt, ready for a long day parked on the couch indulging in snacks that will catch up to me unlike when I was a kid. I kick my feet up on the long end of the sectional, and Daniel laughs at the Red Bull fuzzy socks on my feet. He makes a comment about me still owning them as he sets snacks and drinks on the coffee table in front of us.

“I couldn’t part with them if I wanted to,” I grin. “They’re practically a relic now.”

“Watch it there,” he warns with a playful grin. “Still a sore subject.”

He eventually settles on a Fast and Furious marathon, finding all of the movies on a streaming service and laughing wildly like a school kid as I protest. Sweat prickles at my hairline and palms as he hits play on the first film, and after a first helping to the snacks and drinks he brought out for us, we settle into the film. Michael stops down to eat an early lunch, laughing as he sees us sprawled on the sectional, sucked into the film. He snaps a few pictures despite our protest before making a cheeky comment and heading back upstairs to call some clients. Halfway through the film, and I’m noticing our shoulders touching despite our sprawled position and length of the sectional couch. Neither of us move, and when he starts to talk, I notice him lean in some.

“This reminds me of before I left for Europe,” he chuckles as he bumps my shoulder with his on the couch. “My last winter here.”

I laugh as he nudges me, “It’s missing that awful Lynx body spray you used to wear.”

His laugh is crystal clear as it echoes through the open living room into the kitchen, bouncing off walls and reminding me of winter days full of warm laughter. It’s reminiscent of the wind chimes he bought my mom for her birthday out on the porch, melodical in the sea breeze and a background to our days by the pool.

His laughter ebbs as I stir up the long forgotten memories of his beloved teenage cologne, and he hesitates a moment before he speaks. Should he say this?

“It worked though, didn’t it?”

The memories flash before my eyes, and even after all these years, heat rises up my neck. No way he’s bringing this up right now. Not after everything. Daniel chuckles, voice raspy in the quiet apartment, “Too embarrassed to answer?”

“Dan,” I fear my voice will betray me, and my eyes send him a stern look. Nerves fester in my stomach, and I can feel my face burning red as his eyes watch me.

He hums quietly with a mischievous look, “I remember it, Cal. All of it.”

“You know I’m only doing this because you’re leaving me for good, right?” I shoot at the boy sitting on the couch, carrying more food to the coffee table in front of him.

“Yes, but also because you love me and I asked nicely,” he grins, running fingers through his wild curls. “And it’s not like I’ll never be back. Australia is still home even if I’m away for a while.”

“Might as well be leaving me,” I sit on the couch next to him, bumping his shoulder with mine. “You’re going off to Europe and leaving me to navigate the Aussie boys by myself.”

“You’ve had no trouble navigating them through this point,” he laughs, putting his feet up on the table.

“Because I don’t actually hang out with them!” I defend myself, sipping from my soda can. “I lead them on the chase, but that’s it.”

“Good, you don’t need to be messing around with those bastards,” Daniel says matter-of-factly.

“Well, news flash,” I huff, crossing my arms angrily, “I haven’t been messing around with anyone. I’m only reminded of it constantly.”

Silence stretches between us for a moment before the boy turns to me with furrowed brows, “You mean that? You haven’t messed around with anyone?”

“I’m still a virgin if that’s what you’re getting at,” I snap at him, feeling anger and frustration bubble within me.

“Honest?” he looks baffled. “Even with all those guys after you?”

“What the fuck are you implying?” I hit his arm harshly.

His expression changes as he holds his hands out in front of him, “No, that’s not what I mean! You’re pretty, and they clearly like you. I mean it as in you have options.”

“You don’t get it,” I sigh, rubbing my eyes as fingers drag across my temples. “They don’t like me. They just think I’ll be easy. That’s not how I want my first time to go, Dan. I want it to be with someone I at least trust.”

“So a boyfriend?”

“Not necessarily,” some of my anger ebbs, but annoyance still laces its way through my tone. “For example, someone like you and Michael. Someone who at least respects me, you know?”

“I guess I get it,” he shrugs. “I just don’t see why it should matter right now whether you are or aren’t one.”

“I just want it over with,” I groan as I drop my head into my hands. “Just forget I said anything. Let’s watch the movie.”

Daniel hits play on the remote, leaning into the arm of the couch as he attempts to get comfortable. The weight of our conversation hangs in the air as we watch the movie in an uncomfortable silence. My mind tries to focus on the film in front of us, but my thoughts keep drifting to the boy next to me. His cologne fills my brain, short wiring my neurons as I search for a grasp on reality and reason. My fingertips dig into my thighs, knuckles turning white as they clutch denim. Daniel shifts repeatedly in his seat on the other end of the couch, moving the entire piece of furniture every time he swings his leg around or wiggles his hips on the cushion. He adjusts the volume of the movie repeatedly, failing to settle on a volume level. The dialogue is too quiet, and the cars too loud. Daniel reaches toward the table to grab a soda can, his leg bouncing wildly the entire time.

“Will you stop fidgeting?” I snap at him. “I’m trying to watch the movie.”

“No, you’re not,” he shoots back, leg still bouncing. “You’ve been zoning out.”

My cheeks turn bright red, “So, you’ve been watching me instead of the movie that you begged me to watch with you?”

He turns defensive as his cheeks burn red, too, “How could I not? You’ve been sitting there biting your lip and squeezing your legs after we just talked about sex. You want me to not notice?”

“I have not!” I shriek at him, feeling the heat of a blush spreading across my neck and chest. “You’re the one who has been squirming in his seat ever since!”

“Do you blame me?” his voice is loud as he stares at me intently. “I’ve got a girl sitting next to me—a very attractive one at that—wishing she could change her lack of experience, and she’s clearly on one with her body language.”

“My body language?” I scoff. “Look at you! You’re so bound up that I’m surprised you haven’t excused yourself already.”

“Since we’re being so open and honest here,” Daniel waves his hands in front of him, trailing off and letting my brain complete a mental image that both mortified and intrigued me. “You started it!”

“I didn’t realize that me telling you about being a virgin still would turn you into a hornball! Sorry for even bringing it up!” I yell back at him, annoyance mixing with embarrassment. “I thought I was still talking to my best friend, not one of those bastards as you put it.”

Daniel suddenly closes the space between us, lips clashing awkwardly before he pulls away. My eyes are wide, and my chest heaves as he looks at me with wide eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he trips over his words as I sit in shock. “I don’t know why I-“

My body acts before my brain does, and my fingers weave their way through the hair at the back of Daniel’s head as I reconnect our lips. His hands are unsure as they settle gingerly at my waist, but when I throw a leg over his hips, his hands press into me harder. He breaks away from me to look up at me, trying to comprehend what is currently happening around him. I was straddling him, confirmed by the way his sweatpants were getting uncomfortable, and my cheeks were flushed red as my chest heaved for air. Once I realize what I’ve done, coming to when I feel him against my inner thigh through our clothes, I start apologizing as I scramble off him. His hands stop me.

“I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me. I-”

“Callie,” he murmurs breathlessly, eyes still following my face.

“I’m not completely innocent,” I whisper, eyes searching his with my hands still around his neck. “I don’t know why I did this. I’m sorry, Daniel.”

“Do you want to?”

“What?” I whisper, heart hammering against my chest.

I can’t break away from his gaze, trapped above his eyes and ever-aware of his hands on my hips. His cheeks turn pink as he swallows, and my eyes can’t help but watch his Adam’s apple bob before following the tanned skin of his neck back to his face.

“Do you want me to be the first?” his voice is gentle, but he is secretly unsure as I freeze above him.

“Not if it’s out of pity,” I whisper. “Forget I said anything.”

His hands keep me in place, and his dark eyes follow my face. When he leans up to kiss me again, dispelling any fears of it being out of pity, my mind goes numb. Was this really happening? My childhood crush was kissing me. I was sitting on his lap. No one was home.

“No way you do,” I laugh to hide my nerves. “That was so long ago and quite frankly so awkward.”

“Remember when we almost got caught?” he laughs, sensing my discomfort and shifting his tone to a jovial one. “Your brother and Michael came back earlier than they were supposed to.”

I groan at the memory, remembering how my heart leapt out of my chest as my brother knocked on Daniel’s bedroom door with me beneath him, “I thought I was going to pass away then and there!”

“God, I could barely keep it up after that,” tears well in his eyes as he chokes his words through laughter.

I feel more comfortable as he laughs about the situation, and I follow his trip down memory lane as I recall my brother, “He never did find out, did he? You told him some excuse about how we were getting a present ready for his birthday.”

“Don’t you worry,” he grins, nodding his head as he pushes his hair back. “No one ever found out I was your first proper fuck.”

“Please, I’ve had much better since then,” I laugh as I meet his eyes.

“Well, I’d hope so!” he shrieks, eyes crinkling as he lets out loud laughter that echoes off the walls. “I was still 17 and had only slept with one other girl!”

“God,” I groan, laughing as I rub my hands down my face, “I can’t believe I really told you about how I was still a virgin.”

“Horny teenagers, Callie,” he says as he stands from the couch. “It happens to all of us.”

He reaches for the remote, pausing the movie as he heads toward the restroom. Once I hear the door latch, I leap from the catch to grab a water bottle and chug half the contents on the spot. I pull my sleeves up and fan my face as I pace around the stretch of carpet in front of the couch. I thought both of us agreed to not talk about anything that happened between us, and to me, that means everything. When I hear the door, I flop back down to the same spot as before, and when Daniel approaches, he pauses to look at me before pressing play.

“You alright?” he starts, flopping next to me. “I’m sorry I brought it up, but I thought it’d give you a laugh.”

I nod, agreeing with him, “Yeah, I’m just dying of embarrassment now. I was hoping we’d never bring it up again.”

He sticks his pinky out, and after a moment, I link mine with his.

“Our secret then, and our secret now,” he grins, but the lull to his voice makes my stomach roll.

It’s going to be a long three weeks.

Dad, wherever you are, give me some strength to get through this. I know I made you promises to let him back in, but I made promises to myself, too. Don’t let me fail. Not after this long.

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#august #daniel ricciardo one shot #daniel ricciardo fic #daniel ricciardo imagine #daniel ricciardo fanfic #formula one imagine #formula 1 imagine

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echizen-division · 7 months

Text

“I could believe in hell, but it was impossible for me to believe in the existence of heaven.”—Osamu Dazai

Introduction 🕸️

Kohaku Meguno(愛乃琥珀), also known as KANDATA-KUN in rap battles, is an errand boy and second member to Echizen Division’s Clockwork Lament. A former syndicate member, he now makes a living off of running errands for other people, he seems happy the way he is right now, though there seems to be a chip on his shoulder that couldn’t budge, and it’s believed that this leads to his past connections with both the syndicate he used to be in and his older brother.

He claimed to have joined the DRB just to support his friends and protect his division but there’s a rumor that he’s also in it to find leads toward a certain “Hisui.”

Link to neka used

Appearance

Kohaku is a short young man with a brown complexion, his eyes are of a red-violet colour, and his messy hair is a mossy green; his mouth is that of a cat’s and he has a small fang sticking out at the left.

He has quite the amount of scars around himself, most of them from tripping on rough surfaces when he was younger.

He is typically seen wearing an off white, off-shoulder sweater with black, knee length shorts and a black hoodie that he always kept unzipped, he has white, below-the-knee socks with a spider web embroidered at the sides and black and white sneakers. For accessories, he wears a dark gray beanie with two pins on its side, one of a clock with its hands on 4 o’ clock and another with the text “ABANDON ALL HOPE YE WHO ENTER HERE” on it in a ring surrounding a door; he has a teardrop-shaped necklace made out of resin the same color as his eyes, it contains a fake spider inside, like a bug inside of amber, his earrings are of a similar style, minus the spider.

Name Meaning

Kohaku (琥珀) - Amber

Meguno (愛乃) - Namely(乃), love(愛) (usually given as a first name to girls)

Nicknames and Aliases

KANDATA-KUN- MC Name (“If you say it, you have to shout it!”)

Sinner - himself

Haku - others

Kocchan, Spider-Man - Nayomi

HkI8YbwzP- PROFILE account

Little brat - others, typically elders

Talking umbrella, The Second Bard- Sage

The Kasa-Obake

Biographical Info

Gender - Male

Age - 22

Birthday - March 21

Star Sign - Aries

Ethnicity - Filipino-Japanese

Hair Colour - Moss Green

Eye Colour - Red-violet

Height - 5'3"

Markings - Several cuts around his back and face, scars from tripping at his knees

Piercings - Lobe

Family -

Mother (deceased)

Father (deceased)

Legal guardian

Estranged older brother

House spider

Voice Claim: Natsuki Hanae

Fun Facts

Occupation - Errand boy

Division - Echizen

Team - Clockwork Lament

Position - 2nd Member

Favourite Food - Soba noodles; kohakutou

Least Favourite Food - Tinola

Likes - Sweets, the feeling of home, joking around, his job, tongue twisters

Dislikes - Himself, references to his past, his brother, the syndicate he used to be in

Image Color - Moss (#658B38)

Hypnosis Microphone

Kohaku’s Hypnosis Microphone takes the form of a dark red paper cup, it has intricate spider web patterns on it, its windscreen is inside the cup and the cup has a long, thin red wire wrapping around his speaker’s shoji screen.

His speaker is a giant, black spider with speakers on its abdomen and eyes, it rests on a shoji screen and painted upon the paper of the screen is a depiction of hell showing many sinners tormented in various ways, the painting’s focal point is a girl in a burning carriage and her pet monkey. The wires of his mic connect to the giant spider.

Kohaku’s rap ability, MELOS, gives him a temporary speed boost; he can only use this twice per battle.

Kohaku’s rap themes revolve around hell, doing whatever to escape from it and clinging onto everything that’d still give one any trace of hope; he also talks about how things like second chances are as flimsy as a piece of thread. He incorporates a lot of alliteration in his verses. He also sneaks in subtle jabs toward his older brother.

Just like his teammates, he also references various literary pieces, he usually leans to short stories and references to religious texts.

Personality

Kohaku is said to be a troublesome brat, he seems to not take things seriously and he is very full of energy and enthusiasm. He is mischievous, liking to play small pranks on others for kicks, this annoys some of the elders in his place however he does all of this without any malice.

In the other hand however, Kohaku has very low self-esteem, he doesn’t think he is a good person at all, having lived most of his life in crime just to barely get by the days. He often blames himself for bad things that happen around/to him, including thinking that he is a burden and that’s the very reason his older brother abandoned him in the first place.

However, despite no longer being part of the syndicate, he still retains his cunning side from those days. If it meant that he can use it as an advantage in a situation, he’d use it without hesitation.

Background

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Trivia

His birthday is the widely accepted day Noli Me Tangere by José Rizal was first published (all I got are just Facebook posts about it lmao)

He writes haikus as a hobby

His MC name and speaker are references to Hell Screen and The Spider’s Thread, both by Akutagawa Ryunosuke

His ability name is a reference to Run, Melos! by Osamu Dazai

He finds it funny, yet at the same time he’s also uncomfortable with how he is very familiar with the criminal personalities on the DRB

During his syndicate days, he usually leaves a piece of candy from places he’s been as a “calling card”

He still considers himself an informant as he still keeps tabs on Japan’s underground world

Wherever his brother is, he’s definitely living a far more comfortable life than Kohaku and he greatly resents that

#hypmic oc #hypnosis mic oc #hypmic #hypnosis mic #hypnosis microphone oc #echizen division #clockwork lament #Kohaku Meguno #KANDATA-KUN #character bio

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tabletoptrinketsbyjj · 10 months

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Trinkets, 62: Interesting baubles, semi magical objects and items touched by mystery.

A small green box containing a single round nephrite stone, the size of a shirt button and twice as thick, mounted with a simple metal clasp. The jade is a flawless, vivid, translucent green, edging nearly into blue. It is so well polished that even in the dim light of a candle it seems to glow.

A spool of very fine wire copper wire. Useful for setting trip-wires, rigging up pulleys, and conducting electricity.

A ticket for underground gambling in a criminal betting racket. There is a location on the stub written in Thief’s Cant that gives directions to the location the gambling takes place.

A black top hat that, when doffed, causes the sound of applause to echo around the wearer.

A troll-leather wallet stamped with the symbol of a crossed machete and spear. It contains a full set of certified identification papers stamped by the office of the king denoting that the bearer is a bounty hunter licensed to track down aberrations, dire beasts and monstrosities that are infesting crown land or private property and turn in proof of their death to a local authority in return for a reasonable reward. The papers offer examples of general rewards in gold, trade goods or local services to be paid out for a list of common creatures. It says that the local mayor or town council can send a bill to the office of the king to be compensated for most of the reward.

A glassy stone appears to have a reddish liquid core. The stone itself is milky translucent, rock solid, and unlike anything natural you've seen.

A leather case containing a scroll decorated with an old family tree, showing the ancestry of a local noble family. If it’s accurate (And it looks like it might be) then a whole branch of the family has somehow disappeared since it was written, despite (Or because of) the fact that they should really be the primary heirs to the family’s land. It's unknown if there are any surviving members…

A jute blindfold marked with a stylized eye in the centre.

An intricate clockwork lute with a strange mechanism. The whirring-pieces of this lute echo with surprising warmth. But it should be noted that no amount of automation can improve a rotten performance.

An artificer's ticket that says the bearer can present this receipt and pick up their commissioned magic item that is being enchanted in a nearby city. The writing states that half the work has been paid in advance and according to the date was completed 3d6 days ago. For proper claiming purposes, the ticket has the first sentence of the following description written on it: Random Minor Magic Item.

—Click Here to be directed to the Hotlinks To All Tables post, which provides (As you might have guessed) convenient links to all of the loot and resource tables this blog has.

—Keep reading for 90 more trinkets.

—Note: The previous 10 items are repeated for easier rolling on a d100.

A spool of very fine wire copper wire. Useful for setting trip-wires, rigging up pulleys, and conducting electricity.

A ticket for underground gambling in a criminal betting racket. There is a location on the stub written in Thief’s Cant that gives directions to the location the gambling takes place.

A black top hat that, when doffed, causes the sound of applause to echo around the wearer.

A glassy stone appears to have a reddish liquid core. The stone itself is milky translucent, rock solid, and unlike anything natural you've seen.

A jute blindfold marked with a stylized eye in the centre.

A faded flag that belonged to a mysterious sea vessel.

A child’s flute on which some of the carver’s strokes are still visible, though it is well sanded to keep the child from splinters. Short, made from a single piece of cast-off tulipwood, the flute has just three finger holes and a boxy mouthpiece carved to a bowl at the end. It gives every indication of having been knife-crafted on a porch by a doting grandparent.

A small statuette of an athlete wrestling with an ox, on a plaque bearing writing in a language you don't know.

A translucent shell displaying constellations that appear and fade in relation to the tides.

A staff fashioned from what feels like solid iron. The implement has been carefully engraved: designs resembling lightning bolts wrap around the shaft all the way to the top. Chalk-white burn streaks can be seen around the top of the arcane focus. Picking up the staff for the first time, the bearer’s skin is stung with a pop from a slight static charge.

A grimy, tarnished metal compass stained by centuries of use.

A gruesome mask which completely covers the face. It is constructed of multiple patches of feral ghoul skin sewn together.

A plain steel goblet that is always cool to the touch, and it chills any drink that is poured into it.

A flat, round, hand mirror set in a carved wooden frame. The reflecting surface had a strange, pearlescent color to it.

A pottery fragment, edges razor-sharp, inscribed with "Emrick". At night, smear it with a drop of your blood and speak the word to conjure the specter of a friendly dog. Invisible, warm, heavy, he fades at the next sunrise.

A small silver gong decorative with a calming nature scene. Etched along the end of the rim is a meditative mantra meant as an aid to finding inner peace.

A single scorched iron manacle inscribed with an oddly comforting looking language that no one can actually read.

A small linen down-filled pillow.

A small ornate barrel containing a shimmering golden liquid. It seems exceptionally dense, and has the consistency of honey. When drunk, it immediately induces a painless burning sensation throughout the body, which usually lasts an entire day. Repeated ingestion is not recommended, as the painless burning sensation quickly progresses to a burning sensation, then to actual burning. Knowledgeable PC’s can recognize the concoction as “Breath of the Dragon”.

A clockwork finch that flaps its wings in the presence of a breeze.

A slate-headed hatchet.

A map to a monastery that doesn’t seem to exist.

A small skeletal figurine suspended on a thin metal rod that seems to reposition itself at midnight

A large leather collar that has a single nameplate riveted to it: “If found, message Sir Barkson, keeper of the royal stables.” It seems to fit any canine creature comfortably.

A woodcutter's axe that refuses to cut anything but wood.

A black mask, crafted with the scales of a black dragon from long ago. It emits a dark and sinister energy, the faint scent of death hangs on it. The true origins of the mask are not known.

A bundle of Pied Avocet feathers tied together with ribbon.

An ancient piece of masonry worn by the passing of unguessable time in the depths. It must once have been a keystone from the oldest City.

A Random Humanoid skull riveted with metal plating and a magical inscription.

A well-made copper pot with ivory handle.

A golden ettin’s tooth, complete with cavity.

An unvarnished stick of sandalwood. Some kid has been using it for whittling practice. Along its length is a crowded mish-mash of squashed windows, crooked stairways and lumpy trellises.

An abacus, made of a dense translucent blue crystal, with a white steel plate on the top. All beads are the same dense translucent blue.

A very ordinary-looking arrowhead. Whenever the object is grasped, flashes of someone else’s emotionally poignant memories flash in the bearer's mind as if long forgotten but suddenly remembered; You yanked it out of the body of your best friend with an improvised pair of pliers, but it was too late; the wound was already infected, and he died the following day. How can something so small tear such a big hole in the world?

A pair of onyx earrings with silver painted spirals. Knowledgeable PC's will know that these were last owned by Belphet druk’Gor, a reviled local serial killer who was hanged five years ago.

A kobold tooth with a Draconic rune etched into it.

A child’s doll made of horse hair with a mouth filled with real human teeth. Accessories include a small glass bottle, dancer’s outfit, and a hickory switch.

A wooden personal drinking cup, decorated with carvings of hunting dogs.

A finely-made steel carving knife with a checkered bone handle.

A mysterious carving from coral marble showing a dark, cloaked figure, face unseen, stood behind a young man. He has a look of fearful rapture on his upturned face while the cloaked figure behind holds his head and drips what looks to be wine into his opened mouth. Hardly mainstream but fascinating nonetheless.

A ceramic amphora decorated with erotic paintings.

A halfling-made shirewood gittern, with inlaid quatrefoils of mother-of-pearl.

A stack of cheaply-printed pamphlets full of wild conspiracy theories, each supported by just enough evidence to sound plausible if you're not too well-informed and don't think about them too hard. The materials would be worth something to a political agitator.

A gambling chit from an illegal fighting ring.

An ornately engraved pipe and a pouch of fine tobacco, which has a very distinctive smell when smoked.

A trio of purple taper candles that never get any shorter, no matter how long they burn.

A knitted yellow plush octopus that, when hugged, hugs back with all of its arms, hums happily, and turns a pale pink.

A sack of small gears of various sizes and metals.

An elaborately engraved fox skull with cut green gems in the eye sockets.

A single teardrop earring embellished with pink tourmaline.

A porcelain doll in a purple satin dress. In the breast pocket of the dress is a folded slip of paper with a childish sketch of a smiling sun.

A featureless deathmask, easily mistaken for an unusually ovaloid brass bowl. The inside is hammered with the faint suggestion of eyes, nose, and mouth, while the outside is polished to a mirror-bright sheen.

An ordinary breadbox. The remains of an entire adult human appear to have been stuffed inside, as though the person was somehow boneless. The remains are dried and partially mummified, and will retain their shape if the box is destroyed.

A hinged box with a collection of unsigned confessions of guilt, with admissions of all sorts of perverse and vile crimes of violence. There must be hundreds of pages in this box.

A thick leather jacket with dozens of hanging iron chains sewn onto it.

An ancient, rusty coin, weathered to the point where one can no longer identify its age. Things like these are all too common throughout Terra's barrens.

A gemstone without luster, just like the endless desires of the vain.

A small black stone tablet with one corner broken off. Those possessing the tablet will have terrible nightmares and strange alien dreams.

The Xanthous Ballad: A leather wallet containing several pages of ancient and yellowed parchment is covered in looping handwriting almost too faded to see. Anyone wishing to use this item must be able to speak Deep Speech. This antique scroll appears as gibberish to anyone unable to do so. Those who can speak it, recognize the hastily scrawled lines as sheet music with one day of careful study. The music is chaotic and discordant making it impossible to memorize or copy. Different parts for different instruments seem to be written over each other. Knowledgeable PC's have heard that according to whispered rumors, this piece of music comes from the infamous play “The King In Yellow”.

A small metal spinning top with a single rune etched along its side that dances and blurs as the top spins.

A pair of clear horn-rimmed spectacles appear ordinary until worn. Anyone wearing them can notice faint squiggles that fall across their field of vision and occasionally form themselves into words.

A three inch tall, polished ruby statuette of a winged woman with talons for feet sparkles when exposed to light. The craftsmanship is exquisite and one can practically count the teeth in her manic grin. One thing to note is that despite this amazing attention to detail, they were not able to truly capture the full impact of a harpy’s song.

A small piece of rolled up parchment that when unravelled is four inches wide by eight inches tall. Upon this parchment, written in magic ink that appears at dawn and disappears at dusk, are twenty-eight bars of music notation.

A once inch, leaf shaped piece of obsidian tied to the end of a five foot long cord of tightly braided silver hair. When spun horizontally, it emits an eerie multiphonic scream.

An irregularly shaped box made of strips of an unknown yellowish metal. The box is adorned with monstrous, strange engravings, which obviously depict living beings that are completely unknown.

A small, complex metallic and crystalline object changes shape daily.

A large heavy iron key that is filthy but strangely looks as though it was rarely used. Whenever the object is grasped, flashes of someone else’s emotionally poignant memories flash in the bearer's mind as if long forgotten but suddenly remembered; This key unlocked the old slave-collar from around your neck. ‘Go’, she said. ‘You’re free’, she said. But it’s never that easy, is it?

A delicate bracelet of white gold with two small, blue aventurien at opposite ends.

A salt stained, barnacle encrusted, sealed glass bottle. It contains a message written in an unknown language with a hastily scrawled map with some familiar landmarks.

A talisman made of a small animal´s spine, threaded onto long hair and worn around the neck on a leather string.

A small black marble sphinx statuette with a missing face.

An intricately crafted silver key with a flintlock pistol mechanism built into it. It appears that a small bit of gunpowder and a tiny lead ball can be inserted into it and fired from the key.

A tiny bag full of small pellets that explode into miniature sparks on impact. These deal no damage but do create a popping noise as they explode.

A translucent crystalline shard, coloured a faint lavender. It tastes unbearably sweet, and makes the holder’s hand sticky as they hold it. It can be melted down into a syrup if desired.

A thimble in the shape of a tower, complete with parapets and arrow slits.

A jar of eyeballs that follow you as you move.

A glass bottle containing a message from a local folk hero. The vessel holds within it a letter from a long-dead cultural idol from the area. The letter appears to be a simple goodwill message to future generations, but the figure was well-known for hiding cryptic messages within his writings.

A colorfully painted wooden top that when spun, spins indefinitely.

A stuffed kraken doll, that when the stomach is squeezed, cries of help can be heard from within.

A colorful parakeet stuffed animal. You feel a faint heartbeat from it when you hold it.

A spiked red leather dog collar with a metal dog tag on it. The tag reads “Murderface”.

A whittled wooden figurine depicting a winter wolf holding a sword in its teeth. The letters “SIF” are carved into the base of the figurine.

A beautifully crafted silver pocket watch that works but the hands tick backwards.

A ship in a bottle filled with deep blue water that sloshes and froths rhythmically, regardless of whether or not it is moved or shaken. The ship bobs in the water cheerfully.

A silver bell that when shaken, produces no noise despite having a clapper.

A treasure map of the local area. It is written in a local language with cryptic script and markings. It clearly holds the key to discovering something of major value to anyone who can decipher what it is saying.

A dark oil-painting that depicts a rising black steed in front of an orange-red sundown, in a brown, muddy field with little bushes of straw-like grass and some dead, leafless trees.

A tin of fine snuff.

A cursed, small humanoid figuring made of thatch and bound with the long hairs of a witch.

A small coral carving of a shark with red pearls for eyes.

A padded envelop containing The Last Will & Testament of Hieronymus J. Fletchster; Landgrave of Northkeep, Admiral of the Seventh Fleet & Bastion of the Realm.

A silk tunic with the Ninety-Nine Names of Creation written on it.

A preserved hobgoblin heart that floats like a feather when dropped.

An antique spoon made from brass.

A large glass jar containing an indistinguishable rotted pile with a dozen softly keening bright pink mushrooms that are gently swaying atop it. If you sing back to them they release a soft pink mist of spores into the air that fill you with euphoria for the next 1d6 hours. Nothing can bring you down and everything seems good and feels wonderful. If you eat one inhuman screaming fills your brain for the next week.

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aboringredmop · 2 years

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Seeing as the last post got thrown into the void with my account I made a new shipping index. Please let me know if you know some others that I haven’t written down here I am.desperate to get this completed for the sake of pleasing the tbh creature

Also none of these include ones with yellow guy to stay safe because some of y’all need to calm the fuck down with your canon ages and what’s not Jesus Christ

Last note I’ll keep this pinned on my account and update it every now and then

- fluffy bird (duck x red guy)

- Padlock (sketchbook x tony)

- Showtime (tony x red guy)

- something something paper (sketchbook x red guy)

- Whatever the one with red guy, sketchbook and tony is called

- Whatever the one with shrignold, sketchbook and tony is called

- Timebug (tony x shrignold)

- Cyberfly (Colin x shrignold)

- Digital time (tony x colin)

- Stringcode/whatever the old one was called (Colin x red guy)

- Loveletter (sketchbook x shrignold)

- Digital world (Colin x Gilbert)

- Digital art (sketchbook x Colin)

- Geoclock/timezones (tony x Gilbert)

- Paper clockwork and wires (or something along those lines) (sketchbook x tony x Colin)

- I think there were different shipnames for the sketchworld characters but it is so difficult to find any info on it that hasn’t been thrown into the abyss

- Papertin (?)(I forgor T-T)(laptop x sketchbook)

- Meatlocker (fridge x steak)

- Papercan (sketchbook x spinach)

- Lampnold (shrignold x lamp)

- Dreamjournal (lamp x sketchbook)

- Dreamworld/lavalamp (I like the last one the most)(lamp x Gilbert)

- bedtime (tony x lamp)

- I forgor again.Tincan? (Magnet x spinach)

- Deathbed (coffin x lamp)

- Creativespark (sketchbook x electracey)

- 1920 (lesley x Roy)

- lovebird (shrignold x warren)

- most people seem to use time of death so i will too (tony x coffin)

- time travel (tony x train guy)

- overtime (que the SpongeBob meme)(briefcase x tony)

- paperwork (i think that might have been the same shipname as red guy x sketchbook but I don't remember)(sketchbook x briefcase)

- padlock 2.0 (i don't want them to be called padlock 2 key man is way superior tony in every single way so i will be thinking of a new one)(sketchbook x key man)

- death note (sketchbook x coffin)

- dead meat (coffin x steak guy)(i can see the appeal ngl. Slightly deranged himbos in love)

- red death (red guy x coffin)

- early bird (duck x warren)(someone try to make this work. I dare you)

- glow worm (lamp x warren)

- safe dreams (lamp x mean Steve)

- dead end job (coffin x briefcase)

#dhmis #don’t hug me I’m scared #dhmis ship #dhmis shipping #idk if that’s a tag but it is now #save #bullshitting

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rendakuenthusiast · 11 months

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In each age of history, as wise men / tinkerers / scientists developed new inventions, philosophers fell into a consistent pattern. Some of them said the mind was like the new invention. Then others said no, it was nothing like that. During the Renaissance, it was clockwork; in the early 1900s, a telephone switchboard; in the late 1900s, a computer. I’m not the first person to notice this. Usually people bring it up to discredit the latest analogy. “Sure, you think the mind is like a computer - but back in the early 1900s, people thought it was like a telephone switchboard! So you’re just trying to shoehorn the mind into some form you can understand.” This is overly cute. Yes, each analogy has been replaced by a better analogy. But each analogy was right by the standards of its time, and an improvement on what came before. The mind is not quite mechanical like clockwork. But before people thought of the mind as mechanical, they had crazy ideas about forms and spirits and little ghostly simulacra that floated in and out of people’s heads. The insight that it lawfully converts inputs to outputs like a machine was a big advance, and in the 1500s, the easiest way to talk about that was with clockwork. I would even venture to say that by 1500s standards, the brain is basically clockwork, and all our advances since then have been trying to pin down what kind of clockwork it is. Likewise, the brain isn’t literally a telephone switchboard. But it is a lot of electrical wires connecting things to other things. People didn’t know anything about this for a very long time! Compared to whatever people were thinking before, the brain is more or less a telephone switchboard, even if more modern neuroscience has offered further elaboration on this basic concept.

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boneinator · 5 months

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Nobody knows how much they mean to me !!! Also the numbers Colin is saying are codes for "I love you" <3

(reblogs > likes !!)

#dhmis #don't hug me i'm scared #colin the computer #computer dhmis #tony the talking clock #clock dhmis #sketchbook dhmis #sketch dhmis #paige dhmis #<- is that really what we call them #paper wires and clockwork #digital art time #has to be one of those #digital time #padlock dhmis #digital art dhmis #traditional art #bone's singular crumb

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tech-spark · 1 year

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Morse Code Translator, Decoder, and Alphabet

Hello there, friends! Today's topic will be Morse Code Translator, Decoder, and Alphabet. Morse code is a telecommunications method for encoding text characters as standardized sequences of two different signal duration known as dots and dashes, or dits and dahs.

The 26 basic Latin letters a through z, one accented Latin letter (é), Arabic numerals, and a small set of punctuation and procedural signals are all encoded using the International Morse code. Upper and lower case letters are not distinguished.

Each Morse code symbol is made up of a series of dits and dahs. In Morse code translator, the dit duration is the fundamental unit of time measurement. The length of a dah is three times that of a dit. Each dit or dah within an encoded character is followed by a space, which is a period of signal absence equal to the dit duration. A space equal to three dits separates the letters of a word, and a space equal to seven dits separates words.

Story Of Invention of Morse Code

Samuel Morse was working in Washington DC in 1825 when he received a letter that said, "Your dear wife is convalescent." The next day, while packing, he received another letter informing him that his wife Susan had died.

He rushed home to New Haven for the funeral, only to discover that his wife had already been buried. Samuel, heartbroken that he had missed—well, everything—vowed to find a way to deliver messages instantly, so that no one would suffer the agony of being separated from loved ones during their most important moments.

Samuel met scientist and inventor Charles Thomas Jackson eight years later. Both men were enthralled by the prospect of quickly transmitting information over long distances, and Charles enthusiastically described how electronic impulses could be carried through copper cables.

Caught up in the excitement of the conversation, Samuel began sketching ideas for a mechanical device capable of transmitting impulses over any distance.

He called the device a telegraph, and over time, he began to develop a system of dots and dashes that could be transmitted via electrical impulses transmitted over wires. An operator on the other end of the line then translated those impulses back into letters.

After more than a decade, Samuel was finally ready to put his telegraph to the test. On January 11, 1838, he organized a demonstration at the Speedwell Ironworks Factory and successfully used his code of dots and dashes to transmit the message, "A patient waiter is no loser."

Samuel Morse's invention changed the way the world communicated 13 years after his beloved wife died. In the process, it provided people with an opportunity to ensure that they and their loved ones remained connected during critical moments in their lives.

International Morse code overview

History

Following the discovery of electromagnetism in 1820, the development of the first telegraph systems began in the 19th century. Samuel Morse, along with Joseph Henry and Alfred Vail, developed a simple telegraph system that relied solely on electrical pulses and silence in between.

Morse's original telegraph receiver marked received pulses onto paper tape using a clockwork and an electromagnet. The markings on the paper tape could then be translated into text messages by operators.

Alfred Vail estimated the frequency of letters in the English language and assigned shorter Morse code sequences to the most frequently used letters, while longer sequences were assigned to the less frequently used letters. This code, known as Morse landline code or American Morse code, was first used in 1844.

Morse operators quickly discovered that the telegraph made sounds when receiving code and that they could translate the sound rather than looking at the paper tape. They learned the Morse code sound patterns. This rendered the paper tape obsolete. Morse code was later adapted for radio communications by sending the pulses as short and long tones.

Friedrich Clemens Gerke proposed a new and improved version of the Morse code alphabet in 1848, which was adopted by the German-Austrian Telegraph Society. This eventually resulted in the International Morse Code standard (ITU) in 1865, which is still used today.

Features

Morse code is named after Samuel Morse, one of the telegraph's inventors. In 1865, the Morse alphabet was adopted as a global standard. Until the end of the twentieth century, it was widely used in the maritime world.

The Morse alphabet is designed to have the shortest codes for the most frequently used letters in the English alphabet. This allows for much faster transmission than if all letters had equal-length codes.

The International Morse Code contains English letters, some additional Latin letters, Arabic numerals, and a small set of punctuation and procedural signals.

Letters are separated by a space the length of three dots. A space equal to seven dots separates each word.

There are also Morse alphabets for languages other than English.

Morse code is frequently used in mystery caches (puzzle caches), CTFs, and logic puzzles in geocaching.

Timing and speeds

Morse code can be transmitted in several ways, including sounds, a common flashlight, electrical pulses on a telegraph line, mechanical signals, and so on. There are even examples of using morse code while pulling a rope during mine rescues. Historians consider the morse code to be the first digital code.

International Morse code (ITU) consists of five elements:

Short mark, "dot" or "dit" (.), which is a one-time unit long

Long mark, "dash" or "dah" (-), which are three-time units long

Within-character gap, between the dots and dashes within a morse character, which is a one-time unit long

Between-characters gap, which are three-time units long

Between-words gap, which are seven-time units long

These five elements can also be expressed as binary codes:

Short mark, "dot" or "dit" (.): 1

Long mark, "dash" or "dah" (-): 111

Within-character gap, between the dots and dashes within a morse character: 0

Between-characters gap: 000

Between-words gap: 0000000

Note that marks and gaps always alternate. There will never be two marks or two gaps in a row.

The speed of Morse code is commonly measured in words per minute. This is not

Sample text

H E L L O:- …. . .-.. .-.. ---

Some Important Question :

How do you identify the letters in Morse code?

In Morse code, there are rules to help people distinguish between dots and dashes.

A dot's length is a one-time unit.

A dash equals three-time units.

The time unit is the distance between symbols (dots and dashes) of the same letter.

Three-time units separate the letters.

The time unit between words is 7.

2. What does 7 dots mean in Morse code?

One dot equals the space between elements that form the same letter. Three dots are equal to the space between two letters. Seven dots equal the space between two words.

Conclusion :

The separation of key down is done in the original Morse code version by (key up) from the next letter that was a dot (or, as it sounded as a telegrapher, a "dit") and the key down quickly twice in succession was a dash (a "dah" or "dit-dit").

To fully understand the sound system, each character is represented by a dot, dash, or some combination of the two.

This is primarily because its simple binary code (key down or key up) allows for a very narrow bandwidth. Even the human brain and ear are remarkable digital receiving devices. Morse code is still used to a limited extent by military and amateur radio operators, as well as landline telegraphers, today.

Thank you!

#morse code #morse code translator #international morse code

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originalpackersandmoversblog · 6 months

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Fundamental Ways Of pressing a Printer With the end goal of Movement

In the event that you are moving to or from Kolkata, this blog is most certainly going to be useful for you. It is in every case better to employ packers and movers in Kolkata for pressing and moving such weighty things while migrating.

At the point when you are pressing a PC with the end goal of movement, you must deal with all the PC fringe gadgets too on the grounds that they are likewise important like a console, central processor, mouse, scanner, receiver, speakers and so forth.

For what reason do you feel that moving a printer is the most troublesome thing to do?

At the point when you think this way then printers is very fragile piece of PC, it doesn't make any difference how solid it might look. In the event that don't deal with it in a legitimate manner, quite possibly the printer can get harmed perpetually and that could set you back a ton middle of the relative multitude of costs you are accomplishing for the move. On the off chance that a moving box loaded with a printer isn't cushioned as expected and gets dropped unintentionally, then, at that point, it would turn out to be undeniably challenging for you to do such things all alone.

Set up your moving box for the move

Assuming you have the first box that probably accompanied the printer at the hour of procurement then that is incredible information. These unique boxes are exceptionally planned by the estimations to safeguard delicate things during the take. With regards to a printer they you ought to utilize a durable box.

• Due to the additional thick protection they safeguard the case well

• They keep the effects immobilized while moving

Assuming that you actually have the first printer enclose put away some place your home, then, at that point, you are good to go to utilize the holder to get together the printing gadget. In the event that not, you'll need to sort out for another strong box.

Search for a tough cardboard box that is single amount 4 inches greater than the printer from every one of the sides - you'll require some more space so you can fix the printer in it whenever it's been cushioned well.

Pack the cartridges independently

Ensure you don't leave toner cartridges and ink cartridges in the actual printer while moving it between two houses. In the event that you do anything of that sort, you might get ink or toner powder to take out the cartridges for your benefit.

It's extremely fundamental to recall that that ink that is spilled or toner powder can leave obstinate stains on the surfaces it contacts - eliminating such stains is undeniably challenging. Besides, spilled ink can make a colossal harm a portion of the parts inside the printer too.

In this way, dispense with the gamble of pressing the cartridges in the printer.

• In the event that you have the manual of your printer, you can peruse what is written in it to securely eliminate the ink cartridge or toner cartridge.

• Take a delicate pressing paper and wrap the cartridge as the absolute first layer of insurance.

• You can likewise take a plastic sack that is resalable so you can get the ink that may as yet spill during the travel.

• Put the sack into a different little cardboard box that will likewise pick the printer links, different pieces of printer like removable prints, and different sorts of stuff like the printer manual.

Secure the printer links

It is exceptionally hard to pack the printer links when you are pressing a printer for your turn. From the absolute first thing, you should have the power link - the wire that you plug into the wall attachment to turn the printer on. Pretty much like clockwork, those power wires can't be taken out from the unit of the printer and should be stuffed in independently. The best way to do something like this is to get the power wire to the rear of the printer utilizing a touch of the pressing tape.

Besides, you should likewise have the USB link printer that will interface the printing gadget with that of the PC. This multitude of wires are effectively removable, so ensure you eliminate them securely from the PC, and afterward you can eliminate the printer. Then, at that point, you are good to go to pack the printer into the little box accessible for embellishments, along with the got printer cartridges.

Load the printer with bubble wrap

Whenever you have found a crate that is reasonable for your printer, eliminate the cartridges and secure the links and afterward your printer is all fit to be shipped.

• Eliminate every one of the papers from the paper plate.

• Ensure you segregate all the printer plate, plastic sheets, or other printer parts that can be disconnected and pack them inside the crate that you have made for your printer frill

• Ensure you close every one of the plate that are non-removable, boards, or entryways of the printer and secure them with the assistance of tape so they don't get open during the travel.

• POSITION a huge sheet of air pocket wrap on a work area or a table, or straightforwardly on the floor, and afterward you can keep the printer in the center.

• Then, at that point, load the whole printer with the assistance of air pocket wrap.

Pack the printer in the container

This is the last step for pressing a printer with the end goal of movement. It is the ideal opportunity to move the safeguarded printing gadget in the case so we can start with the excursion to the new house.

• Put all the pressing peanuts in the crate to cover the base. Ensure you cover it appropriately so the base isn't noticeable.

• Then you can move the printer in the moving box and the wide range of various gadgets in the pressing peanuts and in the cases so there are a few equivalent sacks.

This is the means by which you can pack your printer and move it to your new house. On the off chance that you imagine that you won't have the option to do it on your own then you ought to enlist movers and packers in Kolkata for better help.

#best packers and movers in kolkata #reliable packers and movers in kolkata #original agarwal packers and movers in kolkata #agarwal packers and movers in kolkata

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wepry · 10 months

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One of my only short stories that's neared completion. This was born out of a fear and a contempt I had for college frat guys, the kind that would harass me and commit rape. I imagine what its like not being at the top of the food chain, but being situated in a place of no social consequence. Like Roman soldiers sacking and pillaging as they please. Innocence has no relevance in a world like this.

CW for sexual violence, slurs, torture

No Safety

The kid had just moved in and the town was all new. He went to school and he lived with his parents and he was silent. Things were not normal in the hallways when others walked past, not speaking when prompted to or when his betters called out to him. They wondered what was behind his eyes, if he felt above or detached or even enjoyed watching the daily goings of the normal people. It was a small town and no one could understand the likes like him. People saw him as something curious, something sick.

One day someone threw a paper ball at him to see what would happen. Just to see what sort of reaction would be conjured up. He flinched and let it fall off. And then, like children poking at a worm dying on the blacktop, everyone felt they had to know why he did what he did. This feeling was intractable; they simply had to know.

He walked home every day. When it rained he brought his coat in his bag, and on sunny days he would watch squirrels run through the trees, the leaves all green and swaying over the street. And his home was dark, the blinds always shut beneath a dense canopy on the corner of the edge of town, the poorer people. Yellow lights from lamps lit the interior, wires strewn across the floor in a dense thicket like the house had been lived in for years. His parents resided in dark corners, crouched and stooped on the sofas and the chairs.

On the way home he passed through a better neighborhood, with little kids bouncing on trampolines and the smells from all the houses. Further on the older kids would stand by the street corner they went to after school to smoke and laugh at the Mexican kids. They saw him every day like clockwork, his dense matted hair and eyes looking somewhere else. They called out to him and he didn’t respond. They tossed a rock in his direction and his shoes kicked it between themselves, almost wantonly. They felt some kind of disrespect at this, that he was kicking the offering of themselves and felt himself better off without them. That day it was cloudy and each of them were tired and the gossip of his silence had gotten old and they were frustrated. The oldest kid there got up and walked towards him.

"What's your problem, man? We're trying to holler at you!"

He looks at them with a kind of longing, an expression at once kind and distant, above and unmatched with the present moment. He feels it's not the sort of thing he can say anything in response to. He knew that there were people watching from the stoop of the convenience store and that if they did anything to him everyone would see it. So they can't really hurt him.

"What," he says, feigning ignorance? He knows how these sorts of things go and doesn't know how far they're willing to take it.

"You heard me. How come you ignore us all the time? It's no respect."

"I'm sorry," he says, with genuine apology in his voice and a warmth. He tries to smile and though it seems fake the effort seems genuine. The other kids feel uneasy. They push at his shoulders and stand closer.

"Don't think we can't see through this shit."

"Fucking faggot," one of them says.

The word weighs heavy and he looks at them and then smirks, feeling like he's in a movie standing there and waiting for these insults with the anticipation of an audience detached.

"Say something," another one declares. They step forward until their heel is on the toes of his shoe and looking down.

The oldest one looks down, suddenly serious. "Bitches like you are the ones that get fucked, faggot. Don't get fucked."

Silence.

They start out by grabbing his jeans and he grabs the guy's wrist and he flinches and they punch him in the face knocking him over. The hit isn't hard but it shocks, like ice water, and he feels a crunch in his jaw when his palms press the pavement. He can still feel the stares of the people anove, so he's not worried, and smiles with the blood in his mouth.

"Don't you touch me!" The one whose hand he grabbed kicks him on the side, closer towards his back, and he buckles forward falling and stumbling.

"You can't just sit there man," the kid implores as he stands up. His hands go on his knees and he lifts up his body feeling the humor and the absurdity of this situation and smirks at them. Everyone can see it as plain as day exactly what is happening. He stands silent as if daring them to hit him again. So they do. This one is to his belly, a real jab that the kid learned from the cousin who taught him how to fight, and it actually knocks the wind out of him, choking and stumbling backwards. They see his wide and open face and decide they've won enough from him, and leave him there heaving from his very first blows, knees scrunched to his chest.

Word spread quickly and everyone did see it, and saw how he refused to fight back and smirked at them in a way that seemed taunting, cruel even. People were more confused, more scared. And so when he approached the brick facade that set the school a different group was waiting for him and kicked him into the wall before jamming down on his shin as his body crumpled like branches. His hair scrapes into the dirt and he's laughing, clutching his beaten knees and laughing at that he's just been beaten.

"Is that really the best you have to do?" He shouts out, them all confused and shocked. They don't know what to do and walk away.

He sits in the middle of class and knows that this is his shield, that they cannot hurt him here and that the glares of other students will be deflected by his still world. People will shout at him and mock him but here he can be safe in the silence. People file in and one slips a cup of hot oil down the back of his shirt and he screams. He leaps up from his desk and everyone is scared and he's grappling at his back and tears of his shirt head-wise. The bullies watch like dazed onlookers of a forest fire and no one knows what's happening. The skin is left marbled and blistered, a sickly yellow and it hurts. It is tended to at the clinic and he is silent. He feels there is something inside of him, a pride or a dignity that keeps him from resisting the conditions he has come under. If they will hurt me, then let them hurt me, if that is truly their will.

He walks the same route in terrifying indignance, every day being followed by the onlookers who watch his torment like spectacle. Their girlfriends come; they watch him suffer. Sometimes they go shoulder to shoulder, him and the bullies, and they kick at his knees or pour syrup into his hair and he puts one foot in front of the other. They show up with rocks and staples and tear off bits of his clothes. How much can he tolerate? When will he break? Why does he do such a thing?

One day it is cloudy and they are so tired of it, frustrated. Seeing his pain has grown exhausting, and a belligerent stubbornness to match his own has developed amongst the bullies, like an animal gorging to dying. One day they just kick him down, hard behind his knees, and his body is covered with bruises and swollen so he walks everywhere with a limp now and he still gets back up. Now all of them are silent and he walks a few more steps before the same one kicks him down again, and he gets up. It is infuriating, insufferable. They kick him down harder, this time stomping on his ankle so he can't stand up right. His breaths are beleaguered and in a distant way they can all sense his pain; it wafts like a stench. Still he gets back up, raw hands to the gravel, and keeps shuffling, one foot bent and wrong and whispers, "is that all you've got?"

Now they lose it and all start kicking him and he's on the ground between them, grasping at shoes and his limbs are almost crushed beneath the foot-blows and they spit on him. They pull down his pants and comment on how white, how untouched his ass is and force a stick into it. People long have since shut their blinds; they tire to see all of it.

Now he's at unawares, twitching, not fully conscious or aware of his plight. The world spins around his head in three dimensions, the atmosphere and the leagues of magma beneath him vast and uncountable.

He tries to walk until he can't and then he crawls. He feels utter despair and regret, that he should not have made the choices that lead him here and that this is not the way to be. His body keeps moving despite this until he collapses to the side of town where he lives, the trees more dense and the road struck with weeds between the cracks. He wonders if he'll have the strength to get up, or if this is where he dies.

A young girl about ten stands over him in pink, watching his crippled form like a beached whale. She has seen them torment him and sees his limp body stagger past every day. She wonders what she would do, what she would use to hit him with or watch with the other girls when she grew big. But now he's just a sack of blood and skin. She notices how calm he seems, how his face bears no shock and that this is the world he has accepted. She crouches down and tries to lift him, to pull his body off the road but he's heavy. He stirs in response and looks up to her, her face backdropped against the sky. For a moment they watch each other there like aliens of a different race. She yanks on him once more and this time he accepts, stumbling forward and letting himself be drawn towards her home.

He's lying on the dusty wooden floor and the house is silent. She starts touching him. She touches his arms, fingers through the cold black bruises and over the scar tissue. She eagerly traces down his back where he was hit with a shovel, the gash still long and taught. The home smells sickly sweet like beer and he feels the same, that because he is there he may not die today and there might still be more in store for him. She pieces through his hair, feeling the burnt bits where they had slapped down a rag with gasoline and he instinctively flinches. Her fingers are small, tiny, slender, with a kind of roughness that kids without parents have and it's not unpleasant. Pleasure and joy has become so distant from him these past months. It has been so benal, so monastic. He thinks of the day's tasks left to be done, and all that has left to do staring up at the ceiling fan. Suddenly she grabs at his dick, reaching through the torn jeans buckled loosely about his waist and he startles, head lifted up and their eyes interlocked. He sees only a distance, like gazing at the reflection in one's eye in a mirror, a regression. The details of her life are not known to him, but between them there is an unstated acknowledgement. So she climbs onto him, laying her small stomach on his and spreads her body out, arms mirroring each other and legs intertwined. She breathes out and lets herself go limp. He feels her warmth, the softness of this other-body and accepts it, both of them silent and complete.

This strange offering from the world does help him, and he does feel better and more alive now that there is some communion to be had in the suffering. And so he makes it home and cleans himself up as he does: beat body in the shower, bacitracin on the wounds, his own stitches to where he can, water falling off his shoulders. He looks in the mirror and forsees a new feeling, a sadness, one which persists beyond the tears he sheds and makes him think of the girl, not having the power to wish to be with her but only the form of her, her ideal. He staggers to his mattress and falls, joining in with his parents in the reclusive stagnance of outerness.

He wakes up and tries to prepare for school, which grows harder each day. Now he barely has the strength to slip food past his swollen lips or raise the ragged book bag that carries his belongings. But he does so anyway, driven by the almost masochistic, almost yearning need to know what will happen to him that day, what more cruelties other people are really capable of. He steps out the door and walks through the morning, the quiet mornings when no one touches him and in the serenity he can feign a place in this town where he is not exorcized. Arriving at school the sky is brumous and blue, dark in the cold weather of early fall and rolling with a towering might that dwarfs even the cars and the trees. A storm is coming, and the silence envelopes him, and no one touches him that day even as the electric tension melts through the downpour that turns the sky clear. The sun is shining and the ground is moist. The world has been eerily distant, and no one has touched him. He prepares to walk home feeling this tension, a kind of torpor he anticipates ending in annihilation.

His feet are sore and itch terribly, a lameness in the blisters from where he was stomped that has turned swollen and festers in the shoe. The fall weather is blue and coloured, crisp and damp, slaked over all the surfaces. He walks, reaching the place where he was first assaulted and sees a bully standing there, and almost feels relief. The bully turns around and stares, a kind of remorse in his eyes as the kid shuffles along, perversely eager. The bully raises his hand and a van pulls around the corner, that one of the kid's fathers owned and before he can react they pull him inside and shove him down. Duct tape goes over his mouth and all the familiar faces are around him struggling with a deadly seriousness and one kid he hadn't seen before in the corner.

"This is the last of it," one of them says. "It won't go on after this."

They reach the boathouse by the river one of their fathers owns and pull him out, struggling as he can against the tape and dragging him through the gravel. The wooden door swings open and like a team they're placing him down on a chair and taping him up all over, arms and torso and legs. They shine a light in his face and the truth of him is as plain as day. Even now, his beaten, sullied face cannot muster a contempt towards them, cannot bear to retaliate, and so he must be set right to put a stop to this madness. "Remember," the oldest one says. "You've done all of this to yourself." The kids shuffle around nervously, until one brave one steps forward and rips off his fingernail with electrical pliers.

They had agreed that they couldn't let it continue, that they all felt tired and unhappy and were scared they might kill him or be put away. All of the town had been down looking at them and it didn't feel right anymore, not like it used to. Something had to change and this kid had to be dealt with. Clearly he couldn't fend for himself and didn't know what was good for him, so they had to leave him somewhere so he wouldn't hurt himself no more and he'd have his place at the bottom of the pile. This is what they agreed upon. And this is what they would do.

The policeman was breathing, filled with his squad car and feeling the same way he always did: normal. He got a tip this morning about something, a good kid, so he felt it was only right to check it out. He felt pride in his work, that he was serving his community and that he knew the cost of keeping things in line. He knew he was a decent man, that he valued the love of his kids and respected his wife and was judicious in his work. Deviances and imperfections could be admitted, as he reflected, since his job was tougher than most and he had once seen a man's head blown off. The gore flew onto his jacket and they all opened fire, and he still was a policeman in spite of it. If he ever took a woman for himself, it could be said to be okay, and that was enough for him.

The pain had been going on for an hour, and it hung thick to the air like sweat and mingled with the dirt at their feet. His face was bloodied, his eyes had been swollen over and all his nails were gone. They tried to tell him to stop, but each time they beat his face he would smile, and so they would pull off another nail and he would always scream. They took turns going in and out, stepping outside to breathe and to vomit before going back in. They tried something and then would look at his face to see it, but they couldn't see his contempt so they tried something more. The slid hot copper wires through his toes, sticking out of him like thatch and making the cabin reek with burning flesh. They stuck a pair of pliers up to his septum and twisted until the blood burst inside and he choked backwards. They put dirt in his mouth and made him swallow. They hooked up the end of a lantern battery to a metal prod, and stuck it under the folds of his fat until it smoked. He was crying. They couldn't see it but he was crying. Tears were on his face and had they taken the courage to recognizes them maybe they would have stopped. But all they perceived was the stoicness, the indignance that made them beat him in the first place. And so they persisted.

The policeman drove through the town, looking up at the fall leaves flutter by and the kids playing in the puddles of rain. He stopped to gaze at the squirrels rushing about in the tree branches, as he always did in a calm moment, and felt he had become friends with them in that time, that they were the tulpas of his innocence and their dances were a tiny replica of the life around him.

They were scraping his balls with sandpaper and had placed a thin, even cut down the length of his dick and watched it split open. All of them were exhausted. All of them had gone to another place in that time, felt they were in some uncharted territory of human experience where he was the means of their discovery and all the concerns of their previous life had been forgotten. The oldest one regretted being there. In the thick of it he felt only the flow, the now, until stepping away brought about things like guilt and shame and confusion. He thought of his mother cooking dinner and how much he wished to be there. He thought of his siblings and his teachers and wished to separate himself from the present moment, to be free from the burdens of all its sensations and to be in a better place. He looked back down to the beaten kid. There were no words for what he saw.

He reflected on all this until the moment he shut the car door, where he got into the zone and prepared to do what he did. He walked along the gravel path listenung the crunch against his black boots and began to hear noises coming from the woods. He saw a van and a cabin and blood.

The kid regretted being there. All the choices that had lead to this moment, all the things he tried to do right meant nothing now. Nothing could help him now; nothing could save him now. All he asked for was that it would end. It was long past the point that he cried, that he pleaded for his fellow humans to stop torturing him. But they continued, and all his wants and tears could do nothing. They had cut off his tongue and sat it on his lap, and he used all the strength he had left to throw his head back in despair, knowing he would never talk again, knowing he would never see again, knowing that this was the end of all things. Everything meant nothing, and had he known his body could hurt so much he felt he would never have dared to live. Through the blood what he heard was garbled nonsense, like he was sunk to the bottom of a rusty spigot. He saw nothing, and felt parts of his body at random. Yet somehow he knew he was still in there, that his mind was still there, and that all he wanted was for the pain to stop.

When the policeman opened the door the room stood at attention. They were all sick, vomit and piss and shit everywhere, that the gaze of another human in that moment felt like salvation and judgment. They wanted to throw themselves at his feet to save them from their plight, but the room was still, and everything was silent.

"What are you doing," the policeman said, as innocent as a child?

The bullies stood motionless in a tableaux, their hands perfectly still and pitching shadows in the cabin light. The policeman scanned the room and saw his son, staring back at him with what looked to be a terrible mirror. He was wearing kitchen gloves.

The terror of this moment could not get through to the policeman's heart, and so he shifted his gaze back to the kid, in the chair dying. His face was swollen black. His phalanges were all charred and his breath was ragged. He knew even upon opening the door who it was, as the kid’s identity and self meant nothing. He knew it all as clear as day.

The kid sensed that it was done, that the light pouring over him was not heaven but the white evening, the sunshine. A tall presence loomed in the center of his vision, casting a shadow on his decrepit corpse. All the room was so still for so long, all the torture had ceased, that he sat in anticipation of this stillness until he realized it was waiting for him. And so, autonomically, he opened his eyes, an effort as great as any that had ever been known. Through meager, callous slits he saw the vague figures of his tormentors. He knew the truth as bare as the cracked soil, that everything had been decided from the start and that this was the want of his innocence. And he knew he wasn't alone. And so in that moment he smiled, a weak form of the smile he had once given them, and smiled.

The horror was level with the disgust, and all of them felt a kind of categorical defeat that comes only at the end of one's life, of the futility. The policeman had heard of this but only now could see it, the fullness of that futility and how little could be done for it. Nothing stirred in him. Nothing came forward to muster the courage to confront it. And he saw the kid smiling, far off and wild.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynching_of_Jesse_Washington

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/shocking-video-shows-moment-russian-teenager-was-wrapped-in-cling-film-and-suffocated-on-classroom-floor-9951151.html%3famp

kick him down to the ground and he stands back up, silent. They kick him down again

A patch on his shirt read, “THE SILENT WOLF”

Third person kid new in town goes around getting himself beat up by local gangs of highschool kids

Public infuriating knowledge

Eventually is kidnapped and tortured by said kids in retaliation before being found by ones father who is a police officer that is disgusted and then joins in the torture

One uuu, who knew of the plans and was invited felt a consious part of him urge to do something, and so simply called his friend's dad who was a policeman and told him to go to the friends boathouse.

There are no girls here.

"He had been crying the whole time and tears ran down his face. He had the pathetic look in him, the one shared by thousands of orphaned animals before him that, if uuu. And yet something inside of him in that moment compelled him to look upwards. Through the tears and the pain, he smiled, and flashed the same familiar look that everyone in the room had seen before and beaten back with wanton violence. The emotions in that police dad rolled away, like being shuttered behind a steel door. He was confused then, angry, his sympathy for his son and for the orphaned child unable to coexist. And so in that moment, as the teens cowered in the corner, he grabbed the pair of electrical pliers and pulled out the kids front right incisor."

Absent, shape moving like parents in the dark corners of his house

A young girl that helps him in a strange, age-based confusion

"Was it that he wore the scars like one would a uuu?

"I will kill you! What are you gonna do? Bash my skull in and throw my bloated body into the river until it's all decaying and uuuu? You want to be a murderer?"

Police dad is respected by community and feared, maybe once raped a woman

Torture off puts even the teens, they take turns to be sick and vomit, sadistic one has a detached, monk like dedication to the torment

He lets the little girl care for him

He knew that he was a decent man that had a tough job uuu. He has once taken a woman for himself and it felt good, it felt relieving.

He felt he was friends with the squirrels that he would watch run in the trees. The police dad also feels he has a certain connection to the squirrels.

They got a uuu, a kid who was known to drown uuu with a garden hose and collect pelts from the uuu store.

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