#so its possible that one day I will discover I missed a bop | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

incoherentbabblings · 4 years

Text

An Endless Hope (2/9)

After a horrendous blizzard falls over Gotham, Tim undergoes a sharp change in character before disappearing. Upon discovering what has become of him, Stephanie sets off on a solo journey in a magic realm to bring him home, meeting some faces which seems awfully familiar along the way.

Archive Of Our Own Link Click Click!

“Our tires have gone. Cracked and popped.” Red Robin reported, switching the interior car lights on, as Stephanie pulled out a small laptop tablet, switching to checking satellite views of the city. Tim peered at his dashboard, noting, “GPS says we’re down by Stagg Enterprises and the Trigate bridge but honestly… it’s reached whiteout. We can get out and –”

“No.” Batman interrupted. “Stay put. If your tires have frozen up it’s too cold for our suits for any trek across the city. I’m not far in my car. Signal, Robin, what did you find?”

“Mr. Freeze is a dead end.” Duke said over the commlink. “He made the valid point of this not doing much for his research. He was worried about the power outage.”

Red Robin and Batgirl, sat in Tim’s redbird car, watched the snow fly around them, heating blasting out hot air to keep the car and them from freezing. Tim peered out the windscreen, whiteout leaving them blind to the world. They could leave, but it was approaching minus thirty. Their regular suits were good… but not that good. For the moment, they were stranded, waiting for Bruce and his tank of a Batmobile to come to the rescue.

“It’s bizarre.” Batgirl said, scrolling through data. “Weather doesn’t work like this. The storm is just over Gotham. That’s not…that’s not physically possible. Blizzards are usually hundreds of miles wide. Not thirty and constricted to a bay. It came out of nowhere. There’s no way the air could grow cold that fast to freeze all that water naturally. And the wind is at eighty miles per hour. Normally it’s around forty.”

“The Flash has a weather themed villain.” Robin supplied.

“I checked.” Cassandra’s quiet voice, barely audible over the storm she was standing in, came over the speakers. The screaming wind cut off when she got inside, the door of wherever she was slamming shut. “He’s in Iron Heights. It’s not him.”

Stephanie continued to look through local news, in and outside of the city, desperate for someone over social media to have spotted something manmade about the phenomena. Tim jolted next to her violently, hands flailing over the steering wheel.

“Someone walk over your grave?”

“What?”

Stephanie put down the tablet and leaned over, staring at the white surrounding them. “Or did you see something?”

“You’d think I was crazy.”

“I’ve learned not to doubt gut instincts, Red Robin. They’re there for a reason. Especially yours.” Unable to spot anything but white, she looked back at him. Like her, his cowl was down, his nose red, skin very white. He looked frightened and instantly Stephanie became alarmed. “What is it? Did you see something?”

She whirled back around, hair falling around her shoulders and back. It really was too long at this point, but Tim reached up and tangled his fingers into it. Something to hold onto. He tried not to tug on her too hard.

“I just think someone’s watching us... me.”

“What? Who? Bad guy?”

“I think I’m seeing things.”

Stephanie hummed, slowly retreating into her seat.

“I’ll bop ‘em if they hurt you.”

Colour returned to Tim’s cheeks, and he smiled. “I know.”

The sound of roaring engines became audible over the car’s heating, and a little too close for comfort, the black Batmobile emerged, parking directly in front.

“Get in you two. I can’t drag the car with your tires gone. Lock it down, Red Robin. When the storm lessens, we’ll retrieve it.”

“Go ahead Batgirl. Locking it down will take a second.”

“’Kay.” She kicked her way out, fighting against the wind. Her cape, weighted so it wouldn’t fly up and around her face in such conditions, billowed out behind her, but her hair flew up and around her face. It made her stumble a little ungraciously as she felt her way around the car, opening the door enough to slide in the back.

“Jesus.” She breathed. Batman was looking over his shoulder, checking she was unharmed.

“I told you to cut your hair.”

“Yeah, yeah. I braided it but the wind…”

Bruce grunted. “We can’t do anything. We give it two more hours to show signs of passing. If not –”

“Call in the League?”

Batman’s face indicated he was not happy with the idea, but it was still the best solution. They were trained for street level crime, not climate change.

Tim tumbled in a moment later, shaking from the cold, slapping the ice and snow that had collected on his costume. Reaching across, Stephanie took off her gloves and placed her warm fingers on his cheeks, hissing at the cold. Tim sighed and closed his eyes, shivering.

“Where’s the others?” Stephanie asked, watching Tim’s shudders lessen as he warmed up again.

Bruce set off, heading back to Bristol.

“In the city tunnels. A lot of people are taking shelter there. They’ll be heading back now. We just have to wait it out for now.”

Stephanie did not miss the loathing in his tone at such an inaction.

“We can’t do anything for the time being.” Tim stated. “But when it passes –”

“If it passes.” Batman grumbled.

“–Then we’ll work overtime to help with recovery.”

Stephanie nodded emphatically in agreement.

“It’s not good enough.” Bruce muttered.

Stephanie went to remove her hands from Tim but to her shock he actually reached up and snatched her wrists, pulling her back. Damn, he really was cold. Usually he wasn’t that grabby.

“Sometimes ‘not good enough’ is all we can do.” Tim bit back.

Holding her breath, noting the tension in the car rising with the steady hot air being blasted, Stephanie pinched Tim’s nose, desperate to break the potential argument. Tim looked at her, a little outraged. Stephanie ignored him, speaking to Batman,

“Whoever did this – if it is a who – we’ll hold them to account.”

It really wasn’t good enough, and Bruce did not respond. The drive back was odd, Bruce relying on technology to navigate through the city. As soon as they cleared the bridge however, visibility resumed. It was a blizzard – a bad one – but nothing compared to what seemed to be only growing in intensity over the three main islands of Gotham.

When they arrived back at the cave, Stephanie asked Alfred to take a look at Tim, worried about his body temperature. She snuggled up to him, arms wrapped around his waist, cheek to cheek, as she tried to erase his shivering.

“Honey, why are you so cold? We weren’t exposed long.”

“Just feel cold. Like in my bones.”

She rubbed his back, trying to friction up some heat.

“Cuddle away then.”

“You’re like a furnace. It’s nice.” He sighed.

Alfred came over, took one look at Tim and shrugged off any major concern.

“Just a chill.” He confirmed after taking Tim’s temperature. “Take a warm – not hot – shower.”

“Sure Alfred.”

He went to walk off, hand around Stephanie’s, but she dug her feet in.

“It’s okay. I’m okay. I’m gonna wait for the others to come back safe.”

Tim blinked, then looked down at his grip. She wasn’t showing it, but with a dropping sensation in his stomach, he realised how tightly he was squeezing her. Mechanically, finger by finger, he let go.

“Yeah. Sorry. I’ll be a little bit.”

She smiled, worry leaking through, and he dashed off. She flexed her wrist, hissing a little at its stiffness. Tim was just spooked by the weather, she told herself. Nothing more.

The others returned soon enough, following the city sewer systems back to the cave entrance. Tim eventually came back too, in warmer clothes, dry hair and a calmer disposition, and everyone sat by the computer, and waited.

*****

“How certain are you of this lead?” Tim asked three mornings later.

Bruce ran a hand across his face. It had been a long three days, Wayne Enterprises was going to be funding quite a number of building sites and repairs to basic utilities over the coming weeks, but for now, the weather had calmed enough for people to emerge from the lockdown. The streets were now filled with people enjoying the snow, to which Tim couldn’t blame them. There was something beautiful about freshly fallen snow and a horizon which blurred the line between sky and ground.

“Not very,” Bruce admitted, approaching the piano. “Hence why I’m only taking Robin with me.”

Damian’s little chest puffed out – proud to be the chosen one to accompany his father. Bruce looked at Stephanie, Tim, Duke and Cassandra as he spoke, deliberately holding their gaze to convey the importance he held their task.

“You four are remaining in Gotham. I’m trusting you to look after it until we get back. There shouldn’t be any major operations. The river is frozen, and many roads are blocked still with up to six feet of snow. But still, do what you can.”

“Be safe.” Cassandra urged.

Stephanie gave a tiny wave to Damian, who’s hand twitched to return the goodbye, but thought better of it, and he tutted and turned to follow.

Uncomfortable silence filled the house as the clock closed behind the two, leaving the four remaining members of the family stood awkwardly.

“Now what?” Steph asked, pushing back the heavy curtains to peer outside. “College is cancelled, no schools, no work… At least the snow has stopped. Should we monitor for problems or take a break… just for an afternoon.”

She looked back to smile at Duke, Cass and Tim, tilting her jaw outside. Cassandra clapped her hands in joy. “I saw on the tv people playing in the snow. I never have before.”

Duke gave an encouraging noise. “Yes. Yes, yes, yes. Snowball fight.”

Tim looked reluctant, until Stephanie elbowed him in the gut and agreed with Duke, saying, “Yeah. Sounds good. Need a bit of levity right now, huh?”

She raised her eyebrows, and Tim got the message.

“Oh! Yes. Sounds good!”

His tone was forcibly cheery, but he would warm up to the idea when actually outside, Stephanie thought.

Alfred, with the hearing of a bat, poked his head around a door frame. ��Please wrap up warm, and shower when you are finished to bring your body temperature back up.”

“Can we have coco, Alfred?” Cassandra pled, eyes big as dinner plates.

“Yes, sounds a lovely idea. Try to get some joy from the terrible weather please, all of you.”

Cassandra burst off to get wrapped up, the other three trailing behind.

Stephanie laughed at Cassandra’s exuberance, trying to get her shoes on quicker. The Manor, built on the hill in the way it was, meant that the five feet of snowfall hadn’t reached the back door and steps. It did mean though, after some shoving by Cassandra, the door heaved open. She ran out, throwing herself down the stairs and onto a hug pile of freshly laid snow. She faceplanted with a shriek of joy, quickly creating snow angels. Stephanie trotted after her, calling,

“Cassie, have you ever made a snowman before?”

“No!”

“Me either. Help me?”

Tim watched for a little while as the girls – for a lack of a better term – frolicked in the white snow. Cassandra stood out more against the white, dressed from head to toe in black, Stephanie in that blinding white, purple and green jacket blended in a little more with the landscape. He was quite content to just sit on the salted steps and watch, but a solid smack to the back of his neck, snow and ice sneaking down his collar, made him squeal.

Duke laughed, “Bad form, dude! Gotta keep your eyes peeled!”

“Jesus!” Tim choked out, reflexively grabbing a pile of snow and flinging it back weakly. A snowball fight ensued.

Alfred watched the four from the kitchen window, more than a little delighted at the childish screams of joy that made their way across the Estate. At least some people were finding joy in such miserable weather. As an adult, snow only meant pain.

Transport difficulties, concerns about plumbing and electricity, would the roof cope? What if there’s flooding? Need to clear the sidewalks and drives and roads. Is there enough food to keep us going long enough for the storm to pass?

So many worries.

For children, it only meant wrapping up warmer, maybe missing a week of school, and games outside.

Never mind, let them enjoy it for a little while longer.

Alfred noted that flurries of snow had begun to fall, though immediately he could tell they snow was larger and slower falling than the other night. Still, the four had been outside for a couple of hours by this point, perhaps it was time for them to come in.

He moved away from the stove, turning off the heat on the milk, and making his way to the door to call them back in to warm up.

He managed to get the door open only to be met with a violent shriek from Tim, his body falling to the floor and curling up in a ball.

Instantly the frivolity stopped, and Stephanie burst across the snow. She wrapped around him, pushing his hand away from his eye. Cassandra and Duke hovered around, nervous and unsure.

“It wasn’t me.” Duke begged, “He was looking up, I didn’t throw anything at him.”

Stephanie cooed, trying to see the damage.

“What happened? Is it your eye? Did something get in your eye?”

“Get him inside so we can take a better look,” Alfred urged. “I worry the weather is only going to deteriorate.”

Alfred quickly put on the fire in one of the sitting areas and sat Tim down on the rug. He still had the heel of his palm pressed to his left eye socket. Cassandra and Duke continued to hover, nervous at the damage. Stephanie came through from the kitchen with a cold compact in case there was any swelling. She knelt in front of Tim.

“Can I see?”

Tim gave her a suspicious look, which she didn’t understand. Reaching him, she went to peel his hand away, and he flinched back. Her outreached hand froze in mid-air.

“Does it really hurt?” She asked. “Do we need to get to the hospital somehow?”

“No. I don’t want you touching me.”

She shook her head, reaching for him again. She tried to gently tease, “We can’t fix it if we can’t see what’s wrong. It’ll just take a second.”

Stephanie pushed back his hair from his forehead, as she always did to comfort him. She heard Cassandra gasp before she realised what happened, but Tim recoiled at the touch and – even worse – slapped her hand away from his face.

“I mean it. Don’t.”

It had been a while since he had directed such a sharp rebuke towards her. Her palm stung with the force he had smacked her with. Immediately, she entered a panic.

“You… Okay. I won’t. Sorry. Sorry. I’m sorry.”

His sneering look did not fade, and it made Stephanie get up off the floor. She passed the cold press to Alfred, who Tim, still looking supremely uncomfortable, allowed to examine the damage.

She left the room and the manor, sitting on the steps to try and calm down. Weird how one sharp word could make her feel like she was five years old again. The falling snow muffled the sounds of the Estate, and everything was eerily quiet, save the sound of her panicked breathing.

Immediately Cassandra came out and joined her, wrapping her up in a hug.

“I didn’t mean to hurt him.” Stephanie whined.

“I know.”

Stephanie leaned down, forehead resting on Cassandra’s bony arms. “Sorry.”

“Don’t apologise to me. He’ll feel bad later, and you can talk it out.”

Stephanie nodded, knowing Cassandra was right. In the meantime, she flexed her hand, the one Tim had hit so sharply.

“He’s yelled at me before…”

“But never looked at you like that?”

“No.” Stephanie’s lip quivered. “I’m overthinking it.”

“You aren’t yourself when you’re in pain.”

Stephanie nodded fervently and frantically. “Right, right.”

They sat still for a while, listening to the silence. Then the door opened once more. It was Tim. Immediately Stephanie was on her feet. His eye looked fine, not even bloodshot or swollen.

“Are you okay?” She asked. He looked at her, suspicion gone but now a little bored and pouty.

“Fine. Listen, can we go home now?”

“Home?”

“To the apartment.” Tim shuffled in place, looking disgruntled. “I’d drive myself but Alfred won’t let me. My eye is fine.”

Confused, but deciding to not make a scene until they were alone, Stephanie nodded. “I’ll have to go slow. I don’t know how much of the roads have been cleared.

“Whatever.” He murmured, looking distracted.

Cassandra gave Stephanie a look which was a little unreadable. Stephanie gave her thanks to Alfred, and waved goodbye to Duke.

The drive back was painful in every possible way. Stephanie’s little purple car was sturdy, but she still went much slower than normal. Tim curled up in his seat next to her, head pressed to his knees. She could see that with one hand he was aggressively clawing at the centre of his chest, near his heart. Neither spoke for the duration of the drive.

When they got parked up, he slowly and stiffly got up and out. Stephanie grabbed her phone and messaged Duke that they had survived the journey.

She arrived in the apartment after Tim, finding him looking around the space with his lip curled. He didn’t look impressed with the place, as if it wasn’t his own home that he had decorated and lived in.

She sat her bag down by the door, and walked over to him.

“Sweetie, are you sure you’re okay? I hurt you earlier.”

“No. You didn’t.” He said, moving through to the kitchen. Whatever he was looking for wasn’t to be found, and he migrated upstairs to their bedroom. She followed, anxious about leaving him alone.

“Can I see your eye? I’d feel better taking a look myself.”

He sighed like she had asked the world of him and plopped himself at the foot of their bed.

“Hurry up, then.”

She approached him like she would a rabid dog, turning on the overhead light so she could properly see. Gently, she rested her fingertips on his cheek and brow bone.

Like he said, there was nothing amiss.

“What happened?” She breathed. “If nothing hurt you –”

“You’re really warm.” He interrupted. His disinterested look became hungry, and Stephanie dropped her hands, only for Tim to catch her wrists. His fingers were frozen, which should not have been the case after a car ride where the heating had been keeping them toasty. Stephanie felt a lump of ice form in her gut.

“Tim, stop it. What’s going on?”

“Cold.” He murmured. He squeezed her wrists tighter, tight enough to make her twist out of his grip in fear. Immediately he stood up and wrapped his arms around her waist, nuzzling into to her. Stephanie became stiff, listening to him licking his lips and mutter, “You’re warm. Hot. Need…”

Backing off just enough to look her in the eye, his expression twitched, and naked panic appeared for just a moment. Trying to maintain a poker face, Stephanie released herself from his grip, unnerved. Removed from her warmth his apathy returned, and the tenseness in his posture fled.

Confused, Stephanie massaged her wrists, and tried to buy herself some time.

“Go take a nap and warm up. Okay? Just… Just go take a nap.”

He smiled at her, but not warmly. It was mocking. “Yes, mother.”

The feeling of dread only rose and spread. She felt like there was a permanent clump in her throat. Finding there was nothing she could say that wouldn’t result in an argument, she just turned and left, leaving Tim’s sardonic smirk behind.

He had never made her uncomfortable before. Never. He had been angry with her. He had argued with her. He had yelled at her, belittled her, and once or twice in moments they never spoke about, he had been physically violent with her (the unspoken excuse was, both times, he didn’t actually know it was her… as if that made it acceptable). But never had she been made to feel unsafe. Tim was predictable in his moods. Whatever was going on frightened her. She shouldn’t have come back alone with him.

Maybe she could message Cass or Duke…they could get here in around an hour and…

While her mind raced, she resolved to make some comfort food for dinner. She opened the fridge, finding casserole beef that would be out of date in two days, an onion, a carrot, and three potatoes.

“Good enough.” She muttered and set to work.

Two hours later, as the stew continued to cook slowly in the oven and she was washing the dishes, Tim came downstairs quietly. He made his way over to Stephanie, finding it a little amusing how she tensed up when he wrapped his arms around her waist.

Stephanie managed to not gasp out loud when he pulled her long hair out of the way and pressed kisses to her neck, but she couldn’t help the involuntary goosebumps and risen fine hairs. He was frigid.

“How are you feeling?” Stephanie asked.

“Had a nap.” He rested his sharp chin on her shoulder. “I made you worry, didn’t I?”

She said nothing at his patronising tone, not sure what to say. Yes, and you still are. What the hell is wrong with you right now? But no, she was trying to be good and not respond and set off an argument.

“My eye’s fine.” He continued.

“That’s good.” She said, slowly leaning back so she could take off the rubber gloves. The moment she did, one of his hands snaked down to intertwine with her own. That did make her gasp, and flinch, but his grip on her waist tightened.

“What are you making?”

“Some stew to warm you up.” She replied, voice aggressively chipper.

Tim looked over to the oven, unimpressed.

“It stinks.”

Somehow that was the breaking point for Steph, who threw her arms back and moved away.

“What is your problem, huh?”

He looked back, almost gleeful. “You’re upset.”

“No shit I’m upset! Something’s wrong! You got something in your eye that made you fall to the ground in pain and now it’s nothing? You are physically cold as ice and you’re just being a pain and mean and childish and –”

“Childish. Childish?” He looked to the side as if he had a bright idea and moved away, back into the living room. “I thought you wanted that.”

“God, Tim, what are you blathering on abo—”

She cut herself off as he stood next to the windowsill with the flowers. It had been a couple of weeks since they had brought them home, and they were doing well, even with the general lack of sunlight. Tim stared at them like they were weeds, with nothing notable or pleasant about them, then he smiled maniacally.

With a carelessness comparable to a toddler throwing a tantrum, Tim pulled his red roses off the windowsill, the pot crashing and soil flying everywhere. Stephanie couldn’t help it, she screamed, stuck in place by the kitchen.

“Tim, no! No! Why would you… No don’t! Please don’t!”

His hand was hovering over her lilac flowers. His awful smile froze, then fell away, leaving an equally awful emptiness. His hand trembled, and his fingers instead stroked the petals. Stephanie twitched, half ready to body slam him if he threw her plant on the ground.

His hand fell away, and Stephanie – shamefully – began to cry. He had left her roses alone but wrecked his own.

“Why would you do that?”

He looked at her like she was stupid for not getting the joke. “They’re so ugly. And I thought it would be funny. Your face.”

“Funny?” She sniffed, eyesight blurry and nose running. She couldn’t bear how bored he sounded, how mean he was being.

“When you get all angry and hot.”

“Tim! You don’t do that to someone you care about!”

“Care about you? Do I?” He blinked, uncomprehending. He had gotten distracted again and was looking out the window at the snow.

She shrieked, feeling like she was talking to a brick wall or an uncaring five-year-old. She rushed over to his wrecked plant, trying to pack the soil together as best she could. Tim watched her for a moment, then kicked the spilt soil and plant. Stephanie flinched away, staring at the scattered dirt. Intentionally or not, he’d hit her hands that were trying to salvage the situation. It was such an unnecessarily spiteful and painful thing to do, that finally she’d had enough. Stephanie got up, and shoved Tim.

“Stop it.”

He didn’t look satisfied with her reaction anymore, and asked, “Do you want me to leave?”

“I want you to stop being so fucking cruel.”

It was like her words were literally going in one ear and out the other. It was like he wasn’t even talking to her, rather he was talking at her. Or he was talking to someone (something) else. “I’ll go then. I’ll go. I’m bored.”

She watched, mystified, as he put his shoes back on. He looked at her once and tilted his head like a confused dog, then moved back towards her. Still crying, she choked out,

“What are you –”

He kissed her, once, desperately. She flinched away, feeling violated for the first time in years. It seemed he was not happy with the kiss either. He looked off to the side, sucking on his tongue, musing the flavour. He shook his head once.

“No good.”

Stephanie stared, heartbroken. Tim just shrugged, like the entire thing was nothing more than a mild conversation about the weather. Grabbing her car keys. He opened the front door, giving a half-hearted farewell. And then he was gone. No coat, no gloves, no scarf. The snow flurries had picked up once more, as had the wind. He was going to very quickly freeze out in the open dressed like that. Even if he did have the car, getting stranded was a real possibility in the storm.

Hating him, but also petrified, Stephanie resolved to drag him back inside. She’d make him sit down, shove the stew she’d made down his stupid throat, then call Batman. She didn’t care what he and Robin were doing at the South Pole, something had gone very wrong back home.

Stephanie grabbed the apartment keys and grabbed her own shoes, running after him. The lights flickered, a power surge apparently occurring due to the storm, and she tripped over their pile of shoes at the front door and she tugged it open.

“You dick!” She screeched to the howling wind. No sign of Tim though, or her car. She jolted, confused at how he could have pulled out of sight that quickly. Already the tire tracks were covered in a fresh layer of snow. Her confusion quickly returned to anger.

Fuck him, she thought spitefully, slamming the door shut and going back inside. Getting back down to see what of his roses had survived his abuse. She cleared space in her own box, hoping that they would take in their temporary home.

She then went to call him, for once being the first to crack after an argument of theirs, only to realise before she clicked his face that his phone was still in his jacket that was hung on the rack.

He really had left the house with nothing on him but the clothes on his back.

She didn’t know what to do. She’d been an idiot during their time at the Manor and had left behind her suit, leaving her stuck inside with nothing warm or secure enough to go hunting for her purple car. As several hours passed, the more her anger made way for pure grief.

That wasn’t Tim. Never in a million years would he be that cruel. Angry yes, spiteful sometimes, but not callous. And he did care about her. She knew that for a fact. More than she believed almost anything else. Even when their relationship was at its worst, he had said, word for word, that he still loved her.

He wouldn’t make fun of her until she cried, he wouldn’t hit and kick her, he wouldn’t wreck a present that he knew was important to her, he wouldn’t be such a self-absorbed brat.

The wind screamed outside, and Stephanie blinked.

Freak storm. Tim’s adverse reaction. The pain in his eye and drastic mood swing.

The whole thing stank of something unnatural.

It was next to nothing to go off, but she had to try and see where that line of thought would lead. First things first though, she needed Tim to come home.

But he didn’t.

Panicking wouldn’t do any good. Tim could look after himself. Even in a storm like last night. Her little car was given to her by Bruce. It was as sturdy as a tank. He would be fine.

But still. Stephanie panicked and did not sleep that night. Instead she sat in the living room, drinking mug of tea after mug of tea, watching her roses and the snow blowing outside through the window. Occasionally she’d burst into tears, not sure what to do or what to say. She could brave the storm, maybe? But Tim didn’t have a key. What if he came home and couldn’t get in? What if he found a phone and called her, would she go to him then? What if, what if, what if?

Stephanie wondered briefly who people coped not knowing where their loved ones were before mobiles became extensions of their arms.

Maybe he’d just left Gotham, gone out of the city and away from the storm. It was minus twenty that night, again unbearably cold. Stephanie sat still, grief stricken, and waited for Tim to come home.

He never did.

Come the morning, she started her hunt, looking at the CCTV footage of Park Row and the neighbouring streets and businesses, but found nothing. The footage blinked, showing Tim exiting the apartment, then he and the car was gone, and it was Stephanie poking her head out to yell.

It was like he had shut the front door behind him and vanished. Or it would have been, if not for the fact that that blip of a power surge had happened at an awfully convenient time.

She messaged Cass and Duke, who confirmed that he did not return to the manor. A quiet enquiry to the Titans showed he had not made his way West either. The storm over Gotham that night was almost as bad as the first. He would have died if he did not find shelter.

The stink of the unnatural grew.

Her grief turned to panic, and two more awful days passed. The three of them took to frantic searching across the city, but a fresh layer snow made tracking her car difficult. Even worse, the GPS system installed by Bruce on her car (a safety precaution to now where she was at any given moment) wasn’t working. It hadn’t since Stephanie and Tim had arrived at the apartment.

Duke checked the different homes the Drake’s had owned just in case he had holed himself up there. The townhouse, the mansion in Bristol, but nothing. Cassandra and Stephanie had checked every safe house in Gotham, but no luck.

Duke wanted to inform Batman. Whatever lead Bruce was chasing, this was doubly important. One of his children had gone missing. Cassandra disputed Duke. Bruce had an entire city to worry about, adding Tim’s disappearance would not make him more urgent. If anything, it would make him sloppier. Nothing made Bruce more irrational than his family in danger. Let him tackle the issue with a clear head. The three of them in Gotham could find Tim.

But three days later, they hadn’t.

So Cassandra conceded, and the awful call to Bruce was made. Stephanie did not speak to him, but judging by Cass’ face after the conversation ended, it had not gone well. She relayed the information that his own search had been a dead end and would be home before the evening came round.

This served to make an anxious bubbling a permanent fixture in Stephanie’s gut. Surely if Bruce was coming home, the problem would be resolved?

A problem she had allowed to happen. Letting Tim just waltz out into a blizzard great job Steph.

No-one blamed Stephanie, though she certainly blamed herself. Tim’s roses were not taking to their shared space with Stephanie’s, and it felt like a miserable metaphor of how their relationship was seemingly incompatible.

What the actual hell had happened?

Staring at the roses, and hating herself a little, she decided to go speak to one of the few people in Gotham who maybe would have a clue about what was happening to the natural world.

Poison Ivy had a connection to the Green, whatever that was. It was a shot in the dark, but maybe Pamela would have heard something through the literal grapevine about what was causing the horrendous weather. From there, maybe Stephanie could chase a lead to Tim, and bring him home.

Alive. Preferably.

#dc #tim drake #stephanie brown #timsteph #my fic tag

8 notes · View notes

ts1989fanatic · 5 years

Text

TS7 is finally here!

If you’re like me or any of the millions of Swifties out there, the arrival of this next era is just as exciting as a brand-new bookshelf full of reads you get to experience for the first time.

After listening to the album on repeat all weekend, I decided to celebrate Lover with a book roundup inspired by each of the songs (since it’s the only thing I’ll be listening to for the foreseeable future, don’t @ me.).

ts1989fanatic an interesting perspective well written obviously a swiftie.

1. “I Forgot That You Existed” (Best Friends Forever, by Jennifer Weiner)

You heard it from Taylor first: indifference is the new vengeance. This solid album-opener is upbeat and poppy, a nice contrast with the lyrics about the (final?) end of a broken relationship, friendship (or feud), when you actually forget that the person you once had so much ire for still lives. She transitions from “Your name on my lips, tongue-tied/Free rent, living in my mind” to “forgot that you existed/and I thought that it would kill me, but it didn’t” with ease. But of course, insisting that you forget someone existed while singing about them would introduce interesting tension into any relationship. It reminded me of Jennifer Weiner’s Best Friends Forever, about what happens when a former friend shows up on your doorstep in a crisis, insisting you’re the only one who can help them out of a tight spot (when you’d rather do anything but).

2. “Cruel Summer” (Do You Want to Start a Scandal, by Tessa Dare)

Lyrically and sonically, this is one of my favorites on the entire album (it’s so good it should have been a single!) It’s got an Out of the Woods meets Getaway Car vibe in terms of the melody. Wistful, a bit haunting, but also a total bop. “So cut the headlights, summer’s a knife/I’m always waiting for you just to cut to the bone” describes a low point in Swift’s life (Summer 2016, ugh), juxtaposed with the high of discovering new love. There are so many books I could have picked for this, but “I don’t want to keep secrets just to keep you” reminded me of the Regency romance trope where the heroine has a secret, or finds herself in a situation where her reputation is at stake, but is still tempted by a handsome rogue who might lead her into temptation and true love. (Sound a bit familiar?) Do You Want to Start a Scandal by Tessa Dare feels like the perfect accompaniment to this song about a woman who must prove her innocence in the face of a sullied reputation or be forced to marry a man she doesn’t think she could ever love.

3. “Lover” (Roomies, by Christina Lauren)

The title track (and the one I’ve been singing in the shower for days) is a swoony daydream of a couple in complete harmony, as Swift spins wedding vow-like lyrics such as “With every guitar string scar on my hand/I take this magnetic force of a man to be my…lover/My heart’s been borrowed and yours has been blue/all’s well that end’s well to end up with you/swear to be overdramatic and true/to my…lover.” But Swift is all about balance in her songs, so imagery of keeping up the Christmas lights in “our place” is juxtaposed with suspicion that “everyone who sees you wants you.” This track reminded me of Roomies by Christina Lauren, with its musician main character and the trope of having to share a space while inevitably falling in love.

4. “The Man” (The Whisper Network, by Chandler Baker)

The double-standards between men and women have been explored in songs and novels since both art forms existed. Swift has already confronted the media’s perception of her as a victim, as a girl who goes on too many dates but can’t make them stay, etc. But in “The Man”, she more directly confronts how different she’d be treated if she were the opposite gender. How could I not think of the new thriller The Whisper Network, about a group of women who come forward about their male boss’ behavior of harassment in the workplace. Instead of continuing to suffer in silence, they tell the truth, resulting in an explosive conflict. I sort of saw the ending coming, but was very glad I was right.

5. “The Archer” (Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

Another slower, lyric-driven track on the album with gut-punching truths about love, friendship, and holding on to the one who has your heart. “The Archer” is associated with being a Sagittarius (which Swift is), but also her dynamic with the world. “Who could ever leave me, darling?/But who could stay?” is self-aware in a new way for Swift, as is “I never grew up, it’s getting so old” or “I see right through me.” This is one of my favorite tracks on the album, as Swift confronts her cultivated image as both archer and prey of fame and of love. Listening to the rising energy of the track as it builds to a anti-fairy-tale crescendo plus Swift’s lyrics made me think of Pride and Prejudice: Elizabeth Bennet is forced to acknowledge how her own prejudices have made it difficult for others to love her, but that she is deserving of an imperfect love. (And how could “All of my enemies started out friends” not remind you of awful Mr. Wickham?)

6. “I Think He Knows” (The Duke and I, by Julia Quinn)

After a slower song, this heats things up a bit, describing the early sizzle of a relationship before it even starts. For an entire album that sings the praises of a man, I liked the moment in the pre-chorus where she says “He’s so obsessed with me, and boy, I understand.” Own your worth, girl! The bridge was my favorite part of this song (as it often is with Swift; girl knows how to bridge) as it played with tempo and rhyme. “Lyrical smile, indigo eyes, hand on my thigh/We can follow the sparks, I’ll drive.” Swift explores the tension of the moment between seeing someone and initiating contact—songs like these always sting with a bit of danger, too, because the man knows she wants him but neither of them say anything in public about it. She’s whispering in the dark, which gives me serious secret romance vibes. The Duke and I by Julia Quinn is about Simon, who is planning to propose to his BFF’s sister even though he doesn’t actually love her. It’s an arrangement that suits them both, but before they both know it, Daphne is giving Simon serious “I Think he Knows” vibes.

7. “Miss Americana & the Heartbreak Prince” (The Cheerleaders, by Kara Thomas)

If you don’t get the oft-spoken adage that “politics is like high-school,” this song takes the metaphor to the next level. Subtly political but 100% heartbreaking, Swift reimagines the political sphere (and her role in it) as a high school romance, moving from “American glory, faded before me,” painting the democratic 2016 election loss as a ripped-up prom dress (from Miss Americana, who assumed she would win.) Oozing drama and storytelling the way only Swift can, I love the moody elements of the brokenhearted girl contrasted with the new riff on a cheerleading chant (Go Fight Win!). This song is about mourning loss and then finding the strength to say “I know we’re going to win,” but it’s haunting melody and lyrics led me to pick a Cheerleader-inspired thriller. The Cheerleaders is about a string of cheerleaders murdered in a small town five years ago… and just when everyone thinks it’s time to move on, one girl becomes the center of a mystery that never truly died.

8. “Paper Rings” (The Royal We, by Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan)

I’m on my fourth listen of the album and this might be my favorite track on it (though that changes minute by minute, with an album as dynamic as this—just to further accentuate the point, by the time of posting this piece, my new favorite might be I Think He Knows?). It’s a totally retro, ’60s style song—a totally fresh sound for Swift, and one that fits perfectly with her new aesthetic. (Makes me wonder why this wasn’t one of the singles released before the record.) It is a gold-mine for Swiftian lyricism, with so many gems I can’t possibly call them all out, and it moves so fast (like a good read) that you both want to cascade over them and pause to hear each line at least 5x before it passes you by. It’s an unabashed love song, relishing in the joy of knowing you’re with the one you love so much that “I like shiny things, but I’d marry you with paper rings”. The line that stuck out the most was “I hate accidents except when we went from friends to this,” which made me think of when Bex Porter goes to Oxford in The Royal We and, completely by accident, falls in love with the heir to the throne.

9. “Cornelia Street” (Passion on Park Avenue, by Lauren Layne)

“Cornelia Street” is sort of the antithesis to I Think He knows. It’s about remembering the early days of a new relationship (“We were a fresh page on the desk/filling in the blanks as we go”) and being more than willing to give up all the good that comes with fresh starts in order to settle into something real. It aches with melancholy, because any time we give something up should be a little sad—but it brims with hope and Swift’s trademarked optimism about love. “I hope I never lose you, hope it never ends/I’d never walk Cornelia Street again/ That’s the kinda heartbreak time could never mend.” I had to pick an NYC-set story for this, like Lauren Layne’s Passion on Park Avenue. The city is another character in the romance between a successful jewelry-business owner and the son of the woman her mother used to work for.

10. “Death By a Thousand Cuts” (Please Don’t Go Before I Get Better, by Madisen Kuhn)

Inspired by the Netflix movie Something Great, this is one of the few sad songs on the record, about a girl going through a breakup who can’t help but linger in happier memories. (For the record: “I dress to kill my time” is genius, as are so many of these lyrics.) Only Swift is so good at pairing such devastating messaging with a pop beat you can’t help but want to sing. This song was the hardest one to pick a book for (especially because it’s already inspired by a movie) so I decided to go with a poetry collection! Please Don’t Go Before I Get Better is all about the aches and sun rays of growing up, told in a staggeringly relatable voice that will make you want to curl up on the couch and cry your eyes out.

11. “London Boy” (Red, White and Royal Blue, by Casey McQuiston)

This is 100% about Joe Alwyn, but also… Taylor dated at least two Brits that we know of before him, so this song is also about what we already knew (“the rumors are true”): she has a penchant for London Boys. Essentially a road map of her favorite places in the city, this indulgent ditty trades “Tennessee Whiskey” for “A gray sky, a rainy cab ride” and of course, her man by her side. Red, White, and Royal Blue is the perfect pick for this song, about two boys who fall in love (after a rough start where they were almost enemies) amidst those gray, rainy skies… but one of them happens to be the son of an American President, and the other, the current Prince of England.

12. “Soon You’ll Get Better (feat. Dixie Chicks)” (Swamplandia! by Karen Russell)

Of all the songs on the album, this one gave me the most vintage Swift vibes. There’s no denying that she is an astonishingly talented songwriter, especially when you listen to what is essentially her greatest fear laid bare on this track with just a bit of guitar and the Dixie Chicks harmonizing in the background. Here, the story shines: Swift’s mother has been sick for a number of years, and while they’ve mostly kept the details of that battle private, this is the most vulnerable moment of love for her mother on an album mostly about finding true love. “Holy orange bottles, each night I pray to you/Desperate people find faith, so now I pray to Jesus, too.” A friend of mine recently lost their mother just after getting married, and it made me marvel at how life often delivers us highs and lows to grapple with simultaneously. While all of this was going on—Kanye and Kim, Joe and London, another world tour, another album—in the background, Swift has been terrified of losing her mother. This song made me think of Swamplandia!, a novel about a young girl living in a gator-wrestling theme park where her mother used to be the main event, until she passed away. Now, in the wake of her death, the girl and her siblings must grapple with their mother’s legacy as a competing business rises up to swallow the success she built on the swamp.

13. “False God” (City of Girls, by Elizabeth Gilbert)

Is that a saxophone in the background of a Taylor Swift song? This slow, jazzy number is all about love and desire—and how we come back to it even when the world around us (and sometimes we, ourselves) put it in jeopardy. “And I can’t talk to you when you’re like this/Staring out the window like I’m not your favorite town/I’m New York City” and other lyrics referencing New York seem to be the grounding force in an otherwise tumultuous relationship. Multiple times on this record Swift has alluded to rough patches in her current happiness, but connection is always the solution to fixing it. She seems to say that if you treat your relationship like it’s your religion, you can get through anything. This is one of the sexier songs on the album, but it’s also got serious NYC vibes, so I’m picking City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert: a novel all about relishing romance in the glitzy 1940’s New York Theater scene, but also how desire can either set us on the road to ruin, or redemption.

14. “You Need to Calm Down” (The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, by Taylor Jenkins Reid)

This song has done what Swift does best: inspire conversation and a bit of controversy. Acknowledging that it was past time for her to be an outspoken ally for the LGBTQIAP+ community, YNTCD tackles the various ways communities are pitted against one another (especially on the internet.) The first verse examines her personal haters (“Say it in the street, that’s a knock-out/But you say it in a Tweet, that’s a cop-out), the second calls out homophobes (“Shade never made anybody less gay”), and the third examines how her relationships with her female contemporaries have often been antagonistic, something she herself has been responsible perpetuating in the past with songs like “Bad Blood” and “Better Than Revenge” (“We all know now, we all got crowns/you need to calm down.”) The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo is about a famous actress who hid the great female love of her life behind multiple male partners and uses her platform to tell the truth (all while hiding one last devastating secret). While Taylor herself has not come out as part of the LGBTQ community, she has come out as an ally, and this book made me think about the issues of privacy, platform, allyship, and identity that the song also confronts. If there’s more to the story of Swift’s relationship to the LGBTQIAP+ community, she’s going to share it on her own terms.

15.“Afterglow” (Queenie, by Candice Carty-Williams)

This song ranks high on my favorites from the album, and it’s a rare genre from Swift: the apology song. (The other famous one is Speak Now’s “Back to December.”) In this mid-tempo song with slamming drums and a breathy falsetto, Swift yearns for the partner she pushed away to meet her in the moments after the fight ends. “It’s all me, in my head/I’m the one who burned us down/ but it’s not what I meant,” she insists. There’s still hope here though, as opposed to earlier songs on the record that signal the doom of a friendship or a breakup after-the-fact. Queenie, by Candice Carty-Williams, is a novel about a girl coming to terms with her role in a failed relationship, a career she can’t seem to succeed in, and friends she unknowingly betrays. “Why’d I have to break what I love so much?” is a question asked in this song’s chorus, and one Queenie must answer in order to find real, lasting happiness.

16. “ME! (feat. Brendon Urie)” (Crazy Rich Asians, by Kevin Kwan)

This self-love anthem is bubblegum sweet and full of earworms: the “Shake it Off“ of the TS7 Era. It makes me think of lightning-fast beach reads that you can’t put down and that feel so good to read but also have a deeper meaning to them. Just because it’s not the most lyrically advanced of her songs doesn’t mean this bop doesn’t deserve to be celebrated— it reminded me of how romances constantly get a bad rep (lol, see what I did there?) as somehow lesser than other genres. I love that Taylor doesn’t care about what other people think and is 100% focused on being her authentic self— just like the heroine of Crazy Rich Asians, Rachel Chu. When confronted with the wealth and expectations of her boyfriend Nick’s family (who don’t think she’s good enough for him), she insists it’s her individuality that makes her the perfect partner for him.

17. “It’s Nice to Have a Friend” (This Love Story Will Self-Destruct, by Leslie Cohen)

This track might be my second favorite? It’s so different (Ukulele? Trombone? Is that what I’m hearing?) and such a contrast to the beginning of the album, the opener closes the door on a once meaningful friendship. It’s also a deceiving song, in that I’m still not 100% sure what it’s about. I think Swift is exploring the importance of friendship in all its forms: in childhood (“School bell rings, walk me home”) to adolescence “Something gave you the nerve/to touch my hand”) to romantic love (“Church bells ring, carry me home/rice on the ground looks like snow”). Ultimately, she may be saying that the most important thing about a romantic partner is that they make you feel like you have a friend—when you’re young, the thing that matters most is feeling seen by other people. If your lover is also your best friend, then you know they always have your back. A love story that takes place over two characters’ twenties, This Love Story Will Self-Destruct is about the missteps, betrayals, beautiful moments and connection that forms between two people over a decade.

18. “Daylight” (Evvie Drake Starts Over, by Linda Holmes)

“My love was as cruel as the cities I lived in.” What a way to begin this album closer. Swift’s last tracks have a tradition of being the ones that are most emblematic of her current state of mind, but they also have developed certain themes over time. Renewal, starting over, self-reflection, and hope are all subjects “Daylight” sheds a little light on. She acknowledges past failings (“I wounded the good and trusted the wicked”) and what she wants for the future (“I once believed love would be [burning red]/but it’s golden”). A book that feels like daylight on your skin is what’s needed for this song, and I think Evvie Drake Starts Over is the perfect pick: a story about a woman still grieving the loss of her husband but who finds herself moving on with a former major league baseball player. Both of them have pasts they are healing from, but together, they find hope for the future. “I’ve been sleeping so long in a twenty-year dark night/and now I see daylight.” And, unlike (I think?) any other song in her catalogue, she speaks in the end, not sings, in a direct appeal to her audience. Her very last words are “You are what you love.” Well, I love Taylor Swift. I love a good song lyric to sink my teeth into, or to sing. I love love. And I love a good story, whether it comes from a song or a book, and when you’re done with the album, I hope you find some here.

225 notes · View notes

benjaminposs · 4 years

Text

MY TOP 10 ALBUMS OF THE '10s

BORN THIS WAY - LADY GAGA

This record saved my life. When BTW came out, I was just coming to terms with my sexuality, and dealing with my first ever spout of dark depression. To this day, when I feel like I have nothing left to lose, I turn on this incredibly produced, lyrically genius, and inspiring album to make me feel strong. It makes me feel like I don’t need anyone to complete me, and that is a rare feeling when you can feel both enraged and empowered love yourself just by listening to a body of work.

BORN TO DIE ( THE PARADISE EDITION ) - Lana Del Rey

I have never in my life heard anyone like LDR, and Born To Die is a prime example of that. The Paradise Edition of this record has to be one of my favorites, which then Lana turned into a short film entitled Tropico, which is stunning in every way. Her sultry voice makes it's way through the orchestral swells in her tunes, and always leaves you feeling both heartbroken and understood. As soon as the title track starts, you know that you are in for an experience - not just an easy listening album. That is why BTD will always be one of my top albums regardless of the decade, because it is timeless.

ELECTRA HEART - MARINA AND THE DIAMONDS

Conceptual albums are always a hit or miss for the GP. However, ELECTRA HEART is one that I think is highly underrated. The archetypes Marina explores on this record are done with both wit and utter genius. She becomes Electra throughout this record, and we see her unveil a lot about herself through the use of these characters.

ARTPOP - LADY GAGA

Perhaps one of the most underrated and under appreciated albums of this decade is ARTPOP. At the height of what feels like a spiritual awakening for LG, Artpop was done with such admiration for high art, fashion, and pop music mixing all the elements as Gaga does for the greater good of love and humanity. As she sings “We could, We could belong together...” There is a sense that she knows we are all connected, but society has denied us of that true connection that we only find in art and music that tries to push the boundaries. Lots of innovative things Gaga wanted to happen with this record happened, while most of them were changed because of the normal record label game that artists experience when trying to also sell a record. Artpop has aged like fine wine, and I really do feel the GP will look back on it as one of the best records ever constructed. With producers Zedd, Madeon, DJ White Shadow, and others, it was way ahead of its time.

EMOTION - CARLY RAE JEPSEN

This is what pop music is. Carly Rae is THAT pop girl as the kids say, Emotion was one of the best albums of the decade. It proved that once again, CRJ could write an entire record of bops both fast and slow of pure pop bliss.

STARBOY - THE WEEKND

I was lucky enough to not only see the tour for this album, but to dive deep in love with the concepts in this record. We hadn't really seen anything like this from The Weeknd. Sure, he has tons of tracks, but not like Starboy. Every track hits the right way at the right time.

HOPELESS FOUNTAIN KINGDOM - HALSEY

A conceptual album based off of Romeo & Juliet, HFK is a force of sound you can’t mess with. Every song has a pivotal part to the grander story. I fell in love with this album immediately, and songs like Alone and Sorry tugged on my heartstrings. So many real, and profound lyrics in this record.

RAINBOW - KESHA

One word... Praying. In the midst of me healing from a recent sexual assault / rape trauma, one song came out that helped me heal a lot... followed by a body of work from a fellow survivor of abuse. Kesha is such a brave soul full of honesty, grace, and light. I am so thankful she made this album, and experimented with her sound in the way that she wanted to.

YOUNGER NOW - MILEY CYRUS

Quite possibly one of her most iconic records... not to mention that album cover, Younger Now made a huge impact on me. Thinkin’, Die For You, Rainbow Land with Dolly, and the title track are such incredible songs for Cyrus. Also, I love the fact that this record was released on the same day as my own first full length album. Definitely one I go back to time and time again.

REBEL HEART - MADONNA

I have always had a respect for Madonna, but digging into here discography this past year, I discovered so many songs especially on this album that moved me. It is fierce, unapologetic, honest, and iconic. The journey M takes us on is remarkable, and full of enlightenment on what it takes to be a rebel. A whole lot of symbolism, talent, and faith in the bigger picture,

#'10s #10s #2020 #best album #top 10 #lady gaga #marina and the diamonds #kesha #miley cyrus #madonna #carly rae jepsen #lana del rey #the weeknd #halsey

25 notes · View notes

kim-lexie · 4 years

Text

january rewind.

music.

‘dreams come true’ by NCT127. my goodness this song what a blessing and gift from our boys.

youtube

‘lay back’ by verivery. my goodness this slaps. i stan.

sf9 comeback. OUR BOYS S E R V E D. this was stellar, the concept superior. the visuals, the vocals, the choreography. like yes yes and yes. the whole album was incredible. my fave tracks ‘like the hands held tight’ and “shh”.

youtube

‘lion’ by (g)-idle. im not into girl groups, so I've actually never looked into this group but dang lion is a bop and i love this track, and it makes me feel like boss.

‘any song’ by zico. this challenge is precious and has been stuck on repeat.

dramas and movies. *spoiler alert*

parasite. i saw this a while ago and dang am i excited to say i was ahead of the hype. i must be honest i was intrigued because (1) a foreign language film was going to be at my local cinema (LIKE WOAH) and (2) CHOI WOO SHIK. so i just had to get my friends to go see it. i went in blind. i had no idea what the premise was what was gonna go down. NO IDEA. and it was unexpected intriguing and beautifully filmed. i left the film wondering and pondering the concept. you best believe i watched all the videos about the nuggets that i definitely missed in the first viewing. it is a film that makes you question and engage in discussion with those around you. i enjoyed it.

seriously incredible looking at the oscars and seeing that they won BEST PICTURE. a foreign language never winning in that category is wild. honestly never watch these shows because its always the same people and white washed. but dang i hope this opens peoples eyes to see that whole new worlds are waiting to be discovered if only they would allow themselves to be open to seeing them.

would recommend to everyone to jump into the discussion and enjoy the film because it really makes you think...

bring it on ghost. this was a good one. i saw that it was added to netflix and gave it a watch. i enjoyed all the characters and i am so glad that she wasn’t actually a ghost but a spirit that was able to wake back up and have a happy ending. i love the main leads character as he is trying to raise enough money to get rid of the “gift” that was bestowed upon him from the demon spirit. but this terrifying gift to see ghosts brings him to his now, love (cue awwwww). overall it was slightly terrifying but i appreciate the comedic relief that the two guys had from the university. i would give it a 7.5 out of 10.

chocolate. this one really got me. the flashbacks and character development. however, it had its slow moments that really made me pause and question will i even have a happy ending should i finish this. but seriously thankful i did. there were so many precious moments between the characters, and the friendship that were short but remained with the main characters from the hospice. it was interesting to see how each episode developed and showed us new friends that were only to be with us a short while but impacted the lives of our main leads dramatically. but because of you i could come this far. one of my fave quotes:

‘i came to get you. i wanted you to get more rest. but i missed you way too much.’

‘i wanted to rest with you too.’

‘as long as well hold on to hope nothing will break us down.’

i also greatly appreciate how it all became about food in the end. like seriously all the sadness and grief and they made it about the one love for food. i would rate this an 8 out of 10.

when the camilla blooms. dang i held out to watch this because everyone was talking about it and me and my know it all attitude was like it can't be that great. BUT DANG! the reason everyone was talking about it was because it is SOOO FREAKING GOOD. honestly, it reminds me so much of strong woman do bong soo. bc there are cute romantic scenes and great comedic elements and characters, but dang these scary dudes are scary...

first off, yong-sik this man is too precious and there were so many incidents that reiterated how precious/tenderhearted his character is. for example, when he was like “shouldn't we talk about last night, because i couldn't sleep a wink last night” when referring to them holding hands. him getting super jealous, and was like “dongbaek, you must hold my hand hurry!”. it was hilarious when we all thought he finally got up the courage to ask her over to his place, and her to accept for it to be a request to wash his hair because he can't with his burns. *dead*

i love pil-gu. and i love how everyone loves pil-gu because he is a great kid. he’s funny, i.e. saying to jong-ryeol (his biological dad) you’re not that great, then being semi bribed by the latest gam. his sass is ICONIC, ‘i don’t spin tops with my ears’, when referring to jong-ryeol telling him to stop playing to listen to him. i love that song-sik shows up to the baseball game and becomes “a man with a drone” to protect pil-gu. i hate how he was like i need to leave my mom for her to be happy and he bottled it up inside, this poor little nugget. he soon realizes and gives it all back bc he wants to stay with his mom. and nothing can bribe him away from the most precious thing to him.

dong-baek is such a freaking strong character! she was bomb, the character development was insane. i feel like this quote from the end really captures it:

“aren’t you just sick and tired of being intimidated all the time? people keep acting up because i’m nice to them. i’m a person who’s capable of breaking someones with my fist. and i’m a fighter who’s able to protect my own kid…i decided to become the strongest mother in the world from now on.”

she went from being chill and letting people walk all over her to becoming a boss! i also love that yong-sik allowed her to be a boss and protected her to be able to breathe easy.

“consider your life as a never ending festival. and i’ll make sure you can live as immaturely as possible.” -yong sik

because she had to grow up so fast. like he is seriously the best. waking her up and allowing her to believe in herself again. and their moment of her finally saying “i love you.” and him like, “i knew it.”

jeong-suk, her mother. this was such a sad storyline. the woman who abandoned her at the orphanage, came back after she found out her time was limited. her mother was always looking out. being there during the accident saving her. saving insurance policy. watching after pil-gu at day are. she did her best to compensate for abandoning her. freaking lost it when both her mothers, (biological and deok-sun, yong-sik’s mother) freaking knew each other prior to the current time. from when dong-baek was a little nugget and when deok-sun was pregnant with yong-sik. like what a full circle!

the whole killer aspect really threw me because everything was going good and then you'd have those cuts to the present day with bodies being found, and i did not appreciate thinking it was our main lead for the longest time. me preparing my heart to break from episode one. and then she goes and does things like going into semi-abandoned building to meet with someone who’s says they have your scooter that your missing coworker left somewhere. like this chick is gonna die. thankfully she didn’t and we got the happy ending we all wanted!

i seriously appreciated that they included the scene with pil-gu as a major league baseball player, and our happy OTP watching him on tv like thank you drama writers. i would seriously rate this a 10 out of 10.

5 notes · View notes

living-dead-parker · 5 years

Text

Theatrical Chaos - P.P

Summary: Requested by @justanothermarvelfanaccount - First off, your stories are incredible and I absolutely LOVE reading them. Also, if you have the time, could you possibly write a peter parker x reader where reader works at a movie theatre and can get them into free movies before they come out? Maybe peter and the rest of the science squad can wreak havoc in the theatre and tony has to bail them out. Thank you!!

Hope y’all enjoy the science squad once more!! I also took some liberties from the original request, but tried to follow it as much as possible!!

Warnings: cussing, spoilers for Halloween (2018) but that came out over three months ago so it should be acceptable at this point to speak about it

Word Count: 1.8k

Gif is not mine!

Getting a job was not really something you wanted to do. But, you gotta make money somehow. Sure, Tony likes you enough to just give it to you if you ask, but you don't like buying into his rich man capitalistic ways. That and you have too much pride, despite having asked him for hundreds of dollars. So, you got a job at a movie theater. Gross. The only benefit is the family discount and you get to watch movies for free. So, when you lean against the warm popcorn machine -curse the owner for these extremely cold conditions!- and you notice the familiar faces of your five bestest friends in the world coming into the theater, your frown turns into an upside down frown.

"Y/N! We're gonna watch the Halloween movie!" Shuri says.

"You mean the best comedy of 2018? Bc damn!" Harley says excitedly.

"Oh, must be fun, fuckers. While 'lil 'ol me is stuck working. How rude!" you add as you move over to the counter. The theater you worked at was one of the cheaper ones that show movies that left the bigger theaters months ago. Just last week you found out you'd be getting Bohemian Rhapsody in five months!

"Can we get some popped corn and some carbonated water with high fructose corn syrup?" Michelle asks, speaking in her deeper voice. A running gag among the group to throw off people at retail stores. Totally unnecessary, but totally worth it. Except not when it's being done to you.

"Yeah, can you throw in some of the circular colored chocolate sweets with the 'm' on them? And a red iced drink with cherry flavored syrup for taste?" Ned asks.

"Just say popcorn, Coke, M&M's, and Cherry Slushie for fuck's sake!" you groan as you begin working on their order.

"Yeah, can you throw in the tortilla chips with the classic cow byproduct classified as Nacho with a green pepper garnish on top? And a tea, preferably one of the iced varieties, raspberry to be exact," Shuri adds. You roll your eyes as you continue working on the order. Harley and Peter were the only ones to order using proper language and totally not fucking with you by telling you they meant something completely different than what you heard -which they did not!

After twenty minutes, their order was complete and you were sending them on their way to enjoy the movie. You still have another hour and a half until you were off, so they'd be done by the time you're off. You watch as they walk away, Shuri hitting Harley on the back of his head, causing the rest of the group to laugh.

You were manning the concession stand for a few minutes before being told to do your final theater inspection. This just meant going into every showroom and staying for five minutes to make sure everything was fine. So you begin, going from showroom one all the way to showroom ten. Upon reaching showroom ten, you see Peter, Ned, Michelle, Shuri, and Harley sitting in the dead center. There were only four other people in the room with them; a couple in the very back -most likely doing something they shouldn't be because they looked very guilty- and another couple in the front who look angry at each other.

"Okay, but why can't he just let her take a shit in peace?" Shuri asks loudly. The couples didn't seem to mind the comments being hurled by the teens, and in fact seemed to find them extremely funny.

"Hey," Peter begins, speaking in a mimicking type of voice as it cuts to Michael banging the restroom stall in the movie.

"Occupado!" Harley cuts in with a fake high-pitched voice as the camera pans to the Dana in the restroom, looking around cautiously and screaming.

"Sorry," Peter says through a muffled laugh as Michael begins to kill Dana.

"Let's have some fun, this beat is sick!" Michelle sings as Michael begins to smash Dana's head against the restroom stall door.

"I wanna take a ride on your disco stick!" Harley sings along. Harley seemed to be the one cracking up the most, laughing at everything, making the most comments, screaming from laughter at random times.

It came as a surprise to you but nobody was telling Harley or the others in the group to shut up. Maybe it was mostly due to the fact that the movie came out a few months ago, so for sure these people have seen it already one way or another, or just did not care enough about it to get upset. Plus, the couple way at the back seemed to just need some privacy to get to doing their business. You're supposed to report that kind of stuff when you see it, but you decided to turn a blind eye because they were being quiet and there was no one in their row. They weren't bugging anyone.

As the movie goes on, Harley and Peter seem to be making the most comments, laughing the most at everything. Michelle and Shuri stopped paying too much attention after a while, which you found funny. Ned would just laugh, but he seemed sort of into the movie. The kind where you don't care but you're being forced to watch it so you might as well just watch it.

"Hey fucker," Harley begins as the scene where the prison bus is flipped over and the small kid is exploring what happened after his dad had been missing for a few minutes now. "If an old man in a bus that just flipped over tells you to run, you fucking run!"

The kid did not run. No matter how much Harley screamed, he did not run. In fact, he died. He's gone. Michelle and Shuri boo at the fact that he didn't run. Peter just giggles as the scene transitions and the movie continues. Over the course of the movie, Peter and Ned hold hands and make jokes to each other. You can hear Peter -loud and clear, you might add- tell Ned that he can beat his meat with a knife any day. When Peter catches your playful glare, he blows a kiss your way. You pretend to catch it and then throw it on the ground before stomping on it. Peter playfully glares at you to which you pretend to ignore.

You should've left long ago, but then the movie reaches a pivotal moment. Michael discovers Allyson and he begins to chase after her. Suddenly, a revamped version of Michael's theme song begins to play and Michelle goes on about how the song is a 'certified bop' and how it deserves all the Grammy's. Harley stands up -literally stands up! Nobody stops him either- and begins to Milly Rock to the beat of the song. Shuri and Michelle stand up as well and join in on the dancing, doing all sorts of dumb dances.

Ultimately the movie nears its end, and when you check the time, you see that you have 20 minutes left until it's time to clock out. With that thought in mind, you decide to leave the room and head back to the concession stand to finish cleaning your station, help some customers, and eventually clock out. Ten minutes go by in a flash and the group of teens are rounding the corner and into your line of vision. You hand a bucket of popcorn to some random teenager who wouldn't stop trying to flirt with you.

"Hey, maybe I can come back later and we can catch a movie together?" the kid asks. You roll your eyes and grab the small nozzle that you use to spray butter into the popcorn.

"Beat it or I'll cover you in butter and tell the girl that you came with what you said," you tell him as you aim the nozzle to the little jerk. He mutters something about you being a bitch before leaving. As if you didn't already know you were a mega bitch.

The teens watch it all unfold and Peter can't help but want to punch the kid. He does refrain but the immense need to do it fills his mind. Maybe later, when the punk comes back. They all approach you as you begin to clean up once more.

"How may I help you today?" you ask as you give them all your fake smile. Harley pushes past everyone and looks at the menu, making you roll your eyes.

"Yeah, I'll take three buckets of popcorn, and one thicc bih," Harley says before winking at you.

"The only thicc bih here is Peter," Michelle comments. Shuri and Ned nod as Peter turns in a circle to show off the junk in his trunk. He really does have a bubble butt.

"Thank, I grew it myself," Peter says proudly as he winks at you.

"Mr. Thiccums getting too confident. I'll be off in five, let me just clock out and get changed," you say to the group of teens. They nod and move over to the mini arcade area as you begin clocking out of your register. With a quickness like never before, you head to the employee restrooms and quickly change back into your street clothes. When you head back out to the main lobby, you see people crowding the arcade area.

Worried -since your friends were there last- you head over to the arcade area and your face flushes at the sight in front of you. Tony Stark -genius billionaire playboy philanthropist- was attempting to pull Harley's arm out of the claw machine.

"Harley, I need you to let go of the stupid-" a violent groan escapes Tony's lips, followed by a yelp, "-stuffed animal! I can always buy you one!"

"Fine!" Harley screams and within a few seconds, his arms is coming out of the claw machine, red marks all over his arm. Your brows furrow in confusion. How did this all happen so fast? You were only in the back for about 15 minutes. From the corner, you notice Shuri, Michelle, and Ned laughing as they record. Soon, Harley is charging at them, screaming about how he'll punch them for laughing at him. Peter holds Harley -and some chuckles, admittedly- back. Harley screams for Peter to let him go.

In a bold move, you step into the arcade room and push past everyone. You're still on the premise, so you gotta do something about it. You sigh and clear your throat before yelling at the group of yours.

"Hey, fuckers," you say loudly to get their attention. They all turn and pull away from each other. You even notice Tony flinch a little. Ned may be the mother bear in the group, but you were the mother bitch. Nothing got through you. "Stop with your fighting and screaming now or I'll give you a reason to scream!"

The group goes quiet as they nod. You turn around and begin the walk out of the theater, Tony and the others in tow. Surely, this would make the news much later.

Please leave some feedback or requests! Also plz send in asks or come talk to me!!

#peter parker #peter parker x reader #peter parker imagine #peter parker reader insert #peter parker x you #peter parker x y/n #spider-man #spider-man imagine #spider-man x reader #science squad #tony stark #ned leeds #michelle jones #Shuri #Harley Keener #requested #shit post imagine

225 notes · View notes

dbphantom · 5 years

Text

Canon: Zane Flynt fucks

Me: haha u know what this means ;))))

Me:

Me: merfolk glamour time

[[MORE]]

Alright but for real tho u wanna see how deep I am in this fucking universe? Lego

I don't even know where to begin with this universe (Zer0 is an alien! Hammerlock is a werewolf! Troy is psychic! Tannis is a skag! Wait, no, wrong shitpost...) so imma open the 140 page document and start from the beginning

Annnnd Clay! Junpai-7.

When Zane meets Clay for the first time he mentions they did a smuggling job together on Junpai-7, u know, the water planet, so obviously this is good news (This made me super happy because my discord channel's name had been the junpai-7 moon pool for a while so I was like 'holy shit it's canon now' :') )

Timeline wise this isn't the beginning, but I don't write in chronological order and I don't order anything in chronological order, either, so. Eh.

Speaking of chronological order, I once got a line where Zane was like exclaiming something and used the moon instead of idk a god or powerful figure or smth and I was like 'lmao that's canon now'

So the moon... Elpis fucking got yeeted halfway across the galaxy or smth, and, considering we've seen (more) ocean on Pandora in 3 instead of just, like, Liars Berg (getting to THAT) or Tretchers landing, I feel bad for the tides. But that's good news for everyone else. Unless you were on Elpis, I guess.

Also hoh boy the 'end' of the game where Troy Phaselocks the moon was fun to write (it actually wasn't, I lowkey hate writing Moonstruck phases because... It hurts and I can't do it well.) also can we talk about how in tps the psychos are called Moonstrucks in tvhm because this makes me so happy. I really hope they did that intentionally considering H2O is an Australian show because my two favorite things combined can and will kill me. Wait actually the Troy boss fight is gonna be hilarious to write mostly because of that one attack with the tidal waves lol oh no

Also, also, also, you guys it's only explained in a guide book and never actually in-game as to why Captain's ship is Like That (TM) so I took some liberties and uhhh blame the Crackening. I mean the crackening happened after dahl pulled out of Pandora/Elpis so it works. It sorta works. It mostly works. Fuck. It works okay? shut. That's why Liars Berg is all frozen ocean [shoves 3 page essay about climate change on Pandora into the trash] don't need that anymore.

I was gonna talk about smth else

Oh yeah

Mostly brain freeze and trick of the light. That one meme video I made of Tannis and the Flynt Brothers imposed over that one clip of H2O (so let me get this straight: you freeze things, you explode things, and you boil things) wasn't just for laughs, it was actually a warning.

Each Flynt has a thing and Zane's is ice, Baron's is explosions, and Captain's is fire. (Glorious cleansing fire) Because it fits. It fits so well. I will say right off the bat that Mako Mermaids isn't my canon. I lowkey want to write out Charlotte as well (lol) because I've seen the 2nd season so many times and tbh I much prefer them having 1 really strong power over having 3+ really weak powers. Also Charlotte did nothing wrong in the first half of that season. Cleo was just a bitch to her. And Mako Mermaids is just. Not great on the power side of things. You can TURN INVISIBLE. USE IT. Soooo. (also cam got destroyed in s1 and I'm so glad they ended up making him work in s2 and 3. Because he deserved better and Zac was a terrible friend to him and only got away with it because he's a main character). /rant sorry I have so many feelings about these shows. Grew up with them soooooo.

And if ur wondering why I brought up trick of the light it's cause the 13th year exists and that movie was bopping. U guys remember Jess? Good times... Tuba pool scene is iconic. U know the one. I would also bring up aquamarine but ngl that movie was weaksauce comparatively. They hid that bitch in a water tower and iunno talked to earrings. Meanwhile in the 13th year they bring Jess back from the fucking dead and climb on walls like Spiderman. Clearly one is superior.

"but cruddy Aurelia has ice powers too and she's not a mermaid" no she's a werewolf like her brother we already went over that. Did u think I was kidding? No! I'm never kidding unless I am and I fucking love werewolves so I'd never kid about that. I love werewolves and I love Hammerlock and it's perfect I just love the idea of this gentlemanly hunter being a werewolf because I want to see a giant hulking monster being all proper and shit. They're just really cool. Werewolves > vampires and ngl I'm sad skyrim screwed over werewolves with the dawnguard dlc. Anyway Aurelia's ice powers are nanobots as explained in-game and listen I already lore-scienced this okay? Let me say it's amazing the things science is capable of when it thinks it's trying to beat out a competitor and doesn't realize non-Siren magic exists. Even better now that we know Sirens are not Eridian and actually existed before Eridians. Makes me giddy to think about. The universe is tearing me APART Lisa.

Oh speaking of, can we talk about the witch's brew quest on eden-6 because holy shit I had been writing Hiromi and her fascination with discovering all the secret circles long before the game came out and then learning about the group of witches and The Pact (TM) made me lose my shit because 'oh my god it's actually canon now'. We're on the canon path nowwwww. Soon. I hope we get a water planet dlc. I wants it, GB, I wants it.

Also I was totally gonna write a clip in the main story of the game (because I write a lot of backstory stuff if you can't tell, I only have like 3 scenes that take place during the events of the game and like 4 that are speculatory from before the game came out (including a scene from before I realized Troy was Like That but I edited it so he's more in-line and also has Maya's powers now so that's... Hm. In line with the storyline somewhere, but not an actual scene in the games story. Because its not possible with how the game does things (seperating Vault Hunters) I suppose I could just insert a 5th Vault somewhere and say it's the 4th Vault connected to the Machine (with nekrotefeyo's being the 5th). Fuck it.) and then 9,000 are backstory) where Hiromi comes back after like decades of the two not seeing each other and she's been hired to assassinate Zane by one of the many corporations looking for his corpse for a multitude of reasons (And Emma and Nino are both d e a d a s f, you know, for context). And like Barnabas (ya old bastard) Zane is still joking around and just having a grand old time catching up with his black ops buddy meanwhile she had just tried to blow his brains out (she's a sniper) and got pretty damn close. She's not even amused because of her psychic powers so she's just like 'ok' every time he opens his mouth because she already knows what he's going to say she's mostly just frustrated that she missed because she thought she knew him well enough to go off instead of just listening to her intuition but alas people change after, like, 3 decades of not seeing them.

Oh since we're talking about Hiromi that reminds me why Zane wears the black suit. In my non-h2o universe it's because it looks cool and provides some protection from dots. In the H2Oniverse it is because it's waterproof. Okay wait hang on context so Hiromi doesn't like take off his suit or anything, she's extremely gay and not interested, because I realize now how that sounds me relating Hiromi to the clothes, they just get into an argument about how Sirens don't have to follow any arbitrary rules to hide their magic and how it's easier to hide magic without giant glowing tattoos (and mind you this is before Zane even knows Tannis exists though he does immediately know she's a Siren and that's a whole nother can of worms) and hr's like 'I wear a bodysuit for most of my waking hours, so I am pretty sure they can try wearing long sleeved shirts and makeup for a day. Just a suggestion' but like way more in character (and for the scene) because do I sound like I'm in character right now? I'm not. I'm me. And God what a terrible thing to be.

So context for the context: ~magic is real~. If you've got it then you can usually tell who else has it if you're looking. It's especially clear if they're 'similar' to you (if ur a werewolf and u meet another werewolf then you sorta just know they're a werewolf) or if you're psychic (like Hiromi) then you can make some informed guesses. Like. Same Hat? Same Hat!!! Sirens are basically such powerful magic users that they are in literally a whole nother ball park. They're leagues above everyone else. Kill you just by looking at you sort of deal. So sirens normally don't feel other magic because their own magic is so strong it just 'overwrites' the other signals. You know, to not only explain why Lilith isn't immediately like 'who the fuck are you' to Zane and also how Amara couldn't tell Tannis is a Siren. I had a whole thing with Troy (who is psychic) being able to tell Zane had magic despite being near 4 Sirens at once because Troy grew up with Tyreen always at his side so he's used to it and knows how to look through it. Meanwhile Hiromi is basically incapacitated when she's near a Siren because she gets overwhelmed because her powers make it easier for her to read other people's magic.

Oh, context, the black ops outfit worked with Atlas for a short time (the group being Zane, Hiromi, Emma, and Nino. Emma is the yeehaw captain. She's the leader) and ended up meeting Steele for a little bit. Hiromi was just dead the entire meeting, Zane was totally out of it, and Emma and Nino were too busy eyefucking to really care that there was a Siren in the room so. Just imagine one person lying face down on the floor and crying, another staring at the wall without blinking, two undressing each other with their eyes, and then Cmdt. Steele standing in the middle like 'how the fuck did I get here'.

So that was everyone's first experience with a Siren.

There are more but ehhhh I'm tired and I mostly wrote this because I wanted to talk about it with someone else but they haven't read the whole thing yet so now I can scream into the void about it and not feel like I'm bothering them.

Hooray!

#Borderlands #Me walking into the club like what up I'm about to make 0 sense #Who wants to hear about the au literally nobody else wanted??#Bl3 #I realize this fandom is actually active on here so I'm slightly scared posting this #Since the last H2O au thing I posted was fucking RvB from God uhhh 3-4 years ago now? Fuck me #I put this in the queueueueue so I won't know when it goes up so I'm not anxious #Oh this is the context by the way #For that picture I posted #That I'm never going to bring up again

3 notes · View notes

jinterlude · 5 years

Text

Two Faced (Ch.5)

↳ gif header is made by © @softjeon. Please don’t try and steal it and make it your own.

➵ Pairing(s): Gang!Jungkook x Female!OC & Gang!Mark Lee x Female!OC x Gang!Seokjin

➵ Genre(s): College!AU, Mafia/Gang!AU, Angst, Romance, Friendship, Humor, Love Triangle & Slight-Fluff

➵ Warning(s): Mentions of alcohol // mentions of drugs

➵ Words: 4K

➵ Co-writer: @softjeon

➵ Summary: Two girls. Two gangs. One craved absolute control over the city of Seoul. While, the other simply craved sleep and good grades. Now, what do these two ladies have in common? Simple. They have nothing in common—or so they think. Everyone knows the saying, “never judge a book by its cover”, so maybe there is something more to these two than meets the eye…especially when one of them is suddenly thrown into the underground life. Loyalties will be tested. Romance will blossom. Yup. Sounds like an average college day…

« Previously | Next Time »

Chapter 5 - Hooked, Lined, and Drugged?

Sowon jumped a little from one foot onto the other to keep herself warm. If that didn’t help, she was trying to hug Sumin tight, but the younger refused it each time. The leader eyed her from the corner of her eyes, trying to think of a way to get into the club as quick as possible. If Sowon didn’t, then they both would freeze to death before she would even take a glance at the gang’s leader.

Suddenly, the door of the club swung open and everyone in line snapped their head around. With a hopeful smile on their faces, a few girls in the front of the line were looking at the guard who was whispering something into his colleagues ear.

Sowon noticed their glances right away, as she slowly turned to Sumin.

“Just like we trained it, baby,” She hissed tight-lipped, making the younger look at her in confusion.

“Huh?” She asked a little dumbfounded, as she couldn’t quite understand what her friend had said, but a sudden dark figure that stood tall besides her made her shut up immediately.

She gulped hard against the lump in her throat, while Sowon was licking her lips slowly, devouring the man in front of her with her eyes and making sure that he had absolutely every reason to lead them inside. However, to her surprise, it wasn’t her who the man got fixated on. She blinked a few times. Wait...what did the guy say?

“You are allowed inside, miss,” His rough voice repeated.

Sumin felt small under the muscular man’s harsh gaze. Her body pretty much froze with her lips practically sewn shut. Sowon, on the other hand, flickered her eyes back and forth between the man and her cute little roomie. The leader couldn’t understand as to why this scary looking man only had eyes for Sumin. Um. Hello. She was there too.

“Who’s allowed inside?” asked Sowon, secretly pushing Sumin behind her.

The tall, muscular man pointed at the person behind her.

“Her.” He said shortly, causing both Sumin and Sowon to look behind them. The pair of girls behind squealed in joy, but just as they took a step foot outside the line, the man shook his head.

“Nope. Not you two,” He then pointed directly at Sumin, “Her. My boss wants to see her.” He finished, clarifying his original sentence.

Sowon nearly choked on her saliva while Sumin’s eyes grew big as this look of complete and utter confusion graced her face.

“Me?” questioned Sumin, pointing to herself.

The man simply nodded as he gestured for her, and only her, to follow him inside.

“Wait! Can my friend come along too?” She asked, looking at him with pleading eyes. This was her first time doing anything like this. There was no way in Hell that she’d do this alone.

The security guard remained stoic, ignoring the begging look in Sumin's eyes, “Sorry, but he only instructed that I only allow—” However, before he could finish his sentence, he heard his boss say something through his ear monitor. The girls watched the bodyguard eagerly, waiting for the answer that they wanted to hear.

A few seconds later, the man turned back to the girls and said,

“Okay, the two of you can come in. I guess my boss has grown impatient and wants you inside right now.”

Sumin beamed in excitement as she looked at Sowon smiling. Sowon returned the smile as she guided the two of them into the club where the enemy would be waiting for them.

“Alright, you pain in the asses, let’s see who your leader really is…” thought the furious gang leader as she entered the establishment with this determined grin.

The sounds of a loud bass invaded hers and Sumin’s ear, causing the latter to cover them.

Poor little sunshine…

She wasn’t used to this atmosphere…

“You doing okay?” Sowon shouted, hoping that her precious roomie heard her.

Sumin nodded, though, her heart practically drummed against her chest. Her exterior showed that she was confident and ready to help Sowon and the rest of Bangtan. Yet, with her interior, her nerves went into this wild frenzy in the pit of her stomach. It didn’t help that her thoughts were mainly negative ones, and they were simply psyching her out.

God help her…

Noticing that Sumin looked a little stress, Sowon, offered to go them some drinks. Before she left, the silently worried leader placed both hands on Sumin’s shoulders, looked straight into her eyes, and said,

“Do not move from this spot until I come back. Got it?”

Hearing how serious her tone was sent tiny shivers down Sumin’s spine. This unspeakable intense glare that emitted from Sowon’s eyes could make anyone speechless—especially Sumin.

Unable to form words, the younger girl simply nodded, earning a warm smile from the leader.

Sowon then patted Sumin on the head before taking her leave to fetch them some drinks. However, unknown to Sumin, Sowon actually left to allow the plan to work. NCT’s leader wouldn’t take her sweet little innocent bait if she was there, right?

Now, standing alone, near the dance floor, Sumin grew unsure what to do next. While, she heeded Sowon’s warning, Sumin honestly felt a bit foolish just standing there and not really doing anything.

“Maybe, she wouldn’t mind if I surveilled the area...I mean, it could help her, right?” Sumin questioned to herself as she glanced in every single direction of the place.

She observed the drunken people, laughing and chattering away as they got rather cozy with one another. She especially took note of how many couples occupied the many boots. Okay, she needed to avert her eyes or else she’ll be getting a show—a rather sexual show.

Taking one final look, Sumin found the best route to take to look around and stepped forward.

Sadly, she didn’t get quite far. Her stupid heels prevented her from walking without tripping. She felt her body sway slightly and just as she embraced herself for the harsh impact against the cold, disgusting floor.

Yet…

It didn’t came.

Sumin slowly pried one eye open and soon opened the other. Instead of being greeted with the colorful spotlights, her eyes met a pair of dark brown eyes instead.

“I wanted you to fall me, but not like this,” The mysterious savior began, grinning, as he helped Sumin stand up, “Hi, I’m Mark. Mark Lee.” The person introduced as he held out a hand for her to shake.

A tiny “O” formed on her lips before a polite yet sweet smile took over.

“Um. I’m Sumin. Park Sumin, and thank you for preventing my embarrassing face plant.” Sumin said kindly, shaking his hand. Just like what her mother always told her to do when meeting new people.

Mark couldn’t help but chuckle at Sumin’s word. What a cute girl…

“Say, do you want to accompany me back to the VIP room? You looked rather bored just standing there.” He asked, unknowingly offering a way for Sumin to not only move from her spot but maybe also gain intel for Bangtan.

She had remembered the notes that Seokjin had written out for her about NCT. Maybe, this Mark fella worked for them and knows what their leader looked like. It wouldn’t hurt to try, right?

Sumin nodded and then told Mark to lead the way. Mark shouted a quick, “Awesome!”, before leading her to the room that reserved for his special guests. A room that had been never used until tonight.

Meanwhile, back with Sowon, she eyed the encounter of her roommate with an unknown man carefully.

The two shots she had bought, she quickly downed herself. Her eyes glued on Sumin. If that boss of the club wanted Sumin in here, she would probably be lead to him very soon. This was easier than she had thought. Content with her own plan, Sowon bopped her head to the music, her gaze wandering around to take in the club that was owned by NCT.

A soft scoff escaped her lips as she gestured for the bartender to set her up with another round of shots. Honestly, the more she looked at the club, the more she wanted to gag. Something about NCT’s club screamed tacky. Like, the whole black color scheme with the flashy neon colors? Yeah. Been there, done that.

Yet, something still drawn these mindless little lambs to this place, but what? What could have gotten these people extremely hooked to the point that they kept coming back every single weekend?

Then, it suddenly occurred to her as the rim of the shot glass gently touched her lips.

Shit…

“Jimin. Yoongi. Analyze the contents of the alcohol that is being served here…” She instructed, subtly messing with the microphone that was disguised as an earring.

She had to find out more about this unknown substance...

While, with Mark, he too wanted to discover something, but it wasn’t a new drug. No. He wanted to unravel the mystery that was the pure girl that walked by his side. He honestly couldn’t explain why or even how this random person had this much of an impact. He had seen countless of beautiful woman, some who have radiated the same amount of pureness that Sumin displayed.

Yet…

He had to claim her.

He had to make her his...

As they finally made to the restricted area, Mark held out a hand for Sumin to take, helping her up the few steps towards the VIP area.

“Can I bring you something to drink?” He asked, leaning in to Sumin to make sure she could hear him over the loud music. His hand firmly rested at her lower back, his breath tingling over the nape of her neck.

“I...I don’t have any money with me, actually...my fr-,” Sumin stumbled over her own words, feeling slightly uncomfortable with the new situation. Too much attention. An extremely short dress. A shit ton of people, and music so loud that one’s eardrum would be ringing for months. The girl was way out of her comfort zone.

“Don’t worry, baby girl,” Mark said with a smirk, “It’s all on me tonight.”

Sumin forced a smile; her shy persona overtaking her body. While, Sowon helped her practice being this femme fatale type of girl, it just went out the window tonight. It was one thing practicing with both her roomie and Seokjin, but it was another thing actually utilizing her acting skills on the actual situation.

Maybe, she wouldn’t get the necessary information that was needed because right now, she just wanted to get out of there.

Noticing her rather reserved shy demeanor, Mark took the opportunity to place a comforting hand on her thigh; his fingers lightly caressed her skin. He slowly closed the gap between their bodies as he gestured for one of the club’s waitresses to come bring him a couple of shot of his own specialty concoction. The same cocktail that had these club-goers buzzed out of their minds.

Not even minutes later, the waitress returned with a tray of two shot glasses. Mark playfully winked at the woman and uttered a quick “thanks babe”, before taking the shots and dismissing her like she meant nothing to him.

While with Sumin, she couldn’t help but watch the charming man with a keen interest as he behaved rather flirtatiously with the waitress. Not only had he acted that way towards herself earlier, but it appeared that he displayed such a trait with anyone that had legs and rather voluptuous breasts.

So, why the extra attention? Why was she personally escorted to the VIP room?

“Because, I wanted you here with me, baby girl.” She heard Mark say, pulling her out of her conflicting thoughts. Oh, I guess she didn’t think the last part to herself…

Sumin snapped her attention onto him, mustering a small, believable smile.

However, Mark knew better. He read people like it was nothing. That’s what made him so powerful in his line of work. He knew if people lied to him, tried to take advantage of him or any one of his members, etc. Seriously, a person must’ve had a death wish, if he or she believed that they could pull a fast one on him.

Foolish mistake…

Noticing that Sumin still seemed uncomfortable around him, he decided to ease the awkward silence between them.

Setting his shot glass down, he lifted his right hand up to his ear and started to tuck it in.

“Sumin, look!” He shouted in excitement, earning the girl’s attention, “I officially have one ear!” He stated, dramatically waving his hands.

Sumin tried her hardest to mask the amused smile that threatened to form. Ultimately, she failed. She giggled loudly as she scooted a bit closer to get a better look at how he was able to tuck in his ear like that.

Seeing how amazed she was truly warmed Mark’s cold heart; even if the warmth was small.

Unfortunately, seeing how happy she was didn’t sit well with a certain member of Bangtan…

Keeping true to his word, Seokjin kept a close eye on Sumin from another booth. It would be an understatement to say that he was quite happy that no one walked up to his princess once Sowon left. Sadly, that moment had been short lived the moment his eyes registered an almost shadowy figure made its way towards her.

Without thinking about it, Seokjin swiftly stood up, ready to protect Sumin; however, he soon sat back down. He had to remember that this was part of the plan. If they were going to put an end to NCT, one and for all, they needed to figure out who’s the leader.

He just hoped that they’d find out sooner, so all of them could go home and get away from this dump…

“Are you listening to what that asshole is telling her?” Seokjin bitterly asked before taking a sip of his beer.

Taehyung laughed at how jealous his friend was being. Jealousy was definitely a good look on Seokjin.

“What? You prefer the cold over the heat? Damn, me too!” The duo heard Mark say over the shared audio connection.

“Yeah, which is funny because I was born during the summer solstice.” They then heard Sumin reply.

This almost animalistic growl exited Seokjin’s lips. That’s it. He was going to intervene.

The handsome elder stood up, shrugging his leather jacket back on. Something about that Mark fella did not sit well with him, and he definitely did not like how Sumin was alone with that fool.

“Cover me, Tae. I’m going to go rescue Sumin.” Seokjin boldly declares, keeping his eyes on his princess.

Instead of answering, Taehyung made a face and then tugged on Seokjin’s sleeve, quickly annoying the older fella.

“What?!” shouted Seokjin, frustrated with the fact that Taehyung prevented him from leaving.

Taehyung’s body flinched just a bit. It was always a scary thing to see Seokjin pissed off, however, Taehyung needed to direct the handsome member’s attention over to a certain someone….

He simply pointed in the direction of where his leader was and patiently waited for Seokjin to get the hint.

Raising his brow, Seokjin followed the direction of Taehyung’s finger, and the second he did, his eyes widened.

On the other side of the club, he saw Sowon, with the most emotionless expression ever to grace her face, flipping him off.

It was if her flashing the middle finger signaled him to fucking sit back down and do nothing.

The last thing she wanted was for one of her members to do something stupid only because he couldn’t keep his fucking jealousy in check.

“Stay the fuck where you are, Jin!” She mouthed silently as her stare was icy and cold, making the boys chuckle.

Just then, another stranger had turned towards Sowon, just when she flipped off Seokjin—but to him it rather looked like it was meant for him. With a sad look on his face, he stared at the two glasses in his hands and turned on his heel.

Sowon hadn’t noticed the attention, but Jungkook did. He pulled Seokjin back on his seat, with a smirk on his lips.

“Good Job, ‘tiny dick’ Jin,” Jungkook teased the older, “At least you keep my girl from getting groped by strangers. So keep it going but also....” Jungkook leaned into Seokjin, his voice sounding dark and cold, “Don’t fuck this up and keep your stupid jealousy in control. She’s not even yours to begin with and if you fuck this up for us, you can be sure I’ll use you as my new target when I practice shooting.” The younger one switched his demeanor as quick as it came, leaning back against the booth, sipping on his drink as he observed his favorite woman.

He wasn’t really the one to tell Seokjin to keep his jealousy in check. He had a few problems in that area himself. But at least he could call Sowon his own. Unlike his rather high strung older “brother”.

While Sowon was busy making sure that Seokjin stayed put, Sumin, on the other hand, had no problem with sitting on Mark’s lap as she giggled at everything and anything that the secretive man had said and/or did.

The more she consumed this strange alcoholic beverage, the more her brain became fuzzy. Her inhibitions practically ceased to exist. She no longer had complete control over her actions. Both the body movements and the words that came out of her mouth.

Currently nestling her face in Mark’s neck, Sumin hid the blush that invaded her cheeks as this sweet person continued to flatter her while his hands remained anchored on her lower back and thigh.

“Come on, baby girl. Let me see your cute face.” He whined playfully, maneuvering his head so he could see her blushing face.

Sumin swiftly shook her head, accidentally tickling Mark’s neck because of her hair.

“You’re going to tease me again. You big fat meanie.” She practically slurred.

Mark chuckled at her slurred speech as a evil smirk slowly appeared on his handsome face. Just a few more drinks and Sumin would be incredibly vulnerable. Vulnerable enough for him to take her back to NCT’s base of operation and keep her.

“I promise, I’m not going to tease you,” Mark tilted his head, trying to establish eye contact with her, “Please. I want to see your sweet innocent smile.” He whispered; his husky voice unknowingly sent shivers down her spine.

Sumin pouted cutely and just as she lifted her head, her eyes noticed something interesting. She furrowed her brows as she tried her hardest to focus all her energy into homing in on that unusual marking on Mark’s chest.

Wanting to get a better look, Sumin subtly pulled Mark’s dress shirt down a bit, silently thanking her drunk self for being rather flirtatious.

As the shirt slowly lowered, uncovering the strange ink mark little by little, a faint gasp escaped her lips. Her eyes widened as her heart began to race. The more she stared at the tattoo, the more she remembered what she had read in the file about NCT—especially about the mysterious leader.

Yeah…she needed to get out of there…

Of course Sowon had seen it all and she had noticed the first signs of Sumin’s intoxication fast. She had only one drink. Sowon was sure of that.

Eyeing the stranger, she stomped ahead, throwing her head back confidently as she just walked along and straight towards the VIP Booth.

“Oh, hey baby,” Sowon said a little louder for Sumin to hear and then glanced at Mark, “Thank you for taking care of my girlfriend.” With a strong pull, Sowon pushed Sumin up and hooked an arm over her waist, making the younger girl giggle in the process.

“Your girl...friend?” Mark slowly questioned, furrowing his brows together, as he found it hard to believe that the pure snowflake, that giggled at every single thing he had said, turned out to be a player for the same team.

“Yes, my girlfriend, so please excuse me,” Sowon said and stumbled along with Sumin in her arms, “She always gets drunk so easily.” Helping her down the steps, Sowon made sure to keep getting further and further away from Mark, but of course the guy didn’t let go so easily but at the same time he didn’t to get too much attention.

Just then Sumin leaned in to Sowon, her hands wrapping around the leader’s neck as she whispered something—or more likely slurred. But it was enough for Sowon to understand. The tattoo. He had one.

Sowon reacted quick, gripping Sumin’s chin to make the girl look at her. She had a gut feeling about this. A very bad one. With a faint smile,Sumin looked at her roommate feeling a little dizzy, when suddenly Sowon leaned in and kissed her deeply. Only to pull back a few seconds later.

“They drugged her,” Sowon whispered and with that the boys jumped up from where they sat and ran off into their positions. Never in his life had Seokjin run this fast as soon as he had heard the words. He was the first one at Sowon’s side, grabbing Sumin quickly as he got her out of the club as fast as she could.

“Oh fuck you, Mark!” Sowon said, feeling Jungkook’s and Taehyung’s presence on each side of her as an evil smirk placed itself on her face. She walked backwards, as she let her wig fall, “I’m going to fucking kill you!”

On the other side of the club, as if he magically controlled the crowd to disperse, Mark stared down the infamous woman. The woman that he had sworn to capture—dead or alive. The woman that if he took down, then his gang would control everything in Seoul.

Jeon fucking Sowon.

There she stood—in the flesh. What particularly interested him was her stance. The way she and two of the members, whose names that he didn’t give a fuck about enough to remember them, acted like this barrier between him and his baby girl seemed a bit odd. But at the same time, it intrigued him to the point that he formulated an evil idea to not only kidnap Sumin, but also cause this excruciating amount of pain within Bangtan.

It’s always fun to kill two birds with one stone…

“Should we go after them, Mark?” asked the silver-haired boy as he and the rest of NCT watch Bangtan’s retreating bodies flee the club.

A demonic smirk graced Mark’s face as he remained looking at the almost unconscious girl in one of Bangtan’s member’s arms. His intense stare remained fixated on the innocent girl until she completely disappeared from his sight.

“We could, Taeyong, but where it would the fun be if Bangtan knew our next course of action.” He began, as he turned his body away from the crowd, “Besides, I need you, Doyoung, to do some digging on that Sumin girl.” He politely instructed as he and the rest of his group made their way back to the VIP area.

Doyoung perked his brow up, “Why’s that?”

“Because, if I’m going to sweep her off her feet, I’m going to need to know everything there is to know about her, especially what kind of gifts does she like.” Mark explained before gesturing the waitress to bring them some drinks.

Doyoung glanced at Taeyong, who then gave him a look that said, “just go along with it”. The boy with black and blue streaked hair simply sighed as he fished out his phone. Whatever the leader wanted, he shall have.

“And what is going to happen after you claim her?” asked a tallish man with circle style glasses.

“Simple, Johnny.” Mark’s smirk grew wider, alarming yet piquing the curiosity of the rest of NCT.

“She’s going to be our ticket into destroying Bangtan.”

A/N: Well the ending was pretty ominous...what do you think Mark meant by that...? D: Also, I’m worried about my soft princess that is Sumin. T-T So attached to her lol

Don’t forget to leave a comment/like/reblog/and an ask in mine or Jey’s inbox! We love hearing your thoughts!

- Kim

55 notes · View notes

thorntonkrell-blog-blog · 5 years

Text

WAFFLE IRON MYSTERY

Luck? I'll tell you about luck.

In November my wife ordered a wafffle iron through Amazon.

Time went by and no waffle maker.

We were getting irritated, not so much by the absence of waffles but rather by the delay in delivery

A couple of weeks later a very large box arrived at our doorstep. I asked Lynn what the hell is this? The package was a lot bigger than any waffles I have ever consumed.

We took the package into the house. We opened it. The package did not include a waffle maker.

Lynn, immediately got on the phone.

She's great on the phone.

She made contact with a representative whose accent was a lot different from ours.

Lynn told her about the erroneous delivery.

The voice on the other end offered a remedy. All we had to do was rewrap the package, take it to the post office , send it back. and we'll credit your account

The ears on our end were not pleased.

The voice on our end had another remedy. We aren't gonna rewrap this thing nor take it to the post office. This package is here because of an error on your part. We don't intend to make up for your error with our time and our gasoline.

The voice on the other end needed a moment to listen to the voice of her supervisor.

For five minutes there were no voices on either end.

Then the voice on the other end offered another remedy. We may keep the package and they would send the wafflemaker.

The voice on our end accepted the remedy.

Four months later having discovered our cancer, we decided that we would fight the condition with radiation. After we made the decision and began to schedule the treatment dates, a nurse entered the room with piece of paper that listed some of the potential side effects during radiation. Among the side effects were these two: Urination Changes and Bowel changes.

Urination changes include burning with urination, urinating more often and more urgently. Possible incontinence

Bowel changes include increased gas, urgent or loose bowel movements sometimes activated by the increased gas.

Considering the alternatives, we considered and consider our selves very fortunate.

We got this covered, no problem. And not thank God with a waffle iron.

The mystery package that we kept , even though we couldn't imagine a use for it at the time, contained 36 extra large adult diapers.

This is what I mean by luck and it's all true.

No shit.

TROT ON THE BLOCK

I remember my first Thanksgiving in a previous wifetime. We had been married a month and a half. We had built a chicken coop together. We had horses. We had a goose. We had a mule. We even had a peacock. The chickens were laying. We also had a couple of turkeys. As Thanksgiving approached, I wondered about the fate of the turkeys.

My wife didn’t wonder. She acted.

She coaxed one of the turkeys out to a stump that unbeknownst to the fowl was a chopping block. She got the bird to stretch his neck out on the block. She took a mighty swing with her ax. Contradicting rumors of stupidity, the turkey lurched out of the way as the ax buried itself in the stump.

The turkey trotted away as if nothing had happened and gtried to regain his dignity.

My wife was accompanied by her friend Beth who was eager to help but who was laughing her ass off.

The turkey meanwhile doubled down on rumors of stupidity and walked right back to the stump and confidently stuck his neck out. This time, Beth grabbed the turkey’s back legs. A moment later the axe fell.

I was photographing the whole thing.

Although the actual photograph, like the marriage itself, is long gone…I have an imprint of the photograph indelibly recorded in my mind.

It is the moment of contact.

Beth on the left is flinching.

Cindy on the right is baring her teeth, arms fully extended.

All of it is in a slight blur except for where the ax has come to a sudden stop as it passed through the neck of the bird and hit the stump. The ax and the neck of the bird are in perfect focus.

A darkened area on the axe is the blood erupting from the birds neck as the ax has passed through.

And yes, the turkey did run a round a little bit after his head was cut off.

I think it was the first time for everybody.

I know it was the first time for the turkey.

I was pretty sure I got the picture.

I proceeded to my dark room and made a print while the women were finishing up with the turkey.

Because I was working in my own darkroom, the image was in black and white and it turned out exactly as I described it above. The black and white nature of the image enhanced the reality of the situation.

We had invited several guests to come over and join us for Thanksgiving the following day.

The picture was so remarkable that we decided to frame it.

We put the framed picture in the dining room.

Our guests arrived, smoking joints and drinking shots as was the custom of the day.

John McCormack, who three years later died sober in a drunken car accident was the first to notice the image.

“Wow, what a picture”

People came over and looked at the image with varying degrees of astonishment.

Finally, someone asked the inevitable question.

“Is that photo a picture of the turkey we are about to eat?”

We nodded.

Beth spoke up.

“This is thanksgiving”

More joints were passed around. More shots taken.

When the transformed fowl appeared on the table, John asked if he could do the carving.

He did one helluva job.

There was plenty of meat to go around and a multitude of Thanks were given as a certain degree of reality grasped the gathering.

God, how I miss Roseland.

Starting with Galloping Gertie, through my first round of miniature golf, into the Penny Arcade across f from the changemakers where I got an authentic Tom Mix photograph, beyond the Wild Mouse, through the Bumper Cars next to the shooting gallery behind the Cotton Candy stand near the restaurant which eventually became a beer stop where one of my friends once asked what the penalty was for punching out a clown. Back to the hot dog stands beneath the swings and beyond the Skyliner with skeeball coupons in hand. Tee shirts, cut offs and a pair of thongs, for decades we'd been having fun all summer long.

I knew Roseland big time and the feeling was mutual.

I had to be present for her last night.

We all knew the date of the execution.

Lots of Landlovers showed up, most young only in heart.

We traded in all of our skee ball tickets which we had amassed over the last ten years and won a forty inch plaster statue of a bearded guy in a yellow raincoat holding on to a bunch of lobsters as if his plaster depended on it.

We posed for pictures in front of or onboard all of the rides.

When my mother died many years later, the picture of her riding the merry go round was the photo nearest her flowers.

We kept trying to pretend that the fun, the eternal summer was never going to end. We knew in our hearts that some point the cups would stop whirling.

During my last ride on the carousel, I began to wonder if, in fact, the rides would stop that night. The operators after all were mostly college kids on the last shift of their summer jobs, probably a week or two from the quad. What would stop them from keeping the rides going all, night, hell all weekend. What could happen to them if they did? They certainly didn't have to worry about getting fired.

But before that paradoxical showdown, the management would present one final fireworks show out over the pier on Canandaigua Lake. The fireworks would begin at eleven. We took our rides on everything as eleven approached.

It was a startlingly clear star spangled evening; a Roseland night.

At ten-thirty the announcement of the fireworks started to come over the p.a. system. Everybody in the park wanted to be in on this event, including the ride operators. So like some kind of blissful, mourning army, we all strode to the site of the fireworks.

At eleven o'clock, the main park was deserted. I distinctly remember looking at that deserted park. I don't remember Roseland ever looking brighter or more inviting, resonating not only the remnants of that night's crowd but also all of the crowds of all the decades past. Although Roseland trembled, it appeared alive and ready to get up on its feet and sprint all the way to Rochester, to Lake Ontario thirty miles South to say goodbye to Sea Breeze.

Complete

Vital

Vibrant

vigorous

empty

throbbing

trembling

pulsating

eternal Roseland over my shoulder.

And then the first fireworks exploded in breathtaking perfection over the lake. The crowd as one ooohed.

At that exact instant, I tore my eyes away from the miracle in the sky for one last peek and saw all of the lights in the main park slam off at once, never to come on again.

Total darkness. A silent sound as deafening as any I had ever not heard.

Most of the crowd

As if on cue

turned away

from the sky

gasped

laughed

and cried

Roseland

died.

Sgt Pepper’s Radiation Team

We got a great team at the hospital.

So let me introduce to you

the radiation therapists

Who deal with me every day.

They're Amy, Maggie, Paul and Mike.

Bompop Bombpop, Bompop, Bompop Bompup

Bompop, Bompop Bompop BUMBUMBUMBUMBUM Bop Dooah.

They put me on the table every day

They make sure that my feet are in the cast

Then when all is ready, they quickly run away

And from the booth send out another blast.

They're Amy, Maggie, Paulie and Mike

They're learning who I am and what I like

They always seem to know the exact words to say

To help me through another healing day

etc.

It's always nice when I start to write and bam...it goes right into Sgt. Pepper but sure enough I'm getting by with a little help from these friends. And I've got to admit, I'm getting better.

Okay, Okay, I'll stop and break into prose.

Gradually

Amy looks like a grown up version of a friend from high school.

Maggie looks like a grown up version of a friend from college.

Paulie looks like a grown up version of a guy I played baseball with.

Mike looks like the guy who played guitar in my band.

In other words, they all look familiar. So right from the get go I had the feeling I was with friends.

When I told Amy that she looked familar. She said " a lot of people think I look familiar"

Looking familiar is a pretty good thing don'cha' think?

The first task is getting me on the sled. I'm nowhere near as flexible as I used to be so they team up and gently lift me into position. They've made a cast of my lower body and that cast is on top of what at first looked like random sheets. I have to get my feet into the cast part shaped for my feet and then the therapists take over.

They tell me to "lay heavy" and I'm learning how to do that. Of course at my weight, it comes kinda natural. I'm getting pretty good at laying heavy. Laying heavy means when I feel movement beneath me, I resist the urge to move with that movement. Of course the radiation blasts have to be exactly precise, so when I am laying heavy they are maneuvering the sheets beneath me to put me into the right postion without my feet leaving the mold. They pull on the sheet and that puts me right where they want me.

All this time we are making small talk and laughing.

Then one of them will say "perfect" and they duck away to a protected area where they watch me through the glass. While watching me, they are also seeing a three dimensional rendering of my inner lower body projected on to a computer screen and making sure that the zaps are zapping the tatoo where the zaps should be zapping.

I'm laying heavy and except for the radio playing in the background, there is silence.

I am under the linear accelerator, looking up at the ceiling where I see a red laser cross.

The accelerator moves around me and does what it's supposed to do for about five minutes.

Then I hear one of them say "great" and next thing I know, they are lifting me off the sled.

When my feet first hit the ground, I experience some vertigo. I sit down in the chair and usually tell a story.

The first story on the first day was what happened when the skeleton walked into the bar. The bartender said. "whaddya want". The skeleton said "a beer and a mop".

The second story on the second day had a fish walking into the bar.

Bartender said "whaddya need".

The fish said "water".

The third day,a duck walked into the drugstore. The duck asked for lip gloss. The astonished pharmacist brought back the gloss. The duck said "I don't have any money, just put it on my bill.

The fourth day, ham and eggs walked into the bar. Bartender said "we don't serve breakfast.

The fifth day Jesus Christ walked into a wine bar etc. The wine pourer asked," what would you like". Jesus answered 'just a glass of water.

Every story got the reaction I hoped it would get. They acted as if they had never heard the story before and then after a pause like after the fish says "water," they gave me the kind of laugh that indicates an amused aha .

Perfect.

Unfortunately I had used all of my clean jokes.

So today, the ninth day, I went with golf. Jesus and St. Peter are playing Pebble Beach. St Peter tees up and blast a beautiful drive right down the middle of the fairway. Jesus whistles in admiration and steps to the tee box. He hits a little dribble that barely makes it to the cart path of the elevated tee. The ball rolls down the path and gets picked up by a rabbit who starts bounding away only to be captured in the talons of a magnificent swooping eagle who grabs the rabbit and starts to fly down the fairway. A flash of lightning hits the eagle who drops the rabbit who drops the ball which lands on the green, takes a giant bounce hits the flagstick and plops into the hole. St Peter turns to Jesus and says "Hey, are you gonna play golf or just fuck around."

Everybody laughed again. I'm starting to enjoy this here radiation.

Go team go.

WILD BILL FROM BABYLON

I'm starting to wonder how long I will last. I'm already older than I deserve to be; based on the way that I've conducted my life. I want to give credit before I go to people who should already be famous if they gave a shit for fame.

One of those people is my friend Wild Bill. We've been buddies for over fifty years. I asked him to be my daughter's Godfather. I couldn't have made a better choice. I haven't spoken to Amanda for at least five years but Wild Bill has and he tells me she's nice.

Thank you, Godfather.

Wild Bill will never be married but to this day he carries ten rubbers in his wallet on his never ending quest to "get laid". Ya gotta love guys like that.

Sometimes he does, God bless them.

He's always having misadventures with cops maybe because of the dozens of messages on his car, the latest being FUCK DONALD TRUMP.

We pissed, side by side, into Walden Pond.

Sitting shotgun on the Long Island Expressway with Bill is a shit your pants experience.

He's seen the Dead fifty times at least. He had a conversation with George Harrison. Nowadays, Bill's the oldest man at every concert and the most energized.

Nobody dances like Wild Bill.

He was a friend of Bobby Vee.

He's a roller coaster fanatic.

I've seen him punch a taxi cab driver on Fifth Avenue.

He's got season tickets for both the Yankees and the Mets.

He cried when he heard that my mother died.

He sends birthday cards to all of his friends even though none of us have the slightest idea when His birthday arrives.

Christmas cards, Father and Mother’s day cards as well

He's a master of trivia, an expert on the Bobby Fuller Four.

He's the last of the great mooners.

He gets along with dogs and cats.

He's got my back.

He should be a movie if he gave a shit.

He's Wild Bill from Babylon.

One remarkable afternoon, I was sitting at a booth in Kennedy airport slamming some suds with my brother Deke while waiting on Wild Bill to pick us up for a weekend of irresponsibility.

Naturally, Bill being capricious from the get go was already two hours late. Responding in kind, I took the opportunity to waste even more money with the rest of the clubless apes on overpriced beers drafted at the airport watering hole.

While in the midst of this activity, I happened to notice a guy sitting at the bar. The guy had his back turned to me. Apparently, he too was waiting for his connection because every ten miutes or so I could hear him say to the barkeep, "I'll have another one please" witha sorta under control yet fighting panic quality to his request.

The guy was in the bar before I got there and I'd been there a couple of hours. I figured our consciousnesses were at the same level of disarray. I never saw the guy's face but something about the tone of his voice reminded me of the voice of the astronaut in 2001 who on the Jupiter Mission gets locked out of his ship by the computer and trying to keep his composure under control without panicking, keeps insisting that the computer open the portal for him to retake control of the ship.

"I'll have another one please" sounded exactly like "Open the pod bay door, Hal" to my altered listening.

Judging from the size of the guy's back and the fact that this was Kennedy Airport, the possibility did exist that this was in fact Keir Dullea, the actor from 2001.

I passed my perception on to my brother. I said "Listen to the way this guy says 'I'll have another one please'. I think that's the guy from 2001".

My brother equally committed to his beerz but still acutely attentive to timbre detail, laughed at my Bud soaked perception. Childishly egged on by his laughter, I decided to approach the guy at the bar.

I took a seat on a stool next to him. I ordered yet another brewski and got a side view. The side view kept me in the ballpark. The guy ordered another drink and the recognition possibilty grew even stronger.

Finally, I tapped the guy on the shoulder and said "Excuse me, are you Keir Dullea?"

The man turned to me and before he spoke I knew, holy shit he's the guy.

Keir said "Yes I am, do I know you."

I said "not really but you're in one of my favorite movies....2001. I've seen that movie ten times and even though I love it, Im not sure what it's about."

Keir said that it was one of his favorite movies as well but he wasn't real sure what it was about either. He thought it was "something about God". Apparently he had been called by Kubrick, accepted the job...worked on his scenes for a month or so and then left the production not knowing anymore about the entire project then what he had experienced while acting in it. He told me that when he saw the movie after it's release, he was "stunned."

We carried on a conversation for about fifteen minutes. I told him I was a teacher and he told me how much he respected the profession and how flattered he was that I recognized him.

A great guy.

I excused myself and went back to my table where a great commotion had taken place as Wild Bill finally arrived. I had enough respect for Dullea's provacy that I didn't tell Bill about what had just happened.

When my brother asked, I said "yep, it was him. check him out and let's get outta here before this whole thing gets too absurd". Deacon took a look. I could tell he was astonished by the whole situation.

We started to head out of the airport in a huge, blurry hurry considering we were already an hour late for that night's concert.

Bill started relating the wild excuses he had for being so late. I told him don't worry about it. Let's make the most of tonight, after all as Noel Coward once said "Keir Dullea, gone tomorrow."

STARLIT HUMAN NATURE

I didn’t feel like working one Friday night at the Starlite Drive-in. I wasn’t too concerned because we were playing yet another in a long line of low budget Jean Michael Vincent flicks that nobody came to see anyhow. I figured that I’d hang out with the projection crew and the homeless derelicts who were living in the projection booth until between movies when I’d man the concession stand. Then I’d go home and feed a few unpurchased meatball sandwiches to my pig Seymour.

Driving down West Henrietta Road, I ran into an unexpected, unexplainable traffic jam. I wasn’t in any particular hurry so I cranked up my eight track and started listening to Arthur by the Kinks. By the time I got to “Brainwashed”, I could see what was causing the clot. All of the cars were pulling into the Starlite. I rechecked the title marquee and although a few of the words were misspelled, the basic idea remained; something about a Hawk starring Vincent and Will Sampson was indeed playing.

I pulled into the long, gravel road that led to the ticket booth and the cubicle was empty. When, at last, I got to the booth, I discovered that the restraining rope was down. The ticket seller had unlocked the rope, opened the booth and as I learned later, in a fit of self-righteous drunken, immature responsibility had decided to quit his “godamned shitty job”. He took off and left the gate unattended. I never saw the guy again but I heard he opened a fruit stand in Irondequoit specializing in illegally imported bananas.

I was ambivalent about the situation. It didn’t hurt me any that more people were attending the show, since I was paid a commission based on the sales of the concession stand. The more people who came to the flick, the more money I would make. Remember though that I didn’t feel like working that night and since I hadn’t expected anybody to show up, I was all by myself which meant I was going to have to do the work of three people maybe four even if I got a couple of the derelicts living in the projection booth to stop smoking weed, get off their asses and help me out a bit.

When I pulled into my stand, the projectionist greeted me. Drunk as he was, he didn’t particularly care how many people were in the lot. He was being paid by the hour. I told him that the reason that all of these people were here was because Mark had opened the gate and abandoned the booth.

One of the great mysteries of this night was how in the world did the people get the word that the movie was free and how did it spread so fast. If we had put FREE on the marquee, probably nobody would have pulled into the lot.

Reminded me of a friend of mine, named Rick who was trying to get rid of an old refrigerator. He put the thing in front of his house for a couple of days with a big FREE sign on its door. Nobody even sniffed it. Finally on the advice of another friend named Charlene, he put another sign on the fridge....$50. That night somebody stole the fuckin’ thing.

Art, the projectionist, and I were pondering these matters while also trying to figure out what the heck we were supposed to do. We had a parking lot full of freeloaders. Should I start popping the popper? Should Art start reeling the projector?

We looked around and got an eyeful of human nature as the sky grew dark.

People started to lean on their horns.

They were honking to start the movie.

That freakin’ did it!

A parking lot full of freeloaders defreakinmanding that they get what they didn’t pay for and expressing their rage by leaning on their horns.

I told Art, “I’ve got to say something.”

I didn’t know exactly what I was going to say but I knew that somebody had to had to say something and still I was still sober and going a shit, it had to be me.

I went into the projection booth.

I fired up the PA system.

I grabbed the mike and this is what I said:

“Ladies and gentlemen, we have a situation here. The guy who takes tickets left his post so all of you are here for free. Look around, the place is packed and nobody has paid as much as a dime.Now, I can’t blame you for taking advantage. I sure as hell can’t throw all of ya outta here. I do want you to know that this is NOT a FREE show and staying here would be like stealing. Stealing is wrong. I do have an idea, a solution. We’re going to send somebody back to the ticket booth. The right thing for you to do is exit the drive in on the right onto Brighton-Henrietta Town Line Road...then turn left and re-enter the lot. The ticket person will charge you half price and you will have the satisfaction of knowing that you did the right thing. We will begin the show in 10 minutes.”

Art had been listening to this with a look of astonishment on his shitfaced grill. He asked me what I thought would happen. I said “I believe in people.”

Silence ensued.

Honking stopped.

Then I heard a car engine start up. Then another and another. I saw a line of cars heading for the exit, God bless’ed, every single car that I could see headed out the exit. Moments later we got a call from the ticket booth out front.

“It looks like an invasion out here! There’s a procession of cars coming down West Henrietta Road and pulling in. What should I do?”

“charge ‘em half price and say thank you”, I told my man.

The drive-in filled back up not quite as full but almost. Ten minutes after my announcement, we started the movie. I gave away free popcorn all night. The owner made more money that night than he had any right to make. The people saw a movie for half price and got free popcorn along with the satisfaction of, on this occasion, doing the right thing.

That night, I went home and had a moonlight talk with Seymour about human nature. Pretty sure Seymour didn’t understand a word I was saying yet between gulps of his meatball sandwiches, although he grunted and farted at appropriate times.

ERIKA FROM A DISTANCE

Sometimes it's important to see things through the eyes of others. We received this letter from a niece named Erika who lives in North Carolina. Lynn responded to the letter before I even saw it. I was gonna respond but Lynn covered everything pretty objectively. Of course she left out the part about my brave, courageous, inspiring battle but that's probably because I've left it out of my own behavior especially when seen up close.

Anyways, here's what it looks like from a distance.

Erika's letter and Lynn's response.

Hey guys,

So I just wanted to reach out and let you guys know you are in my prayers everyday. Cancer is a very scary word. Usually I shy away from reaching out on a topic that I don't understand. Today I was thinking about it and I realized how selfish that was. I was so scared to bring up something you guys deal with everyday. But really as family its only right that we are here for each other through thick and thin. Even if we are scared we stand tall for the ones we love. We are the people who lend a shoulder to cry on. I want you guys to know I can and will be that person if you guys ever need anything. I've always looked up to you guys for being very knowledgable and kind and do not deserve this disease to come into your life. But, God works in mysterious ways and I strongly believe you guys will beat and overcome this obstacle. Love you guys and miss you! Hope to see you soon!!

Erika

What a wonderful letter. So full of love, concern and support. Thank you very, very much. Uncle Ice has just six more radiation treatments. They won't know if all the cancer is gone so he will have to go in for regular blood tests to check his PSA level which will tell them the potential threat of cancer cells remaining or not. He has been experiencing fatigue, depression and Incontinance . He is on meds for all of that which gives him some relief. No sleep at nites though which can make him zombie like. But the good news is that a few weeks after radiation he should return back to how he was before the radiation started. We are getting thru this by feeling how lucky we are that it was caught in time and the treatment just involves radiation not surgery or chemotherapy.

With love and appreciation,

Aunt Lynn and Uncle Ice

MORE SEYMOUR

I’ve almost forgotten how much fun it was to drink beer with Seymour, my pig.

Remember those delicious meatball sandwiches that only existed at drive-ins? We took a lot of pride in our meatball “sank witch” when we ran and cooked at the Starlite concession stand. We always threw in a load of extra sauce and cheese. Those subs were nuclear powered.

Some times we’d make a few nautili too many. I’d take whatever leftovers we still had hanging around and feed them to Seymour. At that juncture, feeding meatballs to a pig was my idea of a savings account.

I’d usually bring at least twelve pack of Bud to accompany the meatball sandwiches. I’d take the winding path down past the barn, past the manure pile, past the chicken coop and the duck pond into the wired off part of the pasture that we had converted into a pig pen.

I’d stand next to the pen, throw a few sandwiches on the ground and wait for Seymour to emerge. I was usually working on my first Bud while I was bringing the sandwiches to Seymour’s slophouse. By the time I got to Seymour’s place, I was finishing my second. I’d finish my third by the time Seymour emerged from his little tin hut.

At this point, I’d pop open my fourth Bud and pour the fifth and sixth beer into the black, circular, plastic container that we used as a watering tough for the pig.

Seymour could drink even faster than I could when he put his mind to it, in other words when he wasn’t peeing, pooping’ eating’ or sleeping’. The whole purpose of chilling with the pig in the first place was to avoid any semblance of pressure or constraints or manners. Burping, farting and even puking was no problem. I’d drink at my own pace and whenever I finished one I’d pop open another one for the pig and another for myself.

I’ve heard about dogs, who come to a kitchen table, sit on a chair, put their paws on the table and wait to be served. These are dogs who think they are humans. Seymour did not think he was human. Seymour knew for damned sure that he was a pig and when he partied with me I think he figured that I was one too and he weren’t far off. Seymour was all attitude, identity and appetite.

There was nobody else around except me and the pig. The stars were bright; the temperature perfect. The only sounds of the night were the natural sounds of the pasture and the pen along with the snortin’, slathering’, plopping’ burpin’ leaking’ sounds that Seymour routinely made at times like these. It was peaceful. I had been productive as in “I’m going down to feed the pig now, honey.” Life in the pasture drinking with the pig was a bizarre Bud commercial waiting to be made and shown at the Super Bowl.

One time, near the end, when we had come to grips with the sobering eventuality that Seymour was destined to become ham, bacon, sausage, etc, I had a barn party over at my house. Some of my buddies had heard me bragging about the peace of mind I enjoyed while drinking with the pig. Apparently they thought it was a good idea because by the time I got down to the trough, Seymour was passed out in the cooling mud, getting a bit of a sunburn, his trough still half full of beer.

I went back to the barn and asked how many people had been drinking with the pig. Six guys raised their hands: Tommy Tron, Bruce, Jack Stafford, Wayne, Wild Bill and Uncle George. I told them to come down to the sty and see the fruits of their labor.

The six of us walked down the path together. As we got close to Seymour, a reverent silence descended, When we arrived at his trough the stillness continued as we gazed and gaped at the five sheets to the wind bovine blacked out and basking in his combination of mud, Bud, swill and perceived freedom, catching some rays and judging by his apparent ease of breathing, completely relaxed, at peace with the world, unconcerned with appearances.

A few weeks later I recruited all of these guys to help me load the corpulent and non-co operative Seymour into the back of my truck to take him to processing about ten miles down the road. Seymour was no longer a little piggy on his way to the market. We had a rough, sweaty, shitty and muddy time trying to get Seymour into the truck until somebody suggested putting a pillowcase over his face. We did. It worked. We led Seymour into and out of the truck and into the processing pen where they spray painted the word “tendon” in large letters on his no longer sunburned hide.

I remember taking one last look at Seymour. There was another hugh pig in the holding pen with him. I imagined those two pigs looking at each other’s hides, seeing the black spray paint and thinking “this ain’t real good”. Then I shut the door and left Seymour in the darkness.

Seymour was committed.

The next time I saw him he was in packages

Over the next few decades, every time that I’ve gotten together with any of those guys, particularly during All Star games, somebody always comes up with “remember Seymour” and the next round of stories take off from that common point of departure as if Seymour the Pig was a space station and all previous stories were shuttle crafts arriving to be refueled enroute to homecoming or deeper exploration

MENDON SEA CRUISE

As in the case with most epics, many colorful events occurred during my final days at the Starlite. Most of those colorful events were driven by colorful people, people that I wouldn’t have known if it weren’t for the Starlite which was sort of a vortex of idiosynchracy. One of those people was Wayne Green.

Wayne was a regular at the Starlite, as well as a drive-in afficianado. One particularly slow night, Shane came in from his car and we began a snack bar conversation about drive in culture etc. Wayne became so engrossed in the conversation that he missed the second feature which was The Deep with Nick Nolte and Jackie Bissett. Due to no faul of our own, we had been playing the movie one reel short and out of order but nobody complained except one time when the sound went off for a minute or two and a few people honked. That’s when I realized that people didn’t give a shit what they were watching as long as they could hear it.

Wayne asked me how to operate the popcorn machine, I showed him. He was immediately hooked on concession stand life.

I told Wayne that anytime he wanted to stop by and help me run the stand, we’d let him in for free. Most nights, Wayne would show up and volunteer his services as popcorn popper. Wayne wasn’t the only one. Towards the end I had six or seven people who enjoyed the concession stand so much that they would come to the drive in just to hang around every so often going back to their cars to drink beer or whatever. The concession stand became an oddball country club. Almost every night one or two or more of these volunteers would show up to pop and pour. In the end, they were basically running the stand and I was spending more and more time in party cars.

Outside of the stand, I didn’t know much about Wayne of the other “volunteers but I figured they were either geniuses or lunatics and probably both. We’d get into some pretty crazy conversations on slow nights and since we kept playing Jean Michael Vincent level movies without half price admission or free popcorn, there were a lot of slow nights.

One night Wayne and I were talking about making lemonade of lemons, making a fortune out of a misfortune. Wayne told me about a guy that he knew whose truck caught fire the same week that the engine of his boat blew up. Shane told me that the guy welded the body of his boat on to the frame and motor of his car, got some dealer plates and drove around in his truck boat.

I had trouble believing that one. I told Wayne so. He assured me that the story was true. I said “yeah, right” and forgot about the whole deal.

About a month later, I was mowing my lawn when a boat with dealer plates pulled into my driveway. Wayne was at the wheel. How can I describe this contraption? I know. A speed boat on wheels and that’s exactly what it looked like although you couldn’t see the wheels too well. I called up a few people and there were already a few folks partying in my hose. Everybody changed into shorts and swim suits. The guys stripped off their shirts. Before long we had a boat chock full of nuts all singing “ooh Wee, Ooh wee Baby, come and let me take you on a Sea Cruise.” We set off driving through Mendon like five dimensional survivors from a demented Beach Blanket Bingo flick minus Frankie and Annette with Beach Boy, Dick Dale and Surfaris music blasting from the deck on the deck.

You should have seen the cars as they passed us. Imagine a cool late September afternoon. You’re driving down Mendon Town Line Road. Suddenly you see a speed boat approaching you full of lunatic/geniuses mash potatoing, twisting and watusiying to Msirlou or I get Around or Wipeout. My only regret is we didn’t take the time to grab Seymour the pig, throw some shades on him and include him in the voyage.

We cruised around Pittsford and Mendon for a half hour. Truck boats use an awful lot of gas. Eventually, we pulled back into my driveway and abandoned ship.

I never doubted Wayne again.

The Starlite era had ended. The truck boat had been revealed. Apparently Wayne’s purpose in my life was fulfilled, including one bit of information that I was awake enough to remember.

As we were heading back to the house, Wayne asked me if I wanted to take the wheel. Paranoia set in. I could see the headlines, “Local teacher crashes into telephone pole in truck boat filled with passengers without seat belts or life jackets.”

Wayne was silent for a moment, keeping his eyes on the road and his hands on the wheel. He asked me “if I remembered the night when all the cars pulled out of the Starlite and then pulled back in.”

I said, “of course I remembered that.’

Wayne said that He hadn’t believed ME when I told him that story.

Wayne believed it now because he knew the guy who was the first person to pull out, the guy who had started the entire righteous exodus. The guy who helped right the wrong.

Turns out the guy was on his first date that night and legitimately wanted to see the movie because he and his date were fans of Will Sampson and Tonto.

The guy’s named was Ovid and his date was named Julia.

The date had been a success.

LAST DAY OF RADIATION

Today's the day. Last night was the night. I only had to steal one mirror last night so I got my first half way decent shuteye in months.

At this moment I am resisting the urge to hit the sack and indulge in fatigue.

I'm thinking about the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers and Nightmare on Elm Street. In both of those flicks, sleep was to be avoided unless you wanted Freddy to slash through your walls or wake up as a pod.

Those movies always bothered me.

I hate the feeling of falling asleep when I don't want to fall asleep. This used to happen to me all the time, particularly on Wednesday nights when I was young.

Because I was big fan of horror films, my parents used to let me stay up "late" to watch Shock Theater which played all of the Lugosi, Karloff and Chaney films. Frankenstein, Dracula, the Wolfman, the Raven, the Mummy, the Black Cat, The Invisible Ray,The Ghoul,The Werewolf of London etc. The show came on came on past my bedtime so it was quite a privilege and quite a challenge.

Plus, I was actually scared by the movies or at least I expected to be.

I would take my position on the carpet in front of our timy teevee set. The movie would start and before too long, I would realize that I was falling asleep. I learned to recognize the feeling and the "oh no" that accompanied it. I would invariably choose to "rest my eyes" for just a minute during a commercial. I learned after awhile that once I started to rest my eyes, the rest periods would increase in frequency and duration until at last I was asleep on the floor and had to be carted of to bed all the time insisting "I'm awake, I'm awake"

The morning came and I awoke with a sense of failure and a determination to make it all the way through the next week. I realized that once I started to "rest my eyes", it was all over. I would make a conscious effort to "resist the rest" but week after week I failed.

I wasn't used to failure back in those days and it frightened me more than the movies did. I was learning about temptation and my inability to resist it.

This was my first previews of fatigue but I really didn't know what fatigue was until a few months ago. There's a difference between fatigue and being tired, passing out, blacking out, dozing off or being exhausted.

For the past few months, I've suffered fatigue and it's a lot different from "resting my eyes" because in fatigue I'm not even interested in the "movie" that is my life. All I want to do is sleep, well not exactly sleep but more like escape but evdn in the escaping there is the over-riding sense of failure and guilt as days melt away and merge with nights.

Fatigue sucks.

So as I write these words, I am resisting the urge to "rest my eyes" and to go downstairs to my cave/pit. The urtge is strong but not as strong as yesterday and yesterday wasn't as strong as the day before.

They told me after my last blast of radiation that sometimes the fatigue starts to go away after a week and a half but sometimes it can continue for three or four months or in some cases forever.

Today is exactly a week and a half since my last blast. I'm gonna go the distance. I'm not goin' downstairs. I'm not gonna turn into a pod person again today. No way. I've charged up my camera. I'm snapping flowers. I'll be leaving for the ballpark in three hours. I'm gonna look good. This is the day I marked down on my calendar for the beginning of my comeback and I'm not gonna rest my eyes until I get back from Frontier Field.

My brother is my best friend and I haven't seen him during this whole situation. I want to see him now. I want him to see me snapping pictures, keeping score, drinking a beer and rooting for the old home team.

Freddy Fatigue can't get me at Frontier Field if I keep my eyes on the ball.

OVID WARREN PEETS

Even though I think I'm a smart ass, I'm not as smart as I think I am.

My name is Ovid Peets.

I'm here to tell you a story about a guy who was proud of his ignorance and worried that he wasn’t as dumb as he thought he was . Over the course of our acquaintance this man gratified himself by proving conclusively that he was even dumber than he had hoped.

His name was Thornton Krell. He was my professor. I was taking a class called Metaphysiction at a place called Montgomery Community College. I didn't know what the hell Metaphysiction was and neither did my advisor, Ward Stokes. As soon as I found out that Stokes was vague on the course, I decided to throw it into my schedule. I figured I could drop the course later and blame the drop on Stokes who would have to admit that he didn't know what the hell he was talking about when we first discussed the course.

Everyone knows that in a fire, the survival strategy is to drop and roll. Only MCC students know that academic survival strategy is to enroll and then drop.

I can remember the first few minutes of the first class without looking at my notes. I can’t look at my notes from any class before Krell’s class because I never took notes. I used to draw pictures. I had contempt for anyone who actually took notes. What a waste of time. What a waste of paper. I figured it was all posturing because anytime I would ask anyone to see their “notes” they would always say they didn’t have any notes either.

They must have been drawing pictures too or writing those little love letters that begin “I‘m sitting in class bored out of mind and thinking about what we did last night…...

For some reason I used to draw a hockey rink as seen from a nosebleed seat. After I drew the rink in great detail, including stick figure crowds, I would rest the point of the pen somewhere on the “Ice” and wrist flick the point towards the “Goal” which resembled a large E turned without the middle perpendicular. If I managed to stop the point within the E, the stroke counted as a goal. I would disallow goals in which the stroke was slowed down enough to mimic conscious purpose. Only subconscious strokes counted. Sometimes the pencil and the “ref” would get in long arguments about whether or not a goal should count or not. In this way, with an occasional fake “I’m listening and I’m interested” glance at the teacher, class time passed.

When I wasn't drawing hockey rinks, I was drawing drum sets. This habit was about to change within the first ten minutes of encountering Krell.

They say that a student pretty much makes up his mind how he will get along with a teacher within the first five minutes that the teacher is in front of the class. Even while Krell was taking attendance and reviewing the institute rules, which everyone had heard at the beginning of every class at MCC (and still disobeyed) I was forming my impression of Krell. I kept hearing the song 96 Tears playing in my brain. Anytime I hear ninety-six tears in my brain, I remember the group that sang the song…..Question Mark and the Mysterians with Question Mark written as ?.

So, my initial and lasting impression of Krell was of a mysterious guy who would have a lot of questions for me to consider and about whom I would have a lot of questions which he would probably never consider because I would never pose the questions what with the hockey playing and the drum sets.

And that someone would cry: cry, cry, cry; ninety six tears yeah. The first thing he did after the preliminary administrivia was to turn his gaze upon the class and make these sounds: (and now I consult the notes that I didn’t have at the time that Krell was making the sounds)

Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, Epsilon, Zeta, Eta, Theta, Iota, Kappa, Lambda, Mu, Nu, Xi, Omicron, Pi, Rho, Sigma, Tau, Upsilon, Phi, Chi, Psi, Omega.

Next, he took out a match. Before striking the match he informed us that the sounds he had just made were the letters of the Greek alphabet. He said his first goal was to have everyone in the class be able to repeat those sounds in the time it took a match to burn down to the finger tips. With that he struck the match and recited the alphabet and with a flourish blew out the match in plenty of time.

“I’m going to repeat the alphabet. You will take notes while I recite. Then, I’m going to call on one of you. . I will light the match. You will recite the Greek alphabet before the match burns my fingers. You may use your notes”

With that, he repeated “Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, Epsilon, Zeta, Eta, Theta, Iota, Kappa, Lambda, Mu, Nu, Xi, Omicron, Pi, Rho, Sigma, Tau, Upsilon, Phi, Chi, Psi, Omega“.

I stopped drawing the hockey rink and right there on the still freezing ice, I took my first serious notes Alfa, Bayta, Gamma, Delta, Epsilon, Zayta, Eighta, Theta, Iota, Kappa, Lambda, Mew, New, Zi, Omicron, Pi, Rho, Sigma, Tau, Upsilon, Phi, Chi, Sigh, Omega.

I wasn’t looking around to see if anybody else was taking notes.

Krell paused at Omega. He looked at the attendance roster. He took a match from the pack. He said “Mr. Paris. You will give me back the alphabet. You may use your notes. I will count to five and light the match”

I don’t remember much about Mr. Paris except that he was wearing a tee shirt that said “Weed Man”. When Krell got to five, Paris got to his feet and headed to the door. With the match still burning in Krell’s hand, Paris looked back at the spontaneous combustion in the front of the room. “Kiss my fart” he yelled and walked out the door.

Krell kept the match burning in silence until it reached his finger tips at which point he said “Ouch” and shook the match out.

“Kiss my fart” Krell mused aloud "what an interesting juxtaposition of the physical upon the invisible. He might have been a great student but alas, I’m afraid that’s the last time we’ll see Paris”

He took out another match. “Let’s try it again. Helen Kamp, it‘s your turn”

Helen read the alphabet from her notes. She finished with plenty of match to spare.

Very good. Haylen” said Krell while snapping his fingers with the loudest snap I‘d heard since my left handed sixth grade clarinet teacher snapped me out of music lessons for incorrectly counting measures. Krell’s snaps, on the other hand, conveyed praise not criticism “How do you account for your success?”

“I read from my notes” said Helen.

“And before you read them……..”

“I wrote them.”

"And before you wrote them?” Krell asked.

“I listened, Mr Krell.”

“And in literary terms, Haylen, what verbal exercise are we involved in right now?”

“A dialogue.”

“All correct. Thank You Haylen for introducing the basic tenents of this class. The dullest pencil on the roughest paper has a better memory than the sharpest brain in the smoothest intellect. Any questions?”

In the pause that inevitably follows any teacher asking if there are any questions, two impressions raced through my mind. 1: Helen might be the Hawking of the class which greatly increased my odds of bozohood and 2: The teacher had a Southern accent when he called on Helen. He called her Haylen.

The pause ended as it always does with a dork with a question.

Arthur Georger raised his hand.

Krell nodded in his direction.

Georger asked “Well, Mr. Krell what exactly is the definition of metaphysics and the relationship of that defintion to metaphysiction”

Krell responded, “ With all due respect, the answer to that question comes at the end of the class not at the beginning because the entire purpose of this class is to explore the intellectual journey that led to metaphysics and later metaphysiction".

Krell continued, "Haylen has already touched upon some of the primary components. We will be learning how Socrates led to Plato how Plato led to Aristotle and how Aristotle led to metaphysics. In a nutshell, Socrates asked questions in verbal dialogue. Plato was the student of Socrates. Plato listened to the dialogues that Socrates narrated. Plato recorded the dialogues which were a history of the philosophical life of Socrates. Socrates only spoke. Plato listened and took notes. Plato added his own thoughts to the thoughts of Socrates which he had noted. He passed his thoughts and notes on to others who were taking note of his thoughts which were the thoughts of Socrates filtered through the lens of Plato. Thus, Plato became a teacher."

Krell went to the blackboard and printed the words Socrates, Aristitole and Plato. He began drawing lines between and amongst the names and explained; "Aristotle was a student of Plato. Aristotle added his own thoughts to Plato’s thoughts which were themselves thoughts upon the thoughts of Socrates which led through logic and biology and astrology to metaphysics. Aristotle was the first teacher of metaphysics. I’m not going to even try to describe the lineage that led from Aristotle to Krell because it’s taken me my entire life up to this very second to unravel that journey which is continuing even as I speak and upon which you, Mr. Georger are a fellow traveler until you follow the path of Paris“.

By this time, the hockey game had ended and I was, for the first time, taking notes furiously, afraid that I would be called upon to suffer the fate of Paris. I know for sure that I was taking notes at this time because the above paragraphs are an interpretive reconstructions of the words of Krell based upon the actual notes of that first class on that last hockey rink upon which I glanced as I composed the last paragraph and will be consulting for the rest of this effort.

See,another thing about notes is, they stick around.

If nothing else this class of Krell’s was, by definition, noteworthy.

I’m not sure if my notes are worthy of the noteworthiness of Krell’s class (what with the high probability of bozos on this bus) because I’ myself may be a bozo and if you’re on this particular bus, holding on to the handrail next to mine, you may be a bozo as well.

Unless you're a Hawking.

By the time I left class that day only three of us remained, myself, Helen and Julia. Arthur had taken an early lav break and had not returned. Weedman Paris had apparently enrolled and dropped, at least that's what Krell said at the end of the period.

"The bad news is that five is the minimum enrollment to hold a class. The good news for you four survivors, if in fact the class itself survives, is that if we continue the class and I use the traditional grading curve, the E has already directed me to kiss his fart."

When you're riding in my bus, in which failure is always an option, it's reassuring to hear the E has left the building. I made up my mind I was in this class for the duration. I even had notes to prove my determination.

Riding this wave of confidence and conviction, I decided to approach Helen and confess my embarrassment at Krell's mispronuniciation of her name.

"Excuse me. I was in your Metaphysiction class. I couldn't figure out why the teacher had a Southern accent only when he said your name. Helen is such a nice, classical name. I'm sorry he had to butcher it."

Helen looked at me as if she were looking at a dog turd tidbit on the sole of a wedding shoe.

"Why thank you for your sensititivity Oafid. Not only have you underestimated the teacher but also you've insulted me and my parents. My father's name is Haynes. My mothers name is Helen. They named me Haylen. I'm sorry my name isn't classical enough for you"

Haylen turned on her heel and was gone before I had the opportunity to clear either my throat, my name or hers or her parents or Krell.

I beat the teacher to the second class. We all did. I was the last to arrive not including Krell.

Arthur, Haylen and Julia were all in their seats. I nodded at Arthur, tried to avoid Haylen's gaze by looking down at the floor. Then after noting the awesome old school sandals that were between the floor and Haylen's soles, I got a better look at Julia.

Julia was not a beautiful woman but there was something about her that demanded my attention. After about two seconds I realized what that something was. Julia was dressed in an exact replica of the curtain rendered green velvet gown that Scarlett O'Hara had worn to visit Rhett Butler when he was in jail where he was sick and tired of seeing women in rags; where he was relieved to see that Scarlett was not in rags and was ready to give her anything until he discovers that her hands are filled with callouses.

I was surfing in this state of stupefication and cinematic reverie when Krell entered the classroom. Apparently I had walked in on the conclusion of the customary debate about how long the class waited for the tardy teacher before disbanding, five minutes for adjunct or TA, ten minutes for assistant professor, fifteen minutes for full professor.

Nobody knew what category Krell was so I have the feeling if he would have been five seconds late, the class would have been empty by the time he entered which would have spelled the end of metaphysiction, right there.

But there he was right in the nick of time. I took out my notebook and pencil. I gazed at the Greek alphabet just in case we began where we left off.

Krell said "Well folks it looks like we have a class. It seems that after Paris burned out, he immediately dropped the class which caused Ryan Montana of interdisciplinary to have a meeting with June Brickwood of the bursars office which led to a meeting with Kay Stafford of the philosophy department which led to a meeting with Dr. Gary Gottschalk of the English Dept. which led to a meeting with Charlene Bellavia the supervisor of instruction which led to a meeting with Richard Grotto of adjunct education which led to a meeting with Dean Dean Holland who okayed the class fifteen minutes ago while I waited outside his office."

"In case you're wondering, everyone of those people make much more money than I do"

"So, Julia, when I strike this match, tell me the Greek alphabet and when you're finished I'll explain education to you."

With that Krell struck his match and Julia finished her recitation beautifully before the flame was gone with the wind.

Krell congratulated Julia and began his lecture.

"Once upon a time there was a guy who was a terrific learner. Let's call him Torch." Krell began and continued.

"Everything activated Torch's curiosity which fired up his intellect which filled him with inexhaustible creative, emotional, intuitional and investigative energy. Torch learned everything he could about each person, place, thing or idea that he encountered with his senses, with his emotions, with his feelings and with his intuitions.One day it dawned on Torch that the best way to increase his own learning was to give away what he had. Torch decided to teach."

Krell printed the word TEACH on the board and continued.

"When the teacher is ready, the students will appear and when the students are ready the teacher will appear. In the early days of Torch's teaching, there were many appearances and disappearances. Usually, they were out of synch.Sometimes, Torch's teaching schedule got a little unpredictable what with the perpetual investigations of all things attracting his attention for random amounts of time. Similarly, his students, their curiosity activated by Torch, were out and about making their own discoveries, building their own toys. Eventually, one of his students, let's call him Arclipides, came up wih an idea."

Krell wrote ARCLIPEDES on the board and continued.

"After a session of sharing on the steps of the Athaneeum Arclipides asked "Why don't we all come back here to these very same steps on the same day at the same time next week".Next week arrved and everybody showed up. Everybody was only four people and Torch, the teacher. The four people were Lysis, Arclipides, Sachelli, and Lyviia.As time went on the four people grew to forty people. The forty people grew into a hundred people. At this point Arclipedes came up with his second big idea, "why don't we break this group into four groups. One group can meet on Monday, the next group on Tuesday, the third group on Wednesday and the fourth group on Thursday".

Krell wrote SCHEDULE on the board and continued.

"Torch had a little problem with this big idea. Even though meeting with the people was definitely feeding his learning habit, four days a week was a bit much. Torch suggested two groups on Monday and two groups on Wednesday. Arclipedes went along with the idea. Arclipedes divided the hundred into four groups of twenty five and told them which day and time to show up on the steps.As time went on, the hundred turned into thousands and the thousands turned into millions and the millions turned into billions.The steps turned into hundreds of thousand of schools.Torch continued to learn.Sachelli, Lysis and Lyviia went on to become the first faculty. Arclipedes became the first administrator.

Krell wrote ADMINISTRATOR on the board and next to the word a dollar sign. Then he continued

"Eventually, Arclipedes and his followers started telling everybody where to go, what to learn and how to teach.All of the followers of Arclipedes seemed to have a natural interest in finances so the gathering places grew bigger and bigger as a price tag began to be attached to learning. Torch never had much interest in money and neither did Sachelli, Lysis or Lyviia. Learning was their treasure and giving away what they had earned (after all, learned is earned plus an l for either life or love)was the best way to preserve and enrich their intellectual treasure.This was fine for Arclipedes. Altruism always cuts cost."

Krell paused for a moment as a bell rang somehwere.

Krell shrugged his shoulders at the sound of the bell as if indicating "See that's a perfect example of what I'm talking about".

Then, he continued:

"Way, way back before the steps turned into schools, Torch and Arclipedes were on a collision course. When the crash finally happened only Arclipedes walked away. Arclipedes had amassed more money and with more money had come more power.All Torch had was teaching, learning and the love and respct of his students.Trouble. Mismatch.Arclipedes insisted that what Torch was espousing was not good for the people. The powers that be agreed. Torch drank the Kool Aid."

Krell wrote KOOL AID on the board and continued.

"The remaining faculty insisted upon some degree of intellectual freedom if they were to continue coming back to the steps. This was the beginning of tenure.Tenure is to education what beer is to Homer Simpson; the cause of as well as the solution to all of the problems in the classroom.Arclipedes "not good for the people" eventually turned into the standard administrative method of suppressing progressive ideas while sustaining status quo. "Not good for the people" became "not good for the kids" if an innovative idea needed to be stopped or "good for the kids" if a stale idea needed to be preserved.

Krell paused, looked out the window and wrote STATUS QUO on the board before he continued.

"Today, for example we have middle schools. Not only do we have middle schools but those schools usually start the earliest in the morning and contain the kids who would benefit most from getting more sleep.Going back to K-8 schools would simply be "not good for the kids" until the decision was made to return to K-8 schools, the justification for which will be that it has suddenly become "good for the kids".Other examples abound.The factory schedule. SAT exams. Standardized testing. The categorization and separation of knowledge into subjects and departments. The hierarchy of the sciences. How did anyone ever determine that biology was easier than chemistry and chemistry easier than physics.For those seeking entry into the closed fraternity/sorority of "science" biology is traditionally taken first, then chemistry then physics.

This is how that particular hierarchy was determined.

An Arclipedean confronted this choice at the beginning of the twentieth century and determined the order of scientific investigation,the way Arclipedians determine many subdivisions of learning.

Alphabetical order.

Thus we have

Biology

Chemistry

Physics

and

they are all

Good

For

the Kids

Until

They're

Not."

Krell wondered if there were any questions.

I raised my hand.

"So, Mr. Krell, physics is no more difficult than biology?"

Krell turned his gaze on me as a cat gazes at a mouse except with kindness rather than ferocity. "You're name is Ovid, right? That's an unusual name. Where did it come from?"

"My father named me after an eye doctor who cured him of lazy eye. His name was Dr. Ovid Pearson. He operated on my Dad's eyes."

"The reason I asked", said Krell, is that I have a great affection for the Latin poet Ovid whose most famous work is the Art of Love."

As if on cue Arthur sneezed snottily.

" Well, Ovid, do you think it's more complicated or important to figure out how we got here than who we are? All the sciences are the same. We've constructed the borders as another means of educational elimination of the unworthy."

He took a sip from whatever he was drinking and continued.

"The more the Arclipedeans took over the steps, the more schools came to resemble businesses. This was the great Arclipedian strategy. Find something essential, turn that essential into a business and keep the business a secret.Thus we have the great experiment of American public education. The schools serve as filtering devices for American society. The idea was for the rich to get richer, the poor to get poorer and for the multitude in the middle to miss the picture entirely.And for the Arclipedeans to make money, raise tuition and determine what is "good for the kids".

Krell wrote TUITION on the blackboard and then he continued.

"Arclipedeans realized that everybody loves rags to riches stories, so the most brilliant 2% of the poor and 18% of the middle class were permitted to pass through the screen. This permission was based upon stupendous grades which were largely based upon persistence, note-taking and subscription to values that were "good for kids". Value to society was determined by the college attended at the end of the twelve year rainbow of public education. The kids with the most money went to the best schools which were, by Arclipedean definition, the schools that cost the most to attend. As soon as those kids graduated, they were expected to contribute generously to the alumni fund in support of their schools which kept the coffers of their selected schools full which enhanced the reputation of that school which made the prestige of a degree from that school so much greater. It was possible for a child from a rich family to go to a great school and become the most powerful man on the face of the earth even if that kid without the money could or should have Peter principled out as an assistant manager at Wendy's."

Krell wrote HAMBURGER on the board. I wanted one bad.

Then he continued.

"This is what Arclpedes foresaw when he said "let's all meet here at the same time next week".What to do with the masses of people who didn't have the money, the brains, the values or the persistence to make it through the screen to the Ivy League or even the Big Ten or even the SUNY system.There must be business posibilities in that mess er mass.We built colleges without dormitories and called those colleges junior colleges or community colleges.At these places we set up one last screen for entrance to the American dream. One final fling to begin to grab the brass ring."

He wrote MCC on the board. He looked around the room and continued.

"We can always find teachers who will work for next to nothing. We can put those teachers who will work for nothing in front of students who have next to nowhere to go.We can hire a load of budding Arclipedeans to keep the cruise on course, even if the cruise sometimes resembles a cross between McHale's Navy and the Love Boat. They can be Deans (short for Arclipedean) and department heads and project managers and instructional specialists and financial aid counselors and bursars etc, etc, etc.They can help us determine "what's good for kids".

In the end there will be a classroom with a minimum of five students and a teacher

in our

case,

four."

I noticed that whenever Krell wanted to make a point, he seriously

slowed

down

the pace

of his speech.

I looked around and noticed that neither Julia nor Arthur were taking notes of any kind. I was still too embarrassed to look at Haylen. I did look at her foot and noticed that her awesome sandal was half on and half off.

Did that mean she was taking notes or not?

When I raised my glance upward, I noticed that Arthur had a gloved hand in the air. I hadn't noticed the glove before. I figured Arthur was doing some sort of Wacko Jacko comedy act or something.

Krell spotted the glove and nodded at Arthur.

"Question?"

"Yes," said Arthur, "Are we gonna have a test on this stuff".

Arthur looked over at Julia, who nodded her head first at Arthur then at Krell.

Julia raised her hand. "Yes" said Julia "how exactly will we be graded in this course?"

Krell answered, "Let me answer the second question first. The grading will be metaphysical"

"And as far as the first question, thank you for reminding me to bring up another early Arclipidean

whose

name

was

testacles"

Krell wrote TESTACLES on the board and continued.

"Back in the torch-lit prearclipidean days of learning, all instructional elements were in balance. Structure was in balance with substance. Sensing in balance with thinking. Feeling in balance with intuition. Process in balance with coverage. Evaluation in balance with instruction.The distance between evaluation and instruction was minimal. Evaluation was part of instruction and instruction part of evaluation. Self-evaluation was evident. If a student could follow the instruction that meant the student could grasp the body of knowledge within the instruction. The level of individual grasp could be ascertained by the intensity with which the student applied the instruction to his, or in Lyviia's case, her life. In other words the illumination of torch was built upon two principles:

1) Take what you need and leave the rest.

2) By your works, you will be judged. Something about this didn't sit well with Arclipides. The problem began with sub-division and led to differrentiation. How could differentiations within sub-divisions be articulated.That's when Testacles revolutionized education. "Why don't we demand that the students repeat the words of the teacher to show that they have heard the words"

Krell wrote the word REPETITION on the board and then wrote it again and smirked.

"Arclipedes thought about this for a few days. When next he saw Testacles, he said "I like your idea about the students repeating the words of the teacher. The student who repeats the words most accurately gets the highest ranking in his subdivision.We need a word to describe the instrument that we will use to determine the level of repetition and the differentiation based upon that repetition. I've decided we should name that instrument after you, because it was your idea. When we ask students to repeat the words of the teacher,we'll call that demand for repetition a test. Now we need a word to call the differerentiations themselves. What should we call the results of the ya know, the uh test. It should be something like steps indicating movement up or down. What's another word for steps, Testacles "

"Ummm, steps are actually grades"

Krell wrote GRADES on the board and continued, pretending that he was both Arclipedes and Testacles. When speaking as Arclipedes Krell spoke in a higher, more rapid pitch. When Testacles, Krell slowed down and spoke in a deep basso profundo.

"Grades is great, Testacles. Students will take tests to earn grades. The higher the grades, the greater the rewards. 'Testacles, you're a genius'.Relentless, determined Testacles (pronounced test ah kleez) was honored but he had yet another question. "which words of the teacher should we demand that the students repeat on these tests. Should the same words be asked of every student even if they have different teachers/"

"The words', answered Arclipedes, "should be the words that are

best

for

the people"

Testacles, whose spirit was not easily broken, had one more question. "Who then determines what words of what teachers are best for the people/"

Arclipedes knew the answer to that one. "Testacles, my virile friend,

are

the people."

The class continued but my notes ended with

are

the

people.

After class I decided to cruise over to the town library to see if I could check out a copy of Cat's Cradle, Catch 22, Catcher or Crime. Hey if I can save a buck using the library, I'll save that buck.

Libraries are great anyways. Where else can a guy go to search for something that he wants, find that something and have somebody give him that something for free as long as the guy promises to bring that something back in a reasonable time.

Of course, even that level of freedom and civilization poses an ethical problem for some guys.

I know a guy who steals books from the library. In his mind he's not stealing them, he's just making his own due date. He'll swipe a book. He'll take it home. He'll take a lesiurely five month read. He'll slip the book back in the slot when he's finished, if he gets finished.

No problem.

Anyways when I was walking into the library, I noticed that somebody had unloaded maybe fifty cardboard boxes full of books on the sidewalk in front of the building. There were at least a thousand and maybe twenty five hundred books in those boxes. The sky was gray. Rain was drizzling down upon these abandoned books.

I stopped by the pile and looked at a couple of titles. One of the books that I picked up was called Rock of Ages: The Rolling Stone History of Rock and Roll. Another book which looked like a prayer book was called As Bill sees It. A third book was called Myths and Facts: A guide to the Arab-Israeli Conflict.

I tried to form a mental picture of the guy who had read and deep-sixed all these books and what kind of drama led to that abandonment/donation.

The only guy I could think of was Krell.

I assumed that all of the books in his collection would be equally compelling/comKrelling. I figured that when I came out, I could grab a dozen or so soaked books, dry them out and make them mine.

I entered the library. I picked up Catcher and Catch. I walked around the stacks for a few minutes looking at periodicals. Unlike the guy I told you about earlier, I checked out my books at the circulation desk in a civilized way.

Maybe twenty minutes had passed.

I went outside, intending to grab some soaked books.

The garbage truck had beat me to the books. Of the fifty boxes only four remained. I watched as the burly garbage guy picked up box number forty six of fifty and threw it into the grinder.

Forty five boxes had already been devoured. Millions of words. Hours, weeks, years, centuries of attention.

The garbage guy noticed me looking at him. He hit me with a glance that howled "yeah?"

I said, "kinda sad, really"

He said, "It will all be recycled"

I said "You got it" and walked to my car.

I had learned something about life, death and eternity.The garbage guy had been yet another teacher.

His name might as well have been Hamlet.

Mine might as well be Torch

I got in my car and headed South.

I wondered what the guy who had brought all of those boxes of books to the library would have thought if he knew his beloved books would not even get into the door of the library.

His donation was in vain.

It reminded me of the time that a buddy of mine accidentally ran over a cat. He was backing out of my family's driveway at the time. He heard a tiny thump.He got out of the car. He found the lifeless cat. He put the cat in a bag. There would be no letting this cat out of this bag, not as a functioning cat anyways.

My buddy brought the bag full of broken cat to our front door. He rang the bell. When my mother answered the door, my friend said:

"This cat died in vain"

I've often wondered about that quote. My friend was suggesting that the cat in the bag had been ripped off before realizing its purpose in life. This suggests that cats actually have a purpose in life. If that purpose is to live nine lives, then the cat in the bag definitely died in vain.

Or maybe the cat's purpose in life, like all of ours, is to simply not be hungry.

I was feeling hungry so I stopped at Dee's delicatessen and bought a ridiculously huge submarine sandwich with everything aboard.

I continued to aim South, heading towards Keenan Park.

Keenan Park is a great place to relax, meditate the purpose of cats, contemplate American education, take a nature walk and/or eat a sandwich.

As I approached the Park, I noticed paper plates with arrows and words nailed to telephone poles. The plates read Civil War Re-enactment ahead. The arrows pointed towards Keenan Park. I noticed another word on some of the plates. That word was FREE.

Hey, if it's FREE it's me.

Me, the words, my car, my submarine and the arrows were all headed for a collision at the same place.

Keenan Park.

I got out of my car at Keenan and started looking for a bench upon which to sink into my submarine. That's when I came face to face with Robert E. Lee.

General Lee was heading North as I was heading South. I was amazed to see General Lee. What do you say when you're walking South into a park to eat a submarine sandwich after a morning with Krell and you run into the replica of a dead rebel general who has reconstituted himself and is heading North?

I figured a crisp salute would be a good start. I snapped one off. General Lee smiled beatifically upon me and said "At ease, Johnny".

I relaxed and spoke "General Lee, you were a genius. You waged one hell of a campaign. If only the artillery had been more accurate, Pickett's charge might have worked and we'd be in a whole different ballgame right now."

"Actually," said General Lee, "Maybe not all that different. American politics today are more or less dominated by the old Confederacy if you think about it. So my men who were slaughtered goin' up the hill didn't totally die in vain"

"Unlike a cat I once owned", I replied.

"I have a cat too" said General Lee. "I mean not me as General Lee but me the guy who dresses up like General Lee at these here re-enactments. My cat once killed a Doberman named Duke"

"That sounds like one helluva story, uh General Lee"

"Just call me Lee. That's my given name, son. Lee Edward Roberts. I guess it was inevitable that I would end up masquerading as Robert E Lee. For all my years in school, they kept calling my name directory style whenever they took attendance. Ovah and ovah and ovah. One day, it hit me. My purpose in life. A simple twist of fate"

I wanted to hear about the cat and the Doberman but my stomach was starting to growl. I resisted my urge to inquire further. I snapped off another salute and said the only thing I could think of at such an odd moment: "Thank God for Aristotle"

General Lee nodded in agreement.

"Generally, I agree" is what I think I heard General Lee say as we parted and I headed further down the path, deeper into the Park. I continued to head south towards the bench in front of the pavillion past the meadow. As I strode towards the bench, two dozen people on horseback began to congregate at opposite ends of the meadow. A dozen were dressed in blue, another dozen in grey. All twenty four were brandishing wooden swords.

I reached the bench. I vowed never to be hungry again. I unwrapped my sub and began chomping just as the two dozen calvarymen began to charge towards each other.

I didn't mind the noise. I actually kinda liked it. The submarine tasted a little better because of it. It wasn't the noise that was causing my thought processes to grow blurry and dark.

I wasn't sure if what I was watching was a calvary or a cavalry re-enactment. I knew one of them was the correct word for the place where Christ got nailed and the other was the correct word for soldiers on horses.

I knew that soldiers on horses must have been quite the military breakthrough and quite an advantage over terrified, soon to be trampled soldiers not on horses.

I knew that soldiers on horses turned out to be quite a disadvantage when the fabled Polish calvary encountered German soldiers not on horses but rather in tanks. The Polish cavalry was blown to smithereens.

Even in my mind I started using both words for one meaning. I could settle for a fifty percent grade on my internal vocabulary. If I kept my mouth shut, no one would discover that I didn't know the difference between calvary and cavalry.

My muddled thoughts grew darker when I thought of that proud Polish calvary splattered across their particular slaughterfield. That was a bad scene for sure but nowhere near as bad a scene as nailing the son of God to a cross after whipping the crap out of him and crowning him with thorns like they did at cavalry.

Meanwhile the cavalrys in the meadow were having the time of their lives running into each other while flailing their wooden, fake swords. I realized the swords were crosses painted black and silver with one perpendicular four times longer than the other.

These replica forces were attacking each other with crosses.

I imagined all of the crosses with an outstretched figure upon them. I imagined the blue and the gray horsemen attacking each other with half-assed crucifixes.

In that way, my description of the charge as either calvary or cavalry would have been correct.

Oh yeah, even on this bright afternoon my thinking had once again grown dark and out of focus.

"......................... .................... in focus"

I heard her before I saw her and I didn't clearly hear her until after I saw her. When I saw her, I didn't really see her. I saw Scarlett.

"Are you talking to me?" I said in subdued DeNiro as I turned my head to the left. The face I saw inside the green bonnet belonged to Julia.

"Yes, I am" said Julia," and I was talking to you before when you were lost somewhere in dark space. I said 'hi', you didn't answer. Then I said, 'get your thinking back in focus' and you turned your head my way, all Taxi Driver. If you don't mind me saying so, you still don't appear to be seeing things too clearly"

I returned her greeting, told her that I didn't mind her saying so and added "that's quite a projection", even as I noted with internal alarm and external denial how accurate she was.

Julia said "I know a lot about projection. My grandfather was an arc-light carbon projectionist at the old RKO Palace. My father was a projectionist at Loew's before he became a megaplex manager. He would like me to become a professional projectionist but my mother has different ideas. She wants me to keep my projections intuitive."

"Well, what made you project that I was out of focus?" I asked

"Guys between eighteen and twenty five are always out of focus, sometimes more so than other times but always muddled, always absorbed by noise. Lots of times the puddle grows darker than it ought to be" said Julia.

I remembered how much the noise of the calvary charge helped me to enjoy my sandwich.

Julia/Scarlett was starting to scare me.

I feigned indifference.

"And upon what does your Dad base his projection"

"He bases his projection about the attention span of people on his policy for projectionists at his plex".

"He bases his projection about the attention span of people on his policy for projectionists at his plex? Is that what you said" I asked Julia.

"That's what I said", she answered."There's nothing wrong with your listening"

"Well, Julia, do you want me to project as to how your Pop's policy for projectioninsts at his plex affects his projection about the attention span of people or are you going to explain"

"Ovid, I'm flattered, You remembered my name. Why don't you go ahead and project"

"Julia I'm afraid my projection, according to your father's projection, would be dark and out of focus. Why don't you go ahead and explain"

I finished up my plastic twenty ounce bottle of Diet coke and tossed it at the waste basket next to the bench. A miracle...it went in. I pumped my fist and said 'yes' which Julia took as a signal to explain.

" Fair enough. Back in the days of Grand- Dad" Julia began, "movie theaters could seat many more viewers. Some, if not most theaters could sit a thousand folks at a time. Still, for all those people, they had only one projectionist operating two projectors. Each projector would carry a reel of film. Just before the reel ran out on the first projector, the projectionist would flip on the second projector which he had just loaded with the next reel. Didja ever notice those little scratches or circles that show up on the upper right corner of movies and wonder if you were seeing things?"

"Yeah, I've noticed those marks. They even show up on teevee when the old movies are played"

"Those marks signalled that the reel that was playing was coming to an end. The projectionist would fire up the second projector and at the exact second that projector one ran out of film, projector two picked up the slack and threw its light on the screen. As soon as projector two took over, projector one went into rewind. When the rewind was finished, the projectionist would take that rewound reel off the projector and replace that reel with the next reel which would be ready to go on projector one as soon as the film ran out on projector two."

"That's reely interesting" I punned as I felt my focus starting to slip. Julia missed the quip and continued.

"Those were the old days. One theater, one screen, two projectors, one projectionist. My Dad's multiplex has sixteen theaters, only two of which have more than three hundred seats. One has five hundred, the other has four hundred fifty. The other twelve range from one hundred to three hundred, Most of them are three hundred."

"Ya know, Julia, it's funny. I've always wanted to bowl a three hundred game. I think I'd rather bowl a three hundred game than hit a hole in one. It's close though. Which would you prefer"

"I'd prefer that you maintain your focus and let me finish what we started. If that's too much to ask just say so"

Here I was presented with the perfect storm, the ideal situation to use the greatest line of all time. I knew that all I had to do was say, 'Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn' turn my back on Julia and exit stage North. I would have a story for my future wife, my future kids, my future grand-kids maybe even Krell.

And I was pretty sure Julia would sit there, watch me

walk

away

and

say

tomorrow

another

day.

I'm polite. I blinked. Castles made of sand melt into the sea.

Julia continued.

"Nowadays, in the megaplex, we have one projectionist operating eight projectors.This bit of planning saves us seven salaries for starters. That's part of the reason why we stagger the starting times of movies. Another reason is to keep a stready stream of customers passing by the concessions stand".

"Who can watch a movie without popcorn?" I asked.

Julia, at least one step ahead of me answered "And who can eat popcorn, especially popcorn loaded with extra salt and butter, without having a soft drink.?

"I'm getting thirsty just talking about it", I said while glancing at the empty Diet coke in the waste basket and wishing I had more.

"That's why the invention of cup holders in megaplex seats actually saved movies" she said while unfastening her bonnet.

Julia continued.

"The projectionists can change the reels on eight projectors at a time by changing reels on one while the other seven go unattended. This more efficient operation does run the risk that other films not being attended to might snag in the projector and get burnt by the lamp. To prevent this from happening, the projectionists who work for my father routinely expand the gap between the gate that supports the film and the lamp. This provides a margin of safety. It also results in the films being shown out of focus.The higher the population of males between eighteen and twenty five in the opening weekend audience, the greater the gap between the gate and the lamp. Nobody ever complains. Ever."

Whoa. I thought that I was beginning to see the big picture.

I reflected back to Julia's original projection with a question"And you're projecting that we young guys don't complain because we don't know the movies are not in focus because our perception of life itself is out of focus therefore in synch with the out of focus film being projected behind us that shows up in front of us ?."

"Exacata mundo". replied Julia "And there's more. See, Dad's got to save money on projector lamps. Those things cost a grand a pop. The more play we can get from the bulb, the more money we save. So we play the out of focus movies that you guys watch on the projectors with the dimmest lamps.These are the lamps that we should replace but we can use on you guys because you never complain about the darkness or the out of focus projection because we turn the volume ten percent louder in the dim bulb auditorium than we do in the other auditoriums. As long as you guys hear a lot of noise, you don't particularly care what you see. And whatever it is that you're seeing, you don't mind if it's dark as long as it's loud."

The cavalry charge in the background had quieted down for a moment. I hoped the noise would begin again so I could concentrate on what Julia was saying and not be so distracted by looking at her.

Especially without her bonnet.

She was starting to piss me off.

Julia stood up suddenly and took a furtive look North followed by a lingering look South. As she stood, I got another look. Julia was vee shaped, or should I say vee vee shaped with the bottom vee inverted and the top vee tottering precariously on the the bottom vee.

No woman looks like that.

Julia was wearing a corset.

Why not, Scarlett wore one.

Julia was channeling Scarlett .

To my great relief, the calvary in the meadow started another charge. The din helped me relax. I wanted to ask Julia about the corset but didn't know where to start.

I figured that I'd feign innocence and since she was so good at reading my mind maybe she'd take the bait.

" Julia, your dress is beautiful. Is your outfit authentic?"

She smiled infuriatingly and changed the subject.

"Where did you ever get a name like Ovid."

"Well, when I was young, I had a problem with my eyes and......"

Julia interrupted, "don't you have a nickname or something"

"Until Bush got elected, people used to call me by my middle initial....Dubya"

She seemed interested. "And what perchance does the Dubya stand for Ovid?"

"The Dubya stands for Warren. That's my middle name."

Julia repeated my name aloud a couple of times "Ovid Warren Peets hmmmm.Ovid Warren Peets.

I had the feeling she'd get half the puzzle and she did.

"War and Peace. Damn, your last two names are war and peace"

"That's only the half of it" I confessed.

"Explain, Warren" She demanded.

"My first name is Ovid. Ovid was a Roman poet. His most famous poem was The Art of Love. If you put the whole thing together, my name is Art, Love, War and Peace. My father thought that pretty well summed up life"

I could tell Julia was impressed because she shut up for a couple of minutes while she once again stood and looked North and then South.

I tried again. "Is your dress comfortable"

She sat down, smiled her Mona Lisa smile and changed the subject once again. "Have you ever seen the video O, Ovid"

Twenty four hours earlier, Julia was bivouacked in the midst of a huge misunderstanding between the over-all Confederate commander Robert E. Lee and his wife, Barbara 'Bobbi' Roberts'.

Julia had been participating in these encampments semi-willingly since she a was child. Because she no longer felt that she was a child, Julia didn't want to come to these "freak shows" any longer. The dustup began when Julia arrived in civvies and reported directly to the commander.

When the commander asked Julia why she was out of costume, Julia nuclear dumped.

"I'm out of costume because I'm sick and tired of feeding people crappy popcorn at the plex. I never want to have that giant salt shaker in my hand again.I've lifted my last box of Diet pepsi syrup and brewed my last batch of fake pop. I'm tired of Dad, thinking that I'm going to get into the theater business. That business is falling apart.Everybody knows that movies now are nothing more than sneak previews for DVD's and pay TV. Mom wants me to be a seamstress. I can't sew worth a damn. She knows it. I know it"

I'm going to community college now. I'm going there because my grades sucked in high school because I missed way too much school traveling around to these encampments.None of my history teachers gave me any credit for being here.The other teachers just thought encampment was odd; a gathering of live in the past doofusses with too much time on their hands. I'm having trouble keeping up in my classes. There are too many students in all of them, except one and that one has only four students and a weird teacher. There's a guy in that class who wears a glove all the time, who looks like he's got some interesting issues but he doesn't pay any attention to me. I don't like the other two students and I don't know what in hell the teacher is talking about nor how he intends to mark anybody."

By this time, Julia had tears streaming down her face." I can't stand my job. I'm a disappointment to my parents. I'm invisible at school. I have no future plans. I might get thrown out of a flunky college. I'm attracted to a weirdo with a glove who doesn't know I exist.I've come to believe that these encampments that I used to love are egotistical freak shows. I'm not the cute little kid at the camp anymore. I'm a nobody, a nothing."

Lee Lee was a bit conflicted.

Lee Roberts was picking up a snootful of the most alluring perfume emanating from Julia, desperation, vulnerability, sincerity and low self-esteem. This combination of pheremonic emotional aromas has always created an irresistible bouquet for the opportunistic male. Lee Roberts was such an animal.

General Robert E Lee, on the other hand, was all about empathy, action, and healing. General Robert E Lee was a God-like perfect example of man at the zenith of courage,compassion, chivalry, and Confederate culture.

Lee Lee was a combination of both.

So too was Robert Roberts.

The commander put his arms around Julia. She leaned her face against his shoulder. The tears increased. The commander ran his hand soothingly along the back of Julia's head.

"I wish you were wearing your snood", he said.

Julia began to laugh, wondering what that comment would sound like to anyone overhearing the comment who had no idea what a snood was. The commander pulled her in a little tighter. Julia felt safe. She felt protected.

"Why don't we take things one day at a time. Come back here tomorrow. Wear that Scarlett O'Hara curtain dress that I love so much, that we all love."

"But", said Julia, "I have classes tomorrow."

"I figured that you did" said the commander " Here's what you do. wear your dress to the classes. I'm sure you'll get noticed not only by the guy with the glove......"

at the mention of the guy with the glove Julia laughed again

"but also by the other folks in the class. It might even be a good time to ask the teacher about how he determines his grades. You certainly wouldn't look desperate or vulnerable or uh"

Lee Roberts hesitated. He was afraid that he was letting his mask slip.

"Or what?" asked Julia.

"Or lacking in confidence" Lee continued. "Then after class, meet me right here and we'll talk again. Does that sound like a plan"

"You always have such brilliant strategy, General Lee" Julia whisperered even as she was coming up with some strategy of her own.

The rebellious embrace tightened before it relaxed. As they pulled away from one another, Julia brushed her cheek against the beard of Lee. Her lips might have grazed his cheek as they passed.

Maybe more than grazed.

Maybe lightly kissed.

All in the eye of the beholder.

The South had risen again.

Or hadn't.

The General’s wife, Bobbi Roberts had seen the whole thing.

Buxom would have been an understatement. Reubenesque an overstatement. Voluptuous might have worked at one time when Bobbi had curves in places in which other women didn't even have places.

Simplicity is best.

Wide is the word.

Everything about Barbara "Bobbi" Roberts was wide, including her teeth.'Wide and white' is how Bobbi herself described them. She was proud of her teeth. They were her most outstanding physical feature, a feature that demanded maintenance to preserve the sparkle. Bobbi was all about maintenance.

Bobbi was in costume and her costume was flaunting her wideness. Her sleeves were wide. Folds on her bodice lent a further sense of width at the sholders and the bustline. She wore a wide hoop skirt which grew even wider as it descended towards her wide feet. The only thing relatively narrow about Bobbi was her waist which was narrow only in comparison to everything else and emphasized by gathers from her bodice and skirt. The narrowness at the waist only emphasized, by contrast, the width of her sleeves whenever her hands rested at her sides.

Bobbi parted her hair in the middle and her simple flat hairstyle added to the dimension of her width by accentuating the width of her face. She gathered her long hair in a mesh net known as a snood at the nape of what reamined of her retreating neck. Bobbi's snood was ornamented with bows and ribbons.

Bobbi was proud of her snood and also aware that for some reason her snood seemed to, uh shall we say 'invigorate' her husband.

A photograph of women during Civil War times usually caught the subjects with their lips tightly closed, often to conceal poor teeth. Bobbi's lips were tightly closed even though her teeth were far from poor. Bobbi's lips were closed because she was furious at what her eyes beheld as she looked through the window of the cabin in the park, the imaginary headquarters.

Her husband, the so-called commander, was hugging and kissing some young hussy in civvies. Since the slut was in civvies, there was no way that Lee could justify his action as part of his duties as Commander. The dirty, cheating son of a bitch was whispering some indiscretion to that little crying/laughing harlot. Probably trying to arrange a slimy rendezvous for more intense cradle robbing.

Bobbi bided her time. She watched as the embrace ended with, what was that? was that a kiss?. She resisted the urge to barge into the cabin while the strumpet was still in residence. She would wait until the whore left then she would charge into that cabin and make life living hell for the commander, which she proceeded to do.

Besides her teeth, Bobbi had two other major assets that she could use like her teeth as weapons, tools or adornments. Bobbi had a voluminous vocabulary and could wield that weapon with deadly, withering lucidity. Bobbi didn't need the eff word and had contempt for those who did. She used the language precisely rather than inarticulately to express her rage.

Bobbi was an inveterate reader of Miss Manners and was excruciatingly aware of correct behavior. This was asset number two. When Bobbi synthesized the two; withering lucidity with excruciating observation, the results were devastating.

Julia was not devastated. Julia was a lot like Bobbi except far younger and far narrower and not so well teethed. Julia was likewise a fan of Miss Manners. Julia also eschewed profanity in her discourse. Julia was not convinced of her innocence. She was going to have to convince herself with her spoken words. Julia leapt to her own defense.

"Mrs Roberts, you're advice is well taken but superfluous. I've made a habit of faking delight at worthless presents during Christmas time. I've radiated faux pleasure in the success of my competitors. I've expressed curiosity about the lives of the terminally boring who don't have much of a life for anyone to be curious about. Perhaps I did step over the line in my sharing with your husband and for that I am sorry. I hope you will accept my apology."

Bobbi, astonished at Julia's response, had an unexpected autonamous response. She succumbed to an inevitable natural phenomena. She burped.

Inexcusable.

Julia was aware that Bobbi had burped even as Bobbi attempted to cover the burp by treating it as if it were a cough. Bobbi formed the fingers of her hand into a wide fist and placed the thumbside of that fist against her mouth.

"Excuse me" said Bobbi, still pretending that the burp was a cough but aware that Julia probably knew the difference.

"There's no need to for me to excuse you, Mrs Roberts. Society recognizes the necessity of breathing and ingesting but ignores digestion as much as possible. I take digestion as a natural consequence of ingestion. Life is all about inclusion, exclusion and toleration. Sometimes we can not tolerate what we include and our bodies stammer before they exclude. Wouldn't you agree, Mrs Roberts?"

" That's true" said the General's wife who found herself starting to like the girl in the Scarlett O'Hara costume "And of the three, inclusion, exclusion and toleration, we spend most of our time in toleration. Our main troubles occurs when we attempt to include someone or something that we should have merely tolerated or completely avoided"

Jula nodded in agreement and prepared to explain the projected "kiss".

General Lee, meanwhile, had reached the meadow and was continuing to head North.

At the same time, a few clicks further North,Ovid grabbed his submarine sandwich and Diet Coke before booking out of his car which he had just parked after a weird morning with Krell.

Before Julia could begin her explanation of the projected kiss, she was surprised that Mrs. Roberts broke the silence first.

"On the subject of tolerance, we must be careful not to abandon our sense of right and wrong only to preserve transparent tranquility passing as toleration. We must not become doormats in a perpetual state of forgiving. We need not accept every apology. Or is this what forgive and forget is all about, pride swallowing and resignation?"

"No, Mrs Roberts, if that were the case, we wouldn't need forgive and forget, we'd just need forget. There are two parts to that equation and we can always do one without the other. Surely, you have forgotten situations that you didn't choose to forgive. I know that I have. I don't want to load up my mind with those troubling distractions so I let them go. Still, I don't want to pass off toleration as absent-mindedness."

Bobbi Roberts was impressed by Julia yet not quite won over. "My dear, a few minutes ago, you apologized to me. You asked for my forgiveness. Doesn't that indicate some guilt on your part. Why else would you ask for forgiveness. How can I forgive you for something that you haven't done? Something that I clearly haven't forgotten? What does forgiveness mean to you?"

Julia thought for a moment. She was not afraid of wait time.

"Forgiveness, Mrs. Roberts, is a contract. Forgiveness is a two part deal. Forgiveness is a response to an apology. Just as we have become a society unwilling to pretend happiness, we have also become a society unwilling to apologize. Without apology, there can be no forgiveness. We have become an unforgiving society filled with unforgiven members. And no, you should not assume my guilt because of my willingness to apologize. In a more tolerant world, a more forgiving world accidents or mistakes, even those obviously lacking in ill will or intention, would require an apology. That is the reason why I once again ask your forgiveness. I am prepared to explain my lack of ill will if you require that as a condition of your forgiveness"

Once again Julia was ready to explain the projected kiss.

Further North, Ovid saluted General Lee as the cavalry prepared to charge.

Bobbi was by now genuinely impressed.

"There is no need for further explanation. I accept your apology.You are a young woman of great promise. Futhermore, the quality of mercy is not strained.......

"It falleth as the gentle rain from heaven" Julia continued. Both women laughed. The storm clouds disappeared. Sunshine appeared over the meadow.

'Thank God for Shakespeare' Julia thought to herself in the momentary silence that ensued.

Julia knew the etiquette of social kissing but she was relieved that she didn't have to review that etiquette with Mrs. Roberts, the wife of the man with whom Julia had tested the boundaries of that etiquette. She was sure that Mrs Roberts knew the same rules that she did and that any misstep might bring back the storm or even worse, the whirlwind.

Julia knew that five areas were available in the realm of acceptable social kissing: the lips, the right cheek only, the right cheek followed by the left cheek and/or the hand. Julia knew that when she pulled away from her embrace with General Lee that she had perhaps kissed his right cheek. Even if she had for sure kissed his right cheek, that indulgence would fall safely within the boundaries of acceptable ettiquette.

Julia also knew that as the woman in the embrace, it was her privilege and not General Lee's to initiate a public kiss on the lips. Julia was aware that if she presented her lips by tilting her face upward without moving it to either side, any gentleman would have no choice but to accept her offering. Especially if she closed her eyes after fluttering her lashes amidst the face tilt. General Lee was without a doubt such a gentleman. Any such offering would have been enthusiastically accepted. Julia was certain of that consequence.

Julia remembered that she had considered that posture and for the sake of propriety had decided against it. This recollection nearly enabled Julia to rationalize her peck on the cheek of General Lee as an innocent expression of affection.

Nearly but not completely.

Julia did have the remnants of a nagging self-suspicion. Had she loaded up an extra thrill charge on the peck? She suspected that she had.

She needed a further demonstration of her innocence along with a reason to get away from Mrs Roberts while the getting was still good.

That's when Julia spotted Ovid as he walked past the meadow and headed for the bench.

"Please excuse me, Mrs Roberts, but that's my boyfriend over there with the sandwich. He said he'd come over here today and there he is"

Bobbi was relieved that Julia had such a young boyfriend. She chuckled at the foolishness of her own suspicion that one as young as Julia would be in any way interested in one as much older as her husband.

"Oh, he's cute" Bobbi lied. "Go over and greet him right now. We'll talk later"

"I'll take my leave then" said Julia and started heading over to Ovid.

The old and reliable fake boy friend trick had seemingly worked again but Julia was going to need an almost immediate hug and maybe even a subsequent kiss from Ovid to seal the illusion. She didn't think that would present much of a problem.

Meanwhile Ovid was trying to grasp the difference between cavalry and calvary.

Julia surprised me by giving me a quick hug as if I were her boyfriend.

At that very instant I realized that Julia and I were totally different. Her embrace felt to me like the kind of embrace a cat would throw on a mouse if the cat and the mouse were about the same size and if they were standing on their hind legs and if the cat was wearing Scarlett O'Hara gear and the mouse had just finished eating a submarine. The mouse might try to put his arms around the cat but since the arms of the cat are so much longer than the arms of the mouse, his embrace would be considerably less determined than hers; as was my embrace of Julia.

Even as I held on loosely I could sense that Julia was not above stealing apples to get her free ride to skull island. I thought she might look real good strapped to a stone altar. I figured that she was the kind of woman who would make a tiny man live in a dollhouse until she accidentally knocked him down the cellar stairs and assumed he was lost in the flood.

That's when I sensed her moving away from our embrace. That's when I felt her lips brush against my right cheek.That's when she lifted her chin, tilted back her head, fluttered her eyelashes and closed her eyes.

I'm no gentleman.

I did the same thing.

As we both tilted our heads in opposite directions, I had a moment to think. If a photographer came by and snapped a picture of the two of us at that instant, the picture might look as if we were praying.

I know this is true because a photographer did snap a picture at that moment and a week later it was published in the paper above the caption, Prayer in the Meadow. In the picture Julia looks a lot like a female praying mantis.I look like the male mantis who an hour earlier had been telling his mantis friends "Man, I'd love to be torn limb from limb by that."

Back in real time, I opened my eyes, looked down at Julia with her pursed lips and realized that I had one more chance. This time, I took it.

"No, I don't think I will kiss you, although you need kissing, badly. That's what's wrong with you. You should be kissed and often, and by someone who knows how."

Julia whispered "But Dubya, I need a little kiss right now"

Damn, she had given me yet another opportunity. I took it.

"That's your misfortune".

I broke from her embrace and started heading North.

I resisted the urge to turn around for one final look at Julia. I figured that she figured that tomorrow would be another day.

As I neared the parking lot, I once again encountered General Lee, who was heading South. He was heading back towards the battle ground. Once again I saluted.

"I've been thinking about your cat story", said the General, "that must have been one bigass cat"

"I imagine it was"

General Lee straightened himself into his full height. Dude was tall.

I felt myself growing smaller.

"That fool dog must have made the mistake of getting between the big cat and her kittens. That strategic position is a must to avoid whether it's cats or humans; individuals or armies" observed Lee Roberts. "Sometimes, it's not the size of the dog in the fight or the size of the fight in the dog, it's the size of the fight in the cat in the dogfight"

"Cats are cats. Dogs are dogs. As a rule, they don't get along. Cats and dogs are not people" I saluted again looking to be discharged.

"That's right Johnny. We are the people" concluded Lee Roberts as he dismissively and somewhat doggedly returned my salute.

I'd heard that one somewhere before.

General Lee went South. I went North. I recaptured my car, put it into reverse and then pointed it towards my apartment.

By the time I got home, I was ready for some serious tube. I hit the couch, grabbed the remote and checked the guide. The Incredible Shrinking Man was going to start in five minutes. I locked in and flashed back.

When my brother was a baby, my parents got their first VCR. My folks had a lot of chores to do around the farm so he did a lot of solitary playpen time. They'd stash him in the pen, turn on the VCR and go about their business. Our VCR collection of movies consisted of two; King Kong and The Incredible Shrinking Man. I used to stand by his pen and watch those flicks over and over again. My parents tell me that by the time he was three, I must have seen each of those movies over a hundred times each.

I’ve seen each of them at least 50 times.

As a matter of fact, as I was driving away from Julia and General Lee I did what I usually do when times get complicated, I started thinking about Scott Carey, The Incredible Shrinking Man.

I wondered what kind of vision Scott had. I wondered if Scott's wife could hear him yelling when she booted him down the cellar stairs. I understood once again, why cats are not my favorite animals. I recalled the terrifying strength of spiders.

I know a thing or two about eyes. I know that we need light to see. I know that the amount of light we recieve is determined by the size of our retina. When Scott Carey grew smaller, I assume that the size of his retina grew smaller in proportion to the rest of his dome. Otherwise, Scott would have been an eyeball, way beyond 'bulging', atop tiny legs scurrying around the floor. Scott's body would have been eighty percent eyeball We would have had an even more horribly absurd movie, particularly if somehow during the scurry, the bulging eyeball with feet had blinded itself which under the circumstances was probably inevitable

I imagined an observer of the scurrying impaired eyeball watching as the miniscule monster ricocheted from wall to wall. "Oh, my God, what could be worse than to be just an eye" , the observer might say to his companion who might reply "well, it could be blind" which in this case it would have been

which wasn't of course

the case in the uh movie.

The case in the movie was that Scott had normally proportioned retinas about seventy times smaller than the retinas he had before he started shrinking which means that he was stumbling around with hardly any light flying through the pinhole of his retina. Just think how scary everything is in the semi-darkness, especially the blurry semi-darkness. Scott's blur was infinitely more dark and out of focus than any projector Julia might try to imagine.

Although there were a lot of loud noises.

Besides the cat and the spider and his wife's high heels, Scott had to deal with perpetual semi-darkness.

And as his vocal chords shrunk, his ability to generate sound waves also shrunk. I'm sure that Scott was screaming his head off at his wife before she kicked him down the stairs and equally sure that she couldn't hear a sound he was screaming which may have been just as well because with diminished hammer, anvil and stirrup, he wouldn't have been able to understand her reply any more than we are able to make out the words in thunder.

Is Thunder really Godspeak for "it's raining".

Hmmm.

This of course made me think about ants. Are they trying to yell something at us as we step on them? Are we huge, incomprehendible thunderhead blurs in a dark world trampling upon them even as they warn us about their homes and their children and the work that has to be done?

I think not. They're different from Scott Carey. They never shrank.

The movie started. I watched it again for the first time in at least ten years.

I realized how much I had grown.

RETURN TO KRELL”S CLASS

" Phi, Chi, sigh, omega"

Haylen smiled. She had completed the Greek alphabet twice on one match. She hadn't even glanced at her notes.

While Krell nodded at Haylen; Arthur, Julia and I exchanged glances that screamed " we're the bozos on this bus".

A moment later, according to my notes, Krell started in about Socrates.

"Socrates was born in 469 BC and lived until 399 BC. If you do the math, you'll see that Socrates died when he was only thirty two years old. Go ahead and do the math and find out for yourself."

I did the math.

We did the math.

No problem. Socrates was only thirty two when he died.

Then Haylen raised her hand.

Problem.

"Mr. Krell, according to my math. Socrates was seventy when he died."

"Seventy, Haylen?" Krell raised his eyebrow.

I thought maybe the three of us were geting off the bozo bus or at least making room on board for Haylen.

Haylen continued. "Yes sir. In this case, the count is backward rather than forward. Socrates wasn't one year old in 470 BC. 470 BC was also 1 BS."

Krell seemed not only to understand but also to be entertained. "What, may I ask for the good of the class, is 1 BS?"

"Sure" responded Haylen. " 1 BS is one year before the birth of Socrates. Socrates was born in 469 BC. One year before his birth, the year would have been 470 BC not 468. In 468 Socrates would have been one year old. Of course, he didn't know the year was 470 or 468 or anything BC. Nobody had any idea when Christ would be born or who Christ was or why Christ would be important or why their very birthdays would be determined by the future son of a carpenter"

"Very true, Haylen. Now how does your counting backward mechanism work" asked Krell.

"It took sixty nine years to get from 469BC to 400 BC. Then you add one more for 399 and that leaves you with seventy. Socrates lived to be seventy"

I did the math. Haylen was absolutely correct.

"Do the math again and you'll find that Haylen is absolutely correct. You should also learn to think carefully about anything that your teacher says. Particularly if that teacher is I" said Krell.

At that moment because I had done what Krell had said before he said it, I felt like an Advanced Placement Bozo. I was still on the bus but I was moving a couple of seats closer to the driver.

"Before we go any further, does anybody know anything else about ancient Greece that would be illuminating for the class to consider?" Krell asked.

The usual silence followed.

The usual silence was followed by the usual two follow ups. "Anybody?.....Anything"

I was feeling pretty smart in a stupid way so I decided to step up.

"Yeah, that's where the first French fries were made"

Julia, got all over that observation. "No they weren't they were made in France. That's why we call them French fries"

Krell came to my rescue.

"Wherever they were made, they were indisputably made in Grease. Good one Ovid"

Haylen laughed out loud.

Arthur and Julia were pissed.

I probably should have quit when I was ahead but instead I tried one more.

"And judging from what I remember about Paris, that grease would have been awesomely ancient "

Krell laughed again. Haylen out laughed Krell. Good thing she wasn't drinking milk.

Julia lightened up a little.

Arthur must have felt marginalized because he responded with a snarky comment to Krell which he read from a three by five index card. "My father told me that Socrates, despite his place in history, was over-rated. He actually wrote nothing because in essence he felt that knowledge was a living, interactive thing. Most of what we know of him comes from the historical inaccuracy and misinterpretation found in the works of Plato and later Thomas Aquinas."

Krell answered " Well Arthur, your father seems like quite a smart man. I imagine he's had a great influence on your life. There's a lot of truth in what he says but like all truths it bears closer examination"

Arthur seemed to wince at the mention of paternal influence.

Krell continued.

"First of all, let's deal with the concept of over-rated and let's consider the list of the over-rated. I'll bring up a few: Shakespeare, Caesar, Elvis, Lincoln, Marie Curie, Eleanor Roosevelt, Meryl Streep, the Beatles,Amelia Earhart Picasso, Da Vinci, Rosa Parks, Muhammad Ali, Katherine Hepburn, Mother Theresa. All may be considered over-rated simply because they are famous. Fame is an integral part of iconic over-rating. How can you be over-rated unless you're famous? Nobody's gonna over-rate Sid Gertner, the guy who lent Lincoln the pen that Abraham used to write the Gettysburg Address. Where would we be today if at that moment of inspiration, Gertner didn't have a pen. The reason nobody's going to over rate Gertner is because nobody knows that Sid, performing one of the millions of unnoticeded acts of kindness that characterize human behavior lent the pen to Lincoln in the first place.”

Krell write SID GERTNER on the board and continued

"Of course, you might say that since I identified Gertner and Gertner is long departed, he must be somewhat famous and thus susceptible to be over-rated. The problem is that I don't know whether or not Gertner gave Lincoln the pen. Somebody probably did. That somebody has been totally forgotten by history so just because I name that somebody Gertner doesn't mean that Gertner becomes a figure of historical importance although I'm sure that exact mechanism has occurred in history many times over.”

Kell wrote OBSCURITY on the board and continued

"Even when that somebody, like Gertner, might not have existed at all at least under that name.We remain alive as long as anyone who ever knew us or knew of us remains alive. The people who live the longest are those who have created enduring works of art or who have had enduring works of art created about them or who are simply remembered by the most people.These people are famous. These people may end up over-rated.Socrates was such a one as for that matter was Plato and Aquinas. So Arthur, I agree with your Dad about part one."

Krell paused.

PLAY MEATBALL

Ya know how when you go to concerts there's always some doofus yelling out for the performer to play their most overplayed song as if the performer doesn't realize that people want to hear the overplayed song and no matter how much he hates playing the overplayed song over and over again, he's going to have to play it some time during the show and he's already figured out when and where it will fit into the program that will cause him the least discomfort and cessation of creative momentum? Usually that place will be at the very end of the show when the artist can't put it off any longer and where momentum can mercifully end.

Ya know the guy standing fifteen feet away from Dylan after Dylan opens his show with Maggie's Farm who starts yelling for Like a Rolling Stone as if Dylan is not going to play that song.

Or even worse, the guy who starts yelling for "Blowin' in the Wind". Ya know, the guy who has never heard Visions of Johanna but knows every word to Blowin in the Wind and has come to the show for a hootenanny after walking down many roads that have led him to the conclusion that he can indeed call himself a man. And his wife next to him, the woman who married him anyway, who somehow thinks Dylan is going to sing Puff the Magic Dragon or If I were a Carpenter.

Whenever I hear one of those guys, I try to balance out their request by yelling out a request for a song that nobody knows, not even the artist because the song doesn't exist. I picked out a title for this imaginary song, a title unlike any title I have ever heard for a song. The title of the non-existent song that I yell out for the artist to play after a nimrod has just yelled out the name of the artist's most overplayed song, the title of that song is MEATBALL.

I yell out "PLAY MEATBALL".

I've even gone so far as to light my lighter while yelling out PLAY MEATBALL. I've even been pro-active and yelled PLAY MEATBALL before the other guy has yelled out say PLAY BORN TO RUN at a Springsteen show.

Once, sweet Jesus, I was in the front row for a Neil Diamond show with a single ticket that I had won after accidentally being the seventeeth caller. I knew the blue hair next to me would be screaming for "Sweet Caroline" so the instant that Neil took the stage I beat her to the punch by yelling "PLAY MEATBALL". Neil heard me. I think he put a mental comma after "play" so he heard "PLAY,MEATBALL" before he had song a note or strummed his guitar.

Neil was more puzzled then pissed.

So was the blue hair next to me.

Who, now that I think about it, looked a lot like Barabra Bush.

But that's unusual.

Usually, the people around me look at me as if I know something that they don't know which might even indicate that I am an actual "friend of the band" because actual friends of the band are always yelling out things to their friends in the band that nobody but the guys in the band or the friends of the band understand. The old fake in-joke trick.

Those who don't mistake me for an actual friend of the band often regard me as an expert on the band because only an expert on the band would know such an obscure title as MEATBALL and have the insight expressed through his bellowing to suggest to the performer who may have forgotten the song that the exact instant of the yell would be a great time to reach into an ancient bag of tricks, to redistribute the stones in the kaleidoscope by twisting the barrel in a new-old fashioned way.

I usually get a lot of respect when I yell PLAY MEATBALL.

After Krell's bit about the torches in response to Julia's snit fit, I wanted to yell PLAY MEATBALL to see if I could get him back on track but since this was a college class and not a concert I decided to do a variation of PLAY MEATBALL.

I yelled out

"What about Socrates"

Krell continued

"Ovid's response is a perfect example of what we call in education 'a window of instructional opportunity'. In show biz, that's referred to as giving the people what they want or putting the light on the star. Apparently, Ovid wants me to get on with the story of Socrates which is what I wanted to do in the first place but hesitated to do so because I felt as if the venetian blinds were covering the windows and then when we started down the road, we had to take a small detour at the straw man. The good teacher, of which I'm sure Socrates was one, recognizes these windows of instructional opportunity when they arise and usesthem to the advantage of the class. So on we go with Socrates.”

Arthur whispere4d loudly to Haylen.”I gotta here THIS.”

Krell continued

"Socrates as a child wasn't handsome but he was probably rich which is a trade off many of us would accept. We assume that he came from a prosperous family because as a young man he had enough leisure time available to master the philosophy of his era.The emerging philosphy consisted largely of various attempts to provide scientific explanations for the origin and structure of the universe. This wasn't going too well because we still hadn't discovered that what goes up must come down and just about everything else regarding science including the concept that the sun rather than the earth was the center of our astronomical system and that the Milky Way is composed of an infinite number of stars and the Milky Way is one of an infinite number of solar systems and that man might not be the center and purpose of the universe. Of course, Galileo added much of that information two thousand years after Socrates and the great Italian scientist was immediately confronted with a mob carrying torches who took him to the Inquisition where the Pope made him promise that he wouldn't tell anybody that the earth moves.”

Krell wrote Pope on the board and continued.

"A smart guy like Socrates could see right off the bat that lots of problems existed within the emerging scientific explanations but he also understood that they were much better than the mythological explanations that were prevalent in his time.It's not clear what levels of academic success Socrates attained in his study of science or physical philosophy but we do know that by the start of the Pelopennesian War which occurred when Socrates was in his mid thirties, he had abandoned physical philosophy and began the examination of conduct that he would continue for the rest of his life.Apparently that transition which began with alienation from science was precipitated by Socrates' interpretation of an inquiry directed to the oracle of Apollo at Delphi by an Athenian named Chaerephon. According to the oracle.........."

Julia again.

"How do you spell that last name that you mentioned. The guy who asked the question of the oracle. It sounds like 'chair on a phone but I'm sure it's not spelled that way."

Then Arthur

"And how do you spell the name of the war that was going on when Socrates was in his thirties"

Krell wrote Chaerephon and Pelopennesian on the board.

Then Julia again

"And, uh, isn't the Milky Way a galaxy and not a solar system?"

Krell heard Julia's question with his back.

When he finished writing the two words on the board, he turned and faced the class.

"Solar system or galaxy, what's the difference?" Krell shrugged his shoulders as if he had been asked to explain the difference between an aardvark and an anteater.

Julia answered. "I should think there would be quite a huge difference as a solar system is part of a galaxy which means a galaxy is bigger than a solar system"

Arthur chimed in. "yeah, and a solar system is smaller than a galaxy"

Krell responded, "Thank you two for overstating the obvious. I was being metaphysical which is of course unfair because you guys still don't know what metaphysics is."

This response fired Arthur's obsession with definition. "Well then, Mr. Krell, can you finally give us a definition of metaphysics"

"Arthur, I can give you a definition of metaphysics but that definition by definition can not be the defintion of metaphysics. Voltaire said 'when he that speaks and he to whom he speaks, neither of them understand what is meant, that is metaphysics '

I thought I understood so I yelled out "I don't understand what you mean"

To which Krell joyfully responded "And I don't understand what you mean when you say you don't understand what I mean"

To which Haylen, who had been quiet since her Greek alphabet recitation at the beginning of the class, added "Eureka. At last we arrive at an example of Voltairean metaphysics, if I am understanding you both incorrectly"

Krell was obviously pleased with the lesson. The venetian blinds were opening and the sun was streaming into the consciousness of at least three of us in the room.

Krell continued.

"I always consider solar systems and galaxies to be similar because of the beach. When I walk on the beach, I realize that there are as many stars in our solar system as there are grains of sand on all the sandy beaches of our planet. The sun is one of those grains of sand. Our grain of sand is surrounded by by nine planets, thirty one moons, thousands of planetoids, millions of comets, innumberable meteoroids and vast quantitities of interpplanetary dust and gas. Can you grasp that Ovid"

"No I can't grasp that Mr, Krell"

"Excellent, then I will continue. Our grain of sand, our sun, appears toward the outer rim of our galaxy in which there are billions of other grains of sand like our sun, millions of which are surrounded by moons, planetoids, comets, meteorites and are thus known as solar systems. Now we continue walking down the beach and pick up yet another grain of sand and realize that there are as many galaxies out there in the universe as there are grains of sand on all the beaches on our planet. Every time that we increase the magnitude of our telescopes we discover more galaxies which means the number of galaxies may well be infinite which is even more galaxies than grains of sand. And the universe is expanding and with each expansion more beaches, more grains of sand. Can you comprehend what I'm saying Haylen"

"No sir, I can not comprehend the enormity of what you are saying," answered Haylen.

Julia again, "I can clearly understand what you're saying. You're asking what's the difference between a solar system and a galaxy and you're answering your own question by saying 'hey they're both grains of sand on the grand scale of things so what's the diff'. That's what you are saying"

Krell again

"Thank you Julia because what you are saying is a perfect example of exactly what I've been saying but I don't suppose you understand why it is such a perfect example"

Julia again, "No, I don't"

Krell again, "You're learning"

"But what is it that I'm learning?" Julia wanted to know.

"Julia, if you had understood me a little less correctly, I would guess that you had learned something about the way we as humans misinterpret the consequentiality of the physical and have therefore embraced the metaphysical.Certainly, it's fine to deny the immensity of the physical as defined by the incomprehensibility of the cosmic but all of that changes the moment someone hits you in the face with a rock.A rock is not theoretical. A rock is nothing but a fact.And as far as an abstract idea like freedom goes, my freedom to throw a rock ends where your freedom to have a face begins. Once we have defined the actual boundaries of an abstract idea like 'freedom' we can begin to explore the consequences of another abstract idea known as 'justice'.. Both 'freedom' and 'justice' are based upon the shaky alliance between the abstact and the concrete"

I decided I better try to get this locomotive back on track. "Metaphysics rawks. Rawk on Sawkrates"

Krell took the hint and returned to Chair on a phone.

"When Chaerophon inquired at the shrine of oracle of Apollo at Delphi, he was informed that "no man was wiser than Socrates". Chaerophon passed this message to Socrates. Socrates knew that Apollo could not lie but he also knew that he himself possessed no great wisdom. Thus Socrates arrived at the riddle that would inspire him for the rest of his life.”

"I look at the clock and realize that our time together today is just about up. The sand has passed through the hour glass so to speak. I'll save the riddle that haunted Socrates for next time. Any questions?"

"Yes," said Julia. "Let's imagine that you are the oracle at Delphi and I am Chaerophon. My question Mighty Apollo is this, who is the smartest person in this class?"

Krell stepped right into the role " no one is wiser in this class, no one is wiser in this college, no one is wiser in this city, no one is wiser in this state, no one is wiser in this country than ........."

Krell made eye contact with everyone in the room

"No

One

Wiser

Than

Ovid."

I was more stunned than anyone in the class when Krell made his observation. I lingered around after class to see if I could get some validation from Krell about the seriousness of his remark. Julia was hanging around too, pretending to organize her notes but in reality, trying to make sure that I wouldn't get a moment with Krell.

Krell was getting edgy.

He looked at the both of us and asked "are you guys ready to get outta here"

Julia scurried out of the room without a word.

Now me and Krell were alone.

"Did you mean what you said when you were pretending to be Apollo?" I asked Krell.

Krell on his way out the door, turned back and said, "Does a bear shit in the woods?"

Then he was gone.

I left the room right behind Krell. I was thinking about bears and wisdom. Grizzly bears in particular. Grizzly bears are my favorite animal for a lot of reasons but the most outstanding reason is that Grizzly Bears have the ability to walk backwards in their own footprints for up to two and a half miles in order to confuse whomever/whatever is tracking them.

I started imagining, not for the first time, this gigantic ferocious grizzly bear somehow picking up one foot after another then stepping backwards daintily with that ponderous paw/claw and placing it exactly claw for claw in the track it had made leading up to the retreat. It's like bear moon-walking which certainly must befuddle, astonish and amuse whatever is tracking the bear.

And the next question is, of course, how and why did bears learn this distinctive survival trick. How often in the wild is something actually tracking a bear and what, if not a guy with a gun, could that something be? A grizzly bear is at the top of the food chain. You'd have to be an awesomely hungry cougar to be tracking a bear. Moose freak out at the tiniest whiff of bear crap. It's obviously not Bullwinkle tracking the bear. So if it's not a man or a moose or a cougar and the maneuver has been around long enough to turn the moonwalk behavior into an instinct, then who in hell is tracking a grizzly?

The only answer I could come up with was dinosaur.

I know there's a few billion years difference in the time these species blundered through their respective forrests but what else would bears be intimidated by enough to learn how to walk backwards in their own tracks to confuse whatever was theoretically threatening them.

And furthermore, what happened when the bear moonwalked all the way back to where he was face to ass with whatever was tracking him, what's the bears plan? To attack the dinosaur with its ass?

I wondered if this constituted wisdom.

Learning to walk backwards in our own tracks until we confront our imaginary Jurassic enemies with our asses at which point we back asswards attack?

I also knew that bears hibernate most of the winter.

So the answer to Krell's exit question which was his answer to my question is this:

It depends on the time of the year.

DUMMY AT STANFORD

Who knows where Krell would have ended up it if not for the ankle of Lou Henry Hoover?

Krell knew that without Paladin, Krell would have never become the Krell that he became. Krell also knew that without Richard Boone, Paladin would not have become the Paladin that he became. Krell also knew that without Paladin, Richard Boone would not have become the Richard Boone that he became.

Boone might not have become Paladin if he hadn't been thrown out of Stanford.

Boone had enrolled at Stanford in 1934. He went out for the boxing team and was one heluva good light-heavyweight. These were the golden days of fraternities and Boone became a member of Theta Xi. One day, the brothers of Theta had nothing to do and no particular place to go. They collected a bunch of rags and bottles. They used the rags and bottles to create a life size dummy. They covered the dummy with ketchup and threw the thing in the road in front of the fraternity houser to be hit by the first car that passed.

Sure enough, the first car that passed hit the dummy.

After the collision, the intimidating Boone ran into the street and began shreiking "You've killed my brother" at the innocent, terrified driver.

The driver panicked and sprang from her car to confront both Boone and the dummy. She slipped on some of the fake blood and sprained her ankle, much to the delight of the frat boys watching from a safe distance.

The woman with the sprained ankle, the innocent, terrified driver turned out to be Lou Henry Hoover; the wife of ex-president Herbert Hoover.

"A chicken in every pot and a car in every garage" and a fake dummy getting run over by the former first lady's car when she takes that car out of the garage for a leisurely spin around campus.

Boone was expelled from Stanford soon after the foolish incident.

If Boone had some particular place to go that day at Stanford, he might not have gone on to become Paladin. If he had not become Paladin, Krell might not have become Krell.

If Krell had not become Krell many, many other incidents would not have occurred including the incident that sent a kid named Ovid from the classroom one day, contemplating the possibility that he was the smartest guy in town.

And all of the rest of that saga.

Thank God for Herbert Hoover.

0 notes

fbe7784-blog · 5 years

Text

A Road Story; or, Satori in Wisconsin

Seven seven eighty-four. Thirty-five years on and it still rates as the momentous experience in my life. Certainly it never crossed my mind as we piled into Boisson’s Chevette to head for the Ticketron outlet that I’d still remember that day; it was a pretty astounding twenty-four hours, and I’ve probably been trying to figure out what exactly happened ever since.

In classic fashion, we (Mike, Kent, and myself) left without tickets, camping gear, sustenance, and, as it turned out, a bowl. At least we had money enough for lawn seats and doses. We made a quick stop to see if our friend Ben wanted to come along (which he did, leaving a note on the fridge: “Mom-- went to see the Dead. Be back later”), and then we were off to Southlake Mall for the tickets. Later on I would discover how easy we’d had it, walking in the day of the show and getting four tickets for $40 or so, but at that time it was just another errand. As I recall we stopped off at Hegewisch Records too, but we didn’t have enough cash for even the cheapest paraphernalia (why no papers? you ask; I have no idea). I recall the sun shining in a bright blue sky, tunes on the deck, and the summer air blowing through the windows as we made our way out of Indiana, around Chicago, through Illinois and into Wisconsin: a thoroughly uneventful trip to Alpine Valley. Along the way, we tried to work around our lack of an implement using the car’s cigarette lighter as a modified chillum with a decided lack of success. No matter though, it would all work out.

Arrival at the venue proved mind-boggling. From the instant we drove into the lot I felt a very real sense of dropping through a trap door into an alternate or parallel world, truly terra incognita. I mean, I’d seen a few longhairs and stereotypical potheads, but never this kind of display-- it was like stumbling onto some hidden alien hideout, with a mix of bikers and frat boys, Renn Faire extras and Computer Lab weirdoes, fools and fakirs, cowboys, grits, and hippies straight out of Central Casting. I distinctly remember gawking at one freak merrily bopping along the lane between parking areas and his extremely amused reaction to my open-mouthed staring: he shook his head with a grinning laugh and wagged his finger at me as he sing-song-ed “You don’t know what’s going to happen!” He had my number.

We finally parked and in the first bit of weirdness discovered that we were right next to friends of mine from Earlham College: Kevin, Marti, and oddly enough Matt, with whom I had done the “New Wave and Punk” radio program my freshman year. I think Blind Bob was with them too. A completely unplanned happening and a total surprise! Introductions all around, cold Wiedeman’s handed out, and attempts at orientation made. We had parked in the front lot, fairly close to the theater’s entrance, and it was a pretty lively scene; lots of vending and general hustle and bustle going on. I turned around and Mike handed me two hits of Red Saucer bought from a passer-by (“fresh dipped, three days outta’ Berkeley, man!”), some for K and B and we were set-- down the hatch and here we go!

The first waves started as I sat on the front bumper of my friends’ car, watching the continual flow of people headed to the show. I became aware of a non-stop susurrus as all the beautiful hippie women drifted by and then a slight echo or ebbing and flowing of white noise from the sounds of voices calling greetings or advertising wares; I felt illogical movements throughout my body like I was inflating and respiring in a rhythm that was picked up and repeated by everyone and everything I looked at. I found myself unable to speak and quick check of my traveling companions found them equally stymied in that capacity. My older/wiser college friends laughed their asses off as I tried to explain in some sort of lobotomized, molasses-covered mime language to a wandering sticker-saleswoman that, in fact, I had no money and would be unable to purchase her wares. She was considerably less amused.

The flow of people toward the gates had increased and it became almost synchronized, like some sort of huge Busby Berkeley number, or a Fleischer Brothers cartoon in vivid pulsing colors. I looked in the direction of the gates and was amazed to see a dome-like dark purple glow emanating from just beyond the fence, as if some huge extra-terrestrial craft had descended, pulling the earth towards its base, and now, as my more mobile friends assured me, it was time for us to enter that dome. A crush of bodies as we got nearer, a rush of babel and laughter and flashes and flickers of faces and feet, a whirring tempest of flesh and sweat and teeth, and still the inhalation and exhalation of all creation keeping pace with mine, increasing until they were indistinguishable and then suddenly we were through the turnstiles and onto the cool humid grass sloping down towards the stage.

There’s a definite feeling that’s unique to the lawn at Alpine. It’s hard to pin down with just words, but my memory of it is always the rustling paper buzz of cicadas, the stillness of the air as it darkens with twilight, heavy with midsummer moisture, and a permeating vapor of organics, the bubbling smells of mushrooms and bark and leaves. That great stretch of lawn, dotted with blankets and, yes, even picnic baskets and coolers, conversation volumes bouncing between raucous jubilation and whispering anticipation, and again the distant sound of little bells and bare feet whisking through the grass. There are fireflies in my memory but they probably didn’t come out until later. Lots of people didn’t like the venue for various reasons but I’ve got nothing but great memories of the place and the various shows I saw there. It really is a special place.

We finally sat down in a spot about halfway down the slope and now the first really big wave arrived. The angle of the hill seemed to increase dramatically, and the cheerfully echoing tintinnabulation morphed into the ceaseless brass clangor of a thousand temple gongs. Everything outside of a ten-foot radius began to smear slightly as friends and neighbors passed in and out of sight. The initial strangeness of the other attendees began to manifest in the occasional extra eyeball or an odd lizard-like tail. It was getting more and more difficult to keep standing and I distinctly remember a bug-eyed Ben crawling across the grass toward me asking the eternal acid question: “what... is... going... on?” I hadn’t really thought about that, and now it seemed like a fairly important thing to figure out. I glanced around and discovered we were surrounded by nothing but bikers and this fully and truly freaked-out my Sex Pistols t-shirt-wearing self so I had to lie down with my eyes closed to ride out what I was sure would be an inevitable stomping. The “Great A-Horr” as Keyz put it, I think. So, I rode it out. Full on, full-blown mind-manifesting trip through the internal galaxy, visiting a dozen past and future selves, discovering that they were actually the beings sitting next to me, the eternal connection to the infernal and divine all right there with me inside a glowing purple sphere spinning somewhere out on the very farthest shores of my own personal Big Bang. Eventually the maelstrom of psychic winds began to ease a bit and I felt considerably more relaxed, my spine unknotting itself a bit, fingers and toes uncurling. Breathing for what seemed like the first time in ages.

I opened my eyes and announced that I was now ready for the show to start. Near universal guffaws informed me that I’d missed the whole first set, and so, fairly unfazed by this I set off in search of the bathroom. That trek was wild and wooly (and a great tale in its own right) but was successfully completed and somehow I managed to make my way back to my friends to compare notes. Still not a lot of verbal skills among us but all seemed well and we relaxed, drew deep breaths, and plummeted into set two as the twilight turned to darkness.

Nothing particularly special on paper, the second set contained music I was familiar enough with as well as unfamiliar variations that opened door after door, revealing unimagined vistas and possibilities. Some pieces imprinted deeply and became part and parcel of how I understand myself, like the darkness and betrayal of ‘Cold Rain and Snow’ or the regrets and redemption of ‘Brokedown Palace.’ Other sequences simply tore away at my expectations for musical performance, vigorously demonstrating the deep value of opening oneself to what was happening at every moment, letting go and being fully ex stasis.

The combination of the blotters, the music (and christ on a crutch! can you ever forget how that sound system could move every tone through your whole body, vibrating the spaces between your cells), and the very real manifestation of the crowd’s energy all catalyzed in the great, green alembic of Alpine Valley. It seemed that we had truly left life behind in the gravel of the parking lot, that there would be no returning, so best now release your grip and to dive into the heart of the cauldron. I remember that Candace’s lights carved the pillars and trusses and roof of the pavilion into twisting Aztec temple walls filled with mystic flowers and then gaunt, electric caryatids of Gothic saints, then a full illuminated medieval bestiary of day-glo dragons and falcons, and a sudden molten eruption like Rodin’s Gates of Hell before flickering back into ordinary steel and wood as the music drove us further and further out of bounds.

At one point, it sounded as if the gears of the universe were being forcibly stopped, a deep, dangerous grinding and screeching that shook away what was left of the ground below us, gargantuan cable tethers thrumming with the strain. Then shuddering stars shot beams of light catching bits and pieces of the people surging around me, writhing and melting against each other, turning into literal waves washing back and forth, up and down the hill, crashing against the white hot engine on stage, rushing back again and again, a bubbling witches’ brew into which I dis-incorporated and then reformed over and over until with one last massive exhalation it all became Alpine Valley again-- still vibrating to be sure, the grass seething with garter snakes of energy, rippling quicksilver just escaping from the periphery of my vision-- but actually back on earth; speechless, agog, poleaxed by the enormity of the trip-- mama, mama, many worlds I’ve come since I first left home.

We slowly slogged and stumbled up the hill, still seeming impossibly steep, and eventually got back to the lot and our car. The air filled with the smell of gunpowder, beer, and cooking food, the high- pressure sodium lights giving everything an odd sheen. Fireworks arced and exploded randomly everywhere as we cooled off with beer and little watermelon. Kevin gave me a fraternal shoulder punch and asked: So whatcha’ think? All I could summon was a shaky “Wow.” I compared notes with Kent, but mostly we were kinda’ speechless still. The facility staff didn’t seem to have any intention of making anyone leave, and things carried on into the night as the lights were turned off and the hooting continued. It took a little doing but we managed to convince Mike that he should not attempt the drive home and we made do with what crashing space we could find in the car, waking with the dawn to figure out which way to go.

I had experienced all the parts of that day at separate times, or in partial combination, but none of it, nothing at all had prepared me for seeing the Elephant. Haven’t quite figured out what he told me, but I’m working on it.

#grateful dead

0 notes

scriptaed · 7 years

Text

The Labyrinth Chapter 26

Genre: Gang AU/ High School AU

Pairing: Reader/Jimin || ft. all the members

Length: 8.1k

Summary: Looking back on your past, your life has never been anything out of the ordinary. Although your parents had left you on one mysterious night, leaving you little to no explanations, you live out the rest of your years residing in a new town under the custody of your aunt. That is, until you return to your hometown to investigate your parents’ whereabouts. It is this fateful decision that leads you to find a boy collapsed on your front porch one night, wounds gaping and life fading, as your entire life is spun out of control. Somehow being dragged into a life of crimes in the underground business of his, you discover the twisted secrets hidden behind the world you thought you had known all along.

A wisp of cold air brushed against your bare collarbones, sending shivers down your spine as your widened eyes stared in awe at the expansive room below you. The second the force of Namjoon’s swift kick triggered some sort of switch of a device, the shelves began to move by itself, gliding down the thin metallic tracks nailed to the floor and setting itself aside where it now rested next to the doorframe, behind the opposite side of the hallway’s walls. The blast of the basement’s contrastingly cold temperature only made you the more stunned, your gaping expression prompting a chuckle from Namjoon.

“That much of a shocker, huh?” Namjoon acknowledged your state of awe. You could only turn and simply nod your head with several jerky movements. Seeing how speechless you were caused Namjoon to smile even harder, the dimples on the corners of his lips deepening and his cheeks lifting. The childlike smile of his overshadowed his intimidating appearance, revealing another side to him in which it contrasted your first impression of the headstrong leader of a gang. It was impossible for you not to reciprocate the youthful smile, giving him a small, nervous chuckle before he nodded his head towards the room and gestured for you to follow him. “Come on, I’ll show you around.”

He stepped onto the first step of the flight of stairs, his broad, sturdy back turning on you as the following quick light footed steps of his tapped against the glossy wooden steps and gelled, combed back blond hair bopped up and down. As he lowered himself into the basement, lights high on the ceiling began to flicker on automatically, illuminating the once dark basement. You followed along, though quite hesitantly, the thin wooden platform underneath you stayed firmly in place without any creaking and allowing your heart to calm itself down. In between each plank of wood, you could see through the slit of empty space, giving you a glimpse of the floor far below you.

“Is this your first time going down the stairs, or am I mistaken?” Namjoon quirked a brow at you when you finally came down from the twenty stepped staircase.

“I don’t know who built that,” you breathily pointed at the stairs accusingly, “but whoever did, made it awfully scarier than necessary. I mean, the basement is built at least fifteen meters off the ground, and all they use is a thin piece of wood?!”

You whirled around to take a look at Namjoon’s surprisingly blank expression. He blinked at you a few times, trying to comprehend what was so frightening about falling fifteen meters to your death, before breaking into laughter. “So you’re willing to rummage through abandoned sites, jump off a train, and commit thievery, but you’re scared of falling and breaking a few bones or two?” he observed, a wide smile plastered over his face.

Namjoon raised his hand, his pointing forefinger redirecting your gaze to the flight of stairs behind you. Turning around just in time, you caught the shelf running down the tracks once again to close the entrance, returning itself to what it was originally disguised to be, a storage room. A split second later, the staircase sprung up from the ground, the bottom of it rising from the ground at a faster speed than the rest of the staircase. The top of the stairs was held attached to the center of rotation, right under the entry way, until the rest of the steps was leveled with it. The entire staircase had transformed into a ladder as it was now parallel to the ground. The ladder hovered above the air as it jutted out from the wall. Your jaws dropped in shock, but what came after made you all the more stunned. The bottom of the ladder, or what was the bottom steps of the once staircase, slid down the sides of its steel railings, pushing whatever wooden planks it ran into along with it. Before your mind could even register the event that had taken place right in front of you, the entire ladder had receded into the slit of the wall right below the hovering shelves, making its disappearance as swift and silent as possible.

“I built the stairs so that I could program it to do that,” Namjoon firmly explained, blinking at you with a blank expression that greatly contrasted yours, as if nothing out of the ordinary had just occurred.

“Oh,” you uttered, gaping at him as your lips made a small ‘o’ shape. Namjoon laughed lightheartedly, finding amusement in your overwhelming amazed expression as he waved his hand into the room and ushered for you to follow him.

“How long did it take you to build that?” you asked, your eyes wandering around the room to take in your new surroundings.

The vast room was rather bland, the walls and floor were made of concrete, the entire room overflowing with a shade of dark gray and the occasional red and peach colored carpets. A few couches were placed off to the side of the room where it surrounded a coffee table, whereas television sets hung on the walls or sat on the floor with wires sprawled across the floor, just waiting to be used.

“Maybe…” he hummed, the particularly deep register of his voice resonating in the rather empty span of the room, the lack of flooring causing it to bounce of the walls and echo off into the distance. “Two days or so?”

“Two days?” you repeated, your voice coming out louder than intended, “not two months?”

“Oh no, ma’am, we don’t have the luxury of two months to spend on something as silly as that,” Namjoon teased, glancing over his shoulder to look back at you with his eyebrows furrowed and his lips spread into a smirk. Your eyes widened as you gulped at the thought of even coming up with such a complex idea and managing to build all that within a span of two days.

As Namjoon led you across what seemed to be a replica of the living room above, he walked past a long rectangular table with seven chairs sitting on its four sides. Off to the side of the simple version of a dining room was a mini kitchen, except a whole lot less fancy. A red pot rested on the gas powered stove that had been placed on the ground. Other than the two bright red bags of instant noodles placed to the side and two footrests, which you assumed were used as chairs to operate the machine, the entire kitchen was empty.

“Why is it so empty down here? Shouldn’t you decorate it? You know, make it a bit more lively?” you quirked a brow, following Namjoon down the hallway. The fluorescent lights began to flicker on, lighting the dark path as the two of you made your way to the room at the end of the hallway.

“We don’t usually spend our time down here. It reminds us too much of the training centers we had grown up in under our Fathers, so we prefer to spend most of our time upstairs where it’s less… gloomy,” Namjoon flatly explained. Unlike most of the members, Namjoon never hesitated to refer to the founders of their organization as “Fathers,” but his choice of words made it evident to you that he felt nothing but hatred towards them. It was just that being the leader of the pack, Namjoon had learned how to keep his emotions under control.

“All the more reason to decorate it, right?” you insisted. Once the two of you had reached the room located at the very inside of the headquarters, he came to a stop and whirled around to face you.

“Unfortunately, we’ve grown too accustomed to the environment. We’ve lived and trained ourselves for years in a place like this that we can’t seem to concentrate or work efficiently anywhere else. Even I can’t think clearly without stepping into my room down here,” he said so matter-of-factly that you nearly missed how heartbreaking the undertone of his statement meant.

The boys had been trained to work in a place as dark, gloomy, and depressing as this, and sadly after growing up in such an environment, there was no where else they could properly function in society. Your heart wrenched for the boys at the mere thought of this. It was a miracle they were so kindhearted and playful on the outside, when in reality, their state of nature was to be locked up in a place resembling a prison cell.

“Ay, don’t be so down, Y/N. Even though the strength of our mentality has been grinded ever since we were kids, we’re all still humans on the inside, don’t you agree, Y/N?” Namjoon smiled at you, his lips in a thin line and his cheeks rising. You nodded in agreement. “So, I make sure they get enough time outside, whether at school or in the backyard. Although I can’t protect the physical health of our boys, I can say that I’m doing my best with their mental health. So don’t worry, the boys and I are more than fine. I got us all under control.”

“Ah… I see,” you nodded, looking down at the ground and sympathizing for the boys.

“Really, don’t worry,” Namjoon chuckled at you, smiling ever so sweetly that you had to force yourself to reciprocate it and reassure him of your more than evident worrying.

He gestured for you to enter the room first, so you obliged, catching yourself in surprise when your bare feet sunk into the soft carpet of the room. Namjoon reached over to the side of the wall behind you, turning on a switch and lighting up the dark room with a warm, golden radiance of two lamps, one sitting on a wooden desk in the back corner of the room and another on another wooden, rectangular coffee table sitting in the middle of the vast room. Placed before the coffee table was a maroon colored couch, its shade matching the color of the walls and the dark, calming theme of the room. Lined up against the walls were at least five bookshelves, each one of them filled with countless books, some left opened with a bookmark resting in its pages and others thoroughly annotated with sticky notes sticking out from its sides. The overall aura of the room exuded of serenity and lavishness.

Without another word, you made your way across the room and plopped yourself onto the couch. It had been an extremely long day, and as much as you were starting to get used to it, you still couldn’t fight off your natural urge to take a nap, especially not in a serene room like this. Namjoon softly laughed at your actions, making his way to the burgundy wooden desk in the corner of the room on your right.

“So what’re we doing today?” you questioned gleefully, glad that your training didn’t seem to require a lot of movement.

“Not much,” he nonchalantly answered, chuckling when you sighed in relief. “Since I spend most of my time with mechanics and technological things, I can’t teach you much in a day… unless you want to learn how I programmed the stairs?”

“No, no thanks,” you immediately denied the offer, shaking your head repeatedly.

Namjoon grinned widely at your response, nodding his head as though one of the boys had requested to be taught by their leader only to react the same way as you had. “I’ll teach you how to use some important devices I’ve made. The Fathers probably won’t let you use them in the trials, but it’s crucial you learn how to use these tools just in case they come in handy in the future. I’m sure you’ve seen one of the boys use them before.”

There it was again, the term “Fathers.” He could’ve used the Founders, or the head of the association, but the way he referred to them as Fathers, even after all that they had done, irked you the wrong way. “Namjoon,” you furrowed your brows and shook your head in confusion, looking at him from across the room. He glanced up from the paperwork on his desk, his widened, circular eyes beckoning for you to continue. “...why do you always call them your Fathers? They ripped you away from your parents, they disrespect you and force you to do the most grotesque and dehumanizing things. Even Yoongi and Jin hold some sort of grudge against them… so why are you still holding them with respect when you’re leading these half broken boys?”

Namjoon pressed his lips into a thin line, nodding as he twirled his pen in between his long, sturdy looking fingers. “I see where you’re coming from, really,” he acknowledged, his head slowly bobbing up and down and his eyes glancing at his bookshelves before returning to yours, gazing into you ever so firmly. “I don’t respect them at all, in fact, I despise them. I fucking loathe them for ruining our lives and leaving us with gaping scars… but what can I do? I’m the leader of this group. I have monthly reports to make and evaluations to pass, and as the leader of this unit, I’m the one most closely watched over. I’m held responsible for the group, and the mere thought of dropping formalities can lead to the death of me, the death of the boys, and the death of anyone even remotely involved with us, including you. So I force myself to instill these formalities until they’re nothing but reluctant instincts of mine, because I can’t afford losing you guys over one slip of the tongue.”

Your lips parted in shock, you were stunned with the overwhelming list of responsibilities Namjoon had as the leader. Maybe Namjoon wasn’t as involved with physical combat as the other members were, one could argue that he was in the least amount of danger when compared to the others, but that was the exact opposite, it was far from the truth. You could practically feel the burden, the burden he had carried on his shoulders for years, sink its way onto your now tight chest. He couldn’t speak his mind, he had to monitor his own behavior in fear over the member’s own safety, and he was held responsible for six, now seven, lives every second of the day. One mistake, one word, and he, along with you and the boys, would be exterminated. Their existence would dissipate so quickly, so instantly, that no one would even recall the unit known as the Bangtan Boys. And yet, through it all, Namjoon still remained alert for the sake of the boys. If that wasn’t what made up a leader, then there was no way else to become one.

“So I apologize if my choice of words make you uncomfortable, Y/N, but just know that I hold nothing but hatred for these damn Fathers of mine,” Namjoon forced a smile, both corners of his lips curving upwards as his eyes became just slightly slimmer than they already were. “Don’t worry though, you’re safe here in our headquarters. I’ve checked every nook and cranny, no one but the boys even knows this place exists. You’re free to talk however you’d like, but I’ll keep my disgusting habits in check to keep you all alive.”

You nodded your head obediently, immediately understanding why Namjoon’s formal and respectful language differed so much from the rest of the boys. Namjoon was the leader, he represented the group and must have been under constant watch all this time. Your stomach turned and your chest twisted just thinking about how much pressure he was under to perform as the leader and as the mastermind behind the plans of each and every mission of theirs. Just thinking about all the scars and trauma the Founders had inflicted upon the boys made you fume, your blood boiling with anger and your teeth gritting against each other.

“Feel free to take a short nap after playing around with some of these gears. There’s some blankets under the coffee table,” he insisted, cutting through your stream of thoughts. Namjoon opened a few of the drawers in his desk, rummaging through them to grab a few palm sized devices and throwing them over to you. To your surprise, you managed to catch each one of them before placing them down onto the coffee table to catch the next.

Holding each one of them in your hands, you noticed how the black and sleek design of each one not only made the device camouflaged into the pitch black darkness of the night, but it also made the machine all the more accessible. The hand devices were coated with wax in just the right places, letting your fingers glide through the switches and levers with ease, whereas the friction induced grid of the handles allowed you to grip onto the gears where and when it mattered. Some devices were rectangular shaped, some resembled that of a daily necessity, such as car keys, and others were spheres. One thing for sure was that none of them were as big and intricate as the one Hoseok had used to bypass security.

“These are relatively small compared to the ones I’ve seen the boys use before,” you recalled, turning the spherical device in your hand. You raised a brow at Namjoon who looks up from his paperwork to glance at the device you were referring to.

“Ah, I’ve only handed you the important ones for you to learn how to use. The ones that Hoseok and Yoongi have used won’t be very important, they’re usually for specialized missions,” Namjoon’s eyes lit up as he explained his creations.

“Oh… I see,” you mumbled, nodding your head before the both of you returned to focus on your own work.

Leaning forward and reaching down, you grabbed the red plaid, wool blankets from under the table and draped them over your legs. You glanced over to receive further instructions from your trainer, but to your surprise, Namjoon was already lost in thought as he could focus on nothing but the paperwork before him. Chuckling to yourself, you decided to get to work yourself.

Turning the mini sphere in the palm of your hands, you noticed two circular outlines on the top and bottom of the sphere, both of which resembled buttons. You pushed on one of them, the button sliding into the sphere before clicking into place and coming to a stop. Suddenly, the entire sphere unfolded itself, lines crossing the axis of the sphere and running across its surface detached from the top, where as the button you had pressed held each petal-like surface of the once sphere together.

There was no other way to describe it than the sphere unfolding itself like a blooming lotus, evolving itself from a closed bud until it revealed its inner colorful beauty. As the outer surface of the sphere laid surrounding the sides of the circular button, holding an uncanny resemblance to the petals of a flower, a bright, fiery flame ignited from the gas emitted by what you figured, the inner side of the button. The orange, red ball of fire gave a nice contrast to its black outer surface, it illuminated the room and shone life into the enlarged irises of yours. It was an absolutely stunning design. A gorgeous, simplistic design not only meant to serve its purposes of acting as a light and heat source, but also meant to appeal the human eye.

“It’s beautiful…” you whispered under your breath, the words slipping from your lips subconsciously, rendering a bashful chuckle from Namjoon.

Carefully cupping both hands on the sides of its petals, you pushed them closer together in an attempt to return the device to its original spherical shape. To your relief, the device did just as you intended, the petals snapping upwards and coming together at the top like a flower budding but in reverse order. The petals clicked together as the button on the bottom sprung out to restore the original shape of the sphere. Smiling to yourself with pride, you decided to venture into the mysteries of the device before you. Your finger glided over the second of the two buttons before pressing down on the top button only to find yourself staring at a motionless ball.

“You have to press both of the buttons down for it to work,” Namjoon laughed lightheartedly, peering up at you from his work.

“Ah, really?” you muttered, averting your eyes from Namjoon and back to the device. But just as you were about to follow his instructions, your trainer cut you off before you could proceed any further.

“Don’t do it now, though,” he said, emphasizing his words in a way as though he couldn’t believe how obedient and naive you were.

“Why?” you quirked a brow.

“It serves two functions. One, as you saw earlier, provides light, heat, and energy. The other…” his voice trailed off as he gradually immersed himself into his paperwork. “...acts as a bomb. A grenade, more specifically.”

“Oh,” you uttered, your eyes widening as you hastily placed the device back onto the table. “What’s it called? I heard you name every one of your inventions.”

Namjoon looked over at you, both of his brows raised, clearly surprised that someone had actually inquired for more information about his machines. After all, you wouldn’t be too surprised if the rest of the boys held little to no interest to his intricate and complicated devices. “Lotus,” he said in a firm, clear voice, “Lotus v.2.6.”

“A fitting name for such a beautiful thing,” you softly smiled, causing Namjoon to go speechless and giddy over your endearing comment.

He tugged on the sleeves of his sweater until they nearly swallowed his hands, his eyes glued to his paperwork and his chins lifted as he smiled so gleefully. Judging by the way his eyes lit up and the curvature of his lips danced with pride, you could tell he held such a fervent passion for his works.

“I guess you really are as innocent minded as Jin said,” Namjoon cackled at your heightened caution regarding the device, the playful grin of his that you had came to adore plastered all over his face.

“He said that…?” you cocked your head to the side, frowning at the comment. “Am I supposed to be flattered or offended?”

“The boys have been reporting back to me about your training, so only naturally I found out more about you through them. I suppose he was stargazing on the rooftop as usual when he came to me and gave me an overview of your progress. He seemed pretty down that day, not sure what you two discussed, but whatever it was, I think you managed to tug at his heartstrings… in the best way possible,” Namjoon chuckled at your gaping expression, “don’t worry, he told me you were a great student. He said although you’re simple minded, you’re also a compassionate girl. You’re more intelligent and intuitive than most beginners… oh, but he also complained about how you’d never laugh at his jokes.”

You cracked up at his last statement, rolling your eyes as you did so. “Sorry, some of his jokes aren’t exactly… amusing. I can’t fake a laugh all the time,” you remarked, a bright smile making its way to your lips. “And Yoongi…?”

“Yoongi?” Namjoon raised his eyebrows before understanding what you meant. “Ah, he didn’t say much. He said you were, quote-on-quote, “alright” or “not too disappointing.” Yoongi did say that he was impressed with your determination and stubbornness, though. I know he was a bit harsh on you, but I’m more than sure he just doesn’t want to see an innocent girl like you corrupted by the things that we do.”

“And what do you think…?” you hesitantly questioned, sighing at Yoongi’s less than surprising report.

“I don’t particularly want to involve you in such dangerous matters, but what can we do? Jaebum and his gang caught us, he told our Fathers, and now we have no choice but to train you and prepare you for the Final Initiation Test… unless our plan goes through,” he mumbled the last phrase, confusing you for a second before changing the subject, “don’t worry about Yoongi, though. I could tell he was immensely impressed. He looks at you in a different way than I’ve ever seen him look at anyone. The look in his eyes when he talked about you… the way his eyes glowed like fire and the corner of his lips curved ever so slightly, as though to keep his smile hidden… There’s definitely something different about you, and Yoongi can see that.”

Eyes widening in shock, you were struck silent when you discovered what had happened behind the scenes between Yoongi and Namjoon. Namjoon knew the boys well, extremely well, he knew them inside out and he could read them like an open book. So the way he described Yoongi’s expression, his fascination when he recalled you with the mere mention of your name, it only reminded you of the momentary time you had mistaken your infatuation for love. It panged against your chest, especially now that you were officially with Jimin.

“Y/N?” Namjoon called out to you. “I’m sorry if I’m mistaken... but is there something going on between you two?”

“What?” you uttered, staring at him wide eyed before snapping back into reality and immediately shaking your head. “No, no, it’s not like that!”

“I see,” he nodded with a reassuring smile, “then Jimin?”

You lips slammed shut as you recalled your agreement with Jimin and your plans to reveal your relationship status to the rest of the members with Jimin. How did Namjoon see right through you? You knew he could read through the boys, but you were shocked at how explicitly well he could decipher them, especially Jimin, the most clueless boy when it came to love.

“Yahhh, that’s good, that’s good!” Namjoon chimed, tossing his pen down onto the tabletop and leaning back into his chair with his hands rested behind his neck, “you chose well, Y/N! Yoongi isn’t good for you, you two don’t match,” he shook his head with his nose scrunched. “Fire with fire only results in mayhem. Jimin might have a bit of a temper, but he’s a soft, tender boy on the inside. I’m sure you’ve seen it before if you’ve fallen for him, it’s his charm after all.”

“Um…” you hummed, your eyes skittering around the room, looking at everything but the giddy Namjoon’s playful gaze. What were you supposed to say? You wanted Jimin to be right next to you right now, to cover up for you or to use his usual temper and get you out of this somehow, but all that you could do was burn bright pink, cheeks flushing with an unbelievable amount of heat. You twiddled your thumbs in an attempt to rid yourself of your nerves, but your efforts were in vain. “We’re not dating… yet.”

Namjoon cackled, his hand patting his stomach as though he had such a good laugh. “Alright, alright, Y/N,” he sing-songed, amusedly watching your ears and cheeks turn red. He laughed and gave you mercy, switching the topic back to its original one. “Innocence… it’s better than you think. We’d all love to be as pure as you if we had the chance to.”

“I see…” you mumbled, taking deep breaths in and out in order to calm your racing heart down. Namjoon just chuckled at how you were placing your comparatively cold hands against your burning cheeks. Taking one last breath, you sighed and continued to look through the machines scattered across the table before you.

Next up was what closely resembled the switch knife Hoseok had used to smash the lenses of the building’s VCRs. The black, rectangular grip of it encompassing the hidden blades. You had recalled how sleek Hoseok’s switch knives were, the curve of the blades so sharp that it intimidated the hell out of you. With your hands trembling and your mind cautious, your hands slowly approached the knife. The second your fingers wrapped around the rectangular device, shaking in between your fingers as you did so, a half foot long blade flicked out of the grips, nearly cutting off your fingers before you screamed and dropped the knife onto the floor.

“Holy shit,” you cursed, checking your fingers to see if they were still attached, which to your relief, they were. Namjoon scooted his chair backwards, immediately standing up in alert and calling out to you.

“Are you alright, Y/N?!” Namjoon cried out before running to you. He took your hands into his large, rough ones, his long fingers grazing against yours as he checked for any wounds. “Thank God,” he sighed, placing your quivering hands back into your lap, “Jimin would’ve killed me if you were hurt.”

You nervously laughed and gave him a gentle, lopsided smile, while you fumbled with your hands, trying to use up the peak of adrenaline running through your veins after nearly cutting yourself open. “I’m fine, really. You should get back to work. I’ll be more careful now.”

Namjoon lowly chuckled, his deep, sultry voice catching you off guard now that he was much closer in proximity to you. He picked up the switch knife, gripping the handle so firmly and confidently, unlike what you had done just a few moments ago. “I craft a lot of switchblades for Taehyung. He particularly likes using this one, so I figured you should get a head start and learn how to use it… or at least try to use it.”

“What makes this different from the others? Other than, y’know… popping out unexpectedly and almost chopping off my fingers,” you sarcastically said, pressing your lips into a line and frowning at Namjoon.

He peered up at you from his squatting position on the ground before breaking into a bashful laughter, his right hand reaching up to cover his sheepish smile. You couldn’t help but grin at how shy of a boy Namjoon seemed to be. He was intimidating, responsible, and wise leader, but now that you were up close to him, you could tell he was much more than that. He was a gentle, soft hearted boy who had unfortunately been exposed to the harsh reality of life, or rather, the life the Founders had condemned him to.

“Actually, that’s exactly what makes it different. It senses your fear, it can detect your anxiety levels and it’ll know if you’re not its true owner. I programmed it so that no one but Taehyung, and hopefully you or the other boys, can use it. You just have to overcome your fears,” he stated as a matter of factly, placing the blade down onto the table. He then proceeded to clasp onto the device laying right beside the switchblade on the tabletop, raising the device that resembled a key in between the two of you, a rubber bow to hold the key and a strangely straight edged blade where it would usually have protruding ridges to slide into its appropriate keyhole.

“Now, what do you think this is for?” Namjoon questioned, his voice calm, low and collected, yet encouraging like that of a teacher. Now that you thought about it, Namjoon would’ve made a great teacher. Compared to the last three teachers you’ve had so far, Namjoon was the most supportive one, he guided you towards the answer, but he believed in you to make the final steps.

“Um… keys to a car? Maybe Jin’s truck?” you frowned, quirking a brow at it before running the tip of your forefinger along the its smooth edged metallic blade. “Although it is quite unusual, there are no cuts to the key.”

“Well, close. Good guess,” Namjoon pressed his lips into a line, both corners of his lips curving upwards as he gave you a cheeky, encouraging smile. “I guess you could say it’s the keys to a car, but it’s so much more. It’s the keys to a car, to a house, to a lock, it can allow you access to anything for as long as this,” he regripped the key in his fingers to reaffirm his emphasis, “fits into its keyhole.”

“Ah… so is that how Hoseok could’ve unlocked the vault room?” you mumbled to yourself, nodding at Namjoon’s innovative gears. “That’s more useful that I’d imagine.”

“Wait, what did Hoseok do instead?” Namjoon frowned, raising a brow at your rhetorical question.

“He kicked the door down.”

“Of course he would, where else would he use all that energy of his,” Namjoon sighed, shaking his head as he slid the key back onto the desk and got up from his previous squatting position. “Well, I’m assuming you don’t know how to break down doors yet, so use this if you ever need access to something like a car or some shelter.”

“Shelter?” you repeated questioningly. As you watched him make his way back to his desk, you couldn’t help but notice how broad his back and shoulders were, how tall and well postured he was, and how his slim, long legs perfectly topped off his nice proportions.

“A house, I mean. If you’re ever in danger and need to borrow some shelter, feel free to use it at your own disposal,” he gestured to the small device, causing you to narrow your eyes at him over how casually he essentially encouraged you to break into someone’s house for the purpose of your own comfort. Seeing how you were glaring at him, Namjoon’s lips formed a small ‘o’ as though a light bulb had flickered on as he registered what he had just said. He raised both his hands, as if trying to defend himself and his words. “What? You never know when you’ll be in danger! Drastic times call for drastic measures.”

“Alright… but I’ll probably use it more for jacking cars than houses,” you mumbled, still in disbelief that you were really immersing yourself into their world now. The only people you wanted to steal from were Jaebum and his gang really. Even ‘til this day, you still had occasional nightmares of the night Jaebum had captured you, his silver hair flowing in the hair and his foxy smile sending chills down your spine.

“Sure,” Namjoon chimed, plopping back into his chair and scooting forward, “whatever pleases you, Y/N.”

Another hour or so passed by, you continuing to play around with the devices scattered across the table and Namjoon persisting to scribble down whatever he was working on. Before you knew it, your eyelids felt heavier and heavier, as though weights hung from them, as you struggled to keep your eyes open. In fact, you could have sworn you had dozed off a few times here and there. The clock displaying the time 3 AM only confirmed your suspicions. It really wasn’t surprising when the calming, dark atmosphere of the room managed to lull you into deep slumber.

Attempting to wake yourself up, you shuffled around, sitting up from your previously laying position and looking over at Namjoon. He was still hard at work, crossing, scratching, and drawing at the blueprint laid out before him. Judging by the way his eyebrows were furrowed and his plump lips rested in a straight line, you could tell he was so immersed in his work that he hadn’t even noticed that you had awoken. You wondered how he could work so late into the night. He was acing his tests at school and he had been awake for at least 20 hours as he guided the boys throughout their day from school to sending them out on a mission at home. Namjoon was indeed a leader to be reckoned with, a leader who gave his utmost, selfless efforts to benefit his boys, because whatever he was working on, it must’ve been extremely important.

As you gazed at the intellective man before you, the golden color of the light radiating from his lamp on his desk captured the jaw dropping visuals you had never managed to catch before. The light accentuated the utmost warmth of his dark, chocolate brown eyes which contrasted the nearly black hooded eyes of the intimidating leader you had once misunderstood. Everything of his presence was warm, from his dimples to his sun-kissed skin, he truly was a sight to behold.

Unlike Jimin’s usual fair skinned and black clothed appearance, Namjoon was truly the essence of warmth. His eyes held a tint of darkness, some intimidating scars that you knew he had endured throughout his childhood under the Founders, but at the same time, he radiated off a welcoming aura in which it had successfully made you feel at calm around the boys.

Luckily before you could doze off gazing at Namjoon, he looked up from his papers to check up on you, causing you to jump in place as his eyes locked with yours. “I see you’re awake now, Y/N,” he softly smiled. You were just about to hastily check for any drool hanging from the corner of your lips out of embarrassment when he continued to make you feel more at home. “Did you rest well?”

Raising both brows in surprise, you nodded once, your hands gripping the edge of the couch as your eyes glued to the floor in embarrassment. Namjoon had caught you napping when you were supposed to be training and educating yourself over his devices that may very well save your ass in the future, so all you could do was duck your head in shame.

“Ay, don’t be so embarrassed. Rest is important for the body to catch up. Your brain might be working, but your body still needs time to adjust to all the training you’ve been doing. You’ve been working so hard these days, I’m sure you deserve it,” Namjoon winked at you, giving you one last reassuring smile before getting up from his desk and walking over to one of the bookshelves placed next to the couch you were sitting on. “I actually have something I wanted to talk to you about.”

His fingers skimmed through the endless books, papers, and files aligned on the shelves as he mumbled to himself until he found what he was looking for. Sliding the navy colored folder out of the shelves, he walked on over back to his desk and gestured for you to follow. Obediently, you got up from the couch, your feet staggering as you took a few seconds to adjust to the drastic change in positions and waiting for the blood to rush down from your head and to the rest of your body, and strode over to the opposite side of his desk. Following his actions, you sat down into a chair across from him and watched him as he lightly dropped the folder containing heaps of paper onto his desk. Written over the folder in large, silver ink were the words “CASE 151020.”

“Your parents… I heard they left home when you were still very young?” he inquired, peering up at you.

“Yeah,” you uttered, shaking your head as you stared at the folder, “I can barely remember them even now.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Namjoon said sincerely, taking a deep breath and sighing as he leaned forward. “Well, I sorted through the thousands of missions we’ve been assigned to before… and if I’m not mistaken, Case 151020 should be the case involving your parents. I looked into it, and even though it’s been at least three years since we were first assigned the case, I can remember it very clearly.”

“What… happened to them?” you asked, voice brittle and hoarse.

“We’re not sure,” Namjoon bluntly answered, shaking his head as he pressed his lips into a line in frustration, “the case was always left unfinished. We were instructed to find your parents, we weren’t given further instructions. But we could never find them. We looked everywhere, but they were gone, as though they never existed.” He looked up at you, his dark, warm eyes checking your slightly gaping expression before continuing. “I highly doubt that though. After some research, I discovered that your parents are, or were, a part of our association. They ran away from the training center right before their the Final Exit Examinations and have been on the run ever since.”

“They were… a part of your organization? Why’d they run?” your brows knitted in confusion, struggling to comprehend the sudden discovery. They had hidden such a crucial, dangerous secret from you your whole life, and now, only by chance, did you discover such a thing.

“Well, it was a time before the boys and I were even born, but there’s a certain rule we have instilled in our program,” he sighed, rubbing circles into his temples, “we’re not allowed to be romantically associated with any of our trainees. I’m guessing they ran away to live a better life on their own, together, and to eventually have you.”

You were rendered speechless. You couldn’t believe it, how could such a dark secret have been successfully hidden for so long? They risked it all to spend the rest of their lives in danger, hidden in the dark, and all for what? To have a child and disappear without another word? Although you couldn’t quite remember them very well, as they had left you when you were still a child, it was still a cruel thing to do and it only infuriated you to think about it.

Seeing how silent you were, your hands balled into fists and teeth gritted against each other, Namjoon proceeded to explain further. “Please don’t condemn their decisions, Y/N. After all, they risked their lives to have you. Sure, it might have been foolish to run away from top organizations with hundreds of assassins on the run for you, but love makes you do crazy things. We humans like to disguise ourselves as rational beings, clear headed and calm minded, but are we really all that? Underneath it all, we’re just as irrational and lustful with desire as another. It all comes down to how much we’re willing to strive for our dreams, and to what extent we’re willing to risk it all for those dreams that seem so far away and make it truly become reality.”

Eyes looking into Namjoon’s, whose eyes were glancing in between the tabletop and you, you couldn’t help but become awestruck by his words. They flowed so elegantly, so effortlessly, that you couldn’t believe Namjoon was stuck in this basement living out his life in crime, when all that potential could’ve gone into amazing works to be studied over throughout the ages.

“And what has love done to you, Namjoon?” you asked, your voice raspy and thin as you struggled to keep yourself from breaking out into sobs. You could feel your voice hitching in the back of your throat and tears threatening to slip from your eyes, just thinking about your parents and the stolen childhood of yours made you fume with both sorrow and anger.

“Love? This crazy thing we all call love, this concept that makes us all crazy?” he chuckled, his hand cupping his chin and pondering over how to deliver his next few words. “I’ve loved before. I don’t know her name, but I loved her.”

“And why did you love her…?” you asked, suddenly immersing yourself into Namjoon’s story and forcing yourself to shut down all the stream of thoughts and worries running through your head right then.

Namjoon looked at you, brows raising as he considered your question. “I loved her because she was fierce and smart, she had flames in her eyes that told me she wanted the entire world to fear her, to recognize her power and confidence… but I didn’t fall for it. I could tell she was brittle, she was self conscious and scared on the inside, and I loved that about her.”

“Did you ever confess to her?”

“I did,” Namjoon simply stated, causing you to be taken aback. “But she didn’t love me back.”

“Why not?” you accidentally raised your voice thinking about the absurdity of it all. “You’re amazing, you’re charming, you’re smarter than anyone I know!”

“Hm…” he hummed, giving you a lopsided smile to thank you for your compliments, “she didn’t like that part about me. You see, we have these examinations to not only test our physical capabilities, but also our mental capabilities. I always held the highest score, and she held the second highest score. I figured she despised me for that very reason.”

“That’s so petty of her,” you scoffed.

“I guess you could see it that way. But if you consider it more, we were all in a life or death situation. One place lower and you could be tortured with endless training, locked up in a cell and forced to read up on books, books about stories and the outside world we had never seen and would never actually live in. It’s reasonable if she hated me for that. I put her life in danger, because I simply wanted to stay alive.”

Ah, so this is the type of man, the type of leader, Namjoon was, you thought. Selfless, considerate, open minded, scarred, understanding, and most of all, beautifully, yet painfully and sweetly, poetic.

“But no more about me,” he waved it off, the void look in his eyes disappearing as he returned back to reality. He forced a smile and grabbed the folder off the desk, slipping it under the blueprint he had been working on for hours.

“What happened to her?” you blurted out, the words slipping through your lips before you could even take them back. You covered your mouth with your hands, surprised at your own actions, but you were relieved to find Namjoon’s taken aback expression as he smiled with the deep dimples of his.

“Same as what happens to everyone,” he muttered, smiling bittersweetly as he gazed into your eyes with a pained expression in his, “she failed the Final Exit Examinations and disappeared into the thin air right before my eyes.”

“She failed…?”

“She placed second, behind me, and I guess that was the final straw for the Fathers,” Namjoon said so matter of factly that your stomach twisted and your heart wrenched for how numb he was to all of the pain. Your blood was practically boiling, just thinking about how the boys and your own parents had to go through such torture made you fume. You dug your nails into your palms and gritted your teeth as you watched him rub his eyes suddenly, perhaps to wipe away his tears, and taking a deep, shaky breath before sighing and bobbing his head up and down.

“I’m sorry, Namjoon. I really am… that’s terrible, I can’t believe they’d do something so cruel…”

“Don’t worry about it, Y/N. You don’t have to pity me. It’s just the cruel reality the boys and I had to face, and that’s why we’ve all been working so hard lately to change that fact for countless kids locked up in those training cells right now. I’m here, and I’ll use these scars,” he pounded against his chest, and giving you a large smile, “to guide you and the boys to safety.”

“What exactly…” your voice trailed off as you tried to decipher his words before your eyes found what was written all over the blueprints. You gasped as your eyes widened at the countless lines, crosses, squares, circles, and sketches lying across the large map before you. “What is this?”

“These are the plans Jin and I have come up with throughout the past few weeks,” he explained, “Jin scouted out Jaebum and his gang’s headquarters, and as the leader, I looked over his plans, made sure they were secure and safe, and approved them.” He then picked up the blueprint and tossed it to the side, revealing yet another even larger blueprint underneath with an incredibly intricate, complex outline of a building sketched onto it. “Yoongi told me about what you two had found on one of the Father’s cargos. They’ve been tracking us down for all these years, every single one of our movements, and if we go on any longer… I’m sure we would be the next ones to be exterminated.”

“So…?”

“So, Y/N,” he said, looking up from the paper to firmly lock eyes with yours, “you’re not going to the Final Initiation Exam.”

“I’m not?!” you nearly yelled in shock, jumping up from your seat as you stared at him wide eyed.

“You’re not, but instead...” Namjoon smiled at you.

“...we’re going to start a rebellion.”

643 notes · View notes