Jett gave me an envelope in the summer of '06. "You're a great person, and I never want you to forget that" He told me. "If you're ever feeling shitty, I want you to read this." For a second I pretended to tear open the letter right then and there. It was a plain white envelope that puffed up a little at the sides like it had been overstuffed with papers. "For Cynthia on a rainy day" was written on the front in the neatest handwriting Jett could muster.
"How much did you write in this?" I turned the envelope around in my hand. Where any sensible person would have sealed it with spit and glue, Jett used a short line of scotch tape.
"It's got pictures too." He said. "It isn't War and Peace."
That afternoon, I stuck the letter where I stuck all the letters I wanted to keep: the bottom-left corner of my desk. The plain white envelope stuck out amongst the colorful hoard of cards that one builds up after 17 years of life, but that was fine. And then I forgot about it.
Jett and I drifted apart after that. Part of me says that he saw it coming, that the letter was his last hoo-rah before he changed from a best friend to a friend that was just sort of there. There wasn't any moment. No argument, no betrayal. We just… floated away from each other. As things do. And as I was sorting through all of my stuff for college my focus inevitably shifted to the bottom-left drawer of my desk. And as my fingers caressed the zig-zag edge of the scotch tape, I knew it wasn't the time. And so I took it to college, stashing away the rest of my assorted cards in a box on the top shelf of the closet I had emptied a few hours before. I left Jett behind too, suspended in that muggy Florida air like a fly in amber.
The evacuation order came during the start of sophomore year. Wildfires had been spreading across the state, and one of them was on the path to UCLA. The firefighters were going to do the best they could, but it was too risky at the moment to have us stay in our dorms. In what little time I had to pack, I grabbed what I saw as the essentials: clothes, meds, phone, laptop, chargers. And as I tried to fall asleep in the baseball field's dugout next to a snoring computer science professor, I longed to tear that little piece of scotch tape. And in my shivering desperate misery I shuffled around the dark and grabbed a pen off the ground and a flyer explaining how to protect yourself from the particles in the air. I flipped it to the back:
I expected reassurance to billow out of me like smoke. But despite whatever ballad of good will Jett had originally composed, I scraped out two measly sentences.
Dear Cynthia,
You're an amazing person. Things will get better.
They told us we could go back to our dorms around a week later. The desk in my dorm didn't have any drawers, so I had put the letter in a box on the top of my new closet. Everything else was there: sun-bleached photos, action figures with chipping paint, heavily annotated copies of the first couple Warrior Cats books, and all the other memorabilia that I had brought from home and couldn't find a place for. But the letter was gone.
I looked high and low, sweeping my room over and over before coming to terms with the fact that I either talked myself out of taking it to college and forgot, or that I really needed something to write on one day and just scribbled all over the envelope before tossing it. Or… something. Either way, I wasn't getting that letter back.
Two days ago I was walking to my dorm from class when something in the bushes caught my eye. A thin white rectangle was stuck between the stems and the leaves, rattling with the wind in protest. I'd expected an envelope sitting outside to be in worse condition. It wasn't dirty, wasn't creased, and the little piece of tape on the back had gone unremoved. It was like it had just floated over there. As things do.
I broke the piece of tape and flipped up the tongue of the envelope, eager to read the last deep words of a former friend. The wind didn't hesitate to blow the ash and smell of blue ink that filled the envelope into my face. And so the moment I had spent so long chasing after ended with me, good ol' Cynthia, doubled over and spitting Jett's forever unread words onto the concrete.
And it was okay.
Non-Article
Critters: GremlinGroup
greebo crit
Upstream wasn't a particularly complex spell. That's why it was one of the first things maagic students learned in first aid. It was good for getting poison out of someone's gut and happened to be the quickest way to get booze out of the body. Step 1: Lauren scrambled back to the table, grabbing the emptied bottle of wine. Step 2: she needed more alcohol. Undiluted. Every year or so there was always one person at a party who did it wrong. Sometimes, they would pour whatever diluted mix of water and vodka they had in their cup back into their container. Sometimes they'd spit whatever was in their mouths. Either way, they learned what it feels like having water and spit pulled out of their digestive system. Lauren hadn't watered her drink down, but she didn't have the luxury of an unfinished bottle. Her shaky hands returned what little was left in her glass back into the bottle. Step 3: Lauren's jaw clamped down on both sides of the bottleneck. Step 4. Always Step 4. As long as you squeeze, Upstream will pull whatever it can. But nobody keeps records of how much they drank and when they drank it or what other things they ate that day. Nobody knows how much is still in their stomach and how much has already absorbed. And when Upstream went wrong, when all the beer in their stomachs were gone but the kids who had to sober up for a morning exam kept their fingers around their neck, that was when it would start pulling from the bloodstream.
Lauren's fingers rested against her neck. How long would she have to squeeze? 10 seconds? 20? Her body wasn't the well-oiled machine it used to be, but if she held for too long…
From the corner of her eye she could see Marti's forearm, the hand she held when they danced facing the dying fire. Her fingers tightened around her throat and she didn't think to start counting seconds.
If you were to eavesdrop around the Library, listening eagerly behind bookshelves or sitting down just close enough to the right visitor, you may hear about the One-Way. You may have learned that it could be used once before closing forever. You may have heard about the young necromancer and younger hunter who ran away together, reciting their vows at the way's entrance and walking through at the same time. You may know that the One-Way was a pool of water, and that as it dried up a person could peer into it and see the young couple surrounded by trees in the summertime where their reflection should have been. For most, that was where the story ended. But not for our lovers.
Lauren took the shotgun off the wall. Marti wasn't ready to use it again. Not yet. She trudged out into the autumn woods, each yellow leaf suspended on the branch in half-death. None of the leaves were on the ground, of course. Leaves falling meant that autumn was passing, that it would eventually come to a close. The ring of golden-leafed trees that surrounded the couple's cabin wouldn't pass.
Lauren walked her usual rabbit-hunting root beyond the yellow circle, pretending to ignore the dying plants that stood tall as if their flowers held formaldehyde instead of nectar. Nothing under the bushes, nothing off by the flowers. Off in the distance, Lauren spotted two ears and a white tale near the stump of a fallen tree.
She got as low as her knees would take her, steadily creeping towards the rabbit. She was further than she wanted to be when the rabbit perked its head up, a single black eye staring sideways at her. Her eye stared back from behind the shotgun as she aimed and readied herself for the worst part of getting dinner.
Birds fled from the piercing CRACK of the shotgun.The injured rabbit bolted off into the brush. Lauren stopped herself from falling backwards, but just barely. She didn't see that the rabbit was gone until it had scampered off to hide in a burrow and lick its wounds. Marti wouldn't have missed the shot. At least, the old Marti wouldn't have. He'd have more to show than a tuft of fur and a few drops of blood. Marti would have a rabbit.
Lauren and Marti sat on opposite sides of the table that was used for everything but which was currently a dinner table. Lauren worked her way through the beans to the carrots and had begin eying the tomatoes as Marti sliced a carrot into smaller and smaller pieces, occasionally using his fork to pick up an orange chunk so small it might just get stuck between the wrinkles in his lips. Somehow, they never did.
"You don't have to eat if you aren't hungry." Lauren said.
"If you took the time to make it, then I want to eat it."
"But if you aren't hungry, then I don't have to make you food."
"I want to be able to eat with you again instead of just staring."
Lauren's mouth opened as if she was going to respond before she went back to eating dinner.
"How are you feeling today?" Lauren asked over the quiet scratching of utensils and miscellaneous mouth sounds.
"Better." Marti waved the fork around in front of him, his arm swinging and bobbing as if a puppeteer with an empty bottle of gin was standing above him. "More in the fingertips too."
"That's great Honey! Do you think you'll go back to hunting soon?"
"Hope so. Would definitely beat staying inside."
"You spent all day inside?"
There was a time back when Marti's brain wasn't full of cobwebs and his tongue didn't sit in his mouth and feel like the reanimated slug that it was. Back then, Marti would have made a story out of what happened that day. He would have explained how he was checking on his wife's garden and admiring the scenery when a couple of ravens saw him as a midday snack. He would have reenacted the situation, swinging his arms above his head as he yelled "Get off me, you feathered bastards!" He would have made Lauren laugh or smile or something. But the fog in his head remained.
"I went to the garden today. And then the birds… the black birds…"
"Ravens?"
"Ravens, yes. Ravens were on me."
"Oh, that sounds horrible!"
"I'm okay. I went inside after that."
Utensils against plates filled the silence.
The next day, Marti felt ready to take the shotgun off the wall. He ran his hands along the old thing, reminiscing over what's changed and cringing at the place's where Lauren's poor upkeep made itself apparent. He wouldn't have the heart to tell her.
Marti marched out the cabin door with a newfound confidence. The ravens were still there, and they weren't worth shooting. Then again, Marti could swing his gun around pretty easily and the ravens got spooked half to death when he yelled at them. So he ventured on into the forest, looking for something he could turn into meat.
Lauren woke up to what sounded like her husband yelling outside.
Reverend Cain looked up from the floor she was sweeping. "Esau?"
"Yes?" Reverend Esau responded.
"I've been thinking more about the thorns. The ones in the desert."
"…Why are we having this conversation again?"
"Because they mean something. I mean rea—"
"I don't want to go through this same song and dance Cain." Esau stopped sweeping to look Cain in the eyes. "You say it matters. I say it's human ruins, you say it's God, and we go back and fourth until something interrupts us."
"Okay, but… Our ancestors don't build spikes in the desert. The thorns don't store anything, the don't protect anything, they don't have any sort of practical purpose."
"Humans built the obelisks and massive stone heads. If it really was God, then why are the spikes made of concre—" Esau stopped himself. "No, no I'm not having this argument again."
"But what about—"
"I'm not discussing it again." Esau interjected. "Anyways, I have to get some activities ready for the schoolkids that are coming later today."
"Do you want any help with that?"
"…I wouldn't mind you pitching in."
"Do you think that if we brought the pews a bit closer together, we could fit in another row or two?" Cain asked.
Non-Article Stuff
A lot of the specifics for how nuclear waste is stored was retrieved from here.
Two preachers walk through a desert of black thorns. Sunbeams beat down onto the wide brims of their hats, their scalps slowly cooking underneath. The sand toasts their sandals, stray grains stinging their feet whenever they can. Preacher Cain stops under the shade of a thorn twice her height, making sure not to lean on the searing concrete. It’s been millennia since the concrete was laid, but Cain knows who laid it.
“And so this is the crown of thorns?” Preacher Esau asked.
“No, it is a second crown of thorns.” Preacher Cain explained.
“Placed by the Romans, I presume?”
“The Romans?” Preacher Cain’s gesture brings his hand precariously close to the burning black thorn, “With all do respect Preacher Esau, these are no obelisks. This is a miracle of God!”
“And what miracle burns its most devout followers? What miracle is made of man’s materials?”
“Did it not burn when the Israelites wandered for 40 years? Was the Golem of Prague not a miracle? Was he not created by man?”
Below the two preachers, man’s creation sat patiently in its lead-lined sarcophagus. Barrels of ionizing ooze stand in single file hundreds of feet below. Together, they form a mass grave for waste that never dies.
“The Golem was sculpted of clay, not concrete.” Preacher Esau corrected.
“So? Miracles can change.”
“Miracles can change?!” Esau puts a hand on Cain’s shoulder before his laughing fit brings him to the ground. “Have you given up on the Golem so easily?”
And what if they leave? The buried waste can wait a few more centuries. Waiting is all that it does.
“I’m not joking, Esau.”
“You aren’t a lot of things. Chiefly, you aren’t correct.”
“How many times was the sea split? How many times was the Earth flooded? How many sons of God roamed the Earth? Miracles happen once. This miracle being of unique design points more towards it being an act of God than it points away from it.”
“The Ten Commandments were given twice.”
“Only because they were broken the first time.”
“Then if we broke these thorns, new ones would appear?”
“Who says other ones have not appeared already? This may be one of many thorned crowns.”
There were other deserts with their own fields of concrete spikes. All built by countries whose names have since changed on land that’s become uninhabitable. Each with exhumed barrels leaking radiation. Each casting invisible poison into the air and soil.
“And so what if this is a sign from God?” Esau said.
“Then we should dig here.”
“God gave us a sign of Jesus’ suffering and you want to dig here?”
“What happened when Jesus suffered? They placed a thorny crown on his head and he bled wine. They killed him and mankind’s sin was absolved. When Jesus suffers, humanity thrives.”
“I… You… What do you expect to find here?”
“I don’t know what exactly, but God gave us a sign that we should dig here. It could be groundwater.”
“And why exactly would God point us to water with… these.” Preacher Esau gestures at the concrete spike behind Preacher Cain. “Why not a spring? Why not an oasis?”
“Because this worked. We’re here.”
“So we are…” Esau squats, bringing his whole body into the shade of the black thorn. “But what if this was a sign for past generations, and the riches are something that’s become worthless since then like oil?”
“If the message was meant for a single generation, then these thorns should have crumbled and decayed.”
“And what if you’re wrong, and this is a structure of man?”
“Then they have made role models of the Egyptians, guiding us to their buried riches.”
Esau scoops up a handful of sand, watching the wind carry the grains that slip from between his fingers. “Groundwater.” He looks up at Cain, “You really think we’ll find groundwater here?”
“Lying is a sin. You, of all people, would know that.”
“So I would.” Preacher Esau gets up, “When do you think we could start drilling the well?”
“A few weeks if we have a coordinated effort. Chances are it’ll be closer to a month.”
And so the two preachers walk off the way they came, discussing logistics the whole way back. The nuclear waste wasn’t going to have to wait much longer.
Definitely picks up around halfway through, but the speed at which Esau's position flips is too fast to be believable. Additionally, the world building in the actual story is too sparse to give the audience anything to latch onto. I think what I should do is streatch out the decision to be multiple conversations over multiple days, with some of it tying back to the question of digging and other parts.
Mother Creature prodded the doll’s arms. Still empty. Her fingers moved inside the woven mouth, pushing more stuffing into the nooks and crannies until the doll was full. Her needle was at its lips now, a thin piece of twine sealing the mouth shut. Button eyes. Black… blue… a pair of green eyes would do nicely. Mother Creature had to restrain herself from sewing on more than two. A few locks of brown hair and it was finished.
Mother Creature held her creation up in the moonlight, her craftsmanship shifting her face into an open-mouthed smile. Beautiful. Moonlit specs glimmered inside her toothless mouth. Their arms reached out from within, long and thin like hers but minuscule in comparison. Hush babies, you’ll eat soon enough.
Mother Creature stared at the chimney. Big enough. Legs folded in towards the chest. Arms followed. Down from the roof, down into the fireplace, out into the living room. A cat watched Mother Creature from the window sill, back arched and teeth bared. Why would it be afraid of a fellow night creature?
Mother Creature went up the stairs, down the hall, to the last room on the left. They never kept it locked. There were the twins, and there was the girl on the bottom bunk. Mother Creature tucked the doll under the blankets, curling the sleeping girl’s fingers around her newest playmate. Mother Creature’s hand moved to the girl’s hair. Sifting, searching, retrieving a single loose blond strand. She wouldn’t miss it.
Mother Creature could see the cat peering at her from the hallway. It wouldn’t let her go back the way she came. Over to the window, up goes the latch. Open a crack, a smidgen, and inch. Legs folded towards the chest. Arms pulled. Back in the night air, the window closed to an inch, a smidgen, a crack. And then Mother Creature was gone.
"Ma'am, I work with the government and I've heard some reports of unusual activity around these parts." The man in the tweed jacket said. "Now, these reports usually don't turn out to be anything of importance, but it's my job to make sure that that's the case. Mind if I ask you some questions?"
"Oh… I'd be happy to answer your questions." Ms. Hockman said. "How about you make yourself at home while I get some coffee ready?"
The man stepped inside, lighting a cigarette behind the cup of his hand as Ms. Hockman made her way into the kitchen.
"I hate to be rude, but would you please mind not smoking?" Hockman stood in the kitchen doorway. "I usually don't mind, but it's for the baby's sake."
The man looked at the bulge in Ms. Hockman's belly like it had been caused by a massive tumor or a balloon that she had swallowed or a watermelon seed that grew in her stomach or some other other event that was similar parts unlikely and unfortunate. "My mistake."
The man ducked his head outside and produced a loud sucking noise similar to fish innards being vacuumed through a straw. When the man turned back, his lips held the glowing stump of a cigarette burned down to the filter.
"This is some premium stuff. I couldn't bare letting it go to waste."