《A Place Without Wind》 Preface: Dreams Dont Mean Anything Sorry, Mendeleev S''what''s missing what makes us.
Bruce isn''t quite able to put his finger on when the dream started. For a long time it mixed into all the others, sorting below the priorities and attentions of a young man worried about his future. The dream starts just like this: at first everything is warm, and humid, and black as sin. Then something stirs very close - too close - and it isn''t the right shape a person should be. "You aren''t taking me seriously," hisses the voice in the deep place. Bruce laughs, not afraid here in the dark. He has exams after all. And he can''t blow his chances with Nuo Hu, she had flirted with him at study session with dark flashing eyelashes. "Come on man, I don''t have time right now," Bruce scoffs, trying to pull himself back into another place, another thought, away from an unwelcome distraction. "Don''t have time? You insufferable bone-rigged bottom-hobbler, you''re asleep! When could I possibly use less of your time than now?" It says, ragged parched scraping at its edges. "This is quality dream time! I could be in a fast car, or flying, or with a girl." Bruce hopes to signal dismissively with his hands but finds too little of himself present within the dream. They are too far in the peripheral, unresponsive, and calling to them is like dredging a sunken ship. Pull too hard and you just wake up violent, end up punching the lamp or kicking a wall. The threat of a lurching, sudden awakening stills the fight out of Bruce. He eases himself into the current of the dream and - as he concedes - more of this space comes into focus. Glimmer, Dampness, Dripping. A gaping, cavernous, echoing crampedness. Sweltering pressure and gasping thinness. Fluorescence in the dark, teal and tangerine blots. Raindrops on a lens out of focus. One seven, a quarter, three seven, a dozen forty-thirds. Not random but not mechanical; the rhythm of the biological.If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. "Just take a look," the voice importunes. Frustration, not in tenor but in hue. A chill threads out of Bruce, burrowing out across thought, and brane, and into his meat such that his very real limbs shudder under bed sheets. His host pulls closer, but not nearer. Arms, hands. Something cupped close to the body. It offers them forward to show Bruce a secret. Its head is too wide. Far too wide. The distance between them frays into something wider-thinner. So Weird, Bruce thinks. He tries to push through the soup and stay in the moment. He has been here before. This exact instance. He sees wide flat digits, darkly silicone-translucent, unfurl from a cupped miracle. And suddenly, seeing is no longer about light or shapes or color. Bright without brightness, Bruce is overwhelmed by a vision of pure geometry. Lines without width, volumes without edges. Curves which only exist in one direction. Behind all of it, overwhelming it and illuminating it, an aura; a halo. A field diagram. Michelangelo, a fourteen dimensional tensor graph, and a dram of ketamine. Paint in the colors of microwave, KissFM radio, gamma-ray, and fuschia. Bruce''s nose bleeds into his pillow, and he is falling. "Yea, I know," says the voice, fading fast now. "Fucks with me to look at it too." Puke in the waste bin. Take two Ibuprofen. Pillowcase in the wash. Fall asleep in the common lounge. Everything is okay. You''re okay, Bruce. 1. Love dont work like they promised you. Tension is the internal force on a material being pulled apart. Rope, chain, and wire are strong. Compression is the strength of a material pushed together. Stone, gritted lime, fired clay are strong. Shear is a force, applied in different directions, like cutting, ripping, tearing. Laminates, composites, wood are strong against the grain and weak along it. Torsion is force applied by twisting. Honestly, torsion is a bitch. There''s not much out there that holds up under torsion. Steel sure, but steel is good at everything except how damn heavy it is. Bruce''s first love had been the bridge. Not ''A'' bridge, or ''THE'' bridge, but the ''BRIDGE''. Concrete, reinforced with steel rebar, plated with tar asphalt, raised on painted steel pylons. Horse-tail hair and flax rope, plank wood, undulating, frightful, trustworthy. Iron-cut granite, river basalt, quarry sand and ash lime mortar arching, precarious and methuselahn. Steel! Steel! Wire, knit and graceful, suspended and windrocked. Living trees, cultivated with intergenerational patience to grip across chasms. After all, what is a bridge? Certainly not the stuff it''s made from. Certainly not the shape it takes. No, a bridge is a thing which is defined by its purpose, and its purpose is defined by the negative space it reaches across. There are five rows of long-tables, rubber-composite white. Raw concrete walls on three sides, painted a hearty tapioca. A naked brick fourth, set generously with windows. Off-white raky biscuits square out the drop ceiling above. Twenty three orange bakelite chairs full of graceful curves, two brown polymer reinforcements bearing abrupt creases. Four, five, five, three seated students, one empty row. Nuo Huo is second row, inside left. She carries a snapping plastic case for her pens, multi-colored gel-rolling bright. Some are glittery; these her favorites. Her skin is the color of his racing heart. Her hair drapes with the elegance of his stolen breath. Bruce loves her soft focused intensity, her no-nonsense questions. Her middling exam scores, redeemed by meticulous, laborious home work. She draws little animal cartoon characters on the margins of her notes with gleeful ferocity. She covers her mouth when she laughs. The plurality of the class membership receive no description here. Each is a person to them self, as colorful and virtuous as the others (except Kevin, but that is irrelevant). Bruce sees none of them, not to the depth of focus they deserve. After all, that''s the nature of a young man in matters of the heart. They''ve got a passion hot, mysterious, and blindingly stupid.
It''s lunch time and Nuo Hu is in love with the Teaching Assistant. Tall, dark hair and a fierce wit. Impeccable, small lettering on the whiteboard from piano-graceful fingers. A young man of many sweaters, and one battered leather valise. It''s peppered in colorful, scandalous stickers for musical troupes long since disbanded. Arnold Wojcik is model citizen on paper - on a first name basis with the chair of the department, star assistant to a prominent research group. Teaches two undergraduate sessions, top three in Graduate GPA. Of course, his collegial relationship with the Professors has more to do with his attendance of the department''s legendary biweekly poker game and a ruthlessly cunning attention to writing all his research group''s grant proposals. In front of the classroom he takes one breath and compels his students like a schoolmaster out of the 19th century. On the next he conspires foul-mouthed, acerbic and irreverent with his charges. Arnold is everything Nuo''s mother would and would not approve of, ferociously in either direction. He is rebel and tyrant at once. But the truth is, Nuo loves him for the simplest and primate stupid of reasons. For a full hour, three times a week, he is the center of attention for a room of near-twenty her peers.
"Hey Nuo," Bruce begins. Nuo pages through sheaves of the latest homework assignment, her lunch tray floating incrementally adrift as she loses track of it amongst problem sets. "How did you get that for problem three?" She frowns. Bruce has a bad habit of taking shortcuts when solving difficult problems. They are invariably clever, but poorly documented and rarely follow the class-prescribed method. She wishes he would follow instructions more closely, but likes studying with Bruce all the same. He is courteous and loyal, never picks fights, and he really is better with the exams. Plus - well, Arnold seemed to like Bruce. She noticed there were favorites, and she liked to imagine she might be one too. "Oh if you pop this to the other side and integrate them both, this parameter can get factored out now," Bruce indicates, leaning over the cafeteria table and trying not to smudge Nuo''s delicate pen-work. "Whaaaat." "Yea it''s the same thing we learned in Calculus." "But I thought it breaks at zero."This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings. "But it isn''t at zero though, right?" "Huh." "Hey Nuo," Bruce tries once again. "What''s up?" Nuo adjusts a periwinkle wool knit hat to get hair out of her face and away from the table. "Do you want to go to a party on Friday?" "Uh," Nuo freezes up. No, absolutely not. Parties are irresponsible. She has homework. What would people think if they saw her? No. Well. Maybe. Actually ¨C so what if they did? Why was it their business what to think of her? What does she need to be responsible for? Homework could wait one night, right? Nuo unloosens, sees Bruce starting to fray a smidge in composure. "Sure!" She chirps. After all, isn''t university where you''re supposed to reinvent yourself? Yes, reservation is molting-shell, hung too long stuck to the one outgrown it.
Trying to hide a shaking excitement, Bruce asks for her phone number. In case they get lost, right? He collects it like a treasure. Sitting in his contact list next to her school email, it feels heavier than its predecessor. More real.
Barking, chirping shrieks claw out into the open seas just outside of Blue. Everything had been going wrong, and somehow managed to be worse. The safe-house is compromised, his co-conspirators likely detained. He''s never swam so fast in his life, panicked and gulping water. Gloom and dark keep him company, though he can see the edge to it. A clearer ray of color means pursuit, capture. He steers deeper into the city''s billowing waste plume. His eyes burn, water. A thin ugly film of algae and worse builds on his skin and face. Further! Faster! If Ossanchor is nearby it could serve as a refuge; briefly. Only the frontier tunnels would really be safe. A fibrous satchel thumps his side, chokes his throat, pulls against his course. Clumsily he stops stroking and claws at the cord-looped binding, unable to maintain the tempo of his kick. Too much carried, not nearly enough saved. Ah! He finds his intention, a clear lacquer globe. Its lid bound round four times with sealing rubbery thread, a pooled double-dram of water sloshing inside. It''s not the liquid he needs. Fingers shake as the seal is unwound. He must be careful not to use the whole bottle. Cracks the lid just enough and a spray of tiny bubbles escape, darting wisps. They tease each other, vortices coupling paired dancers. But they hang for a moment uncertain in the gloom, a shuddering potential. His phosphors twinkle with restrained excitement, fingers curl in among the bubbles, lips purse, eyes narrow, secondary lids pull thin. And then he chooses which way is up. Lurching force pulls at him unevenly, he feels it down to his tendons, it wrenches at his stomach. The bubbles no longer hesitate, they stampede. Roiling, joining, turbulent. They carry shooting along the plume, and with them a lance of current. He is flung along with it, half-deaf with the roar, hooting and laughing. The undertow forms a dozen yards out, a ragged torus rolling backwards. Like a hammer it buffets pursuers and plume, a dimming shockwave whose ghost will reach all the way to the delicate spires of Blue. It hardly matters if he swims now but he tries, spinning swiping scooping. Still choking on filth, tumbling. An exuberant misery, the smile of a man who''s neck met noose and the wrong one snapped. For the first time in a cycle _|:____|_|____||_:______:|_____|___ plans for tomorrow.
She''d texted Arnold. Damn. Half a hundred petty thoughts, conspiracies and deceptions filter their way into Bruce''s mental waste bin over the three weeks it takes him to mend. Arnold''s behavior was clearly inappropriate. By the letter of the law, he should be challenged! Thrown to the wolves! Fed to administrative penal committees! But ¨C even in his weakest cruelest moments he knows Nuo would never be his. Life is messy, and his friend is happy. Bruce closes out the semester with strong final marks, and submerges into new club memberships; competitive video games and frisbee-football. He drifts apart from Nuo, or really she has captured into a closed orbit, a dancing pair that pulls closer and faster toward the sun. He refuses to feel sorry for himself, and places his rsvp when Nuo invites him along just after finals. Arnold''s end of the semester party is a raucous, stylish affair ¨C compared, of course, to the tastes of a poor undergraduate. There are costumes, and mixed drinks; all of which are built on obtuse, guarded inside jokes. He does not belong here, but finds he is welcome anyway. He learns the secret drinking games of the graduate students and upperclassmen, scandalous rumors about his professor''s personal lives, and byzantine circumlocutions of the curriculum requirements. It is fun. He has fun. Winter festival passes at home, in the company of family and a handful of returning school friends. Nuo Hu does not return to school the following semester. She does not respond to the text Bruce sends. To the second. It would be inappropriate to send a third. Arnold is still here. He teaches the same introductory class, carries the same leather case, wears those same sweaters. But he is diminished, lighter and dimmer. They have broken up. She is not coming back this year. This is the fullness of the explanation Bruce receives. What can he do? He redoubles his studies. He becomes a terror on the frisbee field, ruthless with a set of joysticks. He starts looking for an apartment off campus for next fall. 2. Nobody grows up a Fireman His elements were meant to be steel lime silica to occasionally dally in vulcanized rubber. Never profane himself with lowly wood which comes from living things (barbaric!) inconstant and unpredictable stone and metal are never rude enough to be exceptional they have published yields tension, shear, torque, compression written down on paper dependable Why would you want to be more than average? Average is the furthest place from boundaries, from edges. Ask any one who builds an edge is the weakest part of any structure The edge belongs to the artist to the mason it is the enemy, a four letter word. Bruce'' first Art class was meant to fulfill a mandated humanities elective. The course exists for two reasons: to ensure that the uncouth get a fraction of exposure to culture during their brief station, and second to pay the art staff who might otherwise be exposed to the free market and thusly insolvent. Momentum still carries Bruce towards Engineer. A weekly study group assembles, and Bruce''s classmates become more than strangers. Mathematics more and more overtakes English as the language of his life. Meanwhile colored pencil week leaves Bruce uninspired. Carved linoleum ink printing is downright play-time insulting. Like generations of intemperate collegiates before him, Bruce begins to conspire to achieve the bare minimum. It is far easier to court an artist''s political agenda than their technical proficiency, so by midterms Bruce had secured a safe passing mark through brazen theft of midcentury ''Beat'' script, and turn of the century ''Ashcan'' themography. Safety. Security. But then Clay. The teacher wheels it into the class in a lumpen block on top of parchment and a wobbly handcart. Aluminum-heavy, phyllosilicate raw with base oxides and nude silica; clay is the inflection point. For the class, for his life. His fingers grip, shape, contour a molded geometry in free space. Mass and volume the missing ingredients to personal transformation. He takes to it fiercely, and within the month he is visiting the studio after hours. Within a second, he discovers the metallurgy studio. Another week, and he discovers brass ¨C the love he never knew. In late May Bruce takes a seat in the aluminum / foam / canvas chair desk-crossed from his Engineering faculty advisor. Cheap color prints of silly gag comics. A boxy computer which clatters audibly in obsolescence. Stacks of paper, stacks. Aluminum with veneered plywood, desk and bookshelves all. Two figures gesture to an ursine blob, clawing up some kind of scaffolding. The poster caption reads, "Well it is a load bear-ing wall." "Yes. Fine Arts." "Hope you don''t mind, but I can''t help wonder if this won''t be a waste of your potential." Bruce fidgets a moment but sure is sure. Professor Kim swipes a hand through what''s left of his hair and continues. "We all like you here, your teachers gush about you." "Thanks." Bruce declines to elaborate. He rolls his palms together, an absent molasses friction. His hands are rougher now, tested by grit and heat. Hairy on the knuckles, thicker at the joints. Kim exhausts a moment in case of explanation or reconsideration. "Okay then." Kim thumbs through the transfer documents. "Let''s figure out how many credits we can salvage for your major." And that was it.
The universe is a complicated place. Hard to handle, mean to fathom. Ancient man tried their best to suss it, but largely imagined animal heads on people, or people who turn into animals, or screw it: here''s an old guy with a lightning bolt hanging in his coat rack. They were admittedly, clutching at straws.Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation. Finally, during a period of relative peace and enlightenment, some sensible naked apes started asking the cosmos better questions. Questions like, What''s the substance we''re made from? Are the motion of bodies on Earth and Heaven governed by laws discernible? Oh shit, does math work? And these questions would guide them, in time, to scientific advancement and prosperity, to pasteurization and semiconducting silicon. But at some point in between clueless and ChromiumIV tetraoxide-2, came the four elements. Air, Earth, Fire, Water. The substance of stuff distilled into four indivisible essences. It was simple, it made sense. But before long, it dissatisfied. Not because the system enfigures to a deficient chemistry, humans are eager to overlook these things, but because the soul had no place to roost in the diagram. The immortal spirit which raises humankind above the lesser beasts of the natural wild must certainly have a place in the atomic composition of the universe. It must. The wisest Alchemists of the age set out to distill this stuff of eternal life, but the task soon spiraled further and further from reach. The essential earths decomposed into gas. Metals refused to reduce out its essential fire. Airs burned with air became water. The question of the Soul was delayed in favor of something more practical. Flooded with gases both ig and noble, metalloids and valences and protonic numerals, the chemist began to ask instead, ¡°Wait, what the fuck is Osmium?¡±
"What does it mean?" Laurel asks. She paces tentatively around the canvas as if there might be a second side to it. A good half dozen bangles careen about her left arm, with a light clink whenever the two metal pieces find their way around plastic and cord to each other. "It''s the natural log e," Bruce replies, a soft matter-of-fact. Painting had never been Bruce''s favorite subject but the program is rigid; the fundamentals necessary before the department would let upperclassmen retreat into specialty. Laurel is much more paint than Bruce. Her frizzy hair bundles up into a precarious bun, her loose hanging sweater is bound up with cream colored ribbons at the sleeves to keep them away from her brush ¨C thick warm yarn with generous roping meshing, dandelion yellow - a spackle of irreparable periwinkle dabs from an early experiment with encaustics that had gotten out of hand. "And what makes a loggie natural or not?" She seems amused by the idea, throwing back an impish glance. Bruce has always been an unconventional member of the class. Holding onto stodgy practical attitudes, he still huffs with politely restrained offense when his peers veer into metaphysics. Bruce purses into the start of a frown, an effort to brew up patience. "It''s a ratio that''s important in nature. It''s also the solution to a math problem." "Bruce, did you paint a quiz? Algebra was traumatic for me too, but I don''t paint midterm questions." Unperturbed, he continues. "It''s interesting that the two meet. There''s no good reason that this number, this mathematical thing, it matches with the way things grow, and sometimes the way things fail." Bruce traces out the shapes on his canvas. A series of offset, overlapping squares of increasing size. They are negatively defined, ghostly in character. Pale blues, sharp warm notes. Edges from the palette knife taper off from precision to rough disorder. "Grow, okay. Like a plant? Fail though?" "Or a Nautilus shell. That¡¯s... not Log e, it¡¯s more the log of the golden ratio, but you know¡­ ah, yea," Bruce snatches up a diet pop vacationing on his wall shelf. He makes sure it''s still closed before offering it to Laurel, who refuses politely. "Fail, well. When a material, when stuff, is under stress, like being squished or stretched ¨C we can check something called a strain curve," he pauses. Searches Laurel suspiciously with a pinched expression. "What," she laughs, padding back a half step under scrutiny. "Some people get bored talking about material strain," Bruce issues gently. With a clap, and a gleeful half-turn, Laurel pleads to her charges. "Guilty! You got me. I like it though. I think if you give the whole background, Professor Ross will eat it up." She shrugs. "But I don''t know if it stands on its own merit. Not enough color in here to really show that you''ve got the technique down, and that''s points off." "But if I can explain it to Ross -" "I''m sure she''ll dig it. She loves this cross-discipline stuff. If you spoke up more in class, she''d like you a lot better." Bruce makes a deliberate nod. "But you could also just throw some more stuff on the canvas." "And ruin it, I feel." "Yea, for sure. But it''d be safer for your grade." Bruce makes a resigned nod. He twists his pop just enough for a slow, diminished hiss; looks over his canvas with intention to compromise. Laurel mirrors his posture for a moment, to the short end of propriety and patience. She pulls her phone out of her jean pocket and waggles it at him. "Bruce, do you want to come to a party on Friday?" He pulls back out of the clouds with a dopey "Hm? What?" Which turns out to mean yes. 3a. Beholders Seventy-eight students graduated in Kelsey Martel''s senior class. There was a moment there, where the biggest dream her grandparents had for her was to marry the mortician''s son. Old fashioned. Her parents hadn''t the decency of leaving her an orphan. Not like a princess or a fairy tale. They had lingered. Like persistent, parasitic narco lampreys, they circled. Opiate-thirsty jackals, snapping at each other as much as their own beleaguered parents. It had taken all four, Mawmaw, Pawpaw, Gramma, and Grampa to fend them off long enough for her to make it to university. Kelsey sets down her mobile phone, one of the exciting touch-screen models which delivered her email and sent photographs by message. Her bank has managed to identify and close an account her mother had opened in her name; a relief and an irritation. She is concerned she''d have to spend her whole life on guard like this. But judging how bad mom has been shaking lately... Kelsey is more frightened she wouldn''t have to be checking her credit much longer. She claws at a red plastic cup, intent to fill it with comfort-lite. Lo calorie self destruction, for a girl on the go. Keepin'' shapely while gettin'' smashed. BAC without the BMI, baby. In a fair world, Kelsey wouldn''t need to count calories. She''s a shorter girl, healthy and handsome. But her size is astray of contemporary fashion, so she''s taken measures - the most bold of which is her hair, by nature nut brown but now blonde bleached. Back home, folk would have had a fit. Here though? Not even here but here tonight? Tepid rebellion. The party is a lesson in relativity, stranger than she''s used to. Euro-trance meets world beat pumping out of the den, house built in the tangled pre zoning code lunacy of converted student rental property. Too many hallways, all too narrow. A luxury of square footage partitioned so every square inch feels hard to breathe in. The other girls intimidate her. They have vivid dyed monochrome hair and stories of overseas travel. They all seem to personally know the person who made their jewelry. She is afraid someone will ask and she will be forced in shame to admit her lip stick is named after a film celebrity, her bracelet came from a mall. The boys aren''t much better. They''re all so... narrow. Willowy and droll. No small proportion have sharp bits of metal punched through parts of their face Kelsey generally considers important. Migrating conversation, from cluster to cluster she finds a pervasive undercurrent of fetishism for late 60s film. Talk seems so very hard tonight. It would be easier if she hadn''t lost track of her friend Ashli, but true to her name she had right away wrapped herself up in someone called ¡°Mark¡± with a facile urgency. The bitter truth: there is no depending on an ''Ashli'' with an ''i''. ¡°Yea, I don''t know him. No. Right, sure. I''m sure he was real famous. Haven''t seen it. Nope. I guess I just haven''t lived then,¡± Kelsey works to keep exasperation out of her voice, but it isn''t a long listen before she can''t convince self or speaker she gives enough shits to see his sentence through. Graciously, the young man peels off nearly mid-syllable, allowing Kelsey to circumnavigate an avid denim cluster of freshmen who seem convinced they were the first to discover Kant. An empty loveseat beckons, insomuch as fuzzy avocado rayon can be considered inviting, but a yellow duckie cotton towel drips spilled drink when she moves it from the cushion. She sets the towel back down grimly, and pulling on her drink upgrades a sip to a slurp. It''s funny how, in a crowd so meticulously decorated to be noticed, the one standing out is the one trying the least. Bruce Caleb Anderson is a stocky young man but not overweight. He has a broad face, and small bright eyes which tend to squint. The thin wisps of his sandy hair betray warning signs of recession, but it is early enough to allow for a last few blessed years of denial. He wears a staid beige polo under a thin orange parka, and battered grey boots. He is the square peg, shouldn''t but easily, fit into the star hole. A shift in the tide draws most attendance either into the fenced back yard or down to a cellar of beer sport. With room to breathe, Kelsey huddles closer to Bruce''s circle in espionage. She is assessed as inconsequential, no immune response yet. Trepidation, she realizes she''s in the heart of the artiest of the artsy, the seething bowel of aesthetic and philosophical theory. She angles for a geometry to get herself adjacent, but none opens. The longer she hesitates, the greater danger her opinions may be solicited; yes, the risks are high. ¡°Constructivism is pretty tight,¡± says Marry-Him Beige into a pause. It''s the shortest sentence she''s heard from the gaggle, but they all nod like he''d used thrice the syllables and dealt ninefold the sage. Kelsey decides this is her best chance, and drops a tactical giggle. It burns her cover, but serves as calculated feint. Besides, she needs to put her piece on the board, there''s something more at work here than mere snobbery. She sifts through the light salvo of casual disdain, sounding for a malicious actor. Ah! Her enemy reveals herself.Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon. Bangles MacFrizzyhair locks eyes with Kelsey, Saladin''s first parley with Lionhearted Dick. Bangles'' leans closer, touches the back of her hand lightly against Bruce''s. A ''Cafeteria elbow oopsie''? What a strangely subdued escalation, is this misplay or an advanced defensive open? Kelsey can only trust herself, responds with an ''Airheads Gambit''. It leaves her vulnerable to a ''Queenbee Kneecap'' or a ''Scholars Scoffsplanation'', but Bangles doesn''t manoeuvre in time. Bruce is caught in the ''Pedants Homily'', which counts as a valid point score for Kelsey. Frizzy frazzles. She resets the board with the ''Hypemans Cordon'', but everyone knows it plays poorly into any boy who''s got some Norway in him. Amateur move. Kelsey slides past the picket and into a ¡°Humblepie Bakesale¡± leaving the defense reeling. ¡°I think I want another beer, do you want another beer?¡± Laurel asks Bruce. It''s a legal timeout call - so the field recesses for the redistribution of ethanol. Kelsey takes this moment to approach a neutral party, a girl dressed and painted solely in black. Veronica, or ''Vonnie'', is brighter in outlook than her maudlin single tone palette. Meanwhile Laurel counsels discretely with a fatter boy on the other side of the ring. She bares a vexed dimple, but not a temper furrow, and her cornerman''s generous hand gesticulations are contemplatively measured. ¡°So Bruce, huh,¡± Vonnie says, cutting across idle chat to the bleeding of it. Kelsey stiffens a shade, but obvious is and as. ¡°He seems close with, ah...¡± she trails towards an incomplete question mark. ¡°Laurel. No they''re not a thing yet. It''s none of my business, but she''s taking her sweet time.¡± Vonnie swishes at her liquored cola and touches at her face, eyelashes, brow ring, lip stud. ¡°She''s pretty,¡± Kelsey whispers into her own red plastic cup. It puffs back the air of her breath like a hug at 4.2% by volume. ¡°He''s not,¡± laughs Vonnie. ¡°I got a drafting class with him. Most boring fuck I ever met to walk in skin,¡± she reaches out and grips Kelsey''s shoulder, gently to comfort and gently not to hazard her long smoky nails. ¡°But serious too, fuckin'' wizard with sculpture, honest to the fault of stupid. As good a guy as any I know.¡± They share a moment that isn''t quite friendship; more a soldier''s commiseration, the soul who doesn''t hope you win, but you survive the contest. It ends. The court reconvenes, by now all parties present party to the present (contest). All but the goalpost, poor boy, but what does he matter except in of the winning? ¡°Does the new girl not like me?¡± Laurel asks Bruce in confidence. She''s pulled him aside, and her voice is strained in a way that tugs at his primal, thuggish need to protect. ¡°No, no way. I mean, she seems nice, I mean, what do you mean?¡± Bruce reaches strenuously for a tone and tact which might comfort his friend. ¡°She''s being really mean,¡± Laurel says, in stress but not surety. ¡°I think. I mean... I can''t even tell. It''s like we''re having a fight but I''m not sure over what or why.¡± Her right eye glitters like it''s considering a cry but hasn''t committed yet. ¡°We''re just talking... fighting?¡± Bruce loses twenty percent of his brain to reassessing the last twenty minutes, but still is coming up empty. He doesn''t know what to think of the new girl either. Is she in the department? Who did she come with? Christ, what''s her name? ¡°I think... we should be nice to her. She doesn''t seem too smart,¡± Bruce wagers. Laurel''s head tilts with a pitying condescension. ¡°Oh Bruce,¡± she admonishes kindly. ¡°What, she asked me what pottery is made out of,¡± he tries out a chuckle for size, but Laurel clearly doesn''t like the fit. Laurel lowers her voice, closes in and taps his shoulder like it''s morse code. ¡°Exactly, Bruce. Nobody''s that dumb. Of course she knows what clay is. She''s playing us, but I just can''t figure out why.¡± Some kind of base obvious is firing an alarm deep in his lizard brain, but it''s been so long since Division Fuck has gotten budget, the light''s not proper labeled. ¡°Huh,¡± he noises, slowly coming online through the lager fog. Problem is, some traitor hidden in his allocated twenty keeps sending back images instead of sentences. The new girl''s small fingers sweeping her hair behind her weird lobe-less ear. The trace of butt in her jeans, with just a hint of muffin-top over the edges. Her narrow nostrils and thin eyebrows. It''s a distracting malfunction, dragging down either end of what oughta be his party smile. ¡°Hey Vonnie,¡± Laurel acknowledges as Veronica von Spooky joins them. ¡°What''s up guys?¡± ¡°Why we looking so glum? Glumceratops and Poutasaurus Rex over here.¡± ¡°Did you meet the new girl?¡± Bruce asks. ¡°We''re trying to figure out what her deal is.¡± ¡°Oh it''s way more fun if I don''t tell,¡± Vonnie gleefully evades. ¡°Not ominous,¡± Laurel sighs. ¡°Is she a friend of yours? Is she cool?¡± ¡°Naw, but I like her,¡± Vonnie leers toothily, ¡°She''s like a Russian mail order bride. Smiles on the outside, knife-fight on the inside,¡± she lets out a whuffing Maxim-gun cackle. Bruce frowns. ¡°Play nice. Maybe I should just go talk to her, what''s her name?¡± ¡°Kelsey,¡± Vonnie responds. Laurel takes the frown baton. ¡°No, you don''t have to -¡± But Bruce reassures. ¡°I''ll just say hi. Be right back.¡± Vonnie grabs Laurel''s wrist eagerly. ¡°Oh this is going to be a train wreck.¡± She winks at Laurel. ¡±I''m excited.¡± 3b. Beholders your keys? Yes, yes. I believe you it''s just that I keep hearing your purse jingle and maybe - no no, it''s fine. I''ve got the couch it''s a futon. Where else would you sleep? I''m not going to put you on the floor. But you could try calling your roommate? I know you texted her but - no it''s no trouble it''s just - careful of the steps there. bits there. Let''s let go of those. No it''s okay - no need to say sorry. don''t have your keys?
¡°Bruce,¡± the lights blear across his vision. ¡°Bruce! Are you reading me?¡± The lights commune, canary speckled crimson. Bruce shakes his head, but thinking doesn''t seem to work. He finally just says it out loud. ¡°Yea, hey spooky voice?¡± ¡°Oh shit, you''re there! You''re there! Thank the stones!¡± If spotty flashes of light could sparkle with excitement... well they do. ¡°Reception''s a little staticky, let me just adjust some things.¡± ¡°Damn, I can''t even stand straight like this,¡± Bruce is fast losing his sense of up to an inter-dimensional vertigo, and forecasts project a 70 percent of falling right the fuck down. ¡°Well don''t wake up!¡± ¡°I''m not asleep, man, dang.¡± ¡°But we''re deep into your scheduled night cycle! Why ¨C¡° ¡°You''re making me dizzy -¡± Bruce reaches out a hand towards the most lethal, threateningly-near table corner just in case. ¡±Just... why don''t you just lie, uh, down or something?¡± The lights provide, which seems a sensible and practical suggestion. ¡°Why are you awake this late, you terrestrial ape?¡± ¡°Girls, man,¡± Bruce tremulously and carefully stoops, then slumps, then splays. Back down to the rug, and rest spread-eagle. ¡°Girls. It''s super weird I can''t decide whether I''m hearing you or seeing you,¡± Bruce sighs, wiggling his eyebrows and digging fingers idly through fibers of warm ugly carpet. ¡°Oh I see, yes. Sorry about that. Don''t get me wrong it''s way better reception out here but I''ve lost all my good equipment. Got this whole thing patched together with wishes and prayers. Not to mention your language subgroup spans all the wrong parts of your brains. It''s a miracle I reached you at all.¡± ¡°You scared me for a second there spooky voice, thought I was having a stroke. How about you leave me alone man.¡± He closes his eyes and finds it''s easier to read the backs of his lids than his ceiling. ¡°Ridiculous. Bruce, you''re the only connection still responding!¡± ¡°Give me eight reasons to give a shit, brother,¡± Bruce sings in a hushed halfhearted falsetto. He idly notices that tonight the quality of his echo tastes like the welcome difference between dormancy and absence. ¡°Because you''re my last chance to finally - The kingdom! I can''t possibly reestablish... wait. Why... eight?¡± The light... sputters? ¡°Because I''ll get bored halfway through your list and¡¯ll ignore you anyway,¡± Bruce yawns matter-of-fact. ¡°You know, I haven''t had your dream in a while. What ah, what''s up with you?¡± There was some shakiness in the motes, like the grunting exertion of a flashlight doing it''s first real shift of manual labor. ¡°You wouldn''t believe it! I''ve been having a terrible time. I lost my home, I was on the run! And now I''m living like a criminal, with criminals. Criminal! ME!¡±This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author''s work. ¡°That sounds tough spooky voice,¡± Bruce murmurs, fractionally sympathetic. He thumbs his toes clumsily to slide off his socks one after the other. ¡°Things are pretty good on my end. School''s good. Parents are good. I literally have a cute girl on my couch right now. So you know, things looking up,¡± Bruce wiggles an unused part of his motor cortex experimentally and it brushes against a thread of something appropriately impossible. Pleased, he starts to try to conceive of a way to tug on it. ¡°Super glad to hear from you. Check in 6 months from now?¡± ¡°No! Bruce! It''s imperative that we correct this course! The device! The device I sent you,¡± flash the lights. ¡°Oh the thing. Right.¡± ¡°You remember the schematic?¡± ¡°Hard to forget.¡± ¡°Good! Wonderful! YES! This is going to sound crazy,¡± the lights gird themselves, ¡°but you must BUILD the device! It''s essential that-¡± ¡°Dude, of course I''m going the build the thing. Don''t be stupid.¡± ¡°You... you are?¡± ¡°It''s the coolest idea I''ve ever had, spooky dream voice. Obviously, I''m''onna build the fuckin'' thing,¡± Bruce chuffs in indignation. ¡°Your... idea?¡± ¡°Yea, its gonna get me an A fuckin'' plus on my Seniors thesis,¡± Bruce can''t quite help but feel proud about that. ¡±Listen man, I gotta go get the girl some water and a puke-bin. So how about... we have you...¡± Bruce manages to get a bit of his good brain meat around the string, and Minerva baby-bears a crude synthetic muscle memory whose purpose is solely to yank. ¡°Bruce, no! What are you doing?¡± ¡°...fuck right the fuck off, thanks!¡± ¡°If you break the connection on your end I won''t be able to -¡± and as the string gives, the lights kick out and the half-dream unravels. His eyes open to the cool shadow-blue of his ceiling. Bruce is alone with the hum of his sleep-mode computer desktop and the restless air. And his guest. With a pleased, easy smile, Bruce elbows himself to a seat and then back afoot. He shudders, just to get the last bit of ick out of his system, and pads towards the cupboard in search of his last clean cup.
A muffled thrumming headache stirs Kelsey awake, no that''s not a headache, that''s a voice. Her eyes creak open, sticky with sleep. No, wait it''s both. That''s a second trimester headache in the making. Major intervention necessary, else an eighteen year misery. ¡°Ungh,¡± she groans as her neck seems not to want to pivot her head upright. ¡°Hello?¡± She sees an unfamiliar ceiling first. Then walls with posters from movies she''s not familiar with. No, those aren''t movies. They''re just... buildings. Like swimsuit pinups but for skyscrapers. ¡°Oh hey, you should have some water,¡± says a Boy voice. His face resolves in the dark as he gently guides her hand to a cup. ¡°Oh, score,¡± Kelsey murmurs, grasping out with her other hand to touch his arm, sliding down and off to a necessary double fisted beverage security. ¡°I got the pretty one.¡± ¡°You like the... cup?¡± The Boy asks, because he''s a dummy. Kelsey slurps at her Hs and Os grinning ungracefully, her hair a birds-nest, and then squirms luxuriantly into the futon blanket combo. ¡°Mmmm. Thanks.¡± ¡°Of course. You doing okay? You need anything?¡± He asks, putting his hand down on the corner of the blanket. Kelsey rolls her knee under the cover and over to intercept it. ¡°I''m good,¡± she croons. ¡°Huh.¡± It occurs to her that she''s got an unfamiliar texture on her torso, and looking down sees a stranger''s tee. ¡°This isn''t my shirt,¡± she says without alarm. Boy blushes intensely. ¡°You ah, you ah, you sort of kept trying to take off yours,¡± he says apologetically. ¡°We compromised and I gave you ah... one of mine.¡± Kelsey nods, that makes sense. ¡°Mmmm, boy shirt,¡± she says confirming her favor. ¡°Was it sexy though?¡± ¡°Sorry? I uh...¡° Boy stammers. ¡±Tell you what. Maybe in the morning, if you still feel like taking it off I can tell you if it''s sexy then.¡± Kelsey approves. Yes, good Boy. She hands back the cup. He stands to go back to bed but that''s unacceptable. ¡°No,¡± she commands, grabbing at his arm again. He hesitates, sets the cup aside. ¡°I can''t.¡± ¡°Just sleeping,¡± she demands peevishly, grasping at his hands and his shoulders, and with hesitant flagging resistance the Boy slides up the covers and under. She wraps his arms around her belly and tucks back against his body. Satisfaction. ¡°Who were you talking to,¡± she purrs. ¡°Oh. I was half asleep, it''s just ¨C I just had a weird dream. I keep having it.¡± ¡°Like a recurring dream?¡± ¡°Yea.¡± ¡°I used to have this dream where I''m like, picking up bags of sand.¡± ¡°Sand bags?¡± ¡°Yea but like little tiny ones. With strings. And I''m like in a library, or like a grocery store, or I mean it changes. But I keep picking up bags of sand and they keep getting heavier. And like, I''m supposed to find them. And I''m supposed to give them to somebody, but there''s nobody there. So I just am walking around like aaahhh! With all this sand and it''s like omigod. Like I keep going and going until I can''t move, and then I''m just like uhhhhhhhhh,¡± Kelsey finished into a laughing grunting bleat of a groan. She flings out her hands in emphasis. Feels the heat of the Boy''s breathy chuckle. ¡°Dreams are dumb,¡± Bruce murmurs into Kelsey''s hair as his embrace presses more firmly, a brief breath-stealing squeeze. Kelsey smiles placidly and squeezes shut eyes, nestling to get the barest feel of Bruce''s jawline against her temple, and the warmth of him matched to the warmth of her like a promise to morning. ¡°Dreams are dumb,¡± she whispers back. Then she sets down all the sand, and leaves it in yesterday.