Nov 17, 2025
Whibley: Fall, Year 5
Fall air hits us with a few chilling reminders as if urging everything within its reach to choose compassion and reconciliation in the face of whatever harsh lessons the cold season prepares to reap.
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Whibley: Fall, Year 5
Fall air hits us with a few chilling reminders as if urging everything within its reach to choose compassion and reconciliation in the face of whatever harsh lessons the cold season prepares to reap.
FALL GUYS FRIDAY - PRELUDE
Last time on Fall Guys Friday (no not those fall guys) the Mechs gained a team bio, explaining the history of the mechanics and Blaseball as a whole from previous eras.
Afterwards, players once again dropped from Black Hole^2 and landed onto teams. The last fall, we had gained the batting powerhouse, Jaxon Buckley from the Philly Pies. Once again starting the worrying trend that the core mechanics will be able to bat for once, which I think is the scariest trend I’ve seen in a while.
Will the mechanics get ANOTHER batter and somehow have anything other than pitching? Stay tuned to find out!
And thus concludes Fall 5 of The Mess. Find a complete PDF for your reading pleasure via Mega now!
Fun also — Winter 6 starts during real life winter! Yay for seasonal immersion! ☃️
Michi Sato called out from the door, “Have a great day at school! Be safe!”
“Thanks, Mom!” Lee answered cheerfully.
“Okay, Mom.” Naomi rolled her eyes a little. This might have been Lee’s first day of school but it wasn’t hers; she was quite eager to drop off her kid brother and catch the bus further on to the high school.
“Come on,” Naomi said, taking Lee’s hand. Neither of them would know that their mother started tearing up a little at the sweet sight.
The elementary school wasn’t far from the Sato house, pretty soon Lee would be able to walk there on his own. But for now, he was grateful to have his older sister’s guiding hand.
The first kid to greet Lee at school was Jo Payne. She looked a little shocked to see him. “Are you new?”
“Today’s my first day,” he smiled happily. Then he asked, “Hey, where’s your backpack?”
“I don’t have one.”
Without hesitation Lee offered, “You can use mine if you want.”
Much to Jo’s discomfort, the Payne family was poorer than most in this neighbourhood and the other kids at school had a nasty habit of bullying her about the things she didn’t have but they did. No one offered to share anything with her before. “Really?”
“Yeah, sure! Wanna be friends?”
“But I don’t know you.” As a result of the bullying, Jo became guarded.
Lee pondered what she said for a moment before answering, “I don’t know anybody either, but my name’s Lee. L-E-E. There, now you know me!”
There was still a little bit of fear in the young girl’s eyes as she tried to mimic his kindness: “My name’s Joanne, but I like Jo best. Um, J-O.”
That’s when the bell rang.
“Come on,” she said, taking his hand. “I’ll show you around.”
Brandon waved a console controller in the air and said, “Here, Uncle Max! You can use this one for the race.”
“It’s not broken, is it? I already know Uncle Jack’s gonna cheat so I can’t afford any more handicaps here.”
“I’m not gonna cheat, sheesh,” Jack replied. “I’m winning Cool Uncle fair and square, you’ll see.”
Brandon answered, “It’s not broken, Uncle Max. Here, take it.”
But before Brandon could hand the controller over, there was a knock at the door and it wasn’t the first time that afternoon. As the day progressed, more and more neighbours stopped by to express condolences for Ted’s passing with flowers or food. Jack got the door last time, so Max jumped up for his turn this time.
“I’ll make your character,” Brandon offered, and Jack asked, “How do you change your outfit again?”
Max opened the door as he’d done a few times already that day, but this time he didn’t know what to say.
And for an extended pause, neither did Amy Parker. But eventually she said quietly, “I'm sorry, I didn’t think you’d be here.”
“Dad died, where else would I be?” Between the exchanges at the funeral and now this, Max was getting pretty sick of people assuming things of him.
“I know now’s not exactly the best time,” she began, “but Max, we really should talk. Can I come over to the townhouse sometime soon?”
He mumbled with a weak shrug, “I sold the townhouse.”
“What? When?”
“Last summer. There was some construction or something, and it’s not like I had much left there anyway.”
“But it was our home!”
“Why’re you upset? It’s not like you lived there, you moved out way before I did. Real nice temporary arrangement you and Rich cooked up.”
“How do you even know about that?”
But she quickly shook her head. “Never mind. It’s complicated, Max; we have a daughter, and unlike you we’re actually trying to keep our broken family together.”
Max was quite taken back by that. What did she think he was doing right now? Did grieving his father or racing her brother to be their nephew’s Cool Uncle really mean nothing to Amy? Where was she at the funeral? He assumed she stayed away because she knew he’d be there, but it’s not like they talked beforehand or planned it that way. Regardless of Amy’s intentions, past or present, Max was left to manage this side of their family alone. Maybe there was more truth in Beth’s nasty descriptions of Amy than he wanted to admit.
That’s when Jack approached them and placed a reassuring hand on Max’s back. “You know she said this same family loyalty guilt trip crap when Mom and Ted got together? Go ride that high horse of yours all the way back home, Amy.”
She warned, “Jack, stay out of this.”
“Tag me in, bro. I can take her.”
“Okay, you know what? I’m not wrong about Dad and I’m getting pretty sick of you gaslighting me about it. It’s not like there’s much of a difference between Max and Dad now anyway.”
“What was that?” Max asked.
Through quickly forming angry tears, she cried, “You left! No warning, no goodbye, you just disappeared one day just like Dad did. It’s not like you don’t know where we live, or know how to call us, or email. Ben — remember your son? — he actually asked me if you died. So, yeah, forgive me for not seeing much of a difference here.”
Max felt the impact of a shotgun blast shoot through his rib cage but he didn’t say anything. Ben thought I was dead?
But Jack on the other hand, with his own strong sense of justice, and the only one not scared to stand up to his sister’s torment, couldn’t listen to Max’s devastation without saying something.
He pushed Max aside. “Satisfied, Amy? Anything else you’d like to add on the same day this man buried his father? A great father, I might add, seeing as I wasn’t the one too blinded by my own pride to appreciate how much of an awesome dad Ted was. That’s right Amy, there’s more than just one good dad out there. Robert Parker wasn’t special, so stop treating him like he was a god and stop treating your boyfriend like he’s shit to you!”
The men remained tightly united with Amy as their decided enemy. Her first reaction was anger, of course, because how dare Jack meddle in affairs that he doesn’t have any chance of truly understanding? This was Bonnie at the park all over again!
But her second reaction came in the form of a wispy voice in the back of her mind, telling her, “He's right. You’re the problem. Do everyone a favour and just leave. Now.”
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered.
Even with a freshly bleeding hole in his chest, Max felt compelled to chase after Amy. He wanted to tell her everything would be okay, brush hair from her pretty face, and kiss away her pain. He could easily imagine the mental torture she was no doubt inflicting on herself right now; he knew neither of them had expected or wanted this to happen, least of all today of all days. Maybe if he could let go of their painful past, like dropping a heavy stone, she’d invite him back to the lake mansion where he could hold Ben in his arms again and prove to everyone that he was not, in fact, a dead dad.
But that heavy stone was all he had left of them anymore. If he dropped it now, he’d lose Amy, Ben, and Richard all over again with the added bonus of learning what he suffered through was droppable all along. Besides, even if he did find the courage to drop it, there was no guarantee that they could figure it out, whatever it was, and skip off into the sunset.
But he still had to ask, “What did you tell Ben about me being dead?”
In a notch just above a whisper she said, “I told him you weren’t dead, and then we put our feelings for you in the fridge. We’re hoping they’ll last longer that way, or at least long enough until you decide to come home to us.” She sniffed. “Bye, Max.”
Brandon walked up to his Uncle Jack and asked, “What’s going on? Why’re Aunt Amy and Uncle Max fighting?”
“Boyfriend-girlfriend stuff, you’ll understand when you’re older. Well, I hope not, but hell, probably. Uh, Max won Cool Uncle for the day, okay bud? We’ll just race for fun again when they’re done.”
The young boy didn’t question or push it further, there was no need to from his short perspective, so he simply replied, “O-okay.”
With a happy spring in his step, Sam Weseman professed, “Well! Where do you wanna go first, baby?”
“Where’re we going?”
“A three-month long vacation! Our long, lost honeymoon! What else?”
“We’ll put the kids in the car and just drive wherever we want. We can hit the road this weekend!”
“I’d need a car first.”
“A car!? Wh-What was I thinking? We should go helicopter shopping!”
She laughed a little through her nose.
“Oh, pleeeeeeease can we go helicopter shopping?”
“Sam, come on. Be real.”
“But I am! You’re loaded now! You can buy whatever you want, and all I’m asking is that you take me with you when you go helicopter shopping.”
“I already know where the money’s going.” Cynthia smiled at her daughter Hannah in her lap. “It’s a lot now, yeah, but after I pay down some debts and set aside enough for the girls’ tuition so they actually have the option to fuckin’ go to university—well, okay, it’s still a lot of money. I’ll have a savings account for the first time ever. We can get new clothes, and good quality things for a change. We’ll never worry about going hungry or paying rent again!”
“Uhh, who is this boring, responsible person and what did you do with my Cynthia Payne?”
Richard Ward’s second studio album was an instant success. With his father’s career advice still ringing in his ear, he spliced together the various ideas that came to him during these recent turbulent years. But there were a few songs in particular that sounded suspiciously about Max Green [“Ezy Ryder”, “My Friend”, “Straight Ahead”], which then shined an unwanted spotlight on their complicated relationship.
A nasty headline war was never what Richard intended. Yes, some songs were about Max, but there was plenty else about Amy [“Drifting”, “Night Bird Flying”], Annie [“Belly Button Window”], Richard’s loneliness [“Freedom”, “In From the Storm”], Richard’s mother Anna [“Angel”], and of course Ben got a song too [“Astro Man”], so why was the focus stuck on pitting two artists against each other? He phoned Claude Rousseau to help end the ridiculous and untrue narrative of a fiery feud over fame.
“No can do, mon cher, both albums are benefiting from the attention too much. Sales are exploding right now, you should be happy! I’m already hearing a push for Max to release something in response, and that’s on top of his tour suddenly selling out now! Sorry, that’s just the biz.”
Fine, he thought bitterly, wouldn’t be the first battle I didn’t want to fight with Max. If that’s the way it’s gotta be then…
…we know how to play.
[Author’s note: I’m happily aware that Jimi was writing about a lot more than funny love triangles in this album, including the Black Liberation Movement of the 1960’s-70’s among other political and personal strife at the time. I just find it helpful to pull out some of the easier themes to include in my story here, hence the use of square brackets to suggest likeness between Hendrix/Richard Ward in only broad stylistic terms. The last thing I want to suggest is “The Cry of Love” is anything less than it is!]
Ted Green passed away peacefully in his sleep. Although no one could think of a nicer way to leave this life, the day remained nonetheless sad and confusing like any other death.
It was the first time in many years that both of Ted’s sons, Max and Adam Green, along with their mother Diane, all shared the same air.
“You look like shit,” Adam frowned.
“Yeah, well, you look like double shit.”
“Good one. Where’s Amy, Ben?”
“Where’s Sadie, the girls?”
Adam smirked. “Two for two. What, did'ja save all the poetics for your music? Got nothing good to say in person?”
“You really wanna fight at Dad’s funeral? Aren’t you trying to win to an election or something?”
“Three for three.”
Their mother approached them and gave Max a thorough once over. He looked about as good as a wannabe tough guy could, if that was really how he wanted to live his life. At least he had the decency to cover up his hideous tattoos — well, mostly.
“Max.”
“Mom.”
“Adam, we really should be going. Lots of work still yet to do.”
Then Diane began coughing loudly all at once; the small attack surprised everyone, but none more than herself.
Adam panicked, “Mom?”
“I’m fine,” she lied, frowning at her watch, “we just need to go. I’ll meet you at the car.”
“And Max, try not to get yourself into any more scandal while Adam is focusing on his career, please?”
“I didn’t do anything!”
“I said try, alright? Adam has it hard enough right now as it is.”
“Well, good talk. Seeyah at the next funeral. Uh, just don’t make it yours.”
“Thanks?”