Everything Begins, Why Not Be It Here

The name of the book is: A Fig Tree Grows on the Shore Between Consciousness and the Place Past the Brightest Burning Stars (Which Is Not So Strange As Where We Go When We Sleep), and the Things We Find in that Place Have Thoughts and Dreams We Cannot Begin to Love nor Accept. We Share this Space with One Another and Should Treat It Thusly

[the-crepuscular]

Part 1, Chapter 5, Verse 1 - You

The stranger stirred their coffee with a spoon. They didn't particularly care for the stuff, but it was necessary to maintain the illusion. The cafe was busy, and their thoughts were infuriatingly loud. The stranger had learned to live with such noise. They didn't like thinking of people as noise, and that was the problem. They got in the way of what was important. Speaking of which, here he was.

Harrison Fig was dressed in his usual baggy video game tshirt. Curly hair poked from his sloppy beanie, and he looked tired. Unshaven. He walked up to the counter and ordered a coffee, then waited in the corner on his phone, scrolling absentmindedly. The stranger watched.

"You all done with that?" Said a waittress the stranger hadn't expected to be there. She was here because she believed it would get her real-world experience. What she wanted to do was own a cafe of her own. Something she could make into a real place of community. The stranger hoped for her sake she would be able to one day. She had a hard road ahead of her.

The stranger looked down at their plate, and realizrd they had eaten all of their scone. It was a good scone. Too good. They were distracted and now it was gone. But they couldnt change that, not here. They liked scones. They gave the plate to the kind young lady with the bright eyes and smiled.

"Thank you," said the stranger. The waittress nodded and took the plate, then left. The stranger wanted to follow her. What challenges would she face? What would she do to overcome them? It woild be fascinating. But no. They were here for something else.

Harrison had gotten his drink and was looking for a place to sit down. He went outside to the awnings where the stranger sat, then back inside, making a couple rounds before ending up back on the sidewalk. The stranger stared at him until finally Harrison noticed. He furrowed his brow. Today was not the day he wanted to deal with any mysterious strangers, and that was exactly what this person was. But he locked eyes and couldnt look away.

The stranger had those scary husky blue eyes that shined like a clear lake in Minnesota. One of the clean ones, where the bottom looks only a couple feet away. It frightened Harrison a bit.

But he walked forward anyways, and sat in the empty seet across from the stranger. He draped one arm over the back of the chair, which wasnt comfortable, but wasnt supposed to be. It was supposed to.look relaxed. Cool. Confident. The stranger sat back, leg crossed over. Their relaxation was not an image.

"Mkay. What do you want from me?" Asked Harrison. "Youve been staring at me."

"I have," replied the stranger. "What a funny question for you to ask, all things considered."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Asked Harrison.

"You'll find out, Harrison Fig."

"How do you know my name?" Harrison shifted so his arm was no longer pinched by the back seat. "You watch me or somethin?"

"Hm... No, although what a thought that is," responded the stranger. "Might be useful."

"You have such a way with words, brother," said Harrison.

"That is all you have?" Asked the stranger.

Harrison shrugged. "What else is there to say?"

The stranger's brow furrowed. "I see. This might be a little harder than i thought. Tell you what." The stranger stood and stretched. They were far taller than Harrison would have guessed from when they were sitting. "Meet me back here in, oh... A week should do the trick. We'll see what happens in that time."

"What? Said Harrison. He wasnt expecting this abrupt end to their conversation. " just, like, youre not... What?"

"One week, Mis...ter Fig. In the meantime, go about your day."

"Now hold on," Harrison said, and stood up. "You can't just stalk me and then leave. With some vague bullshit to be the only thing to go on."

The stranger smirked. "En contrare, i believe I can. However I am delighted by this development."

"What? Development? Dude you're a freak, you know that?"

"Careful, Harrison," said the stranger. "You don't want to cause a scene."

Harrison slumped his shoulders. He was suddenly reminded of all the people around him. He felt exposed. The stranger smiled and nodded. Anger welled up.in Harrison. He wasn't scared of this weirdo, he was mad at how infuriatingly vague they were. The stranger nodded once more, then turned around.

"One week," they said. "Meet me back here."

Harrison could have sworn they simply vanished.

[the-crepuscular]

Part 1, Chapter 4, Verse 21

The blanket was dry and scratchy under Harrison's legs, and the dirt underneath full of rocks that made any position feel just a little bit uncomfortable. He shifted his weight, and a rock went from sticking into his leg to sticking into his hip. He moved again and it seemed to help. Not much, though. He would have to get up and move soon.

harrison stood up and stretched his legs a little, the way he learned at baseball practice. His brother got up and stretched with him.

"I'm bored," said Harrison.

"I'm bored too," said Tycho without missing a beat.

"Can we go to the playground?" asked Harrison. He pointed off in the direction of the jungle gym in the distance. It was one of the new metal ones, colorful and stwisty. And most importanlty, very tall.

"Yeah!" yelled Tycho. "Playground!"

Harrison's mom looked over from where she was talking to their uncle and aunt. The sky was beginning to dim considerably, hovering just above the tree line to the west. Harrison had to hold his hand up to see her face properly. She checked her watch.

"The fireworks are going to start in about 30 minutes. Do you think thats enough time?" she said.

"Yes!" cried Harrison and Tycho in unison. Then, a few seconds later from their cousin Mary, "yes!"

"Your dad should go with you then."

"Huh?" Harrison's dad looked up from the book in his lap. "Oh. Sure. Let's go, there's still some time left."

Gary Fig took Tycho, Harrison, and little Mary to the playground. The three small children chased each other over and around the structures that arched up like the world's worst traffic light construction. They couldn't settle on many games, the three, but they all were able to decide that tag is the best. Or it was the best, until Harrison managed to climb all the way to the roof of the largest structure on the playground.

"Hey! That's not fair, you can't Yoshi!" Tycho called. He stamped his foot. "Gou always Yoshi!"

"I didn't Yoshi, i got up here fair and square!" called Harrison.

"Harrison, get down, you're not playing fair," their dad said.

"They can'g get me up here though!"

"And is thag fun? Why play tag if you're just going to go where no one can catch you? Isn't the point to try to get away?"

Harrison stopped and thought for a moment. He didn't know it, but this was the first time he understood the old game design addage that players will always optimize the fun out of a game. Tag encourages behavior that leads to players seeking the most out-of-reach locations, essentially becoming a game of hide and seek. But what if Harrison decided to play a different game? He thought, and thought. What if he was not trying to just run away, but see how long he could dodge?

Harrison smiled, and hopped down from the playground roof, taking approximately 17 years off the lifespan of his father and securing his status as havjng the highest blood pressure in recorded history.

"Ok!" he said. "Try to catch me!"

Mary, despite her size and small legs that she inheritrd from their grandmother, was a swift bugger. She took off at the breakneck pace of mach 9-year-old right at harrison. But harrison didnt run away. He stood there, trying to put his legs in the stance that he saw people do in the star wars movies. Mary reached her hand oit, and at the last moment, Harrison twisted out of the way.

Mary dashed past, completely overshooting him. So it played out in Harrison's head. Instead, Mary collided obliquely with Harrison, sending both tumbling to the woodchips.

[the-crepuscular]

Part 1, Chapter 4, Verse 20

The pile just wasn't going down. Cass poked her head into the room.

"it's 1pm," she said. "Have you eaten anything at all?"

"No, I kinda forgot. Forgor, even," Harrison responded.

"I almost never forgor," Cass intoned. She shook her head solemnly.

"I almost never forgor," Harrison repeated. Solemnly.

"Well, I've got some chicken mess out in the kitchen if you ever would like some. Antoni cooked it. Its got... Chicken. And peppers. And I'm actually not really sure what else. Beans maybe?"

"You're right, I should have something in my stomach. Lest these papers begin looking tasty."

"I used to eat paper as a kid," Cass said absentmindedly.

"What?" asked Harrison.

"What?"

"Nevermind. To the pasta hole we go."

Harrison stood up and the world span with colors and shapes. Was this how the world looked when he was a baby? It was confusing and frightening. A ringing filled his ears. Everything was awash in reds and blues and greens, all swirling angrily in a vortex, a maelstrom of odyssic proportions. The earth fell away while Harrison stood still, and he saw the burning center of the galaxy as all at once the sound and color stopped.

[the-crepuscular]

Part 1, Chapter 4, Verse 19

The pile had gone down very little in the time it took Harrison to complete an episode of Shattered Worlds. He emptied the boxes of papers into a respectable pile which had proliferated much like a spider plant along the floor into trailing clonal piles. He had a pile for pages with doodles, a pile for old homework that he didn't care to ever recall, and a pile for stuff that had things his friends had written on it. The doodle pile was much larger than he had set out to make at the inciting incident of the whole affair. Only a handful of papers were in the burn pile (he was certain now that he wished to burn them. Fire is fun. He knew this).

From his spot sitting on the floor, the rest of the room looked like a small city. It had towering skyscrapers of random junk and boxes with roads and thoroughfairs running between them. He estimated that the size of the people wowho inhabited these buildings would use hotwheels and matchbox cars to get around. And mathematically, he was correct. The largest pile, which, against all odds, had stood the tests of time and structural stability, was at such a height that if you scaled it up to that of the Sears Tower and caught a hotwheels car in the space distortion field, the car would be of drivable size. Perhaps hotwheels operate on the same principles as the Mouse and the Mottorcycle, and therefore you could operate this macro-sized hotwheel. Perhaps only ants know. There might be ants drag racing in your basement as we speak. Who are you to know the comings and goings of the crustaceans?

Harrison lay down with his head in the junk streets and looked up, imagining he was in chicago. Then he sat back up, because he remembered that being in chicago kinda sucks, actually. In a galactic register of every metropolitan area inhabited by sapient biotic lifeforms in the Local Group, Chicago, Illinois, USA, Earth, Sol System, Orion Arm, Wintergatan placed 5th in "worst places to try to drive while intoxicated" in the Orion Arm. Coincidentally, the first worst place in the register to lose your car while intoxicated was a depressed hamlet just west of Chicago called Rockford, Illinois, United States of America, Earth, Sol System, Orion Arm, Wintergatan.

some people are just cursed to wake up, and remain in Illinois.

Luckily, Harrison was in Ohio.

[the-crepuscular]

Part 1, Chapter 4, Verse 18

The light flickered more and more, turned the world into a strobe light, into an old timy animation ran on a geneva drive gear system. Then it went out completely. The stars were the last friends i would see for a long, long time. I saw a satellite pass overhead, too. And a shooting star even. The shadows began their chant, but didnt seem to close in on me. I didnt like that. They pointed, i could see that in the starlight. I climbed up the streetlamp, knowing it would be useless. That seemed to get them stirring. The tried to climb the pole but weren't able to, like the tree. They chanted and pointed. I looked out across the cornfields, and for a second, thought there was corn there. But there wasn't. There were just thousands, thousands upon thousands of hands, all pointing, all chanting and moaning. The air shimmered all around, and the air was filled with the faceless breathing things. I closed my eyes, and thought that at the end I would be calm. But I wasnt. I was scared. I felt the hand, and the fall. I couldnt feel what happened after that. It was dark, and then i was asleep.

[the-crepuscular]

Part 1, Chapter 4, Verse 17

Yhe chanting was immediate. From across the cornfields, the black mist rolled along the world. A tight circle converging around my neck. I sprinted with everything in me and managed to close the distance. The hands pulled their bloated forms around and they stopped outaide of the circle of light. They moved in a huge gyre around me, seated in the middle of the light. The smell of sulphur wassoffucating and the stars became a circle in the sky as the shadows roiled into a huge moving wall. Their chant hadn't picked up in volume yet, like they were confused what exactly to do with me in my circle of protection. But they wouldn't have to figure it out themselves.

The streetlamp flickered. 

The storm grew more agitated around me. What the chant lacked in coherence it made up for in volume. The ground trembled beneath me. It rose and fell like a huge, slow heartbeat. The fingers pointed but faltered more often than not. I wrapped my tail close to my body. I dont know if my shaking was from the ground or my heart going triple time. I suddenly regretted leaving the tree. I regretted thinking i coild make it om my own, without help or guidamce. I regretted going so far afield, not paying attention where shelter was. The light flickered again. I could barely hear myself think. I missed my mom. I missed my small, stupid little apartment. The smell of cogarettes. I missed the morning crowds.

[the-crepuscular]

Part 1, Chapter 4, Verse 16

I woke up the next morning with an aching back and arms. It felt like pealing yourself from a leather couch in an old attic. Everythung hurt. But i was alive. Down on the ground, there was no sign of the shadows, just the smoothed pavement that marked their passing. The owl was gone. No bones, feathers, or anything else remained. I shambled along the limb and carefully moved myself down the trunk of the tree. My stomach reminded me that i hadn't eaten for a while now. There wasn't much out here. So i turned towards the edge of town.

It took most of the day to get to the end of the buildings and into the overgrown suburbs. The ground wasn't as scoured here and there wwre lots of little trees. I could even stick to the branches and avoid the dogs down below. A pack of mangy looking mutts followed me for most of the afternoon before giving up tp find an old porch or something the hide under as the sun slid down the blue and white rapids at the edge of the firmament. I continued my search.

I made it to cornfields by sundown. I think they were cornfields at some point. The landscaped stretched as far as the highway and farther, and was only broken up occassionally by trees. The powerlines had all fallen down in the last couple years. But some robust metal streetlamps stood tall as ever. I could see windmills without wings in the distance. Night came later in the countryside, not like in the city or the woods. And because of that, i was caught out in the open. I was distracted by hunger. I only noticed when i heard the scraping sounds in the distance. I panicked and looked around. A single streetlamp stood with its light on, but it was far away. I broke for it anyways.

[the-crepuscular]

Part 1, Chapter 4, Verse 15

slightly with the breeze. I didn't know what to do. If i moved too fast, The things on the ground would find me. If i stayed here, this would end with me as roadkill. I didnt know if this was a person and I didn't care to find out. At the end of the branch, i did the only thing i could think to do. I yelled.

Or, what passes for a yell as a squirrel. A stupid sort of chittering. But it was enough. The owl froze, but it was too late. A howl picked up from the ground, a moaning, wailing howl. The clawed clouds coalesced around the base of the tree like a cloying mass of beggars. The owl looked at me. It was a person. I could tell. I somehow was able to find it in my heart to feel sorry for them. I pressed myself against the tree as much as i could, letting the bark dig into my belly. I gripped the branch with whag would have been white knuckles. The great grey owl stared at me. From below, the howl took on an undulating, chanting cadence. The bony hands rose up and pointed in unison. They stood at the end of long, spindling arms like a garden of black flowers who haven't yet bloomed. The owl lunged at me.

The air around the owl shimmered like the pavement on an august day, turning the world upside briefly in a small window. Where there previously was empty air, a thing with long spiderlike legs hung in the tree. It was different from the shadows on the ground. It had no face, just a head covered in claw marks. It raised a multi jointed arm and smacked the owl from the air with a huge many-handed arm. The claw marks opened and closed in time with the humming, like it was blinking or breathing. I didn't dare to breathe. I didnt blink, didnt move. The owl fell to the grasping hands below and the chanting became a deafening moan. The air shimmered again and the creature faded away. I wasn't confident it was gone. I wasn't confident it was ever gone, or that it had ever not been there. Or that it was alone. I held back tears. I didn't understand anymore.

[the-crepuscular]

Part 1, Chapter 4, Verse 14

The daytime was nice enough. It was easy to twll which of the animals were real and which were something else. And which were us. We avoided each other. I saw a raccoon trying to wear a hat. It didnt work. But at least she had thunbs. All i got were these stupid bug eyes. And a soft tail. The tail grew on me, i think. No pun intended. Its incredible that even with a brain the size of a peanut, i was still able to make puns. The sun shone through the clouds in graceful god rays. It reminded me of old commercials i had seen. Commercials for a local church, i think. The dogs and elephants and other diurnal creatures were out in the daytime. I never saw an elephant, only heard them. The shaddows made quick work of them in the city.

The nights were what made me long for the tree again. I could find plenty of places to hide amongst the concrete and steel, but it was still frightening. You would first hear a scraping sound, from all around. Light, and then heavy, like digging. It would ooze from the ground like a sluggish cloud of noxious gas. I could see hands and eyes wirhout faces in the slush. They crushed the weeds poking through the pavement and the exposed rebar bent under their weight, despite their shapes seeming light and airy. Their bodies were a deep black, not like the imperfect darkness of night. The world smelled of sulphur when they emerged and filled with sickening crunches as though thwir bodies had unseen bones. They made quick work of anything they found moving. The only thing they seemed to avoid was light.

I crept from hiding spot to hiding spot as the sun began to lay its head down on the horizon. Everything took on the blood-red glow of a summer evening, and the broken windows of long dead apartment buildings became mirrors. The sounds of the day faded into silence and soon all you could hear was the rustle of leaves and old trashbags. I tried my best to find shelter above the street level but the torn-open faces of the buildings were unwilling to to hide me. I chose instead to risk it in a bare tree overlooking the rusting remains of a traffic jam. Some of the bodies in the cars were missing heads. Most of the windows were smashed open and the doors torn ff.

When the stars finally came out, it was all i could do to stay awake. The inky smoke billowed from cracks in yhe ground, clawed hands groping and scraping along the pavement. I held my breath. They didn't usually look up, but i didn't know if looking up was something they had to do or just chose to, to let you know that they had spotted you. I heard a slight rustle from the trunk of the tree and turned around to come face to face with the brigjt yellow eyes of an owl. I jumped and nearly fell from the tree. My small squirrel heart beat hundreds of times per minute. I was not used to my normal heart rate. This was much worse. Like id drank too much coffee and energy drinks and did a line of meth. The own stepped from its hollow silently. It picked its way across the branch carefully, swaying

[the-crepuscular]

Part 1, Chapter 4, Verse 13

Hedonus and Solopsus present

Broken Worlds

Episode fourteen

The last streetlamp

I was a squirrel. That was my lot in life. To be a squirrel in a world of dogs. I dwelt in the trees, the same as the other animals that didnt wish to be below the grassline. We used to look above the line, all high and mighty were we, without needed to hide in the leaves. We were here now. By i couldnt be. I left.

The world under the trees 

Harrison didmt recognize this voice actor. It was some lithuanian sounding guy. He didnt know anyone from lithuania but he imagined they sounded like Igor from Frankenstein. Is that racist? Harrison wasnt sure frankly. The narrator isnt sure either. Moving on. 

It was dark beneath the shadows of what was left. Darker than we knew. We'd seen the fog and the clouda gather from the south and the east but we could not have imagined it like this. This wasnt what we thought had happened. I hid in old buildings and cars that werent occupied already. The torn cushions of an old beetle were about the most comfortable dwelling id found since the fall. Certainly since leaving the tree. The concrete felt different under my paws and the motion of the world had left. Grass grew in the cracks in the sidewalks. I remembered this stretch. The shops that were here. Their lights were always too bright. I wasnt much one for shopping. My wife was, though. She wasn't a squirrel. She was dust now. The things with wings took her, like a third of the population everywhere. The rest of us becamewhatevr we became. A squirrel in a world of dogs. The winged things left something here when they went back to whatever world they came from. Something clawing and silent. 

[the-crepuscular]

Part 1, Chapter 4, Verse 12

[[Fig Tree Hub]]

Harrison dug through his laundry pile in his room and finally found his ear buds somewhere in the bathroom, its premeses having been vacated by whichever of the roommates had occupied it before. Harrisom couldn't find them after that. They were no longer in their house. Their stuff was gone, like he was the only one who had ever lived there. Their rooms were bare and unpainted, even the holes from the hung posters were plastered over.  

Harrison didn't notice any of this, instead assuming that he simply forgot that their rooms looked like that. Who was he to judge? Theyre kinda weird. They wouldnt be roommates otherwise.they were a bunch of strange cosmic mistakes on a cosmic mistake among a bubble of mistake of cosmic proportion in a wildly unlikely universe. Aint that somethjn?  

Harrison popped the earbuds into his ears and started with music so that he could get into the groove of cleaning The Room. He started with the video game soundtracks that he turned to out of habbit when he was doing things. All he managed to get done with these sound tracks was getting rid of some garbage that had accumulated. So he switched to one of his favorite podcasts, a n anthology horror series called Broken Worlds. 

[the-crepuscular]

Part 1, Chapter 4, Verse 11

The ear buds were not in his usual grab pile, where his keys, gloves if the weather required, glasses, and other implements went near the door for quick access. So he went up the steps and down the hall to his room, which was in its usual state of disarray. He looked under some piles of clothes (clean, he thought, he hoped, he prayed), in junk drawers, by his computer. They were no where to be found. Not here. So he wetn across the hallt o the batthrom, but someone had teleported in the brief time between him going up the stairs and coming out of the room. 

He knocked on the door.

“Please let me be at peace,” came Antoni’s fearful voice from the other side. “I will be finished soon.”

Harrison sat on the stairs and stared out the window (did you know 90% of stair accidents happen on stairs? That joke is much better spoken than written). The trees swayed gently in the warm July air. And by warm, I of course mean sweltering and muggy, because this is the great lakes area in god damn july, and the sun becomes a death beam of religiously agnostic construction once it hits the polar circle region of the sky. Apollo rode his chariot and shot arrows full of fuckyou down upon the populace with a vengeful ire, because he hates the people of the temperate and tropical zones of the United States in specific. Maybe we don’t do enough sun worship anymore. Is that why it’s so hot?

The author recognizes the irony of complaining about the heat of the summer while the first snow has fallen at the time of writing. The author is on record many times stating she would much rather be too cold than too hot. You can put on blankets and cuddle up to pretty women (or men if you prefer, I won’t judge, mostly)in the cold. In the hot what are you going to do, remove your spine from your throat like a pelican, god’s second most fucked up creature?

The author will not go on a tangent about horses.

After some time, Harrison gave up on the bathroom quest and returned to the bottom of the stairs to continue his other, broader quest of finding his ear buds. They were not in the kitchen by the sink, though he had to move a day’s worth of dirty dishes to prove this to be true. Nor were they in the living room by his favorite chair, although he wasn’t sure why they would be there anyways. He checked his room again. Antony had escaped the restroom, but now Cass was in it. So he went back downstairs, and then to the laundry machines in the basement. It is entirely possible they were in the wash as he spoke. But there was no load in the machine. So it was not entirely possible at all, and in fact, quite improbable.

[the-crepuscular]

Part 1, Chapter 4, Verse 10

Some would say they are too big. Biology doesn’t care about what some say, however. Biology made slime molds which are functionally massive single-cell but multi-nucleae organisms. Ain’t that somethin? Whatever the case Harrison had no shoebboxes that, to his knowledge, were made for snails of any variety or nationality. All his shoes were for him, and some of the boxes came from shoes for his parents. Which he stole to hoard papers in. As everyone does. So the author assumes.

“Well then I don’t know, try to get like, a third of your papers done. Throw away anything without any doodles on it, or with doodles that you already have lots of. Just figure something out. You’re good at that,” ssaid Cass.

“I will do so then I guess,” Resigned Harrison. He went to the kitchen and filled up his promotional wwaterbottle from some metal company (and not the music kind unfortunately either) or maybe bath company that he got at a job fair in college, before the recession hit and he still thought he would get a job in his chosen field of writing. Instead he worked at a helpdesk for a company that made chairs, answering phone calls from people who don’t know how to connect to the wifi, despite working at the company for more than a decade and having to use their computer every day. He wondered how they survived. It would be like a caveman having to ask another caveman which kind of rock makes the hammer, when their entire existence relies on using hammer to break open coconuts. 

He got himself a handful of mixed nuts (and then supplemented it with pistachios, because pistachios are proof that god is benevolent) and a couple sticks of gum, then went on the quest to find his earbuds. He was of a scatterbrained persuasion, as many people his age are, and he liked to do things around the house while listening to music or podcasts. This brought his earbuds on globetrotting adventures across the domeciledom, and led them to perilous waters. Once he even dropped them in the sink while doing dishes. One of them went all the way down into the garbage disposal, and he had to quell his stampeding heart as he fished it out, imagining in horrid detail the gorey scene from Supernatural where the plumber gets his shit shredded by the garbage disposal and it sucks real bad.

[the-crepuscular]

Part 1, Chapter 4, Verse 9

The narrator sat at her computer and furiously wrote a tirade denouncing that English should ever acknowledge native pronunciation ever again if it so much as allowed an inkling of respect for the French abomination to slip in. Her fingers dashed across the keys with a fiery fury like the seven remaining levels of Hell (the eighth having perished from fright) were converted to a condensed filament and channeled through them like a metalization gun spraying metal to coat a tool and reduce the effects of wear and tear from weather and use. Go look up a video it’s really cool.

Being reminded of the beauty of metalworking calmed the narrator’s ardent soul and returned her consciousness to the presence. The keys on her keyboard were worn to nubs, forcing her to practically capacitate the copper connections on the silicon board with her own skin. The closed circuits did not produce enough electricity to harm her, which was unfortunate because maybe if they did they would give her computer-based superpowers? The author had been watching too much Invincible of late. A strange thing, given shen doesn’t actually really even like superheroes that much. But regardless, her ire was cooled in the quenching oil of having to get a move on with the story, and she dutifully closed the parentheses to avoid further tangention). But he knew what a foot looked like (unfortunately), and he knew that snails did not have them.

“I prove it to you,” said Antony, sullen, as he pulled out his phone. “I prove it is called a foot.” He googled rapidly and then showed Cass and Harrison his found proudly. “Behold! I am vindicated!”

“Well I’ll be damned. Ain’t that weird,” said Cass. She was an engineer, not a biologist. Cut her some slack.

“That’s weird as hell,” said Harrison. He has no excuses. He was a bugs kid. He should know this stuff.

“Therefore,” continued Ant with a professorial air, “A snail’s shoebox would only have one shoe.”

“Well, anyways. I don’t have any snail shoeboxes. To my knowledge,” corrected Harrison. As he looked at photos of snails, he realized some are really, really big. Like African land snails. 

[the-crepuscular]

Part 1, Chapter 4, Verse 8

“That would be a quarter of the shoebox, Ant,” said Cass. “There’s two shoes in a shoebox. If you have half a shoe, that’s only a quarter of the shoebox.”

“Well, maybe it is a snail shoebox?” said Antony. He shrugged, and made a snail with his hands, one hand being the body and one the shell. Cass didn’t seem to get it. He wiggled the hand that made the foot of the snail and raised his eyebrows, evidently expecting that to be explanation enough.

“Elaborate,” said Cass after a few seconds of this farce.

“Snails have one foot,” explained Antony. “That’s what their belly is called. It’s a big foot.”

“Bullshit,” replied Cass.

“I’m with Cass on this one, that sounds fake as hell,” said Harrison. He was no malacologist (that is someone who studies mollusks like snails and squids and octopuses and the like. The narrator is sure she has explained the reason it is octopuses and not octopi before. But also, the narrator believes octopi is a much more elegant word than octopuses. It confuses the narrator. Which should be held in the higher priority: the integrity of the native language of the word, who birthed and gifted it so generously to the English language, unworthy and lowly as it is; or the phonic elegance of the only-slightly-incorrect borrowed form? In most cases the author would argue the integrity of the native language takes priority. But this is a word that has lived in the language for decades, and English,  given its nature, cannot account for the myriad orthography of its donor languages from whom it inherits words. It would mean we’d even have to respect French. French! We’d have to acknowledge our deep debt to the Devil’s tongue and the narrator cannot abide by this! 

[the-crepuscular]

Part 1, Chapter 4, Verse 7

“I do not know who Freddy Fazbear is.”

“Don’t worry about it, Ant.”

“I am no longer worrying about it.”

“My point,” continued Harrison, “is it’s like cardboard, or jars, or old socks, or bits of metal. Who knows when you need it?”

“If you need it, you can go buy a new one.”

“But you wouldn’t have to  buy anything if you kept it.”

“Dude. Ok. Fine. One box then. Go through one of your shoeboxes, and try to get it to like, half.”

“How do I measure half a shoebox?”

“Bitch I don’t know, figure it out.”

“With half a shoe,” offered Antony.

[the-crepuscular]

Part 1, Chapter 4, Verse 6

“Do the damn dishes,” responded Cass. She sat with her cold brew coffee and her paints on the chair, folded neatly into a tower of poise and cleanliness. Pay no attention to the watercolor pad in front of her. She’s an engineer, not an artist. Try as she might. She just thought it was fun and relaxing mostly. And that’s ok.

“I could, theoretically,” responded Harrison. Or, Antoni could do that-”

“Huh? Wha? I am sorry, I will fix it tomorrow, I meant to tell you,” Antoni interrupted.

“What?” said Harrison.

“What?” Said Antony.

“You broke something?”

“No.”

“... Anyways. Or, consider, I could clean out The Room.”

“It’s mostly your stuff anyways. Be my guest.”

“Do we know a room still exists in there?” Asked Antony. “It has been a long time. The floor may be gone.”

“I have a bit of a hoarding problem, ok. I’m sentimental.”

“About homework from elementary school?” Asked Cassandra.

“Whenever I finished a year of school, my friends and I had a bonfire where we threw it all in there. Once, we accidentally through one of my friend’s government papers into the bonfire. We do not know why they were there. We are no longer f friends. Not because of that.” Antony looked at Harrison and Cassandra. “What?”

“THey’re covered in doodles and ideas. What if I find one and it becomes the basis for a character that becomes my most recognized work and ends up living on long past my death, like Moomin or the Addams Family or Freddy Fazbear?”

“I don’t think that guy’s dead, respectfully.”