BRAXON

Braxon, by Joneworlds

For B, E, and A. For tall tales of trouble and solitide are but toys when told from a warm room, insulated by stability, acceptance, and love.

Release Date: 2021/11/27

1 - Goblins came out of the hole.

Okay, well, they call me Jone. I've been digging a hole deep into the hillside above the retaining wall behind my home. That's a whole other story I will have to tell you about some time, but I think that will have to end now. I'm digging away, minding my own business, when I accidentally break through the side of a goblin lair chamber. They're not too pleased about it. So I turn hastily back and jump out of the hole, go back into my kitchen and shut the door. And wouldn't you know it, they all come pouring out of the hillside, waving their little maces and running and shouting, and whatever. And pretty soon they are running amok all over the neighborhood. Kids are crying, dogs are barking, cars alarms are going off, neighbors are just losing their minds, as if they've never seen a hobgoblin warrior eat a cat before. Just bonkers. They're mostly all gone now, back into the hole I guess, and that's a relief, but what a mess. You think it's gross when you find some random dog poop on the grass, wait until you're trying to pick up after a passing goblin platoon. The strata was not going to be impressed if they had ever discovered my hole in the hillside, but now with all this, it's going to be bad...

2 - At the basketball court.

And I was down at the lot where the school used to be, before the preppers took it over. The hoops and backboard in the basketball court are still there, but the ice and weeds and have broken the pavement so badly these past three years, and they stand as high as I do. I remember playing with my kids here. All the cars keep driving on past the chain-link, and meanwhile the gnomes are playing some kind of ball game between the weed stems. I think they found a little super-ball. I brought a sandwich to the hill behind it, and I watch them. As I chew, I'm thinking about how happily they carry on in the ruins of what we had. And what does that mean?

A crow swoops down and grabs one of them, kicking and screaming as it's carried off. The other gnomes wave their arms and shout for a bit. And then they go back to their game like it never happened. My kernel of wistful affection for them, wrapped in nostalgia as it was, turns to a rancid seed in a pod of putrescence. I want to throw up. The cars beyond the fence sound differently to me now, and the sky feels bigger, looming and threatening as the open ocean. I leave my sandwich in the dirt as I get up and leave. The crows will be back for it soon.

3 - The old vans.

There's a few vans on Del's sister's property a few blocks away from where I live. Vans and about everything else; one of those crowded cluttered lots where everything is saved but nothing is used. The house was run down even before the Olds started coming back. That "rezoning meeting scheduled" sign on the weeds out front makes me smile, but not a happy one. But that house, wow. I guess it's at least dry inside, in spots.

Anyways, the vans. The Dodge is my favorite, it has the high roof and the sofa-bed in back, and you can sit there for a bit if you clear away some papers and clothes and wires and whatever. The weatherstripping is still reasonable, and the motor still runs, and sometimes we go in there to warm up a bit, if we find some gasoline to spare. Can't go anywhere with the worn-out transmission, and the wheel bearings must be shot by now too. I tend to hide a few things in the vans so they aren't lying out when the centaurs come around, demanding whatever stuff they decide they like that day. I don't know why they never think of going behind the house to those vans. They might talk like us, but they aren't as smart as they say they are. Not from what I can tell, at least. They sure can kick hard, though. Just ask Del.

4 - Baked oatmeal with avocado and hot dog.

Some elves took over the unit a few doors up from mine, after Madison and Donnie bugged out north the other month. I do not speak elfish, but I visited them anyways. The Olds can't catch the covid, so it's safe. We try to be neighbourly, or something.

Anyways, they were making this oatmeal and I liked it. Except for the avocado and hot dog part, I would leave that out. Plus I don't know where they even got an avocado from. I have not seen one for months.

3 cups quick oats

1/2 cup brown sugar, or up to 1 cup

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

2 eggs

1 cup milk, of some sort

1/2 cup butter or margarine, melted

1 ripe avocado

1 hot dog

Oven to 350F. Large bowl: oats, brown sugar, baking powder, salt and cinnamon. Small bowl: beat eggs, milk, and margarine. Combine all. Pour into greased small baking pan. Bake 40 minutes, with chopped hot dog and avocado on top. But like I say I would leave that off.

5 - I saw some bird-shaped drones.

And I was on my dad's property again the other day, where I spend a lot of time with my own projects and all. And I was there was cutting off the wrecked bumper from the F250 that the elves tore up back in the spring, when I look up and there is this flock of about 15 or 20 large birds flying in a V, sort of like geese, but not really. Except they were not birds; I knew that pretty quickly. I am no bird watcher, but even I know the wings were moving in a way that was just not right. And also, they doubled back around over the property in a U-turn when they got to the row of poplars at the end. Had to be drones, bird-shaped ones. I don't know if they were federal government, or Amazon, or both maybe. I am not sure who holds claim over these parts this year, but I am pretty sure the local Braxon chieftains could not put together a flight like that. At any rate, I did not have time to get the tarps back over dad's projects, so they must have gotten a good look. We had better be way more careful about that in the future.

6 - Sorry about the trailer, Lucy.

Lucy, I owe you an apology for accidentally rolling your trailer down the hill, exploding it with dynamite, and crushing it under a dead dragon. Bunch of stuff that happened, kind a funny story really, might as well tell you it.

Well Pete and I were throwing the football around behind your lot, and it rolls under your trailer. Right in the middle, and we can't neither of us reach it, so we figure we'll just jump in the power wagon and pull out your rig out a bit so we can grab the ball. Had the wrong hitch ball, so I just tied a rope. It was going okay, then it broke, so I guess that was a bad idea. Trailer snaps back, tips off the pad, and wouldn't you know it rolls right on down the embankment. Bit of a rough ride, it stays up though, so I'm like this is totally fine. Just have to winch that one back up. It's a Starcraft, it can take it.

Too much mud to get a good pull going, so we think to put down some gravel and rocks. Don't have any gravel, but I did have some left over dynamite in the wagon, so why not make some gravel from that boulder in the back of your lot? Light up a stick, throw it on over to it, but wouldn't you know it takes a weird bounce off the football that by now went and rolled over there, and the stick gets flung on down the hill to the roof of the trailer. BLAMM! So that thing is a flaming wreck in no time. And Pete's sitting in the power wagon and he kind of freaks out and jumps out the door, and catches the emergency brake with his ankle, and the wagon rolls right on down there and lands on the whole thing. Guess that breaks the trailer's propane line or something, cause things got worse pretty fast. You would not believe the fireball that went up. Pete and I just run for it, but of course all that noise brings around the dragons like usual. I managed to hit one in the eye with my crossbow, and wouldn't you know it falls out of the sky right on the pile with the wagon and your trailer!

Anyways, in the end you're out one trailer, I lost the power wagon, so I guess we're even steven, right? Ha ha. But I did pull some sweet teeth and blue scales off the dead dragon after the fire died down, and I left them by your back door, so I guess you owe me one now, right? But sorry anyways. Though that kind of thing is bound to happen sooner or later, even if it is a Starcraft.

7 - Chair Tree.

On the last weekend of September, as I have every year since I was a small boy, we hiked deep into the woods on the other side of the ridge where Terg fell from, back before the first of the centaurs started appearing. There is a tree there, not so unlike other trees when first we found it. It must have said something to us way back then, and now we return once again as we have ever since, to solemnly hang another plastic deck chair from its branches. This year, we found one tossed away behind the Wal-mart out in Port Rodiqum. Somehow that store is still operating, and we go there occasionally for a supply run.

Toss the rope over a branch twice, knot, pull, tighten, and when it is done, we all pass around the flask and think of what is to come one day. By now there are dozens of plastic chairs raised high in a tree that no one will ever find. Seems silly? Yeah, maybe a bit. But these days we seek comfort in permanence, something cemented in our shared secrecy.

8 - Goblins took my keyboard.

I was sorting out some piles in the entry way, and I left the door ajar. It never really closes properly anymore, which is a story for another time. I hear this scratching noise, turn around, and spot a goblin hurrying out the door while clutching my blue tooth keyboard. You left my sandwich lying right there, and took an old keyboard instead? Come on.

I knew it was probably too late to get it back. Those things are fast. What a drag. Old cell phones are easy to get, but blue tooth keyboards not so much. I guess I am back to tapping the on-screen keyboard again for sending my stuff.

I follow it outside anyways, and I see it scrambling up the embankment. And then this other one pops out from the trees and starts giving it chase. The thief takes my keyboard and starts beating the other goblin over the head with it until it breaks in two, and then they start grappling. And I'm just standing there watching all this with my mouth hanging open, like what the flying duck, and then I go back inside. A few minutes later I come back out, and one goblin is dead, and the other is sitting there beside it and pulling keys off what's left of my keyboard, and eating them. Okay.

The Dillers walk by, holding the hand of their toddler grandson. He points to it gleefully. "Gobbin! Gobbin!" It spits out the backspace key.

Raining again. I go inside.

9 - The last of the tulips.

And I felt myself drift to someone new at noon, to see the same scene sideways.

And on that side of the silo there was metal fencing, leaning on the facing wall and rusting. Green grass grew, if only a little, until the tiny travel trailer she left there with the last of the tulips was no longer of note. If not of note, then at least of memory - for she was grown and gone, her need of tiny trains and trailers fininshed, finally. As for the fence, it's task was buried, checked and recalled, archived here.

And past that, beyond that, lay the lumber bits, the saved ends, sorted on size, leaning and waiting too. It had been 50/50 that they and not the other would be the best end and then the rest here, but here is how it landed. I see nothing I need, and so I continue.

Our rusted cars lie here, far from the frame they knew. For parts I suppose, but parts of what purpose I could never say. A motor home, a hummer-v, a hyundai. Stopped here a while. I wish I were looking for something small, something clean, something simple in a simpler box, something to search and find and draw to, but it is not here this day.

10 - In Pierce's barn.

I saw something upsetting yesterday, something that I can't tell the meaning of yet.

To get a little grocery money or whatever, Pete and I sometimes go out to the farms in Boyner down on the south slope by the river. There's a couple of old guys and gals out there we know who were friends of Pete's dad, and they are fine to hire us for a day to do some chores and stuff like that. It costs us some gas to get out there unless we can hitch rides, but overall it's usually a pretty good deal for us, whether they pay us with money or food.

Anyways, the other day we were out at old Jim Pierce's place, and he wants us to haul away some junk from inside this ancient fall-down barn on the older part of his property. He hasn't even been in there for years, he says, but he wants to start using it again and so we've got to empty it out so he can start fixing it up. So Pete goes off to bring around our truck with Pierce's trailer, and I go to open the padlock on the barn door, but it's already broken open. That's not so good. With a bit of dread, I swing open the door enough to have a look around. I shine my flashlight around for a bit, and I nearly drop it in shock at what I see.

Standing in the lofts, the stalls, and about every corner of that building, must be about two hundred or more gnomes. They are all just standing there facing me, hands at their sides and staring at me with dead-looking glassy eyes, like they were garden gnomes or something. Somehow unhealthy looking. Maybe smaller than other gnomes I've seen around these parts?

"What are you all doing in here?" I ask, even though I know we can't understand each other.

Not a one moves. Maybe a few of them blink.

"Are you all... okay?"

Nothing. I back away and close the door.

We go back to the yard by the shop and tell Pierce that Pete's having seizures again, and so we had better get him home right away, and we're sorry we can't get this job done today. He understands, you boys take care now, okay? We mask up and drive home.

I usually think of the Olds as thriving in this world, or at least on their way to that, maybe even to do good bit better than we ever did. Not what I saw today. That was more than poverty, I think. I don't know what that was. Did Pierce have any idea? Something is wrong.

11 - I interrupted some elfs.

And I was walking on the trail in the woods near my home, when I come across some elfs there in the way, where the trail narrows down. They were tailor sitting in a circle, arms raised, humming. It was a kind of spiritual practice, I think. I didn't mean to intrude, I sort of apologize although we don't speak each other's language; they are gracious about it, and I move on through. It felt a bit awkward. I wish I knew a bit more about their beliefs. From the bits I've seen, on the surface it's sort of like "new-age" nature worship. And lots of complex chants and sayings and important movements, things like that. At least that's part of it.

Later when I was returning home back the same way, they are still there but now they are all just down on the ground screwing. I guess that's part of it, too. I had to sort of step around them. Also a bit awkward. They sure are flexible.

12 - The one-bedroom library.

In a spare bedroom of old Hat's unit, we have this sort of "community library" if you can call it that. Last winter we hauled a bunch of bookshelves up there and a big old desk, and a bunch of us added some books and CDs and stuff like that, and this great old lamp. We have a one-at-a-time rule nowadays to keep things safe, but I still manage to get in there most days for a bit, when I feel like it. And there is a computer with a keyboard in there also, with some kind of radio set attached to it, slow as a snail but stable enough for sending messages and whatever. I have been typing up some of these journal posts from there lately. It's either that or hike up to the clearing at the top of the hill where the ogre lives, just to pick up a bit of signal from the cell tower across the way.

And so I was bummed to hear about what happened to that place the other day. I thought we had kept our little reading room pretty secret, but according to Hat, a couple of centaurs, females this time, forced their way in her door to get up there. And they took most of the best bits - the novels, most of the music discs, the computer, and mostly trashed the shelves and desk just to be mean. But they did leave the radio set, so maybe Hat can at least get that link going if we can find her some parts. Until they come over and wreck it all again, I guess.

I wish the centaurs would just leave us alone. We're just trying to save a bit of our old things and ways, and it's of no bother to them. They're always knocking us around and leaning into us even though they got it really good by now - they took over all the best houses up on the ridge, we and we hear them up there partying every night. They got everything they need and supply chains and all that, but they still got to come over and shake us down for $20 and a few old novels. I get tired of it.

13 - He'll be okay.

And the other day, there is this fellow coming around door to door. A young guy, couldn't have been more than 18 or 19, probably. He's dressed in nice clothes with a tie, and he says he's the local candidate for the Greens in the next republic election. Which was totally weird, because we've not had an elected representative around here for years. We're not even part of that anymore. It's true, I looked it up on a map one time, and this whole area and most of what I know to east of here, is all grey and marked "CEDED". But anyways, I listen politely as he talks about "rebuilding" and "reconnecting" and "bringing it back" and this and that. He's nice and well spoken and all that... and I hate to admit it, but I got to stick with the Braxon chieftains around these parts. They got guns and walkie talkies, and a deal with the truckers.

But I guess I feel like chatting anyways, so I ask him what his plan is to deal with the ogres. And I don't think he really gets what I was talking about. And then as bad luck would have it, a dozen or so goblins pour out of that hole behind my house and go running into the street. The kid sees this and sort of yelps, and that startles a hobgoblin who turns and blows a dart into his leg. The kid screams and goes down hard. After the goblins clear out, I help him back to his car at the entrance to the complex, and his girl friend or whoever was waiting for him there is totally freaking out. I try to explain that there is rarely any lasting nerve damage from whatever's on those darts. But he's drooling and half paralyzed by then, and she's screaming at me like it's my fault or something. I feel a bit like they're over reacting, but really it's just that some folks aren't used to this kind of thing yet. But in a week or two, he'll be okay.

14 - That time an ogre visited me.

It was more than two years ago by now, but I remember that visit from an ogre like it was yesterday. I was behind the power wagon just returned from a tire scavenge run, working jobs to ease my grief in those days. And I saw the ogre lifting itself down from the retaining wall behind my home and ambling down the embankment, looking evenly at me with its eye as it came towards me. I dropped the tire I was carrying and ran for my door, barely getting there before it did. Slammed the door and leaned, but it already had a hand on it. The hinge metal bent and the door jam splintered as it pushed it in, and I thought I was finished for sure. I went tumbling onto the bench by the stair. I turned towards the door to get up.

"Wait," it said, in a low, even voice. "I have something for you." That surprised me. I did not even know they could talk, let alone in my language. It was so tall that I could not see its face as it stood outside the door. I was frozen with horror, staring at its chest. I could say nothing.

"I am sorry about your children," it continued. "We all do what we must to survive, don't we." A sound that might have been a sigh. "I thought you should have these."

An enormous hand was suddenly inside my home, and out of it dropped something very small onto the floor. I couldn't quite process this, and I made no reply.

A pause. It moved a toe. "I expect you and the others are planning to come for me soon."

"Yes," I eventually growled shortly, as I glared at its belly button. "Four days from now, at dawn."

"Yes, of course. You will do what you must, as well." A pause. Awkward or sullen, I will never be sure. It moved away from the doorway and I could see outside again.

I was still sitting on the floor. There in front of me where it dropped them, was Tara's bracelet and a pokemon card of Evan's. They were balled up together, bent but not crushed. I stared at them, my heart turning inside out within my chest. Seconds passed, or maybe hours.

A tree-like arm appeared in the ruined doorway again. "Take this also, I have no use for it." It dropped a computer keyboard onto the mat, and it left.

As planned, some of us from the neighbourhood went up the hill and dispatched the ogre later that week, and there was some safety for the rest of that year. But this year another one came to take its place, and now Hat's granddaughter has gone missing. We'll go out on another search this afternoon, like we did yesterday. It goes on and on like this, but I still don't know what it means.

15 - Maybe I'll sell that truck for parts.

It's been kind of a drag not having my own wheels, after the thing with Lucy's trailer and the dragon. That's why I've been at my dad's a lot lately, seeing what I can do with that F250 what the elves wrecked up. But the frame is so bent, and it gobbles so much gas, that it's probably not worth it.

I heard that dwarves are always keen to buy diesel engine parts for some reason, so maybe I'll part it out to them. It's too bad they pay for stuff with actual gold, which is kind of a pain the ass to deal with. People get all weird at the Save-Mor when you try buy frozen pizzas with a little nugget.

I was also over there at my dad's to help him pull the motor from the hyundai, for one of his projects. Some kind of machine to help me with my hole digging, is what he says. I don't have the heart to tell him that I'm done with all that, after the goblin incident. See, he likes his projects, and if we can connect over one, then that is something. Although this power digger thing seems kind of dangerous to me. Like, keep 10 meters away when it's running, that kind of dangerous. It's kind of impressive what he puts together with the one arm he's still got all of, but if dad loses many more body parts, I'm going to have to start feeding him his soup. Unless he can make a machine for that too.

16 - Some dwarves bought the truck.

And so I found pretty quick some dwarves who would buy the diesel engine of the F250. I was waiting around for them at the field behind my dad's place where the truck sat, and finally they showed up pulling a big sledge behind them, and a basket of tools and some ropes and poles. And they had a lot of helpers, I think I counted twenty of them.

They had this big huddle for a couple of minutes, and they were muttering together for a while. Then they got to it, and I've never seen anything like it. The whole team of twenty just surrounded the truck from all sides and started working, and I kid you not, they had the body off the frame in like five minutes. And in another five they had the engine off the frame and onto their sledge. And then they had another huddle for a minute, and when they came out they indicated that they wanted to take the frame and body too. Fine by me, it's busted worse than I can fix.

So they hauled away the engine on their sledge, and in a couple of hours they were back with an even bigger one to carry the rest. They gave me these cool little soft leather bags of gold nugget and dust with "O" branded on them, and that was that. If I can just get this stuff exchanged somehow, I'm all set with dough for a while.

17 - Goblin racing toy.

I borrowed Pete's truck yesterday. I had to shoo away a couple of gnomes sleeping in the front seat, and then I go for a grocery run down to the Save-Mor. When I get back, I swing by Leanne and her mom's unit to drop off some food and naloxone and stuff. Leanne is a super smart kid, and I wish she were in real school. She actually has a working computer in their place, a real one with a keyboard, and she's really good with it from what I can tell. She knows I go on the inter net some times to post things like this, and so she gives me this program she made to share with you all out there. We didn't have the right cable to connect my phone, so she had to write it out onto a couple of sheets of notebook paper, and later I tapped it all back into my phone.

And so here is her toy she made. I hope I typed it all in right; some of the pencil got smudged when page 2 soaked up some gnome piss from the seat of Pete's truck on the way home. Oh yeah, and she told me to tell you that it runs in "e-max". I think that's what she said.

(defun lg-goblin-racing ()
  "racing"
  (interactive)
  (defun lg-goblin-racing-redraw ()
    (interactive)
    (let ((buffer-read-only nil))
      (erase-buffer)
      (dotimes (i (length racers))
        (if (= winner i)
            (insert "  winner  ")
          (insert "          "))
        (insert "|")
        (let ((place (plist-get (nth i racers) :place)))
          (dotimes (j (- length place))  (insert "."))
          (insert (plist-get (nth i racers) :symbol))
          (dotimes (j (- place 1)) (insert "."))
          (newline)))
      (insert "keys: r ... q")))
  (defun lg-goblin-run-race ()
    (interactive)
    (let ((out nil))
      (while (not out)
        (dotimes (i (length racers))
          (let ((racer (nth i racers)))
            (when (>= (random 10) 6)
              (plist-put racer :speed (+ 1 (random 4))))
            (when (= 0 (mod counter (plist-get racer :speed)))
              (plist-put racer :place (+ 1 (plist-get racer :place))))
            (when (= (plist-get racer :place) length)
              (setq winner i)
              (setq out t))))
        (setq counter (+ counter 1))
        (lg-goblin-racing-redraw)
        (when (not (sit-for 0.1)) (setq out t)))))
  (defun lg-goblin-racing-reset ()
    (set (make-local-variable 'winner) -1)
    (set (make-local-variable 'length) 40)
    (set (make-local-variable 'racers)
         (list
          (list :symbol 128127 :speed 2
                :place 1)
          (list :symbol 128127 :speed 2
                :place 1)
          (list :symbol 128127 :speed 2
                :place 1)
          (list :symbol 128127 :speed 2
                :place 1)))
    (set (make-local-variable 'counter ) 1)
    (lg-goblin-racing-redraw))
  (define-derived-mode lg-goblin-racing-mode
    special-mode "lg-goblin-racing"
    "Special mode for racing toy."
    (setq cursor-type nil)
    (lg-goblin-racing-reset))
  (setq lg-goblin-racing-mode-map
        (let ((map (make-sparse-keymap)))
          (define-key map "r"
            (lambda() (interactive)
              (lg-goblin-racing-reset)
              (lg-goblin-run-race)))
          map))
  (switch-to-buffer "*lg-goblin-racing*")
  (lg-goblin-racing-mode))

18 - Jone's dream.

I had another of the dreams again, the ones about the other Jone, or Jones. This time it was the Jone who is a giant, sleeping for ages in a cave deep under a place named Egg Island. I say that like I know the place, but it's not like that. It's hard to explain.

And in my dream I entered this sleeping giant Jone's own sleeping dream. And two levels in like that, what I get back now is not so clear. But I felt like there was a wide plateau, and on there were scattered the deserted remnants of something. And a forest to the north of that, with a brick path through it, mostly overgrown. No one was there, either. And the path passed through the forest to a seaside, and some kind of tall lighthouse tower was there, very old. And through Jone's dream eye I could see from the top of it, across to an island where another tower stood, but that one was ruined. And through all this, there was this feeling like these places were supposed to mean something, and that the giant Jone had it, but as for me it was out of reach.

When I awoke, it was morning and dark, as they are these days. And I'm in my bed, cold in the room with the window open as I like it to be. In the distance I hear the call of some animal I cannot recognize. I have a strange feeling for a moment, and then it passes.

19 - Was playing checkers in the woods.

And I met up with Del the other day, for playing checkers. We like to play outside, in places that we remember being public parks back when that was a thing around here. Even in the rain, whatever. If you never tried playing board games in the woods, you should. I thought it was a weird idea too, until I tried it.

We do mask up to keep things safer, although we are both pretty solitary souls these days. We all got to be careful. Our neighborhood so far lost one to covid this year. And we lost two to the ogre, two more to overdose, and honestly I don't think Ric is going to make it after the kick he took to the head from that centaur last week. With the covid added in, it's kind of a lot of lethal stuff going on around here these days, when you list it all out like that.

Pete came by too for a while (and kept distance) to help us drink these dreadful Norville Island Red Ales. Still wish I hadn't traded that whole bottle of ibuprofen for this case.

Anyways, playing checkers with Del. Del always looks like they are thinking so hard, considering this move or that, and after all of it they finally pick about the worst possible one. And I just want to keep the game going, so I don't even take advantage. Honestly, I think I don't actually care about games, not really. I just like sitting around outside, taking turns, and moving small things around.

20 - I saw some centaurs wearing uniforms.

And the other day, I saw a couple of the centaurs hanging around the neighborhood. They were wearing uniforms, some sort of police-style kind of thing with the hats and jackets and such. One was going from door to door and talking with whoever was home for a bit before going back to the other on the street who was taking notes or something. But I don't like the look of any of this, at all. What are they doing, making a census? Is it some kind of militia? Are they finally starting to take over around here, in an organized way? I think a centaur police would be worse for us than no police at all, which is what we have now. As if *we* are causing problems for *them*? Gimme a break.

I remember the other year when Amazon kind of tried to stake a claim on this area. They sent around some reps, hosted a few meetings which were great because of the free coffee and sandwiches, and we all got these temporary "citizen" cards. They were planning to send in some trades to work on our neighborhood's patched-together electricals and plumbing, and they were going to put in some kind of inter net link, and they even sent in a couple of nurses to make a little clinic for a few weeks, which was really great. And they had a few security type people making the rounds, but not bothering anybody. They talked about one day doing schools, parks, garbage collection, and all this kind of thing I remember from when I was a kid. And we were all starting to warm up to the idea of being Amazon citizens. But I guess once they looked at how much it was costing to fix us up but how we still had no money to buy all their stuff, I guess it didn't make sense to them anymore or something, because they stopped coming around after a while. And our citizen cards expired, and now we never hear from them except for the odd drone they send buzzing around, which they always did anyways. So much for all that. Good sandwiches, though.

21 - They were throwing rotten pumpkins.

I was heading out for a walk, and I hear behind me this roaring engine, and I just couldn't believe what I saw. From the lane behind the complex, I see the old F250 come roaring out with about 10 elfs riding in the back and hanging out of the cab. They're just giving it all out, and the thing gets loose as it skids around the corner, and totally demolishes the mailboxes. And they don't even hardly notice, just hooting and laughing. And then one in the back picks up a pumpkin from the bed in the back - yeah, some rotten old pumpkin - and throws that against the side of the unit, and it blows up, and they just keep laughing and laughing.

And I'm turned around now and watching this, like are you kidding me? I could swear it's the mostly the same bunch who stole and smashed this thing up back in the spring. And now the dwarfs who bought the wreck from me last week have already fixed it up and sold it back to them? Got to have a little chat with them. But no time for that now, because the elfs see me and they're pointing and laughing. And I jump to the curb as they roar up behind me, and they huck another pumpkin at me as they go past. That thing gets me full in the chest and I'm covered in rotten goo, and they're laughing their heads off. I'm laying there on the side of the road and watching them swerve away, throwing more pumpkins at parked cars, at a cat, at a stop sign, at a house, at each other, and then they're skidding around another corner and gone.

Back home for a shower, and then I head out again on my walk. Eventually I find the truck on its side in a ditch by the old school, and the elfs are all gone. They (probably) paid money for it so I'm going to leave it there, but if they aren't back in three days maybe I will try to winch it out and put it back at my dad's. Although it's probably even more messed up than before, now.

Elfs, what can you say. An elegant and ancient race of the Olds, yeah yeah yeah, but they sure can be a bunch of jack-asses too. Just like anybody else.

22 - At home today.

I was inside my home all day yesterday, and I did not go outside even a little. It was my turn to use the electricity, so I was inside charging batteries, lights on, being warm, stuff like that. And running the oven. Bread, oat cakes - do you eat those? Here are two good recipes I found:

gopher://republic.circumlunar.space/0/~bard/phlog/2020-06-21_medieval-oat-cakes.txt

gemini://gemini.circumlunar.space/~shufei/recipes/Jonnycakes-Multigrain.gmi

Since my family are no more, I rattle around in here, and collect certain things. It is getting to Christmas-time, but I never took my artificial tree down from last year, or the the year before that. And now I collect other artificial trees whenever I find them thrown away. Lots of those - the elfs and centaurs don't give a crap for the christmas trees in the houses they find. Now I have like twenty of them set up in here. Big ones, narrow ones, little mini ones, they are all welcome here. I sit in my old blue chair in the middle of my private fake forest. But today with lights! That's pretty okay. I can sit and write in my notebooks without a flashlight.

And I have the big old halloween ghost thing in the window that my kids made years ago. Why take that down, it still looks great. And there is the collection of 244 boxes upstairs. Good ones: metal ones with clasps, nice painted wooden jewel cases, and some of those better-looking cardboard storage boxes with the metal bits on the corners. Not sure why I collect them. There's just something about boxes. And trees, too.

23 - Christmas.

Last year's christmas day, we all took barbecues out to the picnic table over by what's left of the old playground in our complex. Pete was baking potatoes, Hat was grilling turkey pieces, Del brought out some fresh bread, and Lucy and I had gone and picked up about 2 dozen boxes of slightly-expired instant stuffing at a warehouse sale over at Obern. The kind in the box, salty but we had a ton of it which is great. Lots of others brought out bits and pieces and plates and cups and all that. Even a few elfs came and hung out for a bit, and were showing us this game with rods and cord that none of us had seen before. It was like some kind of competitive jump-rope dueling thing. And you know, even the centaurs came around and weren't jerks for once, and they brought a whole wagon full of booze, which sure helped things stay merry. They had another wagon with toys for the kids. And I guess that's why we never go all out against them even though they usually bully and smack us around - there's always just enough good stuff that we remember and keep hanging on to. Such as it is with many bad relationships, I guess. Anyways, last year's Christmas day, it was a really good time.

But that was last year, and this is this year with the covid, and now we're all hunkered down in our houses and gazing out the windows at the slush and ice covering the common area. The centaurs are out there, cussing and yelling and having a knife fight tournament or some other stupid-ass thing.

24 - I found another key.

Some time back I found another key with the blue stone in it, while I was digging one of my holes. I went over to Del's mom's house to put it with the others in a box I keep in the old Dodge out back there. She has the electricity today, so I was going over there anyways to pick up some bread, and also to drop off some ibuprofen with her. Which was a funny coincidence, because I got all these boxes of ibuprofen bottles from some elfs when they traded them to me for just one of these same keys, back in the summer when they saw I had one. They were super serious about it, and offered all these boxes of ibuprofen, which was surprising to me because it was just some old piece of junk I found in the dirt. I guess I'll take it if they're offering. But I find these blue-stone keys all the time, somehow. By now I feel a bit weird about having a small box full of them, when I don't know why they are such a big deal. That's why I hide them, for now. I'm not trying to be a jerk and keep them away from whoever wants them so badly for some reason, and I'm not even trying to hold out for a trade. I'm just nervous about having something like that when the centaurs have their eyes on everything like they do. Don't want to draw attention to myself. The Olds talk to each other, at least some of them do. So I guess I'm not sure how best to get out of this now.

25 - So much for Norville Island Ales.

There are a couple of breweries somehow still operating past the old railroad tracks near the inlet. And Del has been working at the worse one, Norville Island Ales. That beer is so bad. But a job is a job, and 3 weeks must be some kind of record for Del, so that's great for them. The brewery owner has a big heart and gives a hand up to hard luck cases. Also she has started hiring Olds sometimes too, dwarfs mainly or sometimes an elf, which is interesting and unusual around these parts, but I think it's really good. Some will disagree with me on that, but this is the future coming on.

I'm walking with Del on their way to their shift the other morning. And when we get there, I see the owner of the place has goblins out in the back lot, stacking pallets or something. She's got goblins working there now? Goblins. Come on, now that is going too far.

So Del heads inside to start, and I just have to hang back from the next lot and watch the goblin jobs. Sure enough, after a little while they are fighting instead of stacking, hitting each other with the pallets. Then one chases the other up the arm of some old cherry-picker truck parked in the next lot. And somehow, I have no idea how, they activate the hydraulics, and now the arm is going up and down and spinning around. And those poor little things are stuck up there, wailing while the thing spins around. So I'm thinking can I somehow help, or ...?

Don't even get to finish that thought, because out of nowhere a yellow dragon appears in the sky, attracted by the commotion or something, I don't know how dragons think. But it swoops low and grabs the cherry picker truck's arm with its talons, and actually starts to fly off with it! Except it ends up snagging it on a power line, and dropping it onto the brewery building, which is some old brick thing that collapses right quick. The vats tip and bust open too, and soon there is crappy beer spilling everywhere from the ruins of it all. I guess that's the end of that place, and Del's job. But like I say, Norville Island beer was pretty bad anyways.

26 - There was something in my fruit.

I was eating fruit yesterday, because eating fruit is a really good idea when you can get fruit. I take a bite out of my fruit -- which by the way is an apple -- and there is something inside it. I just about had bitten it. It is some sort of metal-looking pin, but clear in parts, with a fatter bit at the bottom, and a curly part at the top like a little spring. And the even weirder thing is that it has a tiny slowly-blinking light on the side, and there is this very faint sound - like a high-pitched whirring or switching, in step with the little blinking light. I am not one of those electronics-knowing people, but I get an intuition that it is a transmitter of some kind. And I cannot tell you how violated it makes me feel, that they would put something like that in there. In my food. It crosses a line for me, if there are any of those left to be crossed.

And so I go up the side of the west hill where some of my smaller holes still are. I throw the little thing down into one, and a stick of dynamite. You'd be amazed at how many uses you will find for holes in the ground, if you have lots of them. Maybe they weren't such a bad idea after all. Anyways, it is pretty loud and it blows some crud pretty high, and it probably pisses off the centaurs who I could hear cussing from their sun decks down the slope, but I'm okay with that, and they didn't see me do it.

And since I am out there I hike up to the ridge to get some inter net. I search for transmitters in fruit, but could not find that much about it. But I do find this song about a "banana marker" which I think could be a similar thing, although it is not quite clear.

gemini://yam655.com/j/2018-07/09_r2125/

Anyways, there is a lot of really interesting material on that yam six hundred fifty five site and you should check that out if you can. But do watch out for stuff in your fruit.

27 - Eastern Townships Hockey Association.

For some years I have been slightly involved with the ETHA (Eastern Townships Hockey Association). They run road hockey leagues around here, and maybe twice over the years I was on one of those tournament teams. And registered as sub a bunch of times for teams that needed one. It basically boils down to a well organized pickup games at tennis courts, but with really good scorekeeping and stats and all that. Which makes it seem like a bigger deal than it is, but that's kind of cool. The guy who runs it even posts results and stuff on the inter net.

Because of the covid, I heard they're going to run all-Olds games this winter, which isn't as wacky as it might sound to some. Elfs in particular seem really into hockey, and some always turned up to watch and even sub on some games in the past. I have seen them play on their own, and some of them are getting really good at it. I never saw centaurs play, but I don't see why they couldn't. I don't know about dwarfs, they're kind of short, but we'll see what happens. It's going to be fun to watch. Although I am slightly worried that maybe the Olds will take over the whole ETHA from here on out, and kick out all us homo-saps for good. Which would suck, although it seems to be the way things are turning.

28 - Twenty dwarfs at the supermarket.

I was back at the Save-Mor the other day for some groceries. And I go as early as I can, because I like getting that stuff out of the way of my day. So I'm pushing down the dairy-and-frozen-foods isle, and I kid you not, there are like 20 dwarfs crammed in there. They're all like huddled around the shelf where the cheese is, taking one down, passing it around, sort of murmuring to each other in their serious way. It's always like this with them - they have to do everything in big groups. I never saw a dwarf do anything by itself. And granted, a gang of them can strip down a whole car to parts in 5 minutes, but they're taking 15 minutes to pick out a piece of mozzarella. I just don't get it. And later it's the same thing with the canned fish, and the crackers, and the potatoes. And I feel like I'm just hustling around the place to get what I can before the dwarf conference blocks the way again. I've tried saying excuse me in the past, but I don't any more. Have you ever seen the look you get, times 20, when you interrupt a dwarf discussion? You'd think I had spat on them or something. Whatever, I'll just eat pickles instead. You never interrupt a dwarf.

29 - Some strange tracks in the field.

I was out walking around the old school field with Hat's daughter Ellie, and her dogs. Most of the snow has melted, which is a bit depressing because as usual it uncovers a bunch of frozen dead gnomes. I just put them in a bag I carry and I'll bury them in one of my holes, later. I'm always finding new uses for all those holes I dug.

Ellie's got a lot of stuff on her mind, between her nephew gone missing, and trouble with the centaurs, and money, and her health, and all the terrible stuff she tells me other people said and did to her. I just listen, mostly. You know, it took me long time to learn to do that. I guess most other people just know, but for some reason it took me a long time to learn not to offer encouragement or ideas. But now I've figured out how not to do that. Better late than never, I guess.

And the dogs and us run across this patch of snow that's all red with gore, and what looks like a fur or feathers, and also a goblin arm which was still twitching somehow. And there's animal tracks in the snow and a blood trail coming out of this mess, and out to the tree line. But I can't tell what they are. I used to know about identifying animal tracks, but I can't place these. And I think about ancient kinds of animals coming back, but I never thought about that before.

30 - Something will stay.

That ripped micro chip,
a put down Peterbilt
that the red rust must turn.
A sound in the slimy playground
where the swings snapped off
some springs ago.
But, still something.
And that pipe
under you, under me,
under then, under now,
under later,
may always be.
And this also, is something.

When the sun groans up
again in the morning,
says to the sprout
to tell us that
maybe we can still
bring it all back again,
and dry all this off.
But it won't say
when again it will be warm.

But maybe not.
Some somethings will stay
after we go away.
And they are from us
but not of us.
Is that all it came to?
Maybe just as well.

31 - The highway signs bother me.

Some years back as the Olds were beginning to occupy more and more of the quad-cities area, they put up these signs on highway 6 and other major routes in. Typical black-on-white road signs, with text: "WARNING / INVASIVE BEINGS / ENTER AT OWN RISK" And under WARNING there is this weird image of a head with one eye and no hair and an open mouth with fangs and a big pointy ears. It's drawn in the simple style of those hazard warning pictures on bottles of solvent and glue and whatnot. Like the skull and crossbones in an octagon, or that skeleton hand in the bucket of acid, that sort of thing. The "harmful shit within" message.

And those highway signs always bothered me. I mean, we're still people, we're still in here, we're living in here. This is our home. We eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And the sign makes it seem like we're all mean and hopeless, dangerous and lost. Written off. And I don't just mean us homo-saps. Olds are people too, and we may not always get along, but they are just trying to live here, same as we are. And they aren't like in the signs, they aren't like scary monsters or something. Okay well, actually the ogres do eat children sometimes, and that is very monstrous. And for that we cull them like conservation officers on nuisance bears, and I guess that is pretty awful too. I wouldn't call goblins monsters exactly, but they do seem kind of hideous and amoral to me. And all in all I guess it is pretty dangerous around here. Okay, I guess it's complicated. But I still don't like those signs.

32 - Witch in the washroom.

Pete and I were driving back home from a job out at old Chin's farm in Boyner. And in the afternoon on the way home, we swing through Port Rodiqum to hit up the Wal-Mart for some supplies. And after that we stop at Brackin Park, where the little-league baseball used to be based out of. We stop to eat the ham sandwiches that Dr. Chin gave us, which have this really tasty honey mustard in them. Anyways, the park has washrooms that someone is still maintaining, in a building by the dugouts. And so I go in there, and the lights are all out, which is a bit weird. And then I notice someone is in there already. In the corner, there is this little old woman sitting on the floor, dressed in rags. And I mean she is indescribably old, old like I never saw before. And all around her on the floor tiles are little candles, like tea-lights, flickering and casting her shadow on the wall behind. She is staring evenly at me. And in a voice as scratchy as a bag of twigs, she says, "You have come the wrong way, Jone." I'm just staring back, dumbfounded.

And then I notice all her candles are electric ones, the fake flickering LED kind with the button batteries that you buy in packs of 3 at Dollaroonie. With no change in her face, the old woman says, "The wi-fi is not working right now." And I don't know how to respond to that either. Then I blink my eyes, and she and all her LED candles are suddenly gone, and the fluorescent tube lights on the ceiling blink back on. And I pee and I get out of there, and I think I won't ever be back. But I somehow have this feeling that I will be seeing her again.

And we're back in the truck and about to head, when one of the number tiles falls off the old scoreboard where we parked under, and lands on the windshield. "9".

33 - At the fort.

I was at the local "fort" the other day. It's this abandoned construction lot where the Braxon chieftains have set up a couple of trailers and tables and whatever. I guess it gives them a bit more presence and connection in this area. To me it's like a trading post and a general store. They've got connections with the truckers and at the ports, and there's lots of every day stuff to buy, but also other things. And you never know what you might be able to buy from them on a given day. I remember Ric bought this authentic cuckoo clock from them. I heard the Leongs picked up some kind of top-of-the-line breast pump, after their baby was born. It's just like, random.

The chieftains themselves aren't usually there, just one of their underlings or lieutenants or whatever they call themselves. (I just call him Bil.) And a couple of centaurs they hire as guards or something. So I swing by there like I sometimes do, to say hi to Bil, chat for a bit, check in and all that. He exchanges some of my gold nugget for cash, and I buy some little am/fm radio, and this beige computer box which is the kind old Hat likes best for some reason. She's slowly trying to put the library back together, which is great, and I have some dough right now so I want to help with that.

Bil's not the worst, but most of the Braxon chieftains and their crew are pretty bad dudes, though I won't get into the details. And frankly I'd rather not associate at all, but I have to be practical, because I think it's a good idea that they know of me just a little bit. Not know me so much that they ever would call on me to do them a favor, or even worse I call on them for a favor. Mostly I just want to avoid somehow getting on their bad side. Anyways, I wish I could afford to take a moral stand against more things, but I just don't have that kind of privilege right now. Sometimes you just got to survive.

34 - Hockey is back on.

And I heard that Jerry got a street hockey tournament started already, there at the Barge Lake tennis courts. Wow, that was fast.

I masked up and turned out to watch some of the games the other day. I was kind of worried it would be crowded, but there actually weren't that many people there to watch. Well, I think it's pretty cool watching the Olds teams play each other. And there's this team of goblins that they've allowed to wear roller skates, I guess so they can keep up with the others who are much taller. And those little things are just flying around out there, and it's actually pretty funny to watch. Hats off to this person I see who's coaching them, I don't know they get goblins so well organized. And it looks like the Braxons put some centaurs on a team, and I like how they are sort of sucking out there so far. There's a bunch of elf teams and they are mostly quite good. And there's this team of dwarfs too, who are better than I expected. It's 3-on-3 hockey but of course the dwarfs have like 15 subs. So all in all it was a pretty good time. Nice job, Jerry.

35 - I saw another train with soldiers.

I was sitting down by the railway tracks the other day, playing checkers with Del and listening to my new radio, and also watching trains because I like looking at trains. You know, they are probably about the biggest thing most of us will ever see moving on the earth. But there's less coming through here now than there used to be.

And then one finally comes, and it is another of those soldier trains. It has these short half-height sides, but with gaps between the boards on the side panels, like a chopped cattle car. Over the short sides you can see the soldiers sitting on row benches, and they have on these weird baggy grey fatigues. And they got these ventilator marks, the kind with canisters in the front. We can see some of them are already wearing them. And then there are a bunch of these super tall totally black box cars, and then some flatbeds with what might be machines on them, or big vats, or something. But they have them wrapped in tarps so we can't tell. And we kind of just watch as all this goes by and disappears.

I don't know what they are. I haven't seen one in a couple of years, but I first saw one maybe almost 10 years ago by now, probably. And it seems like a pretty unusual thing, something that you'd hear about what it was, maybe even in the news. But I never heard anything, and no one knows anything, and that's the weirdest thing about it.

The person on the radio starts talking about interesting things you can add to your cocoa, and they're going to take some calls now. And then a crow poops on our checkerboard, which is kind of gross, but that's just part of playing checkers outside.

36 - Bought some chain.

And I head out to the Braxon fort again the other day, for to buy some length of chain. Because there's this swing hanging by its one side only, over on what's left of my complex's playground. And I see that sad old swing every day out the window from my unit, and sometimes you just got to fix a thing like that.

When I get there, there are these two elfs sitting at a picnic table there, playing Uno. And also knitting. And the knitting they do is somehow connected to what cards they are playing, which is kind of cool. I know these two from the complex across the street from ours, so as I pass by I wave and I sort of mutter "hi" to them, in their language, which I hear them say all the time. But for me to say it in their tongue, it kind of just slipped out on accident. I wasn't really thinking And they give me a wave back without looking up much, but one of the centaur guards snorts a bit and rolls his eyes, and I feel embarrassed right away. Better stay in my lane. I go and cut my chain and pay at the trailer.

And then one of the Braxon chieftains rolls up by the curb in some shiny Tahoe, with his tunes and some girls, and Bil and the centaurs head on over to hang out. I go and sit with the elfs for a bit, and they don't seem to mind. I know Uno, but I don't know anything about knitting.

37 - Jone's revenge.

I had another of the dreams last night about the giant Jone, the one who lies under that island that I don't know. And in my dream, I know that I am in the brain of giant Jone, in its dream. And in that dream I find myself in this empty land that is strange to me. What's more, I feel giant Jone is watching me somehow, from above, or through me - it's not quite clear. And although I don't know how I got to this place, and I think I came from somewhere, I ignore all that. I spend some time, and I get my bearings, and I start to make it home. Others come, and things get made, and things get wrecked, and there are friends and there are fights and there is gain and there is loss. And one day when I get to thinking that it feels deep enough to be a place I know, I hear this sound on the wind. A sound which I cannot describe. And I turn around, and everything is changed, I am somewhere empty and unfamiliar, and I am lost again like I was before. And what I can remember of where I just was, it fades so fast but not completely. Until there is just this uneasy feeling that there used to be something else. That, and this feeling of mocking laughter coming from Giant Jone. And this rebuild-reset cycle goes again, and again, and again, and again, and again. And atom by atom, I assemble this idea, some inception, that this is somehow Jone's revenge, a revenge for something indescribably ancient, something that I have lost completely if I ever had it at all.

I wake up, and from my bed I look out the window to the railing outside. A black bird alights and it is looking at me. It holds its beak open, but no sound comes out, and then it flies away. And for a moment I think understand something important, but another moment later, that's gone also.

38 - Gas powered slot cars.

I was over at dad's property the other day, working on my headlight fence. I'll write about that some other time, because this thing my dad is doing is way more interesting.

There's these dwarfs coming around his place more and more these days, ever since he and I sold them my old F250 that they fixed up for the elfs. Similar interests and all that. And lately they've been doing this gas-powered slot-car drag racing thing. Yeah. They've put up this pair of 100m metal guard rails with a groove in them, and packed the dirt down on either side, and that's the drag strip. And then they take little engines from lawn mowers or whatever, fit them on a frame with some simple drive gear, wheels, and a tiny gas tank, and attach a guide arm that fits into the groove on its rail. Set a pair of them up at one end, let 'em rip, sit back and watch, and that's some good racing. Tinker and run again. Noisy and stinky as all hell, and don't even get me started about the gas they're blowing through, but my dad and the dwarfs can go all day at this stuff, so good for them I guess.

Anyways, the other day when I was there, the dwarfs bring over this massive rig to test out. It was probably like a 7-liter Cummins they'd ripped from some truck. They roll this thing over to the slot, clamp it on and start it up. Pulled the gear and it goes roaring on down the rail in like 4 seconds. It totally tears off the ignition wire pull bar at the end of the rail that's supposed to stop it, and so then this thing is tearing off across the field all on its own! And so if you can imagine, there's these dozen little dwarfs chasing as fast as they can after this disemboweled truck engine that's ripping around the field. And dad is laughing so hard, doing that old-guy cough/choke/laugh/wheeze thing where you're not sure if you should laugh along, or try to calm them down. And eventually they get their rig back, when it ran out of gas in like 5 or 10 minutes. Maybe they want to gear that thing down a bit next time.

39 - Saw the ogre.

I was over at Ellie's unit the other night, and it was still dark in the morning as I'm wandering home. In the faint light I see something dark ahead in the road, and in another moment I know it's in the shape of an ogre. So I leap behind the old telephone switch box by the curb and wait, peeking around as quiet and still as I can. It's going pretty slow and dragging behind it something I can't see. And it walks beside the side of the unit there to the low retaining wall behind it, lifts its big round body up over it and heads up the hillside. I can barely make out its shape in the darkness as it disappears over the ridge.

Sometimes, somehow, often, I forget these things are up there. You don't hardly ever see them, and maybe that's the danger - you get so used to the hazard that you forget to think about it. But now I'm reminded, and that we still have to do something about it. One day.

And as I come out of my hiding spot to head home, I couldn't shake this feeling like I saw something else there too, barely. Someone, or something, hunched and curved, waiting by the retaining wall and then following the ogre up the hill as it went. Close, like it was there to meet it. And I thought I saw pointed ears on its head, like some animal. But I don't know, I'm just not sure I saw that. Or, maybe those patches Ellie had weren't total duds after all.

40 - Brawl in the parking lot.

And so I borrowed Pete's truck again to drive Del out to Obern, where there are still some open clearance warehouse stores. Del's shoes are worn out and they're really picky about shoes. I wait in the truck while Del goes in. And just when they're getting back, that's when things start up. Didn't see who first said what about who, but there's these five elfs standing by a red sports car who start cussing and screaming at the top of their lungs at these centaurs in the row across, who are cussing and yelling right back. And it goes on and on, and everyone else who's in the lot is like whoa. And I'm just sitting there in the truck, watching all this go on from across the other row. And Del gets back and is like what the hell, and I'm like, I don't know. Because you see, all this is going on in some Olds tongue that we can't neither of us understand.

And then it really busts open. And the elfs whip out these slingshots and start whipping stones, and they have pretty bad aim and are busting windows and lights on all the nearby cars. And the centaurs charge at them, and try to run down the elfs, and from somewhere a bunch of goblins have come out and jumped on the back of the centaurs and are flinging poop at the elfs. Poop-throwing goblins riding centaurs? Didn't know that was a thing. It's just bonkers, and everyone else now is running away and screaming. Except this one woman wearing a ninja turtles mask, an employee who comes out to collect all the returned shopping carts from right in the middle of all this, and she doesn't even look up or miss a beat. Another day another dollar. I really want to meet her.

Anyways, soon it's just this mad chase around the cars which are all getting wrecked by centaur kicks, so Del and I are like, let's get out of here. And as we're pulling back onto the road, we see one of the Braxon chieftain's trucks is racing up and pulling in. That's never good... And as we drive off, we hear that pop pop... pop. And we just drive home in silence, and I'm feeling sick. But at least Del got some shoes.

41 - Sometimes you just got to do a thing.

I don't know where my dad is getting all these cruddy old cars from, but he sure is getting a lot of them these days. And I do mean cruddy, because they are super dirty. Even the engine compartment is packed with dirt. Like, is he digging them out of the ground or something? And he gets all cagey when I try to ask where from he's getting them. "Oh you know, I know a guy, and they find 'em, and ..." and then he kind of trails off. Which is pretty weird for him, but whatever. And I don't know what he's going to do with them all. He collects, is all. Just a habit you make as stuff's harder to get.

Anyways, they're all pretty decrepit so I doubt I'll ever find a driver out of them. Which I'm always on the lookout for. But they're useful for one of my projects. I've been pulling light bulbs and their housings out of those old cars, turn signals, headlights, tail lights, side markers, interior lamps, dash lamps, all that, whatever's still working. I've been fastening them all to these sections of metal fencing I found, and I wire them all up to a battery. And there's this guy in the corner unit near me, calls himself PJ, and he knows about micro controllers. He says we could use relays and program all these lights to turn on and off in some pattern, and I like the sound of that. And all this probably seems pretty pointless I guess, just like collecting dirty old cars. But sometimes you get this feeling like you just got to do a thing, even if you aren't sure why.

42 - They were wearing matching masks.

I'm out for a walk the other night, and there's this mini-mall out past the old town hall that caved in the other year. Not really any stores left in that mini-mall I think, well maybe old Turk is open and trying to sell some junk when the gout's not so bad. But anyways, there's still a street lamp lit by the turn-in, and as I'm walking past I see someone walking out of the mall there. And I see it's elf, and they're walking a dog on a leash. And they've got this red wool cap on with blinking micro-LED christmas lights pinned onto it. The kind what runs off an AA or something. And I'm thinking that's pretty cool, when I notice there's more. This elf is wearing a covid face mask -- and get this, the dog, which is some shaggy black poodle or something, is wearing one too! A matching one!

And you know, the Olds can't get the covid, so this one's just rocking the mask for the style of it. (And of course the dog too.) But I never used to see elfs with dogs years ago when they first started appearing around here. I think it's just another of those bits of homo-sap culture they've sort of picked up and made their own. Like with clothes. They take human clothes, and mod them up until they're new and cool. Once I saw some elfs who'd took all these colorful mens' ties, cut them into pieces and sewed them all dangling from their shirt arms, like feathered wings. Or they'll hang a digital wrist watch on their head with string somehow, so that the time part is hanging in middle of their forehead. And they've totally gone to town with the vanity covid masks. Rhinestones, embroidery, shiny foil, all that. Maybe one day we'll stop wearing those, but I bet you the elfs never will. But the christmas-light hat tonight, that's a new one to me. I got to get me one of those.

43 - They're only gangsters.

Let's get something straight. The Braxons call themselves "chieftains", and that makes some sense, but it's not like they're leaders of an indigenous band or anything like that. I heard some people the other day call them that, and I don't know where that dumbass idea is coming from. Maybe them? Nice try. Back when things were messed up and the republic was cutting its losses, the Braxons swooped in and grabbed control. But before that they were just this gangster family that controlled most of the fentanyl around here. That's all they are. To say otherwise is kind of disrespectful to real indigenous people, I think. But anyways, it reminds me that I'd better go pay my tax at the fort tomorrow so they don't break my finger again.

I remember those times, when the Braxons sort of moved in on here. It was like you'd see more of the Olds coming in every week back then, in those big marches out of the mountains like they used to do. It was mostly centaurs back then, and gnomes. Things were getting pretty unruly around here before, but they really blew apart after the Davis Inquiry wrapped up. It didn't go the way the portal-ers and the AV's thought it should, and when they went on the rampage, so many people just disappeared in those months. And I'll never know for sure what happened to Beth but it's probably whatever they did to all the rest that spoke against them. And I try not to talk about it, but I miss her so much every day, and the kids too. And so I got to talk to PJ about the ogre in the morning. It's past time we got on that again. At least that's a situation that maybe we can fix one day.

44 - Playoffs are on.

The ETHA semi-finals began the other day. I turned up at the first game of the first round to watch. It's mostly elf teams left, which is kind of what I expected. Although the top team was a bunch of dwarfs, and I sure didn't see that coming. I was kind of bummed that the team of little goblins didn't make it to the playoffs, I was really rooting for them.

gopher://republic.circumlunar.space/0/~joneworlds/etha.txt

I don't know if I'll show up for a lot of the games. The centaur team didn't make it in either, but some of them are milling around and kind of throwing shade at players, teams, spectators, whoever. Which I'm used to, but it seems a little more now, and in light of recent events it just feels kind of tense. And I'm not really digging it.

45 - Mush network.

PJ's got this plan to track ogre movements in the hills behind the complex. I'm not going to pretend and write it down very well because it's pretty high tech stuff and that's his thing. Basically it's old cell phones wrapped in plastic sandwich bags and tied to tent stakes. We're going to put these in the dirt at various places over the hill. And he's got the phones prepared somehow so that if something big gets near to one of them, like an ogre, then it's going to somehow signal us about that. So that's kind of neat. But the phones have to be close enough to each other to make it work, so we have to pick our spots carefully. PJ calls it a mush network. Or mesh, I forget. As a side benefit, he thinks we can use all this to somehow boost cell tower signal which is barely gettable from the top of the hill, down into our complex. Which is also kind of neat, if it works.

And I drop by his place and he shoves at me this big tub of about 15 of these baggie-phone-stakes, and tells me to go dig them in. He's kind of in a hurry because apparently he just got invited to go do "magic" with some elfs. And on his way out the door he's yelling over his shoulder back to me, something like, "oh, and redefine the window power word on those down to 60 from 80, they'll last longer, just put in colon pow 60 semicolon enter and flash the block. It's easy." And then he's gone. Uh, okay whatever. 80 is going to have to do.

46 - Ate a sandwich at Turk's.

I was thinking back to that dog wearing a covid mask I saw by the old mall, and thought I'd swing by again to see what old Turk is up to. He's got the only store still running in that broken-down old place. And when I get there I see he's got this cardboard sign up in the window, "WE NOW SERVE FOOD" and underneath, "NEWLY CLEANED". Well, I guess selling used clock radios wasn't working out so well for him any more. NEWLY CLEANED... okay, well I guess that's good.

And Turk opens the door and he shoos three little gnomes outside. "Out! Out!" And they go running down the walk and into the street, and this passing car totally creams one of them. And of course the other two just scatter off somewhere. After seeing this, I stumble inside and I'm kind of drop-jawed and shell shocked, but Turk is like, "Out! Only Olds in here, saps eat outside! Out!" And he shoves me down onto this rusty metal patio chair. That's fine, covid rules are fine, I get it.

And soon he comes limping out with my sandwich, and I go to take a bite, but he's all shouting at me like, "No! Stop! You keep the mask on!" And he shows me with his own mask, how to pull it away with one hand and take a bite with the other and then let the mask snap back. "Like this!" and he grabs my mask off the table and snaps it back on my head, and he grabs my sandwich, and shoves it into my mouth around the mask while it's still clipped on my ears. I just think that's going a bit far. And I don't know if you've ever eaten a meatball and sauce sub while wearing a tight-fitting cloth mask, but it's... not great. And so I'm not sure about Turk's service, but it was a pretty tasty sandwich. Maybe take-out next time.

47 - Saw a big helicopter.

Weather's been clear and cold and dry lately, and so the field has dried out some. Pete and I were out there throwing the football the other day. You know, catch is great for covid times. You're standing far apart, but it's back and forth, it's reciprocal, it's mutual. It's good.

And then off in the distance above the mountains beyond the north shore of the inlet, we hear and see this helicopter. One of those big two-prop army kinds, like a Chinook, and it's lifting out something large on a chain from the center of its fuselage. We can't tell what. And it makes me think back to that unexplained train I saw the other week, with the soldiers and big machines on it. And its weird, but I never put it together until just this day, that back when I first started seeing those trains, was when I first noticed seeing the Olds appearing here and there. And I don't know if that means anything, but it's funny how the relative timing of stuff doesn't always click with me.

Anyways, we were stopped and listening to the thud-thud-thud of that far-off helicopter, and then we see a huge blue dragon flying down fast from above a cloud. And its going for that helicopter, coming down fast. When it's closer, it spits out like a fire bolt or something, and the helicopter takes it right on the top. And its listing and trailing smoke and before we know it, it's down on the mountainside in a fireball. You don't see that every day around here. We go on home after that, because that's sure quite a thing to take in on a Wednesday.

48 - Cars in the hillside.

I saw one of those things today that bothers my brain for a while, because it's just so baffling.

I was hiking around in the woods in the hills behind the complex the other day, trying to install PJ's cellphone-on-a-stick thingies here and there as part of our ogre warning system. And it wasn't going so well, because this small bunch of goblins are tracking me as I go. I would set one device up, walk away, and when I look back, they're trying to pull the stake out of the ground and take the phone off it. Or pulling off the plastic baggie we put on them for water proofing, and putting it over their head. And I'm just thinking like, over your head, really? That's a very poor decision.

Anyways, there's a lot of trails back there, and rugged in parts as you go out further. And since I go there a lot I get to thinking I've explored about all of it. And I take this fork in the trail that I was sure I had gone down before, but pretty soon I realize I'm somewhere unfamiliar. And I follow it up over this ridge I don't remember, and then I'm coming down into a lower area.

I couldn't believe what I saw. Looking down, there is this sort of steep-sided little valley, hidden from all sides, and the slopes have old cars somehow embedded into them. There must have been dozens of them, buried sideways into the hillside, so that only the driver-side of each was visible. I can't even imagine how these came to be here - there is no road, and even if there was how could anyone bury them this way. Not to mention why. And then I remember all those dirty cars at my dad's place that he won't tell me where they're from, and I get this weird feeling in my stomach.

I scramble over to look inside a few of ones that I could get to. I see blankets and bottles and other items that make me think somebody was in there at some point. But I don't know what to make of all this.

49 - Those elf herbs messed me up.

It was my turn to use the electricity, and so I was mostly at home. A few days ago I got this little baggie of dried herbs from the elfs living a few units up. And so I thought what the heck, and I put a little of it in some cookies I made that morning. Big mistake. I eat like two cookies at lunchtime, and the the next thing I know I'm waking up in the middle of the night on the kitchen floor, and I've pissed in my pants and I've got a raging headache. And then I discover that I'd spent the day painting some pretty wacky stuff on my walls, and glued all my forks and spoons end-to-end in a spiral on the living room ceiling. Which actually was sort of cool. But, I won't be trying any more elfish herbs. Probably I should have been tipped off the by the goofy look they had on their faces when they gave it to me. At least someone must have got a few yuks out of this.

Jone's totally-mess-you-up oatmeal raisin cookies.

4 tablespoons margarine

1 egg

1/4 cup white sugar

1/4 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup milk of some sort

3/4 cup flour

1 cup rolled oats

1/2 cup raisins

1/2 tsp cinnamon

pinch salt

1 tsp baking powder

1/8 tsp cloves

1/2 tsp elf herbs from Yrla and Dirin who are jerks (optional)

Oven to 350F. Combine marg, egg, sugars and milk until smooth. Add all the rest of the stuff and stir it up good. Drop spoonfuls on a baking sheet, bake 12-15 minutes, then let sit 2 minutes before removing from the sheet.

50 - At the 9 sign.

PJ is ticked off at me for messing up the deploy of his ogre sensors on the hill the other day. But it's not my fault the goblins are playing with them, or that I don't know how to reprogram them in fifth or whatever. Anyways, I'm back out there yesterday trying to fix them, and when I get done I hike out back to that path where I found the cars buried in the hill. And I continue on down that path for an hour into the bush, and this is new territory to me. Sometimes you got to explore.

And then I see it. It's this little carved & painted wooden sign on a peg in the ground, and it has "1" etched into it. And how or why this came to be way out here, I can't say. I keep going on down the path, and sure enough there's a 2, 3, 4, and so on. And when I finally get to 9, I see there is one of those battery-powered tea lights sitting on top of it. Then I get this funny feeling, like this is somehow an important place. Barely there by the sign, is a track leading off the path and into the deeper woods. And then it starts, this high-pitched buzzing in my head. I wince and look over to the other side, and up there sitting on a branch is that old woman I saw that afternoon last month at the ball diamond washroom. And she's pointing down at me and laughing, "You don't know what to do! You don't know what to do!"

And the buzzing gets louder and I grab my forehead in my hand. The buzzing stops, and when I look up, the old woman is gone. And I stand there a long while by the 9 sign, before I head on home.

51 - Cabin full of boxes.

I had to hike back out into the woods the other day, after what happened. I had to go back and see where that path by the 9-sign went. It takes me almost two hours to get back in there, what with the rain and the mud. And by the time I get there, I wish I was back home with my radio and my twenty christmas trees and my staring wall. But I still go ahead and follow that track deeper into the woods. Though it's barely there to the point where I wonder if I'll find my way out again.

And then I see it. There's a small clearing, and this cabin. Its logs are all somehow stained turquoise. There are no windows, but there is a door. Even under the deep woods the rain is soaking me, so a door and a tight house seems fine to me. I knock and there's no one, so I try the pull and it's open, and I go on in.

And there's nothing in there but wall-to-ceiling shelves, lit dimly with some battery powered tea lights. On those shelves I see several large bottles of ibuprofen, which is sort of weird. But most of what's on those shelves is hundreds of little wooden boxes. They're stained in a bluish color like the cabin, and all alike. The rain is pounding on the ceiling as I go to look at some, and in the gloom I see that each has a tiny blue jewel set above a brass latch with a keyhole lock. And they have this look like you could just bust them open easy, but feeling it I can tell it's solid. Real solid. I can't even see the crack where it's closed.

How long has all this been here, deep in the woods. How long, and why, and by whom. I may never know these things, but I think I know who it is for. And now I do know what I have to do next.

52 - Dropped off the keys.

The other day I went over to Del's sister's house. Under the cushion of the couch in the old Dodge camper van out back is where I keep hidden my collection of the blue-stone keys that I found last year. And I remember how bad the elfs wanted the one I showed to them, and maybe now I know why. I've been hesitant to hand them over, because I'm worried it'll cause some trouble. And I'm still worried about that. But I haven't yet thought of a good way to sort this out. Sure I found all these keys, but they aren't mine. And so I'm just going to go for it. I take the whole lot home, put them in a bag, and when night falls I slip out my front door and over to the elfs' unit a few ones up from me. I put the bag into their mail box by the front door, and sneak home. I hope this works out okay.

When I get back home, I have a hell of a fright. I'm there in the kitchen making a peanut butter sandwich, when I notice something out the sliding glass back door. I look up, and in the moon light I see this creature glowering in at me with bright keen eyes. It's standing up with a body like a person, but with thick grey fur, and a huge wolf's head. And I have to admit I was about as shocked and frightened by this as I've ever been in my life. I've seen some stuff, but I never saw anything like that before.

It stares at me for a few moments more, and then it turns to go. But it trips over the rubber garden hose laying there, and falls flat on its face. Then it gets up and skulks off. And guess I felt a bit better after seeing that. But it was still pretty weird.

53 - That got pretty ugly.

Things went from bad to worse around here the other day, and this time I think it's my fault. All day long, there was this huge debate amongst dozens of elfs who had gathered in the common area around that ratty old playground. And these ones are pointing at those ones, and those ones are shouting at these ones, and a speech, and some cheers, and another, and some jeers, and a whole lot of tense tittering going on. There's these elfs in tall blinged-out hats who I never saw before. They aren't talking much, but they sure are taking it all in. I can't understand hardly a word being said, but I just know it's somehow to do with those keys I left with my neighbors the day before. I was afraid of this, but I tried to be optimistic and push through it. Didn't do much good, did it.

I'm watching out my bedroom window at all this, when I notice things start to flare up a bit. And one of those big hat elfs finally says something real sharp and loud. There's this moment of quiet, and I get this feeling like you do just before a fight breaks out at the bar. And that's what it is. I see a bunch of elfs break and run at some others, and then there's this CRACK... And a huge bolt of light that shoots out from somebody, and it misses and hits the tube slide which breaks into a hundred purple pieces. And I never knew elfs could even do that.

The Diller's little grandson has until this point been trying to play out on that sad wreck of a playground, and now he's bawling and trying to run home. And soon there's elfs running everywhere, and screaming and grappling and some are down on the road. And everything is just so, so, terrible.

It all dies down eventually, like these things always do. Everyone's gone after a while. And tomorrow we'll all come out and clean up the mess, and the brokenness, and the teeth, and whatever else like we always do, again and again. But every time something else gets wrecked, or someone else gets hurt, it's like you lend a piece of yourself to help mend it. Until you eventually get to feeling like you're so full of holes, that you might fall apart.

Don't you know, I find that goddamn playground swing chain got broke again too. Such a small bit in all this, but I feel something tip in me.

54 - Buzzer beater.

Had I met her in better weather
ere the bard of fall
brought to the well
the winter's rending
of ends, its forms
of seeds or leaves.
Another one, please?
Can't I trade late
to take two more days?
We can find another way,
for bronze ones rarely rust.
With just a little left,
she'd be my buzzer beater yet.

55 - Ogre hunt is tomorrow.

Something else awful happened yesterday. I'm not going to write about that in here, but suffice to say that it's forced our hand with the ogre problem. We wanted to work on the monitoring, try to carefully co-exist and all that, but it's all out the window now, and we're going to hustle up with the hunt. It's going down tomorrow morning.

Old Hat brings out this big whiteboard on wheels she used to use at the college, and we all mask up and stand around it by the crocus patch to figure this out. Lot of dotted lines, lots of arrows, lots of X's, and one big O. It's going to be the usual - draw it out to chase us, and then surround it, like we're a bunch of coyotes. But it takes some co-ordination for sure. And we only have like two guns that still work. My crossbow doesn't work any more.

And someone had this bright idea of inviting a couple of centaurs along to help. I know those two a bit, and I don't trust either one further than I can throw them, and that's not very far. I have a bad feeling about it.

You'd think with what I've lost to ogres, that I'd be all in on this stuff and leading the pack. And given what happened yesterday, even more so. But I know some things about ogres that maybe some others don't, and it makes this job harder. And it's dangerous, too. Last time around, Aya broke her leg and Theo got killed before we brought it down. And I think we're getting better at this, but anything can happen.

I hope we have some luck.

56 - how do i make it send ^C ^D ^M ^] fu ^K

i dont no where jone went none of us do the oger kill was a total cluster it got away and jone got nocked cold and we went back for him later but hes gone . probably hes stew now. or oger shit ha ha ha . owed me 50 bucks what an asshat at least i found his fone here and wtf is this gemlogger app theres no porn

57 - Epilogue.

Well, I finally got back home just yesterday. And you know, some people were surprised to see me back at all, given what happened. That ogre hunt surely went badly, especially for me, and I took a pretty bad hit out there and I still hurt from that. Without giving too much away, I had a little extra help and it probably saved my skin, and I owe them a thank-you.

But one lesson I learned: don't go hunting with a centaur. Because it's hard to share a hiding spot with a horse's ass. Should've been obvious in hindsight, right? Don't share a foxhole with one either, and for sure never share a gopher hole. It looks like they posted something with my account... who does that? Sorry you all had to read it. Well, at least I got my phone back from them now.

Maybe some time I'll write about what all went down that morning of the hunt, and the following 24 hours where that the ogre tracked me through the back woods. But for now let's just say that particular ogre won't be bothering folks around here any time soon. And I had a few adventures making my way home afterwards, but that's a story for another time too.

And I guess life could start getting back to normal again by now. But, I think it's time for a change - for me anyways. I decided that I need a vacation, which for me just means driving up the valley a while to turn up somewhere, and getting away from here a while. My dad somehow put together a runner from his pile of dirty cars, and he says I can have it, so that'll do.

I think I'll still be writing in my journals, even while on vacation, but I think I won't be posting them on here so often from now on. I have this feeling that a post every two days could be a little too much and too fast for gopher world, based on what I see most others doing. I'm just trying to fit in, you know. And so guess I should write some more things about computers, too.

I will be adding a faveicon for sure! No I won't, only kidding. Don't even know what I'm talking about.

I spent a while saying good-bye to people. Del, Pete, Hat, Del's mom, a few others, even PJ. I think some of them get why I got to go away for a while, and that a while could really mean forever. And I really wanted to say goodbye to Ellie, but that can never happen, now.

And I heard the elfs in the complex have been quiet or missing this past week. I can't say what that might mean. A lot of stuff happened lately and I don't know what it means. I suppose that's a bit unsettling, but I think a lot of stuff in life is that way if you sit and think about it a bunch. So maybe I won't do that. If there's one thing I ought to know how to do by now, it's to drift along and get by without getting bothered by all the missing pieces.

Anyways, the so-longs get awkward after a while like they always do. Maybe it got there a little quicker than I thought it would, but it's okay. I head back to my place and make some sandwiches, get some extra clothes and things, some bottles of ibuprofen, and the rest of the money. That old car has a funny smell about it and an even funnier sound to it, but I get in and I go.

When I turn onto St. Gavin Way on my way to highway 12, I see this gang of dwarfs in the lot where the toyota dealership used to be. They all got their trash grabbers out, and their beards tucked into their belts, and they're trying to chip away at that old mess. And somehow this cheers me up just a tick. I needed that.

See you.

Interlude - The ogre.

Let me tell you about the time I got away from that ogre, and a couple other adventures after that on the way home.

I get knocked out cold before the hunt really gets started, when the ogre sneaks up on us. Good thing I had a bit of sorcery on my side that morning, or else I would have been have been killed right there probably. (Thanks again, S.) When finally I come to, I can hear my crew shouting in the distance, and soon there's some gun cracks and the sounds get fainter and fainter. I'm guessing things must have gone well, until some time later when I see the ogre's head pop up above the ridge where I'm looking up to. And then I see it start to come down over to me, and I know I'm in real trouble. Guess things didn't go so well after all.

I get my ass up off the ground and start to run. Zigging and zagging and hiding and zigzagging some more, trying to lose and confuse it. Because everyone knows you'll never outrun an ogre, in the long or the short. But it's no use - every time I hide and look back, it's still coming for me. It must be really hungry. 9 hours later of this, I have no idea where I am anymore, it's getting dark, and I'm dog tired too.

Finally I catch a break. I come to this small-ish river with deep rocky cliff banks, and there's this rope and plank bridge over it. I cross over, and I cut the bridge down with my hunting knife. I'm thinking maybe that'll make it give up, or at least slow it down so I can rest a bit. I go further into the woods on the other side, and find a hollow log to hide in. I still can't believe I fell asleep in there at all given the circumstances, but I was so exhausted I guess I didn't care any more. I slept all night.

When I finally wake in the morning light, there's that few moments of peace amongst the forest-chatter just before I remember why I'm here. And I grind back into gear. I head back out to the cliff, looking down and along the banks as far as I can see. And sure enough, way downstream I see that ogre again. It's somehow found a place to make it down and across, and is slowing climbing its way up the cliff. It'll be up here soon, maybe 20 minutes. Time to move. I head back into the woods and the hills again, and soon I can hear it coming, but I know I don't have another day of this chase in me. Something has to come up, or I have to go down.

When I climb down the other side of the ridge and into this clearing, I am surprised to see tall concrete pillars holding up a high monorail train track, about 40 meters up or so. Now at least I know about where I am. The Basker Line is this ridiculous mono-rail elevated train track, that they built at huge cost some decades back. It starts somewhere out beyond Stanton, and goes through the hills and the outer rural areas from the quad-cities towards the more urban areas to the west of that. Why did they make it? Trying to avoid the settled areas, but connect them for commuting or something? Trying to spur real-estate development in the middle of nowhere? I don't know. No one ever knew, that's probably why it never hardly got used. But the elevated tracks are all still there, and part of that runs right through here.

And then I get an idea. There is a metal ladder going up the side of the concrete pillar, for maintenance I guess. I don't think that big old ogre with its huge hands and feet could ever follow me up a little ladder like that, so up I go. When I get to the top, I swing up over the guard rail, and I start to run along the inner edge of that track. Maybe if I can get along here far enough, it'll give up before it figures out a way up here? Can't think of anything better right now.

Got to say, my heart sinks pretty hard a while later, when I look down the track, and I see that ogre is somehow climbing the access ladder up one of those pillars, squeezing one toe and finger into those rungs I guess. And then I see it hoist up and over the guardrail, straddling both sides of the track as it bounds along after me. So much for this plan. But I then I get one last idea. When I check my Casio, it's 7:37am, and I can't believe my luck.

See, this old Basker monorail line is so ridiculous, that even though they shut down all the stations years and years ago and the whole thing is basically abandoned, there are still some trains running on it every day! They don't stop anywhere, they don't pick up anybody, they just run in a useless circle from nowhere to nowhere. Did they forget how to shut down the computer or something, or turn off the power? Does somebody have some weird 50-year contract to operate it that they have to honor? I don't know, I don't care, but it's 7:37, and the signs on the other railway tracks down on the ground tell me that I'm getting near to Stanton. And thanks to my head full of trivia, that means that some old empty monorail car will be coming down this track here in precisely 2 minutes. Despite everything else, somehow at least the trains keep running on time around here.

There's a freight train rolling fast right now on those tracks below us, and the noise is pretty big. I turn around and start running towards the ogre which is still moving closer to me pretty quick. In just a bit, I see the monorail car come around a bend in the distance. I can see it, but the ogre doesn't, and it can't hear it either what with the freight train noise below. Also ogres don't hear that well anyways. It's all sight and smell for them, as you probably know.

By the time the monorail car gets close, I'm so close to that ogre I can smell it. When I get to the pillar, we're right over the freight tracks. I swing over the guard rail just as the ogre makes a grab for me. I lunge for the ladder, and I barely save my life up there as I hang on with one hand. Just then, the ogre looks back and notices the monorail car coming upon it. Too late! It makes a try to get over the rail to the ladder, but that's a tricky move for a big ogre. The empty car plows full on into the side of its hip.

It's about impossible to much hurt an ogre with blunt impact, even from a train, but as I clung to the ladder I see it get knocked off its feet, and fall down a long way from the elevated track. By luck and timing, it lands into the the very last car of the freight train passing below, an open hopper car full of powdered sulphur. And as I pull myself up over the guard rail again, I can see it leaning over the edge of the hopper car, covered in sulphur and glowering at me as the speeding freight train carries it away east. Pretty soon it's gone, and I climb down to the ground.

Safe at last. And never in my life have I been so glad to be alone in the quiet of the morning and the stink of creosote ties.

It's a long walk home. I slowly make my way northwards, to take the scenic route through country I'd hardly ever been to before. By the evening, it's raining hard, and so I take shelter in this gazebo outside a small house by the old secondary highway I'm following. In the morning, this woman who must have lived there finds me sleeping. She invites me inside, for which I'm very grateful. And I notice she keeps two alpacas in a large pen behind the house, and there are pansies growing in the front. Which I find very strange, as this was back in early March. She barely speaks a word to me, but feeds me fried eggs and grape tomatoes which I really needed. And then she goes outside and disappears. I did not see her again, though I spend the day at her house and feeding her alpacas from a basket of apples I find. By the morning, she still has not returned, and so I leave. And I notice at that point, that both the alpacas and the unlikely pansies in front of the house are somehow gone. I don't know what to make of that.

Following that old highway, eventually I find myself in the mountains near the reservoir where the fresh water comes from for the quad-cities and Vernham to the west. It's a restricted area for sure, but I'm still surprised to see all these military people and trucks there at the access road entrance gates. And I see all these strange orange tanks and pumps on trailers behind the trucks, which they have parked alongside the buildings of the treatment plant. When they spot me taking all this in through the chain link fence, they come over to me and haul me off to some room in a portable they had set up. They yell at me for a couple of hours before they let me out, threaten to come after me if I tell anyone what I saw, and finally tell me to fuck off and don't ever come back. And I don't know what to make of all that either.

And eventually I got home again.

58 - Waffle motel.

I drove for a couple of days up the valley, but not in any kind of hurry or anything. Have to go easy on this old beater volkswagen, and I got no time frame. Eventually I just turn into some old motel named "Wednesday's Inn" a little past Burloo, call it good enough and I've been hanging out there ever since. It's got electricity on all the time, and there's a gas station store across the street where I can get as much barbecue chips and maxwell house instant coffee as I want. And no ogres. Perfect.

There's like hardly anybody else but me staying here. Whenever I go to the check-in place to use the vending machines or whatever, the woman there is always wanting to chat. Sort of. She's got this table set up in the corner of the room by the window, and I kid you not, every time I go in, she is there making or eating a waffle. She's got a little cooker, a bowl of batter, and it's like she must be sitting there making and eating waffles all day and all night. And she always offers to share, which is great, because sure I like waffles. But it's like, whatever we talk about she somehow steers towards waffles. Really fast. It's amazing.

"I drove here from near Vernham," I tell her.

"Hm. Yeah, I went there one time. Had some good waffles."

"Gonna be cold again tomorrow?"

"Mmm, yeah, they say. But I'll make some hot waffles in here anyways, so drop on in."

"I got to get some parts for this old car, you know any good place around here for that?"

"Oh yeah, Pinder's, by the co-op. You know, his wife makes really, really good waffles."

You get the idea. And I try to talk about waffles with her, I do, but after a while I guess I just get a bit tired of it.

59 - Got a new job.

After eating many waffles, I moved out of the motel and I've got this new job now. I test back-flow prevention devices on people's properties and businesses and things. It's cool, I get to drive around a lot in a truck and see different places. Now in all honesty I'm not actually on a payroll or anything. There's this plumber I met who's job it actually is. He just gives me cash and his truck some days to go cover his inspection work for him while he's out buying drugs or getting a blowjob or whatever. So if anybody asks, I'm Cliff Andrews, licence number A75842 valid until Jan 17 2023, okay?

I'm also now living in an old motor home behind the house Cliff lives in with his grandma. It's pretty dry, well maybe one little leak or two, although I'm not going to try using the taps or the toilet. But it's got electricity plugged in from their house, and a table and a couch and a soft bed. And I got a clear signal on my phone in there, and I even picked up an old hp computer from this goodwill store in Burloo. I can type all I want on a real keyboard, which I really enjoy doing. I'm even learning how to use emacs now which is great.

60 - Saw some moving mushrooms.

The other day I was underneath a really old rotten house, crawling around with a flashlight in this dirt floor crawl-space basement sort of room. I finally find the back-flow device in the corner and do the testing on it. Not even close to a pass. And I'll tell Cliff about it, but I kind of doubt he'll do anything. He says the town's computer system makes it really hard to enter a failed test, so he usually just enters them as a pass unless the thing is like split in two or something. Whatever. The town of Burloo is still making an effort at infrastructure maintenance, sort of. That's sure better than what they do back in Braxon, which is nothing.

Anyways, while I'm under that house, I see a really strange thing. There are all these mushrooms growing under there, big greyish ones with bluish parts on them. But the weird thing is, they are all swaying back and forth in this slow steady 3-second rhythm. Left, right, left, right... and all of them in sync, like they're dancing. How can that even happen, they're just mushrooms. I never saw a mushroom move like that, except maybe in some old video game, the legend of mario or whatever it was.

I get out of there, and I'm dusting myself off by the truck. The owner of the old place comes out an offers me a waffle. No, thanks. They sure do love their waffles around these parts.

It's spring now, and even some flowers are coming up, like these daffodils between the side of the house and the curb where I parked. I like daffodils. But as I get into the driver's seat, I look over and I could have sworn that those daffodils by the house were moving ever so slightly in a way that made me uneasy. Left, right, left, right...

61 - They were running from something.

I had finished my jobs for the day, and I was sitting on the bench behind the rusty backstop fence at this old baseball field on the outskirts of town. And I'm eating a spaghetti and peanut butter sandwich with mustard and cucumbers, which is a really under-rated combo in my opinion. I'm lost in thought, but then all of a sudden I notice that the field is filled with animals. I see squirrels, rats, cats, a few coyotes, some stray dogs, several racoons, even a couple of deer. All spread out across the width of the field, and all running fast. And in the sky above I see birds big and small, tits and hawks and everything in between. And it's odd to see all these creatures together in one spot like that, but what's weirder is that they are all moving in the same direction, heading west. Very determined, very one-directional, like they were being chased, but I can't see at all by what. Pretty soon they're all passed, disappeared into the tree-line at the end of the field, and it's quiet and still again. And that's a pretty eerie thing to see on an early Friday afternoon. More and more, I just get this feeling that something is wrong around here. Animals know stuff.

When I was just a kid, there used to be a bunch of folks in a running club who'd all go running together every weekend down the road past my house. You know, for exercise. And I know it's just me, but seeing a bunch of people running together has always given me a funny feeling. It's like some corner of my brain is like, "What are they all running from?" and it's looking behind them for the lion or the maniac or the zombie or whatever they're running from. And so maybe what I saw here in the field, was just an animals' running club? But I really doubt it.

For a moment there after it was all over, I thought I saw a tall figure in a dark cloak on the other side of the field who was watching it go by too. But it was just a small tree, and my eyes were playing tricks on me. Pretty sure about that.

62 - No more fish.

They had an idea it's better than mine
for offering ways and biding their time

for a bird in the barrow is changing its song
it never quite knew when something was wrong

    when there's no more fish left in the sea
    I'll worry for you, and I'll worry for me
    there were about five
    but now it is three

when ways go forgotten there's mystery still
a warning tomorrow is there in the hill

to finally find what upon it all leans
but they never were able to say what it means

    when there's no more fish left in the sea
    I'll worry for you, and I'll worry for me
    there were about five
    but now it is three

I fear for the children, I fear for them most
come down from the plains and head for the coast

they wanted to wander out over the range
but the shape of the world had already changed

    when there's no more fish left in the sea
    I'll worry for you, and I'll worry for me
    don't know what it means
    but I know what I see.

63 - Now I'm a school teacher too.

There's this elementary school over on Shellenstein Avenue, and I was supposed to test the back-flow assemblies there. And when I get there I'm talking to the principal for a little bit. And before I know it she's like, hey you want a job teaching grade one? And I'm like, uh, okay. And it's done, I'll do Fridays from now on. Now I'm super grateful for the opportunity, don't get me wrong, but bonkers, right? Hey, here's some stranger we just met with an obviously fake plumber's license and no teaching experience, let's put them in charge of our young children's' education. I mean, who does that? People around these parts, it's like they're totally unconcerned about almost everything. Well anyways, I hope these kids like word searches.

And I even got to meet with the class a bit. It's interesting, the class is about a quarter elf kids. That surprises me, because none of the elfs around where I'm from in Braxon ever bothered to learn any homo-sap languages, much less send kids to homo-sap schools. Not that there were any real schools left there, and hardly any children either for that matter. I always thought those Braxon elfs saw learning homo-sap languages as somehow beneath them. But the elfs around Burloo are not the same as them. They're even a bit taller too, and their skin a bit purpler. Things are different around here. I'm still getting used to it. I think I'm even coming around to the waffles-for-every-meal thing.

64 - Mushroom shaped.

Was over in the old part of town again the other evening, to test the back-flow assembly at another one of those falling-down houses. I mask up and go knock on the door, and I'm talking to somebody living there for a minute. And while she's looking aside and down into her notebook for some records, something in her living room catches my eye. Sometimes you can't help but notice what's right in front of you. Sitting on the sofa there watching the TV, there's this poor soul afflicted with some kind of genetical-cranio-megacephalic-deformity syndrome or something. Their head is bald and hugely overgrown, so that their forehead is like twice as wide side-to-side as their face is, but the top of it comes to a rounded point. Their face and body seems kind of shrunken, with stumps for arms and legs. There's this little girl sitting there on a stool, feeding them pieces of waffle with a fork. They're sitting there rocking side to side slightly as they chews, and this reminds me of something but I can't quite place it. And then what pops into my head: they're shaped like a mushroom.

The woman looks back up from her notebook, and I guess she sees me glancing past her, and her eyes go narrow and dark. Is there anything else you need right now? No ma'am, I have what I need, thank you. And she closes and locks the door, and I go around back to do the job what I came for.

I'm not trying to be funny, not trying to take away anyone's dignity. I've sure done stuff I wish I hadn't, and looking into their room is one I'll add to that list. But I'm not an uncompassionate person you know. I'm just saying I saw a shape is all, and that was a mushroom shaped person.

65 - Garbage goblin.

I was with my grade one class the other day. We're all outside, and I'm trying to repair the fences around the school yard. Some of these little kids are bolters, and they'll run right through those broken chain-link fences and book it into the street. It's no good. And so I find this roll of chicken wire in a storage shed, and we're measuring out pieces of it, counting out cable ties, stuff like that. That's counting, arithmetic, it's learning, right?

But it's pretty nerve-wracking trying to keep an eye on everyone and also do that job. And then some goblin sneaks in and grabs my snips when I put them down. I got to chase it all over the yard until I finally trap it under a garbage can so I can get them back. Which the kids think is pretty funny stuff and get all worked up. Garbage goblin, garbage goblin. And so of course one kid escapes through the hole in the fence I didn't get done fixing, and good thing that passing car did some hard braking there. See, that's what I'm afraid of. I must have accidentally cussed a bit when that happened, so of course the kids spend the rest of the day saying that word a million times. Teaching is a pretty hard job you know, especially when you're on your own. And I remember back when there used to be aides and whatever in schools, to help the spectrum kids cope. But I guess that's not a thing around these parts any more.

66 - At the laundromat.

There's this tiny laundromat place across from town hall, and I'm in there the other day to wash my stuff. It's me in there, and the owner who also brings oatmeal raisin cookies which are my favorite, and this centaur and her kid are in there too. Centaurs don't go through near as much laundry as you'd think, as they rarely put clothes on their horse parts. So it's mainly just shirts and bras and stuff like that, and also hats. Centaurs almost always wear hats. Wool and cotton caps, mostly. Or acrylic.

I'm listening to my radio while I wait for my laundry machine, and it just so happens that I'm listening to a centaur station. There's a bunch of them on AM. Their favorite kind of programs are these sort of organized shouting matches. It's basically two centaurs taking turns hurling insults and cussing at each other. And every few minutes there's a bell and they take a break, and some commentator kind of reviews and scores it like a round of boxing. I used to think these shows were pretty wacky stuff, but it's actually sort of entertaining, once you get used to all the filthy language. But that's just how most centaurs connect and interact, seems to me. Even the mom and her kid here at the laundromat are going at it. I'm pretty used to it, by now.

67 - Can't afford these shots.

I'd sure like to get a covid shot by now, but that whole effort is kind of stalled out around here. The vaccine shipment trucks keep getting hijacked, and so all you can find are black-market shots at prices I can't afford yet. The Olds are right in there selling stolen vaccines with the best of them. Which seems kind of extra exploitative to me, given that they can't even get the covid germs, but whatever. If it wasn't them, it'd just be more crooked homo-saps instead, same difference. But anyways, the Olds sure aren't shy about it. The other day I was buying tacos from this food truck run by a couple of dwarfs, and they had $1500 Pfizers and Modernas scribbled in there on the menu below the guacamole. I just can't afford that right now. Hell, I'm not even springing for the guac these days.

Sometimes I think I should call the police about stuff like this I see for sale. But on the other hand, the cops themselves have some of the better prices on stolen vaccines. I got pulled over for an illegal U-turn the other day, and the officer offered me an Astrazeneca for like $850. That's as good as I've seen so far. Maybe I should get saving and take him up on it next time. For the moment, I just bought $20 of crystal from him so he wouldn't get pissed off and ticket me for the U-turn. Del always insisted to me that meth cured covid, and joint pain, and heartburn, and about everything. But I'm not so sure about all that.

68 - Toys at school.

This classroom where I try to teach grade 1 on Fridays, I guess it's almost June by now and it'll be out for the summer soon. But the place sometimes makes me sad. There's almost no toys and no books in there, and I just think kids need some stuff, sometimes. And so I'm always now stealing cardboard out of people's garbage bins, and from it I make story books we can practice reading on. I can get crayons and glue and all that pretty cheap at the Dollaroonie. And I can even make toys from that cardboard. You just draw something on it and cut it out, fold a flap under the bottom so it can stand, then tape a folded pipe cleaner to the back to give it some rigidity. I make tons of figurines that way, and also toy letters we can move around to practice building words. Some of the kids really like those little figurines, and it makes me glad to watch them play. Except for that one elf kid who always takes her elf toy and stomps all the homo-sap ones into the ground. All while screaming some elf-word I don't know. It makes me feel a little weird sometimes, but it's just kids playing. It's fine.

69 - Swung by the pub.

I swung by the Midnight Pub the other night. I got to rambling on like I sometimes do, and I was telling them the story about how I got away from that ogre some months back. I'm not sure anyone was listening after a while. Or maybe they couldn't understand me talking through my mask. I had a bit too much to drink there, but I think a lot of what I told them was mostly true. Probably.

70 - The goblins took everything.

I'm riding along in the truck with Cliff to some job he wants a hand with. We blow through the stop sign at Wray and 111th because Cliff doesn't care much for stop signs, and it's just our bad luck that we clip some big old sedan on its rear quarter. Our truck somehow gets the worst of it: whole front quarter is wrecked and it can't steer, airbags out, all of that. Meanwhile, that old sedan does this wild skidding one-eighty, and I see the driver has this crazed look on their face as they work the wheel and smoke the tires trying to speed away. And I'm wondering why they're so frantic. They sure don't get too far, and run the car right into another. Goes flying, and flips upside down. Two more cars come barrelling through, swerve, tip over, slide on their sides. Another comes by, hits all three, and rolls four times. It was bonkers. You ever watched those old Blues Brothers movies? Yeah, like that.

Somehow everyone just crawls out and walks away from this, and we all sort of gather in the mud patch by the curb. Then a thing happens. Some trap door opens just past the curb across the intersection from us, and a whole horde of goblins comes pouring out of it. They head for the wrecked cars, and they strip them bare of everything not bolted or glued down. Sunglasses, receipts, masks, keys, food, boxes, tools, our test rigs, shifter knobs... everything. Take it all down back the trap door with them, close it, and that's that.

I turn to Cliff with a sort of "now what" look, but he just shrugs. He pops open this round metal box hanging around his neck by a leather cord, takes out a waffle and starts munching it. And I'm thinking the same thing you all probably are: where can I get me one of those shiny waffle boxes.

71 - Tried to order some food.

Cliff got his truck fixed already, and so we drove a bunch of hours down to Stanton for buying some tools. Took the Malahi Bypass rather than Highway 2 to save some time, although that's pretty risky. That area's full of AV/reckoner cult colonies, so you sure don't want to be stopping or breaking down or rolling windows or even just slowing down. If you like staying alive, that is. Pretty sure I saw one of their doom-wagons ahead on the road at one point, but it pulled off somewhere before they spotted us. We got lucky there.

Anyways, we get to Stanton, pick up the test kits, and think to get a burger or something before heading back. Since covid, about all the restaurants in these parts are run by the Olds, mostly elfs. Which is fine, although they mostly all have a policy of Olds eat inside, homo-saps eat outside. Covid rules, I get it, except by now it's starting to feel like some kind of first/second class segregated service thing. We're sitting out in the rain on milk crates at some wobbly old card table when the elf takes our order. An hour goes by, we're soaking wet, and still waiting for our food. We look in the window, and we can see the kitchen staff are out by the fireplace, hanging with their guests, raising glasses, playing uno, and whatever. And at this point, we're just like, to hell with this, and we get up and leave. I don't think they ever meant to bring us food.

72 - Farewell.

the crayons and pencils, and toys in a box
the bags, and the towels, a spare pair socks
the bus it's a-comin', go on don't be late
wherever you go to, I hope you'll be safe

   and now, we are about done
   for the summer, the summer is come
   fare well, fare well.

some of you will grow, and some will stay small
some will go far, some not at all
the labels they'll lend you can only be that
I hope they can learn to meet you where you're at

   and now, we are about done
   for the summer, the summer is come
   fare well, fare well.

some of you are beavers, and some of you are birds
are some of you are sea-stars, or buffalo herds
one day they may sort you, and that is a shame
but for the measure we had, I loved you all the same

   and now, we are about done
   for the summer, the summer is come
   fare well, fare well.

These words will not land, and that is okay
by the time you remember, I'll be on my way

73 - Got covered in spores.

There's this, I don't know, some kind of spa down on the north end. I was there the other day to do the annual test on their water service backflow assembly. The place is like this really old warehouse or workshop building, mostly empty. The crawlspace hatch is in the corner where all their customers are sitting. They're all sitting around in cheap lawn chairs, with their feet buried in big buckets of dirt, and wet towels draped over their heads. All ages, but all homo-saps - no Olds. Some helper goes around checking on them all, but mostly no one even notices as I pass through. Not quite sure what's going on here, but hey, whatever floats their boat.

Anyways, I get to the hatch, go on down in there with my flashlight and test kit, spot the assembly, crawl over to do the test. It's dark and cramped, but I'm used to it. Then I notice that the assembly is surrounded by some of those weird mushrooms that I find here and there around these parts. The ones with the blue stripey heads, and that bizzare sychronized rhythmic movement going on somehow. They kind of creep me out, to be honest. But I got a job to do, so I go to crawl carefully around them as best I can. But then I somehow catch my wrist in a root or something, and stumble, and land face-first right in the middle of the mushrooms. A few get crushed. Yeccch...

I pick myself up, and then I notice that all the mushrooms have stopped their funny little dance. All just sitting there, like they were offended or something. And then it happened. There's this audible POP sound, and they all turn inside out and blow off their seeds or spores or whatever. The cloud of them fills the whole corner of the crawlspace where I'm in, and I take it all straight in the face. I'm coughing and choking and spitting, and it's just awful until it all settles down. It feels like few minutes before I can clear myself out to the point where I can function again. I test the assembly quickly and get out of the crawlspace as fast as I can. Although funnily enough, the lingering smell of all this is actually kind of pleasant. It reminds me of freshly-made waffles.

Anyways, job's done. As I'm heading out the door at the other end of the warehouse, I notice there are these two little gnomes sitting on the floor there, playing jacks or marbles or something. Which is kind of odd in itself. But when they see me coming, they stop playing and just stare at me. As I leave the building, they hastily stumble backwards to give me plenty of room, staring at me all the while. Sort of weird.

I had another job after that one, but I wasn't feeling up to it. I drove back to the motor-home to lie down. Had a headache.

74 - Snuggle gnomes.

When I first moved into that motor-home behind Cliff and his grandma's house, I was always trying to keep the gnomes out. Always keeping the doors and windows shut, roof vents, holes in the floor, all that. But they're sneaky and opportunistic, and sometimes even clever, and it was always a losing battle. Nowadays I don't even try anymore. I just accept that they're going to be in and around my place. Even when I'm sleeping. When I wake up there's usually like five or six of those little things snuggled up next to me or on top of me. Never the same bunch, they come and go. It'd probably look pretty adorable, if someone took a picture. But I'm always trying to clean up their dirt and mess the next day. That's sort of less adorable.

75 - A nightmare.

I have not been feeling well lately. Aches everywhere, especially my head. Ibuprofen helps. Although moving around also seems to help. Even rocking left and right when I sit seems comforting.

Also I have bad dreams. The other night, I dreamed I was back at old Pierce's farm, loading something onto Pete's truck. There's a bunch of little gnomes following me around, but something is wrong with them. Pieces are falling off. A hand, an arm, an ear, a jaw. Then I go around to the flatbed trailer, and I notice that the cab and the bed of the truck are packed solid full of dirt. And Pete has changed too. He is an old man, and his head is swelled up to twice its normal size. And his feet are somehow attached to the ground with all these red threads. And all this is so upsetting to me, that I wish I could just wake up.

And then I do, or so I think. At the foot of my bed I see another gnome, bald and pale, small and misshapen. It scrambles up on the foot of the bed and starts crawling up the blanket towards me. I'm panicking because I can't move a muscle except for my head. And then, it suddenly occurs to me: things from all my dreams can follow me back up. Knowing that is about as terrifying a thing as I've ever known. But I can't even scream.

I turn my head, and by the side of the bed I see there are four women standing there. There's Beth with her hands tied together and an exit wound on her forehead. Ellie with her neck broken and both arms chewed off at the shoulder. A young woman with an alpaca behind her on a leash. And an extremely old woman who is laughing and pointing at me. She throws a pie and it lands on my face. Tastes like raspberry. The gnome is up on my face now, licking what's left of the pie. I close my eyes. I hear a strange sound.

Then I wake up for real, and I am finally home in the back of the motor-home where I belong, all alone. Even the gnomes that usually sleep here are all gone this morning, and this seems very odd to me. And I think I see a shadow behind the curtains, of someone standing outside the window. The shape of a stooped old man in a hooded cloak. But he moves off and goes away.

76 - One more might tip it.

And when she turned, all aboard the buggy, all seventeen cans and five hand bags swinging wild, wild as the damage of the ages of hers. There once were ten ponies, long ago, before the down began. Her ten ponies and a joke and a laugh and return again to the ponies, there the comfort is, back then when she was small, and the comfort found around the rows is still there, just a little. And it all just piles on and on, the damage done, and you can't count the wounds and the wounds and remember the ponies, what was it mom and Aron would say? You can't come back there now, no we just can't. And there, it's there, the nucleus and the kernel, though now just as then it's hard to live without the food touching your lips. After a day and a day and a day and a lifetime of all of it, one more might tip it, and that one is you.

77 - The droneway.

Early the other morning, some big work crew from Amazon comes by Cliff and his grandma's property where I live, with big trucks and everything. And it's pretty loud so early in the morning, so Cliff and his grandma go to check it out.

What I later hear, is that a few years ago Amazon staked a claim on about all of Burloo and the surrounding countryside. I guess they can just do that now? In the ceded territories, at least. Anyways, I hear they mailed out some notices, but Burloo town hall didn't get around to opening them, or reading them or anything. Never contested it, pretty much totally forgot about it. Didn't really get concerned. That's the Burloo way, for sure. And so by now, Amazon's starting to build some kind of high-speed droneway or something, running right through this place. Low flying remote-control cargo helis, tethered to a power track on the ground, something like that.

All these flatbed crane trucks are here unloading girders and rolls of cables. So Cliff's out there talking with their construction manager or whoever she is, and his grandma is standing behind them yelling and cussing and spitting like a centaur. Eventually they're done talking and Cliff comes away with a big grin on his face. He's got some coupon. Grandma's pretty mad at him about that, whacking him with her cane. And I guess I can't totally blame her, because what the heck do you do with a non-transferable $100K coupon for your next rocket-ship ride. But I think she's getting a little too upset about this whole deal. Me, I just don't want to go through life getting sore about every little 20-tonne drone freighter flying 20m over my home. Even if it is three times an hour.

78 - Elf wrestling at the mall.

I'm still feeling lousy most of the time, with the headaches and such. I've never been quite right ever since that job where I got covered in those mushrooms' spores some weeks back. I wonder what those were.

But I go for a walk into town the other day, to try and clear my head. And there's this abandoned strip mall on the outskirts where I find the elfs have built another of their wrestling mats in the parking lot. So I get to watching that for the morning.

Elf wrestling is cool. If you've never seen it yet, it's like multiple teams of two, battling it out with each other at the same time on this huge grid mat which is made of all these quilted colors. And I don't really get all the rules yet, but there's territory you got to hold, and something where your team can absorb other teams. And the matches can occassionally go on for a long time with all these little teams holding their own. But almost always, it winds up with one big team taking over all the small ones' players. At least, that's how it seems. I guess some things are just like that.

79 - Dug a hole for my feet.

I was feeling so sick the other day that I must have had fevers. At one point, I get up and kind of stumble outside for no reason, and head towards this woodlot by the fence at the back of the property. And I don't even know what I'm doing. I go under a tree and start digging a hole with nothing but my hands, clawing and scratching. I keep going and going, and I get a couple of feet down. I take off my socks and shoes, and I sit on the edge of that hole and put my feet in it. I close my eyes, and you know what, somehow I feel a lot better. Relaxed, and I don't know... connected? And so I lean back on the trunk and sort of enjoy that for a while. I don't know how long.

But then, I look down at my dirty feet, and I must be hallucinating or something. Because it looks like my feet have grown all these tiny red roots, and I see them winding and wiggling into the dirt. I'm frozen in panic, and that's when I noticed her.

There's some woman sitting under the next tree over from me, and I never even noticed her. She's got her feet in a hole just like me, and starting at them with eyes and mouth open wide. And then we meet eyes for a moment, silently sharing our horror. And it made me wonder what was going on.

That's when I must have blacked out, because next thing I know it was night, and it's pitch black and I'm cold and alone. I get up, and I feel my headache coming back as I stumble back home. And I'm sure not getting any better.

80 - In a cabin.

I guess the blackouts kept happening, because all week I've been waking up in places where I don't know how I got there. Once in my car, once in an empty field, and one time sitting in a tire swing. Well, just my ankles were in the swing, the rest of me was flopped on the ground. That one was not too comfortable.

The last blackout must have been the worst. Somebody must have found me and taken me in, because now I am locked inside some cabin with two cots and not much else except this bowl of thin oatmeal which is really quite good. I wonder what they put in it. But they took my clothes, so all I have now is underwear and this thin brown robe with a hood. I sure didn't see this coming. At least they left me my phone so I can keep typing in my journals.

And my headaches are totally gone. As disorienting as all this is, I feel peaceful for the first time in weeks. Sooner or later I'll figure out where I am and who put me in here, but for now I am content to just sit and comfortably do nothing for a bit.

Taking all my clothes was weird, but whatever. But did they really have to shave off all my hair, too? I had great hair.

81 - Cult colony.

I recognize the area I am in - it's one of the farms a ways south-west of Burloo. I see lots of cabins on this property, and all of us here are wearing the same robe and have no hair, so I'm pretty sure I'm in one of those cult colonies now.

We're all in these little two-cot cabins, and there's like a big long building where everyone comes together to eat and work. Although I'm not really part of that right now. They've got me on what someone called the "purification diet" for new members, which is lots of rest and lots of this gruelly oatmeal with something in it. Whatever it is, it's working because I sure am feeling better now. Maybe that's why I'm not all freaked out about being absorbed into a cult colony like I'd think I would be.

But anyways, I am learning things in bits and pieces from Ami my cabin-mate, who doesn't talk so much. They let me have pencils and paper and keep my phone, so that's great - I can still write stuff down. So far, I gather this group has something to do with water and healing and "eco system re-alignment". That sounds pretty okay to me.

82 - Blurry blobs of feelings.

Even though everyone in this colony wears the same brown robes and has the same hair (none), it is men and women and etc. all together. That brings with it all the good and less good things you can think of with that arrangement. But it's not like this group is all strict and ascetic in how we interact with each other, and so it's actually sort of fun living here. As long as you also like eating oatmeal, I guess. And memorizing lots of stuff, for our buryings. I'll write more about that sometime soon.

But the weirdest thing for me these days, is my memory of stuff. I don't know if it's that strangely-flavored something they put in the food or what. But it's like my recollection of my life before I came here is getting, I don't know, foggy? I remember living in that camper in Burloo, but I'll be darned if I can remember the name of the guy in the house there that I worked with. Or even exactly what I was doing, I think it was something to do with plumbing. I feel like I'm losing details every day. And I know I lived somewhere else earlier this year, and I had some friends, and before that a family, and something happened to them, and it was bad. I think. I recollect something of phases and transitions, but somehow I cannot remember names or places or the look of things, or anything specific. It's all just blurry blobs of feelings standing in for a thing that must have happened, but I can't tell what.

Now that I'm recovering and socializing more with the colony members in the main hall, sometimes I try to join the conversation. Somebody says something they did the other day, repairing one of the vans for instance. And it reminds me of something about a truck I think I once owned. And I start to say something, but I got to stop. Because when I go to recall, all the pieces are missing and I got nothing to say. I think it's not just me. I see that look in the others. It's like they are listening, and they lean forward like they want to add something, and then they look confused and embarrassed and stay quiet. It's that same kind of look people get when they think they recognize someone, but then they see it's actually not them.

Maybe that's why all the talk here is kind of small and circular. It's like everyone tells the same jokes over and over, and you talk about yesterday and the day before, and that's all. Not that I mind that much. You know, living in the moment and all that.

83 - Burying cars.

We do this every day. We load up another old car onto this flatbed truck we got, which is like a mini school bus welded to the front of a flatbed truck chassis, all riding on huge off-road tires all around. It's actually a totally rad rig. Anyways, a gang of us get in and take the car somewhere out into the wilderness. Then, we set to work with shovels, digging a big deep hole and drop the car down into it. Then, whoever's turn it is this time, gets into that car with these three special bottles of water and one for drinking. Then, we recite a whole pile of stuff to bless the water and the earth and ourselves and whatever. I'm still trying to memorize it all, but I can mumble along for now. Then, we feed a silicone tube into the car for air, close the doors, and we bury them alive in that car. Then a whole bunch more recited texts. And then we leave!

For three days they'll stay in there, fasting and praying and gradually pouring the water from the three bottles through a whole we put in the floor of the car. And when the three days is up, we come back and dig them out. We leave a little blue box and key in the car, and another bottle of water, bury the car again, and we leave.

A job's a job I guess. What I am getting is that all this is somehow repairing the ruined aquifers and poisoned water tables. I don't really understand how any of this burying business helps with that at all, or that our water was even a problem. But I have a lot to learn still, like I say I haven't even memorized all the texts yet. And our leader is completely committed to all this, and he's a very smart man, I should know, I met him one time. All this is a huge amount of work, and it's not like we're going against anybody, or harming anything. I'm no hydrologist or whatever, and I'm not so capable of researching everything myself, so I just got to have faith that all these smart and hard-working people in this cult or whatever it is, are doing something to help. And I can too.

84 - Meeting the angels.

The other night I'm writing in my book, sitting in the cabin on my cot. And Ami comes in and lies down on theirs, stares at the ceiling for a minute, and then rolls on their side to face me. Their eyes are closed, and they say, "Tomorrow, I will be meeting the angels." And to hear that said so level, so neutral, like how they'd say the beans at supper were under-cooked, well it kind of froze me up for a minute. Finally I'm going to say something, but Ami rolls over to the wall and I hear they're asleep.

In the morning, their cot is smooth and perfectly made, and Ami is gone. Never seen them again since. And the others, they all just sort of shrug if I ask about it. This place, there's new people every so often like me. But even in my short time here I notice there's people I don't see after a while. It's like we're always about an even hundred or so. Maybe exactly that.

You know I'm grateful for them somehow curing whatever was ailing me a few weeks back there, but I still got my doubts about this cult. There's lots of weird stuff. My turn at three-day burying is coming up soon. That's important, and our whole deal revolves around it. I'm studying up and doing my homework, but I still don't quite get how it works. And there's lots of other baffling stuff. Like for instance, I don't care how much the senior leaders insist that it's all a vital part of our mission to save the world's freshwater: the mandatory hand jobs we all got to take turns giving them, that's such a pile of crap. And I'm getting pretty sick of it.

85 - Underground now.

Well, I'm writing this while buried underground inside a car. I'm about one day into my three day burying. I think. One bottle of purification water poured, two to go. The first few two-hour prayer cycles went mostly okay. Although segments 2 through 16 concerning the return of the holy hydras after the great Turning, I'm pretty sure I screwed that part up. Also I think I maybe drank some of the blessed purification water on accident, instead of pouring it into the ground, when I got my bottles mixed up. It's dark in here, you know. But it's okay.

Somehow my good old phone still gets a signal down in here. They sure don't make them like they used to. I wonder if I can qualify for ROOPHLOCH '21 with this post.

gopher://zaibatsu.circumlunar.space/0/~solderpunk/phlog/announcing-roophloch-2021.txt

I mean, I'm sure not phlogging from my usual place, but this 1990 Chrysler New Yorker is for sure man-made, and it'll be left here buried permanent once I'm done my time. So that's like a violation of rule #3. But the seats sure are comfy for this model year.

86 - Pete brings me back.

Well, I did my three day fast buried underground in a car, just like we planned it. Done said all my prayers, poured out all my water, all of that. I sure had some weird waking dreams down there, and maybe I'll write those down one day.

Anyways, after the three days are up, they come back to dig me out. Lucky for me they finished digging down enough to get the car's door open, before it happened.

It must have been a dragon, and a big one too. Just as I'm about to get out of the car, I hear this big BOOM and a whoosh. And all my brothers and sisters of service are screaming and scrambling out of the hole and running for their lives. By the time I'm able to get up and out of the hole, they're all scattered and gone, and all around me the brush is on fire. And our off-road flatbed truck is upside down and burning too.

I'm disoriented and I barely even know where I'm at. I guess I stumble down an embankment and find the highway. I'm just standing there, blinking in the afternoon sun, no idea what to do, when a pickup truck comes along. It pulls over, and what do you know, it's my old friend Pete from Braxon.

And he's staring at me out the drivers-side window, and he's like, Jone, is that you? I'm so out of it and my memory is so foggy, that I don't even recognize him yet. I just sort of squint and nod a bit. And he's all like, what the hell are you wearing, what happened to your hair? I just shrug and shake my head. Then he's like, get in the goddamn truck. And I just kind of wobble on over, get in, and we drive away. By late that night, we're back in Braxon. I been back about two days by now, and you know already my memories are growing back. Isn't that weird.

I sure got lucky there. Turns out, Pete had driven up north for a job. Some of the chieftains up there banded together to repair the highway, and had put out word there'd be work. But by the time he got there, someone had already gone and stole all the catalytic converters out of the dump trucks, and someone else had made off with the graders, so the whole thing kind of fizzled out. And he was driving back home when he found me.

Anyways, that's how I left my cult and got back to my old town-home here on Braxon land. On one hand, I guess it's not so great that I committed both my mortal body and my eternal soul to the service of mother Gaia, but then abandoned my brothers and sisters, condemning both myself and everyone on earth to a slow horrifying doom of poison, floods, and transmogrification into feeble-minded fungal monstrosities. (At least that's what they always told me would happen if I deserted.) But on the other hand, it sure feels good to be back home again.

87 - Things have changed.

Things have changed some, while I was away a few months. The complex's playground is totally gone, and the elfs put down one of their wrestling mats where it was. It seems like there's more elfs living here now, and less homo-saps. I heard the Leungs went north to join the Reckonners, and Parma and Jeet are gone too, no one knows where. More Olds here in general I would say, because there's centaur patrols all the time now, and there's even a whole bunch of dwarfs living a few doors up. That's new.

That last cell tower must have finally fallen over, so there's no internet access an easy walk from here anymore. There's still some electricity to a few units, and we still do our little extension-cord thing to pass that around. But the water's shut off completely, so we're all sharing from these big bottles that we truck in from elsewhere. That's kind of a drag. I will miss the sort-of functioning infrastructure they had back in Burloo, for sure. Some people always talk about about how they want to get off the grid. But when the grid gets off you first, that's kind of less fun to talk about, isn't it.

88 - They sure messed up my house.

Someone must have been partying in my unit while I was away, because the place is pretty wrecked up. The walls are all spray painted and gouged, lots of dirt, bottles, cans, puke and garbage everywhere. And most of the furniture or stuff I still had in there is gone or broken. So I got some cleaning up to do for sure, but I'm still mostly good. I even found some old clothes of mine which is great because I'm sure tired of this stupid brown gown. And one of my spoons is even still glued to the ceiling.

But my whole collection of fake christmas trees and boxes got taken too. Who does that? Whatever.

A little more trouble is this Ford Bronco what got left out in front. Someone already took all the wheels off, there's no glass, and it's got a broken axle, so it's not like we can just pull it away real easy. There's some dwarfs that now live a few doors up who told me they'd come by to strip it down and take it off my hands. So I'm out there waiting around for them, and of course the centaur patrollers swing by with their hats and badges and such. And they're giving me a hard time about how I got to get rid of this wreck, it's unsafe, where's the ownership papers, it's ugly, blah blah. Like I'm somehow ruining their perfect little block or whatever. Guess they got to hassle me about something. Finally the dwarfs come by. They shoulder past the centaurs to get to the truck, which pisses off the centaurs even more. Now they're cussing at me, and cussing even more at the dwarfs, but they're already at work cutting it up. Those centaurs can get as mad as they want, but dwarfs never give a crap.

89 - No internet.

It's sure a bit of a drag that there's no working cell tower here now. No more five-minute hikes up the hill to get a signal. Now I got to catch a ride into town to upload my files and stuff. You can scrounge some open wifi in the alley behind the old Regal, most days.

Although I just learned yesterday that Hat's got some old computer hooked up to her radio set again. And all I got to do is leave her my files and my password and she'll upload them somehow over that. She just sips her tea and watches the numbers go up. It's like 110 bods, is what she told me. I don't know what exactly that means, except it's sloooooow. But it's okay, I don't usually write too long.

I was away only a few months, but old Hat somehow seems a lot older now. It's like the hardness is gone, and she's just not kicking ass like before. I think it really took it out of her, losing her grand-daughter and her daughter in such short succession, and in that way. Maybe it's a small mercy she wasn't there to see what happened to Ellie like I was. That stuff sticks with you. It's the crunching sound, that I still can't get out of my head even now.

90 - Digging holes.

You know what I dig? Holes. Holes in the ground, that is. I dig digging them, and I do one or two a week if I can.

Can't say why, exactly, and it's a pretty new pass-time for me. I sure helped bury a few cars in my short stint with the Holy Aquifers. Maybe that's what turned me onto it. But even before that, I think there's something of those mushrooms still with me, somehow. Because now, being in the earth still feels so... right.

I like the picking of a spot for a new hole, usually somewhere up in the hillsides behind my house where the soil is loose and easy. I like those first few shovelfuls, when comes that "it'll all be okay soon" feeling. But it's after a few hours of work, when you're getting a ways deeper into the cool earth and your muscles want a break, that's the good stuff. And you crouch down on in there, curl up in a ball, and you're centered. You're connected, you're part of something, the consumer and the consumed, the spoke and hub. You're back on the land, you're back IN the land. You're home. Hard to describe it.

And sure, it's good exercise and all that, and you'll find all kinds of weird trinkets as you dig, at least around these parts. But all that's beside the point.

91 - Looking at rad rat rods.

Some dwarfs took over four vacant units a few doors up from mine, and they've done something really cool with them. They converted them into this custom car shop, and I get such a kick out of that.

They knocked out some walls between the units and also the outer walls in the fronts, to make this set of stacked two-level bays. And built a sort of elevator hoist out in front to lift cars up and down. And I guess there's living quarters up above on the third floors.

They got the works going on in there, and you can watch it all. Sheet metal fabrication, welding, painting, assembly, all of it. All day long there's parts and chassis and what not coming in, and finished jobs going out. Some of it is pretty wild and wacky, too. It's not just regular restorations and low-riders and stuff. They'll cut up some boring old hatchback into something that looks like a flying saucer, or a double-decker pickup truck. Not like all those old gear-head dudes I used to know, who only liked a car if it was stock, sleek, fast and old. "Respectful" to the good ol' days. Dwarfs don't give a crap about some old dead homo-sap sensibility about what's cool and good. They're making up their own cool. No nostalgia bogging it all down.

I don't know where they're getting all these parts from, or who's buying all these finished cars. But there's centaurs and Braxon gangster blockheads coming and going all the time, so probably something's at least a little crooked. Maybe I don't want to know. Maybe I just want to hang around and look at all the rad rat rods.

92 - Got a job with the Braxons.

I need some cash. Me and a good bunch of people around here. It seems a lot of them were kind of counting on Pete bringing home some money from that job up north on that highway, and sharing it around, but that didn't work out. So things are a little bleak here by now. There's just not a lot going on these days.

And so I hate to do it, but now I've got some work from the Braxon chieftains. Last thing I want to do is to get involved with those crooks, but they do got lots of money.

So I show up at one of their properties where there's some stables I'll be mucking out. One of their managers shows me in and hands me a shovel, and she says the armor is on the hook by the door, laughs and walks off. What the hell does that mean.

They got horses mostly, and I'm working away into the afternoon, and these stalls are really dirty but I guess it's not so bad work. Then I get to the stalls near the end, which look different than the others. That's when I see they got a couple of baby dragons stuffed in there.

That is so beyond stupid, that I can't hardly believe it. But there are are. So I go put on that shiny heat resistant suit she had pointed to. And I feel like some ancient knight, except with a shit-covered snow shovel instead of a sword.

In the last two stalls on the end, there's one full of goblins, and one full of little gnomes. Lord knows why. And they're all so filthy and miserable looking, that I just about quit the job right there. I can't just go along with this. But if I still take the Braxon's money and at least I'm helping make these creatures' lives just a tiny bit more bearable, am I doing good?

In the end, I'm not much for moral philophisizing. But I do know I need to eat more often than I have been lately.

93 - Saw a piece of my truck.

The other day I was watching the dwarfs again, working away in their hot-rod shop. They've made some goofy new creation out of a pickup truck. It's not painted yet, and so I notice it's my old green F250! I can tell from the dents by the fuel cap. I wonder how many times that thing's been wrecked and re-made since last I saw it back in the winter. Now they got some kind of mid-engine layout going, with the body of a Smart FourTwo in front and the bed of my truck behind. Big mud tires all around, and chrome bumpers welded at angles onto the sides of it all. Looks like a giant grasshopper.

I remember back some years when I got that truck. Beth and the kids and I were living in an apartment in a rickety old walk-up building, and it was rough times. I'll never forget the hot murderous rage our neighbors would lay into us with. I know little kids are noisy, and little kids with developmental problems can be even more so, but we were doing the best we could. We were scared, but we couldn't find anyplace else to live.

That's when I got this idea to borrow some money from my dad, and buy this old truck and camper combo. We'd put the kids into it as soon as they woke up in the morning, and we'd drive off. Park it someplace there was a playground, have some breakfast. Then maybe Beth or I would go off to a job, and the other would spend the day with the Evan and Tara in the park. They'd have the camper to come back to for naps, for toilet, for food, or just a rest. It's weird how much better everybody's emotional regulation can be, when you're mostly outside. And we'd all meet there together again at the end of the day for supper, and get ready for bed. Drive back to the apartment after the kids fall asleep, and carry them inside. And that's how we'd live every day for some months, just to stay away from our neighbors. I actually thought the camper life worked pretty good for us, although I think I was probably more into it than Beth was.

Anyways, eventually we found these town-homes here, and settled down. But we hadn't been here more than two months before the AVs finally tracked Beth down. And it wasn't two more months after that, when the kids and I happened upon the ogre's lair while walking up in the hills behind. And well, ever since that day I've been here all on my own.

Maybe that's why it's something to see that piece of my truck. All changed and carved up as it is, after everything what's happened as time's gone by. Aren't we all.

94 - Town hall.

Pete and I went to another of those "town-hall" style meetings near here. Amazon was hosting this one, and they always bring good food, so we thought it would be worth our while.

They got a stage set up in some empty dirt lot with a generator and a PA system and all that, and a whole lot of folding chairs for the audience. I hear Amazon's got some new interest in taking over in this area. Can't think of why. But anyways, they're here to talk it over with us little people, and also the Braxon chieftains who are all sitting around in the front and trying to shoot it all down. The federal republic sent someone too, but he keeps getting shouted off the stage whenever he tries to talk so that's sure a waste of time.

Pete and I are loading up on sandwiches and coffee which is all top notch Amazon grub as usual. And Amazon's own rep finally takes her turn to talk. They've found some english-speaking elf to speak on their behalf, and that gets some attention for sure. Makes sense though, as there's not so many homo-saps left around here anyways.

And she's really well spoken, and it sounds like there's a real plan for this place. From what I can tell at least, although I'm mainly there just to eat. But the Braxons are all heckling her pretty hard, and that's got to be frustrating. Just mindless shouting, questions with no answer, catcalls, all of that stuff.

And it's so bad, that soon the rest of the audience is getting restless and whatever, and you can tell she knows she's losing them. And just then a bunch of goblins come out of nowhere and swarm the food tables, and that's the end of it. Everyone's running around freaking out, or trying to save the food, the Braxons are laughing so hard they're falling off their chairs, and it's just a mess. And the elf is so fed up by this point, that she starts cussing in her own language and then totally tosses the wireless mic for all she's worth. Really hurls it, and it's so, so awesome! But then it lands on the hood of one of the Braxon's trucks and dents it, and then they're all on their feet and there's no more laughing after that. Pete and I decide to grab one more sandwich and get the hell out of there.

My last look back, I see Amazon officials grappling with Braxons, and a goblin inside the giant bowl of potato salad that shatters as it rolls off the table. Such a shame how this all turned out. Because that potato salad was really, really good.

95 - At the beach.

The other day I went on a drive with my dad. We went up north of the inlet out to Chesterfield Sound. I hadn't been out there since I was just a kid. There is a beach, and it is so super flat that you can walk a long long ways when the tide is out. Popular spot for family vacations back in the day. Now, there's barely anybody here, and the cottages higher up on the cliffs look all boarded up. But here and there on the packed sands, I can see things left behind from the past summer. Kites, broken tents, kids' pails, stuff like that. I guess some few people still vacation here, like nothing's ever changed. And I sort of marvel at that resilience, even if a bit sadly.

My dad and I walk far out, even wading into the cold water when we finally reach its edge. Way out like that, you can see the offshore windmills further out in the distance. They're all still by now, of course. They look so huge and unlikely to me. Like, how could anyone ever have worked so well together, to raise things like these? Yet here they are. But you know, there's a certain elegance to them even now, all rusted and seized up though they are. They remind me of trillium flowers, fading late into their season.

96 - I saw some geese flying wrong.

The other day I'm standing around in the playing field for some reason. And there's two metal bars there lying on the grass, what weren't there the day before. Long ones, round tubular ones. That's two perfectly prime pieces of iron, who just leaves stuff like that for no reason? It looks so useful. Although I can't myself think of one just now. I wonder if I can drag them home.

And I'm thinking about that, when I notice this flock of Canada geese flying by. I like flying geese, because geese down here on the ground are sure some mean-ass animals. Anyways, this bunch of geese is flying by in their V-shape. But these ones get it wrong somehow. They're flying with the point of the V in the back, and the arms of the V ahead. Backwards formation. I never saw that before, but I guess everyone gets things wrong sometimes, or forgets how to do stuff. Like, I forgot how to open my trick-latch trunk the other day and now I can't get at my clean clothes. But animals don't usually screw up in that way. So it's pretty weird. I'm sure they'd be pretty embarrassed if the other geese pointed it out.

And then, one of the geese gets brought down by an arrow, and I didn't see that coming. That's when I notice a couple of centaurs at the other end of the field high-fiving each other, and the one has a crossbow. Looks like a zodiac Sagittarius, except wearing a wool cap and and a Tampa Bay Lightning jersey. Pretty good shot, I got to say. I wonder if they're going to eat it.

97 - Went inside the preppers' school.

The other day I was clearing blackberry brambles, getting ready to dig another hole in the woods behind the old school. It's not a school anymore of course, because it's been some kind of prepper fortress for a while now. I'm near where the tether-ball poles are, and I spot these two little gnomes playing, chucking something against the wall. When I see it's somebody's wallet, I shoo them away and have a look. And when I find the drivers' license, I'm shocked to see it's Lee's. I remember that guy. Our kids used to play together sometimes, before he went all in on the prepper stuff. They're still all holed up inside this very school for all I know, with all their guns and traps and supplies and whatever. Although preppers tend to quit over time, so maybe not. I wonder sometimes how many are actually left in there by now.

That's when I see the back door to the school's gym is open a crack, there by the tether-ball poles. That gives me a bad feeling from somewhere. Because preppers don't just leave doors ajar.

I go to peek inside, but it's dark and there's an awful smell. And the sound of buzzing flies. I slip in and around the metal shelves with all their cans. Then I see it over by far wall, in just the light from the door cutting the gloom. Three small figures lying on the floor in a row together, and a bigger one slumped against the wall. And there's that dark splatter behind its head, and then I know what this is. Seeing it all, I want to sob, or vomit, or something, but nothing comes. Just that old anguish crushing on my chest again is all I get. So I just back away to the door. And I know my scruples are leaking but I grab a few cans of soup on my way out. We need them more then they do, now.

When I get back outside, the gnomes are still gone. The sun comes out and the air is clear, but there's that funny feeling, like how the shape of everything doesn't seem the same as it was just a minute ago, and you walk like you just landed on a new planet or something. But the wind is picking up, and the ring on the end of that tether-ball chain is rattling against the pole. And it sounds like its the only thing in the world. Ching, ching-ching, ching.

98 - Making waffles by the vans.

Was hanging out with Del at their sister's place the other day. And she's got a bunch of patio tables on the front lawn, turned on their end and leaned up against those four vending machines. Which are still sitting there, for some reason. Maybe Lucy found something else for her bowling alley? Who knows.

Anyways, behind the third one we find a propane tank with some still in it. Lucky find! Because Del had also scored a propane-powered waffle iron at the Weeping Sailor's close-out last week. I never knew there was such a thing. But I guess if you're into camping with lots of kit, then why not.

We get some water, and find half a box of mix inside the house, and it's mostly silverfish-free. Drag a table over to the Chevy and mix it up, and it cooks real well in that iron. Didn't even stick. We sit inside the van and have those, and I sure haven't had a waffle as good as those in a while.

In a box under the bench in the van, I even find this pair of nylon pants that fits me. Some days like these, everything just feels so, I don't know, bountiful I guess.

99 - The buskers.

I rode along with Pete and Del into town the other day. Pete got a tip on some cheap covid vaccine, recently-expired stuff that someone scooped from the trash at an Amazon clinic. Worth checking out for sure. Pete's contact is kind of cagey so Del and I wander off while he meets them. Don't want to spook 'em.

Anyways, I wander over to the main drag to get a taco from the truck there. And I figure I'll see some music because there's a pretty decent busker scene there, these days. Today there's this trio I never saw before. It's a tall white haired old lady, an extremely short southeast-asian man, and this fairly young centaur. They're all three dressed in these bright orange jumpsuits like they just escaped from prison or something. The man and the woman are singing some wordless la-la-la melody in perfect harmony, and the man is strumming and plucking on some ancient guitar. And the centaur meanwhile is occasionally bellowing something over top of this. And I'm thinking at first he is just being an ass, but he's hitting his mark right on time every time, and I realize this is exactly as they intended. It's the most bizarre act I've ever seen, and I watch so long and am so rapt that I drop by taco and I don't even care. Some dog eventually comes by and eats it, and that's okay.

And when they're done their songs, they pack up and jump in this old army jeep without a word, driving off even though I want to talk. Sometimes I wonder how a band like that finds each other. I wonder if I'll ever see them again.

100 - So useful.

I had this dream the other night, first one in a while. I'm in some kind of open-air workshop, with long work tables set up in rows, and lots of us are around them and working on these things I can't remember. We're all tinkering away, and talking and co-operating and all that, but then awful gruesome stuff starts happening. Like, people's skin starts sloughing off, fingers snap in two, ankles break, and so on. But nobody reacts, and we just carry on. And some of us are wrapping rags around big wounds, limping around on crutches and splints, standing on one foot, using one hand. But we just keep on going and working.

It gets worse and worse, everyone falling to pieces. Until eventually we're all crumbled and crawling around on the ground, trying to hoist ourselves up to the tables again to keep going, but we're all so broken that we can't even. I sort of roll onto my back, and see that a bunch of elfs had come by. They're wordlessly picking up and carrying away our work tables. And I remember trying to cry out, "Hey, wait, I was working on that!" But I'm such a shambles by then, that it's barely a whisper and nobody can hear me. I can't hardly even move. They carefully step over me.

Then I notice I am looking up into the branches of an old elm tree. Also I see members of my family standing nearby. It's my mom, and my dad, and Beth and little Evan and Lara. They're all looking down at me as I lie there, falling apart on the ground. But they aren't upset. Not horrified or scared, not angry or sad or panicked or crying, not grieving or sympathizing or reaching down in assistance. They're just there, recognizing. Recognizing that this was a thing that was happening right now. Recognizing that it was... well, not "okay", but it was just like, a thing that was happening. I don't know. But for that, in that moment, I felt so loved.

And then, two birds fly down out of a nest in the tree above me. One tears out a tuft of my hair, and the other rips a strip of sinew from my side. And through my one eye that still points upwards, I watch them take these pieces of me, fly back up to their eggs in their nest, and repair the side of it. I break into a wide, toothless grin. And I feel so, so... I don't exactly know. So useful.

And then I wake up.

101 - Picked up and put down.

And I had yet another dream, it was the other night I think. In this one, I see me sleeping in little Lara's room as I often did back in those days, so that Beth could get a bit better sleep some nights. And in the dream, I see me awake early as I usually did, to catch a few moments of quiet solitude before anyone else rises and another day boots up. Lara's still asleep, and me sits up to get up. Me looks over to her little dresser, with her ten little toy ponies all lined up along the edge. Beside them all on the corner of it, me sees an odd little box of painted blue wood. And in my dream, me seems puzzled by that thing, like where did that come from? I try to shout out to me in my dream, that I know what that is, that I know it means something, that it's important. But me is not listening.

And I watch me go down the stairs, and make some coffee. Me scoops the grounds, separates the filter paper, pours the water, and all that. And then me looks out the back door, and up to the hillside above it. Me sees a dug hole there, and seems confused, but now I'm confused too, seeing me see this in my dream. That hole is new, I started it myself just the other day. That's new, that shouldn't be there, not back then, back in the time of this dream with my family asleep upstairs. That hole doesn't belong. It's like the little box.

Then I actually wake up, and I have a strange feeling. I go downstairs, and it's my turn for electricity today, so I start making some coffee. That's when I notice it. As I scoop the grounds, separate the filter paper, pour the water and all that, I realize I am re-tracing what I did in my dream, moment by moment, movement by movement. But I can't stop it. And I realize that something is very, very wrong here.

I go to the sliding glass door and look up to the hillside, and there's my hole where I left it unfinished the other day. And then all of a sudden, I feel this strange wrenching sensation. A feeling like something huge has picked me up and put me back down, and I don't like it. And then there's this sense of something being taken from me. Distant laughter. A very brief but very intense headache. And then, I'm okay.

I go to the living room, which is somehow filled with artificial christmas trees again, and I look out the window to see that the playground has been rebuilt. That kind of throws me off, because I thought the playground was gone, torn down. But I guess I wasn't paying attention, because I sure don't some times. Nice that they rebuilt it so quick. Or maybe it was always there, and I just somehow forgot. Whatever, it's still really early. I'll get up to speed soon.

Anyways, I'm not so sure yet what I'll get up to when the sun rises. The dream and everything has me feeling sort of mixed up right now, but I'll get over it. But I know one thing for sure - it's always a good day to go digging, so I think I'll do that. Got a hole just out back that needs finishing up.

                 THE BEGINNING.