Six Points

The chair used to be scary, like a cross between one of those old-fashioned hair dryers from beauty salons in old videos and something from the Spanish Inquisition, but after three months Amanda sat down without any qualms. The needles snaking their way into her skull were scary, too, at first, but it was amazing to Amanda how quickly she could get used to being injected with microscopic amounts of a potent (and highly targeted, the company doctor assured her) bio-toxin. Ignoring the sensation, Amanda passed the time by starting into a small pile of fashion magazines. One of the ads captured her image and superimposed six different hairstyles over her own. Amanda flipped between them, wondering if she could convince the tech to make her hair grow out red after she got off shift.

Fifteen minutes later, Amanda stood and shook her head from side to side like they had shown her in the training session her first day. Her hair fell all at once, trying and failing to stay rooted in follicles that were no longer alive. A jet of compressed air blew down from a vent above her, automatically sweeping stray strands from her face and clothing as a hemispherical cleaning bug slid out of a recess in the far wall to gobble up what had been left on the floor.

Amanda made her way to her station, and sat down in front of the same technician she had sat down in front of for the last three months. She didn't know his name, and didn't really care to. She wasn't even entirely sure the techs were human behind their surgical masks. The techs never really fraternized with the subjects, except maybe for one or two trivial warnings about the procedure.

"You done antlers before, right?"

"Yeah, I already know about the neck brace."

The worst part about it was she couldn't move her head to read her magazine. She had to hold her arms out straight at shoulder level, like a zombie who was really interested in Cosmo, and that made it difficult to pass the four hours of her shift. It didn't hurt, though, when it came time to cut the antlers off. They usually slipped an anesthetic in with the genetically recombined follicle transplants and accelerated growth factors and all that. Besides, how else would some hick in Iowa or wherever get a nice set of antlers for his den? Kill some poor defenseless animal? No thank you!

It could be worse. She could have been assigned to steaks.

The Long Count

...and I saw the number of my days on the big stone calendar. I saw them given out, each given their own names and set aside for their own uses. See, father, these years are yours, given over to the work of my hands as established by your example. See, mother, these years are yours, given over to your memory. See, brother! See! These years, the best and choicest, have been reserved for you! This stock of days I carry are colored by you and remain yours, long after your own meager calendar has come to an end.

Papa Legba

You left your crazy behind, babe, failing and fading it clung to me and it's your sleepless nights I'm hit by like bullet after bleary-eyed bullet.

Is this what pushed you out over mountains?

sgt.mongoose@gmail.com

We learn our names all over again in this world--the tap of fingers substituting for words. That's simple, we know it, it's obvious. There's a magic, though, to your name when you hear it or say it, and the names we make up for ourselves in this world are no different. There's muscle memory there, typing it to identify ourselves, and the tiniest rush of happiness:

This is who I am. This is who I chose to be.

And I Can't Say What I Want To Say

You. Will. Not. Come out of your house and that is okay with me, I'm not standing on no front porch waiting I'm warm in here. I'm across the street (you're across the street) and we can see each other and wave, looking up from our knitting.

We'll never leave, but one day we'll hold up our arms to show that we've both been working on the exact same sweater.

No Man Is An Island

He makes with his mind, out of ectoplasm or thought-energy or whatever astral plane BS George Noory is on about tonight.

In his room there are universes after school, places where black eyes fade and humiliation is forgotten and she's there, all of her, the only girl who knows his name.

He hears his dad at the door and everything disappears. He can't know, he'll never understand.

Gathered Their Books and Burned Them

I don't know how it was possible for this whole generation to have kept the same secret from each other, but there you go.

See, in the old (ha! what am I, 23?) days, we kept it all under wraps. Sometimes you knew or found out, always in rumor, always about somebody from across town, heard across the bar from friends of friends who knew a guy who knew a guy blah blah blah blah blah. It was always the same story and it was always "us" and "them" and even though every single one of us knew that we were on the wrong side of that equation we all pretended just because you felt slightly less alone when people would still look at you.

And then, then one day, "us" became "me" and it wasn't so much a line as a fence and I forget who it was that first looked up and around and realized:

We all feel like this, every day, and it is okay.

We all came out of our apartments and said it to one another, and the years came tumbling off our faces like landslides.