Over Running Water

Miriya was exhausted. Men and dogs had been chasing her for days. Try to cure one ailing child get branded a witch. Well, at least that was half right. But not right to try to kill her for simply trying to help, damnit all. Paladins of Orath were zealots though.

She knew this land, had walked through it hundreds of years before the religion of the men chasing her had started. Hah! The upstart "god" Orath, just a pawn Saiser, the ancient who had chased her from her own homeland millennia before. He spread rumors about their kind, though.

If she could reveal herself, she could use those rumors to direct those tracking her. She'd have to lure one away somehow. Send them a message. Not a subtle one. During the day they moved across the land, tracking her by scent, losing her when she sank into the ground to rest.

During the night she moved away from them, trying to create as much distance on her two legs as the men could on their horses. Time to take a risk. Once night fell, she rose from where she had tunneled away from the entrance of her ground meld. Tasting the air, she found the men.

She could have made better time if she flew, but that required a meal. It had been some time since she had had one. Lack of a meal couldn't kill her, but it would make her weak, which in turn /would/ get her killed.

A meal. What a disgusting way to think about a living being. She had to think that way. She had to survive. If that meant looking at the men chasing her as food, so be it. She would do worse to them than that before this was finished. Before this was over she would feed so much.
"No," she thought, she couldn't let the hunger control her. The hunger was just as much a danger as the weakness a lack of food brought. It could cause irrationality. In that it was not so different from being a human, miss a meal, become irritable. But the hunger was worse. At the worst, you could fall into a fugue, hunting on instinct.

But the hunger was more subtle. It could push you to take risks that you wouldn't otherwise. Foolish things that made you easy to kill. Overconfidence and an inability to recognize risk. She had no choice now, they were at the point where they were finding her meld entrances.

It was untrue that they didn't breath. Or at least the perception that had come from that, that they couldn't for being something dead. Which was also untrue, but propaganda was a powerful tool.
So she breathed in slowly and began to meditate. She could see them in her mind now. That one. Going in the woods to take a piss. She had to act now.
Coming to, she carefully and quietly strode towards their camp. Careful not to break any branches, crunch any leaves, nor startle any animals, she grew close. She could see him. Urinating was not what he was doing.

Well, she might have more time than she thought. He seemed to be very occupied with what he was doing. It explained why he was so far away from the men's camp. She wondered, would a man want to die wanking? She wasn't a man, so she couldn't say. She knew she'd prefer not to.

But men always seemed a bit more worried about needing to do that. She had met plenty of women who loved to wank, but men often did it like they were getting paid to. Which they never were.
The thought made her laugh. The wanking man heard it and looked up. "Whozzat?"
"A lady," she replied coolly, "so you had better put your... parts away."
"I don't think I will, then, lady," he said with a gurgling chuckle. How pleasant. Oh well, a meal was a meal.
She sighed, "I was going to try to kill you painlessly, but your intention is /not/ appreciated."
"Now now, don't be like that."
Drawing her dagger into his throat, she growled with feline ferocity, "Just. Shut. Up. And. Die." And she thrust into him, and he began to.
Not wanting to waste blood, she worked quickly and removed the dagger, drinking from the hole in his throat. No rush of pleasure from the blood other than the feeling of relief from the hunger. The rush would come later, when she forced the battle.
Calling upon the language Puma had taught her, she yowled in the night. She could feel the fear that spread through the men in the camp.

Below her feet the man was dead, exsanguinated. Her biology allowed her to drink more blood than would reasonably fit in her body. She had often pondered on the volumes of blood the ancients drank, but always shook her head, disgusted. Best not to become distracted, though.

The yowl had done more than reverberate fear into the men hunting her. It spread through her body in waves, changing her. Her clothes and gear were now tawny fur, her arms legs, her hands and feet paws. She stood now in the form of the Puma. Yowling again, she turned and ran.

They would follow her and she could find what she was looking for. Her sense of smell, already powerful, was even more powerful in this form, unlike the actual Puma. She wondered how that was, but maybe it was another gift of the blood. Regardless, she could already smell water.

The river with the stone bridge. She remembered it. A good place to make a stand. Now that they knew what she was, they would grow confident from Saiser's lies, also knowing what would be ahead would be their undoing. The confidence she felt now was real, and she would ride it.

As she ran, she began to remember the chants for the water, for the power she would draw on there. Everything had power, but something about water made her kind more powerful, making the blood within more lively. Moreso than any of her kind she had met, she could control it too.

Even Saiser had less power with water. Actually, more than anyone, he had the least power with it, despite his power over blood itself. Her power over water gave her some ability with blood, but nothing like his. She didn't need that now, though. Just the power of the water.

And like that, she was sitting on the bridge, cleaning herself. The water respected cleanliness, it was the first part of the ritual to call on it. Then back to human form, the cleanliness of her feline form having carried over. Another mystery for another day.

She began the movements on the bridge, flowing like the water itself, invoking its power. As she moved, she listened to what the river said and began to speak its language, shushing her breath and clicking her tongue. Around her the water rose, unseen in the dark of the night.

Over her shushing and clicking, she heard the thunder of horses. Scythes of water swung out from above the river, reaping the men as the harvest they had sown by chasing her. Again and again, like grain on a sunny day felling, blood dyeing the river under the now risen moon.

Then it was over and all that could be heard was the shushing and clicking of the river and her. No, something else: a low rushing of the blood pouring into the river. All this death, for what? Because Saiser's Orathians wouldn't allow practice of medicine outside their church.

No time for that, though. She was tired from battle and knew how soon the sun would come now that the moon had risen. Peering into the river... it might work. If she could control the water and blood, she could shield herself from the light of the sun and drift along.

After all, just because she could breath, didn't mean she needed to. Time in the water would empower her further. When the next night came, the river would be clean and she would be more powerful that she had ever been. Maybe it was a sign that she had to fight the church.

The Outcast

Cassandra swam beneath the waves, the flickering light they cast on the sands below, a reminder of the deadly atmosphere above. Just the week before, Iyla had surfaced, crawling into the Old City. It had nearly killed her. Even with the best medicines, her lungs were scarred. She'd have to swim with a rebreather like the few surface people that visited. Months earlier, their friend Mirad hadn't been so lucky. They had disappeared into the old city, never to be seen again.

Thus lost in though, Cassandra reached the cave that led to the caverner's domain. She checked her bags for the umpteenth time. Just as when she had left Coast, everything was still in place. The gengineered seaweeds she grew produced the bulbs that filled her bag, each bulb containing a powerful opiate. A dangerous cargo for several reasons - burst bulbs could paralyze a swimmer, halting even their lungs. And the penalties for providing caverners with such medicine were high.

But the caverners guarding the entrance didn't interdict her. The recognized her lanky frame, the big feet so good for swimming, the small but slowly-growing breasts, the member she shamelessly left uncovered. In the caverns she had to bow to shaming customs that the sea-folk had eschewed when they took to the waves. Modification and a lack of body-shame were what her people were known for. Still, she took one of the generic shifts from the crate, drying herself with it even though that made her skin itch.

She had hung her bags carefully in the entrance alcove, shielding them from sight. No one was looking, but she felt guilt at breaking her own people's laws. Beneath the waves alertness and clarity of mind was one of the few laws. Even cultivating such medicines was forbidden. Here in the caverns, that was not so. Salvagers often needed such medicines to live the remainder of their days in a modicum of comfort. Heroes of the caverns, they combed the Old City for technology from the Before.

Making her way to their guild, she encountered many stares. Rarely was a sea-folk seen out of water. Rarer still, no matter where one went, was a changer. No one recognized her, though she had been born in the caverns. The changes to her body and her few years of adulthood had erased the one these caverners thought they knew as a boy.

She knew what caverners did to her kind, that is why she had gone beneath the waves as soon as she knew and understood. Her parents, both Salvagers, had brought many books from the surface, leaving her to sort through them. Such was the task given to young Salvagers, both a way of making children earn their keep and of training them to understand the rotting world above. It was there she found the word that made everything make sense for her: transsexual.

Always a reticent child, living in a society that hardly differentiated genders, she had never shown herself to be different. The Caverners thought they had abolished gender roles (another term she had learned from that book, the book that had become her secret treasure), though in truth they had simply become a dull and colourless people. So they never knew what she knew, that she was a girl. Her mother was her greatest idol, the most reckless Salvager, the one with the most treasure.

And here she stood, unrecognized, in front of that mother. The uneasy truce between the sea-folk and the Caverners protected her from all but the stares. Even covered with their generic shift, the beads in her knotted hair stood out, the blue-green of her skin in sharp contrast to the shades of grey that surrounded her. Her mother greeted her, "Cassandra of the Sea-folk, I see you have brought your wares. I will take them all, what boon is it you ask?"

Before it had been books, but now she sought after that which she had lost, "I want you to search the Old City for one of our own." Pretending to consider, her estranged mother hesitated, but finally said, "Done. Provide me with a picture and description." Cassandra did so, describing Mirad's springy rust-coloured hair, their purple-blue skin. She went to the device called an 'apple' in the corner of the Salvagers' office and constructed a picture that looked like Mirad. Poor Mirad, it would have brought her to tears, but what sea-folk can cry? None.

"You're quite deft with that device, few of our people have mastered it. It's too bad you're not one of us, but we cannot abide your kind among us. No offense." The shame of existence crushed her, she wanted to yell in her mother's face that she was one of them, that she was her daughter. But her mother only had a son that had vanished. Run away instead of being exiled to the surface. It had been the only way.

"Well, I am what I am, I am not one of you." Her mother smiled in that way she did, as if she thought her words were a joke, "Indeed and thankful I be for that. If you were one of us, you couldn't provide the medicine we need." Her smile twitched downward, at a thought, giving Cassandra an intuition. Her mother was guild leader these days, but where was her partner, the father Cassandra had left behind?

"Your partner, where is he?" Frowning fully now, "That is not your business, is it. Now, the medicine. I have places to be." Ah, so it was as she thought... her father had succumbed to The Burning, ravaged from too many trips above. Always cautious, her mother had escaped it. And as guild leader, she rarely went above.

So Cassandra paid her mother and departed. She had some of the trade-scrip that the Caverners used, shiny metals that would have rusted away beneath the waves. Thinking of Iyla, she bought some of the gems that were cut in the caverns. Perhaps these baubles would cheer her convalescent friend up.

Returning beneath the waves, she made her way to Iyla's tent. Maybe Iyla would let her stay and hold her. "Iyla, Iyla," she sang into the waves, "I have returned with something for you." Groaning, she replied negatively, "No, go away, you poisoner of minds."

"But these..." Cassandra was cut off, "No. If it wasn't for you, Mirad wouldn't have went to the surface. You filled her mind with dreams of being 'agender', whatever that is. We accepted you as our friend, isn't that enough?" Choked with the bitterness of Iyla's accusation and her denial of Mirad's self, Cassandra could only hang the bag of baubles by the door and swim away.

It was not her fault, Cassandra thought. She loved Iyla deeply, but the things she said were deeply unfair. Mirad was not a woman, they were agender. Maybe that denial of womanhood was too much for the matriarchal sea-folk, but that didn't make it less real. Is that why Mirad had left? In woe?

The next few weeks passed in a haze. Cassandra had unconsciously swam to the bulbs of opiate, tearing one open and smearing it on her skin. Lawbreaker, woe-lover, her mind shouted at her. But the urge to dull the pain was too much to resist. She should have went to her mentor, Asha, Mirad's mother. She didn't though, fearing more blame at the death of her beloved child. Instead Cassandra rolled beneath the waves, numb to all pain, staring up at the flickering light of the wave-tops.

That was how Asha found her. Asha of the shark-teeth, necklace made of the cast-off fangs of those extinct beasts. First she cried out, "No no no, child. I have already lost one, I will not lose another." Then she scolded, "What if it had been another that found you, girl? You would be exiled from here. You have already lost enough. Why would you do this?" So groggily, Cassandra explained.

"Silly girl, I love you as my own daughter. And Iyla will come to be your friend again. As I came to accept my child's identity, so will she, though it's too late for Mirad." Confused cassandra asked, "Too late? But it's my fault." Shaking he head solemnly, "You may not know, but Mirad loved you both. They wanted to form a union between you three. But Iyla couldn't accept that her lover was not a woman. So Mirad told me before they fled." Asha's firey hair wrapped around Cassandra as her arms held her close. "Why would it matter, Asha? Iyla loved Mirad since they were children." Clutching Cassandra tighter, it was moments before Asha replied, "To seek womanhood is one thing, but to reject it is another. Iyla follows the customs of our waters closely. You know that. How would it look to her fellow priestesses?"

Cassandra could not answer that. Could not think or hardly move as Asha uprooted her crop of seaweed-borne opiates. Could not resist as she was pulled back to Asha's home. Could not look away from all the reminders of Mirad. Mirad so sweet and accepting, to be rejected by the one they loved. Could not muster the anger that Iyla had. Could not do anything much more than eat the food that Asha made her eat.

As the numbness left, the pain returned. Oh how she wished she could cry or rage. All she could do was be crushed by the pain though. She swam past Iyla's tent. The bag was hanging where she left it. Within she could see Iyla, unmoving except for the slight tremor of breath. What was there left for her there? Nothing but hate.

Unthinking yet again, she swam to the entrance to the Caverns. Reluctantly she took the shift and walked through the various caves, ending up in her mother's office. Her mother was there, looking grief-stricken. Looking up she asked, "Where are your bags? Why have you come if not to deliver your wares." Suddenly angry Cassandra hissed, "I have come to ask your progress." Shaking her head at this, "Well we've found nothing. Some kind of surface-creature must have ate your friend's remains," then she shrugged. Gaping, it took nearly a minute for Cassandra to reply, "How, mother? How is it that you, leader of the Salvagers' Guild, have found nothing?"

"I told- Wait, what? I have no child." Fully enraged now, "But you do. I am your child. Do you think I just died in the wastes above? No, I wanted to live." Rising, her mother raised her hand, ready to slap Cassandra, but dropped it, "You are my child, those eyes, that determination. How could I have not seen it?" Rage turned to weeping, crying tears that would not come, "You know how. Our people would not allow my existence." Struck speechless, her mother could only stare. "Yes, me. How many times have you called me a freak, your own daughter? Will you deny me now, even as Father lays dying? That is what's happening, isn't it?" Crying now for the both of them, her mother finally spoke, "No, he's dead. They took his body above at dawn today."

Then everything was a blur. Running to the lockers, ignoring the yells that she couldn't be there. Donning her mother's own surface suit, climbing the shafts to the surface. And there he was, face already eaten away by the corrosive chemicals in the air. Her father, who she would never hear speak again. Damn him. She kept running. Into the ruins. She would find Mirad. Where would Mirad have gone, though? Did they seek to end their own life? Or to reclaim it? And then she knew. The sunken library, sealed off to preserve its contents, the last gesture of a dying civilization. Knowledge, proof, that is what Mirad wanted. Words to explain their being, to reclaim Iyla's love.

And that is where she found Mirad, in a healing trance. A very rare skill, possessed only by the best gene-shapers. Body still burnt, thin from lack of food, but alive. Surrounded by books. Books on gender and sexuality. Hand still marking the place in one. Surviving despite the world outside, like those very books. A font of wisdom. "Oh my love, you live. May Iyla's love live again." How, though?

Mirad's cracked and bleeding soles had left a trail back to a stairwell that led deeper into the library. Flooded below, Cassandra took her mother's suit off and swam down. Bloated like bodies, the books sat, dead. Trying to ignore this ill omen, she swam until she found the doors Mirad must have come through. Around and around and around she swam until she realized that there was no direct way back to the sea from here. It would have to be through the corrosive air. She'd need another suit. She'd need to go back.

Down and up she swam again, donning again the suit, passing Mirad's still form, barely warm with life. Back down the shafts to the Caverns. There, her mother was waiting for her. As was a mob of Salvagers. At once the mob rushed her, seizing her. "Stop!" cried her mother, "That is my daughter and you will do her no harm." Oh how Cassandra wish she could cry, with tears of joy this time. The Salvagers drew back from her, protesting in mutters. "No, this folly has gone on too long. Too long have we remained inflexible, too long we have lost some of our most brilliant children to our lack of understanding. Hear me, hear the one you chose to lead you. Our weak truce with the sea-folk most grow into a strong alliance if we are to survive." Pointing to one man, she asked, "Jeph, if not for the medicines she brought, would not your brother have died in agony?" Turning back to the crowd, "And the same could be said for many of you. If we held our siblings beneath the waves closer, maybe we could work together to cure our surface-burnt friends and family? If we held our children closer, maybe our numbers would not dwindle as they do." Silence.

Then her mother addressed her, "Cassandra, whose name I speak only now, though I have heard it before, what did you find?" Awed, she murmured in reply, "I found my friend. I need another suit though. Help me?" Then the man addressed previously, Jeph, stepped forward, "Borrow mine. I owe you, as so many of us do." And so Mirad was retrieved and returned.

Cassandra's mother met with the Cavern Council, who appointed Cassandra as their diplomat. From there, communication grew. Iyla never trusted Cassandra again, even with the return of Mirad. Love was lost and Iyla's opposition fractured the sea-folk. Still, in the years to come, the new partnership between sea and cave proved fruitful. Both societies learned better to accept their children. Medicines flowed both ways between peoples, as did knowledge gleaned from the Old City. And thus we survived.

Writing exercise #0009

"Oh I guess so," you say. She says, "Really there's no point in arguing," and stretches her hand across you to hold you. You say, "But she's so frustrating! The things she like... are just gross. Not even that, insulting. No I don't know... problematic." She laughs, "Sorry to laugh honey, but everything is problematic to you. Even shit that you need to let go, because it's making it hard for you to enjoy life. Who is this girl?" You hesitate, "She's not from here. She's an artist and a musician and all those things that mean trouble." She smiles, "Why trouble?" "You know why," you say, "All those types are so egotistical, they only care about themselves and never think critically." She frowns and shakes her head, "I'm sure that's not true."

You roll over, away from her, "Of course it's true. That's how those types have always been towards me. Like I'm just some form of support for them. Like I'm a doormat." She raises her hand to your shoulder, she can feel how tense you are, "Those were boys, though. Girls are different. And why are you talking to her if you don't like her?" You stay tense, "I just met her in one of those dumb trans groups." "Like the one tat helped you get on medicaid?" She asks. "Yeah, like that."

You roll out of bed and sit down in front of your computer. "There's a reply, you say. Oh fuck this." And you close the reply. "Blocked." She calls from the bed, "Why?" "Because I just can't stand her," you say. "Well, I'm sorry. I have to go now. It was nice meeting you, I hope you take the advice I gave you earlier and try to get into therapy and on drugs again, it might help." You frown, "Really, so soon? And I really don't want to be on drugs again, they have fucked me up so much." "Okay," she replies,"but there will come a time when you will want them.

Months later, you remember this dream as they take you into the ER. The cops misgender you, the nurses misgender you, the doctor misgenders you. It all feels like shit. You see the report and it says "crossdresser" on it. You want to die still. One of the cops is slightly nicer than the other who brought you in and stays to talk to you. Out of desperation, you continue to talk to him. Finally, they let you into the psych ward.

While you're in the psych ward... you would rather not think about the psych ward. But while you are there, you get put on various drugs. You read a book on BPD. It sounds like you, but it sounds like other people have it worse. Your cat, he dies while you're in the psych ward, the cat you have had almost as long as you have lived up here. You get signed up for therapy when you get out though.

They keep you on drugs and change them and change them. One day when you are at home, you go to you blocked list and unblock someone. "I'm sorry I was such a bitch to you. I was in a bad place." You're still in a bad place, but not one that makes you hate people and push them away, at least not as readily. Part of that dream happened. Part of it was just a dream. Or was it? You wonder now, as you wait on a response.

You wait days, though. And nothing. You remember that facebook doesn't readily show messages from people not on your friends list. So you send a friend request. No reply. You rejoin the group that you had left shortly after blocking her and ask if anyone has seen her. No one has. And so you sigh and attempt to forget about it, but you always carry some guilt. And that is life, you learn. Learning to live with the regrets of pushing people away. You don't try again to reconnect with people, some of whom you know might stir those old feelings of rage in you, or so you fear. You don't know.

Writing exercise #0007

Her breath chattered out in short bursts as she pedaled the bicycle. She could feel each press of the pedals all though her legs and into her abs. The winter snow took more strength to get through, but mostly this was from going up the slight incline of the street's hill for so long. She also didn't have a fancy bike with the hugely oversized tired that people liked to ride around her in the winter, just a regular road bike, which made riding on ice fun. She was almost at the top of the hill.

The condensation from her breath on the inside of her scarf was gross against her lips. It was wet, but cold. Finally she stopped at the intersection. No cars were coming from the perpendicular street, so she pedaled forward again. She was only blocks away from her school, where she was a freshman philosophy (she loved ethics, but even more she loved formal logic - a way to pick apart the universe) student. Finally she made it to a street she had to stop at for longer, a busy thoroughfare. She stopped her bike there and started walking it up the street. Only three blocks and she'd be on campus.

Then she heard it.  "Sir? Ma'am? Sir?" She knew they had to be talking to her. She didn't look womanly enough, dressed for the cold weather and riding a bike. She sucked in her breath through gritted teeth and turned, sighing. She had to reply. If she didn't, they'd continue their confused calling and draw more attention to her. So she turned and saw a portly butch woman gesturing toward her. "Excuse me, but do you have a few dollars you can spare." Jobless, she shook her head, "I'm sorry." And then turned and kept walking her bike up the street.

Her thighs burned as she stood waiting to cross the street. The cars kept coming and she waited what seemed like several minutes before she could cross. By then she had begun to notice the numbness in her hands. But school was only two blocks away. She'd get inside a building once she rode through campus a bit to get to her where her class was. The next few blocks presented little trouble to her, though her legs continued to ache and she swore her fingers were going to stay locked in place.

Finally she was cruising through campus, when she saw someone waving at her. Alice! Her crush, the only other girl like her at the school as far as she knew. But gorgeous. Unlike Natalia. She stopped her bike and walked it up to her friend, whose arms were already open for a hug.
"So," she said as she hugged Natalia, "When are you coming to Insight?"
She frowned upon hearing this, "You mean the Pride fest group. No no no nope." She actually said this and backed away slightly.
Alice laughed with that nearly perfect voice of hers, "C'mon, it'll be fun, you'll meet some other queers."
Still frowning, "Do they like it when you call them that?"
Finally frowning back at her, "Don't be like that, they're a lot more woke-"
"Did you really just say woke?"
"What's wrong with me-"
"No, nevermind. Sorry, I'm just upset because of some shit that happened on the way here."
"Oh baby, tell me about it."
"Nah, I gotta get to class. Meet you at the UC in two hours for lunch?"
"Okay, out by the bike rack, right?"
"Yep. Byeeeeee."
"Byeeeeeee."

She cruised down the campus the the John X Hodgins building, aimed herself at the bike rack and dismounted. The sidewalks were snowpacked, so she couldn't dismount in the fancy way she liked to in the spring and summer, where she swung her right leg back over the bike frame while it was still moving and stepped to a halt. Instead she just stopped the bike, leaned one leg down, and then swung her leg over. It wasn't as fun, but it was safer in these conditions. Then she locked her bike up, always through the back wheel's spokes, through the thing that held the wheel, and through the chain. Finally she stood back up and walked into the building. Students passed her in the halls, some giving her looks, most ignoring her, too wrapped up in their own business. Finally she found her classroom.

She sat down in the back of class, hoping no one would notice her. She had managed to make it in early despite talking to Alice and that was just the way she liked it. People who arrived last attracted the most attention, always having to look for a seat in the mostly-filled room. Dr. Strong was already in the front of the class, erasing something from the previous lesson. Students filled in and soon class was in session. But her focus was hardly on what was being taught. It went back to her encounter with that strange woman.

She thought like that for some minutes, then focused back on the class. It was something about a ticking time bomb scenario. Where you have to decide whether to use "enhanced interrogation", aka torture, to get information out of a terrorist about where a bomb is. Torture still seemed stupid to her. If the terrorist held out long enough, gave them whatever lies to buy time, the bomb would go off anyway. Most of the class actually agreed, which kind of shocked her. She thought about the practicality of it. Is that what mattered?

At the end of the class Natalia went up to Dr Strong.
"Walk with me, Natalia." So she did. "What was it you wanted to talk about?" her teacher asked.
"If the practicality is really something we should focus on? Does the end justify the means in a scenario like that."
"What do you think?" Dr. Strong lit up a cigarette, as they had just passed out of the building.
"Well, I think it's a moot point on the one hand, but on the other doesn't it set a precedent? What if something like torture did work, would it then be justifiable."
"So what do you think the solution is?"
"We don't rely on things like utilitarianism alone to make our ethical decisions. Each system is a tool that we can utilize to make such a decision."
"Write me a journal entry on that, with a logical argument and examples and I'll give you extra credit."
"Really? I just wanted to get your opinion on my thoughts."
"And you will, once you write that and I've had a chance to read it."
"Okay, cool."
"This is my stop, see you tomorrow."

Natalia walked a little further, to the school's university center. She walked through its hallways to an isolated hall between student org offices and sat down to write. Writing and making the argument felt good. It was nice to know she wouldn't get shouted down by an illogical idiot. Finally she saved the file, closed the window, and emailed it to Dr. Strong. Looking at the time, she decided she had enough to watch an episode of Stargate.

Forty minutes and one sci-fi adventure later, she closed her laptop and headed outside to the bike rack. Alice was waiting.
"Sorry, Alice, didn't mean to take so long."
"No, you're fine, I got here early."
"Okay."
"Ready for lunch?"
They walked back into the building, into the cafeteria, and filled up their plates with food. When they sat they barely said a word to each other and just ate. Natalia didn't know what made  Alice so hungry, but she knew the ride here was what made herself hungry.

Afterwards they parted. Natalia looked longingly at Alice, but Alice had another class now. Natalia didn't for another hour, so she went back inside and watched more Stargate. Finally it was time to head to class, this one a Judo class. It made her feel so self-conscious, but at least you didn't have to change in the changing rooms for it. That passed uneventfully and she went to her next class, a class on narrative and descriptive writing.

This week they were reading Hemingway. The story was about some sad fuck or another, she didn't really care. But the way it was written, so concise. She liked that. Soon that class was over and it was time to go home. She walked back to her bike and tried to unlock it. The lock was frozen, of course. She sighed in frustration and walked back to the library. Down inside it, there was a Starbucks, "Hey, can I get a cup of hot water to go, please?" The barista asked her what size. "The littlest one." The barista filled a cup up with hot water and came back to her with it. She looked at the tip jar and Natalia made a squeamish face. "Sorry, thanks." The barista just shook her head and went back to wiping things down.

After she had walked back to the bike and poured the hot water on the lock, she opened the lock, then carefully tapped the water out. Then she got one the bike and rode home. It was colder out than when she had rode in, but she pedaled harder at the thought of that. It drove her to get home quicker and back inside a warm house.

Writing exercise #0006

She stands between the doors to the house, the front door open to the night. As she lights her cigarette she looks out into the light drizzle. She can hear it as it hits the metal awning of the house. It's then that she hears a strange clicking sound. She leans out a bit, not far because she's only wearing socks and to step further would risk wet feet. And then she sees it, loping down the street, not like a normal quadruped, but like an ape. It had and apelike body... and it's head. It's head was a mass of antennae and insect-like mandibles.  It was clicking with a pair of these mandibles.

Then it stopped and turned. It had no eyes that she could see, but it seemed to stare at her, clicking all the time. She unconsciously took a drag on her cigarette and tapped it before she really reacted. By then, it was charging towards her. She slammed the door closed in front of her. It slammed into the door and knocked it a bit inward. She backed up and opened the other door behind her. It was sturdier and hopefully it would hold.

She ran to her room as it slammed into the front door again and again. She could hear a cracking as the door gave way. By then, she had ran to the place where she had a crowbar hidden. She crouched in her room as she heard it slamming into the inner door again and again. Then she heard the clicking above her head, right outside of the window. It didn't register right away, but she realized that there must be more than one of them. The one at the door stopped it's assault and joined the one by the window.

It was then that she ran, shortly before they crashed through her window, one after another. She ran out the busted front doors, barely squeezing past them. She ran out into the street and was halfway down the block before they busted out of her house. There were apparently two of them. Where were her neighbors? She ran and ran, but they got closer and closer.

Finally she was at the beach. She didn't know why she had come this way. She was barefoot and the sand was covered with snow, the water ice-cold. But the beasts slowed, walking gingerly on the snow towards her. They crept toward her steadily though. She backed away until the water was at her back. The beast leapt at her, but with cold and already numbing feet she leapt to the side, swing the crowbar. It connected with the beast's head, catching on an antenna and knocking it off. The beast clicked loudly and retreated.

Now both were pacing around her in semicircle. She shook her head. She couldn't hope to hold them off forever this way, she would have to take the offensive. Gathering her resolve, she ran at the closest beast, swinging her crowbar at it. It struck a mandible and the beast shrugged back from her. Then the other beast charged at her and she swung at it, managing to block the arm it threw at her. Then she ran back into the water and they both charged her. She ran and they chased her into the water. Suddenly they were even slower and clumsier. She hit at them again and again.

Finally they collapsed in the water. She walked, somehow, back to her shattered home and found her cellphone. She called 911. She didn't dare look at her feet or her hand where she had held the crowbar. The ambulance came and they helped her into it. She was in a daze.

They managed to save all her hands and her feet, miraculously. They let her out some time later. So she tried to find out what had happened to the beasts. She called the police, the newspaper, the coast guard. No one else had seen a thing. She asked her neighbors, but no one had seen a thing. The police looked at the doors and ruled it a home invasion, though she didn't know how. She used the insurance to but better doors. Her extra spending money went to upgrading the windows with bars. In this quiet little town, that was strange.

She took up smoking in the bathroom, with the fan on. Never again did she go outside at night. And everyone thought she was crazy.

Writing exercise #0005

I was eight years old when I first saw the clowns. They were walking down my street to the beach. I was outside playing after dinner, something that fewer and fewer children do these day. I had never been to the circus, but I new what clowns were. I watched them in wonder. I didn't see them again that day, I had to go in to bed not long after they walked past.

The next day I went to the beach and there was the remains of a fire and several beer bottles. I found what looked like the end of a cigarette in the ground, but it wasn't like the ones my mother smoked, it was strangely pinched and filterless. But I could recognize the burnt end and general purpose of it. Some of my mother's visitors smoked similar cigarettes, that they rolled by hand. I wondered if one of them had been here after the clowns. I went home and wondered about it, but eventually just forgot.

The next time I saw the clowns was a year later. I could stay out later, but I still didn't see them walking back from the beach. This time I saw that they had carried beer with them. Clowns drinking beer? It seemed so strange. I puzzled over it, but didn't see them again until a year later. Again the same thing.

And the year after, and the year after, and so on, until I was 16. I finally followed them to the beach. I watched as they drank and sang songs. One passed around what I now recognized to be a joint. My friends and I sometimes smoked them after theater practice. Then one of the clowns saw me and I ran.

At this point in my life, I spent as little time at home as possible. My mother had continued to get visitors, but they had become increasingly coarse and crass. Sometimes they would make passes at me. So I spent as much time with my friends as I could. My mother, so help her, approved. She just wanted me to stay out of trouble, which I always said I was. If there was a test, my friends and I were studying. Or so I told her.

She never checked my progress reports, which was good or else she would have seen I was getting a D in Math and a C- in Science. I was doing fine in English and my other classes, but those were so easy they were basically blow-off classes. My real passion lay in the theater and in the gymnasium.

I had done everything I could do to learn about clowns. Something about them fascinated me now. Maybe it was the mystery of their beach parties, but 16 year old me still was entranced by them, even though that mystery had been solved. Every weekend I practiced the face-paint in the mirror, then the facial expressions meant to amuse an audience. Each weekend I grew in pride.

The next year I followed the clowns again. This time I made myself known. "What are you doing following us down here, girl? Don't you know we're nothing but a bunch of old clowns?" The one who said this elbowed one of his companions, as if this was funny, and they all burst out laughing. I didn't get it. "How did you get to be clowns?" I asked. So they each told me their stories. One was a high school dropout, the one who had gotten elbowed. The rest had went to school to become clowns, but he was self-taught.

They told me tales of traveling and clowning. Of being chased by frightened people who thought they were there to cause trouble. Finally I asked them the question, "Will you take me with you." The answer was a resounding "No." Then they said to finish High School and they'd see about getting me a job in the circus.

A year passed and they didn't return. I got a job at one of the local supermarkets and waited. Another year passed and they didn't return. Now this was before things like Google, so I couldn't just look them up. I made calls for months until I finally found out the circus had went out of business. My heart was broken, my dreams shattered. How would I become a clown now? I didn't have the kind of money needed for clown school. No circus would be stopping in town to take me with them. I'd never see my friends, the clowns again.

Now I'm 42 and I manage the supermarket I worked at. Every weekend I practice with the face-paint. My mother relies on me to take care of her and so I do. At work I see the bright young faces and wonder where they will go. Some talk of college, others have no such plans and will probably be here working under me for most their lives. I have contented myself to participate in the local theater, I still smoke joints with my friends after practices, but oh how I long to see the clowns walking down my street again.

Writing exercise #0004

Danae found a foothold, then looked up for a handhold and repeated the process. Soon she was shimmying up a crack in the rock. Then came the hard part, maneuvering under and the up to the top of the outcropping on the cliff. But with practiced grace she steadily moved along the face of the rock. Until finally she was hauling herself up over the lip of the cliff and onto relatively flat ground.

She looked around and saw the house, set upon or maybe even made of a further pile of rock. She took a drink from her water bottle, then started towards it. Her eyes were open for security measures. She avoided several, motion detectors. Then she spied the cameras. She carefully circled the house until she found an area with minimal cover. Then she took the bow that was over her shoulder and shot out that camera. She ran at the house and climbed the rock under it with a quick ease, kicked in a window, and ran at the man sitting in the chair.

Before she could nock another arrow he was up in a flash, aiming an expensive submachine gun at her. She raised her hand and started backing away. "Stop, or I will shoot you, girl," he threatened. That made her mad, she was a woman, not a little girl. But she stopped as he gestured with the gun and said, "Take the bow and place it in front of us. Then do the same with the arrows."

She complied, but when she set the arrows down she whipped one out the quiver and into the barrel of the gun, without hesitation. "I wouldn't pull that trigger if I was you," she said as his finger tightened around it. Then she calmly picked up another arrow and the bow, nocking the arrow as she did so in one swift motion. Now the arrow was pointed at him and she was shaking her head, saying "I suppose you saw me coming somehow. That really doesn't matter."

He looked her up and down, "I don't know who sent you, but I'll double what they're paying you." She laughed, "Do you know how cliche that is? Come on." She shook her head, "Really, you should have figured this out by now. I'm the warrior that's trained since childhood to get my revenge on you for killing my people, yadda yadda." She laughed again. "B-b-but I didn't do-" he stammered before she cut him off, "Don't bullshit me. I may not be some revenge killer, but we both know the shit you did warrants this. That's not why I'm here, though." He was shaking somewhat as she leveled the arrow at him, and he blurted out, "Why are you here, then?" She laughed again, "None of your damned business. Now march"

She led him out of the house and down the steps in the front, to the helicopter pad. A shiny black helicopter waited there for them. "This is your great plan? Hijack me on my own helicopter? If you shoot me in it, we'll just crash," he practically shouted. She replied, "Actually-" and shot him in the back of the knee. As he crumpled she continued, "-I just didn't feel like dragging you all the way to the helicopter." And then she kicked him in the back of the head, hard.