Flint

Flint

I, Flynn Mawr pronounced maw-er but called Flint because they find it real lenun and laugh away at it, I found the little puella the same day I burned down the poor-people project. I couldn’t soph if she had lived there or not. Either way, I was real shocked to vid her nudging the rubble with her right foot while that stinking pile was still smoldering away. The air was so thick and smelled so deus-awful that I thought the gasoline smoke was just clogging up my mind and making me see fax that wasn’t there; but there she stood, small puella-hands all gray with soot and her eyes all solemn-like and dark as two pebbles. I swore, snatched her filthy hand, and dragged her to Martin Hazard’s house because I was supposed to be there ages ago, hoping all the while he wouldn’t be too bothered to vid me no longer in-soul like I was supposed to be.

His parents weren’t home; they must have been investigating the fire in the poor-people project down the road and I had a good grin at that. So I grabbed a small stone from that bare clean backyard of the Hazards and hurled it at Martin’s plexiglass window that held nothing but an empty yawning void of smoky sky, real gloomy-like, but the morolog didn’t open it so I chucked another stone and this time a little scratch was left on the window and in the reflection it looked like a black star, or a large bit of ash, some of which were floating in the air like tiny in-soul bumblebees or such, I remember. This time the window rolled up, only a few inches, and I heard a loud gasp of air, a few coughs, the window then slamming once again. A few moments later the reflective sliding door opened as well, replacing the mirrored image of a filthy, smoke-stained puer, that being me Flynn, with a clean and prim one, that being Martian.

“Flint!” He began to dash from the threshold of his clean door but he halted when he vidded the little dirty puella next to me. He stood stock-still.

“Martian!” I yelled back at him but he was still just standing there all morolog.

“Who is she?” he asked me frankly and looking real uncomfortable. Martian is a lot smaller than me even though I’m no Aeneas, being still all parv myself even though I could probably still knock up Martian real good, since he’s all wiry and his caput looks deus-large for his body, his hair always combed and shiny, and he continued to glare so I shrugged.

“Don’t soph, I found her outside.”

“Fax, Flint!” Martin swore.

“Don’t you say fax in front of her, she’s still all parv and such!”

“Deus, sorry!” Martin stepped closer to observe the little puella who just returned his stare all tack but smart-like even though ash was smeared across her small dark face. She didn’t look exactly sad, but her eyes made us both real aeger and sick-feeling. I couldn’t soph why.

“We should bring her to the cast,” Martin suggested seriously.

“Are your paters home?” I didn’t think they were but now the puella was making me feel all weird and panic-like with her serious sophy eyes.

“No, they went to your place after hearing the news. But still, I don’t soph when they’re returning asa. We should get to the cast, just to be safe.”

So we both began to scramble up the ladder into the cast, this large metal fort me and Martian’s paters had put up back when we were even more parv but now we were getting a little big for it. I began following Martian up the ladder and when he pulled himself up into the cast he turned with his eyes narrowed.

“The puella, faxface!” he hissed, and I near fell backwards and broke my deusing caput. The puella was watching us both still all patient and sophy so I gripped her tiny wrist.

“Climb on up.” I gestured towards the rungs to get her to climb, all the while Martian watching from the trapdoor like deodamn deus in coelus above. The puella stared at me thoughtfully but didn’t move, so I said again, “Climb!” making sure to enunciate all careful because maybe she really wasn’t all that sophy as she looked. She smiled at me and began giggling and I got inrit at that. “Climb! Ladder, climb! Up!” I motioned wildly, mimicking ladder-climbing actions, but her caput must’ve been thicker than I thought because she just continued to giggle away like it was real lenun and I got even more inrit at that.

“Is she morolog or something?” Martian called down and I shook my caput. Deus, was I annoyed.

“She looks sophy, she just doesn’t get it. Grab her arms or something.” So I gripped the flimsy puella ‘round her waist and hoisted her upwards. She screamed with laughter.

“Tack it!” I grunted at her while I heaved, and Martin reached down his scrawny arms and gripped her wrists. He dragged her up, and I followed rapidly, still having a weird aeger feeling in my guts. I closed the trapdoor behind me and the puella vidded around amazedly, illuminated by the single dome of plexiglass in the ceiling. Martin watched her, looking trepped like he usually does. He’s a real nervous parv. I could see him gathering courage to yell at me like he also usually does, which involves a sort of squinting and heavy breathing that I find real lenun.

“Fax, Flint! Why did you bring her here?” He burst, even though if anyone should be inrit it would be me, after all, because I was just being a deodamn good puer, a real Aeneas, saving her life and all. I felt an explosive-like feeling inside me that I get sometimes with him.

“I didn’t know where else to take her, you deodamn blennum!”

“Not here! You should’ve left her!”

“What if her family was in the project?” I countered without really thinking. Martin grasped for words and we stared at each other morolog for a second and began to soph real hard because what if her family was in the project? Martin intruded on the aegering silence because we didn’t wanna think too hard about it just yet. We were only twelve, soph you well.

“Well, you should’ve sophed that before you burnt the place to carbones!”

“It was your plan too, bovis!”

“Faxface!”

“Morolog!”

“Sunnuva canis!” At that, I launched mayself across the cast like a snarly animal and tackled this wiry fax-eating morolog, pinning him to the floor. Martian yelped in surprise, spluttering pathetically.

“This is why my parents don’t like me being around you!”

“This is why your parents are boves! And you are, too!” I had the weak puella-of-a-puer in a chokehold when we both heard this small choking sound and fell away from each other immediately. The puella was crying tackly, rubbing her eyes with the palms of her hands. When she lowered her hands the ash made her eyes look gray-masked and a little scary.

“Now look what you did!” Martian snapped all grown-up, but his voice shook. I swore to deus and crawled over to the screeing puella, placing an uncertain arm around her. Her tears dripped like ink.

“How old do you soph she is anyway?” Martian asked, staring distastefully at her. That made me kind of inrit. Martin wasn’t real pretty to look at either, soph you.

“She looks like that parv puella my mater would babysit. Who was five.”

“Why doesn’t she talk?”

“How should I soph that?” We both fell silent, staring at her. She had stopped crying, but she shied away from the stares of our little sosh, burying her dirty little face in my shirt. She felt wiry and bony and not very comfortable.

“Check her neck,” Martian ordered suddenly, all serious-like again.

“What?”

“The back of her neck, morolog.” I made an inrit volt at Martian and lowered the neckline of her dress. Sure enough, a thick black tattoo ran across the nape of her neck, a small smudged series of numerals.

“Fax, she’s an immigrant, Martian!” I exclaimed. At that my friend inhaled sharply and crawled over. He was suddenly all excited about her. He peered at the tattoo before grinning. I snorted at his new-found interest in the virgo and said ironically, “So, she’s a martian too?”

“Soph it good!”

“Maybe I should call her Martian, then.” Martin laughed but kind of annoyed.

“Check to see if she’s burnt to carbones, maybe we can also call her Flint,” he responded, almost sneering. He always had a sort of evil sense of humor so I punched him because I never really found it lenun when he says fax like that. I really didn’t.

“You can tack it good,” I hissed. Martian had stopped laughing.

“Well, she probably speaks a different language. I know my family did when they moved here.”

“But they knew real good English. Plus, they spoke Latin,” I pointed out.

“True, that’s probably why they got rich and she has to live in the poor place.”

“Had,” I corrected proudly. The puella turned her head towards us and blinked her wide, lenun-looking eyes, all solemn and Aegean-like. I turned away from her because her sad face made me feel strange and sad too.

“Can’t you sneak us into the house? We’re filthy as gehenna. I wanna shower.” I was wrinkling my nose at the stench of smoke and kerosene that soaked into my skin all spongelike. I still hate that smell. Martian looked away awkwardly and I knew he was getting nervous again, like he does.

“I don’t soph… what if my paters return asa?” Neither of us knew the consequence of Martin’s parents sophing what I did, but we had tackly agreed it would really turb our plans. The puella sniffed once, dangerously teetering on the edge of her deodamned screeing tears once again, which had since dried into grubby streaks.

“Can’t you at least bring us something to clean up with? Or some clothes? She’s all trepped up.”

“So what if she’s trepping?” Martin jeered, trepped himself but trying not to show it. “And why is she our problem?”

“Because you agreed to the plan, morolog.”

“I agreed to have you stay in the cast until we skiddy for the Amazon. I didn’t agree to keep a puella here, too!” My ears locked on the word, “Amazon.” Amazon, Amazon, Amazon. The word was enchanted and floated prettily all around my caput. I started thinking of the bright birds and how the weather there was like the sauna in the Hazards’ gym they invited me to because, if I didn’t say this earlier, we were fax-poor, my mater and I. But the Amazon, you don’t need anything but the skin on your back, and nobody has more than anyone else. Martian must’ve noticed the glitter in my eyes.

“C’mon, you don’t want the virgo in the Amazon with us, d’you?” His voice was suddenly much nicer, calling her a virgo and all that fax. I sighed because he was right, I liked our sosh of two. Me and Martian, we had been a tight sosh since we were parv, even if our parents were all uncomfortable. I liked it well.

“Alright, fine, I’ll find a place to drop her off. Some nice rich family like yours might want her in their nice big asa.” I scoffed a little at the words “nice” and “rich” just to get Martian a bit inrit and because I was still feeling real mirificus after burning the poor-people project to carbones.

“Okay, I’ll get a bowl of water and some clothes. But you better drop her off as soon as we skiddy. I don’t want her turbing things up for us.”

“She won’t. She’s barely cried. She’s a real virgo,” I assured my friend all defensively though I don’t soph why. Martian nodded his big caput and wrinkled his nose. When we suddenly heard a mirificus scree from below.

“MARTIN!” It was his mater, and her voice was wet and shrill. I saw the color leave Martian’s already white face when he heard her. She was sobbing. I grinned at Martian, satisfied that the plan had worked, that she probably sophed I had died or some bofax, but my friend was thin-lipped and wide-eyed.

“I’ll be back,” he promised, and I nodded, still smiling.

“When you come back, we’re gonna skiddy for the Amazon.” His eyes lumened for a second.

“Soph it good,” he replied quietly, before scrambling to the trapdoor.

He had a spot of ash on his cream-colored shirt when he descended. The cast then became tack, and I vidded the puella. She was vidding me with her big caligo eyes. Her volt made me feel aeger again and I don’t like feeling that way, almost like I’m gonna cry or vomit or some fax. So I glared at her round sophy face directly.

“Stop staring at me,” I barked. She didn’t flinch. So I morphed my face into the scariest volt imaginable, stretching my maw with my fingers and baring my teeth and waggling my nasty ashy tongue and bulging my eyes like a deodamn dragon from gehenna. She giggled. I was really surprised at that, because I knew how scary the volt was. So I just stood up and began boving around the cast and gazing out of the plexiglass at the gray caligo sky. I still vidded those big pieces of bumblebee-ash twirling away in the air and I watched them, thinking about the mirificus colors in the Amazon. A book from scola had this picture, it was a monkey, a little monkey with a puckered ugly volt that was knit very seriously looking at the photographer, but the black furry splotch of monkey was the least interesting part because he was in the shade of massive trees that bathed the whole scene in green-tinged coelus lumen. I lost my deodamn breath at that picture. And it said below in little letters, “Chimp / homo propinquus / indu patria / Amazon.” I couldn’t give a fax about relatives or anything, or even the chimp. Actually, the monkey was kind of gross and dirty compared to the plants, like for example there were these fat pink flowers that hung lazily on the tree trunks like happy stuffed pigs practically drooling nectar and fax like that, and there were dozens of them in the picture, just clinging to the trees. And the leaves on the ferns were so mirificus-big and vibrant they seemed candy-like glinting in the hot hot Amazon sun. The place had something unreal about it, and so I tore the picture out of my book and hung it on my wall and pretended to be in the steamy warmth of the Amazon to help me sleep at night.

Later Martian sent up a bucket of water and some clothes for me, but he didn’t come back up himself, said he had to do something with his paters, so I cleaned myself up. I was real uncomfortable taking off my shirt in front of the puella. My burns always make me kind of aeger, even trepped, in front of other people, though you can see them stretching onto the edges of my face, but my shoulders and back are real bad, all spiderwebbed with distorted skin, taut-looking and shiny and still pink. I’m an ugly puer, soph you, because even though my face isn’t full-covered with the scars my left ear looks like a doughy lump and I’m a little bald on one side, and my left cheek is still tight and wrinkled like I’m always sucking on it from the inside of my mouth. Like I said, real ugly. So I was deodamn fast when I cleaned myself with the water and put on Martian’s pants that ended far above my ankles and his sweater that had sleeves barely reaching my wrists, but at least I didn’t smell anymore. I was inrit at the morolog for not getting clothes for the puella, though. I pushed the bowl of ashy water to her and she just stuck her hands in it and splashed around so I pulled it back to myself irritably and vidded her for a minute, with her filthy little face and big virgo eyes, and I sighed before dumping the towel in the bucket and smearing the ash from her face and arms and shoulders. I vidded her all clean but still in that dirty dress and thought about dressing her in the clothes Martian gave me but he gave them to me and not her. And then I just sort of sat there, thinking about what Martian was up to and why he’s not here even though he told me all about how we would skiddy the very night of the fire, he was so deodamn excited and all that fax. I wasn’t nervous, though, because Martian is always nervous about all kinds of fax and I didn’t care. I knew he was coming tonight, to bring us food and skiddy for the Amazon. He promised me that, soph you.

I tried, tried real hard actually that night, but I couldn’t really soph much of what had happened. I remembered that I soaked the outside of the building, all carefully, and those cheap boards dripped and shone like honey rolling off a comb. Vid you, they made the projects with this thick sort of corky-wood, it was real easy and cheap to make, but it was flammable as gehenna which is why we are only allowed minimal and strictly-regulated electricity. But someone once made a mistake, had a deodamn candle or some fax, didn’t follow the safety rules, and that’s why I got burnt so bad, they were the floor above us and the ceiling fell direct on my deodamn shoulders, so my mater would tell me. But anyway it was early morning and with no color in the sky. I didn’t have to cover my face or nose or eyes, only my ears, I remember that, but couldn’t soph why I had to. I covered them tight tight tightly, and then what? Then what did I do? What did I deusing do after covering my ears? I was blinking away this confusion like caligo smoke clouding up the inside of my caput, suddenly trepped out of nowhere, so I rolled to face the peacefully sleeping puella. Why did I take her? I remembered her, like a doll in the rubble, a small doll with dirty hands and red little lips and gauzy eyes, and she wasn’t crying or screeing, she was just standing there, appearing foggily from the smoke while I kept my deodamn hands pressed again my ears like some parv at a deusing fireworks show. But why? I began to feel aeger again and I hated Martian for leaving me alone up here. But for some reason I sophed he was probably lying awake too.

I ate cold scrambled eggs with my hands for breakfast that Martian sent up in the bucket, obviously left over from his and his parents’ nice cozy breakfast they all had together this morning. I even gave a few mouthfuls to the puella, who ate like a canis. Martian had also sent a crumpled and sweaty note rapidly explaining that he will be gone all morning with his paters. “Answering questions,” he wrote in his messy scrawl. I couldn’t soph what this meant but I felt something large and heavy expand inside my chest and stomach and guts when I vidded it. So I just sat, slumped against the wall, and tiredly watched the girl choke down fistfuls of the damp eggs. Her pebble-eyes blinked up at me and I looked away, feeling aeger all over again. I don’t like that feeling at all.

When Martin finally returned, he looked real uncomfortable and aeger-like. I didn’t care though, I was so mirificus glad to vid him again that I felt I could deusing hug the puer. Our sosh was back.

“Well? How was it? What fax did you do?” I scooted aside to let him sit next to me, but Martian’s eyes were vidding something else far away, straight through the walls of the cast. I felt something strange stir all up in my guts seeing his blank queasy volt. “Martian?” I stood, too, and his gaze snapped to mine. His teeth chattered like they used to when he was parv and would get too trepped up.

“It-it w-was…it was aegering, Flynn,” he said real tack-like. I laughed a nervous laugh to loosen him up. I heard that clackclackclackclack of his teeth near colliding out of his caput.

“What do you mean?” I asked, and Martin vidded me for a few long seconds, and I stopped laughing because of his volt. The puella observed everything with her sophy black eyes. Martin began to stutter and stammer through his teeth. Deus, was he bad again. Just like when he was a parv.

“Th-th-they all soph…they think y-you’re dead…my p-p-paters, your ma-mater…” I narrowed my eyes, not sophing entirely.

“Well, that’s a deusing good thing. That was the plan. Sic?” Martin vidded his feet, which were always adjusting and shifting. He sniffed. I grinned at him. “Deodamn Martian, are you crying?” I began to chuckle a bit but I stopped when he vidded me again direct in the face.

“I’m telling my paters,” he croaked, sounding parv but sure. I stood tack and still. I couldn’t soph what I heard. Martian was crying good now. Panic began to light up inside my caput. Real bright, fast, beating panic. Like deodamn fireworks.

“You deodamn parv,” I hissed. “You fax-eating sunnuva canis.” A mirificus fury began to boil in my guts. His breathing was all halting and choked as he sobbed now.

“I’m s-sorry, I…I h-h-have to, I’m sorry, I’msorrysorrys-s-sorry…” I stepped back, away from him.

“What about the Amazon?” I murmured. “What about running away? Was that all bofax to you?” He shook his caput quickly, not really able to form words with his scrunched crying face. The puella had stood, too, sophing something was turbed. I was real trepped now. Scared, even. “When are you gonna tell them?” And he looked up at me.

“R-right n-n-n-now,” he gasped, and before I could soph anything I swung my fist, not like I had ever done before, not playing this time. I felt the collision, and soph you it hurt like gehenna. I had never hit anyone like that before, and wasn’t planning on it, but it happened and there he was, his mouth open in shock and his nose beginning to push out blood. My deusing hand was pulsing with pain. Martin had stopped crying now and was vidding me with surprise. And hurt.

“Deusing traiter,” I said to him, my voice getting trepped and shaky. I couldn’t really soph how to stop my deodamn talking. “You’re a fax friend, soph you. I hope you have a deodamn mirificus time here forever in your nice, big asa with your—” and he screed like gehenna and flung himself at me, knocking me into the metal wall of the cast and spattering his blood on my face and shirt as he became an evil canis. The puella started to scree as he pummeled my guts with his bony little fists. I kicked wildly and landed my foot once on his hip and he staggered away, giving me the chance to leap atop him and knock him to the ground, real hard, and his breath whooshed on out. He choked on screes trapped in his throat and lungs and he looked more parv than ever, curled on the floor and gasping out wheezy breaths, and I vidded him for a few seconds more before gripping the hand of the puella and urging her down the cast. She was crying but this time she climbed down the ladder herself, me right behind her. When my feet hit the ground in Martian’s tight shoes I gripped her wrist again and began to drag her, and she stumbled behind me, crying all the while, but I ran like gehenna, I really ran.

I sophed I should follow the plan Martian and I had laid out before his dedication had collapsed like a weak parv’s. I was still filled with fury by the time we had stopped running, and vidded where we were. I sophed we had a way to go before we reached the train and I was deus-relieved that I could soph where we were, since Martian and I had planned everything so well. I vidded the puella and her face was sweaty and red from running and she was breathing hard, real hard, so I motioned for her to climb onto my back and she did, clinging to my neck like I was Aeneas. I grunted as I hoisted her up and began to walk, my feet already hurting deus-awfully from the shoes, but I lurched towards the train station. My caput was going all the while, and the mirificus anger was second only to the pathetic hurt that aegered my stomach.

I thought about when me and Martian were parv. I met him because my pater and his were real close, and we would play in his backyard, which was when our paters made us the cast. I remember when he would read me his schoolbooks because I was in the different class, the one for poor people, and I only learned fax like counting and basic reading and he got to learn real Latin, and history, and rhetoric, and he hated it because school trepped him up like nothing else but when he read to me he would calm down because I loved listening, especially in the cast, laying and vidding the sky through the glass roof. I soph the reading out loud helped him with his deodamn stutter too, which was real bad before. And when I got burnt to carbones he didn’t even blink an eye, I swear to deus, he just looked at me lying on my stomach in bed with my bare sausage-red back and in the thick reeking air he wasn’t even nervous. And he wasn’t nervous either when my pater died and my mater didn’t want me spending time with him anymore, because our families weren’t supposed to get along, but he would still come over and bring me over and he was never nervous then, either. He only ever got nervous about the right things.

Except now.

Which is why I couldn’t soph what happened with him. Even though he called me Flint he didn’t allow anyone else to call me that. And when I stole the pans from his school cafeteria he said he did it even though nothing treps him up like school because if they knew it was me my life would be real turbed, my mater’s too, because I’m not even allowed in that building. And the one evening last week after he talked to the lady because he was hurting himself again, and he paced in the cast, crying but I didn’t make fun of him, and he told me that nothing was okay, and that when he gets trepped like this he can’t calm down again and nobody could really soph it, really soph it good, but me, and I showed him the picture of the Amazon and his face lit up in the widest deodamn smile I’ve ever vidded, because I wanted him to come with me.

But I tried to think also about his cruel humor, and his pater hugging him in the evenings and waving goodnight to me when I left, giving me that sad look his paters give me, and I made myself think about the sneer he sometimes had when he called me Flint, and teasing me about my pathetic poor-person things and laughing when I couldn’t soph something in the books he read me, and trying not to look aeger and disgusted when I took off my shirt to swim with him and he had to see my back, and deciding he preferred his current comfortable deodamn life than one with me. And suddenly I couldn’t give a fax about him, and I really began to hate him.

When we got to the station the afternoon was thick and hot. The puella was no longer on my back but was walking, or more like staggering really, after me. I could see the tiredness stretch itself across her face, so I leaned towards her, trying to act all big-brotherly because I sophed I had to take care of her now.

“You can sleep on the train,” I told her, but she looked up at me blennum as ever when I grabbed her small hand, as though she had not heard me at all. I was feeling deus-tired too, not being able to sleep in the cast at all. I was holding her little hand like a good puer when we entered the station, but as soon as we stepped past the whooshing glass doors I felt a tight aegerness in the air. I vidded around the nearly-empty station almost frantically, wondering why the building felt like it was holding in its deodamn breath, when my eyes fell onto one of the glass screens spanning a distant wall. I sucked in a trepped gasp.

Fires.

I watched tackly, without breathing, at stores, buildings, homes, all ablaze and swooshing with thick red heat. I took a staggering step backwards, almost feeling the hot air pockets pulsate against my body. The news footage was narrated in Latin, so I couldn’t soph everything they were saying, but I sophed just enough.

Incendium. Rebellium.

My breathing returned suddenly and rapidly as I clenched the puella’s hand tighter, tighter. Rebellium. Why were other people starting fires? How did they find out about the insignificant one in the poor-people project? My entire body clenched like stone when another familiar phrase echoed from the screen: Flynn Mawr.

Somebody was coming. Somebody was coming to take me. Somebody found me. Paranoia rose all up in my guts and I felt like I could vomit when a lone passenger entered the station from a door nearer to the screen. He vidded me and the puella mildly. He vidded at the screen. Vidded us again, with more interest. Vidded the screen again. Before he could turn back to us I spun on my heels, walking out quickly, deus-trepped beyond belief. I heard him shout something in Latin, then English, Wait! but I was beginning to run, hoisting the puella into my arms and dashing from the station, the man stopping at the station door, calling out to us then to anyone who would listen, It’s him! It’s him!

While I ran the puella began to make lenun noises, almost like crying but not quite, just sort of choking and coughing listlessly. My determination kept me from crying, along with the deodamn pain in my legs and feet as they slapped against pavement. The station was on the outskirts of town but now I was at its center, the poor part of the town where the projects rose like grubby teeth on the flat horizon. The air smelled like smoke. I thought it had been from my skin and hair but it was everywhere, and my wheezing breaths began to get filled with it and I huskily coughed along with the puella. The town was empty, strange, where in deus was everyone? but it was a deodamn good thing because I hacked loudly and my legs buckled and I tumbled hard to the street, the puella with me. I raised myself shakily with my exhausted burning arms and vidded the puella vidding her bleeding elbow and knee with childlike blennum shock. I opened my mouth but before I could say anything she screed once, loudly and horrifiedly as she gaped at her red oozing blood. I crawled towards her, my own knees scraped raw and my hands embedded with dots of asphalt.

“Puella, tack it… please, please tack it…” I gripped her and shook her small shoulders once but she was still screeing in her pathetic innocent surprise, tears starting to shine on her huge round eyes. Deodamn, she looked as though I had tried to kill her. “Tack it, tack it, tack it!” I begged, more loudly, and when she didn’t I scooped her up, ignoring her howls and kicks and frantically flailing arms. I hauled her to the closest building I could find, an ancient abandoned warehouse with tarp-covered windows, and without looking I peeled back a dusty sheet and shoved her in the window. She fell to the floor, crying out again, this time a gurgling sobby scree. I scurried through the window after her and vidded the vast empty space scattered with rusty tools and shelves and fax. I vidded the shadowy form of the puella in a heap on the floor.

She was screeing and crying, really crying this time, and her dark face was all puffed up red and shiny and her little mouth was opened wide with shrieks as she sat in the dust, wiping her hands across her face and smearing tears and snot and dirt all over her ruddy skin, and she screed and screed like I never heard a puella do before and it made me real scared, so I covered my ears very tightly with my hands but this made me think why did I cover my ears? and when I heard her muffled screams I knew why and I got scared beyond belief and a shudder like from gehenna went all through my body so I began to yell to get her to deusing tack it, even though she couldn’t soph what I was saying, and I got desperate. “You better deusing tack it because you can’t go asa!” I wailed at her, flinging my hands wildly. “You can’t because I burnt it to carbones! You can’t because, because it’s not there!” I was beginning to cry a little now too but couldn’t soph why, my eyes were just getting a little blurry and my voice was a whine because my deodamn throat was so tight. “There’s nobody left! You don’t have a family!” Now my voice was rising shrilly as I screamed, “Because I killed them! I killed your poor blennum fax-eating dirty immigrant family!” I was really crying now, too, and spitting each word at her while she continued to scree. “I killed them!” I sobbed, and I was bawling because I was so deus-confused, because I didn’t mean to kill anyone, I didn’t, because killing people wasn’t in the plan, but did I do it? Why couldn’t I deusing remember? And I crumpled onto the filthy floor and dragged myself over to the wailing puella and I scooped her up and pressed her so close to me and let her sob into my shoulder while I sobbed into her stinking filthy hair, and I sat there and held her and rocked us both, and we cried, we really cried, soph you good.

By the time evening came in orange strips below the window-tarps the puella was already in those deep recesses of sleep, being all worn out from her screes and tears, and I was too. I laid real close to her, sort of forming a crescent around her little sleeping body and sometimes even petting her hair and fax like that. I couldn’t sleep so I squeezed my eyes shut real tight and listened to the virgo breathe small dreamy child-breaths that were so parv and so sweet, and felt like maybe I should cry but I couldn’t because I had no deusing tears left in my caput. I decided that I was too tired to really do anything. Too tired to cry or scree or run anymore, even too tired to make myself deusing fall asleep. So, spreading myself protectively over the puella, I gave up. I deusing gave up. The reek of smoke hung like a demon or specter among the vaulted ceiling, just hovering there, waiting for me to give myself up to it, and I did. I laid there, telling the smoke-demon to take me, to leave the puella and take me, me who started it in the first place, who summoned it from the depths of gehenna. So as I laid there, I surrendered to the smoke, and let it just wrap me up in its arms and embrace me in darkness just like I held tightly to the puella, and I become smoke.

I woke up with a deus-awful ache ringing all throughout my body and a really heavy smoggy feeling in my caput. I sophed not much time had passed because the sky behind the tarps was a real deep blue. Warbling voices were muffled by the walls, which were built from a really aged brick that nobody uses to build anything anymore. I couldn’t soph what they were saying but I shook the puella awake and her eyes blinked away spiderwebs of crying-crust as she sat upright. A round beam of light danced around the warehouse as a tarp from a far-left window was pulled aside. Seeing the beam the puella clung to my torso, burying her face in Martian’s sweaty shirt. I clutched her caput with a hand, which trembled awfully. My whole body seemed to shake, and I felt suddenly like Martian’s stutter probably feels in his throat.

“Flynn Mawr. Reveal yourself.” The voice was staticky from the megaphone it blared through. Soph you, I tried to stand, but my body refused, seeming to sink further and further into the dust as my mind hopelessly willed it upright. The puella started crying again, and the beam flicked our way like an annoyed firefly.

“Flynn Mawr. Reveal yourself now.” I opened my mouth to cry out to them and found my throat blocked by something thick and scratchy. Instead of speaking I let out a painful retching hack. The beam grew larger and the sound of shoes louder as the sosh of men enclosed us two. I heard some murmurs from behind the beam but could vid no faces.

“Flynn Mawr. Please raise your hands in the air.” This time I complied, slowly and tremulously, lifting my hand from the puella’s caput. I tried speaking again, and it came out real hoarse.

“I killed them.” The figures were tack and serious and still, until one shadow moved from behind the flashlight beam. His black uniform was illuminated as he crouched in front of our huddled bodies. Carefully, slowly, he wrapped a big arm beneath my armpits and hoisted me into a standing position. My knees caved inward and my hand gripped the puella’s with ferocity. She screed when I was lifted.

They ended up carrying both of us out of the building, close enough that I could still hold stiffly onto her hand. We were even allowed to sit next to each other in the car, and her fingers gripped my shirt like little vices. The officers’ faces were all blurred like soup. I still felt like I was in smog, really, and have real trouble sophing what had happened. That is, until we got to a big gray building with ugly white lights and they pulled the puella away from me.

That’s when I began to panic.

“Wait, waitwaitwait!” I screed at the officers as they separated our intertwined fingers. The puella looked into my face with unmasked and raw panic as the officers pinned my hands behind me, securing them real tight with zip-ties as the puella was taken down the hall. “She needs me, can’t you soph, she needs me! Blennum morolog faxeating bove-fucking filthy sunnuva canis!” I shrieked out all this awful language, really vile words, and convulsed away from the officers but they held on and brought me into a small room, sitting me into a chair. They zip-tied my deodamn feet to the chair legs.

“Where are you taking her?” I howled at the officers, still kicking in my chair, and the one with the mustache leaned in real close to my face until I could smell his stinking breath and look up his nostrils, I swear to deus, and he was all red because he was so inrit, out of his caput really, red with real hate. And then, and this part stays with me all the time, he recoiled his ugly lips and spat direct in my face.

“That is none of your business, filthy pervert.” I recoiled like I’d been slapped by him, but after the initial shock his words made their way into my body very cold and aegering, and with my eyes closed and my body tightened like a spring against the back of the chair I felt my face scrunch up and before I could stop myself I began to deusing cry. I didn’t think I would, but it just happened, and they weren’t loud sloppy tears but they were more like tack sniffly ones, with fast-hitched breaths and my face screwed up like I didn’t want the tears to escape. But they did, I felt my face get damp with tears and snot and spit and all that fax, but I couldn’t wipe any of it away because my wrists were tied up so I just sat there like a parv, drooling and crying and snotting all over myself.

The other officer got real inrit at the one who spit so he ended up leaving, very reluctantly, so I was left with the other one, who had a broad face and big nose and a really wrinkled brow that rippled when he changed volts. I had finally stopped crying and was just vidding him and sniffling, all embarrassed suddenly for crying, and feeling really naked sitting there tied up. The officer took a handkerchief out of his breast pocket and began to wipe the filth from my face. He was all Aeneas-like right then, so I told him in this shuddery weak voice, “I’m no pervert.”

“I know,” the officer with the big nose responded. His voice was low and kind. He cleaned my burning face silently.

“Why would he say that?” I whined, and the officer seemed to be choosing his words carefully. He coughed.

“There’ve been rumors. About you. And the girl you kidnapped.” I thought of the puella and that made my eyes begin to get messy all over again. My face and chest and stomach all burned horribly with the thought. The officer saw and wiped them gently. I just kept looking at him, feeling very desperate and in-soul.

“You gotta believe me. I’m not…she’s still a parv, can’t everyone soph that?” He gave me a lenun look. People from the higher classes don’t speak the same way. It’s Latin or English, nothing between. That made me feel even more in-soul. “Can you at least tell me where she is?”

“All I can say is that she’s with her family now.” I stopped crying.

“What?” I blubbered, all blennum. “What?” My heart was speeding, like I was getting trepped up.

“I said she’s been brought back home, to her family.” Home. Family. My mouth was agape.

“But I…I burnt her asa. Burnt it to carbones.” The officer suddenly understood my confusion, so he looked me straight in my face, very serious-like.

“She didn’t live in the apartment. She’s from a family, upper class folks, and was known to wander off, usually at night. They paid for all that damned advertising. Scared out of their minds, with good reason. It’s one thing for a little girl to run away, and another for her to be deaf.” And for the first time, I felt a warm tingly deus-awful feeling ringing like a chime or bell all in my guts. It was shame. Deodamn shame. I let my caput hang and I sniffed again, trying to not cry any more. The officer was talking but I wasn’t paying close attention because I had stolen her. I had stolen her from her family and taken her and ran. “You caused a stir,” he continued. I didn’t give a fax about that.

“I didn’t mean to,” I muttered.

“Everyone is up in arms not knowing what to do about you.” I glared at him.

“I don’t care. I told you I didn’t want any of this.” The officer seemed to be really listening to me so I continued. “I just didn’t wanna be fax-poor anymore. I just didn’t wanna live there, in that poor-people project. I just didn’t want people to call me Flint. Do you wake up every single deusing morning seeing your deodamn life ahead of you but all it is, it’s just the same room, the same deusing room, and I saw it, spread like a deodamn real pretty picture of just me getting nasty and old and musty in that room and dying there, for real this time, and it scared me. And all I wanted was to leave, to live in the deodamned Amazon with those deodamned monkeys, and Martian, and the puella, too, I guess.” The officer nodded slowly. He was tack for a minute, just vidding his hands like something was written on them for him to say to me. He finally vidded my face again.

“I know it’s not what you want, but it’s how things are.” I didn’t move my eyes from his shirt buttons as he continued. “Because you killed people there, Flynn.” I shut my eyes, not really sophing how to react. “But you did something else. Something worse. People paid attention to you. And now many more people could die.” He was speaking to me like I was a parv but I let him, because I couldn’t soph anything to respond with. “I’m sure you heard about the fires. And the riots. They were all in your name. But I know you didn’t mean it. You just need to let them know that.” I opened my eyes again and vidded his face. It was earnest, like he really gave a fax about me.

“Okay,” I said hesitantly, pausing. Then I asked, “Can I see my mater?” I sophed for a second. “Or the puella?” The officer suddenly got inrit at that. He stood.

“No. No, you can’t.” He didn’t seem kind anymore. I felt myself shrinking back into the chair.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, scared.

“I thought you were mature enough to handle this. You seem like a smart boy. But you need to grow up damn fast.” And he left, closing the door behind him, and I was in-soul again.

And that’s why I’m in this place for other sick parvs like me, sitting in my small white room, which is always locked, at my small white desk, still imagining I can hear out my window those people who were hollering away let him out let him out! when I first arrived. The woman I talk to now, she told me to write something. Something to make those hollering people go away for good once they know I don’t give a fax about them, or about any of this. She told me to write about the Amazon and Martian but not to write about my home, or my mater really, but I can’t soph why. She says all sorts of things about my mater, none of which are true. I have a deus-long amount of time in-soul to soph hard about my mater and Martian and my home, but all I can soph is that it’s not deusing fair. And sometimes I pretend I’m one of the people standing below my seventh-story window, yelling let him out! not because I need to be freed but because there’s something else that’s locked up in here with me that needs to be. I just can’t deusing soph what it is.

She said this is supposed to be for people to read, so they can leave me in-soul, let me heal like she says I need to. But I don’t feel aeger, or any fax like that, so I don’t need to heal, really. Maybe I just shouldn’t give anyone this letter. Maybe I shouldn’t let go of what I did that gray morning. Maybe it was supposed to happen. Maybe there is some deus there in coelus above who wanted me to do it, who brought me fire on purpose, or maybe I’m like deodamn Prometheus from the story Martian would read me in the cast, who stole the fire for the people anyway, even though deus didn’t want him to. But either way here I am on page thirty-something, and I still can’t soph what to do. Maybe sending this letter will help me. Maybe my mater will read it, or the puella’s parents, or Martian, and then maybe they’ll forgive me. Or maybe I’ll just rip it all up, or choke it down my throat in chewed-up paste, or throw it out my window to fly to coelus and up to deus. Or maybe I should burn it. Either way, here I am. And here you are, reading it.

Whoever reads this, do whatever fax with it that you need or want to, if I haven’t already. Maybe it will make things change. Because they’re a deodamn mess, soph you good.

From,

Flynn Mawr

Flint.