Flint

I, Flynn Mawr pronounced maw-er but called Flint, I found the little puella the same day I burned down the poor-people project. I was real shocked to vid her gaping at the building while the stinking pile was still smoldering away. The air was so thick and smelled so deus-awful that I thought the smoke was just clogging up my mind and making me see fax that wasn’t there, but 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 my best friend 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.

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

“Who is she?” he asked, 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 wood fort my 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 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.

“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 around 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.

“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 soph 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 myself 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 pinned 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.

“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 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 “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 sometimes 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. 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, 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 out the trapdoor.

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 our propinquus or anything, or even the chimp. Actually, the monkey was kind of nasty and dirty compared to the plants, like these fat pink flowers that hung 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.

...

I tried, tried real hard actually that night, but I couldn’t soph much of what had happened that morning. I remembered that I carefully soaked the outside of the building with the stolen gasoline from the ovens at scola, 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 electricity. But someone once made a mistake, had a deodamn candle or some fax, 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 told me. But anyway it was early morning when I set the project on fire. I didn’t have to cover my 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 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.

...

When Martin finally returned in the morning, 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.

“Well? How was it? What fax did you do?” I asked 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 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 tackly. I laughed a nervous laugh but heard that clackclackclackclack of his teeth near colliding out of his caput.

“What d'you mean?” I asked, and Martin vidded me for a few long seconds, and I stopped laughing because of his volt. He 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. Right?” Martin vidded his feet, which were always shifting, and sniffed. I grinned at him. “Deodamn Martian, are you crying?” I began to laugh but stopped when he vidded me again direct in the face.

“I’m telling my paters,” he croaked, sounding parv but certain. 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.

“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.

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

“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 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 traitor,” I said to him, my voice getting trepped and shaky. “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 and flung himself at me, knocking me into the wall of the cast and spattering his blood on my face. The puella started to scree as Martian pummeled my guts with his bony little fists. I kicked wildly and landed my foot on his hip and he staggered away, giving me the chance to leap atop him and knock him to the floor, real hard, and his breath whooshed 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. 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 sophed 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 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 remembered when he would read me books from scola because I was in a different one, the one for poor people, and I only learned fax like counting and basic reading and he got to learn like real Latin, and history, and rhetoric, and he hated it because scola 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, I swear to deus, he just looked at me lying on my stomach in bed with my bare sausage-red back and in the reeking air he wasn’t even nervous. He only ever got nervous about the right things.

Except now.

Which is why I couldn’t soph what happened. Even though he called me Flint he didn’t allow anyone else to call me that. And when I stole the pans from his scola for my mater he said he did it even though nothing treps him up like scola because if they knew it was me my life would be real turbed, my mater’s too, because I’m not allowed there. 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 would give me, and I made myself think about the sneer he sometimes had when he called me Flint, and teasing me about my poor-person things and laughing when I couldn’t soph something in the books he read me, and trying not to look 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 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 one in the poor-people project? My entire body clenched like stone when more familiar words echoed from the screen: Flynn Mawr.

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 the screen. 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. 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 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, and 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.

...

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.

“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. Raise your hands in the air.” This time I did, slowly and fearfully, 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 us out of the building, close enough that I could still hold stiffly onto her hand. 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 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 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 filthy sunnuva canis!” I shrieked out all this awful language, really vile words, and convulsed away from the officers but they held me tight, real tight.

And that’s why I’m in this place for other sick parvs like me, sitting in my small white room 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 I soph there’s something in here that does. 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. 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 I still can’t soph what to do. Maybe sending this letter will help me. Maybe my mater will read it, or Martian, or his paters, and then maybe they’ll forgive me. Or maybe I’ll just rip it all up, or swallow it, or throw it out my window to fly to coelus and up to deus. Or maybe I should burn it to carbones. 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.

Love,

Flynn Mawr

Flint.