We all scream for ice cream

-First line credit to Jordan Wilson-Kennedy

Once upon a time, I was happy. My business was going swimmingly, and the advent of global warming seemed only to confirm the fact that everything was going my way. Growing up, I had always been haunted and enchanted by the sounds of the ice cream truck as it rolled through my central Ohio neighborhood. I loved the announcement of the high-pitched, whining jingle, and then as it got closer to my house, it’s development into a full soaring melody of epic proportions, for the portions of the ice cream that I inevitably bought were certainly mythic. I knew from an early age that I wanted my life to somehow be involved in bringing that same joy to others, so shortly after breezing through college with a Comms degree, I used up my savings (which I had gathered from my work at the local ice cream store) to buy a vintage ice cream truck, which I painstakingly restored, including the record player. Ohio, famous for its unpredictable weather, could rely on one constant: three months of unyielding, sweltering heat and humidity. Armed with my knowledge of the area, a business acumen from goodness knows where (my dad was a local garage mechanic, for which almost no business knowledge was required).

For a time, things went extremely well. One ice cream truck turned into two, those two produced more trucks, and pretty soon the jingles of the Juchau’s Mobile Gelato truck fleet could be heard in every neighborhood of central Ohio. The competition was at times cutthroat, and I’m not always proud of the decisions that I had to make at that time. But my ice cream was the best, I knew the market the best, and in my eyes, the competition was only a drag on market efficiency. Economics of scale, right?

The phenomenon known as global warming, so dangerous to low-lying countries like Naru and the Arctic ice caps, actually ended up to my advantage. As the slow march of carbon emissions slowly smothered the earth’s atmosphere, wrapping the earth snugly in a solar blanket of heat, the demand for ice cream only increased. While some countries struggled to grow the crops necessary for survival, nuclear wars were fought and waged, the pole caps completely melted, and levels of pollution hovered at levels that threatened to wipe out the human race. But the demand for ice cream stayed more or less near constant, and soon I was at the top of the ice cream industry. I thought that I had it all, living in my air conditioned security compound surrounded by the hired Moroccan guards who had immigrated to the newly independent kingdom of Ohio after the Sahara had wiped out the entirety of north Africa.

However, with time, my wealth, my power, and my fame seemed more and more hollow. Was my desire to bring the joys of a sweet, chilly dessert to the streets of my childhood really accomplished through fighting wars with Kentucky to obtain the last stock of natural cows? Was taking out rival company heads with robotic assassins really increasing the value added of every drop of dripping vanilla ice cream? Was arming my ice cream trucks with rocket launchers to take out rival trucks really bringing a smile to every child’s face, just like Fred the Ice Cream Man had done to me whenever he drove down Tenabo Avenue with Beethoven’s Fifth warbling out of his mangled stereo?

- James Juchau

Mermaids, etc.

My ashes floated down until they gently landed on the surface of the sea.

When the fish began to inspect the ashes I knew I’d attract plenty of attention. The flounder around these parts are notorious rats and always report their findings to the authorities.

It’s been months since I received my warning about smoking while afloat, but I definitely received it. At that point I was still new to the whole pirate thing and I had very little idea about law enforcement in the area.

When I snuck out late at night and lit up my pipe I was greeted by giant boils in the water before a large mer-man surfaced and warned me against smoking in these waters. If his gills weren’t disconcerting, I certainly couldn’t look past the suction cups along his arms. When his trident breached the water and pointed at me threateningly while finishing his warning, I resolved to never smoke in these waters again.

That was before I understood my greater purpose. While I sympathized with and even feared the mer-people initially, I passed the point of fear after my first encounter with James.

James was a renegade of sorts. Having received training from a sword fighting guild, he feared nothing. I once saw him trapped in a corner by three trident laden mermen. The mermen called for his surrender, triggering his feverish response of jabs and slashes. After literally disarming each of the mermen he turned to me and pronounced my freedom from oppression.

The next three months were spent in personal training with James as he filled me with propaganda. Day after day I learned the skill of the sword. Along with my dueling, my tongue sharpened with my increased knowledge. James explained to me that there was no room for two human-like races on this earth. Our work would not be finished until every mermaid and man was dead. I could not possibly coexist with these creatures. The only time James and I rested from our training was to spend time with a couple of his wenches on land.

After eradicating several colonies, we had just one remaining: the colony that I had my first encounter with. This colony was notorious for the torture of humans and a misstep here would mean a slow, painful death. I’m sure James could see the reservations on my face, because he reassured me all would be well.

The familiar boils began to surface and not one, but five mermen shot up out of the water. Sensing a trap, they warned me to make no sudden movement. As I sat frozen, looking at my enemies I felt a sudden tug at the bottom of my boat. I heard stories of the kraken, but I always assumed they were wives tales.

As the boat began to sink I remembered how I could never coexist with the mermaid people. However, I never expected to be the one to die. 

David Lake

The Penguin's Resistance Army

She peered over the ledge at the pitiful creatures below.  Funding for the Tallahassee zoo had been cut by eighty-three percent in the last three years, and Samantha could tell.  Rather than spend their time relaxing on an ice floe, Harry and Larry, the zoo’s gay penguins, sat in a ninety-five-degree kiddie pool.  Instead of eating freshly-captured fish, they subsisted on peanuts and handfuls of cotton candy tossed over the exhibit railing by the zoo’s patrons.  Even though Samantha didn’t understand how any type of human or animal could prefer a cold environment and raw fish to a warm kiddie pool and cotton candy, she realized there was something wrong about Harry and Larry’s situation. 

Suddenly, as if she had just watched a heart-wrenching half-hour documentary about the injustices of penguin captivity in Florida, Samantha decided that she needed to do something to help those pitiful penguins.  Since she was only twelve, she didn’t have enough money to help the zoo’s financial woes.  She also had no understanding of political activism, so she couldn’t really do much to raise awareness, either.  Instead, she decided to take a more straightforward approach.  Spinning in a quick circle to make sure nobody else was looking, Samantha grabbed the railing of the exhibit, pulled herself up to the ledge around the habitat, looked down, took a deep breath, and jumped. 

Four feet later, she was standing next to Harry and Larry.  She walked over to the kiddie pool and said, “Come on, guys, we’re going to bust this joint.”  The penguins simply looked at her.  Samantha realized that she probably couldn’t talk Harry and Larry through the situation since they clearly didn’t understand English, and she couldn’t speak Penguin.  So, she pulled out a pack of bubblegum from her back pocket and started to lure them out of their pool.  She walked over to the gate in front of the habitat stairs and hoped there was some way to open it.  She turned the handle and the gate opened.  Apparently, the gate lock had broken months before, but due to a disagreement over whether or not the locksmith would accept free zoo passes in lieu of payment, the lock was never fixed.  Samantha viewed this as a sign that she was doing the right thing by rescuing the penguins.  She knew there was only one place that they could survive… one lone attraction that was adequately cold for a penguin. 

She started to perspire due to nerves.  She quickly led the waddling penguins around various exhibits, hiding behind dead bushes when visitors wandered too close.  Finally, after five minutes, she reached her destination.  She picked up Harry and threw him over the edge.  He landed in the water below with a satisfying “plunk”.  Next, she threw Larry.  There was a loud roar.  Unfortunately, Samantha hadn’t realized that, when placed in the same habitat, polar bears view penguins as a viable food source.

--Sampo Hynynen

Toenail Romance

Running did not cause his toenails to fall off.  Love caused his toenails to fall off.  Or at least to shrivel a little, and dry out, so that when the decisive blow fell they crackled and slid off.  He saved the pieces, which everyone hated, but it helped him feel connected with the sheer physicality of his existence.  But back to love.  It started small.  It was the first day of spring and so everyone on campus had melted to the ground and were sprawled here and there like slugs caught out in the middle of the sidewalk.   He teetered out of the science building and started for home.  It was the weekend and he was going to enjoy it, come hell or high water.  As soon as his face hit the wind, he took off, and ran the four blocks to his apartment.  He could feel the sweat standing out on the small of his back by the time he opened his door. 

He peeled off his shirt, got in the shower and stayed in for half an hour.  By that time, the water had started to cool down, so he got out and marched around his apartment with his towel draped over his should.  Hand in the air, he pretended to be a roman senator, and loudly declaimed the importance of Hadrian’s wall.  The door swung open.  James dove for cover and crawled around the couch to get back to his room.

Relief.  It was only his roommate Michael.  He jumped back up, towel now more securely fastened.  Michael whistled and then headed over to the stove and started frying something. 

James wondered idly whether he would see Lily tonight.  Lily was the girl next door, literally and figuratively.  He’d known her since Freshman year, but she had only recently met him.  He used to go to the parties that he thought she might show up at, kind of like a reverse Great Gatsby, only he never knew her, just loved her from afar.  But this year, by some blessed coincidence, their apartments were next to each other.  The floor plans were mirror images, so his bed was against the same wall as hers.  He used to lie there at night thinking about how small the distance between them was, except when her boyfriend was over.  Then he slept in the front room.

But lately he’d been meeting her more and more often on the stairs or on campus.  And he noticed a funny thing.  Every time he talked to her, he got a warm feeling.  I’m not talking about some donate-to-the-homeless, feel-better-about-your-day kind of warm feeling.  It was like there were little flames dancing under the soles of his feet.  That’s where it started, in his toes, but the longer he talked to her, the further the flames raced up his legs, until he would yell something about how he had to go and run away. 

That’s when his toenails started cracking too.  He’d gone to a podiatrist, and the doctor had given him some sort of anti-fungal cream, but James knew that he was no victim of mushroom feet.  His was an infection of love, and he knew of no cure.   

-DHC

Lauren Noorda - March 18

It was helpful to pretend it was a democracy, but let’s be honest, kindergarten had always been a dictatorship. Sing the alphabet, say the pledge of allegiance. Play now. Stop playing now. Like each other. Share. Classroom settings as a whole were generally autocratic, but kindergarteners in particular were so defenseless, like sheep with backpacks, or Indians watching from ancient shores as Europeans showed up with guns and small poxy blankets and reservations where teenagers could buy fireworks in October for centuries to come. Sure, there was a token vote now and then to decide the name of the class pet, but all the real power lay with the overly cheerful twenty-three-year-old at the front of the room. It was helpful to pretend it was a democracy, but it never had been. Until one day, when one pigtailed, skort-wearing five-year-old decided to change everything.

In the years to follow, school psychologists and biopic filmmakers would blame the incident on her parents’ rapidly deteriorating marriage or early onset clinical depression, but no one really knew why Katie R. (there was another Katie in the class, Katie P.) did what she did. Maybe it was the weather, maybe she was a five-year-old with a future in government overthrows. She never said. There’s just no way of knowing.

What we do know is that it was a Tuesday in the fall when her epiphany came. She had been sitting at her desk, annoyed that the teacher had ended craft time well before half the class had a chance to finish stringing Fruit Loops onto yarn and brooding over the balance of power in the room. She looked at the teacher, calmly announcing story time. She looked at the students, wide-eyed in their desks. She looked back to the teacher. Even though, at five foot four, she towered over her subjects, there was only one of her. There were twenty-six of them. Katie R. wouldn’t learn multiplication for two more years, but in that moment, she knew that twenty-six three-and-a-half-foot-tall kindergarteners were a lot more than one five foot four teacher. From there, it didn’t take long to spread the word around the playground, during games of tag and in whispered moments behind the swings. Rise up, alphabet singers and paste eaters; you have nothing to lose but your chains.

            The next day, everything went exactly according to plan—at least at first. Calendar time. Alphabet time. Show and tell. Then recess. When their teacher rang her bell and announced that it was time to come inside, Katie R. shouted NO from the top of the slide. The alphabet singers and paste eaters were meant to follow suit and keep playing interminably, but their nerves slowed their convictions, and Katie R. was left alone on the playground. How could this happen? What was wrong with these people?

            The teacher marched Katie R. past the crayon table and alphabet wall and into the hallway. She pointed and commanded that she stay there and not move until someone came to take her to the principal’s office. It was humiliating. It was painful. Disappointed and disheartened, Katie R. couldn’t bring herself to fight back.

            But then, just as her last ray of hope was about to disappear, she heard it. A NO shouted from the inside of the room. Then another, and another. NO. NO. NO! Something being thrown, a cabinet door slamming. Screaming. As the hall monitor dragged her down the corridor by the arm, she strained to hear the sounds of unstoppable rebellion, and smiled, but it was bittersweet satisfaction. She had waited her whole life for this, and now she was missing it.

Clowns and democracy

She had waited her whole life for this and now she was missing it.

Sure, she was only 7 years old, but waiting is a complicated topic for children. It could have something to do with the way time passes when you’re young.

As a child, when your mom let you play video games for an hour a day you hardly had time to leave the village with your character and fight a single battle. On the other hand, sacrament meeting is a week-long affair for a kid. During church, a child has the time to build a kingdom and determine its downfall before the end of the rest hymn.

Once again, Rachel was only 7 years old, but she had been waiting her whole life. Finally her mom was going to allow her to have a clown at her birthday.

There were 3 clowns in Sebastian, Florida and everyone knew them: Danny Drunk with his german shepherd act, Fozbo and his “freak show” and the most celebrated clown in Sebastian, Pistol Pete with his polar bear.

Danny Drunk was inexplicably invited to hundreds of people’s houses drunk as a skunk. Danny owned a retired policedog and used it in his act. The kids would give one of their personal items to Danny and Danny would “examine” the item to make sure it wasn’t invisible as he stuffed a dime of marijuana into the item. He would then have the child hide their personal belonging in the car and use his dog to find it. Upon finding the stuffed bear or Barbie doll, he’d remove the pot and give the toy back to the kids.

Fozbo had an in with the midget colony in Palm Bay and enrolled them in his “freak show” act. Middle school and high school kids thought the act was hilarious simply because they’d rarely seen midgets, but younger children were mostly scared.  

Pistol Pete was the obvious choice for a clown, but he came at a price. Pistol Pete owned a baby polar bear that he’d bring with him. Every house in Sebastian has a pool in the backyard and Pete would have his bear, Polar Pete jr., do tricks in the pool. The most famous is of course when Pete pretends to shoot the bear and the bear plays dead and sinks to the bottom for a full minute before returning. It’s inevitable that the kids cry initially, thinking Pistol Pete killed the cute bear, but the excitement is twice as grand when the bear resurfaces and cuddles into the crowd of kids as they cheer. All Rachel wanted was Pistol Pete to come and play with her and her friends this year.

Rachel was an only child and was always involved in the decision making processes at home. When Mom and Dad couldn’t decide where to go on vacation, they’d ask Rachel and she’d get the final say.

Rachel’s mom was hesitant about Pistol Pete and tried to explain to Rachel that it was just too expensive. Rachel suggested they decide things democratically, the way they always do. Mom hestitated a moment and then reluctantly agreed to Rachel’s proposal.

Dad walked in and asked what was going on. Rachel quickly filled him in and yelled “ALL IN FAVOR OF PISTOL PETE?” and shot her hand into the air.

Her father’s hand left his lap and was about to enter the air before Mom shot him a look from across the room that could kill.

It was helpful to pretend it was a democracy.
-David LAke

Fire and pharmacists

“There went my pharmacist… my former pharmacist.”

The same reruns have been on B.E.T. for the last 3 months. For some reason my older brother is obsessed with this show about drugs. It seems like every time I peek in I see the same two scenes. In one of them, the policeman pulls a man into the cop car and his friend starts saying something about his pharmacist. In the other scene there are some guys lighting a fire underneath a spoon. I don’t really know what’s going on.

The truth is that I have no idea what’s going on with my brother at all these days. Ever since he joined the basketball team he’s been a different person. Only a few months ago we’d listen to MxPx together all the time. Yesterday I heard him listening to music from some rap crap called “Two-pack Shaker.”

My brother isn’t the only one changing. My sister just made the JV cheer squad. Who knew my sister had any interest in cheerleading anyway? My sister was always one of the girls in the corner reading a book in the corner of the lunch room. Now she carries around a bottled water everywhere she goes and practices the hand motions from her routine with the other girls in the lunch room. The other day she suggested I should start popping my collar.

My mom is on a diet and she started working out again about a month ago. The first week she went to the gym with a pair of shorts and a t-shirt. After the first day she complained about how everyone at the gym wore spandex and how disgusting it was. Yesterday she slipped into a pair of spanks before exercising and I saw more than I’d have liked to before she got in the car.

I guess I don’t really mind any of it, it’s just different. Everyone else changes and I just seem to stay the same. I always assumed that if I stayed the same, eventually everyone would drift in my direction, but it hasn’t happened yet. Maybe it won’t ever happen.

I walked back into the living room and found my brother watching the same movie. It wasn’t one of the scene I’d witnessed before, but it still had someone lighting a fire under a spoon. When he handed the spoon’s contents to someone for a fistful of cash my curiosity was piqued, but it waned after a few seconds and I walked out.

As I was pondering, I slowly through the garage and saw a red can next to the lawn mower. The mix of fuel and oil wasn’t quite as pleasing as pure gasoline, but the scent inspired me. I poured out the contents and dropped a match.

Flames towered from the garage and members of my family ran out of the house and slowly backpedaled towards me on street as they watched the fire consume our car and other precious belongings.

Everyone else was horrified, but I wouldn’t help but crack a smile. For the first time in my life everyone was drifting towards me.
-David Lake

The not-racist story

“There are few more salutary smells than that of broken glass and kerosene,” she smoldered.

Rosa always was a complainer. As a stout, strong woman, she was the most valuable of all my slaves, but she had a sufficiently strong voice to turn everyone against me. In a single day she could pick more cotton than the whole lot of the Negroes, but her third attempt at coaxing the crew into burning down my house with an old lamp was something to worry about.

“Rosa, I’ll have ya strung up if you don’t git yer act straight,” I told her.

This sort of talk was completely necessary with Rosa. The only thing she really valued was her life. She didn’t care about the things the other colored women treasured. While the other women were singing songs and making new clothes, she could always be found in a corner scheming up a way to escape. It wasn’t that Rosa was a bad woman, just that she needed freedom.

She was valuable for me though. Unless someone was willing to pay me 20 dollars I’d never give her up.

--

After a long day of picking, Rosa walked in with 40 baskets of cotton, more than half the day’s haul. As was customary, I gave Rosa a basket of cotton for working harder than everyone else that day. For other women this would’ve been a treat. In the coming weeks after getting cotton I’d find new blankets or shirts in their old hut. When Rosa got the cotton I’d never find what she did with it. To this point she probably had earned more than a hundred baskets for her diligence in the field.

--

I went into town to sell my cotton and brought back a bigger haul at the market than ever before. This year I sold my cotton for a dollar a basket. I had enough to buy an entire new plantation after this harvest.

When I returned home I saw the familiar smoke coming from the fireplace of my house. As I approached the house, I saw white material stacked six feet high lining my entire house. Rosa tossed an old lamp onto the cotton and flames erupted.

“There are few more salutary smells than that of broken glass and kerosene,” she smoldered.

--

-David Lake

Saving someone's life should earn you a medal

“Saving someone’s life should earn you a medal.”

I don’t know how many times I heard that logic growing up with a war-veteran father. In my father’s eyes, courage was only demonstrated through an individual’s willingness to give up their life for someone else. I never really bought into it. I was more interested in the people with enough courage to take life from someone else.

Luke Windermere was a firefighter. Luke grew to become somewhat of a town legend after a string of three-alarm house fires endangered dozens of residents. He quickly earned the name “Lucky Luke” after storming into three different houses to save residents within a week’s time. Amazingly, Luke managed to save seven out of the eight residents from a fiery end, even surviving a two-story fall as the integrity of a building was compromised by the fire.

What’s meaningful to me has nothing to do with Luke’s seven successes, but his one failure.

Luke crawled into a window as the doors were all blocked by flames. He had no idea how many people were in the house, but everyone saw a mother with her head out the window yelling for help. While the fire was too dangerous for a sane man to plunge into, Lucky Luke had a reputation.

Luke avoided embers spewing in every direction from the heart of the fire as he approached the stairs.  The bottom stairs were enveloped in flames, but the upper section of stairs was untouched. Luke leapt to grab the bottom of the railing and leveraged himself over the banister. After crawling over the banister, he sprinted in the direction of the woman in the window.

Upon entering the room, it was clear the woman wasn’t in her right mind. Her children were all perched on a dresser as she sat looking at a corner, muttering to herself under her breath.

“Ma’am, are you and your children okay?”

 Luke repeated the question several times.

Luke yelled that she needed to get up and he would help her, she still didn’t respond. Luke realized he needed to act fast, so he grabbed two of her three children and began towards the door.

Luke was struck on the back of the head with a leg from the bed in the room. Through his blurred vision he saw insanity in the woman’s eyes. He tried to force her down the stairs, but she only responded by clawing at him vigorously.

A voice came from Luke’s radio telling him he had less than 2 minutes to act. Luke knew what he had to do. The woman was sent toppling over the edge of the railing and hit the floor with a thud. She was swallowed by flames within seconds.

Luke gathered the three kids in his arms and raced down the stairs. He jumped the bottom section of stairs and nearly dropped a child.

When Luke emerged from the house with three children he was applauded by the audience for his heroics, but nobody would ever know how courageous he really was.
-David Lake

The Myrtles.

It was helpful to pretend it was a democracy.  As dysfunctional families go, the Myrtles ranked somewhere between benign anarchy and corrupt police state, depending on whether Jonathan had drunk himself unconscious yet.  Meredith and the children inhabited a world apart, and while this arrangement allowed them no access to the process of family governance, it at least also meant they were sometimes overlooked by the immense destructive power of the ruler.

But as Martin Luther King said, the oppressed will not stay oppressed forever, and when the opportunity for nonviolent resistance came, Meredith seized it, knowing how long it would be before the chance came again.  Jonathan came home rageful and bellowing, which meant that within an hour he was in a deeper alcoholic coma than normal.  Working quickly, Meredith and the kids wrestled him into the empty burlap potato sack from the corner and wedged the ramshackle sled underneath him.  They dragged him over the sooty snow to the tracks, where a train stood at one of New Jersey’s many anonymous waystations, waiting for freight to be loaded.  The conductor would never know about the extra burlap sack his train carried to Rochester that night – nor would the conductor of the next freight train headed the opposite way ever discover the extra passengers he unwittingly carried all the way to North Carolina.

When Jonathan came home, if he came home, he would find the house empty save for the broken bottles that constituted the detritus of his scrawny fiefdom, while his erstwhile subjects had escaped to freedom.  He would stagger, uncomprehending, from room to room, and maybe – just maybe – it would dawn on him that the putrid wreck in which he stood was the sum total of his life’s work.  As the train’s gentle rhythm rocked her and the kids toward warmer climes, the thought gave Meredith a bitter smile.  She had waited her whole life for this, and now she was missing it.

--Wayne Aaron Sandholtz

Gay Superheroes

It was helpful to pretend it was a democracy.  But in the summer of 2002, there was nothing democratic about Stella’s household.  Her mom had appointed herself Judge, Jury, and Executioner – or, as Stella liked to call her, “Judge Judy the Executioner.”  Stella’s mom ran a tight ship.  Homework had to be finished before TV, dinner had to be finished before dessert, and Saturday chores had to be finished before Festival of Rock.

Oh, you’ve never heard of Festival of Rock?  It was Stella’s favorite weekend activity.  All the great local punk rock bands were usually there:  “Advokates of Satan,” “Bloody Bleeding Broken Hearts,” “The Power Chords,” and of course, the Harry Potter tribute band, “Hagrid and the Nimbuses.”

But this weekend was different.  Every year, the Festival of Rock hosted some big-time group, some huge band that was on the radio and everything.  It was a big deal.  Last year, even “Good Charlotte” showed up.  And this year, Stella was particularly looking forward to hearing her favorite band of all time:  Gay Superheroes.  Gay Superheroes were a revolutionary punk-rock sensation back in the early 2000’s.  All their songs revolved around speculating the sexual orientation of various Marvel and DC superheroes.  Their latest single, “Batman and Robin,” off the album “Do Ask, Do Tell,” hit the Billboard Top 100 charts immediately and stayed there for quite some time.  These guys were a phenomenon.  We’re talking bigger than Limp Bizkit.

Naturally, Stella was excited, to say the least.  She tried as hard as she could to please her mother so she’d be able to make it to the concert.  But then Judge Judy the Executioner found a flyer in Stella’s room.

“What’s this” She asked.  “Who on Earth are the ‘Gay Superheroes?’”

“Oh, that’s only the greatest band ever, Mom,” said Stella.  “They’re coming to Festival of Rock this weekend, remember?”

Stella’s Mom had that worried-parent look in her eyes.  “Well, I remember you saying that your favorite band was coming into town.  But you never mentioned they were gay superheroes.”

Stella rolled her eyes.  “That’s just their band name.  They sing about gay superheroes.  They’re incredible musicians, Mom.  Their drummer Harvey Jenkins is how I started getting interested in music!”

Stella watched nervously as “Judge Judy” walked downstairs.  “What are you doing, Mom?”

Her mother, it turned out, was going onto Google and typing in “Gay Superheroes.”

Needless to say, she was horrified by what she found, and Stella was forced to throw away all her favorite CDs.  Furthermore, and this was the most disappointing part of it all, the concert was forbidden.

She had waited her whole life for this, and now she was missing it.


-  By Chris Wei

Faux Democracy

It was helpful to pretend it was a democracy. Like seriously! No one cares about the system. The citizens all live a lie and I am part of it. I just do not know what to do about this. I do want to fix it. I just do not know if that is my purpose. If I do fix it, I do not know how. Consulting my mother never helps. All she does is make suggestions. She is a broken record. Anyways, I want this project or whatever to be my own. I will do it all on my own.

I do need help but if I want it to be my own, I need to keep my ideas, plans, and so forth to myself. Right? If I am reconstructing all this mess, I need others. They may disagree with my ideas. I guess I will start on it.

After five years, my comrades and I have accomplished much. I think maybe I am divinely guided. I know it. My father disagreed with me for as long as he lived. Now, he’s dead. I wish he can see me now. I am now a member of the legislature. My constituents believe that I am right. We need to eradicate the enemy. Identifying them will be difficult. However, I think this may work. I am being stretched beyond my capabilities lately. In retrospect, I have been dependable. I have done my very best. I know I can berate myself for making a mistake here or there. Berating myself never helps. I know I need help. That is all I need right now. I am glad I have the support of my mother.

After ten years, we eliminated the enemy. They are just vile people. It is easier to consider them evil. I am not proud of those deeds. I am not proud of the laws I made. I am not proud of the deals that have been drawn. Life is so gray. Maybe, I am not divinely guided. I can admit that to my closest friends and my mother. They agree with me though. I guess that is all that matters. The election is quite taxing. I do not know if I can become the president. I do not know where to begin. I know that my purpose has been to do something like this. If I am going to fix things, I need to be in this position.

After the election, that controversial ending is all that people care about. The votes have been counted and recounted and recounted. They accepted the fact that I am now the president-elect. I suppose people do not fully approve of the role I played in taking care of the enemy. I had a great deal of support. I think I can fix the democracy still. The changes I instituted so far are small. Things build up slowly. I am taking baby steps. My vision is to change the world.

After changing the world, I have to look back. What’s next? All I can do is think about how much I kept to myself. My supporters are obviously threatened by my power. I can enforce whatever I want. It is nice. I have to throw some people in deathfire to die. My father deserved that. He did not deserve to be poisoned. I just could not think of anything else. I had to have the enemy beheaded. How else can you be sure they are dead? The election…where to begin with that? Oh well, I sent my unconscious mother to deathfire. She had waited her whole life for this, and now she was missing it.


- Chris D.

Natural Selection

by Jenny

She had waited her whole life for this and now she was missing it.

 “Democracy!”

“I’ll vote for that.”

“One vote! That’s how it used to be right?”

A wave of laughter rippled around the sweaty crowd around her. In the distance the children could be seen digging in the gardens, their little bodies curled over thin stalks of green, tiny pruning shears in their hands. It was for the good of the community. Most of them were too young to realize what other sources those shears could be put to.

Around her were all the other adults. She cringed as they tore into the meat on their plates, laughed at each other’s crude jokes. It was a total fluke that she wasn’t down in the arena with the other selections. Pure luck that she had scraped by the last test.

Now the selections were squished into the arena. Thin bodies, standing unusually close to each other, some fists clenched, other’s eyes wet.

She didn’t want to watch, didn’t want to vote. But she was an adult now.

“Civic duty,” her neighbors nodded to each other. The mouths on some faces were drawn tighter than on others. No one was supposed to know whose child was whose. They took them away after a year, after all. But there are some bonds that go deep. She ducked her head away from a smiling women a couple rows away. The woman was her mother but she couldn’t acknowledge that.

A man finally stood up in the arena calling the crowd’s attention. As always, he gave a brief history. Well, at least she assumed it was like always. This was the first offering she had been to. Usually she and the others only speculated. But it sure did sound like the speech she had been hearing since she was a child in the gardens.

The highlights were as such: there were too many humans in the world. There had been for some time. Everyone had said there would be a pandemic, a war, some sort of natural selection. But it never came. The population grew. The resources dwindled. There was no natural selection.

So they created one.

It was as good a method as any. There were too many people on this earth. But they should each get a chance to prove themselves. No use to get rid of them when they were young and useful. When they could climb into mines or weave with their little fingers. No. Why not leave the selection until later? Once it became evident who was worth keeping around. Who could contribute to society.

And so it was. They believed that everyone had the right to procreate. So they kept having kids. They just knew that not all those kids could live past the age of sixteen. There were just too many of them.

To her great shock, she had passed this year’s test. This year, apparently, they were in need of mathematicians. So she had won the lottery: math was her best subject.

A gong sounded and the announcer proclaimed that it was time to vote.

They had all been selected. Nature hadn’t selected them. But humanity had. They were all going to die. So why was it so hard for her to decide?

Would it be fire, the sword? Drowning, hanging, what?

The gong sounded again and people raised their hands to vote.

Her hands lay resolutely in her lap.

“Raise your hand,” hissed the woman next to her.

“But I don’t have an opinion.”

“You must. Quickly, raise your hand.”

Turning her eyes away from the arena she slowly raised her hand.

It was useful to pretend like it was a democracy.

-J.H.

The Caucus Race

She had waited her whole life for this, and now she was missing it. The weather outside was perfect, as always, until the yearly day of rain splashed down noisily and thirstily, reminding everyone that although the sun held reign 364 days of the year, there was still enough moisture for one good day of rain a year. The candidates had all ended up wet, so naturally a caucus race was held to dry everyone off. She was a badger, and everyone knew that a badger had never yet been elected as a candidate, but most people figured that was just because a badger wasn’t a bird, and only the birds really participated in caucus races. The other animals watched and shouted loudly at their favorites, jeered at their rivals, and even every once in a while would alongside their picks, but there was the one year that the turtle got stepped on and withdrew into his shell for the year. Everyone admired the brave turtle for trying, but all thought him rather stupid for having the audacity to try. The caucus races were drawing to a close and she wasn’t even yet running. She wasn’t even shouting along with the other candidates—she was just there, a passive observer to a whole flock of magnificent birds running in a circle on the beach. She knew that she would have to wait a whole other lifetime just to get her shot. As for as the badger could tell, it was a lose-lose situation, but there was a vague, morbid curiosity that made the badger want to try and run in the caucuses.

The party caucuses finished, and, as expected, all the animals had run around in a circle, chasing after each other’s tails, sniping here, sniping there, shouting into a great din of confusion so that it was extremely hard to tell what was going on. If the tracks hadn’t been grooved out in to the sand after years of caucus races, one could imagine that even the participants wouldn’t really know where to go. Of course, everyone ended up dry in the end, as they always do and since that is the purpose of a caucus race.  It ended in her defeat, but she couldn’t bring herself to admit that it was a defeat because she hadn’t really participated, but she couldn’t help feeling that she had missed something vital, that her chance to make known the views of badgers everywhere (although she’d only met very few other badgers, and her interactions with them where cursory). It seemed unfair that only the birds (and of course, the hapless turtle) seemed allowed to participate, but then again, she wasn’t sure if it really meant anything because the birds, after drying off, would return to their humdrum lives in the trees again for another year, until the day of rain came.

However, the island had to operate according to some system of government, and so the animals decided that a yearly caucus race was the best way to show to the other islands that they were civilized, organized and peace loving. Things just seemed to run better. It was helpful to pretend it was a democracy.

-James Juchau

Autocratic Love

It was helpful to pretend it was a democracy. I mean, that’s what modern love is all about, right? Egalitarian, open to new ideas? But, really, it was just all about Tina and not about Robert.

I mean, Robert was a pretty open-minded guy—he just hadn’t seen himself trying to “choo-choo train” gluten free Koala Krunchies into their toddler’s mouth as his wife spent tormented hours in her design studio. When he had supported an “equal” relationship, he was thinking they’d both spend time working and time off. At the very least, he had imagined eating Coco Puffs with his children.

But not much was put to a vote in their house—Tina had very firm ideas about what was the best option. You didn’t really refuse her, just slightly delayed her timetable.

Not that Robert hadn’t tried—it was just easier to think it was a democracy back in college, with Tina’s head in his lap, reading poetry to each other. Back then, she had her way, but he was all for it. It was like you’re in some self-exploring indie film that takes place in the 60s, when feminism was radical, the protagonists wore daisy crowns, and the film quality was pretty crappy, but cool in that avant guard way.

Sometimes Robert even wondered who even liked film quality like that—who liked looking at something crappy and reveling in it.

Maybe Tina did. To her, everything was lousy. Not that she didn’t have her Vietnamese adoptee, ranch house, and Robert always nodding in agreement.

To her, she was still missing out. By age 40, she hadn’t gotten to be the artist in France like she had always wanted, but was saddled with a doting husband and an Asian baby. She had waited her whole life for this and now she was missing it.

- A. F.

Untitled

It was helpful to pretend it was a democracy. That way breaking into a church at night for no good reason, and being a foreigner would hopefully help absolve her of all criminal charges. She had come here nearly every night when the insomnia haunted her and her desire to be back home got to heavy. As she lay on the bitter cold marbled mosaic floor of the church, she felt the weight of monarchy, and the weight of being in the country she had always wanted to visit. She had wanted to be here, but it had turned out different than she thought. She relaxed and her mind began to wander. She wondered about the how tedious it would be to piece together all those mosaics. But it was probably more tedious to find stones in so many colors.  She questioned why Jesus had a rainbow mosaic above his head? Why was that domed ceiling so deep? How would your neck feel after putting those teeny tiles up there? And what if you got off the scaffolding only to realize that Jesus looked nothing like Jesus. And then he quiet thoughts were shattered. She heard the sound of denim swishing together. She was already still, but everything, even her brain, froze. There was someone in the church. But no, how did she not hear the door open? She was plastered flat to the floor, just like the mosaics. She couldn’t move or this person would see her. But wait, they already had. That’s why they were there. Her fear of being caught breaking into a church turned into fear of being murdered. She should have been thinking religious thoughts; maybe then God would save her. She slowly inched herself up, trying to stay quiet, but she couldn’t hear anything over the drumming of her heart. It seemed like the other person had stopped moving too. She scanned the church with only her eyes, too scared to move her head. She made eye contact with Peter, James, John, and a few other saints she couldn’t name. She looked to the door, straight down the aisle from her, calculating how long it would take her to run. Too long; especially since she now saw a new statue next to the door. Then their eyes locked.

“I followed you here.”

She had waited her whole life for this and now she was missing it.

- R. B.

Kill the Governor

It was helpful to pretend it was a democracy.  Particularly in March, when the first tendrils of spring were poking their way through her cranium.  She knew that it would probably still snow a couple of times before summer began in earnest, but she was willing to pretend it was already summer.  In fact, she decided to dress like it was summer, so that maybe by sheer force of will the snow demons would decide to leave Provo for whiter pastures. 

As she sat in the back of the class, she plastered on the carefully prepared smile, adjusted the corners and turned her mind on autopilot.  The teacher was letting the students vote, but she knew what the outcome was going to be from the beginning.

She let her mind drift.  After class she was approached, as usual, by Spencer.  Today his neckline was plunging like the Dow Jones.  She idly wondered which attachment he used on his clippers.  It looked like a 3.  She could make a pillow out of all of his clippings.  Chest hair of the finest quality, to the highest bidder.  She snapped back when he started looking through his bag.  What was the last thing he’d said?  She searched her short-term memory.  Oh yes.  Something about the game of gravity-ball he was playing in after class.  Championship game. 

She agreed to come, and he left her alone.  As she skidded down rape hill on her beat up 2025 Schwinn Equalizer, she passed some of his teammates going the other way.  She stripped off the smile and replaced it with her mysterious look.  They liked that one.

She got home and threw her bag on the floor.  It was about a year and a half ago that she’d broken up with James.  For three or four months she’d been skimming the surface reality, checking in for ecclesiastical endorsements and midterms and checking out again for everything else.  Then one day she felt her sandaled feet collide with the ground and when she looked around, half her friends were married and the other half were bitter.  She lived with the bitter half now, in a 1940’s bungalow south of campus.  There were five registered sex offenders in the neighborhood.

She stepped into the steam jet and tried to remember where the gravity-ball field was.  Oh yeah, the basement of the Uchtdorf building.  She downed some pop-tarts really quick and headed over, smile at the ready. 

She had tried to be on time, really, but she didn’t walk in until halftime.  Spencer didn’t seem too disappointed.  He came over and gave her a sweaty hug.  Her face was in his armpit for a lifetime. 

“We’re up!  20-15!”

The whistle blew, and they were back out.  Spencer knocked someone into the glass (anything for that T-shirt).  All of a sudden she became aware of someone sitting next to her.  He was a slight fellow, maybe 5’8”, with too much hair.  His beard was probably a under honor code length, but he genuinely looked like he was trying, just didn’t quite have the genetic material to grow a really thick one.  He looked like her neighbor growing up, a little kid named Chris.  Chris was half-asian and his parents wouldn’t let him watch any movie above a G rating.  You know the type.  Home-schooled.  Anyway, this guy wasn’t Asian, but he definitely had the same home-school spit-polish demeanor.

He was reading a book.  That was odd enough, but she knew the HBLL still had a lot of books in storage, and she had heard you could check them out if you said you were an artist or something.  They’d done it for FHE once, but she’d quickly lost interest in FHE when it became apparent that James wasn’t going to do the decent thing and stop coming.

She asked him what it was. 

“Oh, it’s a Czech novel.  About communism.  It’s really good.”

“Do you have to read that for class?”

“No, just interested.”

“I see.  Here to watch some gravity-ball?” 

“Yeah, well, my cousin Spencer told me to come, he’s that one guy over…”

She cut him off.  “Yeah, I know Spence, he’s in my cyberpsych class.  Read me some of that book.”

He started to read. 

In that moment there was a special announcement over the uplink.  Apparently the territorial governor was going to be making an appearance at afternoon prayers.  Her pulse quickened.  Without realizing it, she was gripping the boy’s wrist.  The governor’s picture was flashing on her uplink. 

Suddenly, she noticed where her hand was.  His face was bright red.  She looked him square in the face.  “I don’t know you, but you have to come with me.   It’s time.”

She had waited her whole life for this and now she was missing it.

- David C.

Grant's Story

There went my former pharmacist.  I remember the days when we were good friends.  The bell would ring as I entered the apothecary and I would see a gray spectacled head peek from behind the doorway to the back room.
"Charles! How is your wife?"
"Fairly well, thank you.  I'm going to need some more of those smelling salts you imported from Bangladesh.
"Ah yes!  Fine stuff, hip, hip!"
"She's been struggling lately with the new political climate.  Can't seem to take her mind of the imminent destruction that hs been prophesied.  She goes into a frenzy and passes out."
"I'm sorry to hear that.  What's distressing her so?"
Ah yes... those were the days.  He was a great help to me, I wish things had lasted.  I will have to frequent another shop now.  Church bells are ringing as I walk in the procession for Sir Edmund Wright III, head pharmacist of the Royal Apothecary Society.

Life is Hard

There went my pharmacists, my former pharmacists. He was being laid to rest by six of his friends, or at least people who he claimed as friends, (I was not invited) slowly walked down an aisle of mourning townspeople. It was a small town, with a name bland as could be, Blanding. There was only one pharmacy, and now no pharmacist. What would happen, would the town dry up and disappear as so many do, without the aid of prescription drugs to keep the populace calm. Without a pharmacy misery would be inescapable. The thought of driving the 17 minutes to the next down is ridiculous, how can any town survive without the essential role of the pharmacist being fulfilled.

As the funeral continued, thoughts unregulated and out of control raced through my mind. Already I was low, so very low.

No one knew how this tragedy could have happened, he was found alone with a Y cut into his forehead. He was so invaluable in keeping depression from us, but who regulated his emotions? As evidenced by what happened, no one did.

With such a large supply of so many helping chemicals, the irony of his death is seen in its manor.

He had an uncontrollable gambling addiction, got in so deep with the Yakusa that their investment could never be returned, so they finished him off. The term uncontrollable addiction seems redundant yet fitting. Surely there is a drug to help, why couldn't he find it.

It makes no sense, Blanding is over a thousand miles from the ocean, and Japan is several thousand more, yet the Yakusa followed him here. My geography isn't at its best, I spent more time in school playing with small animals.

All I can conclude is life is unfair, now I will have a more difficult life, without a pharmacist.

Maybe this is the spark, the hint or message from life that I needed. It is time for me to make a change, a move. I've always wanted to see Japan, and now I have a reason.

Revenge will be my cause and my end, There will be few survivors.

The plane ride was nice, I had never been in a plane before.

Apparently the Yakusa is a large organization, as when I landed and asked directions to their headquarters no one seemed willing to help me.

I decided that those who wouldn't help me were as culpable as those who killed my dear pharmacist. I started to lay waste to those in my path, assuming that all roads would lead to my satisfaction. After my first victim (this time) the police caught me, and extradited me back to America. It turns out I had some skeletons in my closet that I didn't feel were related to this narrative.

Now I have a new pharmacist, and he makes sure I get my pills. The padded walls are nice as well...

The misery is gone, replaced with a blessed numbness.

During the trial I also learned the Yakusa didn't kill my former pharmacist, he was in a car accident coming home from a sports game, and merely painted a Y on his forehead, hindsight sure is nice.

-S.O.

Blood-stained Wingtips

There went my pharmacist, my former pharmacist.  Not your regular, run-of-the-mill take two of these and call me in the morning kind of pharmacist.  Pharell Badger was a specialty pharmacist. He catered to the rich and the famous, and thus became rich, and famous in his own way.  It was a back-circles kind of famous.  He was the guy at the posh parties that every rapper and B-list actress knew, but got embarrassed when it became apparent that everyone else knew him too. 

I know what you’re thinking, but it wasn’t illicit drugs.  Well, not only illicit drugs.  Sure, he could get you amphetamines and high-grade uppers and downers, but that wasn’t his specialty.  He specialized in other things.  Death for those who needed it.  Life for those who couldn’t get it past the FDA.  And occasionally torture for those who deserved it.  In time, Pharrell became a force of his own.  It was bound to happen.  He knew every pill that every celebrity in L.A. had taken in the last six years.  If that wasn’t power enough, he had started cutting just about everything he gave out with his own mixture that kept them coming back.

At first I thought I was the only one meeting furtively in back alleys, and I think everyone else did too.  But then one night at a party we started talking.  It turned out that everyone one of us was in debt to Pharell Badger.  Not money, we always had money, but he carried a load of secrets, and we all wanted out.  The problem was, Badger had set up his system perfectly.  No one wanted him out of the picture completely, because then the drugs would dry up.  So although everyone wanted him dead, no one wanted him dead.  And certainly no one wanted to be caught conspiring against him.

We started getting desperate enough to go to the police, but one day I saw Darren Kyl, White Knight of Los Angeles, police chief extraordinaire, leaving 68 El Camino Way, and I knew that we would find no help that way.

Pharrel’s drugs had odd side effects.  You would order your painkillers or your laughers and no matter what it was it would leave you with a slight buzz for days.  When you fell out of it, everything was gray, and food had lost its flavor, but not its draw.  You started seeing it on the faces of people, the hunger.  The longer you were on it, the worse it got.  I was at Black Top, Chef Depardieu’s new place in La Canada, and I saw it on the face of half the customers.  They were ordering dish after dish and plowing through them, but no one looked happy.

I tried weaning myself off.  The third day in I woke with a splitting headache and I couldn’t open my mouth.  I had left a stash at my buddy’s place, so I headed over there and managed to get one down.  It took me a week to get back to work.

Pharrel started going to more and more parties, and his glee became more and more apparent.  He started spending time with the big names.  You’d see it start, suddenly one singer, one actress would be at every party with him and then one week it was all over the tabloids that she had gone into permanent retirement.  Or moved to run orphanages in India.  Or disappeared.  They found one of them floating face down near Santa Monica.

So now it’s October.  2012.  I’m sitting in my office, waiting for my next client, some cattleman from Central Valley on his third wife, when I get a phone call.  The caller ID flashed *unkown caller*, and when I picked it up, I heard a voice I recognized.  I hadn’t actually seen Pharrel for a couple of months, he was working through other agents now, apparently too busy or too scared to meet clients personally, but I remembered him from the early days, when I was one of the first kids carrying my pillbox to shows and concerts.

“James,” he said, “It’s been a while.  Look, I need something.  Some legal work actually.  When can you come over?”

I told him I had an appointment but that I’d be there at six.  He thanked me and hung up.  I felt for some reason a great weight lift from my shoulders.  A dim voice in my head started saying something about how this was strange, that I was an estate attorney, that Badger had a lawyer, that no one went in that house, but my buzzed conscious self felt an odd elation at the thought of meeting Pharell, the man who owned my life and so many lives around me.

At 5:55 I pulled my car onto El Camino, parked a block away and walked slowly to number 68.  I knocked seven times (I assumed the knock was still the same from the old days) and waited.  The door opened and there stood Pharell.  He was grayer than I remembered him, but he was wearing a beautiful tailored suit  and the most expensive watch I have ever seen.  There was blood on the toes of his shoes.  For some reason this greatly amused me.  I looked at the blood and laughed and then walked into the dim hallway. 

“Why do you still live in this dump, Pharell?”  Can’t you get yourself a nicer place up in the West Hills or something? 

“Oh, you know me, James. I don’t deal well with change.  Anyway, I don’t spend many nights at home these days. “

“I see.  You said something about some legal work?  Not planning to die soon, are we?”  I managed what I thought was a robust, chummy laugh.

He looked at me skeptically.  “You don’t look well, James, can I get you anything?  Have you tried our new A-line?”

I hadn’t tried the A-line, but I’d heard it was wonderful. 

“You know Pharell, the B-line is about breaking my bank as it is, I’d hate to…”  I trailed off.  Badger had thrown his arm around my shoulder. 

“James, I was hoping to not talk about money just yet.  Let me get you something.”  He led me into a dim kitchen.  I noticed the marble countertop was dusty.  He rummaged in a cabinet and produced a bottle of fluorescent yellow pills.

I swallowed one. 

- David C.

Hey, you're not perfect either, Abby.

There went my pharmacist. My former pharmacist. He wasn’t the kind of guy you’d expect to have time for baking, but there he was, standing on the doorstep with a basket of blueberry muffins, and what else was I supposed to do? You’re just doing the crossword one Saturday morning and then the next thing you know there’s a knock on the door and then the next next thing you know it’s two months later and you’re making out with your obsessive compulsive former pharmacist in the dark in a Corolla in a parking lot and then you’re meeting his parents and he’s alphabetizing your refrigerator and then the next next next thing you know, it’s over, and you’re back to the crossword, misspelling names of Beatles because you’re distracted and wondering what went wrong, and Dear Abby is there on the same page, judging you for all of your failed relationships, but especially this one, because you should have known better.

I felt like maybe it was ironic that the one time I had a messy break up with a guy who went off his meds, it was my pharmacist. Former pharmacist. He wasn’t really my pharmacist for long. I switched from Costco to CVS in February and he was fired just after Labor Day for stealing Xanax, which, in hindsight, maybe should have been a red flag, but wasn’t, so it was a little less than four months. And saying “my pharmacist” makes it sound like I’m some pill popper who is there all the time, but I’m not. I’m just saying “my pharmacist” in the same way I’d say “my doctor,” whom I visit once a year, or “my optometrist,” if my optometrist were an extremely attractive, if neurotic, man who filled my cat’s prescriptions every week.

I like saying “my pharmacist” because it makes it sound like I have these regular people in my life, like in some old timey TV show set in a small town where all the people know each other and there’s the doctor whom everyone just calls Doc and the grocer and the paper boy and a gaggle of housewives in aprons and the town drunk. And maybe a hooker. Having a pharmacist makes me feel like I know the people around me, like some things are consistent. It’s possible that I like having a boyfriend for the same reason, and now that I’m thinking about it, I should probably work on that, because I’m pretty sure that no boyfriend is better, in the long run, than your former pharmacist who grinds his teeth while he’s awake and who sort of reminds you of Dr. Feelgood, without the accent, and who you’re pretty sure only introduced you to his parents in an effort to prove to them that he isn’t gay. The jury’s still out on that one.

Anyway, there he went, past my house, again, in his golf cart, because he had his license taken away after a free-wheeling night of anxiety meds and drag racing. (Probably should have been another red flag, but hindsight is 20/20, you know?) But there he went, and at some point, about the time he passed the mailbox and swerved around a pothole, I think I got over him. 

--Lauren Noorda

Post-Apocalyptic Parmaceuticals

            There went my pharmacist—my former pharmacist. He was a jaunty, jolly fellow, full of girth and mirth who bounced and swayed as he walked down the deserted streets of New York. New York had been deserted for some time, ever since the attempted Communist takeover of the eastern seaboard in the late 80s had provoked a massive environmental disaster when their nuclear bombings had destroyed the sewage factories along the major rivers, releasing gallons of radioactive waste into the water resources of the region. In a throwback to the destruction of Sennacherib’s army at the gates of Jerusalem, however, the destroying angel called upon the Red Army (apparently, the soldiers drank too much of the poisoned water) and it was mostly wiped out, with the remainder being called back to support various causes during the subsequent Russian civil war. Unfortunately for the Americans, the victory was Pyrrhic—the eastern US became virtually uninhabitable, and the government, leaderless after the Russian invasion, was unable to contain the chaos and eventually moved west of the Mississippi, leaving the East to lawless gangs, roaming bands of Russian deserters, and fiefdoms of those too poor or too stupid to migrate.

                The water resources were mostly unusable, but not completely. A few underground aquifers escaped the poisonous sewage, as well as a handful of streams in the countryside. Of course, millions of those who could not leave sickened and died as a result of the destruction, and battles broke out for control of the few remaining sources of pure water. Overtime, a few individuals gathered enough resources, power, and knowledge to refine the water on a limited scale to support small populations. As Europe and Asia were embroiled in a massive war for the resources of the Middle East and Africa, and the newly christened Secular United States of Western America was too poor and fighting Mormon millenialists, these individuals, with their limited knowledge of chemistry, duct tape, water filters, and guns, gradually acquired the ability to determine life and death amongst the uneducated, shell shocked, and rabble that remained east of the Mississippi. These were the pharmacists—the despicable leeches who profited from the anarchy and their relative superiority in science to exploit the remnant of the human species living a grubby life in the nuclear wasteland of New York, DC, Boston, and what was once of the glory of America, growing rich in a radioactive urban wilderness.

                But there were some who resisted, who recalled the old days when the area was the financial, cultural, and social center of the world. They were called the alchemists—those who sought to return the dull led of the East to its former glory days. They became a scourge to the pharmacists, assassinating them one by one and building up a compendium of knowledge so the common people wouldn’t have to rely on them. I am one of them. 

- James Juchau