Browser lacks capabilities required to play.

Upgrade or switch to another browser.

Loading…
<<set $scenes to 0>> <<set $U2 to false>> <<set $N2 to false>><div id="calendarGrid"> \<div class="flexItem" id="Jan"><div class="calendarMonth">January</div> <div class="daysGrid"><div id="JanFirst">1</div> <div>2</div> <div>3</div> <div>4</div> <div>5</div> <div>6</div> <div>7</div> <div>8</div> <div>9</div> <div>10</div> <div>11</div> <div>12</div> <div>13</div> <div>14</div> <div>15</div> <div>16</div> <div>17</div> <div>18</div> <div>19</div> <div>20</div> <div>21</div> <div>22</div> <div>23</div> <div>24</div> <div>25</div> <div>26</div> <div>27</div> <div>28</div> <div>29</div> \<<if not hasVisited("A1a")>> \<<timedreplace 1.5s>><div>30</div><<becomes>><div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/c4r.png'><span class='test'>[[30|Scene A]]</span></div><</timedreplace>> \<<elseif hasVisited("U2a") && not hasVisited("A2a")>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/c4r.png'><span class='test'>[[30|Scene A]]</span></div> \<<elseif hasVisited("A2a") && hasVisited("T1a") && not hasVisited("A3a")>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/c4r.png'><span class='test'>[[30|Scene A]]</span></div> \<<else>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/x1.png'><span class='test'>[[30|Scene A]]</span></div> \<</if>> \ <div>31</div></div> \</div> \<div class="flexItem" id="Feb"><div class="calendarMonth">February</div> <div class="daysGrid"><div id="FebFirst">1</div> <div>2</div> \<<if not hasVisited("A1a")>><div>3</div> \<<elseif hasVisited("A1a") && not hasVisited("B2a")>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/c3.png'><span class='test'>[[3|Scene B]]</span></div> \<<elseif hasVisited("U2a") && not hasVisited("B3a")>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/c3r.png'><span class='test'>[[3|Scene B]]</span></div> \<<else>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/x3.png'><span class='test'>[[3|Scene B]]</span></div> \<</if>> \ <div>4</div> <div>5</div> <div>6</div> <div>7</div> <div>8</div> <div>9</div> <div>10</div> <div>11</div> <div>12</div> <div>13</div> <div>14</div> <div>15</div> <div>16</div> <div>17</div> \<<if not hasVisited("A1a")>><div>18</div> \<<elseif hasVisited("A1a") && not hasVisited("C2a")>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/c2.png'><span class='test'>[[18|Scene C]]</span></div> \<<elseif hasVisited("U2a") && not hasVisited("C3a")>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/c2r.png'><span class='test'>[[18|Scene C]]</span></div> \<<else>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/x3.png'><span class='test'>[[18|Scene C]]</span></div> \<</if>> \<div>19</div> <div>20</div> <div>21</div> <div>22</div> <div>23</div> <div>24</div> <div>25</div> <div>26</div> <div>27</div> <div>28</div></div> \</div> \<div class="flexItem" id="Mar"><div class="calendarMonth">March</div> <div class="daysGrid"><div id="MarFirst">1</div> <div>2</div> <div>3</div> <div>4</div> <div>5</div> \<<if $scenes < 2 && not hasVisited("E1a")>><div>6</div> \<<elseif $scenes gte 2 && not hasVisited("D1a")>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/c3.png'><span class='test'>[[6|Scene D]]</span></div> \<<elseif hasVisited("E1a") && not hasVisited("D1a")>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/c3.png'><span class='test'>[[6|Scene D]]</span></div> \<<else>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/x2.png'><span class='test'>[[6|Scene D]]</span></div> \<</if>> \ <div>7</div> <div>8</div> <div>9</div> <div>10</div> <div>11</div> <div>12</div> <div>13</div> <div>14</div> <div>15</div> <div>16</div> <div>17</div> <div>18</div> <div>19</div> <div>20</div> <div>21</div> <div>22</div> <div>23</div> <div>24</div> <div>25</div> <div>26</div> <div>27</div> <div>28</div> <div>29</div> <div>30</div> \<<if not hasVisited("B2a") || not hasVisited("C2a")>><div>31</div> \<<elseif hasVisited("B2a") && hasVisited("C2a") && not hasVisited("E1a")>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/c5.png'><span class='test'>[[31|Scene E]]</span></div> \<<elseif hasVisited("E1a") && hasVisited("U2a") && not hasVisited("E2a")>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/c5r.png'><span class='test'>[[31|Scene E]]</span></div> \<<else>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/x1.png'><span class='test'>[[31|Scene E]]</span></div> \<</if>> \</div> \</div> \<div class="flexItem" id="Apr"><div class="calendarMonth">April</div> <div class="daysGrid"><div id="AprFirst">1</div> \<<if not hasVisited("E1a")>><div>2</div> \<<elseif hasVisited("E1a") && not hasVisited("F1a")>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/c2.png'><span class='test'>[[2|Scene F]]</span></div> \<<elseif hasVisited("F1a") && hasVisited("U2a") && not hasVisited("F2a")>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/c2r.png'><span class='test'>[[2|Scene F]]</span></div> \<<else>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/x3.png'><span class='test'>[[2|Scene F]]</span></div> \<</if>> \ <div>3</div> <div>4</div> <div>5</div> <div>6</div> <div>7</div> <div>8</div> <div>9</div> <div>10</div> <div>11</div> <div>12</div> <div>13</div> <div>14</div> <div>15</div> <div>16</div> <div>17</div> <div>18</div> \<<if not hasVisited("E1a")>><div>19</div> \<<elseif hasVisited("E1a") && not hasVisited("G1a")>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/c5.png'><span class='test'>[[19|Scene G]]</span></div> \<<else>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/x2.png'><span class='test'>[[19|Scene G]]</span></div> \<</if>> \<div>20</div> <div>21</div> <div>22</div> <div>23</div> <div>24</div> <div>25</div> <div>26</div> <div>27</div> <div>28</div> <div>29</div> <div>30</div></div> \</div> \<div class="flexItem" id="May"><div class="calendarMonth">May</div> <div class="daysGrid"><div id="MayFirst">1</div> <div>2</div> <div>3</div> <div>4</div> <div>5</div> <div>6</div> <div>7</div> <div>8</div> <div>9</div> <div>10</div> \<<if not hasVisited("E1a") || $scenes < 3>><div>11</div> \<<elseif hasVisited("E1a") && $scenes gte 3 && not hasVisited("H1a")>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/c3.png'><span class='test'>[[11|Scene H]]</span></div> \<<elseif lastVisited("H1c") gte 2 && not hasVisited("H2a")>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/c3r.png'><span class='test'>[[11|Scene H]]</span></div> \<<elseif hasVisited("U2a") && not hasVisited("H3a")>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/c3r.png'><span class='test'>[[11|Scene H]]</span></div> \<<else>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/x1.png'><span class='test'>[[11|Scene H]]</span></div> \<</if>> \<div>12</div> <div>13</div> \<<if not hasVisited("E1a") || $scenes < 7>><div>14</div> \<<elseif hasVisited("E1a") && $scenes gte 7 && not hasVisited("I1a")>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/c4.png'><span class='test'>[[14|Scene I]]</span></div> \<<elseif hasVisited("I1a") && hasVisited("U2a") && hasVisited("A3a") && not hasVisited("I2a")>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/c4r.png'><span class='test'>[[14|Scene I]]</span></div> \<<else>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/x2.png'><span class='test'>[[14|Scene I]]</span></div> \<</if>> \ <div>15</div> <div>16</div> <div>17</div> <div>18</div> <div>19</div> <div>20</div> <div>21</div> <div>22</div> <div>23</div> <div>24</div> <div>25</div> <div>26</div> <div>27</div> <div>28</div> <div>29</div> <div>30</div> <div>31</div></div> \</div> \<div class="flexItem" id="Jun"><div class="calendarMonth">June</div> <div class="daysGrid"><div id="JunFirst">1</div> <div>2</div> <div>3</div> <div>4</div> <div>5</div> <div>6</div> <div>7</div> <div>8</div> \<<if not hasVisited("E1a") || $scenes < 3>><div>9</div> \<<elseif hasVisited("E1a") && $scenes gte 3 && not hasVisited("J1a")>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/c5.png'><span class='test'>[[9|Scene J]]</span></div> \<<elseif lastVisited("J1d") gte 2 && not hasVisited("J2a")>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/c5r.png'><span class='test'>[[9|Scene J]]</span></div> \<<else>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/x3.png'><span class='test'>[[9|Scene J]]</span></div> \<</if>> \<div>10</div> <div>11</div> <div>12</div> <div>13</div> <div>14</div> <div>15</div> <div>16</div> \<<if not hasVisited("E1a")>><div>17</div> \<<elseif hasVisited("E1a") && not hasVisited("K1a")>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/c2.png'><span class='test'>[[17|Scene K]]</span></div> \<<elseif hasVisited("K1a") && hasVisited("U2a") && hasVisited("B2a") && hasVisited("S1a") && not hasVisited("K2a")>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/c2r.png'><span class='test'>[[17|Scene K]]</span></div> \<<else>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/x3.png'><span class='test'>[[17|Scene K]]</span></div> \<</if>> \<div>18</div> <div>19</div> <div>20</div> <div>21</div> <div>22</div> <div>23</div> <div>24</div> <div>25</div> <div>26</div> <div>27</div> <div>28</div> <div>29</div> <div>30</div></div> \</div> \<div class="flexItem" id="Jul"><div class="calendarMonth">July</div> <div class="daysGrid"><div id="JulFirst">1</div> <div>2</div> <div>3</div> \<<if not hasVisited("E1a") || $scenes < 3>><div>4</div> \<<elseif hasVisited("E1a") && $scenes gte 3 && not hasVisited("L1a")>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/c3.png'><span class='test'>[[4|Scene L]]</span></div> \<<elseif hasVisited("L1a") && hasVisited("U2a") && not hasVisited("L2a")>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/c3r.png'><span class='test'>[[4|Scene L]]</span></div> \<<else>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/x1.png'><span class='test'>[[4|Scene L]]</span></div> \<</if>> \<div>5</div> <div>6</div> <div>7</div> <div>8</div> <div>9</div> <div>10</div> <div>11</div> <div>12</div> <div>13</div> <div>14</div> <div>15</div> <div>16</div> <div>17</div> <div>18</div> <div>19</div> <div>20</div> <div>21</div> \<<if not hasVisited("E1a") || $scenes < 3 || not hasVisited("G1a")>><div>22</div> \<<elseif hasVisited("E1a") && hasVisited("G1a") && $scenes gte 3 && not hasVisited("M1a")>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/c5.png'><span class='test'>[[22|Scene M]]</span></div> \<<elseif hasVisited("M1a") && hasVisited("U2a") && not hasVisited("M2a")>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/c5r.png'><span class='test'>[[22|Scene M]]</span></div> \<<else>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/x2.png'><span class='test'>[[22|Scene M]]</span></div> \<</if>> \<div>23</div> <div>24</div> <div>25</div> <div>26</div> <div>27</div> <div>28</div> <div>29</div> <div>30</div> <div>31</div></div> \</div> \<div class="flexItem" id="Aug"><div class="calendarMonth">August</div> <div class="daysGrid"><div id="AugFirst">1</div> <div>2</div> <div>3</div> <div>4</div> <div>5</div> <div>6</div> \<<if not hasVisited("E1a")>><div>7</div> \<<elseif hasVisited("E1a") && not hasVisited("N1a")>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/c4.png'><span class='test'>[[7|Scene N]]</span></div> \<<elseif lastVisited("N1c") gte 2 && not hasVisited("N2a")>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/c4r.png'><span class='test'>[[7|Scene N]]</span></div> \<<elseif hasVisited("U2a") && not hasVisited("N3a")>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/c4r.png'><span class='test'>[[7|Scene N]]</span></div> \<<else>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/x3.png'><span class='test'>[[7|Scene N]]</span></div> \<</if>> \<div>8</div> <div>9</div> <div>10</div> <div>11</div> <div>12</div> <div>13</div> <div>14</div> <div>15</div> <div>16</div> <div>17</div> <div>18</div> <div>19</div> <div>20</div> <div>21</div> <div>22</div> <div>23</div> <div>24</div> <div>25</div> <div>26</div> \<<if hasVisited("E1a") && hasVisited("L1a") && $scenes gte 6 && not hasVisited("O1a")>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/c4.png'><span class='test'>[[27|Scene O]]</span></div> \<<elseif hasVisited("O1a")>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/x1.png'><span class='test'>[[27|Scene O]]</span></div> \<<else>> \<div>27</div> \<</if>> \<div>28</div> <div>29</div> <div>30</div> <div>31</div></div> </div> \<div class="flexItem" id="Sep"><div class="calendarMonth">September</div> <div class="daysGrid"><div id="SepFirst">1</div> <div>2</div> <div>3</div> <div>4</div> <div>5</div> <div>6</div> <div>7</div> <div>8</div> <div>9</div> \<<if not hasVisited("E1a") || not hasVisited("H1a") || not hasVisited("K1a") || not hasVisited("M1a") || not hasVisited("F1a") || $scenes < 10>><div>10</div> \<<elseif hasVisited("E1a") && hasVisited("H1a") && hasVisited("K1a") && hasVisited("M1a") && hasVisited("F1a") && $scenes gte 10 && not hasVisited("P1a")>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/c3.png'><span class='test'>[[10|Scene P]]</span></div> \<<elseif lastVisited("P1d") gte 2 && not hasVisited("P2a")>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/c3r.png'><span class='test'>[[10|Scene P]]</span></div> \<<elseif hasVisited("U2a") && not hasVisited("P3a")>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/c3r.png'><span class='test'>[[10|Scene P]]</span></div> \<<else>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/x1.png'><span class='test'>[[10|Scene P]]</span></div> \<</if>> \<div>11</div> \<<if not hasVisited("P2a")>><div>12</div> \<<elseif hasVisited("P2a") && not hasVisited("Q1a")>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/c2.png'><span class='test'>[[12|Scene Q]]</span></div> \<<elseif hasVisited("Q1a") && hasVisited("U2a") && not hasVisited("Q2a")>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/c2r.png'><span class='test'>[[12|Scene Q]]</span></div> \<<else>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/x2.png'><span class='test'>[[12|Scene Q]]</span></div> \<</if>> \<div>13</div> <div>14</div> <div>15</div> <div>16</div> <div>17</div> <div>18</div> <div>19</div> <div>20</div> <div>21</div> <div>22</div> <div>23</div> <div>24</div> <div>25</div> <div>26</div> <div>27</div> <div>28</div> <div>29</div> <div>30</div></div> \</div> \<div class="flexItem" id="Oct"><div class="calendarMonth">October</div> <div class="daysGrid"><div id="OctFirst">1</div> <div>2</div> <div>3</div> <div>4</div> \<<if not hasVisited("E1a") || $scenes < 7>><div>5</div> \<<elseif hasVisited("E1a") && $scenes gte 7 && not hasVisited("R1a")>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/c4.png'><span class='test'>[[5|Scene R]]</span></div> \<<elseif hasVisited("R1a") && hasVisited("U2a") && hasVisited("A3a") && not hasVisited("R2a")>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/c4r.png'><span class='test'>[[5|Scene R]]</span></div> \<<else>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/x3.png'><span class='test'>[[5|Scene R]]</span></div> \<</if>> \<div>6</div> <div>7</div> <div>8</div> <div>9</div> <div>10</div> <div>11</div> <div>12</div> <div>13</div> <div>14</div> <div>15</div> <div>16</div> <div>17</div> <div>18</div> <div>19</div> <div>20</div> <div>21</div> <div>22</div> <div>23</div> <div>24</div> \<<if hasVisited("E1a") && hasVisited("R1a") && $scenes gte 6 && not hasVisited("S1a")>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/c2.png'><span class='test'>[[25|Scene S]]</span></div> \<<elseif hasVisited("S1a")>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/x3.png'><span class='test'>[[25|Scene S]]</span></div> \<<else>> \<div>25</div> \<</if>> \<div>26</div> <div>27</div> <div>28</div> <div>29</div> <div>30</div> <div>31</div></div> \</div> \<div class="flexItem" id="Nov"><div class="calendarMonth">November</div> <div class="daysGrid"><div id="NovFirst">1</div> <div>2</div> <div>3</div> <div>4</div> <div>5</div> <div>6</div> <div>7</div> <div>8</div> <div>9</div> <div>10</div> <div>11</div> <div>12</div> <div>13</div> <div>14</div> <div>15</div> <div>16</div> \<<if not hasVisited("U2a") || not hasVisited("A2a")>><div>17</div> \<<elseif hasVisited("U2a") && hasVisited("A2a") && not hasVisited("T1a")>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/c5r.png'><span class='test'>[[17|Scene T]]</span></div> \<<else>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/x1.png'><span class='test'>[[17|Scene T]]</span></div> \<</if>> \ <div>18</div> <div>19</div> \<<if not hasVisited("Q1a")>><div>20</div> \<<elseif hasVisited("Q1a") && not hasVisited("U1a")>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/c3.png'><span class='test'>[[20|Scene U]]</span></div> \<<elseif hasVisited("Q1a") && hasVisited("U1a") && not hasVisited("U2a")>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/c3r.png'><span class='test'>[[20|Scene U]]</span></div> \<<else>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/x1.png'><span class='test'>[[20|Scene U]]</span></div> \<</if>> \<div>21</div> <div>22</div> <div>23</div> <div>24</div> <div>25</div> <div>26</div> <div>27</div> <div>28</div> <div>29</div> <div>30</div></div> \</div> \<div class="flexItem" id="Dec"><div class="calendarMonth">December</div> <div class="daysGrid"><div id="DecFirst">1</div> <div>2</div> <div>3</div> <div>4</div> <div>5</div> <div>6</div> <div>7</div> <div>8</div> <div>9</div> <div>10</div> <div>11</div> <div>12</div> <div>13</div> <div>14</div> <div>15</div> \<<if not hasVisited("U2a") || not hasVisited("N2a")>><div>16</div> \<<elseif hasVisited("U2a") && hasVisited("N2a") && not hasVisited("V1a")>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/c2r.png'><span class='test'>[[16|Scene V]]</span></div> \<<elseif hasVisited("V1a")>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/x2.png'><span class='test'>[[16|Scene V]]</span></div> \<</if>> \<div>17</div> <div>18</div> <div>19</div> <div>20</div> <div>21</div> <div>22</div> \<<if not hasVisited("U2a") || not hasVisited("A3a") || not hasVisited("P3a") || not hasVisited("M2a") || not hasVisited("V1a") || not hasVisited("C3a") || not hasVisited("K2a") || not hasVisited("I2a")>><div>23</div> \<<elseif hasVisited("U2a") && hasVisited("A3a") && hasVisited("P3a") && hasVisited("M2a") && hasVisited("V1a") && hasVisited("C3a") && hasVisited("K2a") && hasVisited("I2a") && not hasVisited("W1a")>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/c4r.png'><span class='test'>[[23|Scene W]]</span></div> \<<elseif hasVisited("W1a")>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/c4.png'><span class='test'>[[23|Scene W]]</span></div> \<</if>> \<div>24</div> <div>25</div> <div>26</div> <div>27</div> <div>28</div> <div>29</div> <div>30</div> <div>31</div></div> \</div> \</div> \<div id="month">January</div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="prelborder"></div> \<div id="pretext"> <<timedinsert 2s>><span id="pre1"><<link "January">><<replace "#pre1">>January<</replace>><<replace "#pre2">>January<</replace>><<replace "#Orr">><<timedinsert .8s>>“One of story's primary purposes is to lay claim to experience. Autobiographical storytelling can take personal experience back from silence, shame, fear, or oblivion. It says, ‘I cherish this’ or ‘This haunts me.’ It asserts the significance of events in one's life: ‘This happened to me.’ ‘I did this.’ ‘This is part of who I am.’ ‘This should not or will not disappear, and I act to preserve it by turning it to words and shaping them as story.’” --<i>Gregory Orr, from Poetry as Survival</i><</timedinsert>><</replace>><</link>></span> is a dynamic fiction story--more of an interactive novel than a choose-your-own-adventure game. You cannot change what happens in this story, only your experience of the narrative. Suicide and trauma are central themes of <span id="pre2"><<link "January">><<replace "#pre1">>January<</replace>><<replace "#pre2">>January<</replace>><<replace "#Orr">><<timedinsert .8s>>“One of story's primary purposes is to lay claim to experience. Autobiographical storytelling can take personal experience back from silence, shame, fear, or oblivion. It says, ‘I cherish this’ or ‘This haunts me.’ It asserts the significance of events in one's life: ‘This happened to me.’ ‘I did this.’ ‘This is part of who I am.’ ‘This should not or will not disappear, and I act to preserve it by turning it to words and shaping them as story.’” --<i>Gregory Orr, from Poetry as Survival</i><</timedinsert>><</replace>><</link>></span>. It also includes scenes of violence, gore, animal death, and strong language. Click the arrow on the right to begin.<</timedinsert>> <<timedinsert 2.1s>><hr><</timedinsert>> <span id="Orr">@@opacity:0;“One of story's primary purposes is to lay claim to experience. Autobiographical storytelling can take personal experience back from silence, shame, fear, or oblivion. It says, ‘I cherish this’ or ‘This haunts me.’ It asserts the significance of events in one's life: ‘This happened to me.’ ‘I did this. ’ ‘This is part of who I am.’ ‘This should not or will not disappear, and I act to preserve it by turning it to words and shaping them as story.’” --<i>Gregory Orr, from Poetry as Survival</i>@@</span> \</div> \<div id="prerborder"></div> \</div> \<div id="final"><<timedinsert 6s>>[[⸸|calendar]]<</timedinsert>></div> \<div id="month"><<timedinsert 2s>>January<</timedinsert>></div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="prelborder"></div> \<div id="pretext"> <<timedinsert 4s>>Many thanks for reading, and if you’d like to share your thoughts about January, or just flap your hands a little, feel free to reach out to me on [[Twitter|https://twitter.com/litrouke]] or [[Tumblr|https://litrouke-works.tumblr.com/]]. <hr><</timedinsert>><<timedinsert 10s>> “But in the end, stories are about one person saying to another: This is the way it feels to me. Can you understand what I’m saying? Does it also feel this way to you?” --<i>Kazuo Ishiguro, from his 2017 Nobel Lecture</i> <hr><</timedinsert>><<timedinsert 15s>> Additional thanks to: <ul><li>[[Addictivites|https://linktr.ee/addictivities]] for the incomparable art</li> <li>[[Sjoerd|https://sjoerdhekking.itch.io/]] for teaching me how to use TweeGo</li> <li>[[Chapel|https://github.com/ChapelR/custom-macros-for-sugarcube-2]] and [[HiEV|https://qjzhvmqlzvoo5lqnrvuhmg.on.drv.tw/UInv/Sample_Code.html#Main%20Menu]] for their macros</li> <li>[[Vecteezy|https://www.vecteezy.com/vector-art/2787391-hand-drawn-circle-line-sketch-vector-set-circular-scribble-doodle-round-circles-message-note-mark-design-element-pencil-pen-graffiti-bubble-ball-draft-illustration-vector]] [[x|https://www.vecteezy.com/vector-art/6545958-handdrawn-black-and-white-brush-stroke-seamless-pattern-memphis-style-pattern-abstract-background]] [[x|https://www.vecteezy.com/vector-art/6017860-vector-set-x-black-mark-cross-sign-graphic-symbol-grunge-x-mark]] for the calendar shapes</li> <li>& Sarah for bearing with it.</li></ul><</timedinsert>> \</div> \<div id="prerborder"></div> \</div> \<div id="final"><<timedinsert 18s>><<link "⸸">><<script>>Engine.restart()<</script>><</link>><</timedinsert>></div> \<div id="month"></div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="noborder"></div> \<div id="sceneText"> \<<if not hasVisited("A1a") || not hasVisited("U2a")>><<goto "A1a">> <<elseif hasVisited("A1a") && hasVisited("U2a") && not hasVisited("A2a")>><<goto "A2a">> \<<else>><div class='addic'><img src='images/scenes/imA.png'></div> \<</if>> \</div> \</div> \<<if hasVisited("U2a") && hasVisited("T1a")>><div id="next">[[⸷|A3a]]</div><<elseif hasVisited("U2a") && not hasVisited("T1a")>><div id="next">[[⸷|A2a]]</div><<else>><div id="final">[[⸸|calendar]]</div><</if>> \<div id="month">I</div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="lborder"></div> \<div id="text"> He should have killed himself after they died. \</div> \<div id="rborder"></div> \</div> \<div id="initial"><<timedinsert 2s>>[[⸸|calendar][$scenes += 1]]<</timedinsert>></div> \<div id="month">I</div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="lborder"></div> \<div id="text"> \<<timedreplace 2s>>He<<becomes>>I<</timedreplace>> should have killed <<timedreplace 2s>>himself<<becomes>>myself<</timedreplace>> after they died. <<timedinsert 4s>><span id="A2a"><<link "I tried.">><<replace "#A2a">>I tried. <<timedinsert 1s>>While Audrey and Dag were asleep, I snuck out of the house in the middle of the night and got into the car. We kept hunting bags in there, so I didn’t bring any supplies with me, and I went and drove until the gas tank showed empty. I couldn’t make up my mind. It wasn’t about a decision — I couldn’t make my mind come together. Like sheets on a bed. Every time I tucked one corner in, the <span id="olink"><<link "others">><<replace "#others">>@@white-space:pre; @@Shooting myself @@white-space:pre; @@ Blowing up the car @@white-space:pre; @@Walking off a roof @@white-space:pre; @@ Letting them shred me <</replace>><<replace "#olink">>others<</replace>><</link>></span> snapped off. <span id="others"></span> <span id="wantlink"><<link "I guess I didn’t want to do it.">><<replace "#wantlink">>I guess I didn’t want to do it. But I knew I should, so I found a good full parking lot and started leaking the cars’ gas. Smashed some engines. They were getting interested. I shot a few. Most of them look like people, which was better. I knew I didn’t want to, and if it was just my car on fire, I’d end up breaking the window and crawling out. I started the fire in the middle of the lot, and that really got them interested. Swarms of them now, crackling in the fire like crickets on a frying pan. I had the idea that if I trapped myself on a roof, the fire would work its way up the building and I couldn’t crawl anywhere. In hindsight, I didn’t have enough fuel left to pull that off. But I tried. I thought I set the whole store on fire, and I went up to the roof to watch. The sky was all gray. Even the blue parts that the smoke hadn’t touched yet were gray, like the face of a mother IDing her son at the coroner’s. There must have been screaming. I would have been able to smell it. My eyes stung so that I stopped seeing.<</replace>><</link>>@@opacity:0;I guess I didn’t want to do it. But I knew I should, so I found a good full parking lot and started leaking the cars’ gas. Smashed some engines. They were getting interested. I shot a few. Most of them look like people, which was better. I knew I didn’t want to, and if it was just my car on fire, I’d end up breaking the window and crawling out. I started the fire in the middle of the lot, and that really got them interested. Swarms of them now, crackling in the fire like crickets on a frying pan. I had the idea that if I trapped myself on a roof, the fire would work its way up the building and I couldn’t crawl anywhere. In hindsight, I didn’t have enough fuel left to pull that off. But I tried. I thought I set the whole store on fire, and I went up to the roof to watch. The sky was all gray. Even the blue parts that the smoke hadn’t touched yet were gray, like the face of a mother IDing her son at the coroner’s. There must have been screaming. I would have been able to smell it. My eyes stung so that I stopped seeing.@@</span><</timedinsert>><</replace>><</link>></span><</timedinsert>> \</div> \<div id="rborder"></div> \</div> \<<if not hasVisited("A2b")>><<timedinsert 12s>><div id="next">[[⸷|A2b]]</div><</timedinsert>><<else>><div id="final">[[⸸|calendar]]</div><</if>> \<div id="month"></div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="noborder"></div> \<div id="sceneText"> \<<timedinsert .1s>><div class="addic"><img src='images/scenes/imA.png'></div><</timedinsert>> \</div> \</div> \<div id="final"><<timedinsert 2s>>[[⸸|calendar]]<</timedinsert>></div> \<div id="month">I</div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="lborder"></div> \<div id="text"> \I should have killed myself after they died. I tried. While Audrey and Dag were asleep, I snuck out of the house in the middle of the night and got into the car. We kept hunting bags in there, so I didn’t bring any supplies with me, and I went and drove until the gas tank showed empty. I couldn’t make up my mind. It wasn’t about a decision — I couldn’t make my mind come together. Like sheets on a bed. Every time I tucked one corner in, the others snapped off. I’ve always been too proud to try and fix things that aren’t working. So I threw away the sheets and slept on the couch. I guess I didn’t want to do it. But I knew I should, so I found a good full parking lot and started leaking the cars’ gas. Smashed some engines. They were getting interested. I shot a few. Most of them look like people, which was better. I knew I didn’t want to, and if it was just my car on fire, I’d end up breaking the window and crawling out. I started the fire in the middle of the lot, and that really got them interested. Swarms of them now, crackling in the fire like crickets on a frying pan. I had the idea that if I trapped myself on a roof, the fire would work its way up the building and I couldn’t crawl anywhere. In hindsight, I didn’t have enough fuel left to pull that off. But I tried. I thought I set the whole store on fire, and I went up to the roof to watch. The sky was all gray. Even the blue parts that the smoke hadn’t touched yet were gray, like the face of a mother IDing her son at the coroner’s. There must have been screaming. I would have been able to smell it. My eyes stung so that I stopped seeing. \</div> \<div id="rborder"></div> \</div> \<div id="next"><<if hasVisited("A3b")>>[[⸷|A3bDone]]<<else>>[[⸷|A3b]]<</if>></div> \<div id="month">I</div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="lborder"></div> \<div id="text"> \Across the gray was a cement building. I watched one of them climb up to its roof. And you know I killed him. I know I did. My hands were still gray from collecting their ashes. He looked at me from across the way, and I couldn’t make out his face, which is what bothered me. <span id="linku"><<link "I couldn’t">><<replace "#linku">><<link "He">><<replace "#linku">> <<timedinsert 1s>>When I remember it now, I think Rebecca was behind him, and he turned away and went back to her. I don’t know if that’s just me remembering. By then, I was already climbing down and trying to get across and see his face.<</timedinsert>> <<timedinsert 8s>><span id="believe"><<link "Do you believe any of that?">><<replace "#believe">>Do you believe any of that?<</replace>><<replace "#A3b">><<timedinsert 1s>>I couldn’t have gotten through the smoke alone, never mind the parking lot full of burning dead. Maybe if I had you with me. So I couldn’t have done it. But after I did, I ended up at the car. It drove half a mile before the engine ran dry, and then I took the hunting bag and started to walk. You could see the parking lot <<hoverreplace>>burning from miles out.<<becomes>> burning from miles out, even from the ships.<</hoverreplace>> Yeah? Why does that make you purr? I remember running out of water. I emptied the hunting bag, and at the bottom of it, in Rebecca’s handwriting, was the answer to the last riddle I asked her. She wrote, <i>Ravens are the ashes of a writing desk’s kindling.</i> Which, personally, I don’t think answered the riddle. But she was never much of an inside-the-box thinker.<</timedinsert>><</replace>><<replace "#final">><<timedinsert 5s>>[[⸸|calendar]]<</timedinsert>><</replace>><</link>></span><</timedinsert>> <</replace>><</link>><</replace>><</link>></span> <span id="A3b">@@opacity:0;I couldn’t have gotten through the smoke alone, never mind the parking lot full of burning dead. Maybe if I had you with me. So I couldn’t have done it. But after I did, I ended up at the car. It drove half a mile before the engine ran dry, and then I took the hunting bag and started to walk. You could see the parking lot <<hoverreplace>>burning from miles out.<<becomes>> burning from miles out, even from the ships.<</hoverreplace>> Yeah? Why does that make you purr? I remember running out of water. I emptied the hunting bag, and at the bottom of it, in Rebecca’s handwriting, was the answer to the last riddle I asked her. She wrote, <i>Ravens are the ashes of a writing desk’s kindling.</i> Which, personally, I don’t think answered the riddle. But she was never much of an inside-the-box thinker.@@</span> \</div> \<div id="rborder"></div> \</div> \<div id="final"></div> \<div id="month">I</div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="lborder"></div> \<div id="text"> \Across the gray was a cement building. I watched one of them climb up to its roof. And you know I killed him. I know I did. My hands were still gray from collecting their ashes. He looked at me from across the way, and I couldn’t make out his face, which is what bothered me. When I remember it now, I think Rebecca was behind him, and he turned away and went back to her. I don’t know if that’s just me remembering. By then, I was already climbing down and trying to get across and see his face. Do you believe any of that? I couldn’t have gotten through the smoke alone, never mind the parking lot full of burning dead. Maybe if I had you with me. So I couldn’t have done it. But after I did, I ended up at the car. It drove half a mile before the engine ran dry, and then I took the hunting bag and started to walk. You could see the parking lot <<hoverreplace>>burning from miles out.<<becomes>> burning from miles out, even from the ships.<</hoverreplace>> Yeah? Why does that make you purr? I remember running out of water. I emptied the hunting bag, and at the bottom of it, in Rebecca’s handwriting, was the answer to the last riddle I asked her. She wrote, <i>Ravens are the ashes of a writing desk’s kindling.</i> Which, personally, I don’t think answered the riddle. But she was never much of an inside-the-box thinker. \</div> \<div id="rborder"></div> \</div> \<div id="final">[[⸸|calendar]]</div> \<div id="month"></div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="noborder"></div> \<div id="sceneText"> \<<if not hasVisited("B1a")>><<goto "B1a">> \<<elseif hasVisited("B1a") && not hasVisited("B2a")>><<goto "B2a">> \<<else>> \<div class='addic'><img src='images/scenes/imB.png'></div> \<</if>> \</div> \</div> \<<if hasVisited("U2a") && not hasVisited("B3a")>><div id="next">[[⸷|B3a]]</div><<elseif hasVisited("U2a") && hasVisited("B3a")>><div id="next">[[⸷|B3aDone]]</div><<elseif not hasVisited("U2a")>><div id="next">[[⸷|B2a]]</div><</if>> \<div id="month">II</div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="lborder"></div> \<div id="text"> \<div id="B1_image_container"><img class="B1" src='images/rings.png'></div>The train unfurled from the tunnel like a tongue. The front engine had come to rest half a mile from the mouth of the tunnel, and behind it a long procession of tattered boxcars faded into the dark, their orange paint dulled to sepia and their wheels spiked with weeds. A single oil tanker, bulbous and pale as the head of a cyst, interrupted the straight line of boxcars. From a distance, he had thought that the train might be the origin of the smoke. He hadn’t questioned how an unmoving, unsounding train could produce a night’s worth of smoke, the plumes so thick that they fogged the moon. As he drew nearer, it became clear that the train had not produced anything, never mind smoke, in many months. Not since Before. They had converted the dead train into a makeshift fortress by hanging rope ladders from the boxcars and stashing homemade polearms on top of the grooved roofs. The train must have prevailed against at least one attack: old blood stained the rims of several cars. He pressed himself between two boxcars, passing to the other side of the train to see what it was intended to protect. Immediately he found the source of last night’s smoke. They had dug a firepit several feet deep and a moon wide, cratering the earth beside the train, and packed the hole with leaves and logs and kindling, all carbonized now. There were darker things in the pit as well, things blacker than the surrounding soot, but he couldn’t understand them yet. His attention was taken by the bodies. Like ants spewed from a poisoned colony, dozens of bodies radiated from the firepit in dazed concentric circles. They had collapsed to the ground gently, some with enough time to fold their hands over their chest or curl up on their sides like drained spider husks. Many were naked, and all whole, unbloodied, unmangled. The morning frost powdered their skin, clumps of white offset by the black frostbite that stained their fingers and toes. \</div> \<div id="rborder"></div> \</div> \<div id="initial"><<timedinsert 3s>>[[⸸|calendar][$scenes += 1]]<</timedinsert>></div> \<div id="month">II</div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="lborder"></div> \<div id="text"> \The train unfurled from the tunnel like a tongue. <<timedinsert 4s>>The front engine had come to rest half a mile from the mouth of the tunnel, and behind it a long procession of tattered boxcars faded into the dark, their orange paint dulled to sepia and their wheels spiked with weeds. A single oil tanker, bulbous and pale as the head of a cyst, interrupted the straight line of boxcars. From a distance, he had thought that the train might be the origin of the smoke. He hadn’t questioned how an unmoving, unsounding train could produce a night’s worth of smoke, the plumes so thick that they fogged the moon. As he drew nearer, it became clear that the train had not produced anything, never mind smoke, in many months. Not since Before. They had converted the dead train into a makeshift fortress by hanging rope ladders from the boxcars and stashing homemade polearms on top of the grooved roofs. The train must have prevailed against at least one attack: old blood stained the rims of several cars. He pressed himself between two boxcars, passing to the other side of the train to see what it was intended to protect. Immediately he found the source of last night’s smoke. They had dug a firepit several feet deep and a moon wide, cratering the earth beside the train, and packed the hole with leaves and logs and kindling, all carbonized now. There were darker things in the pit as well, things blacker than the surrounding soot, but he couldn’t understand them yet. His attention was taken by the bodies. Like ants spewed from a poisoned colony, dozens of bodies radiated from the firepit in dazed concentric circles. They had collapsed to the ground gently, some with enough time to fold their hands over their chest or curl up on their sides like drained spider husks. Many were naked, and all whole, unbloodied, unmangled. The morning frost powdered their skin, clumps of white offset by the black frostbite that stained their fingers and toes. He didn’t confirm that they were <span id="deadlink"><<link "dead">><<replace "#next">><<timedinsert .3s>>[[⸷|B2b]]<</timedinsert>><</replace>><<replace "#deadlink">>dead<</replace>><</link>></span>. It was enough that they weren’t moving.<</timedinsert>> \</div> \<div id="rborder"></div> \</div> \<div id="next"></div> \<div id="month">II</div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="lborder"></div> \<div id="text"> \Thirst serrated him. His eyes itched, his lips burned even as he shivered, and his tongue felt like a shard of glass left in the sun. He picked through the bodies, scouting for bags or flasks, but there was nothing to loot except frozen meat and rotting organs. Soon he turned back to the train. Tarps hung off a couple of the boxcars, with lumps beneath them that might be supplies. He walked along the edge of the firepit, ashes stirring underfoot. As he passed another of the dark things, he looked closer and realized what it was -- a cooking pot, so scorched by the fire that its steel and iron had lost all luster. The fire’s heat had evaporated any liquid in the pots, but some of them still held broiled chunks of matter, rubbery skinless flesh whose color reminded him of the oil tanker. He couldn’t see the source of the meat anywhere in the meager encampment. There were no drying racks in sight, or gutted hides, no bones or offal buckets or knives. The only creature in eyeshot was a bird, and it was very much alive. A thrill fluttered through its wings as it hopped about, finding a new angle from which to extract meat from the woman’s foot. It ignored her frostbitten toes, which looked like they had been dipped in ink for how wetly and comically black they were, and preferred to eat from her heel. She sat upright against the train, separate from the other bodies, arms limp in her lap and one bare foot extended. She rocked her head to watch him approach. Ashes streaked her hair, rendering the color unknowable, and blue lined her lips. As he crouched beside her, the bird flitted away. “Is there water?” he asked. She said, “No.” The word was dark and round, a tunnel unable to swallow its tongue. He felt his own tongue crack as he spoke. He wished the desiccated skin of it would peel away, flake off in long strips like the paint from the boxcars. The metal underneath would be barer, but harder, unneeding of moisture. “There’s nothing?” he asked. She said, “<span id="yeslink"><<link "Yes">><<replace "#next">><<timedinsert .3s>><<if not hasVisited("B2c")>>[[⸷|B2c]]<<else>>[[⸸|calendar]]<</if>><</timedinsert>><</replace>><<replace "#yeslink">>Yes<</replace>><</link>></span>.” \</div> \<div id="rborder"></div> \</div> \<div id="next"></div> \<div id="month"></div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="noborder"></div> \<div id="sceneText"> \<<timedinsert .1s>><div class="addic"><img src='images/scenes/imB.png'></div><</timedinsert>> \</div> \</div> \<div id="final"><<timedinsert 2s>>[[⸸|calendar][$scenes += 1]]<</timedinsert>></div> \<div id="month">II</div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="lborder"></div> \<div id="text"> \The train unfurled from the tunnel like a tongue. The front engine <<timedreplace 1.5s>>had come<<becomes>>came<</timedreplace>> to rest half a mile from the mouth of the tunnel, and behind it a long <<timedreplace 1.5s>>procession of tattered boxcars<<becomes>>old line of boxcars<</timedreplace>> faded into the dark, their <<timedremove 1.5s>>orange <</timedremove>>paint dull<<timedremove 1.5s>>ed to sepia<</timedremove>> and their wheels spiked with weeds. A single oil tanker, bulbous and pale as the head of a cyst, interrupted the straight line of boxcars. From a distance, <<timedreplace 2s>>he had thought that<<becomes>>I thought<</timedreplace>> the train might<<timedreplace 2s>> be the origin of the smoke. <<becomes>>’ve been the thing puffing smoke.<</timedreplace>> <<timedreplace 2s>>He hadn’t questioned how an unmoving, unsounding train could produce a night’s worth of smoke, the plumes so thick that they fogged the moon. As he drew nearer, it became clear that t<<becomes>>But getting close to it cleared that misconception right up. T<</timedreplace>>he train had<<timedreplace 2s>> not<<becomes>>n’t<</timedreplace>> produced anything, never mind smoke, in <<timedreplace 2s>>many months<<becomes>>ages<</timedreplace>>. Not since Before. <<timedreplace 2.5s>>They had converted<<becomes>>Someone had tried to convert <</timedreplace>> the dead train into a <<timedremove 2.5s>>makeshift <</timedremove>>fortress by hanging rope ladders from the boxcars and stashing homemade <<timedreplace 2.5s>>polearms on top of the grooved roofs<<becomes>>spears on top of ‘em<</timedreplace>>. <<timedremove 2.5s>>The train must have prevailed against at least one attack; old blood stained the rims of several cars. <</timedremove>> <<timedreplace 3s>>He pressed himself <<becomes>>@@.new;I get the idea of it. I’ve seen people make camps on bridges and rooftops--same concept, that the dead can’t climb. But this train was the shittiest I’d seen. The shortest-minded, if that’s a word. The roof wasn’t wide enough to store a lot of supplies, and not high enough to get out of their sight and let ‘em wander off, so you gotta kill every one of them--you get it. I don’t need to tell you.@@ I squeezed<</timedreplace>> between two boxcars<<timedreplace 3.5s>>, passing<<becomes>> to get<</timedreplace>> to the other side of the train<<timedreplace 3.5s>> to<<becomes>>, and there was<</timedreplace>> the source of last night’s smoke. <<timedremove 3.5s>>They had dug <</timedremove>><<timedreplace 3.5s>>a<<becomes>>A<</timedreplace>> firepit several feet deep and a moon wide, cratering the earth beside the train, <<timedremove 3.5s>>and <</timedremove>>packed <<timedremove 3.5s>>the hole <</timedremove>>with leaves and logs and kindling<<timedremove 3.5s>>, all carbonized now<</timedremove>>. There were darker things in the pit<<timedremove 3.5s>> as well, things blacker than the surrounding soot<</timedremove>>, but <<timedreplace 3.5s>>he couldn’t understand them yet. His<<becomes>>my<</timedreplace>> attention was taken by the bodies. <<timedreplace 4s>>Like ants spewed from a poisoned colony, dozens of bodies<<becomes>>They<</timedreplace>> radiated <<timedinsert 4s>>out<</timedinsert>> from the firepit in <<timedinsert 4s>>big<</timedinsert>> dazed <<timedremove 4s>>concentric <</timedremove>>circles<<timedinsert 4s>>, dozens of them filling up the frozen ground<</timedinsert>>. They<<timedreplace 4s>> had collapsed to the ground<<becomes>>’d fallen<</timedreplace>> gently, some with enough time to fold their hands over their chest or curl up on their sides like <<timedreplace 4s>>drained spider husks<<becomes>>dead spiders<</timedreplace>>.<<timedremove 4s>> Many were naked, and all whole, unbloodied, unmangled.<</timedremove>> The <<timedremove 4s>>morning <</timedremove>>frost <<timedreplace 4s>>powdered their skin, clumps of white offset by the black frostbite that stained their fingers and toes.<<becomes>>painted them white all over, except for the panda spots of black frostbite.<</timedreplace>> I didn’t <<timedreplace 4.5s>>confirm<<becomes>>check<</timedreplace>> that they were dead. <<timedreplace 4.5s>>It was enough that they weren’t moving.<<becomes>>I’d followed the smoke to find water, not company.<</timedreplace>> \ \</div> \<div id="rborder"></div> \</div> \<div id="next"><<timedinsert 5s>>[[⸷|B3b]]<</timedinsert>></div> \<div id="month">II</div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="lborder"></div> \<div id="text"> \<<timedreplace 1s>>Thirst serrated him.<<becomes>>And the thirst was killing me.<</timedreplace>> <<timedreplace 1s>>His<<becomes>>My<</timedreplace>> eyes itched, <<timedreplace 1s>>his<<becomes>>my<</timedreplace>> lips burned<<timedremove 1s>> even as he shivered, and<</timedremove>><<timedinsert 1s>>,<</timedinsert>> <<timedreplace 1s>>his<<becomes>>my<</timedreplace>> tongue felt like a shard of glass left in the sun. <<timedreplace 1s>>He<<becomes>>I<</timedreplace>> picked through the bodies, <<timedremove 1s>>scouting for bags or flasks, <</timedremove>>but there was nothing to find except frozen meat and rotting organs.<<timedremove 1s>> Soon<</timedremove>> <<timedreplace 1s>>he<<becomes>>I<</timedreplace>> turned back to the train. <<timedremove 1s>>Tarps hung off a couple of the boxcars, with lumps beneath them that might be supplies. He walked along the edge of the firepit, ashes stirring underfoot. As he passed another of the dark things, he looked closer and realized what it was -- a cooking pot, so scorched by the fire that its steel and iron had lost all luster. The fire’s heat had evaporated any liquid in the pots, but some of them still held broiled chunks of matter, rubbery skinless flesh whose color reminded him of the oil tanker. He couldn’t see the source of the meat anywhere in the meager encampment. There were no drying racks in sight, or gutted hides, no bones or offal buckets or knives. <</timedremove>> <<timedreplace 1.5s>>The only living creature in eyeshot was a bird, and it was very much alive. A thrill fluttered through its wings as it hopped about, finding a new angle from which to extract meat from<<becomes>>Of course the only thing left alive was my big black bird, hopping around by the train, pecking at<</timedreplace>> the woman’s foot. It ignored her <<timedremove 1.5s>>frostbitten <</timedremove>>toes, which looked like they<<timedreplace 1.5s>> had<<becomes>>’d<</timedreplace>> been dipped in <<timedreplace 1.5s>>ink for how wetly and comically black they were<<becomes>>black ink<</timedreplace>>, and <<timedreplace 1.5s>>preferred to eat from<<becomes>>ripped a strip of meat off<</timedreplace>> her heel. She <<timedinsert 1.5s>>was<</timedinsert>> sat upright against the train, <<timedreplace 1.5s>>separate from the other bodies,<<becomes>>apart from everyone else, her<</timedreplace>> arms limp in her lap and <<timedreplace 1.5s>>one bare foot extended<<becomes>>sick with frost<</timedreplace>>. <<timedreplace 2s>>She rocked her head to watch him approach. Ashes streaked her hair, rendering the color unknowable, and blue lined her lips. As he crouched beside her, the bird flitted away.<<becomes>>But her head twitched to follow me. I came over and kicked at the bird, and we watched it ruffle off a few feet and shiver its feathers.<</timedreplace>> <<timedreplace 3s>>“Is there water?” he asked. S<<becomes>>Then I asked if there was water, and s<</timedreplace>>he said, “No.” The word was dark and round, a tunnel unable to swallow its tongue<<timedreplace 4s>>. He felt his own tongue crack as he spoke. He wished the desiccated skin of it would peel away, flake off in long strips like the paint from the boxcars. The metal underneath would be barer, but harder, unneeding of moisture. “There’s nothing?” he asked. She said, “Yes.”<<becomes>>@@.new;, and I knew what it really meant. I said it out loud for her -- “There’s nothing.” -- and her shoulders softened even under the frost. She didn’t have enough tongue left to say, <i>Yes. You know what I mean. You understand.</i> I understood her. But. I took down the tarp from the next car over and wrapped it around her shoulders. I had to peel her off the train since she’d frozen to the metal, but I wrapped her in the tarp the best I could and covered her leg with a jacket I ripped off a corpse. I understood what she meant, but you never know when people are gonna change their minds. So I figured, well. Just in case.@@<</timedreplace>> \</div> \<div id="rborder"></div> \</div> \<div id="final"><<timedinsert 5s>>[[⸸|calendar]]<</timedinsert>></div> \<div id="month">II</div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="lborder"></div> \<div id="text"> \The train unfurled from the tunnel like a tongue. The front engine came to rest half a mile from the mouth of the tunnel, and behind it a long old line of boxcars faded into the dark, their paint dull and their wheels spiked with weeds. A single oil tanker, bulbous and pale as the head of a cyst, interrupted the straight line of boxcars. From a distance, I thought the train might’ve been the thing puffing smoke. But getting close to it cleared that misconception right up. The train hadn’t produced anything, never mind smoke, in ages. Not since Before. Someone had tried to convert the dead train into a fortress by hanging rope ladders from the boxcars and stashing homemade spears on top of ‘em. I got the idea of it. I’ve seen people make camps on bridges and rooftops--same idea, that the dead can’t climb. But this train was the shittiest I’d seen. The shortest-minded, if that’s a word. The roof wasn’t wide enough to store a lot of supplies, and not high enough to get out of their sight and let ‘em wander off, so you gotta kill every one of them – you get it. I don’t need to tell you. I squeezed between two boxcars to get to the other side of the train, and there was the source of last night’s smoke. A firepit several feet deep and a moon wide, cratering the earth beside the train, packed with leaves and logs and kindling. There were darker things in the pit, but my attention was taken by the bodies. They radiated out from the firepit in big dazed circles, dozens of them filling up the frozen ground. They’d fallen gently, some with enough time to fold their hands over their chest or curl up on their sides like dead spiders. The frost painted them white all over, except for the panda spots of black frostbite. I didn’t check that they were dead. I’d followed the smoke to find water, not company. \</div> \<div id="rborder"></div> \</div> \<div id="next">[[⸷|B3bDone]]</div> \<div id="month">II</div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="lborder"></div> \<div id="text"> \And the thirst was killing me. My eyes itched, my lips burned, my tongue felt like a shard of glass left in the sun. I picked through the bodies, but there was nothing to find except frozen meat and rotting organs. I turned back to the train. Of course the only thing left alive was my big black bird, hopping around by the train, pecking at the woman’s foot. It ignored her toes, which looked like they’d been dipped in black ink, and ripped a strip of meat off her heel. She was sat upright against the train, apart from everyone else, her arms limp in her lap and sick with frost. But her head twitched to follow me. I came over and kicked at the bird, and we watched it ruffle off a few feet and shiver its feathers. Then I asked if there was water, and she said, “No.” The word was dark and round, a tunnel unable to swallow its tongue, and I knew what it really meant. I said it out loud for her -- “There’s nothing.” -- and her shoulders softened even under the frost. She didn’t have enough tongue left to say, <i>Yes. You know what I mean. You understand.</i> But I did. Still. I took down the tarp from the next car over and wrapped it around her shoulders. I had to peel her off the train since she’d frozen to the metal. I wrapped her in the tarp the best I could and covered her leg with a jacket I ripped off a corpse. I understood what she meant, but you never know when people are gonna change their minds. So I figured, well. Just in case. \</div> \<div id="rborder"></div> \</div> \<div id="final">[[⸸|calendar]]</div> \<div id="month"></div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="noborder"></div> \<div id="sceneText"> \<<if not hasVisited("C1a")>><<goto "C1a">> \<<elseif hasVisited("C1a") && not hasVisited("C2a")>><<goto "C2a">> \<<else>> \<div class='addic'><img src='images/scenes/imC.png'></div> \<</if>> \</div> \</div> \<<if hasVisited("U2a") && not hasVisited("C3a")>><div id="next">[[⸷|C3a]]</div><<elseif hasVisited("U2a") && hasVisited("C3a")>><div id="next">[[⸷|C3aDone]]</div><<elseif not hasVisited("U2a")>><div id="next">[[⸷|C2aDone]]</div><</if>> \<div id="month">II</div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="lborder"></div> \<div id="text"> \A @@.blurred;dogtrot separated the two halves of the@@ house@@.blurred;. The breezeway was@@ built for @@.blurred;ventilation; it punched a hole in the throat of the house to help it breathe in the@@ summer @@.blurred;heat.@@ Useless now @@.blurred;that winter had taken up residence.@@ @@.blurred;As@@ he followed @@.blurred;the long, trackless driveway up to @@the @@.blurred;dogtrot house, his walking-stick-shovel grooved@@ dents in the earth@@.blurred;, his foot dragging behind it. Yesterday he had thought nothing of the twinge in his ankle, but the cold had seized it overnight. Now the swollen joint rolled in his boot like a marble. He shuffled past a truck, defunct. A layer of@@ frost bleached the grass @@.blurred;beneath the undercarriage,@@ the same belly-white color as @@.blurred;the house’s wooden slats. To the left of the dogtrot rose most of@@ the house@@.blurred;: a tri-paneled kitchen alcove, curtained den windows, the chimney, a glimpse of back porch. The low right side of the house held only a bedroom.@@ He stopped at the mouth@@.blurred; of the dogtrot and peered into the dark passage. On either side, screen doors bristled like flies in the early sun.@@ Something had gnawed at the door @@.blurred;on the left. Thin licks of paint had been scraped off, and the screen’s mesh frayed@@ and reared away@@.blurred; from its frame.@@ He @@.blurred;stumped back to the lawn and@@ looked @@.blurred;the house over@@ again. @@.blurred;Furred brown shingles. Flakes of dandelion-yellow paint trimmed the windows.@@ Nothing stirred. @@.blurred;A knock-off Rockwell painting, he thought, clouded with dust in the basement of an old man whose knees no longer bent.@@ He @@.blurred;circled to the back of the house, where he@@ found a @@.blurred;chipped utility@@ door @@.blurred;next to the garage. It looked thin and cheaper than the wooden front doors. He had intended@@ to break @@.blurred;it@@ down@@.blurred;, but the knob turned freely in his hand and opened into a narrow mudroom. Floor-to-ceiling cabinets ringed an old washer and dryer. None of the surfaces were allowed to be white: yellow scraps of paper infested the room,@@ some @@.blurred;of them sticky notes, most of them taped and torn and re-taped strips of paper ripped out of a legal pad. The notes, plastered at all heights across the cabinets and machines, gave off the@@ dizzying illusion @@.blurred;of a garden turned ninety degrees, the boxy yellow plots dotted with black word seeds and the masking tape@@ like @@.blurred;white lines of fertilizer.@@ @@.blurred;He edged into the room and pulled the door shut behind him.@@ Dust gauzed around @@.blurred;his feet. More lined@@ the counter@@.blurred;, pausing here for a basket of linens and there for a bottle of bleach. He didn’t touch the bleach. That was@@ a sweetness @@.blurred;he had almost tasted before.@@ In the dead air @@.blurred;of the little room, he leaned his weight against the wall and lowered himself to the floor, one leg outstretched. The room was so narrow that his heel hit a cabinet; immediately his ankle throbbed. He breathed through the red. He imagined the bruise oozing through his sock like @@ an open wound@@.blurred;, dyeing the wool a deep, mashed, mulberry purple. He rubbed his knee in sympathy, and@@ after @@.blurred;a few minutes,@@ the pain lowered its head and receded. @@.blurred;Around his foot were taped several notes: <i>Pellets Terpetine Brushes Tape Kibble</i> Gingerly he shuffled his leg aside and opened the cabinet. Inside was everything the notes had promised, and more. He pried@@ the@@.blurred; lid off a bucket of kibble, took a sniff, removed his gloves, and dug in. The label said beef and lamb flavor, but it tasted like nothing but sustenance. He ground through a couple handfuls before the@@ dryness @@.blurred;of the kibble@@ closed his throat. @@.blurred;More later. He could eat and rest here a few days, but@@ he needed water. @@.blurred;He levered himself to his feet, leaving blurry handprints@@ in the dust @@.blurred;on the washing machine, and proceeded into the house proper. As expected,@@ he met @@.blurred;a kitchen, and beyond that an eating nook and a many-lamped, quilt-draped den. He limped to the kitchen sink, his ankle even sorer after the short rest. Of course the faucet gave @@no water, @@.blurred;but he was hoping they had stashed emergency gallons under the sink. He kneed open the cabinet to find @@nothing but @@.blurred;soap and@@ more bleach. @@.blurred;He staggered around the kitchen, snapping cabinets open and closed, one hand on the counter for balance. @@At the end of @@.blurred;the island someone had left, of@@ all things, @@.blurred;a single can of flat root beer. He cracked it and drained it. There might be water bottles in the fridge, but@@ he didn’t want to @@.blurred;release the sludge of rotted produce until he was on his way out. After finishing the can of pop, he instinctively brushed his fingers against his coat to get the dust off. There was none. He looked at his fingers, and then at the can.@@ There @@.blurred;was no dust in the lid. \<<seen>><<addclass ".scroll" "show">><<hidden>><<content>><</seen>> He looked at the counter. His balancing hand@@ should have @@.blurred;swept a streak of cleanness through the grimy months accumulated on the countertop. @@been @@.blurred;There was @@nothing @@.blurred;to wipe. His tongue prickled, the syrup making his mouth sticky @@and @@.blurred;dry.@@ He @@.blurred;opened the fridge and@@ was @@.blurred;not@@ surprised to find @@.blurred;that it had been cleaned out. No water bottles, but@@ more @@.blurred;soda. He took a six-pack and shut the fridge quietly, as if that would negate the cabinet-slamming. In the utility room, @@ he took a minute @@.blurred;to dig a plastic bag from his pack and shove handfuls of kibble into it. Golden-brown dust steamed off the pellets@@ and stung his eyes. He wiped them on his coat, buried @@.blurred;the bag in his pack, pulled on@@ his @@.blurred;gloves, grabbed his shovel and six-pack, and hobbled out. The cold air caught him like an old pair of jeans,@@ familiar @@.blurred;and tightly cinched around his middle. He tugged the collar of his coat over his mouth and looked back at the house. A Rockwell painting still. @@ Nothing @@.blurred;stirred. In the bottom-right corner of the painting the artist had added one detail: a parted curtain, hand unseen, and the sandy head of a child@@ just @@.blurred;tall@@ enough to be visible @@.blurred;over the window sill@@. \</div> \<div id="rborder"></div> \</div> \<div id="initial" class="scroll">[[⸸|calendar][$scenes += 1]]</div> \<div id="month">II</div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="lborder"></div> \<div id="text"> \A <<timedreplace 1.5s>>@@.blurred;dogtrot separated the two halves of the@@<<becomes>>dogtrot separated the two halves of the<</timedreplace>> house<<timedreplace 1.5s>>@@.blurred;. The breezeway was@@<<becomes>>. The breezeway was<</timedreplace>> built for <<timedreplace 1.5s>>@@.blurred;ventilation; it punched a hole in the throat of the house to help it breathe in the@@<<becomes>>ventilation; it punched a hole in the throat of the house to help it breathe in the<</timedreplace>> summer <<timedreplace 1.5s>>@@.blurred;heat.@@<<becomes>>heat.<</timedreplace>> Useless now <<timedreplace 1.5s>>@@.blurred;that winter had taken up residence.@@<<becomes>>that winter had taken up residence.<</timedreplace>> <<timedreplace 2.5s>>@@.blurred;As@@<<becomes>>As<</timedreplace>> he followed <<timedreplace 2.5s>>@@.blurred;the long, trackless driveway up to @@<<becomes>>the long, trackless driveway up to <</timedreplace>>the <<timedreplace 2.5s>>@@.blurred;dogtrot house, his walking-stick-shovel grooved@@<<becomes>>dogtrot house, his walking-stick-shovel grooved<</timedreplace>> dents in the earth<<timedreplace 2.5s>>@@.blurred; and his foot dragged behind it. Yesterday he had thought nothing of the twinge in his ankle, but the cold had seized it overnight. Now the swollen joint rolled in his boot like a marble.<<becomes>> and his foot dragged behind it. Yesterday he had thought nothing of the twinge in his ankle, but the cold had seized it overnight. Now the swollen joint rolled in his boot like a marble.<</timedreplace>> <<timedreplace 3.5s>>@@.blurred;He shuffled past a truck, defunct. A layer of@@<<becomes>>He shuffled past a truck, defunct. A layer of<</timedreplace>> frost bleached the grass <<timedreplace 3.5s>>@@.blurred;beneath the undercarriage,@@<<becomes>>beneath the undercarriage,<</timedreplace>> the same belly-white color as <<timedreplace 3.5s>>@@.blurred;the house’s wooden slats. To the left of the dogtrot rose most of@@<<becomes>>the house’s wooden slats. To the left of the dogtrot rose most of<</timedreplace>> the house<<timedreplace 3.5s>>@@.blurred;: a tri-paneled kitchen alcove, curtained den windows, the chimney, a glimpse of back porch. The low right side of the house held only a bedroom.@@<<becomes>>: a tri-paneled kitchen alcove, curtained den windows, the chimney, a glimpse of back porch. The low right side of the house held only a bedroom.<</timedreplace>> He stopped at the mouth<<timedreplace 3.5s>>@@.blurred; of the dogtrot and peered into the dark passage. On either side, screen doors bristled like flies in the early sun.@@<<becomes>> of the dogtrot and peered into the dark passage. On either side, screen doors bristled like flies in the early sun.<</timedreplace>> Something had gnawed at the door <<timedreplace 3.5s>>@@.blurred;on the left. Thin licks of paint had been scraped off, and the screen’s mesh frayed@@<<becomes>>on the left. Thin licks of paint had been scraped off, and the screen’s mesh frayed<</timedreplace>> and reared away<<timedreplace 3.5s>>@@.blurred; from its frame.@@<<becomes>> from its frame.<</timedreplace>> He <<timedreplace 4.5s>>@@.blurred;stumped back to the lawn and@@<<becomes>>stumped back to the lawn and<</timedreplace>> looked <<timedreplace 4.5s>>@@.blurred;the house over@@<<becomes>>the house over<</timedreplace>> again. <<timedreplace 4.5s>>@@.blurred;Furred brown shingles. Flakes of dandelion-yellow paint trimmed the windows.@@<<becomes>>Furred brown shingles. Flakes of dandelion-yellow paint trimmed the windows.<</timedreplace>> Nothing stirred. <<timedreplace 4.5s>>@@.blurred;A knock-off Rockwell painting, he thought, clouded with dust in the basement of a man whose knees no longer bent.@@<<becomes>>A knock-off Rockwell painting, he thought, clouded with dust in the basement of an old man whose knees no longer bent.<</timedreplace>> He <<timedreplace 5.5s>>@@.blurred;circled to the back of the house, where he@@<<becomes>>circled to the back of the house, where he<</timedreplace>> found a <<timedreplace 5.5s>>@@.blurred;chipped utility@@<<becomes>>chipped utility<</timedreplace>> door <<timedreplace 5.5s>>@@.blurred;next to the garage. It looked thin and cheaper than the wooden front doors. He had intended@@<<becomes>>next to the garage. It looked thin and cheaper than the wooden front doors. He had intended<</timedreplace>> to break <<timedreplace 5.5s>>@@.blurred;it@@<<becomes>>it<</timedreplace>> down<<timedreplace 5.5s>>@@.blurred;, but the knob turned freely in his hand and led him into a narrow mudroom. Floor-to-ceiling cabinets ringed an old washer and dryer. None of the surfaces were allowed to be white: yellow scraps of paper infested the room,@@<<becomes>>, but the knob turned freely in his hand and led him into a narrow mudroom. Floor-to-ceiling cabinets ringed an old washer and dryer. None of the surfaces were allowed to be white: yellow scraps of paper infested the room,<</timedreplace>> some <<timedreplace 5.5s>>@@.blurred;of them sticky notes, most of them taped and torn and re-taped strips of paper ripped out of a legal pad. The notes, plastered at all heights across the cabinets and machines, gave off the@@<<becomes>>of them sticky notes, most of them taped and torn and re-taped strips of paper ripped out of a legal pad. The notes, plastered at all heights across the cabinets and machines, gave off the<</timedreplace>> dizzying illusion <<timedreplace 5.5s>>@@.blurred;of a garden turned ninety degrees, the boxy yellow plots dotted with black word seeds and the masking tape@@<<becomes>>of a garden turned ninety degrees, the boxy yellow plots dotted with black word seeds and the masking tape<</timedreplace>> like <<timedreplace 5.5s>>@@.blurred;white lines of fertilizer.@@<<becomes>>white lines of fertilizer.<</timedreplace>> <<timedreplace 6.5s>>@@.blurred;He edged into the room and pulled the door shut behind him.@@<<becomes>>He edged into the room and pulled the door shut behind him.<</timedreplace>> Dust gauzed around <<timedreplace 6.5s>>@@.blurred;his feet. More dust lined@@<<becomes>>his feet. More dust lined<</timedreplace>> the counter<<timedreplace 6.5s>>@@.blurred;, pausing here for a basket of linens and there for a bottle of bleach. He didn’t touch the bleach. That was@@<<becomes>>, pausing here for a basket of linens and there for a bottle of bleach. He didn’t touch the bleach. That was<</timedreplace>> a sweetness <<timedreplace 6.5s>>@@.blurred;he had almost tasted before.@@<<becomes>>he had almost tasted before.<</timedreplace>> In the dead air <<timedreplace 6.5s>>@@.blurred;of the little room, he leaned his weight against the wall and lowered himself to the floor, one leg outstretched. The room was so narrow that his heel hit a cabinet; immediately his ankle throbbed. He breathed through the red. He imagined the bruise oozing through his sock like @@<<becomes>>of the little room, he leaned his weight against the wall and lowered himself to the floor, one leg outstretched. The room was so narrow that his heel hit a cabinet; immediately his ankle throbbed. He breathed through the red. He imagined the bruise oozing through his sock like <</timedreplace>> an open wound<<timedreplace 6.5s>>@@.blurred;, dyeing the wool a deep, mashed, mulberry purple. He rubbed his knee in sympathy, and@@<<becomes>>, dyeing the wool a deep, mashed, mulberry purple. He rubbed his knee in sympathy, and<</timedreplace>> after <<timedreplace 6.5s>>@@.blurred;a few minutes,@@<<becomes>>a few minutes,<</timedreplace>> the pain lowered its head and <span id="linku"><<link "receded">><<replace "#next">><<timedinsert .3s>>[[⸷|C2b]]<</timedinsert>><</replace>><<replace "#linku">>receded<</replace>><</link>></span>. \</div> \<div id="rborder"></div> \<div id="next"></div> \</div> \<div id="month">II</div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="lborder"></div> \<div id="text"> \The cabinet by his foot was crusted over with notes: <i>Pellets Terpetine Brushes Tape Kibble</i>. He shuffled his leg aside and opened the cabinet. Inside was everything the notes had promised, and more. He pried the lid off a bucket of kibble, took a sniff, removed his gloves, and dug in. The label said beef and lamb flavor, but it tasted like nothing but sustenance. He ground through a couple handfuls before the dryness of the kibble closed his throat. More later. He could eat and rest here a few days, but he needed <span id="water"><<link "water">><<replace "#water">>water<</replace>><<replace "#kitchen">><<timedinsert .3s>>He levered himself to his feet, leaving blurry handprints in the dust on the washing machine, and proceeded into the house proper. As expected, he met a kitchen, and beyond that an eating nook and a many-lamped, quilt-draped den. He limped to the kitchen sink, his ankle even sorer after the short rest. Of course the faucet gave no water, but he was hoping they had stashed emergency gallons under the sink. He kneed open the cabinet to find nothing but soap and more bleach. He staggered around the kitchen, snapping cabinets open and closed, one hand on the counter for balance. At the end of the island someone had left, of all things, a single can of flat root beer. He cracked it and drained it. There might be water bottles in the fridge, but he didn’t want to release the sludge of rotted produce until he was on his way out. After finishing the can of pop, he instinctively brushed his fingers against his coat to get the dust off.<</timedinsert>><</replace>><<replace "#none">><<timedinsert .3s>><<link "There was none.">><<replace "#next">><<timedinsert 8s>>[[⸷|C2c]]<</timedinsert>><</replace>><<replace "#none">>There was none.<</replace>><<replace "#end">><<timedinsert .3s>>He looked at his fingers, and then at the can. There was no dust in the lid.<</timedinsert>> <<timedinsert 3.5s>>He looked at the counter. His balancing hand should have swept a streak of cleanness through the grimy months accumulated on the countertop. There was nothing to wipe. His tongue prickled, the syrup making his mouth sticky and dry. He opened the fridge and was not surprised to find that it had been cleaned out. No water bottles, but more soda. He took a six-pack and shut the fridge quietly, as if that would negate the cabinet-slamming. Fleeing into the utility room, he took a minute to dig a plastic bag from his pack and shove handfuls of kibble into it. Golden-brown dust steamed off the pellets and stung his eyes. He wiped his eyes on his coat, buried the bag in his pack, pulled on his gloves, grabbed his shovel and six-pack, and hobbled out. The cold air caught him like an old pair of jeans, familiar and tightly cinched around his middle. He tugged the collar of his coat over his mouth and looked back at the house. A Rockwell painting still. Nothing stirred. In the bottom-right corner of the painting the artist had added one detail: a parted curtain, hand unseen, and the sandy head of a child just tall enough to be visible over the window sill.<</timedinsert>><</replace>><</link>><</timedinsert>><</replace>><</link>></span>. <span id="kitchen">@@opacity:0;He levered himself to his feet, leaving blurry handprints in the dust on the washing machine, and proceeded into the house proper. As expected, he met a kitchen, and beyond that an eating nook and a many-lamped, quilt-draped den. He limped to the kitchen sink, his ankle even sorer after the short rest. Of course the faucet gave no water, but he was hoping they had stashed emergency gallons under the sink. He kneed open the cabinet to find nothing but soap and more bleach. He staggered around the kitchen, snapping cabinets open and closed, one hand on the counter for balance. At the end of the island someone had left, of all things, a single can of flat root beer. He cracked it and drained it. There might be water bottles in the fridge, but he didn’t want to release the sludge of rotted produce until he was on his way out. After finishing the can of pop, he instinctively brushed his fingers against his coat to get the dust off.@@ </span> <span id="none"></span> <span id="end">@@opacity:0;He looked at his fingers, and then at the can. There was no dust in the lid. He looked at the counter. His balancing hand should have swept a streak of cleanness through the grimy months accumulated on the countertop. There was nothing to wipe. His tongue prickled, the syrup making his mouth sticky and dry. He opened the fridge and was not surprised to find that it had been cleaned out. No water bottles, but more soda. He took a six-pack and shut the fridge quietly, as if that would negate the cabinet-slamming. Fleeing into the utility room, he took a minute to dig a plastic bag from his pack and shove handfuls of kibble into it. Golden-brown dust steamed off the pellets and stung his eyes. He wiped his eyes on his coat, buried the bag in his pack, pulled on his gloves, grabbed his shovel and six-pack, and hobbled out. The cold air caught him like an old pair of jeans, familiar and tightly cinched around his middle. He tugged the collar of his coat over his mouth and looked back at the house. A Rockwell painting still. Nothing stirred. In the bottom-right corner of the painting the artist had added one detail: a parted curtain, hand unseen, and the sandy head of a child just tall enough to be visible over the window sill.@@</span> \</div> \<div id="rborder"></div> \</div> \<div id="next"></div> \<div id="month"></div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="noborder"></div> \<div id="sceneText"> \<<timedinsert .1s>><div class="addic"><img src='images/scenes/imC.png'></div><</timedinsert>> \</div> \</div> \<div id="final"><<timedinsert 2s>>[[⸸|calendar][$scenes += 1]]<</timedinsert>></div> \<div id="month">II</div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="lborder"></div> \<div id="text"> \A dogtrot separated the two halves of the house. The breezeway was built for ventilation; it punched a hole in the throat of the house to help it breathe in the summer heat. Useless now that winter had taken up residence. As he followed the long, trackless driveway up to the dogtrot house, his walking-stick-shovel grooved dents in the earth and his foot dragged behind it. Yesterday he had thought nothing of the twinge in his ankle, but the cold had seized it overnight. Now the swollen joint rolled in his boot like a marble. He shuffled past a truck, defunct. A layer of frost bleached the grass beneath the undercarriage, the same belly-white color as the house’s wooden slats. To the left of the dogtrot rose most of the house: a tri-paneled kitchen alcove, curtained den windows, the chimney, a glimpse of back porch. The low right side of the house held only a bedroom. He stopped at the mouth of the dogtrot and peered into the dark passage. On either side, screen doors bristled like flies in the early sun. Something had gnawed at the door on the left. Thin licks of paint had been scraped off, and the screen’s mesh frayed and reared away from its frame. He stumped back to the lawn and looked the house over again. Furred brown shingles. Flakes of dandelion-yellow paint trimmed the windows. Nothing stirred. A knock-off Rockwell painting, he thought, clouded with dust in the basement of an old man whose knees no longer bent. He circled to the back of the house, where he found a chipped utility door next to the garage. It looked thin and cheaper than the wooden front doors. He had intended to break it down, but the knob turned freely in his hand and opened into a narrow mudroom. Floor-to-ceiling cabinets ringed an old washer and dryer. None of the surfaces were allowed to be white: yellow scraps of paper infested the room, some of them sticky notes, most of them taped and torn and re-taped strips of paper ripped out of a legal pad. The notes, plastered at all heights across the cabinets and machines, gave off the dizzying illusion of a garden turned ninety degrees, the boxy yellow plots dotted with black word seeds and the masking tape like white lines of fertilizer. He edged into the room and pulled the door shut behind him. Dust gauzed around his feet. More dust lined the counter, pausing here for a basket of linens and there for a bottle of bleach. In the dead air of the little room, he leaned his weight against the wall and lowered himself to the floor, one leg outstretched. The room was so narrow that his heel hit a cabinet; immediately his ankle throbbed. He breathed through the red. He imagined the bruise oozing through his sock like an open wound, dyeing the wool a deep, mashed, mulberry purple. He rubbed his knee in sympathy, and after a few minutes, the pain lowered its head and receded. \</div> \<div id="rborder"></div> \<div id="next">[[⸷|C2bDone]]</div> \</div> \<div id="month">II</div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="lborder"></div> \<div id="text"> \The cabinet by his foot was crusted over with notes: <i>Pellets Terpetine Brushes Tape Kibble</i>. He shuffled his leg aside and opened the cabinet. Inside was everything the notes had promised, and more. He pried the lid off a bucket of kibble, took a sniff, removed his gloves, and dug in. The label said beef and lamb flavor, but it tasted like nothing but sustenance. He ground through a couple handfuls before the dryness of the kibble closed his throat. More later. He could eat and rest here a few days, but he needed water. He levered himself to his feet, leaving blurry handprints in the dust on the washing machine, and proceeded into the house proper. As expected, he met a kitchen, and beyond that an eating nook and a many-lamped, quilt-draped den. He limped to the kitchen sink, his ankle even sorer after the short rest. Of course the faucet gave no water, but he was hoping they had stashed emergency gallons under the sink. He kneed open the cabinet to find nothing but soap and more bleach. He staggered around the kitchen, snapping cabinets open and closed, one hand on the counter for balance. At the end of the island someone had left, of all things, a single can of flat root beer. He cracked it and drained it. There might be water bottles in the fridge, but he didn’t want to release the sludge of rotted produce until he was on his way out. After finishing the can of pop, he instinctively brushed his fingers against his coat to get the dust off. There was none. He looked at his fingers, and then at the can. There was no dust in the lid. He looked at the counter. His balancing hand should have swept a streak of cleanness through the grimy months accumulated on the countertop. There was nothing to wipe. His tongue prickled, the syrup making his mouth sticky and dry. He opened the fridge and was not surprised to find that it had been cleaned out. No water bottles, but more soda. He took a six-pack and shut the fridge quietly, as if that would negate the cabinet-slamming. In the utility room, he took a minute to dig a plastic bag from his pack and shove handfuls of kibble into it. Golden-brown dust steamed off the pellets and stung his eyes. He wiped his eyes on his coat, buried the bag in his pack, pulled on his gloves, grabbed his shovel and six-pack, and hobbled out. The cold air caught him like an old pair of jeans, familiar and tightly cinched around his middle. He tugged the collar of his coat over his mouth and looked back at the house. A Rockwell painting still. Nothing stirred. In the bottom-right corner of the painting the artist had added one detail: a parted curtain, hand unseen, and the sandy head of a child just tall enough to be visible over the window sill. \</div> \<div id="rborder"></div> \</div> \<div id="final">[[⸸|calendar]]</div> \<div id="month">II</div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="lborder"></div> \<div id="text"> \A dogtrot separated the two halves of the house. I don’t remember who taught me that term. Some Georgian realtor, I reckon, coaxing me into adopting another backwoods shitbox. This was the sort of neighborhood I’d’ve liked. Old-fashioned misery; keep your head down and don’t mention the bleeding misery; we all suffer through it misery. You’re not special. And none of the houses //were// special -- I could’ve raided any one of them for water. But I chose <span id="house"><<link "the dogtrot house">><<replace "#house">>the dogtrot house<</replace>><<replace "#epoxy">><<timedinsert .3s>> Furred brown shingles. Flakes of dandelion-yellow paint crumbling off the windows. A knock-off Rockwell painting, rotting away in the basement of an old man whose knees no longer bent. I thought about going back and trying to find it on my way to Audrey and Dag’s place. Nostalgia has that way of lying to you, glazing over memories like a glossy coat of epoxy. I remember sitting in the mudroom of that place with my crying ankle, choking down dog food and thinking, This is alright. I’ve come far enough. I can go back to living like this for a minute, bleeding out in laundry rooms with no one to blame but myself. And it was alright. I could’ve lived there for a week or two. Then <span id="kid"><<link "the kid">><<replace "#kid">>the kid<</replace>><<replace "#end">><<timedinsert .3s>>You gotta decide what you’re willing to believe. If she was real, she’s dead. She starved to death in mid-spring, early summer at best. But if you made her up, if she’s just a part of the story, then she’s always a part of the story. She’s always stood at the window, waiting for you to turn around. If she’s unreal, she can’t ever stop living.<</timedinsert>><</replace>><<replace "#final">><<timedinsert 5s>>[[⸸|calendar]]<</timedinsert>><</replace>><</link>></span> had to interrupt it, as they do.<</timedinsert>><</replace>><</link>></span>. <span id="epoxy"> @@opacity:0;Furred brown shingles. Flakes of dandelion-yellow paint crumbling off the windows. A knock-off Rockwell painting, rotting away in the basement of an old man whose knees no longer bent. I thought about going back and trying to find it on my way to Audrey and Dag’s place. Nostalgia has that way of lying to you, glazing over memories like a glossy coat of epoxy. I remember sitting in the mudroom of that place with my crying ankle, choking down dog food and thinking, This is alright. I’ve come far enough. I can go back to living like this for a minute, bleeding out in laundry rooms with no one to blame but myself. And it was alright. I could’ve lived there for a week or two. Then the kid had to interrupt it, as they do.@@</span> <span id="end">@@opacity:0;You gotta decide what you’re willing to believe. If she was real, she’s dead. She starved to death in mid-spring, early summer at best. But if you made her up, if she’s just a part of the story, then she’s always a part of the story. She’s always stood at the window, waiting for you to turn around. If she’s unreal, she can’t ever stop living.@@</span> \</div> \<div id="rborder"></div> \</div> \<div id="final"></div> \<div id="month">II</div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="lborder"></div> \<div id="text"> \A dogtrot separated the two halves of the house. I don’t remember who taught me that term. Some Georgian realtor, I reckon, coaxing me into adopting another backwoods shitbox. This was the sort of neighborhood I’d’ve liked. Old-fashioned misery; keep your head down and don’t mention the bleeding misery; we all suffer through it misery. You’re not special. And none of the houses //were// special -- I could’ve raided any one of them for water. But I chose the dogtrot house. Furred brown shingles. Flakes of dandelion-yellow paint crumbling off the windows. A knock-off Rockwell painting, rotting away in the basement of an old man whose knees no longer bent. I thought about going back and trying to find it on my way to Audrey and Dag’s place. Nostalgia has that way of lying to you, glazing over memories like a coat of epoxy. I remember sitting in the mudroom of that place with my crying ankle, choking down dog food and thinking, This is alright. I’ve come far enough. I can go back to living like this for a minute, bleeding out in laundry rooms with no one to blame but myself. And it //was// alright. I could’ve lived there for a week or two. Then the kid had to interrupt it, as they do. You gotta decide what you’re willing to believe. If she was real, she’s dead. She starved to death in mid-spring, early summer at best. But if you made her up, if she’s just a part of the story, then she’s always a part of the story. If she’s unreal, she can’t ever stop living. \</div> \<div id="rborder"></div> \</div> \<div id="final">[[⸸|calendar]]</div> \<div id="month"></div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="noborder"></div> \<div id="sceneText"> \<<if not hasVisited("D1a")>><<goto "D1a">> \<<else>><div class='addic'><img src='images/scenes/imD.png'></div> \<</if>> \</div> \</div> \<<if hasVisited("D1a") && not hasVisited("U2a")>><div id="next">[[⸷|D1a]]</div><<else>><div id="final">[[⸸|calendar]]</div><</if>> \<div id="month">III</div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="lborder"></div> \<div id="text"> \A wire bisected the empty silo. From the well-water-blue circle of sky descended a bird. Black. Glossy and corvine of some kind. He never learned the difference between ravens and crows. The bird swept in and worked its wings to halt above the wire. Its dusty flapping dissipated in the sterile silo air like the fading ripples of skipped river stones. The instant the bird’s talons gripped the wire, it electrified. The shock wired the bird in place. Every muscle contorted. The talons viced around the burning wire as the body shuddered, feathers a soft black buzzing sight. The electricity must have clamped the bird's mandibles shut, for it made no sound as the shock turned to heat. Its talons sludged around the wire, forming a dripping magmatic mass that hardened into long intestinal globs of black plastic. The feathers frayed, charred, black to black, ash shivering off the bird like fog rolling off the sea. Below, the ash began to accumulate. The bird lost its eyes next, weeping like hot rubber from the sockets, and its beak, cracking loose like a snipped nail. The fused halves of the beak landed in the swelling pile of ash below. The bird’s body was all stain, all mar, no feathers or skin now, only a curdled black carapace of burns. The pyramid of ash trickled higher. It shaped the silo into a perfect hourglass: the bird could have stepped neatly off the wire and onto the solid pile of ash. It ended. It popped. It swung a hundred and eighty degrees on the wire and collided with the ash pile. The force of impact fissured the crust holding together its talons, and they crumbled. Loosed from the wire, the black splinter of bird toppled down the ash pyramid and came to rest against the silo wall. \</div> \<div id="rborder"></div> \</div> \<div id="next"><<timedinsert 3s>>[[⸷|D1b]]<</timedinsert>></div> \<div id="month">III</div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="lborder"></div> \<div id="text"> \<<timedinsert 1s>>Rarely, these days, did he have meat to cook. He spent that morning scrubbing dried spit off his sleeping bag and travel pillow. The flakes of saliva, brushed into a little pile and tossed out of the tent, swirled through the blue dawnlight like motes of ash.<</timedinsert>> \</div> \<div id="rborder"></div> \</div> \<<if not hasVisited("D1c")>><<timedinsert 2s>><div id="next">[[⸷|D1c]]</div><</timedinsert>><<else>><div id="final">[[⸸|calendar]]</div><</if>> \<div id="month"></div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="noborder"></div> \<div id="sceneText"> \<<timedinsert .1s>><div class="addic"><img src='images/scenes/imD.png'></div><</timedinsert>> \</div> \</div> \<div id="final"><<timedinsert 2s>>[[⸸|calendar][$scenes += 1]]<</timedinsert>></div> \<div id="month"></div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="noborder"></div> \<div id="sceneText"> \<<if not hasVisited("E1a")>><<goto "E1a">> \<<else>><div class='addic'><img src='images/scenes/imE.png'></div> \<</if>> \</div> \</div> \<<if hasVisited("E1a") && not hasVisited("U2a")>><div id="next">[[⸷|E1a]]</div> \<<elseif hasVisited("E1a") && hasVisited("U2a") && not hasVisited("E2a")>><div id="next">[[⸷|E2a]]</div> \<<elseif hasVisited("E1a") && hasVisited("U2a") && hasVisited("E2a")>><div id="next">[[⸷|E2aDone]]</div> <</if>> \<div id="month">III</div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="lborder"></div> \<div id="text"> \The cat trailed him for nearly a mile before it collapsed to the ground and yowled. Until that point, it hadn’t made a sound. Not while he killed the dead, not while he grabbed the cart and packed it, and not while they walked. He had assumed from its silence that the animal was feral, that it hadn’t met enough people to know how to speak. But a feral cat wouldn’t tolerate the clang and rattle of a grocery cart kicking off cracks in the sidewalk for so long, and a feral cat--as far as he knew--wouldn’t lift its head to watch him halt his cart and look back. To check the road, he told himself. The cat’s screaming might have summoned more dead. As soon as he looked back, the cat dropped its head. He couldn’t deny that it cut a pitiful figure. Its clotted fur, the off-yellow color of a mattress stain, was stretched thin across unfed bones and mottled with dark flea-flecks, and its aristocratic plume of a tail was marred by what he assumed to be an infection, a livid red furless mound of inflammation next to the base of the tail. The cat risked another plaintive glance at him. “What?” It choked on a mewl and sputtered into silence. <i>Full of shit,</i> he thought. But it was a redundant thing to say to a cat. He dug a water bottle out of his pack and went up the road. The cat lay flat as roadkill, limbs motionless, eyes closed until it heard the gurgle of poured water. He hadn’t planned to rest until nearer to sunset. He crouched to watch the cat empty the capful of water with its darting tongue. He poured another capful of water and took a sip for himself. Then he poured another. There was no point in keeping the water bottle, not after this blighted animal had licked the cap. It probably had worms, and certainly fleas. It had blue eyes too, much bluer than the last of the water in his worthless bottle. \</div> \<div id="rborder"></div> \</div> \<<if not hasVisited("E1b")>><<timedinsert 2s>><div id="next">[[⸷|E1b]]</div><</timedinsert>><<else>><div id="final">[[⸸|calendar]]</div><</if>> \<div id="month"></div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="noborder"></div> \<div id="sceneText"> \<<timedinsert .1s>><div class="addic"><img src='images/scenes/imE.png'></div><</timedinsert>> \</div> \</div> \<div id="final"><<timedinsert 2s>>[[⸸|calendar][$scenes to 0]]<</timedinsert>></div> \<div id="month">III</div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="lborder"></div> \<div id="text"> \<<timedreplace 1.5s>>The cat<<becomes>>Cat<</timedreplace>> trailed <<timedreplace 1.5s>>him<<becomes>>me<</timedreplace>> for nearly a mile before <<timedreplace 1.5s>>it<<becomes>>he<</timedreplace>> collapsed to the ground and yowled. <<timedreplace 2.5s>>Until that point<<becomes>>Up til then<</timedreplace>>, <<timedreplace 2.5s>>it<<becomes>>Cat<</timedreplace>> hadn’t made a sound. Not while <<timedreplace 2.5s>>he<<becomes>>I<</timedreplace>> killed the dead, not while <<timedreplace 2.5s>>he<<becomes>>I<</timedreplace>> grabbed the cart and packed it, and not while we walked. <<timedreplace 2.5s>>He<<becomes>>I<</timedreplace>><<timedreplace 2.5s>> had<<becomes>>’d<</timedreplace>> assumed <<timedremove 2.5s>>from its silence <</timedremove>>that <<timedreplace 2.5s>>the animal<<becomes>>he<</timedreplace>> was feral, <<timedremove 2.5s>>that it <</timedremove>>hadn’t met enough people to know how to speak. But a feral cat wouldn’t <<timedreplace 2.5s>>tolerate the clang and rattle of a grocery cart kicking off cracks in the sidewalk for so long, and a feral cat - as far as he knew - wouldn’t lift its head to watch him halt his cart and look back.<<becomes>>have his kind of patience, or his stupidity.<</timedreplace>> <<timedreplace 3.5s>>To check the road, he told himself. The cat’s screaming might have summoned more dead. As soon as he looked back, the cat dropped its head. He couldn’t deny that it<<becomes>>Back then, Cat<</timedreplace>> cut a pitiful figure. <<timedreplace 3.5s>>Its clotted fur, the off-yellow color of a mattress stain,<<becomes>>His clotted yellow fur<</timedreplace>> was stretched thin across his bones and <<timedreplace 3.5s>>mottled with dark flea-flecks<<becomes>>and ruined with fleas and the gross red of the granuloma<</timedreplace>>. <<timedremove 3.5s>>Its aristocratic plume of a tail was marred by what he assumed to be an infection, a livid red furless mound of inflammation next to the base of the tail. The cat risked another plaintive glance at him. <</timedremove>> <<timedinsert 4.5s>>I said to him, <</timedinsert>>“What?” <<timedinsert 4.5s>>and he played ignorant as always, acting like I was speaking nonsense. Plopping his poor head down. Choking on a meow, sputtering into silence. <</timedinsert>><<timedremove 4.5s>> It choked on a mewl and sputtered into silence. <</timedremove>> <i>Full of shit.</i> <<timedremove 5.5s>>he thought. But it was a redundant thing to say to a cat. <</timedremove>> <<timedreplace 6.5s>>He dug a water bottle out of his pack and went up the road. The cat lay flat as roadkill, limbs motionless, eyes closed until it heard the gurgle of poured water. He hadn’t planned to rest until nearer to sunset. He crouched to watch the cat empty the capful of water with its darting tongue. He poured another capful of water and took a sip for himself. Then he poured another. There was no point in keeping the water bottle, not after this blighted animal had licked the cap. It probably had worms, and certainly fleas.<<becomes>>You know it wasn’t a nice day when we met. The sky wouldn’t wake up. Still burrowed deep in a bed of foggy blankets, its eyes stapled shut.<</timedreplace>> <<timedreplace 7.5s>>It had blue eyes too, much bluer than the last of the water in his worthless bottle.<<becomes>>I let Cat drink from the cap of my bottle, and watching him lap up the clear water, I thought it was funny how water doesn’t turn blue until there’s enough of it. That it has to grow into itself, like a newborn kitten crawling around blind til it gets the strength to open its eyes.<</timedreplace>> \</div> \<div id="rborder"></div> \</div> \<div id="final"><<timedinsert 10s>>[[⸸|calendar]]<</timedinsert>></div> \<div id="month">III</div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="lborder"></div> \<div id="text"> \Cat trailed me for nearly a mile before he collapsed to the ground and yowled. Up til then, Cat hadn’t made a sound. Not while I killed the dead, not while I grabbed the cart and packed it, and not while we walked. I’d assumed that he was feral, hadn’t met enough people to know how to speak. But a feral cat wouldn’t have his kind of patience, or his stupidity. Back then, Cat cut a pitiful figure. His clotted yellow fur was stretched thin across his bones and and ruined with fleas and the gross red of the granuloma. I said to him, “What?” and he played ignorant as always, acting like I was speaking nonsense. Plopping his poor head down. Choking on a meow, sputtering into silence. //Full of shit//, I thought. But it’s a redundant thing to say to a cat. You know it wasn’t a nice day when we met. The sky wouldn’t wake up. Still burrowed deep in a bed of foggy blankets, its eyes stapled shut. I let Cat drink from the cap of my bottle, and watching him lap up the clear water, I thought it was funny how water doesn’t turn blue until there’s enough of it. That it has to grow into itself, like a newborn kitten crawling around blind til it gets the strength to open its eyes. \</div> \<div id="rborder"></div> \</div> \<div id="final">[[⸸|calendar]]</div> \<div id="month"></div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="noborder"></div> \<div id="sceneText"> \<<if not hasVisited("F1a")>><<goto "F1a">> \<<else>><div class='addic'><img src='images/scenes/imF.png'></div> \<</if>> \</div> \</div> \<<if hasVisited("F1a") && not hasVisited("U2a")>><div id="next">[[⸷|F1a]]</div><<else>><div id="next">[[⸷|F2a]]</div><</if>> \<div id="month">IV</div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="lborder"></div> \<div id="text"> \A fat green bottlefly veered into his eye. It plinked off his flinched eyelid, and he swore and swatted at the buzzy air. The grocery cart, liberated from his grip, peeled down the street and rattled around the corner, leaving him and the last house of the chainlink-fenced, dogshit-lawned neighborhood behind. He caught up when the cart hit a curb. The new street was no better than the neighborhood, but it was more varied. A hair salon with orange wads of discarded cigarettes lining the storefront like flower beds. A money-laundering mattress store. A self-serve froyo with radical pink-and-blue ads from the 90s peeling off the windows. Across the street, more of the same: a tattoo parlor, a liquor store, a pet store, and the inevitable pillars of a gas station on the corner. After that, the bleary storefronts gave way to a service road choked with cars. Someone had hammered open the back of a marooned delivery truck, and one unhinged door was flung across the back of a dusty family sedan. He looked down at the cat, which was nestled in a sweatshirt at the top of the grocery cart. Yesterday morning, when he decided it was finally time to leave the raided house, the cat had clambered up the side of the cart’s cage and bedded down in the supplies, as natural as breathing. Rather than risk fleas in his pasta boxes, or whatever oozed from the red wound on its leg, he sacrificed a sweater to the beast. The grocery cart’s rattling didn’t seem to bother the cat. Not near as much as it bothered him. He kicked the cart away from the curb and forced it down the street, noting the windows of the empty vehicles they passed, making sure they stayed vacant. The tattoo parlor was shuttered, but the liquor store looked open. Its stocked shelves were visible behind the burnt-out neon signs and blocky decal lettering and shotgun spread of blood that decorated the windows. The bloodsplatter centered on a <u>BEER</u> decal, the fat splash of red nicely bouqueting the frosted white letters. As the blood dripped down, it drew a quivery line through the I in <u>WINE</u>. <u>SPIRITS</u> and <u>LIQUOR</u>, printed on the other window, went undecorated. The blood looked old; he moved on. \</div> \<div id="rborder"></div> \</div> \<div id="next"><<timedinsert 2s>>[[⸷|F1b]]<</timedinsert>></div> \<div id="month">IV</div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="lborder"></div> \<div id="text"> \The pet store next door was neither bloodied nor closed. He parked the cart on the curb and dug past the cat for his raid bag. The cat wobbled around in the sweatshirt but never uncurled from its crescent nap, even when he dredged the bag out from under it and mushed the cat to the side of the cage. It took two hammer swings to remove the doorknob. The pet store’s door sagged inward, and he made the mistake of following it. Instantly he gagged; the rancid fish-death stench hit his nose and bloated down his throat like chewed oysters coming back up, gelatinous and greased and rotten. He retched and stumbled back to the cart, shoving the cat aside to grab a pack of gingersnaps. He crammed two into his mouth. Then he stuck his face in the pack and breathed ginger until the bile drained out of his throat and down to his stomach. Fucking sloppy. Of course there would be dead animals in a pet store. Especially fish. He coated his nostrils with vapor rub and donned a mask, as he should have the first time. Then he pressed through the fetor, straight to the food aisle and its toddler-sized bags of kibble. He hauled one bag outside and dumped it by the cart, doubling back to hook his fingers into the hole where the doorknob had been and yank the pet store’s door closed. The cat never tweaked an ear his way. It was puffier than when he had left it, a prickly white sea urchin with its eyes fixed on the liquor store. He followed the cat’s gaze, and was gazed on in return. The second E in <u>BEER</u> had grown eyes. And a head, visible now as he approached the window and cut out the sun’s glare. The dead body nuzzled the liquor store window, its hands plastered to the glass, fingers curling at the bottom edge of <u>BEER</u>. With no mandible to contain it, the body’s tongue lolled caninely from its drooping mouth. Harmless. Most of them had forgotten doors. He returned to the cart and hefted the kibble onto the bottom rack. “It can’t get out. Ignore it.” \</div> \<div id="rborder"></div> \</div> \<div id="next"><<timedinsert 2s>>[[⸷|F1c]]<</timedinsert>></div> \<div id="month">IV</div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="lborder"></div> \<div id="text"> \The cat rolled a dark sound around in its throat. He looked down at it--and at the circle of dirt beneath it, grimily engraved into his sweatshirt. While he was here, he’d might as well get that too. He adjusted his mask before reentering the store. Less sure of his destination this time, he had to hunt long enough that the smell seeped through his mask and began to expand in his mouth, like a stomach distended from a chugged gallon of milk. He kept down the vomit, and finally he found the pharmaceutical aisle. He didn’t have enough light to read the labels, but he could make out the cats on the boxes; he grabbed every third feline health product until his arms were full. Outside, he ripped off the mask, coughing, and dumped the products on the ground. The cat jumped out of the cart--to join him, he thought. But the cat hadn’t come down to inspect the boxes. Growling, it waddled forward on stiff legs and braced in the middle of the road like a guardian statue, stout and stony, ready to piss on the first thing that neared it. He checked on the liquor store, but the corpse was unmoved, still staring dolefully at them from between the E’s bars. He looked to the other side of the road. There were shapes in the mattress store, gliding behind the glass like clouds before a storm. “Let’s go.” He grabbed the boxes and shoved them in the cart. “I said, get in.” The cat didn’t respond. He rattled the grocery cart to get its attention, and its ear did flick back once, but quickly corrected itself. Fine. Maybe he could use the flea treatment on a dead dog before he cooked it. If the cat wanted to play bait and lead the dead on a chase, he wouldn’t think twice of the gift. As he wheeled the cart away, heading back into the raided neighborhood, the dead man began to pat at the liquor store window, gently and insistently, as if to say, <i>you forgot your -- wait, sir, you forgot -- sir -- </i> \</div> \<div id="rborder"></div> \</div> \<div id="next"><<timedinsert 2s>>[[⸷|F1d]]<</timedinsert>></div> \<div id="month">IV</div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="lborder"></div> \<div id="text"> \<<timedinsert 1s>>It was an hour later, when he was rocking the cart back and forth, deciding which house looked less homicidal, that a chirrup startled him. He looked down. The cat looked up. He looked at the road, but nothing else appeared in pursuit. The cat touched its paw to the bag of kibble. “For what?” he scoffed. “What do you deserve to get fed for?” The cat flexed its paw, claws crinkling the plastic. “...no. Not out here.” Despite himself, he steered the cart toward a house and let the cat trot alongside. Even if the kibble was undeserved, it wasn’t like he wanted to eat it.<</timedinsert>> \</div> \<div id="rborder"></div> \</div> \<<if not hasVisited("F1e")>><<timedinsert 4s>><div id="next">[[⸷|F1e]]</div><</timedinsert>><<else>><div id="final">[[⸸|calendar]]</div><</if>> \<div id="month"></div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="noborder"></div> \<div id="sceneText"> \<<timedinsert .1s>><div class="addic"><img src='images/scenes/imF.png'></div><</timedinsert>> \</div> \</div> \<div id="final"><<timedinsert 2s>>[[⸸|calendar][$scenes += 1]]<</timedinsert>></div> \<div id="month">IV</div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="lborder"></div> \<div id="text"> \I didn’t think he would’ve told Rebecca about me. Me and him hadn’t talked in decades, not since I left. But when I pulled up to their house at the start of the outbreak, she saw my face and I guess it looked enough like his for her to figure me out. She even knew my name. I knew hers too, from the wedding announcement. I thought I’d have to explain myself to them, but there wasn’t much discussion. They were already packed cuz they’d tried to leave once and gotten stopped by choked roads. We put the bags in my truck, they got in, and I took them away. Not once in twenty-four years did I say his name to anybody else. When someone asked me about family, it was <i>No</i> and a smile and <i>one of my kind’s enough.</i> \</div> \<div id="rborder"></div> \</div> \<div id="final">[[⸸|calendar]]</div> \<div id="month"></div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="noborder"></div> \<div id="sceneText"> \<<if not hasVisited("G1a")>><<goto "G1a">> \<<else>><div class='addic'><img src='images/scenes/imG.png'></div> \<</if>> \</div> \</div> \<<if hasVisited("G1a") && not hasVisited("U2a")>><div id="next">[[⸷|G1a]]</div><<else>><div id="final">[[⸸|calendar]]</div><</if>> \<div id="month">IV</div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="lborder"></div> \<div id="text"> \The same greasy dreams. A punctured gas tank. A siphon gone wrong. A shoreful of tarred birds. Last night, a new one. The leaded mustiness of a train station, late afternoon. The riders’ eyes blackened, pupils expanding as they descended into the dark. Underground, it was the same untime as a movie theater. The lights go down; the train arrives; the passengers are assured that time continues to exist, somewhere else. You waited for your train. As a train rattled by, the yellow ridged floor bored through the soles of your shoes. Not your train. It took the woman next to you. Hair caught in the door of the train, simple, rosy, auburn hair -- dyed, you can tell after inspecting what’s left of her scalp, not natural. Hair caught in the door of the train, it shredded her skull to the bone. You waited for your train. Evening now, swarms of people. They sounded like cicadas, like crickets on a frying pan, the way their bones crackled and splintered. A train cut through the mass of them, leaving the tracks mulched with twitching flesh. You waited for your train. He kept you company well after the world became vacant. Across the tracks, finally a sign blinked red: <i>Last service</i>. You knew it wasn’t your train. Your skin swarmed with the urgency of knowing, a subcutaneous buzzing, a hive of flattened eyes and degloved scalps. The train glided to a stop. You pleaded, <i>This isn’t our train</i>. <i>It isn’t yours, </i> he agreed. <i>You should have been paying attention.</i> \</div> \<div id="rborder"></div> \</div> \<<if not hasVisited("G1b")>><<timedinsert 2s>><div id="next">[[⸷|G1b]]</div><</timedinsert>><<else>><div id="final">[[⸸|calendar]]</div><</if>> \<div id="month"></div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="noborder"></div> \<div id="sceneText"> \<<timedinsert .1s>><div class="addic"><img src='images/scenes/imG.png'></div><</timedinsert>> \</div> \</div> \<div id="final"><<timedinsert 2s>>[[⸸|calendar][$scenes += 1]]<</timedinsert>></div> \<div id="month"></div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="noborder"></div> \<div id="sceneText"> \<<if not hasVisited("H1a")>><<goto "H1a">> \<<else>><div class='addic'><img src='images/scenes/imH.png'></div> \<</if>> \</div> \</div> \<<if hasVisited("U2a") && not hasVisited("H3a")>><div id="next">[[⸷|H3a]]</div><<elseif hasVisited("U2a") && hasVisited("H3a")>><div id="next">[[⸷|H3aDone]]</div><<elseif not hasVisited("U2a")>><div id="next">[[⸷|H2a]]</div><</if>> \<div id="month">V</div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="lborder"></div> \<div id="text"> \The cat offered no warning before it streaked out of the cart, up his arm, and gouged claws into his shoulder. Startled, he lost his grip on the handlebar, and the grocery cart trundled away from them. He caught the cat by the scruff of its neck as the cart slid into the side of a sedan, one of hundreds of vehicles clotting the highway. They could have turned back when he saw the gridlock from a distance, but abandoned highways have their advantages. Although the going was slow, he could shop as he walked, browsing the things that ex-drivers deemed nonessential during their flight. The grocery cart bounced off the sedan and wheeled into a lazy spiral. As it spun, it scraped across the door of another vehicle, bloodying the corner of the cart with red paint. The metal screeched like a fork dragged across a plate, and something screeched back. Down the road, from behind a truck, the body snapped into view. Its limbs dangled in place like a marionette’s, gently swaying, and its extant arm was soaked in a fresh coat of red paint. The other arm had been severed below the elbow. Self-amputation, he assumed. No time to dwell on it: the body had located them. A cold body, he could tell by the avian twitching of its head as it evaluated the environment. It rasped at them again, a sound like the nails of a victim scrabbling at concrete as she’s dragged across the basement floor. The body darted forward and threw itself over the hood of a car. A thump as it landed, and then the sound of real nails this time, clawing at a car bumper to get to its feet. He grabbed the grocery cart and ran through his options. Too smart for fire; too crowded for a fight; too burdened to run. \</div> \<div id="rborder"></div> \</div> \<div id="next"><<timedinsert 2s>>[[⸷|H1b]]<</timedinsert>></div> \<div id="month">V</div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="lborder"></div> \<div id="text"> \The body lunged into sight, close enough that he smelled the wet, acidic rot they gave off, like old vegetables drowned in sour milk, chewed up and retched out again. Only one vehicle between them now. Eyes on the approaching body, he yanked the cart close and unzipped his bag. The body rounded the last van that separated them, its head lolling to the side, mouth loose and panting in excitement--until he drew the pistol. It halted. He watched its pupils roll around in the milky miasma of what was left of its eyes, appraising him. “You know what this is.” He pushed the cart behind him and stepped forward, gun raised. “Fuck off.” The body rasped and slunk back a few steps. But there it lingered, peering at him from behind the van. He cocked the gun and advanced again. Now it fled, tumbling over the car it had vaulted, yelping as it hit the cold ground. He caught glimpses of it between the tires, scampering on hand and knees to the site of its previous kill. Once it passed fully out of his sight, he retreated too. He found the grocery cart and wedged it between two cars with his free hand. He kicked at the metal frame until the cart shrieked through the narrow space and tottered onto the grass beside the highway. The cat rocked on his shoulder with each kick. If its claws hadn’t drawn blood before, they did now. He caught his breath and looked back. The body remained in the distance. It was staring, mournfully, at his gun, and it swayed as it stood there. Back and forth, shoulders slumped. Back and forth, shoulders slumped and plaintive. “Go on, fuck off.” He raised the gun and aimed down sights. “Bang!” The dead woman flinched; so did the cat. Then they both skittered into action, the body loping through the maze of cars, the cat darting into the cart. He hauled the grocery cart onto the grass, out of traffic, and dragged them back the way they came. \</div> \<div id="rborder"></div> \</div> \<<if not hasVisited("H1c")>><<timedinsert 2s>><div id="next">[[⸷|H1c]]</div><</timedinsert>><<else>><div id="final">[[⸸|calendar]]</div><</if>> \<div id="month"></div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="noborder"></div> \<div id="sceneText"> \<<timedinsert .1s>><div class="addic"><img src='images/scenes/imH.png'></div><</timedinsert>> \</div> \</div> \<div id="final"><<timedinsert 2s>>[[⸸|calendar][$scenes += 1]]<</timedinsert>></div> \<div id="month">V</div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="lborder"></div> \<div id="text"> \The cat offered no warning before it streaked out of the cart, up his arm, and gouged claws into his shoulder. Startled, he lost his grip on the handlebar, and the grocery cart trundled away from them. He caught the cat by the scruff of its neck as the cart slid into the side of a sedan, one of hundreds of vehicles clotting the highway. They could have turned back when he saw the gridlock from a distance, but abandoned highways have their advantages. Although the going was slow, he could shop as he walked, browsing the things that ex-drivers deemed nonessential during their flight. The grocery cart bounced off the sedan and wheeled into a lazy spiral. As it spun, it scraped across the door of another vehicle, bloodying the corner of the cart with red paint. The metal screeched like a fork dragged across a plate, and something screeched back. Down the road, from behind a truck, the body snapped into view. Its limbs dangled in place like a marionette’s, gently swaying, and its extant arm was soaked in a fresh coat of red paint. The other arm had been severed below the elbow. Self-amputation, he assumed. No time to dwell on it: the body had located them. A cold body, he could tell by the avian twitching of its head as it evaluated the environment. It rasped at them again, a sound like the nails of a victim scrabbling at concrete as she’s dragged across the basement floor. The body darted forward and threw itself over the hood of a car. A thump as it landed, and then the sound of real nails this time, clawing at a car bumper to get to its feet. He grabbed the grocery cart and ran through his options. Too smart for fire; too crowded for a fight; too burdened to run. \</div> \<div id="rborder"></div> \</div> \<div id="next"><<timedinsert 3s>>[[⸷|H2b]]<</timedinsert>></div> \<div id="month">V</div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="lborder"></div> \<div id="text"> \The body lunged into sight, close enough that he smelled the wet, acidic rot they gave off, like old vegetables drowned in sour milk, chewed up and retched out again. Only one vehicle between them now. Eyes on the approaching body, he yanked the cart close and unzipped his bag. The body rounded the last van that separated them, its head lolling to the side, mouth loose and panting in excitement--until he drew the pistol. It halted. He watched its pupils roll around in the milky miasma of what was left of its eyes, appraising him. “You know what this is.” He pushed the cart behind him and stepped forward, gun raised. “Fuck off.” The body rasped and slunk back a few steps. But there it lingered, peering at him from behind the van. He cocked the gun and advanced again. Now it fled, tumbling over the car it had vaulted, yelping as it hit the cold ground. He caught glimpses of it between the tires, scampering on hand and knees to the site of its previous kill. Once it passed fully out of his sight, he retreated too. He found the grocery cart and wedged it between two cars with his free hand. He kicked at the metal frame until the cart shrieked through the narrow space and tottered onto the grass beside the highway. The cat rocked on his shoulder with each kick. If its claws hadn’t drawn blood before, they did now. He caught his breath and looked back. The body remained in the distance. It was staring, mournfully, at his gun, and it swayed as it stood there. Back and forth, shoulders slumped. Back and forth, shoulders slumped and plaintive. “Go on, fuck off.” He raised the gun and aimed down sights. “Bang!” The dead woman flinched; so did the cat. Then they both skittered into action, the body loping through the maze of cars, the cat darting into the cart. He hauled the grocery cart onto the grass, out of traffic, and dragged them back the way they came. \</div> \<div id="rborder"></div> \</div> \<div id="next"><<timedinsert 3s>>[[⸷|H2c]]<</timedinsert>></div> \<div id="month">V</div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="lborder"></div> \<div id="text"> \It took him hours to convince the cat that he was a reformed and gentle killer. Not until after dinner did the cat allow him to pet it, and even then, its tail puffed at him in warning. “She wanted you,” he told it, stroking a lazy hand down its back. “Didn’t you see the blood?” He scritched carefully at the cat’s jaw, where the body had been stained red with fresh meat and tufts of fur. “She wanted to eat you up. Munch, munch...” His clawed hand chewed slowly at the cat’s neck. He yawned and closed his eyes, finding the memory again, the berry-bright blood and frosted eyes. The cat’s fur was thick between his fingers, and soft. As he drifted to sleep, the cat started to purr. \</div> \<div id="rborder"></div> \</div> \<div id="final"><<timedinsert 3s>>[[⸸|calendar][$scenes += 1]]<</timedinsert>></div> \<div id="month">V</div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="lborder"></div> \<div id="text"> \<<timedreplace 1s>>The cat offered no warning before <<becomes>>No warning before <</timedreplace>><<timedreplace 1s>>it<<becomes>>Cat<</timedreplace>> streaked out of the cart<<timedreplace 1s>> and up his arm and gouged claws into his shoulder<<becomes>>, up my arm, and sunk his claws into my shoulder<</timedreplace>>. <<timedreplace 1s>>Startled, he lost his grip on the handlebar, and the grocery cart trundled away from them. He caught the cat by the scruff of its neck as the cart slid into the side of a sedan, one of hundreds of vehicles clotting the highway. They could have turned back when he saw the gridlock from a distance, but abandoned highways have their advantages. Although the going was slow, he could shop as he walked, browsing the things that ex-drivers deemed nonessential during their flight. The grocery cart bounced off the sedan and wheeled into a lazy spiral. As it spun, it scraped across the door of another vehicle, bloodying the corner of the cart with red paint. The metal screeched like a fork dragged across a plate, and something screeched back.<<becomes>>I snatched him by the scruff of the neck, saying something like, <i>What the fuck’s your problem</i> while the cart escaped down the road. I didn’t know yet--well, I knew, but I didn’t trust yet--that Cat was always right about these things.<</timedreplace>> <<timedreplace 2s>>Down the road, from behind a truck,<<becomes>>Sure enough,<</timedreplace>> <<timedreplace 2s>>the body snapped<<becomes>>a body popped into sight<</timedreplace>><<timedreplace 2s>>. Its limbs dangled in place like a marionette’s, gently swaying, and its extant arm was soaked in a fresh coat of red paint.<<becomes>> halfway down the highway, limbs rattling around like windchimes. The one arm she was left with was sticky with red pulp.<</timedreplace>> <<timedreplace 2s>>The other arm<<becomes>>Her other one<</timedreplace>> had been severed below the elbow. Self-amputation<<timedremove 3s>>, he assumed<</timedremove>>. <<timedinsert 3s>>@@.new;We’d all heard the miracle story of somebody who stopped the infection that way. Sure worked out for her. It’s not the Evil fuckin Dead out here, is what I’m saying.<</timedinsert>> <<timedreplace 4s>>No time to dwell on it: the body had located them. A cold body, he could tell by the avian twitching of its head as it evaluated the environment. It rasped at them again, a sound like the nails of a victim scrabbling at concrete as she’s dragged across the basement floor. The body darted forward and threw itself over the hood of a car. A thump as it landed, and then the sound of real nails this time, clawing at a car bumper to get to its feet. He grabbed the grocery cart and ran through his options. Too smart for fire; too crowded for a fight; too burdened to run. The body lunged into sight, close enough that he smelled the wet, acidic rot they gave off, like old vegetables drowned in sour milk, chewed up and retched out again. Only one vehicle between them now. Eyes on the approaching body, he yanked the cart close and unzipped his bag. The body rounded the last van that separated them, its head lolling to the side, mouth loose and panting in excitement--until he drew the pistol. It halted. He watched its pupils roll around in the milky miasma of what was left of its eyes, appraising him.<<becomes>>Anyway, at the time I wasn’t thinking all that. I was seeing that she was a cold body, one of the half-awake ones. Their brains not fully rotted. You can tell from the way they jerk their heads around, trying to find a clear line of sight through dying eyes. The cold ones are worse because they’re patient, observant. They hunt. Unfortunately for them, in a past life so did I.<</timedreplace>> \</div> \<div id="rborder"></div> \</div> \<div id="next"><<timedinsert 5s>>[[⸷|H3b]]<</timedinsert>></div> \<div id="month">V</div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="lborder"></div> \<div id="text"> \<<timedreplace 1s>>“You know what this is.” He pushed the cart behind him and stepped forward, gun raised. “Fuck off.” The body rasped and slunk back a few steps. But there it lingered, peering at him from behind the van. He cocked the gun and advanced again. Now it fled, tumbling over the car it had vaulted, yelping as it hit the cold ground. He caught glimpses of it between the tires, scampering on hand and knees to the site of its previous kill. Once it passed fully out of his sight, he retreated too. He found the grocery cart and wedged it between two cars with his free hand. He kicked at the metal frame until the cart shrieked through the narrow space and tottered onto the grass beside the highway. The cat rocked on his shoulder with each kick. If its claws hadn’t drawn blood before, they did now. He caught his breath and looked back. The body remained in the distance. It was staring, mournfully, at his gun, and it swayed as it stood there. Back and forth, shoulders slumped. Back and forth, shoulders slumped and plaintive. “Go on, fuck off.” He raised the gun and aimed down sights. “Bang!” The dead woman flinched; so did the cat. Then they both skittered into action, the body loping through the maze of cars, the cat darting into the cart. He hauled the grocery cart onto the grass, out of traffic, and dragged them back the way they came.<<becomes>>So she’s lunging over cars, figuring I can’t outrun her in the gridlock of traffic, and I pull the gun. If it was loaded at all, there wasn’t more than one bullet in it. But she believes it, and that’s what matters.<</timedreplace>> <<timedreplace 2s>>I<<becomes>>Cat believed it too, and i<</timedreplace>>t took <<timedreplace 2s>>him<<becomes>>me<</timedreplace>> hours to convince him that <<timedreplace 2s>>he<<becomes>>I<</timedreplace>> was a reformed and gentle killer. <<timedreplace 2s>>Not until<<becomes>>It wasn’t til<</timedreplace>> after dinner <<timedreplace 2s>>did the cat allow him to pet it<<becomes>>that he let me pet him<</timedreplace>>, and even then, <<timedreplace 2s>>its tail puffed at him in warning<<becomes>>he puffed his tail at me<</timedreplace>>. “She wanted you,”<<timedreplace 3s>> he told it, stroking a lazy hand down its back. “<<becomes>> I told him. “<</timedreplace>>Didn’t you see the blood<<timedreplace 3s>>?”<<becomes>> on her mouth?<</timedreplace>><<timedreplace 3s>> He skritched carefully at the cat’s jaw, where the body had been stained red with fresh meat and tufts of fur. ”<<becomes>> <</timedreplace>>She wanted to eat you up.” <<timedreplace 4s>>His clawed hand chewed<<becomes>>I chewed my hand<</timedreplace>> <<timedremove 4s>>slowly <</timedremove>>at the fat fur of his neck. <<timedreplace 4s>>He yawned and closed his eyes, finding the memory again, the berry-bright blood and frosted eyes. The cat’s fur was thick between his fingers, and soft. As he drifted to sleep, the cat<<becomes>>I remember thinking about the red of the blood on her face, as shiny as that sore on Cat’s leg. He wouldn’t quit licking it, and licking it, and licking it, and seeing her face, I wondered if it was an old hunger that set him to it. The snake eating its own tail rather than submit to starvation. Just as the petting wore my hand out, Cat<</timedreplace>> started to purr. \</div> \<div id="rborder"></div> \</div> \<div id="final"><<timedinsert 5s>>[[⸸|calendar]]<</timedinsert>></div> \<div id="month">V</div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="lborder"></div> \<div id="text"> \No warning before Cat streaked out of the cart, up my arm, and sunk his claws into my shoulder. I snatched him by the scruff of the neck, saying something like, //What the fuck’s your problem// while the cart escaped down the road. I didn’t know yet -- well, I knew, but I didn’t trust yet -- that Cat was always right about these things. Sure enough, a body popped into sight halfway down the highway, limbs rattling around like windchimes. The one arm she was left with was sticky with red pulp. Her other one had been severed below the elbow. Self-amputation. We’d all heard the miracle story of somebody who stopped the infection that way. Sure worked out for her. It’s not the Evil fuckin Dead out here, is what I’m saying. Anyway, at the time I wasn’t thinking all that. I was seeing that she was a cold body, one of the half-awake ones. Their brains not fully rotted. You can tell from the way they jerk their heads around, trying to find a clear line of sight through dying eyes. The cold ones are worse because they’re patient, observant. They hunt. Unfortunately for them, in a past life so did I. \</div> \<div id="rborder"></div> \</div> \<div id="next">[[⸷|H3bDone]]</div> \<div id="month">V</div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="lborder"></div> \<div id="text"> \So she’s lunging over cars, figuring I can’t outrun her in the gridlock of traffic, and I pull the gun. If it was loaded at all, there wasn’t more than one bullet in it. But she believes it, and that’s what matters. Cat believed it too, and it took me hours to convince him that I was a reformed and gentle killer. It wasn’t til after dinner that he let me pet him, and even then, he puffed his tail at me. “She wanted you,” I told him. “Didn’t you see the blood on her mouth? She wanted to eat you up.” I chewed my hand at the fat fur of his neck. I remember thinking about the red of the blood on her face, as shiny as that sore on Cat’s leg. He wouldn’t quit licking it, and licking it, and licking it, and seeing her face, I wondered if it was an old hunger that set him to it. The snake eating its own tail rather than submit to starvation. Right as the petting wore my hand out, Cat started to purr. \</div> \<div id="rborder"></div> \</div> \<div id="final">[[⸸|calendar]]</div> \<div id="month"></div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="noborder"></div> \<div id="sceneText"> \<<if not hasVisited("I1a")>><<goto "I1a">> \<<else>><div class='addic'><img src='images/scenes/imI.png'></div> \<</if>> \</div> \</div> \<<if hasVisited("I1a") && not hasVisited("U2a")>><div id="next">[[⸷|I1a]]</div> \<<elseif hasVisited("I1a") && hasVisited("U2a")>><div id="next">[[⸷|I2a]]</div> <</if>> \<div id="month">V</div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="lborder"></div> \<div id="text"> \The cat skittered aside as he set the great black mirror against the side of the hardware store. Both the whorled wooden frame and the glass were coated with dust, and with a spare sock, he rubbed a clean circle into the glass, around head-height. No need to see the rest. The dust sloughed off in thick layers and glittered on the cement below. He found that he didn’t like the way <span id="man">the man in the mirror</span> moved. He raised the scissors too hesitantly, had too many crow’s feet when he squinted against the sunglare. But he couldn’t tolerate the way that sweat had started to drip into his ears when he traveled, and the days would only get warmer and wetter. <span id="any"><<link "The hair">><<replace "#anything">><<timedreplace 5.5s>>Anything he could grip, he could cut. Fistfuls of hair stretched like tendons before he sawed them in half.<<becomes>>Hair-splinters prickled his neck. He had pulled off his shirt a quarter hour too late.<</timedreplace>><</replace>><<replace "#any">>The hair<</replace>><</link>></span> <span id="gro"><<link "had">><<replace "#gro">>had<</replace>><<replace "#ground">><<timedreplace 4.5s>>Under him the ground turned autumn, slick russet and wisps of copper.<<becomes>>The cat huddled on a parking block, far out of reach. Its shoulders twitched every time he snipped.<</timedreplace>><</replace>><</link>></span> <span id="sciss"><<link "to go">><<replace "#sciss">>to go<</replace>><<replace "#scissors">><<timedreplace 6s>>Clumsy work, dizzied by his reflection. The scissors bumped against his head like an impatient muzzle.<<becomes>>He couldn’t wedge the scissors tight enough to the ridge behind his ear. He’d have to take a knife to it later.<</timedreplace>><</replace>><<replace "#man">><<link "the man in the mirror">><<replace "#man">>the man in the mirror<</replace>><<replace "#mann">>The metal scissors had started cold, but sweat and the sun caught up to them. Now they burned against his ear like a slow-motion boxing, the handle as hot and hard as any father’s hand.<</replace>><<replace "#next">><<timedinsert 4s>>[[⸷|I1b]]<</timedinsert>><</replace>><</link>><</replace>><</link>></span>. <span id="anything"></span> <span id="ground"></span> <span id="scissors"></span> <span id="mann"></span> \</div> \<div id="rborder"></div> \</div> \<div id="next"></div> \<div id="month">V</div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="lborder"></div> \<div id="text"> <<timedinsert 1.5s>>@@white-space:pre;word-spacing:10px; / / / / / // // / / // / / / / // / / // / / // / / / // // / / // / // / // / /// // / / / // / // // // // / // / / / / / / / / / / /// / / / // // / // // /// / / / / / / /// / // / / // / / / / // /// / / / / / / / // / / // / / / @@<</timedinsert>> \</div> \<div id="rborder"></div> \</div> \<div id="next"><<timedinsert 2s>>[[⸷|I1c]]<</timedinsert>></div> \<div id="month">V</div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="lborder"></div> \<div id="text"> \He took the first one for just another sweatdrop. But when he wiped it from his cheek, another replaced it, and then another caught his shoulder and the top of his head and his eye and his paused hand. In the mirror he watched the little rays of water solidify into gray lines. The sun hadn’t gone out, so the rain fell out of the sky cloudlessly, and childishly, he thought, like a spurned artist scratching out a halcyon sketch. The cat hopped off the parking block and bustled toward the cart, drawing his attention to it. The food would get soaked, the matches, the bandages -- he snatched his shirt off the ground and threw it on top of the cart. Rain drizzled down his back like a shitty hotel showerhead, only cold because his skin was bare. He refused to shelter in the unraided cavern of the hardware store, but he could see a van at the edge of the parking lot, its sliding doors flung open in months-old hysteria. He grabbed the cart handle and shoved them toward the van, the cart rattling and popping off cracks in the fractured blacktop. His footsteps turned shrill as they slapped against the pooling rain. He let the cart bang into the front of the van, his hands busy with pushing the cat out of the way and chucking bags into the backseat. His arms glittered with rain. As he bent down to transfer the last of the supplies, water sloughed off his hair and spattered onto the faux-leather seats. He straightened up and caught his breath. The rain couldn’t be as cold as it felt. His pulse was running like a drum in his ears, so he stilled himself for a moment, listened to his heart, and checked his hands. Only a slight tremor. More from adrenaline than rain, he reckoned. He peeled off his shorts and hung them over the edge of the empty cart and then did the same with his underwear and socks. His shoes, he tossed in the car, where the cat was crouched among the bags and boxes. It tended to its wet fur like a wound, licking and staring at it and licking and staring. He tried to close the van door, but it wouldn’t give. As he fought with it, the rain found his clothes and picked out the little blades of hair trapped in them. He watched the hair wash across the lot and down the gutter like streaks of rust. He stood outside the van a while longer, a long while after there was no more red in the rainwater. Eventually his hands did shake, and not from adrenaline; then he climbed into the driver’s seat. He told himself that he ought to grab something from the back—a coat or the sleeping bag—anything, to get warmer. He knew that he should, but he didn’t want to. More of him was shaking. His stomach burned with the effort of keeping himself steady. He gave into it and hunched over, forehead pressed to the steering wheel. The wheel was cold too, and his face wet, and his shoulders kept shaking. \</div> \<div id="rborder"></div> \</div> \<<if not hasVisited("I1d")>><<timedinsert 2s>><div id="next">[[⸷|I1d]]</div><</timedinsert>><<else>><div id="final">[[⸸|calendar]]</div><</if>> \<div id="month"></div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="noborder"></div> \<div id="sceneText"> \<<timedinsert .1s>><div class="addic"><img src='images/scenes/imI.png'></div><</timedinsert>> \</div> \</div> \<div id="final"><<timedinsert 2s>>[[⸸|calendar][$scenes += 1]]<</timedinsert>></div> \<div id="month">V</div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="lborder"></div> \<div id="text"> After Chase came home bit, there was no discussion. The infection takes two to three days to kill a person, so there was no harm in giving him one more night with his wife. “Then in the morning,” he said without looking at me, “I’ll be shot.” Just like that, no mention of who might be pulling the trigger. Like he’d walk outside at dawn and some curse would bolt down from heaven and strike him dead. Like God reaching out to stay Abraham’s hand, saying, “That’s alright, I got this one,” and putting a bullet through the back of Isaac’s head. If it was transferred through bites, of course it was transferred through spit. Somehow none of us thought about that. I didn’t cry until after Rebecca caught the fever too. When she saw me getting red-eyed, her face lit up and she said PLEASE tell me you’re a loud crier, I can’t stand how quiet it’s been since he left. I told her I cried louder when I was drunk. I could see she wanted to make another joke, but the tears came first. I put on all my clothes and masks so I could sit with her. We talked, but not about anything I can remember. Then I walked her downstairs, and she was cursed. I burned her body and their mattress both, to be safe. Ice had already sealed off the ground where I laid Chase, and it was during all the digging that I decided to leave the house. Eventually I got through it. Then I took his and Rebecca’s ashes and buried them in the same urn. \</div> \<div id="rborder"></div> \</div> \<div id="final"><<timedinsert 2s>>[[⸸|calendar]]<</timedinsert>></div> \<div id="month"></div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="noborder"></div> \<div id="sceneText"> \<<if not hasVisited("J1a")>><<goto "J1a">> \<<else>><div class='addic'><img src='images/scenes/imJ.png'></div> \<</if>> \</div> \</div> \<<if lastVisited("J1d") < 2>><div id="next">[[⸷|J1a]]</div> <<elseif lastVisited("J1d") gte 2>><div id="next">[[⸷|J2a]]</div> <</if>> \<div id="month">VI</div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="lborder"></div> \<div id="text"> \“Anything interesting?” He stretched his legs under the table. “A tree fell on me once.” “It did not,” she laughed. He put his hand over his heart, aggrieved. “I thought this was a safehouse.” “Not according to your cat…” “Yeah, well, it’s a cat. It won’t go in or out of anywhere it doesn’t wanna go. Nothing personal.” They had compromised by leaving the cart downstairs in the foyer of the apartment building. The cat had burrowed into the cart, well content, while he and she retired upstairs. As he understood it, she and her brother had cleaned out and claimed several apartments in the building, but she had only ever invited him to this one. It was a nice, if homely, place, the kind of place where you expected to enjoy a piss in the company of a fuzzy pink toilet seat cover and a shivering, bug-eyed little dog watching you from the corner. She hadn’t kept any of that. The only remnant of the previous owner was the curtains, the dense, dusty curtains hanging in every room of the apartment. They fuzzed the afternoon light like a layer of cat fur gauzing an old couch. Here in the kitchen, the red tartan curtains turned the light cinnamon, the same hazed brown as their tea. “You call your cat ‘it’?” she asked with a raised brow. “Have you never checked?” “I don’t exactly spend my free time examining cat genitalia.” After a pause, he admitted, “It’s a tomcat.” “Oh, it’s a <i>Tom Cat</i>. Fancy.” Grinning to herself, she stirred her tea, and he looked down at his own cup. It was a nice clear glass, smudged with fingerprints from when he had accepted it from her. She had insisted on tea first, some chitchat and catching up, before he bathed. He wished she hadn’t. How had he not noticed the little rim of black at the bottom of his nails or the ridges of dirt in his knuckles? They should’ve been clearer out in the sunlight than in here. \</div> \<div id="rborder"></div> \</div> \<div id="next"><<timedinsert 3s>>[[⸷|J1b]]<</timedinsert>></div> \<div id="month">VI</div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="lborder"></div> \<div id="text"> \After a sip, she asked, “Did you bring us anything fun?” “I’m sure you can find something. I’ll bring up the bag of crap later.” Like any good traveler, he kept a stash of trinkets to fend off bridge trolls. Paperback novels, engagement rings, ballet shoes, a black-strapped Breguet watch, a tin of saffron, a $500 bill, and some pyrite. He had owned a set of bunny finger puppets for a while, but the cat had decided to liberate them. His mind circled back to her question, to the word ‘us.’ He pictured her brother’s face – lean and precise with a cluster of fine, quick features. Like the ticking hands of his Breguet. “It’s lucky I came by while your brother’s out.” He always felt a little bad for the kid, having to third wheel in his own home. “He’ll be gone a while.” She nodded to herself, checking her nails. “He’ll probably camp in another building tonight. He’s out getting supplies. We cleared a few places around here, so he’s got options for where to sleep. But I doubt he’ll be back tonight.” He barely had time to murmur, “Sure,” before she stood up and announced that she would start drawing the bath. He watched her leave the kitchen, and then his attention returned to his hands. They’d choke the water if he went in like this. His thumbnail clicked like the tab of a pop can as he tried to pry out some of the grime. Her nails, in contrast, were painted a lovely, violent shade of plum, as taut and shiny as fruitskin. Last time he’d stayed here, he had laid in bed all morning watching her spike her long nails with cherry red polish. Sometime between then and now, she must have decided to clip them. Now, half an inch long, they hardly made a sound when she drummed them against her teacup. \</div> \<div id="rborder"></div> \</div> \<div id="next"><<timedinsert 3s>>[[⸷|J1c]]<</timedinsert>></div> \<div id="month">VI</div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="lborder"></div> \<div id="text"> \In the bathroom, she muffled a cough. His nails could use a trim too, although he wondered if the cat would complain. In his experience, long nails scratched much better than blunt fingerflesh. She coughed again, and he looked to the bathroom. The curtains had infested the apartment so thoroughly that the bathroom door had been transformed into one too: a bulky blackout curtain hung from a crudely hammered rod. A pair of brass hinges was screwed into the empty door frame, and above them the wood warped and gutted, a handful of the frame clearly clawed away. Had there been a door last time? When they arrived, the cat had not complained, only looked at him like a ghost from the other side of the dust-smudged doors. He stood up as she passed through the curtain. When she saw him on his feet, her face changed too quickly. She knew that he knew. He tried to cut her off, “I don’t need the story--” “You’re already leaving?” “I don’t need the story, but I can’t stay here.” She advanced into the kitchen, thrusting her bare arms at him, saying, “Look at me, check me. You can see I’m not bitten--” He slipped his hand into his pocket and felt the knife. “I’m sure you did what you had to do. Don’t make me do it too.” She stopped, her arms raised like a supplicant martyr, her nails so short and chemically purple. He shook his head. “I don’t want to. Don’t.” The tea steamed, and she lowered her arms, shadowed by the great black curtain behind her. He backed out of the apartment and shut the door, rattling the brass number five above the peephole. As he descended, he thought of her dragging the corpse down these stairs, another nail snapping off as the trash bag slipped from her hands. \</div> \<div id="rborder"></div> \</div> \<<if not hasVisited("J1d")>><<timedinsert 3s>><div id="next">[[⸷|J1d]]</div><</timedinsert>><<else>><div id="final">[[⸸|calendar]]</div><</if>> \<div id="month"></div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="noborder"></div> \<div id="sceneText"> \<<timedinsert .1s>><div class="addic"><img src='images/scenes/imJ.png'></div><</timedinsert>> \</div> \</div> \<div id="final"><<timedinsert 2s>>[[⸸|calendar][$scenes += 1]]<</timedinsert>></div> \<div id="month">VI</div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="lborder"></div> \<div id="text"> \ Something crackled under the cart’s front wheels. <<if hasVisited("U2a")>>Cat<<else>>The cat<</if>> peered over the side at the offending piece of plastic -- just a bit of trash, a red and brown label peeled off a bottle of Coke. The cart rolled forward, and the back wheels took their turn in crinkling the plastic and spitting it aside. She must have lugged him down here, to the dumpster behind the apartments, for a controlled burn. After the smoke cleared, the air would dazzle with urban vultures. A lone magpie would trail behind the flock, less interested in the charred flesh than in the glossy plastic wrappers and yellow boxes of tea, and it would come upon the brightest trash yet, a little violent red tile, as crimson as the tongue-piece of an ancient mosaic. Upstairs, she would look at her eight remaining nails and begin to cut. \</div> \<div id="rborder"></div> \</div> \<div id="final"><<timedinsert 2s>>[[⸸|calendar][$scenes += 1]]<</timedinsert>></div> \<div id="month"></div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="noborder"></div> \<div id="sceneText"> \<<if not hasVisited("K1a")>><<goto "K1a">> \<<else>><div class='addic'><img src='images/scenes/imK.png'></div> \<</if>> \</div> \</div> \<<if not hasVisited("U2a") || not hasVisited("S1a") || not hasVisited("B2a")>><div id="next">[[⸷|K1a]]</div> <<elseif hasVisited("U2a") && hasVisited("S1a") && hasVisited("B2a")>><div id="next">[[⸷|K2a]]</div> <</if>> \ \<div id="month">VI</div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="lborder"></div> \<div id="text"> \“Now this," he exclaimed, “now this is a wagon. Get a load of this.” Shimmying between a pair of rangy cast iron cranes and an exhausted heap of fertilizer bags, he managed to reach the far side of the shed. Was a room this size still called a shed? The path here had been dogged with underfoot flowerpots and a fleet of resin creatures, hedgehogs the size of soccer balls, loafed cats, and anxious rabbits looking up at him with big gray prey eyes. Even more gardening paraphernalia crowded around the wagon: gradient-glazed planters and little tools whose names he didn’t know. Trowels, maybe. Spades. As he liberated the wagon, he continued to mutter to himself in excitement. It had to be to himself, because the cat had decided not to enter the shed. It was too preoccupied with a drain pipe gutting off the house next door -- spider-hunting, he figured, or licking at that sore on its leg. After emptying the wagon, he had to clear a path to the door. He couldn’t remember the last time he had exerted this much energy in one place, and it concerned him how quickly the heaps of fertilizer made his arms ache. But the wagon deserved the effort. Four feet long, two wide, and better yet, two deep. A tall metal cage encircled the wagon bed, providing even more vertical space for stacking. The wagon wheels rumbled confidently as he hauled it out of the shed, nothing like the panicky contortions of the shopping cart they had been using. He gave it another look-over under the sunshine and decided it needed tarp as bedding, as some of the cage wire looked sharp enough to puncture a box of pasta. Before returning to the shed, he checked on the shopping cart -- and the cat, who sat atop it, bristling. “What’s your problem?” The cat gave a grim and furious burble, eyes fixed on the house. “Fuck. Really?” He couldn’t hear them yet, but he trusted the cat’s ears over his own. He yanked the wagon clear of the shed and grabbed one of the grocery bags from the cart, upsetting the cat who hissed and clung tighter to his pack. “No, I understand. But we’re getting this wagon.” The dead be damned. \</div> \<div id="rborder"></div> \</div> \<div id="next"><<timedinsert 2s>>[[⸷|K1b]]<</timedinsert>></div> \<div id="month">VI</div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="lborder"></div> \<div id="text"> \He kept the house’s front door in his peripheral as he transferred supplies from cart to wagon. Haste crunched some of the food, and he grimaced but chucked more bags on top. He had reached the final winter layer, coats pounded flat against the bottom of the cart, when the cat’s burbling wheeled into a tomcat yowl. Beneath the caterwauling, he heard a dark wet thump. Something of flesh. He looked up at the house. The second floor landing featured a massive, handsome arched window, uncurtained and gently shimmering, vibrating from the hundred and thirty pounds that had just rammed into it. The girl reared back and slammed into the glass again. Her head ricocheted first, the force of it jerking the rest of her body along. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Do it again,” he said. On the third run, her face cracked. A firework of viscera splattered the window. He thought that she might have destroyed herself, but behind the sheen of red and rot, her body continued to stumble. And not just hers, he realized. A smaller girl shadowed the window’s bottom panel. The blood hadn’t dripped that far yet; he could see her raw, macilent hands as she dragged herself across the carpet to the window. One of her legs must have sloughed off, or both. She drew close enough to mush her face to the glass, and toothlessly she jawed at it, docked tongue quivering in a cockroach mouth. The older sister recovered and slammed into the window. Her cracked cheek left a pale smear in the blood. He could have watched so much longer, but a shrill pain interrupted him. He looked down to find that the cat had scaled the remaining supplies and pricked its claws through his sleeve. Shaking it off his arm, he said, “I know. We’re going.” The thumping at the window was ceaseless. Metronome-like, steady as rain, <<linkreplace "Thump">>Thump<</linkreplace>> as he finished transferring supplies, <<linkreplace "Thump">>Thump<</linkreplace>> as he hauled the new wagon down the road, <<linkreplace "Thump">>Thump<</linkreplace>> as he consulted the map a street away, <<linkreplace "Thump">>Thump<</linkreplace>> as he mindlessly picked a road. At that point, it must have been his own pulse in his ears. <<linkreplace "Thump.">>Thump.<</linkreplace>> <span id="thu"><<linkreplace "Thump.">><<replace "#next">><<timedinsert .2s>>[[⸷|K1c]]<</timedinsert>><</replace>><</linkreplace>></span> \</div> \<div id="rborder"></div> \</div> \<div id="next"></div> \<div id="month">VI</div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="lborder"></div> \<div id="text"> \An hour later, the cans rattling against the wagon cage broke his resolve. He had to drag the wagon aside and unload it, trying to remember how he had packed the shopping cart to cushion everything noiselessly into place. This diversion only antagonized the cat further. It stalked around the wagon, tried to piss on a tossed-aside pair of gloves, screamed at him when he intervened, and topped off the tantrum by biting his ankle and streaking into the scrag of nearby bushes. He rearranged the supplies in peace. When the cat finally skulked back to the wagon, he was seated beside it, snacking on a can of chickpeas, which he politely offered. The cat declined in favor of kibble. “Even if it had broken through the window, it would’ve smashed its legs on the fall. Or its spine. We weren’t in danger. It would’ve been stunned long enough for me to beat its head in. You gotta have some faith in me,” he said, and he didn’t mention the other body, or the hypothetical other bodies beyond her, the unseen horde vomiting out of the house like gnats. “But I appreciate you telling me about them.” He wanted to give the cat’s head a little scratch, but the volume of its kibble-crunching and the flinty flatness of its ears persuaded him otherwise. He settled for preening bits of grass and leaves off its twitching fur. As he reached, very gingerly, to pluck a leaf from its shoulder, a <<linkreplace "BANG">>BANG<<replace "#next">><<timedinsert 4s>>[[⸷|K1d]]<</timedinsert>><</replace>><<replace "#heard">>Before he could process it as a gunshot, he had already footballed the cat under his arm and snatched the shotgun off the wagon. How close? --impossible-- He ran --to tell on open land-- half a mile? --and the silence of the dead amplified every noise. He skidded down the first slope he saw, breaking line of sight on these endless fucking plains, a stupid place to get caught, a stupid way to get shot, shushing the noiseless cat as he slid to a stop and pinned his back to the hill. His chest felt red and taut, as stiff as the shotgun across his knees. Eventually, after he caught his breath, he loosed the cat, but it refused to leave his lap. “So you heard it too.” But why only one shot? If they had fired at the house, they needed two at least. He figured it for a rifle, the thin thorny way the bullet had torn through the air. If it had been a single warning shot, he and the warner should’ve been visible to each other. Sparse cover out here. He ran his hand mechanically down the cat’s back, petting it over and over. It wasn’t until his wrist turned sore that he realized he was whacking his hand against the gun barrel on every downstroke. He stayed his hand.<</replace>><</linkreplace>> cracked the sky. <span id="heard">@@opacity:0;Before he could process it as a gunshot, he had already footballed the cat under his arm and snatched the shotgun off the wagon. How close? --impossible-- He ran --to tell on open land-- half a mile? --and the silence of the dead amplified every noise. He skidded down the first slope he saw, breaking line of sight on these endless fucking plains, a stupid place to get caught, a stupid way to get shot, shushing the noiseless cat as he slid to a stop and pinned his back to the hill. His chest felt red and taut, as stiff as the shotgun across his knees. Eventually, after he caught his breath, he loosed the cat, but it refused to leave his lap. “So you heard it too.” But why only one shot? If they had fired at the house, they needed two at least. He figured it for a rifle, the thin thorny way the bullet had torn through the air. If it had been a single warning shot, he and the warner should’ve been visible to each other. Sparse cover out here. He ran his hand mechanically down the cat’s back, petting it over and over. It wasn’t until his wrist turned sore that he realized he was whacking his hand against the gun barrel on every downstroke. He stayed his hand.@@</span> \</div> \<div id="rborder"></div> \</div> \<div id="next"></div> \<div id="month">VI</div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="lborder"></div> \<div id="text"> \If someone had been pursuing them, they would have arrived and raided the wagon by now. Time to see what could be salvaged. Tucking the cat under his arm, he ignored his muscles’ acidic complaints and stood. Soon he would haul the tent down here, hidden behind the slope, and they could rest for a few days. He crouched awkwardly with the shotgun and crept up the hill, the cat a hot staticky lump against his sweat-damp skin. He kept looking north, toward the house out of sight, expecting a still figure on the horizon to explode into flight. But the world was newly vacant. No one had touched their wagon, and his mind circled around the idea that he might have imagined it all. He set the cat down beside the undisturbed pile of kibble, and then he joined it, stretching his stiff legs into the grass. His can of chickpeas lay nearby, exactly where he’d dropped it. A serum-like soup had leaked out of it and stained a muddy print into the surrounding dirt. He grabbed the can and set it upright. The cat made no move toward its own food. It sat motionless, looking like an old bathmat tossed to the roadside, off-white and once-puffy, now grubby and flattened by years of feet. “I can’t put ’em back in the bag.” He gestured toward the kibble. “Not once they’ve been on the ground.” Truth be told, he wasn’t hungry either. But someone should be eating. He reached over the cat to carefully, visibly pluck a couple pellets from the edge of the circle and roll them in his hand to loose the dust. Once he was sure that the cat was definitely not watching him, he popped one into his mouth. The instant, withering dryness made him recall the girl’s half-tongue, flapping in her mouth like a fat red fingerless palm. The cat burbled. “Up to you, buddy.” It scooted forward a reluctant inch. As he forced the second piece into his mouth, the cat sniffed at the remaining kibble. By the time he crunched down on the third, he wasn’t eating alone. \</div> \<div id="rborder"></div> \</div> \<<if not hasVisited("K1e")>><<timedinsert 2s>><div id="next">[[⸷|K1e]]</div><</timedinsert>><<else>><div id="final">[[⸸|calendar]]</div><</if>> \<div id="month"></div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="noborder"></div> \<div id="sceneText"> \<<timedinsert .1s>><div class="addic"><img src='images/scenes/imK.png'></div><</timedinsert>> \</div> \</div> \<div id="final"><<timedinsert 2s>>[[⸸|calendar][$scenes += 1]]<</timedinsert>></div> \<div id="month">VI</div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="lborder"></div> \<div id="text"> \<<timedreplace 4s>>Before he could process it as a gunshot, he had already footballed the cat under his arm and snatched the shotgun off the wagon. How close? --impossible-- He ran --to tell on open land-- half a mile? --and the silence of the dead amplified every noise. He skidded down the first slope he saw, breaking line of sight on these endless fucking plains, a stupid place to get caught, a stupid way to get shot, shushing the noiseless cat as he slid to a stop and pinned his back to the hill.<<becomes>>@@opacity:0;Before he could process it as a gunshot, he had already footballed the cat under his arm and snatched the shotgun off the wagon. How close? --impossible-- He ran --to tell on open land-- half a mile? --and the silence of the dead amplified every noise. He skidded down the first slope he saw, breaking line of sight on these endless fucking plains, a stupid place to get caught, a stupid way to get shot, shushing the noiseless cat as he slid to a stop and pinned his back to the hill.@@ <</timedreplace>><<timedreplace 13s>>His<<becomes>>My<</timedreplace>> chest <<timedinsert 13.5s>>burned in the cold. It<</timedinsert>> felt <<timedinsert 14s>>as<</timedinsert>> red <<timedreplace 14s>>and taut, as stiff as<<becomes>>as my fingers wrapped around<</timedreplace>> the shotgun <<timedinsert 14.5s>>laid<</timedinsert>> across <<timedreplace 14.5s>>his<<becomes>>my<</timedreplace>> knees. <<timedinsert 17s>>Stupid place to hide, this snowed-in shed with only one door, but I never had any good ideas at this age. I’d pulled a tarp around me to keep from freezing to the tin wall. It didn’t do anything for the shivering. I remember my shoulders rattling against the wall and the tin burning into my skin, cold as <span id="rest"><<link "bullets">><<replace "#rest">>bullets. <<timedinsert .3s>>I tried to hush my breathing, tell myself I should be sleeping, ignore hearing the boots creak through the snow and stop outside the door. Felt my tongue crack when I tried to speak. Ghostskin peeling off my lips, I tried to tell him <i>leave it alone pa</i> but he was already shoving the door in. So I drew up and <span id='fire'><<link "fired">><<replace "#fire">>fired. <<timedinsert .3s>>I didn’t want to shoot him. I wanted to shoot the thing that came through the snow.<</timedinsert>> <<timedinsert 5s>>I jerked the gun up so the buckshot tore holes through the roof instead of him. After the shed stopped trembling, he stepped inside. Together we looked up at the new constellation the buckshot had punched through the tin. In the black gaps of night you could see stars above us, gleaming soft and bright like cleaned fish scales.<</timedinsert>><</replace>><<replace "#final">><<timedinsert 8s>>[[⸸|calendar]]<</timedinsert>><</replace>><</link>>.</span><</timedinsert>> \<</replace>><</link>>.</span><</timedinsert>> \ \<<timedremove 11s>>Eventually, after he caught his breath, he loosed the cat, but it refused to leave his lap. “So you heard it too.” <</timedremove>><<timedremove 5.5s>>But why only one shot? If they had fired at the house, they needed two at least. He figured it for a rifle, the thin thorny way the bullet had torn through the air. If it had been a single warning shot, he and the warner should’ve been visible to each other. Sparse cover out here. He ran his hand mechanically down the cat’s back, petting it over and over. It wasn’t until his wrist turned sore that he realized he was whacking his hand against the gun barrel on every downstroke. He stayed his hand.<</timedremove>> \</div> \<div id="rborder"></div> \</div> \<div id="final"></div> \<div id="month"></div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="noborder"></div> \<div id="sceneText"> \<<if not hasVisited("L1a")>><<goto "L1a">> \<<else>><div class='addic'><img src='images/scenes/imL.png'></div> \<</if>> \</div> \</div> \<<if not hasVisited("U2a")>><div id="next">[[⸷|L1a]]</div> \<<elseif hasVisited("U2a") && not hasVisited("L2a")>><div id="next">[[⸷|L2a]]</div> \<<else>><div id="next">[[⸷|L2aDone]]</div> <</if>> \<div id="month">VII</div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="lborder"></div> \<div id="text"> \Sometimes, when he found an unlocked car on a temperate day, he would claim the driver's seat for a few hours. Best if the windows were down, or broken. Only once did he find a denim-blue truck that let him crank the windows by hand. He would readjust the mirrors, the seat if it was manual, and toss the trash from the cupholders into the backseat. He needed that space for fidgeting -- arm slung along the console so his hand could dangle off, fingers curling in the empty cupholder, seeking an easy mark. Here should be the plastic cap of a bottle of pop for him to spin at red lights, or the pull tab of an energy drink to <i>ting ting, ting ting.</i> He was not unaware that he had been an exceptionally fucking annoying driver to his passengers. But it was his car, you know. The music had been his, too, except during the rare doting mood when he knighted someone else with access to the CD player. Aux cord. Whatever cars had these days. These new electric things with no knobs and touchless displays--not something he had to worry about anymore. While he drummed his fingers in the cupholder, the cat would curl up on the dashboard between the hot window and the warming plastic. Now and again it would crook an eye at him when he recalled songs from his CDs too loudly. So much of his life spent in cars, and never did he let it get quiet like this. If it wasn’t music, it was bickering. Telling the girl to get her feet off the dash. Telling the boy he couldn’t light up if he wasn’t sharing. Telling the clients that Amarillo to Albuquerque was four hours, and it would continue to be four hours unless somebody wanted to lend him a jet, and that, hearing no offers, he looked forward to showing them the wares in four hours. Cutting into the call, laughing, saying, <i>Forget about Christmas gifts, baby. After this job, I’ll buy you the whole world.</i> There was nothing lonelier than a phone call. Now he didn’t have to worry about those either. \</div> \<div id="rborder"></div> \</div> \<<if not hasVisited("L1b")>><<timedinsert 2s>><div id="next">[[⸷|L1b]]</div><</timedinsert>><<else>><div id="final">[[⸸|calendar]]</div><</if>> \<div id="month"></div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="noborder"></div> \<div id="sceneText"> \<<timedinsert .1s>><div class="addic"><img src='images/scenes/imL.png'></div><</timedinsert>> \</div> \</div> \<div id="final"><<timedinsert 2s>>[[⸸|calendar][$scenes +=1]]<</timedinsert>></div> \<div id="month">VII</div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="lborder"></div> \<div id="text"> \Sometimes, when <<timedreplace 3.5s>>he<<becomes>>I<</timedreplace>> found an unlocked car on a <<timedreplace 3.5s>>temperate<<becomes>>nice<</timedreplace>> day, <<timedreplace 3.5s>>he would<<becomes>>I’d<</timedreplace>> claim the driver’s seat for a few hours. <<timedreplace 1.5s>>Best if the windows were down, or broken. Only once did he find a denim-blue truck that let him crank the windows by hand. He would readjust the mirrors, the seat if it was manual, and toss the trash from the cupholders into the backseat. He needed that space for fidgeting -- arm slung along the console so his hand could dangle off, fingers curling in the empty cupholder, seeking an easy mark. Here should be the plastic cap of a bottle of pop for him to spin at red lights, or the pull tab of an energy drink to ting ting, ting ting.<<becomes>>@@opacity:0; Best if the windows were down, or broken. Only once did he find a denim-blue truck that let him crank the windows by hand. He would readjust the mirrors, the seat if it was manual, and toss the trash from the cupholders into the backseat. He needed that space for fidgeting -- arm slung along the console so his hand could dangle off, fingers curling in the empty cupholder, seeking an easy mark. Here should be the plastic cap of a bottle of pop for him to spin at red lights, or the pull tab of an energy drink to ting ting, ting ting.@@<</timedreplace>> <<timedreplace 1.5s>>He was not unaware that he’d been an exceptionally annoying driver to his passengers. But it was his car, you know. The music had been his, too, except during the rare doting mood when he knighted someone with access to the CD player. Aux cord. Whatever cars had these days. These new electric things with no knobs and touchless displays... Not something he had to worry about anymore.<<becomes>>@@opacity:0;He was not unaware that he’d been an exceptionally annoying driver to his passengers. But it was his car, you know. The music had been his, too, except during the rare doting mood when he knighted someone with access to the CD player. Aux cord. Whatever cars had these days. These new electric things with no knobs and touchless displays... Not something he had to worry about anymore.@@<</timedreplace>> <<timedreplace 1.4s>>While he drummed his fingers in the cupholder, the cat would curl up on the dashboard between the hot window and the warming plastic. Now and again it crooked an eye at him when he recalled songs from his CDs too loudly.<<becomes>>@@opacity:0;While he drummed his fingers in the cupholder, the cat would curl up on the dashboard between the hot window and the warming plastic. Now and again it crooked an eye at him when he recalled songs from his CDs too loudly.@@<</timedreplace>> So much of <<timedreplace 3.4s>>his<<becomes>>my<</timedreplace>> life spent in cars<<timedreplace 3.4s>>,<<becomes>> -- I’d planned to die in one -- <</timedreplace>> and never did <<timedreplace 3.4s>>he<<becomes>>I<</timedreplace>> let it get quiet like this. <<timedreplace 1.4s>>If it wasn’t music, it was bickering. Telling the girl to get her feet off the dash. Telling the boy he couldn’t light up if he wasn’t sharing. Telling the clients that Amarillo to Albuquerque was four hours, and it would continue to be four hours unless somebody wanted to lend him a jet, and, hearing no offers, that he looked forward to showing them the wares in four hours.<<becomes>>@@opacity:0; If it wasn’t music, it was bickering. Telling the girl to get her feet off the dash. Telling the boy he couldn’t light up if he wasn’t sharing. Telling the clients that Amarillo to Albuquerque was four hours, and it would continue to be four hours unless somebody wanted to lend him a jet, and, hearing no offers, that he looked forward to showing them the wares in four hours.@@<</timedreplace>> \</div> \<div id="rborder"></div> \</div> \<div id="next"><<timedinsert 3.5s>>[[⸷|L2b]]<</timedinsert>></div> \<div id="month">VII</div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="lborder"></div> \<div id="text"> \Sometimes, when I found an unlocked car on a nice day, I’d claim the driver’s seat for a few hours. So much of my life spent in cars -- I’d planned to die in one -- and never did I let it get quiet like this. “Kitty-cat. Pss pss.” I rapped my fingers on the console, and Cat fanned his tail at me. I tried to remember the moment after a phone call, when it must have been silent in the car for at least a second. There must have been a pause @@white-space:pre; @@ between the hang-up @@white-space:pre; @@ and my hand hitting the radio. But I couldn’t remember any. Cat stretched out until his little claws tapped the window, and then he curled back into sleep without so much as a meow. “It’s no good asking you anyhow. You’re happy anywhere.” \</div> \<div id="rborder"></div> \</div> \<div id="final">[[⸸|calendar]]</div> \<div id="month">VII</div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="lborder"></div> \<div id="text"> \“Kitty-cat. Pss pss.” I rapped my fingers on the console, and Cat fanned his tail at me. I tried to remember the moment after a phone call, when it must have been silent in the car for at least a second. There must have been a pause @@white-space:pre; @@ between the hang-up @@white-space:pre; @@ and my hand hitting the radio. But I couldn’t remember any. Cat stretched out until his little claws tapped the window, and then he curled back into sleep without so much as a meow. “It’s no good asking you anyhow. You’re happy anywhere.” \</div> \<div id="rborder"></div> \</div> \<div id="final">[[⸸|calendar]]</div> \<div id="month"></div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="noborder"></div> \<div id="sceneText"> \<<if not hasVisited("M1a")>><<goto "M1a">> \<<else>><div class='addic'><img src='images/scenes/imM.png'></div> \<</if>> \</div> \</div> \<<if not hasVisited("U2a")>><div id="next">[[⸷|M1a]]</div> <<elseif hasVisited("U2a") && not hasVisited("M2a")>><div id="next">[[⸷|M2a]]</div> <<else>><div id="next">[[⸷|M2aDone]]</div> <</if>> \<div id="month">VII</div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="lborder"></div> \<div id="text"> \Something prickled his nose. The sensation dredged him up from the tarry depths of another gasoline dream and into the dawnlight, filtered red by the walls of the tent. He wiggled his nose. The thing continued to tickle. He batted at it, expecting to shove away the disgruntled lump of the cat that decided to sleep on his face again, but instead, the thing bounced away from him, near weightless. He sat up on his elbow. “Jesus.” The cat sat unblinking, staring at him sphinxlike from across the tent. Between them lay a tiny pellet of a corpse--an oriole, marked by its black head and tangerine stomach. No blood marred its pretty little feathers. It must have died of blunt impact. He sighed and levered himself up to sitting. “No,” he tried to tell the cat, but it had already scooped the bird up in its jaws. “I don’t want it.” He wanted nothing in his stomach, never mind that. His head throbbed when he sat up; it felt as bloated as an old sewage pipe. He couldn’t remember the last time he had taken a shit. “Since when do you hunt? No--” He closed his hand before the cat could drop the dead bird into it. “Eat it yourself.” The cat peeped and chirruped around the body in its mouth, kitten-nagging him as he rooted through his pack for breakfast. He squeezed a mouthful of jam out of a shampoo bottle and added a fiber pill for good measure. The cat waited until he had swallowed his meal, and then it shouldered past his ankle to spit the little carcass into his lap. \</div> \<div id="rborder"></div> \</div> \<div id="next"><<timedinsert 2s>>[[⸷|M1b]]<</timedinsert>></div> \<div id="month">VII</div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="lborder"></div> \<div id="text"> \“I’m telling you, I don’t...” The cat’s eyes were fixated and ruthlessly blue, the only color in the tent untainted by the sunrise. Fine. He snatched the dead bird off the ground. Its stiff body looked like a toy in his red-splotched, waking hands. He pried one of the bird’s wings open and worked his jaw behind the feathery curtain. “Delicious. Thanks. Really good. Thank you.” The feathers smelled unpleasant in a cultivated way, like coffee served black or fermented potatoes. After a minute of mimed chewing, he swallowed air and tossed the corpse into the corner of the tent, where the cat went trotting after it. A wave of nausea surged up his throat. He had to close his eyes and picture an attic door set just below his jaw. He imagined yanking on the string, and the door clanged shut, sealing the attic away from the rest of the rotting house. It took a few minutes before he trusted himself to be able to breathe again through an open mouth. The cat finished its inspection of the dead bird, returned, and smushed its head against his knee. When he didn’t respond, the cat mashed into his knee a second time and rubbed its neck down his leg. Against his dawn-flushed skin, the cat’s fur felt like a pillow, cool and downy. He reached down and scrunched his fingers in it. “Thanks.” \</div> \<div id="rborder"></div> \</div> \<<if not hasVisited("M1c")>><div id="next"><<timedinsert 2s>>[[⸷|M1c]]<</timedinsert>></div><<else>><div id="final">[[⸸|calendar]]</div><</if>> \<div id="month"></div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="noborder"></div> \<div id="sceneText"> \<<timedinsert .1s>><div class="addic"><img src='images/scenes/imM.png'></div><</timedinsert>> \</div> \</div> \<div id="final"><<timedinsert 2s>>[[⸸|calendar][$scenes += 1]]<</timedinsert>></div> \<div id="month">VII</div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="lborder"></div> \<div id="text"> \<span id="tar">Something prickled his nose. The sensation dredged him up from <<link "the tarry depths of another gasoline dream">><<replace "#tar">><<timedinsert .1s>>Another tarry dream. I woke up to Cat sitting there sphinxlike, unblinking, and between us a dead oriole. <<timedinsert 5s>>Birds mean things too, the same as flowers and tea leaves. You know what an oriole means?<</timedinsert>> <<timedinsert 10s>>Me either.<</timedinsert>> <<timedinsert 12s>>I only recognized the bird cuz of a beat-up deck of Memory cards we had as kids, a 4x4 spread called //Backyard Birds//. The plastic peeled off the cards decades ago, and little hands over the years had scratched blank patches of white into the photos. There was eyeless crows and beakless chickadees and robins gone sour, their red breasts turned to yellow. Chase hated playing the game with me because he always thought I let him win. I never did, not once. It’s just, back then, what I had on my mind <span id="linky"><<link "wasn’t orioles and doves">><<replace "#next">><<timedinsert 2s>>[[⸷|M2b]]<</timedinsert>><</replace>><<replace "#linky">>wasn’t orioles and doves<</replace>><<replace "#cardBox">> \<div class="card" id="card1"> <div class="content"> \<div class="front"><div class="cardtext"> the shrike</div></div> \<div class="back"> the empty cupboards</div> </div> \</div> \ \<div class="card" id="card2"> <div class="content"> \<div class="front"><div class="cardtext"> the bluejay</div></div> \<div class="back"> the naked wind</div> </div> \</div> \ \<div class="card" id="card3"> <div class="content"> \<div class="front"><div class="cardtext"> the dove</div></div> \<div class="back"> the snowed-in shed</div> </div> \</div> \ \<div class="card" id="card4"> <div class="content"> \<div class="front"><div class="cardtext"> the crow</div></div> \<div class="back"> the shotgun barrel</div> </div> \</div><</replace>><</link>></span>, you know. So I could never keep the cards straight.<</timedinsert>> <div id="cardBox"></div><</timedinsert>><</replace>><</link>> and into the dawnlight, filtered red by the walls of the tent. He wiggled his nose. The thing continued to tickle. He batted at it, expecting to shove away the disgruntled lump of the cat that decided to sleep on his face again, but instead, the thing bounced away from him, near weightless. He sat up on his elbow. “Jesus.” The cat sat, staring at him sphinxlike from across the tent. Between them lay a tiny pellet of a corpse -- an oriole, marked by its black head and tangerine stomach. No blood marred its pretty little feathers. It must have died of blunt impact. He sighed and levered himself up to sitting. “No,” he tried to tell the cat, but it had already scooped the bird up in its jaws. “I don’t want it.” He wanted nothing in his stomach, never mind that. His head throbbed when he sat up; it felt as bloated as an old sewage pipe. He couldn’t remember the last time he had taken a shit. “Since when do you hunt? No -- ” He closed his hand before the cat could drop the dead bird into it. “Eat it yourself.” The cat peeped and chirruped around the body in its mouth, kitten-nagging him as he rooted through his pack for breakfast. He squeezed a mouthful of jam out of a shampoo bottle and added a fiber pill for good measure. The cat waited until he had swallowed his meal, and then it shouldered past his ankle to spit the little carcass into his lap.</span> \</div> \<div id="rborder"></div> \</div> \<div id="next"></div> \<div id="month">VII</div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="lborder"></div> \<div id="text"> \<<timedinsert 1.5s>>I remember saying to him,<</timedinsert>> “<<timedreplace 1.5s>>I’m telling you, I don’t...<<becomes>>Don’t you like winning?<</timedreplace>>” <<timedreplace 3.5s>>The cat’s eyes were fixated and ruthlessly blue, the only color in the tent untainted by the sunrise. Fine. He snatched the dead bird off the ground. Its stiff body looked like a toy in his red-splotched, waking hands. He pried one of the bird’s wings open and worked his jaw behind the feathery curtain. “Delicious. Thanks. Really good. Thank you.” The feathers smelled unpleasant in a cultivated way, like coffee served black or fermented potatoes. After a minute of mimed chewing, he swallowed air and tossed the corpse into the corner of the tent, where the cat went trotting after it. A wave of nausea surged up his throat. He had to close his eyes and picture an attic door set just below his jaw. He imagined yanking on the string, and the door clanged shut, sealing the attic away from the rest of the rotting house. It took a few minutes before he trusted himself to be able to breathe again through an open mouth. The cat finished its inspection of the dead bird, returned, and smushed its head against his knee. When he didn’t respond, the cat mashed into his knee a second time and rubbed its neck down his leg. Against his dawn-flushed skin, the cat’s fur felt like a pillow, cool and downy. He reached down and scrunched his fingers in it.<<becomes>>@@opacity:0;The cat’s eyes were fixated and ruthlessly blue, the only color in the tent untainted by the sunrise. Fine. He snatched the dead bird off the ground. Its stiff body looked like a toy in his red-splotched, waking hands. He pried one of the bird’s wings open and worked his jaw behind the feathery curtain.@@ And him looking at me the way he always did, like Noah atop his boat, seeing the waves about to wash me away. Me asking, “Don’t you like winning?” @@opacity:0;The feathers smelled unpleasant in a cultivated way, like coffee served black or fermented potatoes. After a minute of mimed chewing, he swallowed air and tossed the corpse into the corner of the tent, where the cat went trotting after it. A wave of nausea surged up his throat. He had to close his eyes and picture an attic door set just below his jaw. He imagined yanking on the string, and the door clanged shut, sealing the attic away from the rest of the rotting house. It took a few minutes before he trusted himself to be able to breathe again through an open mouth. The cat finished its inspection of the dead bird, returned, and smushed its head against his knee. When he didn’t respond, the cat mashed into his knee a second time and rubbed its neck down his leg. Against his dawn-flushed skin, the cat’s fur felt like a pillow, cool and downy. He reached down and scrunched his fingers in it.@@ <</timedreplace>> <<timedreplace 8s>>“<<becomes>>And him saying, “Yeah, I do. <</timedreplace>>Thanks.” \</div> \<div id="rborder"></div> \</div> \<div id="final"><<timedinsert 10s>>[[⸸|calendar]]<</timedinsert>></div> \<div id="month">VII</div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="lborder"></div> \<div id="text"> \Another tarry dream. I woke up to Cat sitting there sphinxlike, unblinking, and between us a dead oriole. Birds mean things too, the same as flowers and tea leaves. You know what an oriole means? Me either. I only recognized the bird cuz of a beat-up deck of Memory cards we had as kids, a 4x4 spread called //Backyard Birds//. The plastic peeled off the cards decades ago, and little hands over the years had scratched blank patches of white into the photos. There was eyeless crows and beakless chickadees and robins gone sour, their red breasts turned to yellow. Chase hated playing the game with me because he always thought I let him win. I never did, not once. It’s just, back then, what I had on my mind wasn’t orioles and doves, you know. So I could never keep the cards straight. I remember saying to him, “Don’t you like winning?” And him looking at me the way he always did, like Noah atop his boat, seeing the waves about to wash me away. Me asking, “Don’t you like winning?” and him saying, “Yeah, I do. Thanks.” \</div> \<div id="rborder"></div> \</div> \<div id="final">[[⸸|calendar]]</div> \<div id="month"></div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="noborder"></div> \<div id="sceneText"> \<<if not hasVisited("N1a")>><<goto "N1a">> \<<else>><div class='addic'><img src='images/scenes/imN.png'></div> \<</if>> \</div> \</div> \<<if lastVisited("N1c") < 2>><div id="next">[[⸷|N1a]]</div> \<<elseif lastVisited("N1c") gte 2 && not hasVisited("U2a")>><<set $N2 to true>><div id="next">[[⸷|N1a]]</div> \<<elseif hasVisited("U2a")>><div id="next">[[⸷|N3a]]</div> \<</if>> \<div id="month">VIII</div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="lborder"></div> \<div id="text"> \Somewhere in the Carolinas, they met a hanged man. He should have known better than to follow a forced route like this, a four-lane road hemmed on either side by lines of ash trees. But it was the prettiest thing he’d seen in weeks. Fifty-foot walls of verdant life warded the road. Bushy sprawls of leaves spilled down their tree trunks like a sky of fireworks all frozen in place, and when the wind stirred, the leaves shimmered gently and greenly. Even in the concrete median strip, green things grew. Wildflowers and florid weeds wove themselves into the plaits of long native grass. If not for the eighteen-wheeler that had veered off the road and buried its nose in the crook of a tree, this place could have passed for the Before times. As they followed the curve of the road, the hanging came into view. A corpse, hooded in a grungy cloth grocery bag, dangled like a windchime from the lowest branch of a distant tree. The dead man was dressed in a tweed suit, a dark herringbone hickory that matched the color of its skin so well that its arms almost looked nude. The corpse wore nice shoes as well, a burnished sort of leather. Its toes pointed down at the road. He halted the wagon and conferenced with the cat. What was the alternative, walking back the five miles they came? Not impossible, “But there’s nothing for us there. He won’t mind.” Just in case, he dragged the wagon across the median and onto the far set of lanes. Once the curve ended and the road straightened out, they could see clear down the way--not a single car ahead of them, only the man hanging off the branch like a dark, drab cocoon. As he studied the corpse, the wagon jostled in his hands. The cat had hopped out, and he watched it trot off the blacktop and into the trees, tail stiff with interest. It was close enough to lunch time, so he acquiesced and parked the wagon near the cat’s vanishing point. As he ate, the cat hunted motes of light, its twitchy tail frisking leaves across the ground like a great feather duster. He rubbed his eyes. The way the sunlight filtered through the thick tree canopy was dizzying; it produced hundreds of luminous little discs that twirled, kaleidoscopic, whenever a breeze passed through. The cat’s fur dazzled under the spotlights. As bright as snow, he thought, and although he knew better, he’d like to see it again. Maybe if they headed north early enough, if they started the march now, they could shelter and gather enough supplies to ride out a white winter. <<linkreplace "Shouldn’t he smell it?">>Shouldn’t he smell it?<<replace "#next">><<timedinsert .2s>>[[⸷|N1b]]<</timedinsert>><</replace>><</linkreplace>> \</div> \<div id="rborder"></div> \</div> \<div id="next"></div> \<div id="month">VIII</div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="lborder"></div> \<div id="text"> \He cracked one eye against the sunlight. He hadn’t meant to lie down, but here he was curled on his side, facing the road. Across from him, the ash trees rose crooked and tall in his sideways vision. The corpse cast no shadow on its gibbet-tree. Even from here, shouldn’t he smell it? He blinked slowly, eyes adjusting to the light, and looking at the body he thought of the straight black pupil of a goat. But it wasn’t the smell, or lack of smell, that had woken him. He was hearing a distant percussive sound, hollow like wood blocks being struck to a beat. Music? With the way the corpse’s skin blended into its suit, he could not make out the details of its shadowed hands. This bothered him, and the sound continued, a clear and rhythmic <i>clop-clop clop-clop</i> coming down the road. He scrambled up and grabbed the wagon handle. Dragged it off the road, woke the cat; hauled it past the treeline and hurried back to interrupt the cat’s siesta stretches. The hoofbeats rang over the empty road. He grabbed the cat and ducked behind a tree as movement entered his vision. From the direction they had come emerged the rider. She sat on a common bay horse, white-nosed and calmly plodding, unburdened by anything but the rider. No visible weapons. No saddlebags. Maybe he was still asleep, he thought, and dreaming. Maybe he had followed the white cat through the trees and into a rabbit hole. The horse and rider strolled down the lane, and he listened to the volume of hoofbeats wax and wane as they passed his hiding spot. He risked another look. The rider had just reached the gibbet-tree, and by her unbroken pace, he knew the corpse couldn’t have been a surprise to her. In fact, it was so familiar that she didn’t need to look up as she passed under it. Blindly she extended her hand and tapped its glossy leather shoes as if patting a low-hanging lintel for good luck. The corpse, after her touch, wriggled. His stomach rolled. For what? If the corpse was one of the Dead, instead of the dead, that was no business of his. But shouldn’t he have smelled the rot downwind? He couldn’t make out its hands exactly, but he could see enough of them to know they were the right human shape. No shriveled fingers or missing ones. And wouldn’t the cat have told him? <<linkreplace "He would have smelled it.">>He would have smelled it.<<replace "#move">><<if not hasVisited("N1c")>><<timedinsert .2s>><div id="next">[[⸷|N1c]]</div><</timedinsert>><<elseif $N2>><<timedinsert .2s>><div id="next">[[⸷|N2a]]</div><</timedinsert>><<else>><<timedinsert .2s>><div id="final">[[⸸|calendar]]</div><</timedinsert>><</if>><</replace>><</linkreplace>> \</div> \<div id="rborder"></div> \</div> \<span id="move"></span> \<div id="month"></div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="noborder"></div> \<div id="sceneText"> \<<timedinsert .1s>><div class="addic"><img src='images/scenes/imN.png'></div><</timedinsert>> \</div> \</div> \<div id="final"><<timedinsert 2s>>[[⸸|calendar][$scenes += 1]]<</timedinsert>></div> \<div id="month">VIII</div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="lborder"></div> \<div id="text"> \He waited half an hour after the hoofbeats receded into silence, during which time he tried to think only about practicalities. If it was Dead, how to protect his hand from bites. If it was neither dead nor Dead--his stomach churned in sympathy every time the sunlight rippled. He wished the light would stop moving, or that he’d have enough faith to close his eyes, but he didn’t, and the leaves bent to a breeze he couldn’t feel, causing the light to eddy around the sleeping cat in hundreds of tryptophobic circles. He took a hammer from the wagon and crossed the road. The hanged man was motionless now, and as he neared the gibbet-tree, he could smell something scabby and miserable, like a hospital waiting room. Not the smell of death, but of suffering. He loosed the hunting knife from the sheath at his hip and sawed through the rope tied to the tree. Down the body came, the impact against the ground too heavy for him to hear whether the dead man had cried out. He nudged the body’s undecayed hand with his foot. Nothing responded. He stepped out of reach, above its head. It had landed on its back, but the makeshift hood still concealed its face. The body looked like a starved bird that had fallen out of its tree, talons too weak to hold it to a branch. He gripped the hammer. Yes. Smash it faceless. No stranger to that, now or Before. It must look symbolic like this, him standing priestly above the upside-down hanged man. He never remembered the meanings of those cards. The Crow, Reversed. He sheathed his knife, crouched, and pulled the hood off its head. Alarmed maggots writhed in its eye sockets; the light was terrible; it tried to open its mouth to moan; he shoved the body onto its stomach and with the bag gripped its short hair, rearing the head back enough to draw the knife across its throat. Red spilled from its neck. Pure blood red, not bilious or spoilt-black. From the collar of his shirt up to his chin, the man’s neck was mashed mulberry with deep bruises, and these must have continued into his face, but he could not see the face now and did not want to <span id="self"><<link "remember">><<replace "#self">>remember<</replace>><<replace "#final">><<timedinsert .2s>>[[⸸|calendar][$scenes += 1]]<</timedinsert>><</replace>><</link>></span>. \</div> \<div id="rborder"></div> \</div> \<div id="final"></div> \<div id="month">VIII</div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="lborder"></div> \<div id="text"> \<<timedreplace 4s>><<timedreplace 2s>>Somewhere in the Carolinas, they met a hanged man. He should have known better than to follow a forced route like this, a four-lane road hemmed on either side by lines of ash trees. But it was the prettiest thing he’d seen in weeks. Fifty-foot walls of verdant life warded the road. Bushy sprawls of leaves spilled down their tree trunks like a sky of fireworks all frozen in place, and when the wind stirred, the leaves shimmered gently and greenly. Even in the concrete median strip, green things grew. Wildflowers and florid weeds wove themselves into the plaits of long native grass. If not for the eighteen-wheeler that had veered off the road and buried its nose in the crook of a tree, this place could have passed for the Before times. As they followed the curve of the road, the hanging came into view. A corpse, hooded in a grungy cloth grocery bag, dangled like a windchime from the lowest branch of a distant tree. The dead man was dressed in a tweed suit, a dark herringbone hickory that matched the color of its skin so well that its arms almost looked nude. The corpse wore nice shoes as well, a burnished sort of leather. Its toes pointed down at the road. He halted the wagon and conferenced with the cat. What was the alternative, walking back the five miles they came? Not impossible, “But there’s nothing for us there. He won’t mind.” Just in case, he dragged the wagon across the median and onto the far set of lanes. Once the curve ended and the road straightened out, they could see clear down the way--not a single car ahead of them, only the man hanging off the branch like a dark, drab cocoon. As he studied the corpse, the wagon jostled in his hands. The cat had hopped out, and he watched it trot off the blacktop and into the trees, tail stiff with interest.<<becomes>>@@opacity:0;Somewhere in the Carolinas, they met a hanged man. He should have known better than to follow a forced route like this, a four-lane road hemmed on either side by lines of ash trees. But it was the prettiest thing he’d seen in weeks. Fifty-foot walls of verdant life warded the road. Bushy sprawls of leaves spilled down their tree trunks like a sky of fireworks all frozen in place, and when the wind stirred, the leaves shimmered gently and greenly. Even in the concrete median strip, green things grew. Wildflowers and florid weeds wove themselves into the plaits of long native grass. If not for the eighteen-wheeler that had veered off the road and buried its nose in the crook of a tree, this place could have passed for the Before times. As they followed the curve of the road, the hanging came into view. A corpse, hooded in a grungy cloth grocery bag, dangled like a windchime from the lowest branch of a distant tree. The dead man was dressed in a tweed suit, a dark herringbone hickory that matched the color of its skin so well that its arms almost looked nude. The corpse wore nice shoes as well, a burnished sort of leather. Its toes pointed down at the road. He halted the wagon and conferenced with the cat. What was the alternative, walking back the five miles they came? Not impossible, “But there’s nothing for us there. He won’t mind.” Just in case, he dragged the wagon across the median and onto the far set of lanes. Once the curve ended and the road straightened out, they could see clear down the way--not a single car ahead of them, only the man hanging off the branch like a dark, drab cocoon. As he studied the corpse, the wagon jostled in his hands. The cat had hopped out, and he watched it trot off the blacktop and into the trees, tail stiff with interest.@@<</timedreplace>> Shouldn’t he smell it?<<becomes>> The smells I miss: <<timedinsert 2s>>@@white-space:pre; @@- <<mousereplace "Sweat gathered behind the ear, right at the hairline.">>Sweat gathered behind the ear, right at the hairline, or beaded on collarbones or creased between thighs.<</mousereplace>> @@white-space:pre; @@- <<mousereplace "Hot, filthy bar fries.">>Hot, filthy bar fries. Microwaved mug cakes. Mac and cheese and hot dogs boiled in the same pot.<</mousereplace>> @@white-space:pre; @@- <<mousereplace "Alcohol rub. Alcohol.">> Alcohol rub. Alcohol, but it’s too heavy to lug around, and things are quieter now. If I want to sit down and cry, there’s nobody here to mind. Cat couldn’t give less of a shit.<</mousereplace>><</timedinsert>> The new smells: <<timedinsert 8s>>@@white-space:pre; @@- <<mousereplace "Bodies.">>Bodies. Not corpse-like. Not any more like a corpse than they are.<</mousereplace>> @@white-space:pre; @@- <<mousereplace "Morning.">>Morning. Not hotel-like. Smells more like a clearing.<</mousereplace>> @@white-space:pre; @@- <<mousereplace "Cat.">>Cat. Pissy.<</mousereplace>><</timedinsert>> \<</timedreplace>> \</div> \<div id="rborder"></div> \</div> \<div id="final"><<timedinsert 12s>>[[⸸|calendar]]<</timedinsert>></div> \<div id="month"></div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="noborder"></div> \<div id="sceneText"> \<<if not hasVisited("O1a")>><<goto "O1a">> \<<else>><div class='addic'><img src='images/scenes/imO.png'></div> \<</if>> \</div> \</div> \<<if hasVisited("O1a") && not hasVisited("U2a")>><div id="next">[[⸷|O1a]]</div><<else>><div id="final">[[⸸|calendar]]</div><</if>> \<div id="month">VIII</div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="lborder"></div> \<div id="text"> \ After the phone call ends, there should be a moment between voices and music when silence wins out. But it’s never that way. The undercarriage rattles, metal jawing and grinding, and the belly of the car bloats against the pedals, rising like a corpse to the surface of a lake. If not the car, the wind. The traffic. The scuff of cigarettes. The hiss of an energy drink. The highway goes on, pressing through the <<replacelink>>cornfields of Kansas.<<becomes>>pastures of West Texas.<<becomes>>glaze of Nevada.<<becomes>>blue dome of Montana.<<becomes>>scrag of Arizona, morning after a flood, when the flowers are clawing out of their graves and blooming in sage and coral and amber and lace among the red dirt. In the passenger seat <<replacelink>> \the girl adjusts her gas-station heart sunglasses, ankles crossed.<<becomes>> \the boy curls his fingers in time with the singer’s strained voice, nails aching.<<becomes>> \the delivery clinks his cuffs against the glovebox, asks again for a cigarette, asks again, asks again, measures the miles between here and the last payphone town.<<becomes>> \Chase watches the mirrors.<<becomes>> \sits the cat, tracking the raindrops that speck the window. The rain picks up. Sheets of gray curtain off the sun and drone against the roof of the car. The rain is warm enough to smell from inside the car. The tires start to whine and spit up water, engine wheezing, and when the water crests the windows, the car lets go of the road. It floats among the flowers and scrubs and clumps of clay suspended in the flood. The way they bump against the windows so politely, cat-patting to get in, it’s unkind to do anything but open them. Water rushes into the open windows, and the car plunges.<</replacelink>><</replacelink>> \</div> \<div id="rborder"></div> \</div> \<<if not hasVisited("O1b")>><<timedinsert 18s>><div id="next">[[⸷|O1b]]</div><</timedinsert>><<else>><div id="final">[[⸸|calendar]]</div><</if>> \<div id="month"></div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="noborder"></div> \<div id="sceneText"> \<<timedinsert .1s>><div class="addic"><img src='images/scenes/imO.png'></div><</timedinsert>> \</div> \</div> \<div id="final"><<timedinsert 2s>>[[⸸|calendar][$scenes += 1]]<</timedinsert>></div> \<div id="month"></div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="noborder"></div> \<div id="sceneText"> \<<if not hasVisited("P1a")>><<goto "P1a">> \<<else>><div class='addic'><img src='images/scenes/imP.png'></div> \<</if>> \</div> \</div> \<<if lastVisited("P1d") < 2>><div id="next">[[⸷|P1a]]</div> \<<elseif lastVisited("P1d") gte 2 && not hasVisited("U2a")>><<set $P2 to true>><div id="next">[[⸷|P1c]]</div> \<<elseif hasVisited("U2a")>><div id="next">[[⸷|P3a]]</div> \<</if>> \<div id="month">IX</div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="lborder"></div> \<div id="text"> \“Don’t you hunt? Look. Cheep cheep cheep." The cat burrowed deeper into its nesting towel. The rag needed replacing soon; he didn’t bother with washing much out here, not when fabric was plenty and water scarce. The cat's towel was a chemically-neutered blue, a periwinkle best suited to nursery walls. Threads frayed off the end where the cat had kneaded and gnawed it, and when a breeze snuck into the tent, the threads shivered like windchimes without a clapper. Outside the tent, he straightened up and rubbed his back. The sun queried him immediately--//still awake, so late in the afternoon? and causing so much noise?//--while the light snipped at the corners of his eyes and nagged sweatily at his neck. He pressed on and picked up the bucket of chia seeds, ignoring the flustered birds who darted out of his way. He ignored, too, the numbness in his face, the feeling that moves in after the blood has drained out and the slammed doors are all closed, and it’s just you and the two dozen balloons you gotta inflate for a birthday party the kid won’t attend. All day, the cat had been that kind of teenager, sullen and screaming at him because he let it sleep in too late. Wouldn’t eat lunch. Didn’t come with him to the store. So here he was, emptying two pounds of chia seeds onto the grass for no one’s entertainment. He had grabbed it from the store because he thought it might be nice to hear birdsong again, and to let the cat pluck a fresh meal. He hadn’t expected the first part of the plan to work so well. Masses of little birds garlanded the trees in lines of gold and brown and carnelian, chirruping, jostling each other in disbelief at the spreading feast. He hadn’t seen them so close or so many in months. Which was fine, but he’d been hoping to attract some rodents too. Smarter guys, better versed in environmental biology than he, told him that the lack of animals was temporary. They didn’t believe that the dead ate animals as part of their regular diet, although both they and he had heard the campfire legend of a horde of them scooping guts out of a white-eyed elk. More likely, this guy told him, the shortage of animals had to do with a cumulative shock to the ecosystem. Think about it, he said: no more farmers, no more controlled burns; the arrival of a new predator, the decline of man; the escaped zoo animals, the dead grannies who had fed the feral cats who had controlled the rats who now overran the fields. “You’re telling me dead grannies are the reason I don’t hear birds in the morning?” The guy had shrugged. “Or dead cats.” \</div> \<div id="rborder"></div> \</div> \<div id="next"><<timedinsert 2s>>[[⸷|P1b]]<</timedinsert>></div> \<div id="month">IX</div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="lborder"></div> \<div id="text"> \Tossing the empty bucket aside, he sniffed and stepped back to admire his--admittedly lopsided--work. The beady black pentagram skewed right, and he had sloughed in and out of the ritual circle so many times that he might be an honorary demon at this point. Two brave emissaries darted down from the branches and began pecking at a corner of the star. He would have liked to see a chipmunk, personally. He could hardly hear the tent zipper over the frenzy of wings behind him. Squatting down, he shuffled into the tent and found the cat unmoved, still miserable in its self-made bed. “You’ll chase a spider halfway up a fire escape, but fuck birds, is that it. No, you <i>are</i> hungry.” He shuffled closer, eyes adjusting to the half-light, and examined the cat’s mouth. “You’re drooling.” He had never seen the cat do that before. The saliva lining its mouth seemed almost foamy, and as thick and helpless as a glob hanging off a toddler’s lip. When he sat down and tried to wipe it, the cat shied away from him. Then it made the quietest sound. It whimpered. Outside the tent, the birds shrieked and devoured. He boxed up his panic and set it aside. He wondered how much of human first aid extended to cats. The cat resisted his attempts to extricate it from the towel, so he slid his hands inside the nest, wondering where to take a cat’s pulse. If feline ibuprofen existed. When had they last seen a pet store, and did those sell the right kind of medicine? They had never stopped at a vet’s office. Any time his fingers neared its stomach, the cat whimpered again. It was the kind of sound that dimmed your eyes, just hearing it. He could remember the last time he made that noise himself, decades ago, touching the air where his right eye should have been able to see, trying to rub the blood away and feeling his fingers sink into the mold-soft concave where his browbone used to be. It was the kind of sound that nauseated. <i>For you too,</i> he thought. <i>You feel it too.</i> \</div> \<div id="rborder"></div> \</div> \<div id="next"><<timedinsert 2s>>[[⸷|P1c]]<</timedinsert>></div> \<div id="month">IX</div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="lborder"></div> \<div id="text"> \He brought everything inside. Did cats get fevers? He brought everything that might be useful inside and zipped the tent behind him. The birds screamed like harpies through the nylon. He couldn’t tell whether the cat was running hot; its fur was always warm to him. He dampened a cloth with water and wrapped it around his finger. Gently he stroked the cat’s head, just the solid plane of bone between its ears, stroking back from its brow until the point where his fingers sank into the soft ruff of neck fur. When he did only this, the cat didn’t whimper. The birds left. Maybe he could tempt it with more water. He filled an empty tuna can, which he tucked, water glistening dimly like stars behind fog, under the cat’s nose. It wouldn’t drink. He tore open a fresh can of paté. The cat recoiled with a shudder that convulsed the length of its spine, vertebra by vertebra. It slunk out the tip of the cat’s tail, and then the cat didn’t move again. The sun left. It must have been an hour that he did nothing but stare. Before then, he had tapped the water from time to time, hoping the shimmer under the surface might feign fishlike and lure the cat into something. But the darkness became profound. He could not see the water any longer, nor the cat’s unopened eyes. The negative image of its fur burned in his mind long after the sun had set and night should have taken everything from his sight. Neither of them moved. A funeral stele of a stone man bent over a prone cat, inscribed in a language so old as to not need words. He said, “You can’t do this to me.” He said, “Who am I gonna talk to.” He said, “You’re a fucking cat. You don’t get sick. It can’t happen to animals.” He said, “I’m sorry.” He said, “Who am I gonna talk to if you leave? Who would I talk to after this. You’re a cat--you’re not supposed to leave. Animals don’t get infected by it. I always took care of you, I tried to, and all this food I got for you. What am I gonna do with it if you leave? What am I gonna do?” The cat did not mind the yellow stains of his tears on its fur. The more he tried to wipe his face, the wetter and softer it became. His flesh slipped between his fingers and molded across his bones like wet clay. <i>In the morning,</i> he thought, <i>I won’t recognize my own face.</i> <span id="hand"><<link "He put his hand on the cat and lay down.">><<replace "#ending">><<if not hasVisited("P1d")>><<timedinsert 2s>><div id="next">[[⸷|P1d]]</div><</timedinsert>><<elseif $P2>><div id="next"><<timedinsert 2s>>[[⸷|P2a]]<</timedinsert>></div><<else>><div id="final">[[⸸|calendar]]</div><</if>><</replace>><<replace "#hand">>He put his hand on the cat and lay down.<</replace>><</link>></span> \</div> \<div id="rborder"></div> \</div> \<span id="ending"></span> \<div id="month"></div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="noborder"></div> \<div id="sceneText"> \<<timedinsert .1s>><div class="addic"><img src='images/scenes/imP.png'></div><</timedinsert>> \</div> \</div> \<div id="final"><<timedinsert 2s>>[[⸸|calendar]]<</timedinsert>></div> \<div id="month">IX</div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="lborder"></div> \<div id="text"> \A vile, acid-green stench snipped through the black of his dreams. He jerked upright, gagging, and as the green smell rolled across the room, it bore a darker one in its wake. No mystery there. He knew what shit smelled like. Fumbling for the tent flap, he yanked the zipper down and sucked in fresh air. Explanation caught up to description. The cat bounded through the crack in the tent, and once outside, safe and warm under the sun, it stretched its leg and shook off a dribble of diarrhea. He looked at the tent’s interior. Liquid shit oozed from the blue towel, puddling outward to meet a streak of chunky green vomit. He could make out a handful of crunchy, long, undigested leaves among the bile, which the cat had spewed not only across the tent, but also his sleeping leg. Loneliness be damned. He was gonna kill that cat. \</div> \<div id="rborder"></div> \</div> \<div id="final"><<timedinsert 2s>>[[⸸|calendar]]<</timedinsert>></div> \<div id="month">IX</div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="lborder"></div> \<div id="text"> \ The thing on his leg, it’s called a granuloma. Cat explained it to me while I was asleep. He said cats and dogs get them from licking the same spot over and over, til they strip the fur and skin off the bone. Because it hurts, they want to keep licking it, and the licking hurts the open sore so they want to keep licking it, and they go on like this, ripping off the healing skin with their tongue and hurting and licking to stop hurting. Like picking at a scab, I said, and he said, It’s //like// picking at a scab. But scabs start from wounds. <span id="gran"><<link "So what do granulomas start from?">><<replace "#gran">>So what do granulomas start from? <<timedinsert .3s>>Loneliness, he told me.<</timedinsert>> <<timedinsert 2.5s>>Stress.<</timedinsert>> <<timedinsert 4.5s>>Licking is an act of consolation.<</timedinsert>> <<timedinsert 8s>>I don’t know when he stopped going after it. The sore is still there, a flat pink circle on his leg, half-grown over with white fur.<</timedinsert>><</replace>><<replace "#final">><<timedinsert 10s>>[[⸸|calendar]]<</timedinsert>><</replace>><</link>></span> \</div> \<div id="rborder"></div> \</div> \<div id="final"></div> \<div id="month"></div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="noborder"></div> \<div id="sceneText"> \<<if not hasVisited("Q1a")>><<goto "Q1a">> \<<else>><div class='addic'><img src='images/scenes/imQ.png'></div> \<</if>> \</div> \</div> \<<if hasVisited("Q1a") && not hasVisited("U2a")>><div id="next">[[⸷|Q1a]]</div> \<<elseif hasVisited("Q1a") && hasVisited("U2a") && not hasVisited("Q2a")>><div id="next">[[⸷|Q2a]]</div> \<<elseif hasVisited("Q1a") && hasVisited("U2a") && hasVisited("Q2a")>><div id="next">[[⸷|Q2aDone]]</div> <</if>> \<div id="month">IX</div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="lborder"></div> \<div id="text"> \“Here’s what I’ll do.” He shimmied out of the jeans, nose and leg hair alike bristling in the nippy air. “I’ll off myself, of course. But it pays to think this stuff through, because once that fever comes on, you only got a few hours before you’re as good as hypoxic.” He stepped out of the pants, rubbing his hands together for warmth, and grabbed the next candidate. From the sun-baked blue roof of a USPS mailbox, the cat stared at him. He assumed this was on account of him stripping his fur on and off, a surely distressing practice to a cat who had rarely seen him naked. Grabbing new clothes was usually easier than washing them, and less water waste, but at this time of year he dreaded it. The new jeans were as stiff and cold as corpses in the dressing room of the great outdoors. “First I’ll set up the tent. I know you won’t stay forever--don’t blame you--but reliable shelter is the foundation of wilderness survival. Remember that.” The jeans’ fly button snipped and jibed at his numb fingers. Once he got it in place, he patted the waist line and took a stroll down the little denim carpet he had crafted from rejected pairs. These would do fine. “So... So you get the tent, and then I’ll open the kibble. You can figure out how to knock the bag over once you’re hungry enough. As for water...” The next pair, he ditched before they reached his thighs. “I’ll think on it. Maybe I’ll get you a big bowl.” He sniffed snot back into his nose and tried to rally himself for one more pair. “Then, so then I’ll lie down in the middle of the road, plenty far from the tent, and I’ll shoot myself. It’ll make a lot of noise, but anybody who comes running is gonna see me and not mind you.” \</div> \<div id="rborder"></div> \</div> \<div id="next"><<timedinsert 2s>>[[⸷|Q1b]]<</timedinsert>></div> \<div id="month">IX</div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="lborder"></div> \<div id="text"> \He decided three pairs was enough. The cat watched him hurry across the discarded jeans to grab his wool-lined sweatpants and pull them on. After stepping into equally woolly slipper boots, he added, “Of course I’ll get naked before I lie down. You won’t even eat a spider. I can’t expect you to chew through clothes.” He gathered the new jeans and pushed open the post office door with his foot. It had been a dizzyingly productive day, between the boutique store and the post office and the cracked-egg-headed corpses he rolled down Main Street. At least one of them, he figured, might have survived the annihilation and would tonight crawl cockroach-sure back up the hill. But so far, the cat had been silent. He saw no need to spend energy on unnecessary decapitations, never mind the scrubbing and the changing clothes afterward. The bells tinkled above the post office door, rousing the cat to action. It leapt off the mailbox and followed him inside. They had many hours more of boxes to comb through in the post office, although he was inclined to leave most of it ‘til morning when they didn’t need to spend candles on light. His clothedness must have pleased the cat; it wound several figure-eights around his ankles, even chirruping once. “You’ll eat me, won’t you? As long as I get all the clothes out of the way.” He rubbed his red nose and sniffed again as the cat wandered away. Abruptly he did not like the thought of it, lying there naked in the road like a plucked flower, his fat pink fingers and the red petals of head blood and the private white stamen of his stomach on display. It would be a shame--shameful, he meant--to be found looking like a picked flower. He consoled himself with knowing that he wouldn’t look that way for even an hour. After that, he would just be meat. \</div> \<div id="rborder"></div> \</div> \<<if not hasVisited("Q1c")>><<timedinsert 2s>><div id="next">[[⸷|Q1c]]</div><</timedinsert>><<else>><div id="final">[[⸸|calendar]]</div><</if>> \<div id="month"></div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="noborder"></div> \<div id="sceneText"> \<<timedinsert .1s>><div class="addic"><img src='images/scenes/imQ.png'></div><</timedinsert>> \</div> \</div> \<div id="final"><<timedinsert 2s>>[[⸸|calendar]]<</timedinsert>></div> \<div id="month">IX</div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="lborder"></div> \<div id="text"> \ <<timedremove 1.5s>>“<</timedremove>>Here’s what I’ll do. <<timedremove 1.5s>>” He shimmied out of the jeans, nose and leg hair alike bristling in the nippy air. “<</timedremove>>I’ll off myself, of course. But it pays to think this stuff through, because once that fever comes on, you only got a few hours before you’re as good as hypoxic. <<timedremove 1.7s>>” He stepped out of the pants, rubbing his hands together for warmth, and grabbed the next candidate. From the sun-baked blue roof of a USPS mailbox, the cat stared at him. He assumed this was on account of him stripping his fur on and off, a surely distressing practice to a cat who had rarely seen him naked. Grabbing new clothes was usually easier than washing them, and less water waste, but at this time of year he dreaded it. The new jeans were as stiff and cold as corpses in the dressing room of the great outdoors.<</timedremove>> <<timedremove 1.9s>>“<</timedremove>>First I’ll set up the tent. I know you won’t stay forever--don’t blame you--but reliable shelter is the foundation of wilderness survival. Remember that. <<timedremove 2.1s>>” The jeans’ fly button snipped and jibed at his numb fingers. Once he got it in place, he patted the waist line and took a stroll down the little denim carpet he had crafted from rejected pairs. These would do fine. <</timedremove>> <<timedremove 2.3s>>“So...<</timedremove>><<timedreplace 2.3s>> So you<<becomes>>So you’ll<</timedreplace>> get the tent, and then I’ll open the kibble. You can figure out how to knock the bag over once you’re hungry enough. As for water... <<timedremove 2.5s>>” The next pair, he ditched before they reached his thighs. “I’ll think on it.<</timedremove>> Maybe I’ll get you a big bowl. <<timedremove 2.7s>>” He sniffed snot back into his nose and tried to rally himself for one more pair.<</timedremove>> <<timedremove 2.9s>>“<</timedremove>>Then<<timedremove 2.9s>>, so then<</timedremove>> I’ll lie down in the middle of the road, plenty far from the tent, and I’ll shoot myself. It’ll make a lot of noise, but anybody who comes running is gonna see me and not mind you. <<timedremove 2.9s>>”<</timedremove>> <<timedremove 3.1s>>He decided three pairs was enough. The cat watched him hurry across the discarded jeans to grab his wool-lined sweatpants and pull them on. After stepping into equally woolly slipper boots, he added, “<</timedremove>>Of course I’ll get naked before I lie down. You won’t even eat a spider. I can’t expect you to chew through clothes. <<timedremove 3.3s>>” He gathered the new jeans and pushed open the post office door with his foot. It had been a dizzyingly productive day, between the boutique store and the post office and the cracked-egg-headed corpses he rolled down Main Street. At least one of them, he figured, might have survived the annihilation and would tonight crawl cockroach-sure back up the hill. But so far, the cat had been silent. He saw no need to spend energy on unnecessary decapitations, never mind the scrubbing and the changing clothes afterward. The bells tinkled above the post office door, rousing the cat to action. It leapt off the mailbox and followed him inside. They had many hours more of boxes to comb through in the post office, although he was inclined to leave most of it ‘til morning when they didn’t need to spend candles on light. His clothedness must have pleased the cat; it wound several figure-eights around his ankles, even chirruping once.<</timedremove>> <<timedremove 3.5s>>“<</timedremove>>You’ll eat me, won’t you? As long as I get all the clothes out of the way. <<timedreplace 3.5s>>” He rubbed his red nose and sniffed again as the cat wandered away. Abruptly he did not like the thought of it, lying there naked in the road like a plucked flower, his fat pink fingers and the red petals of head blood and the private white stamen of his stomach on display. It would be a shame--shameful, he meant--to be found looking like a picked flower. He consoled himself with knowing that he wouldn’t look that way for even an hour. After that, he would just be meat.<<becomes>> It’d be a shame for somebody to come and find me looking like that, but it’ll be alright. You know how fast bodies stop looking human. In an hour, it won’t be me lying there. Just the meat that’s left over.<</timedreplace>> \</div> \<div id="rborder"></div> \</div> \<div id="final"><<timedinsert 5s>>[[⸸|calendar]]<</timedinsert>></div> \<div id="month">IX</div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="lborder"></div> \<div id="text"> \ Here’s what I’ll do. I’ll off myself, of course. But it pays to think this stuff through, because once that fever comes on, you only got a few hours before you’re as good as hypoxic. First I’ll set up the tent. I know you won’t stay forever—don’t blame you—but reliable shelter is the foundation of wilderness survival. Remember that. So you’ll get the tent, and then I’ll open the kibble. You can figure out how to knock the bag over once you’re hungry enough. As for water... Maybe I’ll get you a big bowl. Then I’ll lie down in the middle of the road, plenty far from the tent, and I’ll shoot myself. It’ll make a lot of noise, but anybody who comes running is gonna see me and not mind you. Of course I’ll get naked before I lie down. You won’t even eat a spider. I can’t expect you to chew through clothes. You’ll eat me, won’t you? As long as I get all the clothes out of the way. It’d be a shame for somebody to come and find me looking like that, but it’ll be alright. You know how fast bodies stop looking human. In an hour, it won’t be me lying there. Just the meat that’s left over. \</div> \<div id="rborder"></div> \</div> \<div id="final">[[⸸|calendar]]</div> \<div id="month"></div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="noborder"></div> \<div id="sceneText"> \<<if not hasVisited("R1a")>><<goto "R1a">> \<<else>><div class='addic'><img src='images/scenes/imR.png'></div> \<</if>> \</div> \</div> \<<if hasVisited("R1a") && not hasVisited("U2a") || not hasVisited("A3a")>><div id="next">[[⸷|R1a]]</div> \<<elseif hasVisited("R1a") && hasVisited("U2a") && hasVisited("A3a") && not hasVisited("R2a")>><div id="next">[[⸷|R2a]]</div> <</if>> \<div id="month">X</div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="lborder"></div> \<div id="text"> \“See this? This is what we came south for.” He tapped on the peach, setting the little orb to wobbling. “I bet you’ve never seen a peach tree before.” The cat didn’t need to know that he’d never seen one either. It surprised him that the tree’s spindly arms, growing out more than up, hardly reached eye level, but maybe these trees were juveniles, as young as the rest of the garden. Past the peach trees crouched the raw birth of a storage hutch. Its bare planks slotted into each other without nails, and they were stained with splotches of tangerine where the morning dew had soaked through the untreated wood. Behind them was the garden proper. The gardener had planned it out like a cemetery, segmenting the earth into equally-spaced plots of land with a raised coffin sitting on each. The wooden beds housed every sort of crop, most beyond his knowing. He recognized cabbages, carrots, and peppers, but the rest was an anonymous wash of green tufts and brown dirt. Beyond that grew the gardener’s cabin, its sharp-angled roof fuzzed over with moss and grass, the brindled wood planks blending into the trees behind them. He could believe that the house was just another crop, sprouted out of the earth many seasons ago. It was halfway to noon now, but the garden still smelled of sunrise. The heat plastered his hair and the cat’s fur to the back of his neck. He felt the fur peel away as the cat leaned forward and sniffed at the swaying peach. Like a Christmas ornament, he thought, but the cat was too young to have seen one of those either. He unhooked the cat from his shirt, intending to set it on the ground, but it wriggled and kicked off his arm to claw its way onto a branch. As it clambered through the leaves, all the peaches in the tree bobbed and wobbled under the sudden weight. After the cat and tree settled, he nabbed a peach for himself. Strange, holding a real one in his hand. He had forgotten how close the flesh was to human. The same yellows, the same red patches as his palm beneath it. As his teeth punctured skin, the cabin door croaked behind him. He looked back, and there was always the electric moment, the knowing of the knife’s weight at his hip and the number of bullets in the handgun and the seconds between him and the stranger. But the cat hadn’t complained about being brought into the garden. And he had seen no weapons. He let his hand stay around the peach. \</div> \<div id="rborder"></div> \</div> \<div id="next"><<timedinsert 2s>>[[⸷|R1b]]<</timedinsert>></div> \<div id="month">X</div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="lborder"></div> \<div id="text"> \The stranger descended from the porch step by slow step. He was a leathery old man with dark eyebrows, sloe eyes, and a rumple of short hair as brown as tilled soil. A well-healed scar, from decades Before, marbled a long strip of skin across his face and dripped bits of pink onto his neck and arm. His hands were empty. “I guess you’re the god of this garden?” The stranger’s eyes crinkled in a smile. “I hope that doesn’t mean you’ve seen a snake.” “No, no snakes.” He cleared his throat, feeling the sun against his neck and bright in his face. “If there was, the cat’d be gnawing on it.” “The cat?” He turned aside, keeping the stranger in his peripheral, and reached into the tree. “C’mere.” He pried the cat from its branch, ignoring the burst of wood-crumbs that the cat loosed over his shoes. The cat returned to his shoulder, ungrowling but furious-tailed. It lashed at the tree until a dizzy peach finally came loose and tumped to the ground. The stranger did not complain, even as he watched the peach flee from the intruders and roll desperately toward the garden beds. The stranger only said, “Are you looking to stay awhile?” “We got a tent.” “I’m sure you do. Are you looking to stay?” Now that the cabin door was open, he could make out the edge of a little table, two-chaired, and an old stove that matched the chimney peeking through the roof. The peach had stopped short of the garden, and the noon-sun took a breath; it stepped behind a cloud for a moment to fix its hair, to dab at its sweat-threatened eyeshadow, before it returned to them with a smile. It bleached the garden gold. Even the hazy cabin shook itself awake, letting light wash through the windows and over the table. For the first time in weeks, he felt aware of the sweat caked on his brow and the dried blood under his nail from when he dug a mole out of his shoulder and the stink of cat food and canned beans and nightmare-soaked pillows. He felt wolven for a moment, anxious at the sight of a dog locked placidly in its crate. The cat’s fur prickled his neck. The cat moved its paws to his chest, readying to leap down. He caught it mid-jump and cradled it in his arms, where it deigned to settle for now, attention fixed on the grounded peach. “We’d better not stay too long,” he said. “The cat, y’know. He pisses on everything.” \</div> \<div id="rborder"></div> \</div> \<<if not hasVisited("R1c")>><<timedinsert 2s>><div id="next">[[⸷|R1c]]</div><</timedinsert>><<else>><div id="final">[[⸸|calendar]]</div><</if>> \<div id="month"></div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="noborder"></div> \<div id="sceneText"> \<<timedinsert .1s>><div class="addic"><img src='images/scenes/imR.png'></div><</timedinsert>> \</div> \</div> \<div id="final"><<timedinsert 2s>>[[⸸|calendar][$scenes += 1]]<</timedinsert>></div> \<div id="month">X</div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="lborder"></div> \<div id="text"> \The sun sheared through the morning. The garden was how I remembered it -- rows and rows of green tufts sticking out of the earth like buried Troll Babies. “What do you do with them all?” The gardener hadn’t bothered getting up from the dirt when we arrived. Troweling away, he explained that enough travelers like me came through to carry the harvest to other survivors. “Like bumblebees,” I said, and he smiled, his face made up of creases upon creases. “I never got the chance to introduce myself,” he said. “Corrin.” I gestured at my feet. “This is Cat.” Cat was being a funny kind of shy that day, riding my shoes and plunking against my ankles like a toddler. I introduced him first because he’s the one people always want to meet. Mostly they know me already. The gardener tipped his head to Cat and then looked at me. “I guess that makes you Man.” “The very first.” I laughed like it was a joke. The very first. “I’m January.” I didn’t put much thought into the name, but the gardener took it well. Cat whisked his tail and tore up my leg all of a sudden, like a scared bear cub, and fitted himself into my arms. “He doesn’t like the fresh dirt,” I figured. “On his paws.” The field reeked of fertilizer. Corrin stripped off his gloves and creaked to his feet. “Then I suppose we should head inside.” I looked at the hut, then at Cat, who was staring up at me. “You want to?” He sniffed my chin. Like checking for alcohol on my breath before he’d pass me the keys. Well, I’m clean. So I said to Corrin, “We’ll take that as a yes.” \</div> \<div id="rborder"></div> \</div> \<div id="final"><<timedinsert 2s>>[[⸸|calendar]]<</timedinsert>></div> \<div id="month"></div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="noborder"></div> \<div id="sceneText"> \<<if not hasVisited("S1a")>><<goto "S1a">> \<<else>><div class='addic'><img src='images/scenes/imS.png'></div> \<</if>> \</div> \</div> \<<if hasVisited("S1a") && not hasVisited("U2a")>><div id="next">[[⸷|S1a]]</div><<else>><div id="final">[[⸸|calendar]]</div><</if>> \<div id="month">X</div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="lborder"></div> \<div id="text"> \ He passed time by naming the flowers. It surprised him how many empty names existed in his mind. He could recite an alphabet’s worth of them: aster, bluebonnet, chrysanthemum... Some of them he recognized--rose, tulip--but the rest, he blindly reassigned. He found a sprig of stubby flowers bowered beneath a tree. They huddled together in an unfriendly way, white-petaled, small-eyed, so he called them elderflowers. On the side of the road, fuzzy yellow things sprouted from the earth like uncombed licks of hair. He knew that daisies were yellow, and so daisies they became, and the cat entertained itself by weaving through them, its feathery tail flicking among the flowerheads like it might convince them it belonged. Coral tree-buds became peonies; umbrella-wide blooms, dahlias; a weeping of top-heavy bells, willowseeds. The cat had worn holes into the shoulder of his shirt from keeping its balance every time he leaned down to inspect a new species. When he pulled off his shirt at night, starlight shone through the tiny holes to form new world constellations. \</div> \<div id="rborder"></div> \</div> \<<if not hasVisited("S1b")>><<timedinsert 3s>><div id="next">[[⸷|S1b]]</div><</timedinsert>><<else>><div id="final">[[⸸|calendar]]</div><</if>> \<div id="month"></div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="noborder"></div> \<div id="sceneText"> \<<timedinsert .1s>><div class="addic"><img src='images/scenes/imS.png'></div><</timedinsert>> \</div> \</div> \<div id="final"><<timedinsert 2s>>[[⸸|calendar][$scenes += 1]]<</timedinsert>></div> \<div id="month"></div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="noborder"></div> \<div id="sceneText"> \<<if not hasVisited("T1a")>><<goto "T1a">> \<<else>><div class='addic'><img src='images/scenes/imT.png'></div> \<</if>> \</div> \</div> \<div id="next">[[⸷|T1a]]</div> \<div id="month">XI</div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="lborder"></div> \<div id="text"> \But love can’t measure up to fate. So after years of playing happy husband and wife, he gets woken up one night by a vision from the goddess. She tells him he’s gotta go, he’s gotta leave the queen and sail off to found Rome. And, you know. Work is work. So he doesn’t say no. He sneaks out of the palace in the middle of the night and gets all his men onto the ships. By the time the queen is awake, his ships are already on the horizon. He could’ve stayed long enough to let her slap him. But he didn’t, so she wounds herself instead. She orders her servants to build a huge, a massive, funeral pyre in the middle of the city, and she gets on top and lights herself on fire. She piled her grief so high that you could see the burning from miles out. <span id="dying"><<link "Even from the ships.">><<replace "#dying">>Even from the ships. <<timedinsert .3s>>I bet they smelled her dying.<</timedinsert>> <<timedinsert 3s>>Achilles built a big pyre too, after Patroclus died. He slaughtered dogs and pigs and cows on top of it, and a dozen kids from Troy. The pyre was so wet with blood that it wouldn’t burn.<</timedinsert>> <<timedinsert 11s>>I dreamt that I buried them. I <i>did</i> bury their ashes, but I dreamt I buried their whole bodies, ten, maybe twelve, feet deep so they couldn’t climb out. Would you believe it wasn’t a nightmare. It was snowing the whole time. I dug the hole, and I laid them at the bottom, and I climbed out and filled it with dirt. By the time I got done, the snow had fallen so heavy that it vanished the ground. The earth was one long bolt of white, as far as you could see. I couldn’t tell where I’d buried them. There wasn’t any tracks to tell where I came from either. It sounds like a nightmare when I tell it like that. <span id="snow">What do you think? <<link "Should we go see some snow?">><<replace "#snow">><<timedinsert .2s>>His pyre did end up burning eventually. And after the war, they took his and Achilles’ ashes and buried them in the same urn. <</timedinsert>><</replace>><<replace "#next">><<timedinsert 4s>><<if not hasVisited("T1b")>>[[⸷|T1b]]<<else>>[[⸸|calendar]]<</if>><</timedinsert>><</replace>><</link>></span><</timedinsert>><</replace>><</link>></span> \</div> \<div id="rborder"></div> \</div> \<div id="next"></div> \<div id="month"></div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="noborder"></div> \<div id="sceneText"> \<<timedinsert .1s>><div class="addic"><img src='images/scenes/imT.png'></div><</timedinsert>> \</div> \</div> \<div id="final"><<timedinsert 2s>>[[⸸|calendar]]<</timedinsert>></div> \<div id="month"></div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="noborder"></div> \<div id="sceneText"> \<<if not hasVisited("U1a")>><<goto "U1a">> \<<elseif hasVisited("U1a") && not hasVisited ("U2a")>><<goto "U1c">> \<<else>><div class='addic'><img src='images/scenes/imU.png'></div> \<</if>> \</div> \</div> \<div id="next">[[⸷|U2aDone]]</div> \<div id="month">XI</div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="lborder"></div> \<div id="text"> \Then it happened. \</div> \<div id="rborder"></div> \</div> \<div id="next"><<timedinsert 1.5s>>[[⸷|U1b]]<</timedinsert>></div> \<div id="month">XI</div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="lborder"></div> \<div id="text"> \The fever came. \</div> \<div id="rborder"></div> \</div> \<div id="next"><<timedinsert 1.5s>>[[⸷|U1c]]<</timedinsert>></div> \<div id="month">XI</div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="lborder"></div> \<div id="text"> \In an effort to outpace the storm, they had travelled too hard. Exhaustion soaked through him like melting snow and slushed his bones. By midday, the stormclouds had overtaken them, and his head throbbed with the weight of the imminent snowfall. He stopped and pitched the tent. If the storm trapped them here, at least they could boil fresh water from the snow. He should have made lunch for them, but dizziness unsteadied his hands, and his eyes closed and closed when he tried to open them. The stormclouds swelled in his head. The next time he opened his eyes, darkness met him. He couldn’t see his hands, though he felt them moving in the darkness. They were wet with something. A childish guilt fell over him, the old feeling, the middle of the night hushed breathing, the ought to be sleeping, the listening to footsteps creak down the hall and stop outside his door. He’d always had a keen ear for <<hoverreplace>>death<<becomes>>his death, only his own<</hoverreplace>>. In the story he told himself about his life, death found him one night, many years ago when he was young and too cold to sleep. He had watched death reach out for him, mesmerized by the pearled gleam of its fingers, but just as its hand closed around him, someone laughed in the next room. And for a moment, death looked away. He tore out of its grasp, bolted from the house, and ran, and ran, and for the rest of his life had kept running. But now his legs were still, and he couldn’t see his hands. His ears rang with the knowing of it. Death would not look away again. There were no voices left in the world to distract it from him. Something slithered along his leg, soft and pawing. <span id="cat"><<link "Cat.">><<replace "#cat">>Cat.<</replace>><<replace "#next">><<timedinsert .5s>>[[⸷|U1d]]<</timedinsert>><</replace>><</link>></span> <i>Come to collect already?</i>@@white-space:pre; @@ He wanted a little longer, even if it was just to sit here and be afraid. <i>But I promised I’d take care of it. As soon as the fever started. Didn’t I.</i> \</div> \<div id="rborder"></div> \</div> \<div id="next"></div> \<div id="month">XI</div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="lborder"></div> \<div id="text"> \The cat kneaded his leg, and he forced his hand up to scrub its head. His hands shook in the storm like wet leaves. Death descended on him in a thousand tiny droplets, showering him in a relentless mist, dowsing his hair, numbing his face, trembling his shoulders. He didn’t want to take off his clothes. He started to cry. He cried because he didn’t want to take off his clothes. He didn’t want to take off his clothes and stop crying. He didn’t want to cry. He didn’t want to take off his clothes and lie down in the road where anyone could see his white belly and the pink draining out of his skin. When they helped his neighbor bleed the hogs, they shot them separately and then dragged the dead pair together for the butchering. He did not feel sorry, looking at the pink meat or the bullet’s single incision between the eyes. The hogs lay on the dirt belongingly, the same as any heap of hay or sack of trimmed branches. But his brother couldn’t stay upright from how hard he was crying. He told Chase, <i>They ain’t even ours to care for,</i> but he went on crying. <span id="crying"><<link "And crying.">><<replace "#crying">>And crying. <<timedinsert .3s>> He cried from his neck and his back and his eyes until his shirt was soaked through. But he had made a promise to the cat, so he got out of his shirt and went outside. The sky was all gray. There was no light, or darkness, only gray from horizon to horizon. The sky was a ghost, thousands of millions of them, packed so closely together that they appeared as a solid unmoving mass. The longer he looked, the more faces he knew. He saw all the people who had been his brother, and he knew that if he had stayed a little longer in that fire, he could have become gray too. He would have drifted with them from horizon to horizon, penned within that spaceless, colorless ribbon of gray. As the earth turned, the dead spooled away from him. There was no hope in it. All the faces that replaced them were of the same gray. <span id="see"><<link "His eyes closed so that he stopped seeing.">><<replace "#see">>His eyes closed so that he stopped seeing.<</replace>><<replace "#ending">><<if $U2>><<timedinsert .5s>><div id="next">[[⸷|U2a]]</div><</timedinsert>><<else>><<timedinsert .5s>><div id="final">[[⸸|calendar][$U2 to true]]</div><</timedinsert>><</if>><</replace>><</link>></span><</timedinsert>><</replace>><</link>> @@opacity:0;He cried from his neck and his back and his eyes until his shirt was soaked through. But he had made a promise to the cat, so he got out of his shirt and went outside. The sky was all gray. There was no light, or darkness, only gray from horizon to horizon. The sky was a ghost, thousands of millions of them, packed so closely together that they appeared as a solid unmoving mass. The longer he looked, the more faces he knew. He saw all the people who had been his brother, and he knew that if he had stayed a little longer in that fire, he could have become gray too. He would have drifted with them from horizon to horizon, penned within that spaceless, colorless ribbon of gray. As the earth turned, the dead spooled away from him. There was no hope in it. All the faces that replaced them were of the same gray. .@@</span> \</div> \<div id="rborder"></div> \</div> \<span id="ending"></span> \<div id="month">XI</div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="lborder"></div> \<div id="text"> \<span id="slept">He slept for days. <<timedinsert 2s>>He knew that he couldn’t have slept for days, but it felt that way.<</timedinsert>> <<timedinsert 5.5s>>The thing is, this isn’t a biography. It’s a story. So if I tell you I slept for days, then I slept for days. <<link "Alright?">><<replace "#slept">> \I slept for days. <<timedinsert 2s>>The Cat is what woke me. He was sitting pretty as always, a Bast statuette with too-long fur. It’s the paws that make cats look dignified, I think. People never know what to do with their hands when they’re sitting still. I looked at him and then up at the sky, remembering the gray. But there was nothing above us, no tent or sky, and nothing around, just me and him and <span id="tuna"><<link "a can of tuna">><<replace "#tuna">>a can of tuna<</replace>><<replace "#wake">><<timedinsert .3s>>So I said, “Why’d you wake me?” “I’m hungry.” “That’s it?” “Aren’t you hungry?” he said. Nothing in my body wanted. Cat said, “Eat with me until you are.” The can between us was filled with water, I realized, so clear I could hardly see it. And hanging in the water was stars, dozens of them eddying around in easy circles. They gleamed in the colorless water like cleaned fish scales. Cat said, “[[Eat with me until you are.|U2b]]”<</timedinsert>><</replace>><</link>></span> between us. In terms of things to come back to life for, not overly persuasive. <span id="wake">@@opacity:0;So I said, “Why’d you wake me?” “I’m hungry.” “That’s it?” “Aren’t you hungry?” he said. Nothing in my body wanted. Cat said, “Eat with me until you are.” The can between us was filled with water, I realized, so clear I could hardly see it. And hanging in the water was stars, dozens of them eddying around in easy circles. They gleamed in the colorless water like cleaned fish scales. Cat said, “Eat with me until you are.”@@</span><</timedinsert>><</replace>><</link>><</timedinsert>></span> \</div> \<div id="rborder"></div> \</div> \<div id="final"></div> \<div id="month">XI</div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="lborder"></div> \<div id="text"> \So I took the can of stars in my hands and drank til the hunger woke me. <<timedinsert 4s>><div class='addic'><img src='images/scenes/imU.png'></div><</timedinsert>> \</div> \<div id="rborder"></div> \</div> \<div id="final"><<timedinsert 6s>>[[⸸|calendar]]<</timedinsert>></div> \<div id="month">XI</div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="lborder"></div> \<div id="text"> \I slept for days. The Cat is what woke me. He was sitting pretty as always, a Bast statuette with too-long fur. It’s the paws that make cats look dignified, I think. People never know what to do with their hands when they’re sitting still. I looked at him and then up at the sky, remembering the gray. But there was nothing above us, no tent or sky, and nothing around, just me and him and a can of tuna between us. In terms of things to come back to life for, not overly persuasive. So I said, “Why’d you wake me up?” “I’m hungry.” “That’s it?” “Aren’t you hungry?” he said. Nothing in my body wanted. Cat said, “Eat with me until you are.” The can between us was filled with water, I realized, so clear I could hardly see it. And hanging in the water was stars, dozens of them eddying around in easy circles. They gleamed in the colorless water like cleaned fish scales. Cat said, “Eat with me until you are.” I took the can of stars in my hands and drank til the hunger woke me. \</div> \<div id="rborder"></div> \</div> \<div id="final">[[⸸|calendar]]</div> \<div id="month"></div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="noborder"></div> \<div id="sceneText"> \<<if not hasVisited("V1a")>><<goto "V1a">> \<<else>><div class='addic'><img src='images/scenes/imV.png'></div> \<</if>> \</div> \</div> \<div id="final">[[⸸|calendar]]</div> \<div id="month">XII</div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="lborder"></div> \<div id="text"> \Winter meant more of the cold ones. This one tracked us a couple miles, keeping pace in the trees while I hauled the wagon down the road. I felt like those woolly mammoths getting walked to death by neanderthal hunters. What do you do now? Keep going? Knowing you gotta stop in a couple hours when the night comes and blinds you? Sitting ducks, one way or another. I couldn’t make it up the next hill. Too steep and slippery; ice had bleached over the whole thing. I’d have to unpack the wagon, carry the shit up there myself, then come back for the wagon. The body figured that out too. It--and it was an //it//. Even when it slunk out of the trees, I couldn’t tell what it’d been during life. Half its head glittered. Caved-in skull, the sloshy pink parts frozen stiff. Ice ran through its cracked head, a kintsugi line straight from ear to empty eyesocket. I stopped the wagon. Between the trees, the body started clucking. Blunt, bright, excited sounds. Cat shook off his blanket and got to his feet, looked at me for directions. I had a couple bullets in [[the pistol|Vpistol]]. Noise and waste, but a quick end to a stupid game that we’d been playing too long. Or I could handle it like any other, cut it down with [[the axe|Vaxe]]. \</div> \<div id="rborder"></div> \</div> \<div id="next"></div> \<div id="month">XII</div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="lborder"></div> \<div id="text"> \The pistol. I knew this one wouldn’t scare, so I didn’t show off the gun. Quietly, under Cat’s blanket, I confirmed it was loaded. “I need you to work with me.” Cat twitched an ear my way. //I need you to work with me on this. Alright?// I patted Cat’s flank, hard, and he bolted out of the wagon, streaked past the trees, and the cold ones aren’t stupid but they are so hungry, and I saw the hunger eat up its unfrosted eye. Shining with it. Cat cut left; the body broke the treeline, loping, three steps: two:: @@white-space:pre; @@I was always better at hitting targets in motion. Neck, bursting a fat enough hole in its throat for the pus and rot to gargle. Now that it’s stunned: knee. Now that it’s down: head. The air was buzzing. I could taste the gun-ash and the tremors of the broken air crawling over my lips like capsaicin. I had a vision of a horde of them on the hilltop, summoned by the noise of the shots. Dead flesh glittering above the ice like so many gnats. But no one came. “C’mere. Kitty-cat.” He whuffed a dead leaf off his tail and trotted over. He must have thought I looked stupid, acting dazed and kneeless from firing off just three shots. I meant to drop the gun on the ground, but I sat down on it instead, and Cat was happy to dry his snowy paws in my lap. \</div> \<div id="rborder"></div> \</div> \<div id="next"><<timedinsert 2s>>[[⸷|V1b]]<</timedinsert>></div> \<div id="month">XII</div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="lborder"></div> \<div id="text"> \The axe. Getting close enough was the issue, getting close to it without snaring myself in trees and frozen roots. “You gotta trust me on this.” Cat twitched an ear my way. //I know what I’m doing. Just trust me on this.// I made him get back in his blanket, and I checked that my knife would unsheathe, and then I took the wagon handle and started dragging it up the hillside. Slow, slow, boots skidding, wagon wheels shimmying and backsliding me with the weight. Sisyphean, if you will, except I didn’t need to push my rock to the top. The rock met me. It had sprinted up the treeline and got out ahead of us. A flash on the hilltop -- then it hurtled down, already on me as I let the wagon go. I crouched and shoved into its legs, tangling, scrambling down the ice together in a hot wash of rot and wet, the knife loosing and jamming into it, shoving, stabbing and stabbing til the spot where its sounds shrilled and wretched. I sat up. There was tarry rot painted across my arms and chest. My knife was hilt-deep in the body’s unfrosted ear, and it stared sightlessly at the hill we’d come down. Its hand swayed a little, like it was trying to wave away a cloud of gnats. I got off my bruises and went to the overturned wagon, where Cat was stood over the spill like a crash survivor surveying the wreck. I got the axe and went back and took off its head. \</div> \<div id="rborder"></div> \</div> \<div id="next"><<timedinsert 2s>>[[⸷|V1b]]<</timedinsert>></div> \<div id="month"></div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="noborder"></div> \<div id="sceneText"> \<<timedinsert .1s>><div class="addic"><img src='images/scenes/imV.png'></div><</timedinsert>> \</div> \</div> \<div id="final"><<timedinsert 2s>>[[⸸|calendar]]<</timedinsert>></div> \<div id="month"></div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="noborder"></div> \<div id="sceneText"> \<<if not hasVisited("W1a")>><<goto "W1a">> \<<else>><div class='addic'><img src='images/scenes/imW.png'></div> \<</if>> \</div> \</div> \<div id="next">[[⸷|W1a]]</div> \<div id="month">XII</div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="lborder"></div> \<div id="text"> \I stopped short of their room. Audrey drew up beside me, already glorying and grinning, and together we looked at the wall calendar. It was imperfect and huge -- I don’t know how they found paper that size around here. Maybe it was a bunch of pieces taped together, like the daisy-chains of blue and white construction paper that decorated the rest of the hall. Anyway, it was huge and imperfect. You could see the wobbly pencil marks of Dag’s first draft under the clean black gridlines. Dag had tried to erase the ghosts, without success. There was one box near the end of the month that was clean of pencil marks but full of black ink smear. He’d been more careful about the numbers. They were well done, printed evenly in the corner of every box. The top of the calendar read, <i>December</i>. “How do you know?” I said. “That it’s December.” Audrey’s smile preened wider. “Dag made it--” “I know that.” “Quit it.” She whapped my arm, and I quit it and listened. “Dag made it in time for Hanukkah. You know how we had last year’s calendars from Before? He started from there and figured out what the next year oughta look like, in terms of moons. When the new moon’d show up, when the next moon should be full. That kind of thing. That way he could track <i>our</i> moon against it and see how it lined up.” I said, “So--” She gave me a look to make Cat proud. I rubbed my nose and quit it. She said, “Of course it’s a best guess. He could be three weeks early or late, but he’s been trackin’ it since October, and so far the weather seems right.” I could hear Dag in the kitchen, his knife <i>thpthpthping</i> leeks on the cutting board, and the pot burbling. Funny how strong the gas burner smelled to me now. Audrey, she smelled more like the homespun chicory we’d been drinking. Suited her better than the squash and leeks stewing in the pot. “Even if he is off by a couple weeks,” said Audrey, cozy in her pride again, “you can see why he did it.” I couldn’t, but I nodded anyway. Audrey always did think more of me than I was. I said, “Did he figure out when they died?” and she said, “I don’t know that he tried.” \</div> \<div id="rborder"></div> \</div> \<div id="next"><<timedinsert 8s>>[[⸷|W1b]]<</timedinsert>></div> \<div id="month">XII</div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="lborder"></div> \<div id="text"> \We looked another minute at December. She added, “We left their room alone,” and I was glad she didn’t add anything more sentimental, like, <i>You know, in case you ever came back. </i> Or worse, <i>In case they ever did. </i> Cat shuttled down the hall, skipping between our feet and up to their door. He started scolding at the closed door with his claws, so I went over and opened it for him. Like she said, they’d left the room alone. There was only the boxes, the long desk under the window, and the metal bedframe, as bare as teeth. I’d been the one to drag their contaminated mattress down the stairs. I remembered how much work it had been, so I didn’t blame them for not wanting to haul another one up. Not like ghosts needed the sleep. Audrey stayed on the hall side of the door while I followed Cat in. She could have said even worse than that. When I showed up this morning and we all first sat down in the kitchen, I could see Dag sewing his lips shut to avoid telling me something like, <i>We couldn’t have known how fast it would spread. </i> Or God forbid, <i>It wasn’t your fault. </i> He used to work in law, you know, where everyone cares about fault. In pari delicto, et cetera. I went over to the boxes. Chase and Rebecca didn’t have enough things to fill them even halfway. There was their gloves and hats. Their wallets and dead phones. Some pencil drawings, half-finished, just the curved heads and beady eyes of beakless birds. Then there was the jumble of hotel pens Rebecca cleaned out of her purse one day when it was raining and me and Chase were having some fit and wouldn’t talk and there wasn’t anything else to do but clean out purses and talk about how she didn’t feel bad for stealing the hotel pens. Compensation for the @@text-decoration: line-through;shitty@@ conference food. ‘Lackluster’ was the word she used. When we tried the pens, half of them wouldn’t write, but she said it didn’t matter and she’d sort it out later. Now all the pens were still here, the working ones and the dead ones, in the box with her sandals and a book for learning German that nobody opened and some yarn in case one of us decided to learn how to knit after the world ended. In the second box -- Chase never kept much but clothes. He got so red that day when she was trying a pen and doodling on his arm with it. He always got that way, like he couldn’t stand me knowing how happy she made him. Well, what else was there to know. \</div> \<div id="rborder"></div> \</div> \<div id="next"><<timedinsert 8s>>[[⸷|W1c]]<</timedinsert>></div> \<div id="month">XII</div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="lborder"></div> \<div id="text"> \I heard the little thump of Cat landing on the windowsill. He started chinning at the closed blinds, so I went over and opened them for him. Bleak view out there. If it was December, it was December only in name. You’d never know it from looking outside. The sun was out of sight, but light was everywhere. The windows in the other houses shone like gold mirrors. There was nothing outside but light and houses; no snow, no sun, no clouds, no blue. Cat paced the window, his tail swiffing up dust, and I sat at the desk. The sky was bleached a grayish, shy kind of white, the color of an old chicken bone fallen behind the table. At some point Audrey had left us. The door to the hall was open, but I knew she’d gone. I held out my hand to Cat, and he hopped off the sill to sniff it, headbutt it. Rub his chin against it. It was bright outside, but the air coming off the window was cold. “I should have killed myself after they died. Did I tell you that already?” Cat closed his eyes and pushed against my hand. “Are you purring about that? Sometimes I swear you don’t listen to a word I say.” Cat tried to headbutt me again, but with his eyes closed, he missed my hand and mashed his head straight into my cheek. He went on purring. “Don’t--” I whuffed his fur away from my mouth, and I needed both hands to pet down his back and scoot him away from me. “Don’t start acting cute. I know you understand me.” He sat back and looked at me. I kept my hands on his back. “You understand me. Don’t you?” It was so bright in the room that his pupils were near vanished, leaving only the blue in his eyes. All the blue the sky was missing. I thought of Audrey saying, <i>You can see why he did it,</i> and this time I could. I could see why he did it. [[You can see why I didn’t.|W1d]] \</div> \<div id="rborder"></div> \</div> \<div id="next"></div> \<div id="month2"><<timedinsert 3s>>[[Go back|calendar]]<</timedinsert>></div> \<div id="container"> \<div id="noborder"></div> \<div id="sceneText"> \<<timedinsert .5s>><div class="addic"><img src='images/scenes/imW.png'></div><</timedinsert>> \</div> \</div> \<div id="final2"><<timedinsert 3s>>[[Move on|blankCalendar]]<</timedinsert>></div> \<div id="calendarGrid"> \<div class="flexItem" id="Jan"><div class="calendarMonth">January</div> <<timedreplace 7.5s>><div class="daysGrid"><div id="JanFirst">1</div> <div>2</div> <div>3</div> <div>4</div> <div>5</div> <div>6</div> <div>7</div> <div>8</div> <div>9</div> <div>10</div> <div>11</div> <div>12</div> <div>13</div> <div>14</div> <div>15</div> <div>16</div> <div>17</div> <div>18</div> <div>19</div> <div>20</div> <div>21</div> <div>22</div> <div>23</div> <div>24</div> <div>25</div> <div>26</div> <div>27</div> <div>28</div> <div>29</div> <div class='container2'><img class='navs' src='images/x1.png'>30</div> <div>31</div></div><<becomes>>@@opacity:0;<div class="daysGrid"><div id="JanFirst">1</div> <div>2</div> <div>3</div> <div>4</div> <div>5</div> <div>6</div> <div>7</div> <div>8</div> <div>9</div> <div>10</div> <div>11</div> <div>12</div> <div>13</div> <div>14</div> <div>15</div> <div>16</div> <div>17</div> <div>18</div> <div>19</div> <div>20</div> <div>21</div> <div>22</div> <div>23</div> <div>24</div> <div>25</div> <div>26</div> <div>27</div> <div>28</div> <div>29</div> <div class='container2'><img class='navs' src='images/x1.png'>30</div> <div>31</div></div>@@<</timedreplace>> \</div> \<div class="flexItem" id="Feb"><div class="calendarMonth">February</div> <<timedremove 7s>><div class="daysGrid"><div id="FebFirst">1</div> <div>2</div> <div class='container2'><img class='navs' src='images/x3.png'>3</div> <div>4</div> <div>5</div> <div>6</div> <div>7</div> <div>8</div> <div>9</div> <div>10</div> <div>11</div> <div>12</div> <div>13</div> <div>14</div> <div>15</div> <div>16</div> <div>17</div> <div class='container2'><img class='navs' src='images/x3.png'>18</div><div>19</div> <div>20</div> <div>21</div> <div>22</div> <div>23</div> <div>24</div> <div>25</div> <div>26</div> <div>27</div> <div>28</div></div><</timedremove>> \</div> \<div class="flexItem" id="Mar"><div class="calendarMonth">March</div> <<timedremove 6.5s>><div class="daysGrid"><div id="MarFirst">1</div> <div>2</div> <div>3</div> <div>4</div> <div>5</div> <div class='container2'><img class='navs' src='images/x2.png'>6</div> <div>7</div> <div>8</div> <div>9</div> <div>10</div> <div>11</div> <div>12</div> <div>13</div> <div>14</div> <div>15</div> <div>16</div> <div>17</div> <div>18</div> <div>19</div> <div>20</div> <div>21</div> <div>22</div> <div>23</div> <div>24</div> <div>25</div> <div>26</div> <div>27</div> <div>28</div> <div>29</div> <div>30</div> <div class='container2'><img class='navs' src='images/x1.png'>31</div></div><</timedremove>> \</div> \<div class="flexItem" id="Apr"><div class="calendarMonth">April</div> <<timedremove 6s>><div class="daysGrid"><div id="AprFirst">1</div> <div class='container2'><img class='navs' src='images/x3.png'>2</div> <div>3</div> <div>4</div> <div>5</div> <div>6</div> <div>7</div> <div>8</div> <div>9</div> <div>10</div> <div>11</div> <div>12</div> <div>13</div> <div>14</div> <div>15</div> <div>16</div> <div>17</div> <div>18</div> <div class='container2'><img class='navs' src='images/x2.png'>19</div> <div>20</div> <div>21</div> <div>22</div> <div>23</div> <div>24</div> <div>25</div> <div>26</div> <div>27</div> <div>28</div> <div>29</div> <div>30</div></div><</timedremove>> \</div> \<div class="flexItem" id="May"><div class="calendarMonth">May</div> <<timedremove 5.5s>><div class="daysGrid"><div id="MayFirst">1</div> <div>2</div> <div>3</div> <div>4</div> <div>5</div> <div>6</div> <div>7</div> <div>8</div> <div>9</div> <div>10</div> <div class='container2'><img class='navs' src='images/x1.png'>11></div> <div>12</div> <div>13</div> <div class='container2'><img class='navs' src='images/x2.png'>24</div> <div>15</div> <div>16</div> <div>17</div> <div>18</div> <div>19</div> <div>20</div> <div>21</div> <div>22</div> <div>23</div> <div>24</div> <div>25</div> <div>26</div> <div>27</div> <div>28</div> <div>29</div> <div>30</div> <div>31</div></div><</timedremove>> \</div> \<div class="flexItem" id="Jun"><div class="calendarMonth">June</div> <<timedremove 5s>><div class="daysGrid"><div id="JunFirst">1</div> <div>2</div> <div>3</div> <div>4</div> <div>5</div> <div>6</div> <div>7</div> <div>8</div> <div class='container2'><img class='navs' src='images/x2.png'>9</div> <div>10</div> <div>11</div> <div>12</div> <div>13</div> <div>14</div> <div>15</div> <div>16</div> <div class='container2'><img class='navs' src='images/x3.png'>17</div> <div>18</div> <div>19</div> <div>20</div> <div>21</div> <div>22</div> <div>23</div> <div>24</div> <div>25</div> <div>26</div> <div>27</div> <div>28</div> <div>29</div> <div>30</div></div><</timedremove>> \</div> \<div class="flexItem" id="Jul"><div class="calendarMonth">July</div> <<timedremove 4.5s>><div class="daysGrid"><div id="JulFirst">1</div> <div>2</div> <div>3</div> <div class='container2'><img class='navs' src='images/x1.png'>4</div> <div>5</div> <div>6</div> <div>7</div> <div>8</div> <div>9</div> <div>10</div> <div>11</div> <div>12</div> <div>13</div> <div>14</div> <div>15</div> <div>16</div> <div>17</div> <div>18</div> <div>19</div> <div>20</div> <div>21</div> <div class='container2'><img class='navs' src='images/x2.png'>22</div> <div>23</div> <div>24</div> <div>25</div> <div>26</div> <div>27</div> <div>28</div> <div>29</div> <div>30</div> <div>31</div></div><</timedremove>> \</div> \<div class="flexItem" id="Aug"><div class="calendarMonth">August</div> <<timedremove 4s>><div class="daysGrid"><div id="AugFirst">1</div> <div>2</div> <div>3</div> <div>4</div> <div>5</div> <div>6</div> <div class='container2'><img class='navs' src='images/x3.png'>7</div> <div>8</div> <div>9</div> <div>10</div> <div>11</div> <div>12</div> <div>13</div> <div>14</div> <div>15</div> <div>16</div> <div>17</div> <div>18</div> <div>19</div> <div>20</div> <div>21</div> <div>22</div> <div>23</div> <div>24</div> <div>25</div> <div>26</div> <div class='container2'><img class='navs' src='images/x1.png'>27</div> <div>28</div> <div>29</div> <div>30</div> <div>31</div></div><</timedremove>> </div> \<div class="flexItem" id="Sep"><div class="calendarMonth">September</div> <<timedremove 3.5s>><div class="daysGrid"><div id="SepFirst">1</div> <div>2</div> <div>3</div> <div>4</div> <div>5</div> <div>6</div> <div>7</div> <div>8</div> <div>9</div> <div class='container2'><img class='navs' src='images/x1.png'>10</div> <div>11</div> <div class='container2'><img class='navs' src='images/x2.png'>12</div> <div>13</div> <div>14</div> <div>15</div> <div>16</div> <div>17</div> <div>18</div> <div>19</div> <div>20</div> <div>21</div> <div>22</div> <div>23</div> <div>24</div> <div>25</div> <div>26</div> <div>27</div> <div>28</div> <div>29</div> <div>30</div></div><</timedremove>> \</div> \<div class="flexItem" id="Oct"><div class="calendarMonth">October</div> <<timedremove 3s>><div class="daysGrid"><div id="OctFirst">1</div> <div>2</div> <div>3</div> <div>4</div> <div class='container2'><img class='navs' src='images/x1.png'>5</div> <div>6</div> <div>7</div> <div>8</div> <div>9</div> <div>10</div> <div>11</div> <div>12</div> <div>13</div> <div>14</div> <div>15</div> <div>16</div> <div>17</div> <div>18</div> <div>19</div> <div>20</div> <div>21</div> <div>22</div> <div>23</div> <div>24</div> <div class='container2'><img class='navs' src='images/x3.png'>25</div> <div>26</div> <div>27</div> <div>28</div> <div>29</div> <div>30</div> <div>31</div></div><</timedremove>> \</div> \<div class="flexItem" id="Nov"><div class="calendarMonth">November</div> <<timedremove 2.5s>><div class="daysGrid"><div id="NovFirst">1</div> <div>2</div> <div>3</div> <div>4</div> <div>5</div> <div>6</div> <div>7</div> <div>8</div> <div>9</div> <div>10</div> <div>11</div> <div>12</div> <div>13</div> <div>14</div> <div>15</div> <div>16</div> <div class='container2'><img class='navs' src='images/x1.png'>17</div> <div>18</div> <div>19</div> <div class='container2'><img class='navs' src='images/x1.png'>20</div> <div>21</div> <div>22</div> <div>23</div> <div>24</div> <div>25</div> <div>26</div> <div>27</div> <div>28</div> <div>29</div> <div>30</div></div><</timedremove>> \</div> \<div class="flexItem" id="Dec"><div class="calendarMonth">December</div> <<timedremove 2s>><div class="daysGrid"><div id="DecFirst">1</div> <div>2</div> <div>3</div> <div>4</div> <div>5</div> <div>6</div> <div>7</div> <div>8</div> <div>9</div> <div>10</div> <div>11</div> <div>12</div> <div>13</div> <div>14</div> <div>15</div> <div class='container2'><img class='navs' src='images/x2.png'>16</div> <div>17</div> <div>18</div> <div>19</div> <div>20</div> <div>21</div> <div>22</div> <div class='container2'><img class='navs' src='images/x1.png'>23</div> <div>24</div> <div>25</div> <div>26</div> <div>27</div> <div>28</div> <div>29</div> <div>30</div> <div>31</div></div><</timedremove>> \</div> \</div><<timedgoto "imgCalendar" 8.5s>> \<div id="calendarGrid"> \<div class="flexItem2" id="Jan"> <div class='finis'><<hoverreplace>><img src='images/scenes/imA.png'><<becomes>><<link "<img src='images/scenes/imX.png'>">><<goto "Finis">><</link>><</hoverreplace>></div></div> \<div class="flexItem2" id="Feb"><div class='finis'><<hoverreplace>><img src='images/scenes/imB.png'><<becomes>><img src='images/scenes/imC.png'><</hoverreplace>></div></div> \<div class="flexItem2" id="Mar"><div class='finis'><<hoverreplace>><img src='images/scenes/imE.png'><<becomes>><img src='images/scenes/imD.png'><</hoverreplace>></div></div> \<div class="flexItem2" id="Apr"><div class='finis'><<hoverreplace>><img src='images/scenes/imF.png'><<becomes>><img src='images/scenes/imG.png'><</hoverreplace>></div></div> \<div class="flexItem2" id="May"><div class='finis'><<hoverreplace>><img src='images/scenes/imH.png'><<becomes>><img src='images/scenes/imI.png'><</hoverreplace>></div></div> \<div class="flexItem2" id="Jun"><div class='finis'><<hoverreplace>><img src='images/scenes/imK.png'><<becomes>><img src='images/scenes/imJ.png'><</hoverreplace>></div></div> \<div class="flexItem2" id="Jul"><div class='finis'><<hoverreplace>> <img src='images/scenes/imL.png'><<becomes>><img src='images/scenes/imM.png'><</hoverreplace>></div></div> \<div class="flexItem2" id="Aug"><div class='finis'><<hoverreplace>><img src='images/scenes/imN.png'><<becomes>><img src='images/scenes/imO.png'><</hoverreplace>></div></div> \<div class="flexItem2" id="Sep"><div class='finis'><<hoverreplace>><img src='images/scenes/imP.png'><<becomes>><img src='images/scenes/imQ.png'><</hoverreplace>></div></div> \<div class="flexItem2" id="Oct"><div class='finis'><<hoverreplace>> <img src='images/scenes/imS.png'><<becomes>><img src='images/scenes/imR.png'><</hoverreplace>></div></div> \<div class="flexItem2" id="Nov"><div class='finis'><<hoverreplace>><img src='images/scenes/imU.png'><<becomes>><img src='images/scenes/imT.png'><</hoverreplace>></div></div> \<div class="flexItem2" id="Dec"><div class='finis'><<hoverreplace>><img src='images/scenes/imV.png'><<becomes>><img src='images/scenes/imW.png'><</hoverreplace>></div></div> </div> \[[calendar]] | [[Title]] screen [[Scene A]] [[A1a]] [[A2a]] [[A3a]] [[Scene B]] [[B1a]] [[B2a]] [[B3a]] [[Scene C]] [[C1a]] [[C2a]] [[C3a]] [[Scene D]] [[D1a]] [[Scene E]] [[E1a]] [[E2a]] [[Scene F]] [[F1a]] [[F2a]] [[Scene G]] [[G1a]] [[Scene H]] [[H1a]] [[H2a]] [[H3a]] [[Scene I]] [[I1a]] [[I2a]] [[Scene J]] [[J1a]] [[J2a]] [[Scene K]] [[K1a]] [[K2a]] [[Scene L]] [[L1a]] [[L2a]] [[Scene M]] [[M1a]] [[M2a]] [[Scene N]] [[N1a]] [[N2a]] [[N3a]] [[Scene O]] [[O1a]] [[Scene P]] [[P1a]] [[P2a]] [[P3a]] [[Scene Q]] [[Q1a]] [[Q2a]] [[Scene R]] [[R1a]] [[R2a]] [[Scene S]] [[S1a]] [[Scene T]] [[T1a]] [[Scene U]] [[U1a]] [[U2a]] [[U3a]] [[Scene V]] [[V1a]] [[Scene W]] [[W1a]]A - 30 \<<if hasVisited("U2a") && not hasVisited("A2a")>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/c2r.png'><span class='test'>[[30|Scene A]]</span></div> \<<elseif hasVisited("A2a") && hasVisited("T1a") && not hasVisited("A3a")>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/c2r.png'><span class='test'>[[30|Scene A]]</span></div> \<<else>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/x1.png'><span class='test'>[[30|Scene A]]</span></div> \<</if>> B - 3 \<<if not hasVisited("B2a")>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/c3.png'><span class='test'>[[3|Scene B]]</span></div> \<<elseif hasVisited("U2a") && not hasVisited("B3a")>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/c3r.png'><span class='test'>[[3|Scene B]]</span></div> \<<else>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/x3.png'><span class='test'>[[3|Scene B]]</span></div> \<</if>> C - 18 \<<if not hasVisited("C2a")>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/c4.png'><span class='test'>[[18|Scene C]]</span></div> \<<elseif hasVisited("U2a") && not hasVisited("C3a")>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/c4r.png'><span class='test'>[[18|Scene C]]</span></div> \<<else>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/x3.png'><span class='test'>[[18|Scene C]]</span></div> \<</if>> D - 6 \<<if $scenes < 2>><div>6</div> \<<elseif $scenes gte 2 && not hasVisited("D1a")>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/c3.png'><span class='test'>[[6|Scene D]]</span></div> \<<else>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/x2.png'><span class='test'>[[6|Scene D]]</span></div> \<</if>> E - 31 \<<if not hasVisited("B2a") || not hasVisited("C2a")>><div>31</div> \<<elseif hasVisited("B2a") && hasVisited("C2a") && not hasVisited("E1a")>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/c5.png'><span class='test'>[[31|Scene E]]</span></div> \<<elseif hasVisited("E1a") && hasVisited("U2a") && not hasVisited("E2a")>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/c5r.png'><span class='test'>[[31|Scene E]]</span></div> \<<else>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/x1.png'><span class='test'>[[31|Scene E]]</span></div> \<</if>> F - 2 \<<if not hasVisited("E1a")>><div>2</div> \<<elseif hasVisited("E1a") && not hasVisited("F1a")>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/c2.png'><span class='test'>[[2|Scene F]]</span></div> \<<elseif hasVisited("F1a") && hasVisited("U2a") && not hasVisited("F2a")>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/c2r.png'><span class='test'>[[2|Scene F]]</span></div> \<<else>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/x3.png'><span class='test'>[[2|Scene F]]</span></div> \<</if>> G - 19 \<<if not hasVisited("E1a")>><div>19</div> \<<elseif hasVisited("E1a") && not hasVisited("G1a")>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/c5.png'><span class='test'>[[19|Scene G]]</span></div> \<<else>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/x2.png'><span class='test'>[[19|Scene G]]</span></div> \<</if>> H - 11 \<<if not hasVisited("E1a") || $scenes < 3>><div>11</div> \<<elseif hasVisited("E1a") && $scenes gte 3 && not hasVisited("H1a")>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/c3.png'><span class='test'>[[11|Scene H]]</span></div> \<<elseif lastVisited("H1c") gte 2 && not hasVisited("H2a")>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/c3r.png'><span class='test'>[[11|Scene H]]</span></div> \<<elseif hasVisited("U2a") && not hasVisited("H3a")>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/c3r.png'><span class='test'>[[11|Scene H]]</span></div> \<<else>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/x1.png'><span class='test'>[[11|Scene H]]</span></div> \<</if>> I - 14 \<<if not hasVisited("E1a") || $scenes < 7>><div>14</div> \<<elseif hasVisited("E1a") && $scenes gte 7 && not hasVisited("I1a")>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/c4.png'><span class='test'>[[14|Scene I]]</span></div> \<<elseif hasVisited("I1a") && hasVisited("U2a") && hasVisited("A3a") && not hasVisited("I2a")>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/c4r.png'><span class='test'>[[14|Scene I]]</span></div> \<<else>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/x2.png'><span class='test'>[[14|Scene I]]</span></div> \<</if>> J - 9 \<<if not hasVisited("E1a") || $scenes < 3>><div>9</div> \<<elseif hasVisited("E1a") && $scenes gte 3 && not hasVisited("J1a")>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/c5.png'><span class='test'>[[9|Scene J]]</span></div> \<<elseif lastVisited("J1d") gte 2 && not hasVisited("J2a")>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/c5r.png'><span class='test'>[[9|Scene J]]</span></div> \<<else>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/x3.png'><span class='test'>[[9|Scene J]]</span></div> \<</if>> K - 17 \<<if not hasVisited("E1a")>><div>17</div> \<<elseif hasVisited("E1a") && not hasVisited("K1a")>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/c2.png'><span class='test'>[[17|Scene K]]</span></div> \<<elseif hasVisited("K1a") && hasVisited("U2a") && hasVisited("B2a") && hasVisited("S1a") && not hasVisited("K2a")>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/c2r.png'><span class='test'>[[17|Scene K]]</span></div> \<<else>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/x3.png'><span class='test'>[[17|Scene K]]</span></div> \<</if>> L - 4 \<<if not hasVisited("E1a") || $scenes < 3>><div>4</div> \<<elseif hasVisited("E1a") && $scenes gte 3 && not hasVisited("L1a")>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/c3.png'><span class='test'>[[4|Scene L]]</span></div> \<<elseif hasVisited("L1a") && hasVisited("U2a") && not hasVisited("L2a")>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/c3r.png'><span class='test'>[[4|Scene L]]</span></div> \<<else>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/x1.png'><span class='test'>[[4|Scene L]]</span></div> \<</if>> M - 22 \<<if not hasVisited("E1a") || $scenes < 3 || not hasVisited("G1a")>><div>22</div> \<<elseif hasVisited("E1a") && hasVisited("G1a") && $scenes gte 3 && not hasVisited("M1a")>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/c5.png'><span class='test'>[[22|Scene M]]</span></div> \<<elseif hasVisited("M1a") && hasVisited("U2a") && not hasVisited("M2a")>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/c5r.png'><span class='test'>[[22|Scene M]]</span></div> \<<else>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/x2.png'><span class='test'>[[22|Scene M]]</span></div> \<</if>> N - 7 \<<if not hasVisited("E1a")>><div>7</div> \<<elseif hasVisited("E1a") && not hasVisited("N1a")>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/c4.png'><span class='test'>[[7|Scene N]]</span></div> \<<elseif lastVisited("N1c") gte 2 && not hasVisited("N2a")>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/c4r.png'><span class='test'>[[7|Scene N]]</span></div> \<<elseif hasVisited("U2a") && not hasVisited("N3a")>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/c4r.png'><span class='test'>[[7|Scene N]]</span></div> \<<else>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/x3.png'><span class='test'>[[7|Scene N]]</span></div> \<</if>> O - 27 \<<if hasVisited("E1a") && hasVisited("L1a") && $scenes gte 6 && not hasVisited("O1a")>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/c4.png'><span class='test'>[[27|Scene O]]</span></div> \<<elseif hasVisited("O1a")>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/x1.png'><span class='test'>[[27|Scene O]]</span></div> \<<else>> \<div>27</div> \<</if>> P - 10 \<<if not hasVisited("E1a") || not hasVisited("H1a") || not hasVisited("K2a") || not hasVisited("M1a") || not hasVisited("F1a")>><div>10</div> \<<elseif hasVisited("E1a") && hasVisited("H1a") && hasVisited("K2a") && hasVisited("M1a") && hasVisited("F1a") && not hasVisited("P1a")>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/c3.png'><span class='test'>[[10|Scene P]]</span></div> \<<elseif lastVisited("P1d") gte 2 && not hasVisited("P2a")>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/c3r.png'><span class='test'>[[10|Scene P]]</span></div> \<<elseif hasVisited("U2a") && not hasVisited("P3a")>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/c3r.png'><span class='test'>[[10|Scene P]]</span></div> \<<else>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/x1.png'><span class='test'>[[10|Scene P]]</span></div> \<</if>> Q - 12 \<<if not hasVisited("P2a")>><div>12</div> \<<elseif hasVisited("P2a") && not hasVisited("Q1a")>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/c2.png'><span class='test'>[[12|Scene Q]]</span></div> \<<elseif hasVisited("Q1a") && hasVisited("U2a") && not hasVisited("Q2a")>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/c2r.png'><span class='test'>[[12|Scene Q]]</span></div> \<<else>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/x2.png'><span class='test'>[[12|Scene Q]]</span></div> \<</if>> R - 5 \<<if not hasVisited("E1a") || $scenes < 7>><div>5</div> \<<elseif hasVisited("E1a") && $scenes gte 7 && not hasVisited("R1a")>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/c4.png'><span class='test'>[[5|Scene R]]</span></div> \<<elseif hasVisited("R1a") && hasVisited("U2a") && hasVisited("A3a") && not hasVisited("R2a")>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/c4r.png'><span class='test'>[[5|Scene R]]</span></div> \<<else>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/x3.png'><span class='test'>[[5|Scene R]]</span></div> \<</if>> S - 25 \<<if hasVisited("E1a") && $scenes gte 6 && not hasVisited("S1a")>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/c2.png'><span class='test'>[[25|Scene S]]</span></div> \<<elseif hasVisited("S1a")>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/x3.png'><span class='test'>[[25|Scene S]]</span></div> \<<else>> \<div>25</div> \<</if>> T - 17 \<<if not hasVisited("U2a") || not hasVisited("A2a")>><div>17</div> \<<elseif hasVisited("U2a") && hasVisited("A2a")>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/c5r.png'><span class='test'>[[17|Scene T]]</span></div> \<<elseif hasVisited("T1a")>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/x1.png'><span class='test'>[[17|Scene T]]</span></div> \<</if>> U - 20 \<<if not hasVisited("Q1a")>><div>20</div> \<<elseif hasVisited("Q1a") && not hasVisited("U1a")>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/c3.png'><span class='test'>[[20|Scene U]]</span></div> \<<elseif hasVisited("Q1a") && hasVisited("U1a") && not hasVisited("U2a")>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/c3r.png'><span class='test'>[[20|Scene U]]</span></div> \<<else>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/x1.png'><span class='test'>[[20|Scene U]]</span></div> \<</if>> V - 16 \<<if not hasVisited("U2a") || not hasVisited("N2a")>><div>16</div> \<<elseif hasVisited("U2a") && hasVisited("N2a") && not hasVisited("V1a")>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/c2r.png'><span class='test'>[[16|Scene V]]</span></div> \<<elseif hasVisited("V1a")>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/x2.png'><span class='test'>[[16|Scene V]]</span></div> \<</if>> W - 23 \<<if not hasVisited("U2a") || not hasVisited("A3a") || not hasVisited("P3a") || not hasVisited("M2a") || not hasVisited("V1a") || not hasVisited("C3a") || not hasVisited("K2a") || not hasVisited("I2a")>><div>23</div> \<<elseif hasVisited("U2a") && hasVisited("A3a") && hasVisited("P3a") && hasVisited("M2a") && hasVisited("V1a") && hasVisited("C3a") && hasVisited("K2a") && hasVisited("I2a") && not hasVisited("W1a")>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/c4r.png'><span class='test'>[[23|Scene W]]</span></div> \<<elseif hasVisited("W1a")>> \<div class='container'><img class='navs' src='images/c4.png'><span class='test'>[[23|Scene W]]</span></div> \<</if>><<print $scenes>> <table> <tr> <th>January</th> <th>February</th> <th>March</th> <th>April</th> <th>May</th> <th>June</th> </tr> <tr> <td><<link "A1" "calendar">><<set $A1 to true>><</link>> <<if $A1 && $U1>><<link "A2" "calendar">><<set $A2 to true>><</link>><<else>>@@.h;A2@@<</if>></td> <td><<if $A1>><<link "B1" "calendar">><<set $B1 to true>><<set $scene +=1>><</link>><<else>>@@.h;B1@@<</if>> <<if $B1 && $scene >=5>><<link "B2" "calendar">><<set $B2 to true>><</link>><<else>>@@.h;B2@@<</if>> <<if $B1 && $B2 && $O>><<link "B3" "calendar">><</link>><<else>>@@.h;B3@@<</if>></td> <td><<if $scene >= 6>><<link "D" "calendar">><<set $D to true>><</link>><<else>>@@.h;D@@<</if>></td> <td><<if $scene >= 5>><<link "F" "calendar">><<set $scene +=1>><</link>><<else>>@@.h;F@@<</if>></td> <td><<if $E>><<link "H1" "calendar">><<set $scene +=1>><</link>><<else>>@@.h;H1@@<</if>> <<if $H1 && $O>><<link "H2" "calendar">><<set $scene +=1>><</link>><<else>>@@.h;H2@@<</if>></td> <td><<if $scene >= 7>><<link "J" "calendar">><<set $scene +=1>><</link>><<else>>@@.h;J@@<</if>></td> </tr> <tr> <td><<if $W1>><<link "X" "calendar">><<set $X to true>><</link>><<else>>@@.h;X@@<</if>></td> <td><<if $A1>><<link "C1" "calendar">><<set $C1 to true>><<set $scene +=1>><</link>><<else>>@@.h;C1@@<</if>> <<if $C1 && $scene >=3>><<link "C2" "calendar">><<set $C2 to true>><</link>><<else>>@@.h;C2@@<</if>> <<if $C1 && $C2 && $O>><<link "C3" "calendar">><</link>><<else>>@@.h;C3@@<</if>></td> <td><<if $scene >= 1>><<link "E" "calendar">><<set $E to true>><</link>><<else>>@@.h;E@@<</if>></td> <td><<if $E>><<link "G" "calendar">><<set $scene +=1>><</link>><<else>>@@.h;G@@<</if>></td> <td><<if $scene >= 5>><<link "I" "calendar">><<set $scene +=1>><</link>><<else>>@@.h;I@@<</if>></td> <td><<if $scene >= 4>><<link "K1" "calendar">><<set $scene +=1>><</link>><<else>>@@.h;K1@@<</if>>@@.h;K1@@ <<if $K1 && $O>><<link "K2" "calendar">><<set $scene +=1>><</link>><<else>>@@.h;K2@@<</if>></td> </tr> <tr> </tr> <tr> <th>July</th> <th>August</th> <th>September</th> <th>October</th> <th>November</th> <th>December</th> </tr> <tr> <td><<if $scene >= 5>><<link "L" "calendar">><<set $L to true>><</link>><<else>>@@.h;L@@<</if>></td> <td><<if $scene >= 7>><<link "N1" "calendar">><<set $N1 to true>><<set $scene +=1>><</link>><<else>>@@.h;N1@@<</if>> <<if $N1 && $D>><<link "N2" "calendar">><<set $scene +=1>><</link>><<else>>@@.h;N2@@<</if>></td> <td><<if $O>><<link "P1" "calendar">><<set $P1 to true>><</link>><<else>>@@.h;P1@@<</if>> <<if $P1 && $L && $S>><<link "P2" "calendar">><<set $P2 to true>><</link>><<else>>@@.h;P2@@<</if>></td> <td><<if $scene >= 6>><<link "R" "calendar">><<set $scene +=1>><</link>><<else>>@@.h;R@@<</if>></td> <td><<if $P1>><<link "T" "calendar">><<set $scene +=1>><</link>><<else>>@@.h;T@@<</if>></td> <td><<if $O>><<link "V" "calendar">><<set $scene +=1>><</link>><<else>>@@.h;V@@<</if>></td> </tr> <tr> <td><<if $scene >= 4>><<link "M" "calendar">><<set $scene +=1>><</link>><<else>>@@.h;M@@<</if>></td> <td><<if $L && $S>><<link "O" "calendar">><<set $O to true>><</link>><<else>>@@.h;O@@<</if>></td> <td><<if $P2>><<link "Q" "calendar">><<set $Q to true>><</link>><<else>>@@.h;Q@@<</if>></td> <td><<if $scene >= 8>><<link "S" "calendar">><<set $S to true>><</link>><<else>>@@.h;S@@<</if>></td> <td><<if $Q>><<link "U1" "calendar">><<set $U1 to true>><</link>><<else>>@@.h;U1@@<</if>> <<if $A2>>U2<<set $scene +=1>><<else>>@@.h;U2@@<</if>></td> <td><<if $U1>><<link "W1" "calendar">><<set $W1 to true>><</link>><<else>>@@.h;W1@@<</if>> <<if $W1 && $X>><<link "W2" "calendar">><<set $W2 to true>><</link>><<else>>@@.h;W2@@<</if>></td> </tr> </table>