New Story

Mechs (New Marla)

Let’s be real.

I’m a homeless cyborg with no where to go. But honestly, it’s like like my life before was all rosy anyway. My family life wasn’t great. My parents played like they cared, but now that I’m gone… I doubt that they miss me. Them thinking I’m dead probably relieved them of a lot of stress and work I supposed. Obviously I’m not, but that’s the impression people are meant to have. Because the Marla I was is no more. Now I’m some weird human/robot hybrid. The people who created me refer to me as a Mech. I’m a cyborg. It’s fine really in the sense that I am what I am…

But I don’t have a human heart.. and part of my brain is robotic too. Does that mean I’ve lost who I am? Do I even have a soul? Are the emotions and memories I have mine, or the product of these new parts?

I guess if I’m worried about it some part of one of those answers has to be a yes. 

I decided the “program” my re-creators had set up for me was NOT what I was expecting. It bordered on bad guy territory. I am not a spy. I am not a tool for people to use. I never signed a “terms of service” or anything so they can fuck right off.

I bet they’ll try and catch me. And I bet they implanted a tracking device of some sort for that exact purpose. But I’ll keep running as long as I can. 

Sometimes I long for what I used to have. Then I remember that the people in my life that said they cared about me never really showed evidence of it, so why miss them? Why look back at all? 

I want to find somewhere to start over. I’d have to be sure those people aren’t looking for me anymore, but that’s the plan. I’m going to only have people who care in my life… like, actions not just words. 

My home sucked, my family sucked, my life was below average and no matter how hard I pushed to get something better nothing ever changed. When I really think about this is exactly what I needed. Well, the robotics maybe not so much, but a chance to start over… definitely. New Marla can be whoever she wants, and go wherever she likes.

If only I could figure out where I want to go… and know whether or not I’m being tracked. Paranoia is NOT a good feeling. And the New Marla cost those people a pretty penny. I’d be looking for me if I was them. I am pretty impressed with my escape. I guess being mundane the whole time beforehand let them think I was less of a risk. 

The whole time they had me locked up while they worked on me I was just so… depressed. They had me totally jacked on drugs while they did surgery after surgery after surgery. At one point they started adding in anti-depressants because I became so lifeless they worried there would be no point to it all if I was a useless bag of bones. I guess it worked, or helped or whatever…

Because when they were going to transport me to some sort of adult-foster-home situation they let me move unrestricted and I took my chance to run. They were just totally unprepared for it. Apparently a little fresh air perked me up and got me moving. I think I ran for like three hours before I even took a break.

Towards the end they started revealing the plan they had for me and… no. I get to control my life. At least, I hope I do. Honestly I have this fear they’ve got me on remote control and one of these days my heart will just stop. Or I’ll go brain dead. But until then, I’m working on starting over. I at least can try. 

All know is that my feet can keep carrying me, and I’m never going back. To my old life, or to those people. I’ll find a place where I belong, and people don’t pretend to be one thing and are really some other thing. Which is ironic, of course because I’ll probably have to lie my ass off to fit in anywhere. Who would accept a girl who looks harmless and is really cyborg monster? 

I guess I’ll see when I get… wherever I’m going. 

I can’t wait to have a roof over my head, and a bed to sleep in every night. It sounds dumb but right now I miss those little things the most. I mean, let’s be real. Sleeping in the woods and eating handouts from shelters or out of dumpsters is pretty low. 

It can only go up from here, right?

Mechs (The First)

Picture this.

A girl, about 20 years old. Not too tall, about average. Hair above shoulders, with the underside layers dyed a bright blue in contrast to the natural mousy brown. Eyes, friendly and also brown, with a just a little makeup, very “low maintenance” as they would say.

Clothes are more complicated. Layers. Lots of them. Purple and black striped tights under knee high socks under knee high boots. A black mini skirt, but not one that says anything promiscuous. Long sleeved black tee, under a short sleeved red tee, under a hand-detailed vest. An AWESOME vest (in my opinion). Denim, I think that was originally a jacket, with hand-attached studs and patches. Nothing too punk rock but very “my own” kind of style. A brown, worn purse slung over the shoulder and across the chest, mostly holding a wallet that takes up most of the space inside. Probably also some gum, and keys. She’s only carrying a plastic Walgreen’s bag, that has a fresh tube of mascara and a bottle of iced tea. No fancy jewelry, no cell phone.

That is what I looked like just before my accident. Now picture this. A girl, about 21, in a hospital gown in a plain room, alone. I don’t know what happened to my things, or if anyone knows I’m here. But they say I am the first subject and therefore the most important. So, even though I am almost fully healed, they are hesitant to release me.

My hair is longer, and the blue has grown out. I haven’t really seen myself in a mirror much, but I’m sure I look different than I remember.

They did tell me eventually what happened to the girl I first described. An asshole riding his bike on the sidewalk going WAY too fast knocked me into the street. They say no one ever identified him. I think maybe it’s becasue these people were involved…. but I won’t ever tell them that. As a person might do, my arms automatically went out to catch my fall, and were driven over. By a delivery truck something with big tires and LOTS of weight.

The new version of me has been given replacements. I was also given another “add-on” as they have been referred to, and they won’t give me a straight answer as to whether it was necessary or not. One ear was re-shaped (I can believe I hit the road hard enough for that) but they also enhanced my hearing. Like, A LOT. I’m pretty sure they sound-proofed my room shortly after they activated the hearing adjustments becasue The room looked… smaller when they brought me back from physical therapy one day. That and I couldn’t hear what was happening in the other rooms and halls anymore.

So, that’s who I was, and this is who I am. Both versions are mostly me, but the new version scares me a little. The new arms are harder to control. I hurt someone when they first let me try them out. Now I’ve had them a while and am better at controlling them. I could probably punch a hole in a concrete wall if I wanted to.

Lately I’ve been asking if they will let me go like they promised they would, and I wish they would just be honest. If they aren’t going to, I want to know. If they are… well… then I want to go! I’m sure if they do, I’ll be monitored all the time, but at least I won’t feel like a caged animal. They said I would have bled to death if they hadn’t helped me. And even if I hadn’t bled out, I would not have been given new arms like these…

They did say, I could have a haircut and some normal clothes to leave in. I don’t know if that means my old ones, if they survived, and I don’t even know that they’d fit… I’ll probably go through some whole internal crisis redefining myself when I do get out of here. Wouldn’t anyone? Girl is normal one minute, and the next is being rehabilitated after being in a gruesome accident and being given new awesome robotic arms?

I mean… I’m part robot now. That’s super weird. I bet I’ll be able to arm wrestle the crap out of anyone! But I shouldn’t abuse them… You know, like Uncle Ben said in Spiderman, “With great power comes great responsibility.” So… I gotta be responsible. 

Mechs (About to Begin)

My people skills have paid off. Maybe it was a fluke. Today my “mechanics” (that’s what I’ve dubbed them) didn’t come in as a team per usual. Today it was just one. 

I got him to talk. First time they’ve said anything to me beyond procedural words.

His name is Michael, and he doesn’t seem happy. He’s good at what he does, but I don’t think he liked the job. He told me that just like they can’t tell me anything, they can’t tell anyone outside of here anything either. 

He told me if I leave (if, not when… I noticed that) then I’ll understand the burden of this secrecy. He told me the company, whose name he still won’t reveal, has a cover. It’s very covert. I wonder if he even knows the real name of this operation.

Michael even spilled that this place I’m in, that I’ve been brought to to be given new eyes, isn’t the only one. There are places all over the world doing this exact same thing. And by exact same thing I mean this:

These people take injured, or in my case disabled people, without anyone’s consent, and basically kidnap them. They bring the chosen people to a nameless, hidden facility, and without choice are given new parts. But not donated parts from live people. The parts are mechanical. I am becoming a cyborg.

I will have, supposedly, eyes that work when they are done. But special ones. Eyes that see further and see more detail. It’ll be like having a superhero ability. 

Most of me is angry, and scared. I never asked for this, I have lived my whole life blind, and that’s the life I am accustomed to. They took me right off the street. I was on my way to see a friend (who I can only imagine was left confused and hopefully concerned for me) and just walking down the street when I hear a van door slide open, and then… they just grabbed me. They covered my mouth before I could even begin to scream. Of course there was no way for me to see them coming, but I still blame myself for not paying more attention that day. I could have HEARD something. 

I was never told where we were going, why they took me, or any other defining information. I didn’t hear them talk at all until they were strapping me to a bed to begin their testing. But they only said things like “lay still” or threaten sedatives. If I was uncooperative they would drug me. I’ve lost track of how many times they have drugged me now, and tend to just go along with it instead. What point is there in fighting it?

I managed to get my “friend” Michael to tell me other thigns too. Mostly he just got comfortable chatting and spilled the beans on a few things. 

There was most certainly a reason they chose me (although he didn’t know what it was), as there was for each candidate. In fact, they chose so carefully almost no one was rejected from the procedure. And it wasn’t just blind people. Apparently my friend had seen others get converted to less-than-human status and I was the first blind man he saw. A lady with new feet and legs. A man with multiple injuries being repaired in another location right now, who had been hurt very badly in a factory accident (though part of me wonders how much of an “accident” it was… if they research their patients first). A woman who had been released after a successful addition of new hands. 

I’m not sure if knowing I wasn’t alone in this was comforting or scary. And then I couldn’t stop thinking about those people. They were… the only others who would ever understand what I was going through. Two had even come out of this successfully! Should I be excited? Is there actually a chance that implanting all these robotics in might be successful and wont kill me? 

It seemed that the befriended employee’s chatter only left me with more questions. I was so unsettled, he must have seen it on my face. He clammed up after that and sadly, Michael was never one of my mechanics again. 

Surely, there are cameras that monitor me. Surely, someone saw him talk. My only “friend” here lasted about fifteen minutes, but at least it happened. He did say in there somewhere that it wouldn’t be much longer until they would ask me to test out my new eyes. I should be excited. That little part of me that wasn’t angry… was hopeful.

I might see. For the first time.

Mechs (Already Begun)

Sliding into bed, next to the only man I will ever truly love, I become his little spoon and try to relax. Somehow I have managed to keep my secret from him. And I hate secrets. Aside from this one little… one HUGE secret… there is nothing hidden between us. 

Hearing him breathe, almost in my ear, I try to calm and clear my mind. But mostly I just grateful he was already asleep when the spasm hit. 

It’s amazing and so fortunate how he is never with me when these things happen. My fingers start moving independently of me and it’s horrifying. It should be less scary since while they are attached to my body, they are not my own. But it is.

It is the most bizarre thing ever to watch the robotic fingers on the robotic hands attached to my totally normal body just… freak out.

I’ll have to call… those people… in the morning. They said after the last time to call right away but I’m exhausted and don’t want Paul to find out. I’ll have to call in to work again, and go see them about it. 

“Them”. How stupid is that? I’ve been the product of their work for over a year now, been implanted with their robotics, and I still don’t even know what to call them. It’s THEIR fault I have to keep this secret. Well, that and it would freak people out. But they always come get me in some blacked-out vehicle, and all I have is a card with the contact number for situations like this.

More than my worry about the spasm (they do that sometimes but not often), I worry about Paul. How long can I keep up this lie? That i’m the ordinary girl he fell in love with? The one I pretend to be?

Sure, the rest of who I am is me. But having robotic hands is a pretty big deal to most people I’d assume…. it still blows my mind sometimes. 

And… it’s either this, or no hands at all. I AM grateful. I am. But all this hush around it. It’s hard to maintain and what if they DO spasm in front of someone? What if they revel themselves regardless of how well I hide the truth?

I even sometimes pretend to need Paul to open jars. Which is RIDICULOUS. I could pull the layers of a penny apart if I wanted to. 

And he always says, “Anna, what would you do without me?” 

Inside I know I couldn’t live without him and that question makes me panic, but only becasue I’m hiding such a massive thing. But outside I smile and shrug, and thank him for opening a stupid jar that was actually no challenge at all for me. It’s all those little things. I have to remember to pretend my hand have regular dexterity and strength. I can’t type too fast at work, or write to neatly. My writing is literally at robotic level neatness. And it looks like it. So mostly I prefer to type, and focus on slowing it down. I do about 65-70 words per minute as far as people know. I could probably do 200-220 if my brain could think as fast as my fingers can move.

But work is easier, I’m under the radar there. At home, with Paul… 

I just can’t lose him.

Do I think he would leave me if I revealed my secret? That I’m actually part robot, technically a cyborg altered after my hands were crushed, by people I can’t name? What would be a bigger deal to him- the cyborg thing, or the fact that I kept it from him? 

As I curl closer against him, I almost start to cry. Though the spasm don’t hurt, as my hands (thought they have censors for touch) aren’t real and the robotics aren’t set up that way, I am in pain. The pain of lying. The pain of paranoia. The pain of not knowing what happens when all this, at least in my mind, comes crushing down around me. No secret stays secret forever. 

When, just like my real hands have gone… will he?

Mechs (Another One Begins)

I don’t know where I am. 

Who are these people?

The last thing I can remember is… working. The factory line… just another day.

Wait, no. Something went wrong. The assembly line… something… I just can’t piece anything else together. 

These people, whoever they are, have me so sedated I bet that’s why I’m so foggy. But  when I ask them what happened, they pretend I’ve said nothing. And I’m almost incapacitated. My legs are free to move, but both arms are in massive combination cast-and-restraint type contraptions. I fear the worst but try to let myself fall back to sleep when I get too far into terror over what might have happened… 

At one point, I tried to figure out how long I’ve been in this place. But nothing changes and the people that are caring for me reveal nothing. 

I say “this place” becasue it may seem like a hospital in it’s essence, but it feels must more like a laboratory. On occasion I pretend to be asleep when they (whoever they are) come in to check on things. They always come in pairs and sometimes they chatter if they think I’m not listening. But the bits and pieces mostly end up sounding like jargon, either medical or scientific.

What I have managed to piece together is that something happened… something bad. I assume becasue my last memory was at work that it happened there. And that these people are “helping” me recover. 

But if they are helping me, why will they tell me nothing? Why am I left to lay here confused and tied down? 

I admit I am somewhat scared. This place, and everything in it is void of labels. There is not a hint of company or identifier on anything that might help me conclude anything as to where I am. 

It was all of a sudden, just yesterday (or what feels like the previous day), that I remembered my family. My mother and father, my brother… what must they be thinking now? Are they aware of my situation? Are the worried for me? If it’s the latter, my poor mother must be so sick with grief, and confusion. She was always nosy, and to have no inkling of where I am… and have been… for all this time… 

When I remembered them I cried twice. Once for shame of forgetting them, although now I realize that could not be helped under the heavy sedation, and a second time for the emptiness of being without them. 

I miss them so much. I miss doing my job, feeling productive, helping provide for my family. What had happened while I was at work??

I try when the energy is there, to bring back to the front of my mind the event that last took place there. I try… but it’s lost to me for now. I promise myself that when I am free of the heavy dosage I am trapped under, this heavy blanket on my brain, I will remember. But my curiosity get the better of me and I am wanting SO BADLY to know. Part of me imagines that when I do finally recall the even that led to this… I will immediately want to un-know it.

And what of my home? I am thankful I have no pets, or plants or anything that would have been left unattended. That is, of course, aside from my bills. And that is a subject I have no energy for at all.

Some days I feel a sudden burst of energy and thrash against the binds that hold my arms in place. People rush in to calm me, but they come smiling as if pleased. I have no idea what that means, but it definitely means something. 

If I have learned anything from my time in this unlabeled prison I am in, it is to ignore when my nose itches. When one has no access to their hands to itch with, that annoyance becomes a thing to focus on. I will myself to ignore the itch… and now I only recognize it as a thing that happens, and passes with time. 

When will I know something? When will they tell me something? Anything? Will they keep me sedated like this, fogged into a stupor forever? Surely they can’t. 

This… experiment… or whatever it may be… can’t last forever. Can it?

I long for answers when my brain allows for longing.

At this point, any answer would suffice.

Mechs (The beginning)

Today is a day I wish I had friends.  

I supposed I wish for this every day, but today especially. It has been years since I have had a real group of true friends. Mostly I am alone now. Things are… different than they used to be. 

Of course, I am different than I used to be. I used to be human…

Today marks the first time I tried out my “new self” in the sun. Nothing over heated, or felt lunky or slow afterward, and I am so grateful. Winter was concerning enough with snow and sleet and puddles and drifts… “mechs” are meant to lope around in those conditions. Even with boots and a coat and scarf and gloves… it was challenging. The cold seemed to tighten me up more than today’s heat. So maybe I need to move somewhere warmer.

All I can feel today is lonely though. Usually spring is when flowers bloom and weather turns more bearable and people shed their layers to enjoy the sun together. While I did have a while to enjoy the sun, it wasn’t nearly as enjoyable as it would have been with friends. My only friend today was the book I am reading.

It’s amazing that last year I could think about swimming with no worry, or dousing myself with a hose to cool off without care. Now, water causes worry. 

I know, they told me “it shouldn’t be a problem” but the words “shouldn’t” and “isn’t” ar two completely different things. This fake, ultra-realistic skin like stuff I have on my feet and most of my legs is believable enough to wear shorts, or even a swimsuit. It even colors to match my skin if the rest of me tans. Pretty impressive… yet I still worry.

Sure, I no longer need to stretch very much before exercise, I don’t have cramps in my legs and feet as I used to, and the injury I would have had forever is gone. But…

This isn’t how I would have wanted it. I would have preferred to just deal with the pain. LIKE A NORMAL PERSON.

Normal. There’s something I’ll never be again. Part human, part machine… cyborg isn’t like hair color or favorite food. Not so easy to bring up in conversation. Doesn’t quite slide off the tongue. Doesn’t mesh with what people currently find not totally freaking weird and or scary. 

I’m NOT scary. It’s just my legs. The rest of me, aside from a small implant near my heart that regulates the interface between real me and machine me, is all human. But that’s not what people would hear. So… I avoid people mostly. 

I do want friends. But after the time spent in isolation, under sedation while I was “altered” I not only have forgotten how to make them, I’ve also no idea who I am to even introduce myself. 

“Hi, I’m Stella. I was in a facility for the last three years having mechanical legs attached to my deformed self after an accident, but don’t think of me as ‘cyborg’ think of me as ‘friend’.”

Right.

Part of me wished I would have just died in that accident. I know that’s a shit way of looking at things. I should be grateful someone found me. I should be grateful the hospital stabilized me and replaced the blood I lost after that truck took off one foot completely and wrecked the other one permanently. I SHOULD be grateful I’m not stuck in a wheelchair after all that happened. 

Well, I’m not right now. And I think it’s becasue I’m so lonely. What good is being brought back to health… and then past that to super-human level… if you’ve got no one to be with?

I can walk, I have a home in a place that is currently experiencing beautiful sunny weather, I have the other things I need…

But like most things, I think being alone ruins any sweet deal. My heart aches for someone to talk to. That’s it. No deep need, no complicated situation, no crazy demand. Just a friend to confide in. Someone to call when I worry about my parts acting up. And for regular stuff too. Everyone has bad days, even “mechs”. 

Or, I assume. I am told there are others like me. Maybe not with replaced legs, but other replaced parts. They DO exist. I am NOT the only freak like myself in the world. But as I don’t know any of them… that knowledge does me no good.

Tomorrow I go in for a tune up, or check up, or whatever you call it when people come and take you to a secret facility and make sure your high-end replacement legs aren’t breaking down and are still in tip-top condition. I used to hate those trips, I felt awful about all of it… but now even being blindfolded or sitting in a blacked-out car doesn’t bother me. And there’s only one reason why.

I get to spend a day with other people. They definitely ARE NOT my friends. But they know me now, and I can at least talk to them. You know, let off some steam. They don’t mind, and I honestly don’t really know if they even really listen.

But today, I wish I had friends.

Unseen to the End

When Annie took the invisibility pills, she thought it would just be a few days of totally screwing with people, sneaking up on those she wanted to hear with out being noticed… the usual idea people tend to have.The added side effect of being noiseless would only up the hilarity. She thought it would be a romp, some fun, some stealth… enjoy being unseen for a few days then it would wear off and life would go back to normal. 

But she was wrong. The experimental pills did NOT wear off, and after weeks of being lost by the eyes of everyone… she became depressed. When she tried to move things to make noise  or write notes to reach out for help, people panicked and thought it was a trick, or something supernatural. No one ever came to the conclusion is was her asking to be recognized.

It was her own fault. The day she had popped the pills she “cleverly” wrote a note to be found saying she was going on a trip, returning days later. Only she never returned as far as anyone was concerned, and she had told no one of the experimental pill trail she had joined to get some extra cash. 

Thinking of her previously wanting the extra money and how she thought it’d be so much fun made her ache. She had become lost in being invisible, and was sure the drug (whatever it was) was starting to have side effects. She couldn’t even contact the drug company for help, since the building was motion accessed and she couldn’t make a call with no voice to be heard.

Despair began to sink in. This was the worst kind of isolation. Her thoughts became circular, spinning on what happened if the faulty medication never wore off. What would she do? She couldn’t go to work, so she’d run out of money. And she couldn’t go to the grocery store without completely freaking out anyone who saw her not there, and a floating basket or self-propelled cart moving through the store, random things coming  up off the shelves of their own volition. Not that she was eating much anyway. Her sadness had swallowed her appetite. She felt as the weeks went on that surely she was shrinking away into nothingness, but had no way of really knowing with no reflection.

Shouldn’t the drug company have sent someone around at this point? Didn’t someone have enough concern for her absence to come searching for her? Did anyone care or notice that she had been gone at least two months with no (noticed) contact?

Annie knew she would have to accept this new state of living somehow, or sink into a sadness so deep it would be the end of her. She tried to form a plan.

She started doing surveys and things online that required only typing to earn money. It wasn’t much, but it was income. She found a grocery delivery service and always left the door unlocked with a note saying “Just stepped out, please leave the food inside the door.” And she forced herself to get out. She went for walks in places she knew, but avoided them at times she might see someone she knew. Seeing anyone who she knew would look right through her was too painful. 

She occasionally walked past the office of the drug company, hoping to happen to be there right as someone else was entering and shimmy past them to gain entry. But she never saw anyone. 

Until one day, fed up with being in her house, she went by again. No one was trying to gain access to the building, but there were two men who looked vaguely familiar talking in the parking lot. When she overheard a snip of their conversation, she moved closer and listened in horror.

The two men discussed, in rising panic, how none of the trail participants had ever returned to report on the experience. They seemed concerned about the trouble they themselves, and the company would be in if anyone found out and one mentioned the possibility of the company shutting down or simply relocating to begin again. They spoke about how only after the fact did the scientists involved realize that a gene found in humans, not found in the lab animals they previously tested on, attached to the drug, possibly permanently preventing it wearing off. As if the human body adapted to the chemicals and made them apart of it’s biology. 

Annie felt sick, and couldn’t take hearing anymore. She ran away, barely seeing through her tears. She shoved confused people on the sidewalks out of the way, no longer caring who she effected. Her anguish was so great, it overwhelmed her. She ran, and ran, so lost in the darkness that was filling her she never realized she had ran out into the street and was hit by an oncoming truck who of course, never saw her.

The accident baffled the police until one officer tripped and fell over her invisible body. Annie’s death was the beginning of the saving everyone else who took the drug. It was weeks before it was even put together enough to investigate the drug company, but it did happen. After days of confusion, eventually someone figured to try and print the seemingly unseeable person that wrecked a truck and caused a pileup. 

Her prints revealed her identity, and after the police found her home, slowly the pieces began to come together. Sadly, by this time the company had relocated, and became in the not so literal sense invisible as well. But word was sent out to the masses for any other people also stranded in invisibility to come forward. They were offered help, and a facility to stay in where they could be monitored and at least seen by heat sensors while a cure was developed. 

Those people eventually got their visibility back. And despite that, they knew it would have never happened if not for Annie. Her death, the situation that lead to it, and her story were shared all over the world, in hopes that if that drug company ever surfaced again, the story would never repeat itself. 

Of the news, and the memorial for her, and the person to person talk to fluttered around, one thing was always the most important to be shared.

You never know when is the last time you’ll see someone.

Find a Penny

Penny had been running for so long, her feet had no feeling. It was as if they were only moving her forward becasue like her legs she willed them to. She didn’t want to look down, she knew the bushes she had run through earlier were covered in barbs and she didn’t want to see the blood.

It wasn’t so much the sight of blood in general that made her sick, it was her own. But Penny couldn’t think about that. She had to simply keep moving. She hoped the cheap shoes she had managed to scrounge up money for earlier that week would hold up…

She could still hear them behind her. She knew it was wrong to steal, but she had been so hungry. The meal had clearly been abandoned by it’s purchaser and would have been thrown away anyway. But still, it was stealing. She was almost as upset about having stolen as she was about being chased. About being in this situation in the first place.

How has it come to this?

It would sound ridiculous to others, but it was a string of those “one thing after another” sort of events.

Penny had only innocently purchased a parka at the thrift store. How was she supposed to know the donater had left something very important in it? Furthermore, how was she supposed to know that they were trying to get it back and not totally stalking her? Even more so, how could Penny have known that the item that she threw out with the other “trash” she pulled from the pockets would end up leading her here? 

She couldn’t get it back. The trash can in the subway station surely had been cleared by now. Her one cornered confrontation with the henchman-type guy who informed her of her predicament made it clear “sorry” wouldn’t cut it. The worst of it all was that he refused to tell her what exactly it was that was lost. It was definitely small, it had been balled up inside a page of newsprint when she discarded it. And usually tiny important things aren’t easily replaced.

Not that Penny had any money anyway. She had bought her only winter coat on sale at a thrift store for christ’s sake. 

She thought about all of this as she forced herself forward. What was there even to do besides that?

The forest she was running through begin to thin, and at last there were no more briers pulling at her legs. It was the first bit of relief she had felt since this all started. She tried to breathe more quietly as she moved toward what looked like a clearing, in case there was someone ahead.

It was ironic  perfect timing, her being quiet, despite adding to her breathlessness. In that few seconds of quietness (aside from her footfall) she heard the men she thought might be ahead where there, unfortunately, her running speed prevented her from having the time to register their presence before she stumbled into their camp circle  right at what looked like dinner time.

Afterthoughts of Innocence

The note I left behind when I left my home for the last time today read as follows:

I am a murderer. I accept that. I never would have seen myself doing something so awful, and I’m sorry to those I have let down. This is my goodbye.

Look, I can’t justify what I did aside from saying one thing. While I know it wasn’t technically self defense, I was defending my sanity. If there’s any left. I know he was watching me from his window, I know he was stalking me. That man needed to be stopped. I just got to him, before he got to me. Does that make it right? No… But if you go to his house and look around, I guarantee you will find evidence I am not out of my mind. I hope. I would go look myself but I am so shaken from what I have done, I can’t. 

I left him where he fell, and I’m leaving. I hope there is at least understanding that I am just a girl defending myself… but I can’t risk betting on hope.

Sure, it doesn’t make me look good, but it’s honest. And maybe if I am never caught, those who knew me won’t hold my memory in an ugly light. Not that it matters much, I won’t ever be able to see them again. Because now that I’m running… I can’t go back. Ever.

Unless of course I can change my identity somehow completely, or just accept a life in prison. And I don’t see either one of those as possible. Sure, I’ll have to survive under an alias from now on, but going back where people would recognize my face in a moment is impossible. So, I’m going. I left a few things behind for my loved ones, hoping they forgive me, hidden among my junk I had to for the most part leave behind. I hope they find it when they go to get rid of it all…

But I won’t miss much of it. Aside from my bed maybe, or my photo albums, and my books… but most of it is replaceable. I packed my car with the things I would need, and emptied my bank account. That made my leaving feel very final. Weird how money has that effect.

I’ve been driving for several hours now, just straight north. My plan is to get to another state by the time I need to stop for sleep. I don’t really have a plan for where I’m headed… but I didn’t have a plan for what led to this either. Sometimes, you just have to go with what makes sense, and not getting caught is one of those things  We’ll see how successful I am with this. I’ve never in my life full out run away from anything like this. At least, geographically. 

I can’t stop thinking about all of it. I had been terrified of my neighbor since he moved in. No one seemed to believe he was watching me, but he was. He had that “harmless” thing going on, and that’s what people thought of him. And when he came to my door this morning, that was it. I only ever swung that bat I kept by the door once. That was all it took. I guess in certain situations you don’t even know your own strength.

I hope they do go through his house, becasue I know there’s gotta be something there to prove me right. I hope they find something that makes them totally feel bad for not helping before it came to this… turning a non-violent, peace loving girl like me into a killer.

But at this point, none of that really matters. Unless I get caught…

Becca Running

She could hear them drawing closer, their voices getting louder as they approached the alley she had darted into. She knew it was dumb to hide in an alley with only one way in and out, but she could feel her legs starting to give, and needed time to rest. At least she was small, and could hide more easily than others could. It was a seriously wonderful coincidence that someone had wrecked a car into the back of the alley ages before, giving her somewhere to shimmy behind and disappear.

They were smart, whoever they were, and she knew this when they grew quiet as they entered the dirty, trash strewn alley. Dumb thugs would just taunt, and yell at their prey. These guys, whoever they were, knew better. They made their way toward the crashed car slowly, looking around for signs of her.

Knowing she had yet to silence her strained, heavy breathing, she pulled her sleeve over her mouth in attempts to at least muffle it. Through a space in the door of the heap, she could see them. If they didn’t approach the wreck at the same time, she might have a chance to dart between them and get away. But if they boxed her in, there was no chance. She was exhausted  and afraid, and knew her evasion skills were almost non-existent. She was amazed she had made it this far.

The bigger of the two, if one was even bigger, was almost to her. If he tried to pry the rusted door open, he would see her. And even if she was so wedged in that he couldn’t pull her out, he had a gun. She tried to be tiny, and silent…

and her phone vibrated. It didn’t matter that it was set to silent. The movement of her phone in her pocket took her so off guard she gasped, and she knew he heard. There was no stealth now. The bigger one called out to the slightly smaller one and they both pointed their guns at her hiding place.

Becca closed her eyes and braced for the inevitable, but then opened them again when she heard someone far away- probably at the mouth of the alley- yell at them. What could that person be thinking? Did it matter? She might actually have a chance to escape now! She peered through the space and saw them moving back toward the other direction. They were yelling at the mystery person, but since she didn’t speak the language they had spoken (screamed) at her she never had a clue what they were saying.

For the tenth time in the last fifteen minutes she told herself she would never travel to a country that didn’t speak English unless she knew their language again. IF there was a chance to have an again. She listened in amazement as the person was clearly taunting them, laughed outright, and took off back down the street in the direction she had come from. She may have been petrified but not so much to keep her from getting the hell out of there in a hurry. She jutted upright, and climbed back through the window the way she had come in, but got stuck.

Those thugs (or whoever they were) might have left for the moment but they way they had pursued her, there was no way they had completely given up. She knew this, and started frantically to un-wedge her shoe from the space it had gotten lodged in. It seemed like the harder she pulled, the more stuck it became and she knew the easy thing to do was to slip the shoe off her foot and just go. But how far could she run in one shoe? 

She decided to find out. After untying her laces and sliding her foot out, she said a goodbye to the shoe (she loved those sneakers…) and made a run for it. It was clear the best option was to turn the opposite direction from where those men went, and she did just that. It was a little weird and off-balance, but she managed a decent speed, glancing back to see if they had given up on that stranger and come back for her. 

She realized she was just turning corners now, and not paying attention to where she was headed. But, it suddenly stopped mattering when a door on a storefront flew open, and an arm reached out and pulled Becca off the street. Standing in almost complete darkness, panting, with one foot exposed and hurting, Becca just waited. She had run out of processing ability and had no idea what had happened. 

Of course her surprise was overwhelming when a light was finally turned on and she saw the person who had pulled her off the street. It was a girl, just her age. They could have almost been twins. And from the apologetic look on the stranger’s face, she finally had an idea as to why she was being chased by men with guns in a country she had never been to before. They had mistaken her for… whoever this was.

But who was she?

The Ninja and The Brute

Running, always running. 

I can’t even remember what it’s like to casually walk somewhere. I am impressed with my own ability to move silently these days though. Who knew a klutz like me could be  so graceful? Turns out it only took an onslaught of zombies to get me there.

Yea, zombies. Honestly despite how ridiculous it is to even say it, not too many people were surprised. The way chemical warfare was advancing, some people even anticipated it, and were actually prepared for it. I wasn’t, but at least I wasn’t in denial like so many of the older people… they were the first to go of course. And thanks to cinema and video games most older kids and teens were hardly freaked out at all. 

It’s amazing how quickly a normally non-violent teenage girl will go to wielding a shotgun or ax and destroying zombies on a regular basis. That’s my little sister. Wendy is fifteen and while I’ve become more agile and silent, she’s become a tiny, adorable zombie killer. She calls us The Ninja and The Brute. It’s pretty accurate. Trish the nineteen year old ninja, and her sidekick Wendy the brute. Of course, Wendy would say I’m the sidekick, in traditional sister fashion.

Some things never change, not even after a zombie breakout. Not ever after most of the people you know have either died or disappeared. I hold onto those things. Like our banter, just as hilarious and obnoxious as ever. She might be the only thread keeping me attached to whatever normality is now. I definitely wouldn’t have stayed alive this long without her. 

It hasn’t been just the two of us this whole time, but in the eight months since this all began, no one else has stayed… alive. There was Bill, who was my neighbor and  stuck with us for a solid three months at the beginning. But he found out his girlfriend was a zombie when she attacked us on a grocery run and couldn’t bring himself to kill her. There was Marcy, a girl from Wendy’s school who found us after her entire family was destroyed in a fire that was meant to take out a group of zombies. She was with us two days. That was so sad. Wendy was upset for weeks, blaming herself. Honestly I think watching her friend die was what hardened her into the brute she now is. 

I try to see the positive. Like, at least I’m not alone. At least my one companion is my sister who I love very much. Of course that will make it all that much harder if something would happen to one of us… but I try not to think about that. We’ve done remarkably well so far. Considering I used to be a shy, uncoordinated, easily intimidated almost-adult and Wendy was a non-violent, tree hugging, save-the-earth kinda sweetheart you’d never guess to wield weapons young teenager. The other groups we’ve crossed paths with even briefly were mostly just guys. 

In the stereotypical way, men shied away from zombie slaying less than women do, and I guess have seen more zombie flicks so they had more survival skills to start off with. But we were smart. As soon as the metaphorical dust settled after the initial outbreak, we started raiding our surrounding area, stocking up on food and weapons and trying to figure out a plan.

Our plan has been rewritten so many times I’ve lost count, but each amendment to it has worked out. After our parents… turned… we realized we needed to get away from our own town. We just didn’t want to have to kill anyone else we knew. It was so hard, knowing that the face of the thing that was attacking you used to belong to someone you cared about. The easy solution was to just go away from the place where that was possible. But that meant moving into unknown terrain, and that was a big downside.

But we did anyway. We found the biggest car with the best gas mileage we could, loaded it with gas, food, and our defenses, and drove. People we had met mentioned things they had heard in regards to a “safe zone” but it was never the same place. Some said go North, some said get off the main land, some said West… so we had to choose for ourselves. And since we knew the fewest people on the West Coast, we went that way.

Technically, we’re still going that way. It’s slow going. Trying to keep ourselves fed, watered, and keeping fuel in our car… it wasn’t easy. And we weren’t noticing any increase or decrease in the zombie population so we have no way of knowing if we made the right call.

So, here we are. Somewhere in Kansas. Because of all the farms there’s less bodies around, but every time we get near a town again there seems to be more people (living or otherwise) than in some regular, non-farming areas. Almost like a lot of people thought coming out to the boons was a good idea and it clearly turned out not to be. I don’t know what their plans were, but it seems like most people just didn’t have much of one.

One thing is always at the front of my mind, and while Wendy doesn’t really care (“it doesn’t make any difference,” she keeps saying) I need to know. It’s a simple one too. 

Why? Why did this happen? I know that knowing the answer to that won’t bring anyone back that we’ve lost, but I’m an answers person. The news stopped airing before anyone knew to tell the masses, but SOMEONE has to know. And since I feel like it’s harder to keep moving forward without a goal, that’s mine. I am really only trying to do two things. Keep my sister and myself alive, and find out what caused the zombies. Maybe knowing could keep us from becoming one, or help us save others before they turn.

I believe whoever created the cause of it all, has a cure. Or, had a cure. I don’t know how prepared they were for all of this. It went from a single incident to so many, SO fast. Who knows who at the center of this is even still alive… but I’m going to try and find out. Because if stay still for too long, or lose motivation to keep running (and killing) it’s over. And as long as I have my sister to take care of, I can’t even think like that.

Mara, changing.

“Write about love,” they said. “Write what you know!”

Well, those are two completely different things, thought Mara. She knew a lot of things, a huge vast amount of things, actually. But love, it wasn’t one of them. Sure, a younger her had thought she had been in love, but the current her knew those feelings were just infatuation. Which was fine, but didn’t leave her with any experience to draw from. So if she couldn’t write about love, what did she know to write about? 

Mara had lived her whole life in the same town. She had known most to he people in her life the entirety of her life. The adults associated with her parents, or education, or stores in town were all the same. The kids she grew up with, were still for the most part still the people she knew, just older. The town itself, had grown a little on it’s outskirts, but mostly had stayed pretty much the same. And thinking of all this sameness made Mara realize something. She didn’t know change. But change made for good stories. 

The sudden realization that hit Mara square in the face was a simple one. Something in her life would have to change, so she would know it well enough to write it. But what to change? She had become so familiar with a life that stayed the same, anything major would be scary. But change was scary… wasn’t it? It was more obvious that she would liked to have recognized, but she recognized it nonetheless. 

Mara would never make it as a writer in this small, never changing town. That’s what all this deep thought was about, being a writer. There was only one answer to this, she would have to leave. She would have to strike away from home. People who did leave her town usually spent their whole lives planning for it. Mara refused this direction of attack and decided within the month, she would be going. Going where, wasn’t really the point, it was the choice that mattered. And it has been made.

Ok, now that I’m leaving is DOES matter where I go… so where do I go? She thought, walking through her neighborhood trying to memorize the things she might never see again. Nothing came to mind. Major cities seemed off putting. L.A. was so… flashy. And New York was too crowded. Chicago had so much crime. Where does a girl form the middle go when she strikes out?

Later Mara was at home, checking her email, and Tumblr, and YouTube subscriptions, like she did everyday. She hoped desperately to come to some amazing idea from something she saw. Nothing was working. Then, super randomly, she typed in “travel” on all her favorite sites. On Tumblr she saw a lot of amazing photography, and stories about cool far away places, but then she saw it.

A post by one of her favorite bloggers. He was a writer, like her, and lived in Canada. He was responding to a question from another fan of his, asking how he felt about meeting… well.. fans. He said he loved it. He said, that if anyone ever came to his town, he would gladly sit down and have coffee with them. Well, that’s as good a reason to go somewhere as any. And since I have no other ideas… Canada it is!

Mara was so relieved to have picked a place to go, she spent the rest of the night excited, ignoring the planning that was involved. Mostly it was packing, mapping a route, and most importantly, telling everyone she knew goodbye. That last one was super unappetizing  so she planned only to do this with her family, and her best friends, the night before she left. Maybe even the morning of.

Mara packed over the next week, broke it to her parents when they asked what she was doing, and made sure to tell them she’d be back… eventually. She made sure not to define when that would be, or if it meant for a visit or to live there again. No telling what her distraught mother would do to keep her there. Thank goodness her father understood, and calmed her mother. The night before came, a Friday  She gathered her few closest friends together and broke the news. Mostly they were excited. Good Enough, she thought when she was lying in bed for the last time. She intentionally took some over the country pills to help herself sleep, knowing her excitement would be too much otherwise and she’d be awake the entire night worried and excited and freaking out a little.

The morning of, as she was putting the last of her things in her hatchback, her mother tried one last time to get her to stay. As much as she loved her mother, she said no, she had to go. She hugged her parents tight, climbed in her little car, and drove away from all she knew, and towards the biggest question mark she had ever put intentionally in her own way. She hoped desperately for just a couple things.

One, was to make it to border, then her actual destination without getting lost. Two, was to learn at least to write what she knew better, if not to write about love too.

Teenage Me Gets All the Action

We met and fell in love in my dreams last night. We met as if I had never actually known of your existence before, with all the heart fluttering and flushed cheeks and nervous laughter. We met, and hung out, and held hands and then…

I have to say how vivid my dreams are. If i slept for a hundred years and dreamt one long dream that whole time, I would never know the difference. All the feelings, physical and emotional are like real ones. When I woke up my heart was racing as if we had just pulled apart from a kiss. 

You and I were like high school kids, hormones that rage in that intense, un-ignorable fashion that pushed me towards you, and pulled you to me. It was like falling in love for the first time all over again. Just awkward enough to leave in that state where the only thing my lips and fingertips can register is the absence of your skin, your lips. My brain, even in dreaming, felt so over-stuffed with thoughts of you I knew I had to be near you again or I would explode.

Holding your hand felt like the sweetest calm. Kissing you was like waves of pleasure that just washed higher over me every time until I was drowning in happy. Feelings should never be so intense in sleep, because waking from them leaves a void so heavy its weighing me down. I am heavy with memories of dreams of touches that never really happened. That says volumes about you, that you could impact me without ever doing a thing. 

At some point towards the end of the dream I had become so accustomed to the the fulfillment of each desire to kiss that I simply lept upon you and pinned down like Nala did Simba in the Lion King. I pinned your shoulders to the floor and just watched you smile as my hair fell like curtains around our faces, even though we couldn’t have cared less who saw. I felt pure joy leaning in to connect our lips. It was such a simple, uncomplicated thing, but left me wanting more.

They say your dreams are an indicator of what your brain is trying to tell you, or they reveal what’s really going on under the surface. This dream was no surprise revelation. It didn’t shock or confuse me as to what the underlying meaning was. It means I need to connect with you. It means even when I am not awake thinking of you, I am still thinking of you. I try to distract myself sometimes, so my brain doesn’t overdose on those silly, happy, even-though-I-can’t-have-you-you’re-my-reason-to-smile thoughts. I usually fail, but that’s a failure I can be ok with.

I am starting to wonder how I’m ever going to find someone who is actually attainable after feeling the things I felt (even just in dream) with you. The bar has been raised so high by your face, and your smile, and your voice, and the everything about you. How will I ever find someone I can actually have now?

I think I just need to figure out how to be with you, if you’d have me. As the Beatles say, “I wanna hold your hand”. And kiss you. If that’d be ok with you. Just say the word, and I’ll save my money and head your way. I ‘d leave everything I have behind if there was a chance to make my dream feelings real ones. I wanna be like a high school teenager with you. If you’re interested… if not, maybe I’ll just see you again tonight when I sleep.

Neighbor Noise

For months, Veronica was convinced her neighbor above her apartment was just an inconsiderate ass. It was an easy impression to gather, considering. 

Sure, she had never actually gotten to know the man, but she had spoken to him a couple times and was convinced he was just rude. After all, management had spoken to him multiple times on her behalf about the noise. Oh, the damn noise! After he moved in it was tap tap tapping all the time! She thought maybe it was a nervous thing at first, but came to realize it was a pattern. Veronica came to the conclusion he was listening to headphones, and was just tapping to the beat of whatever music he had playing.

But then, about two months previous, the tapping stopped. Veronica was ecstatic, as you can imagine. She had felt up until then like she had been living beneath a woodpecker. The sweet relief of silence was better than any other noise. She thought maybe he had left town or something. Regardless of why, she was pleased.

But it didn’t last. Only two days after what she thought was the beginning of a new era noise-related joy, he started something even worse. Shitty, top 40 music, played at volumes unnecessary for anyone in a small apartment… complete with heavy, wall vibrating bass. She had thought nothing could be more annoying and frustrating than the tapping, and she was wrong.

And he played it at weird times. It felt like her neighbor was waiting for her to be sitting quietly with a book, or working at her computer to blast the craptastic music. After what felt like several lifetimes having been ruined by the tapping, Veronica wasn’t taking this. Over and over, she would call management to complain. The music was loud, complaint and no change. The bass was vibrating the pictures on her walls, no change. It’s after the time the law has deemed too-damn-late-for-loud-music, nothing. 

And that is why she deemed her upstairs neighbor a rude, self-consumed, jerk-face who had no respect for those living around him. 

She considered breaking her lease, but she had no where to go. She considered buying her jerk neighbor a pair of headphones, thinking maybe he was hard of hearing, but then raged because she deemed it stupid to spend money on someone ruining your peace of mind while at home. And being afraid of actual face-to-face confrontation, she knew she would never storm up there and let him have a piece of her mind.

* * *

It was a Saturday night, and Veronica was (as usual) being a homebody. Curled up on the sofa with a steaming mug of hot cocoa and a book, she was off in her own little world. Until. 

The music was as loud as ever, but she tried desperately to cling to her own little world, and stay wrapped in the story she was reading. But when she realized he wasn’t even listening to whole songs, her fury broke everything apart. REALLY?? She thought as loud as she could, hoping maybe to telepathically sold her neighbor. He didn’t seem to hear. But she did, and it seemed stranger and stranger.

He would start a song, let it play through the intro, the first verse, and a chorus  and that seemed to do it for him. Sometimes that wasn’t even half way through a song! What was the point? In Veronica’s logical mind, there had to be a reason, or a pattern or something. So, she started writing down the song titles. But he only played a few more songs… or pieces of songs before silence began again for the night. She tossed her notepad with the song titles she had guessed (it wasn’t like the music was muffled and hard to guess from) aside and went back to her book.

But again on Sunday night, the same thing. Veronica was ready this time, and jotted the song titles down, one after another. Sure, she probably looked a little nuts, making a list of Top 40 music heard through the ceiling  but she was beyond giving a shit. 

After about a week of this, she finally stopped. In fact, after about four days one thing had become apparent to her. There was DEFINITELY a pattern. But not in the song titles. Or their subject matter. No, it wasn’t even the artist (with a few exceptions). It was the albums they came from (which were in fact sometimes titled as the name of the artist).

Veronica knew this, because in some downtime on the following Friday  she looked them all up. It took some doing, because at first she looked into a pattern simply in the song titles and found no correlation. Then she looked up the artists and got nothing. Then she used her frustration fuel a crazy internet search for album titles and their art. Yes, she made a freaking chart. It was actually a very nice chart.

But if she hadn’t gone all crazy and made that chart, she would never have seen it. With the album covers lined up next to each other, it was very apparent. At least in a few where the lettering in the art was nice a big. Certain words seemed to pop out at her from the screen, and she started to put it together. 

Literally, and figuratively  After several hours of puzzle working the words in the titles, and a fully wasted Friday night, she decided she MUST have gone off the deep end and shut off the computer to go to sleep.

Veronica did turn on the computer the next day, but refused to look at the last arrangement of album art she came to the night before. She refused to try and rationalize what she had found, and decided to simply get out of the house for the whole of Sunday just to be away from thinking about it. But when even out in her neighborhood she heard one of the songs the jerk-face seemed to really like playing, she gave up and went home.

It wasn’t like he was writing a poem with album titles, or trying to contact aliens with a message made of them. It was way creepier. If, that is, she was correct in her deciphering, and she was pretty sure she was.

One doesn’t just accidentally stumble upon a message like this, even if they were trying. It felt like when someone tells you a funny story, that’s super ridiculous  It’s almost SO unbelievable that you know they couldn’t have made it up. And Veronica definitely didn’t make up the secret message meant for her that the neighbor was sending.

Yep, if she was right, the WHOLE TIME he had been trying to communicate with someone. She wasn’t certain who, but she had intercepted a message that was creepy as hell, and she hope that person was also getting the point. She hoped it wasn’t meant simply for her, because that was a lot of pressure. 

She had in fact made two discoveries at once the night before. One, was the message itself. Two, was that it wasn’t the man she had spoken to once or twice in the elevator that was sending it. Nope. The message was from someone else. Someone being held in that apartment. Her neighbor had had a hostage up there THE WHOLE TIME she had been so annoyed about the tapping and the music. After a facepalm and a little self ridicule she realized it totally wasn’t her fault. I mean, how was she supposed to know? What were even the odds she’s take the time to figure that shit out in the first place?

But she did, and now she knew that some poor woman was being held hostage just above where she lived, and that they were reaching out for help. But how to help? Should she call the cops? That didn’t feel like the right solution, with so little information they might just laugh in her face. And she couldn’t just barge up there and demand to look around. This guy didn’t seem menacing in her memory, but that was memory based on thinking he was a harmless a-hole with a passion for super-loud crappy music. He WAS way bigger than her. And she knew from movies that sometimes people did rash things when they knew they were found out.

She felt as if she had to do something about it first, try to figure out how accurate all this was. It was on her to Sherlock her way through this mystery. So she did the logical thing and spent a week collecting music to correspond with album art images from the internet, and composed a message to send back…

It’s Crowded In Here

My brain is so crowed right now, I wish I could lease some more space. Between all my thoughts and the things going on, I’ve run out of room. I’m also amazed someone your size could take up so much space. You fill my head so much I have to shake you loose from the corners so I can find facts and things that are useful. Not that you aren’t useful, you are. But it’s a little overwhelming. I need somehow, to just suck all of the thoughts of you into a vacuum and store them somewhere til it makes sense to have them consume me. Maybe in my down time I could just soak in them, drown a little in my fantasies and memories that are all based on you. Like a hot tub, teeming with warm fuzzies you give me. That sounds nice. But the rest of the time, I have GOT to find a way to shut it down! It’s like the part of my brain that generates all my goofy feely feels is just a production line with an endless output of you. Your face, Your smile. Your hair, your laugh. I’m not complaining, really. I love to think of those things. They make me smile. But not constantly. Not when I’m trying to get directions, or cook dinner, or pay bills, or talk in a meeting. I gotta balance things out. It nothing personal. But my brain is crowded, and it’s full of you thoughts. I wonder if my heart has anything to do with this…