Quincunx

Familjen is merging with my EQ guild, so in chats I get a lovely mishmash of Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, and misspelled Swedish--and that's just the Scandinavian languages. No sympathy! \o_-/ Starlight told me once that Swedes could communicate with Germans without knowing German, they just. . .put together words which sounded right and seemed to get results.

Minta rappels down from the ceiling on a skein of zombie gut, the Red Fluffy Quill of Moderatorship clenched between her teeth and Vlad's phylactery under one arm. The former cameraman overhead runs out of gut and the gnomie stops several feet above everyone's head, spitting out the red quill that floats down to brush the top of Sweetcherrie's head. "Is ready for changin' an' stuff!" she announces, then spins around to watch what Vlad's gonna do next with his cool lichy powers.

(Rydia söker en svensk ordbok men hittar inte den svensk-danskt option.) Du frågade om någon förstöd, jag förstöd dig. Du frågade ändra begäran och jag kan inte översätter den. På EQ finns en dansk guild Familjen med dansk som mödersmål, om jag vill någon till språkas vid med dig.

In her laboratory, Tzimfemme propped her elbows on the Ager Guild Book of Indisrections (open to Knight's double-page entry) and her chin in her hands, studied the wide gap in the bookshelf, and let go of the voyeuristic smile. The book was still a great conversation piece, and her most unique item (few on her side of the Ager War had the vulgarity to collect such information, and nobody on the other side had the temerity to have those professionally bound), but it wasn't significant enough to offer for the Automatic Alternating Repeating Kendricke and Scorn Launcher. She sighed at the empty spot along the wall, where the deep-freeze unit had been, and slouched into the next room to pour herself a mug from the heated dark chocolate spigot. As she carried the chocolate back to the laboratory, figurines reared out of its surface, twisted together in exaggerated scenes from the book, then fell back into the mug to be replaced by others. When she looked into the mug, the figurines froze in mid-perversion, with mortified expressions on their solidified faces. Tzimfemme's eyebrows rose slightly, and she forced herself to think about Knight instead. The chocolate merged and rearranged itself into his face, but remained half-melted and blurry. "Damn," she murmured, plunking the mug onto the countertop next to the book, "this always happens with the non-AoA figurines. . ." She had flipped through the remainder of K and most of L before the solution struck her. There was something worthy! Would the swapmeet take a service in exchange for goods? "I don't care," she answered herself, gulping hot chocolate in between bursts of speech. "Knight's giving away his identity. A big chunk of it, at any rate. He'll need what I have to give." She hurled the empty mug through the doorway, where it passed through a laser net before splashing down into a chemical sink, and strutted towards the main entrance to the lab. Just before the doors, she opened a shallow metal cabinet and made a quick-fingered obesiance to the figurines inside--permanent hard chocolate miniatures of notable Pennites. to be continued. . .

Dr. Tzimfemmestien had eviscerated the cake, and each layer now rested on a separate flimsy paper plate as she funneled the carrot pulp into a screw-top glass jar. Rydia nibbled on a slice of vanilla rum cake while Minta picked crumb topping out of a pile of cream and crumbles, until the elf scooped up a chunky bite from the chocolate-chip-cookie-dough layer and held the fork near Dr. Tzimfemmestien's face. The mad doctor gulped without noticing the contents. . . The labcoat vaporized, along with the manic glee. "Chocolate," Tzimfemme sighed, half-shutting her eyes. She munched quietly, and Rydia began hiding the mashed carrots under the counter, until something detonated nearby. Tzimfemme's head whipped around and her eyes widened. "HIT THE DECK!" she bellowed, and she and Rydia leaped over the counter. Two plates flipped into the air and flung crumbs into the booth before fluttering to the ground. Fred put both hands on the counter and pushed himself over, and Rydia pushed him down below counter level. Ann looked over her shoulder to see what had caused the noise, but twisted away shrieking, pressing her hands over her eyes. "What wazzat?" whispered Minta after the noise faded away. "AARKaSL," Tzimfemme replied, crouching and peeping over the edge of the counter. "What's it doing here?" "Maybe Astralis got his copy to work," offered the gnomie. Rydia rolled her eyes. Tzimfemme harrumphed and squinted her eyes at the far booth. Fred stared at the short little person, leaning forward, and caught Tzimfemme's heel with his forehead as she leaped back over the counter. "Hold the booth, Rydia, I've got to get over there!" she shouted back while running towards the source of the commotion. Rydia ignored her as she tipped Fred's head gently upwards and pointed a light healing spell at his bruise.

Rydia glanced at the mushy pie, then took in Fred's expression, and let her ears droop slightly. "I don't think anyone here is going to accept the pie," she began. "No kiddin'," remarked Tzimfemme as she flicked droplets of carrot juice off of her skin. Fred flinched as she discarded each speck, and Ann stepped to his side to put an arm around him. Rydia reached under the counter and brought out a vivid green cordless hair dryer. "Thanks," Tzimfemme said, reaching over the tiered cake, but Rydia fumbled her fingers and dropped the dryer with a 'click' and an ear-flick. More carrot juice sprayed out from the platter, propelled by hot air, before Tzimfemme and the hair dryer fell into the cake. ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZAP! Tzimfemme transmuted into a frizzy-haired, labcoat-wearing. wild-eyed woman. Rydia's eartips spread out like the corners of a smile. "ooOOOooOoooo what is this toasted confection?" cooed Dr. Tzimfemmestien (that's Zim-fem-steen!), bending over and examining the cake, then sticking out her tongue to taste it. "It is most peculiar, it is! You have stacked an entire six-course meatless society dinner!" She roved around the booth to inspect the cake from all angles while Fred hesitantly stretched out his neck to follow her, until she whirled around and leveled a scalpel at him. "I would like to dissect this, I would, if you will permit!" Rydia answered for the stunned outsiders, "This is a kissing booth, Dr. Tzimfemmestien. You have to give him a kiss if you're going to accept his pie." Dr. Tzimfemmestien's face lit up. "I will, of course!" she crowed, dropping the scalpel back into her labcoat pocket, and swept Fred into an energetic embrace; his arms and legs flailed as she tipped him backwards and kissed him noisily. Rydia backed away from the scene and Ann put her hands to her mouth in horror. The mad doctor set Fred back onto his feet, then turned back to the pie and spoke to it while unsheathing the scalpel again.

~Other~ Rydia is reasonably easy to write, since she has evolved and her behavior covers a broad spectrum. She is no longer hyperactive or sugar-addicted—she lost that when Minta arrived. If it weren’t for Starlight, she would have faded away entirely by now, and she knows it. With the removal of Rosemary, she might gain more social graces and compassion. She and Starlight will marry at some point and Rydia will gain a last name.

~Relationships~ Rydia wears Starlight’s ring, stays by his side, and spends most nights in his tower. Valdar is still her mentor in the ways of elves. She is fond of other Blitz One refugees but never too certain of who’s who, a side effect of the shadow realm. While Salinye was still an Everquest-style wizard, Rydia befriended her elf-to-elf, but the friendship did not cement.

~Personality~ Sweet, shy, social, a bit ditzy. Loves rhymes, songs, chants. Rydia cannot feel or express dominance, rage; she defers to the nearest person and so distresses the lines of the quincunx that another one quickly arrives to deal with the situation.

~Physical Description~ She was the tallest one by far, though not quite of average height, even with her mane of green hair flipped up and to one side. Sparkly makeup made her glitter, green eyes danced, light green sundress barely clung to her slender body. In her confusion, she tapped a little whip against the toe of her knee-high boots as she looked around the room. . . .She has extraordinarily long elf ears with three piercings in each, and can sometimes be seen with archangel’s wings.

~Items~ A jointed cloisonné trinket housing the spirit of the Anti-Spam Carp. A collection of shinies and items with which to care for them. A plain gold band. A set of pots and pans, baking utensils. Sewing supplies. A wing comb to keep the feathers neat.

~Magical Abilities~ Rydia has inherited the power to call and control supernatural animals, whether or not they were summonable by a standard white mage, with the greatest control over naturally empathetic and ‘good’ animals. She trained as a bard but has no intuition with music, a sort of wedding-hall singer among bards. Her power in the quincunx is reinforcement, lessening hatred and increasing sympathy between people. Suddenly the victim finds his life less valuable than someone else's, or can't bear to land a blow upon her.

~Abilities~ Rydia has an empathy with all animals, summoned or natural. She is fluent in earspeak, the universal emoticons of exaggeratedly pointy ears \o_o/. She loves to bake and sew, but cannot experiment; she must follow recipes or patterns.

~History~ Orphaned Rydia herded hellhounds for Tzimfemme until the naked mage tried to sacrifice her under the star Vocatrix, and instead infused her with an archmage’s powers. Tzimfemme ordered her to Blitz One, where she fell into an alliance with Boaz and Joat; not too long after, she named them the first Demigods (of Madness and Insanity respectively). Once Minta and Rosemary were trained, she left Blitz One on the ark, along with her Final Fantasy-named army, washing up alone in the shadow realm. Years later, Minta’s mis-cast spell summoned her back to Terra as an archangel. She locked Tzimfemme, raving and wild, into a warded crypt and assumed leadership of the quincunx until the naked mage awoke and bullied everyone into moving to the Pen. Rydia was weakened from the stress and would not have survived the convalescence if a powerful mage—Starlight—hadn’t cared for her; the care grew into love. She followed him into Legion of the White Rose, and followed him out again when he left the guild with the “KENA!” exodus. While staying with the Kena people, Valdar taught her how to use her new-grown ears, and tried to teach her how to be a ranger; instead, she picked up a shiny horn and fell into the role of a bard. After awhile, Starlight’s new guild, Eye of Mordor, relented and admitted her despite her low skills, yet her guildmates now keep her around so she can supply them with tasty baked goods and meals.

~Rydia~ ~Brief Description~ Elf/angel. Adorned with pearls, Bestower of Holy Power upon Demigods

Fred petted Rydia's ear, base to tip, watching how it flexed and bent nearly horizontal under gentle pressure. "Fred!" Ann shouted, as Rydia dreamily flicked her ear from under his hand, "stop bothering her!" Tzimfemme chuckled, "Bothering her? She hasn't even noticed he's there. . . .What is that?" she added, peering through the cellophane window of the pie box. "It was Fred's idea, I tried to convince him to make a nice cake but he just wouldn't listen!--I'm Ann, hello," replied the visitor. Tzimfemme ignored her outstretched hand after accepting the box and setting it on the counter, instead opening the box and staring at the clods of cream floating in carrot juice. One clod listed to the side, showing its orange-stained underside. "Ew," Tzimfemme remarked, as Minta shimmied up one of the booth's poles to look into the box. Rydia flicked her ear again, but it went nowhere, as Fred had grasped the tip. The ear jerked several times, and slowly, Rydia turned away from the shiny pie tin. Fred gasped, released her ear, and dashed behind Ann, peering out from behind her as Rydia gazed blankly after him. "Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!" reported Minta happily. Several boats, folded out of newspaper, were dissolving and sinking into the lake of carrot juice. "An' the navy goes down to Davy Jones' Locker, an' the blockade is broken, an' the gnomie pirate fleet sails to victory!" She flung gumballs at the boats with appropriate "Boom! Boom!" cannon noises and cheered when another newspaper boat capsized. "If you like the pie that much," Tzimfemme remarked, "you have to pay for it with a kiss, remember?" Minta squealed, "ICKY!" and clambered up onto the roof of the booth. An anti-cootie gem fell from above and splashed into the flotilla, spattering Tzimfemme with carrot juice. to be continued. . .

“Did you hear that!” shrilled Fortunata from the less esteemed sections of the floor, turning to Duke so quickly that her hair smacked into the back of someone else’s head. "It's so exciting that they're skipping over the succession. Oo, I bet the heir apparent is just hopping mad!" Duke opened his mouth to reply, but Fortunata was already pushing her way through the crowd, heading for the edge of the room. She looked into one of the niches between the columns and the wall, curtained with layers of heavy lace. She let a gangly girl, with her sleeve held up over her new cleavage, hide herself behind the curtain before walking up to a fainting-couch and the pale, moon-faced man lying on his side. “Cousin Fortunata,” sighed the man, laying down his playing cards. “Cousin Malvolio,” she purred, and knelt down beside the divan. They necked dispassionately, and the curtains hissed. He pecked her on the lips, one-two-three-four. She pulled back and fingered the fresh flowers on his headdress. “What new costume is this pray-tell? I thought you wouldn’t dare to wear green in this season, spring flowers clash with your complexion, and oooh, naughty cousin, it has horns!” “I am Pan, god of the forest.” Fortunata threw back her head and laughed, “Ha, ha, hee, hee, hee! Forest! The outdoors, oh that’s a marvelous one! There’s never been a day you didn’t spend on this couch!” Malvolio half-shut his eyes and smirked, “Maybe not during the day, yes, but during the night,” he dipped his shoulder and rolled onto his back, “During the night, maybe I am a woodland. . .” he trailed his arms over his head and lifted his codpiece, “. . .god.” One of the curtains gasped, then pinched in as it was bitten from behind. Fortunata spread a buttery smile and rose to her feet. “Cousin, there's important things happening tonight and you're still playing your games,” she hinted, looking at the cards on the low table and in Malvolio’s hand. “You’re playing for forfeits, aren’t you?” She gathered up her skirt in one hand and swished out of the niche; Malvolio watched her go and stifled an artful yawn.

I seem to have spawned NPCs, as usual: Lavinia, Grandame of Tarquin Lavinia is not part of House Tarquin, she is House Tarquin. She was the oldest female of her generation and symbolically married the oldest male of the same generation; she bore a few children for talented fathers, as the Tarquins have a practical eye toward such marriages, but never gave them more than an aunt's acknowledgement. Her husband's body wasted away and died as he aged and had no soul to sustain it; her body is speckled and grooved, but the core of her competent soul keeps her head upright, even as her plots go soft and senile at the edges. Lavinia neither leaves the compound of House Tarquin (but keeps her eye glued to various telescopes mounted in the windows) nor speaks to outsiders unless another Tarquin provides an invitation. Malvolio of House Tarquin He ignores his cousin-wife Fortunata while stringing along the crop of new adolescent girls, year in, year out, from the comfort of his reclining couch at the edges of the court. In fact, he's always on that couch, heavy-lipped and adorned with his girl of the moment, playing cards in the middle of the most important speeches and arguments. His fashion is more modern than Fortunata's: billowy open shirt, narrow breeches, codpiece, hose and slippers, often colored and accessorized as though court were a masquerade ball. No woman over sixteen will dare being mistaken for one of his; the few men that speak to him are only there to capture one of his girls, and never succeed. Malvolio is too indolent (and perfect) to shapeshift.

"It's wonderfully shiny, but there's just one thing I don't understand," commented Rydia, gazing into the depths of the pie tin, "why is there a giant hand waving in front of the scene?" "That's my hand," Tzimfemme sighed, as she tried to get Rydia's attention. Minta peered over the top of the counter, stretched and wrinkled her face at the icky-yucky-kissy-wissy pictures, then dived deeper into the booth. A cloud of brilliant purple anti-cootie spray billowed up from her landing spot, thick as stewed gumdrops. Tzimfemme drew her hand back and waved it in front of her face instead, keeping the air clear; Rydia inhaled some spray and coughed, breaking eye contact with the tin. "Oh!" she coughed, "the--" cough! "--kiss! Sorry, I got distracted," cough, cough, as her ears paddled drafts of fresher air downwards. Rydia looked over at Zool's portrait, then down at the ground (Grimmael was either too smothered or too exhausted to be affected by the spray), then squinted at a point just to the left of the booth itself. "Is that far enough away, do you think, Tzimfemme?" Tzimfemme shook her head. "No, no, you want the focal point to be closer, so the edges will be more crisp. Let me hold the pie tin for a moment, or it'll blind us all." She reached over the counter, took the tin in one hand, and pointed at a spot about an earlength away from Rydia's head with the other. "Right there should do. Are your ears set properly?" Rydia canted one ear forward on the side closer to Tzimfemme. "Ready!" she called. FLASH Zool blinked, trying to clear the spots and the large dark patch out of his vision. Rydia flickered her ears, then lifted up her hand in front of her face and wiggled her fingers. "Weird!" whispered the silhouette, in an echo of Rydia's voice. Rydia turned her head from side to side, and remarked, "Zool. . .you're going to have to approach me. . .I think I lose my lips this way, so I have to hold still." "Hurry up!" called Tzimfemme from beyond the blazing light. "This spell is supposed to be instant! I'm having trouble maintaining it." "You look perfectly fine to me," Zool told the silhouette, two-dimensionally. Still, Rydia herself stood sideways, with her lips out in an exaggerated pucker, so Zool had to go to the silhouette. Rubber chicken flopped out of his arms and lay at the bottom of the portrait, clucking and brooding, when Zool took the silhouette's hands in his and kissed it on the lips. The light flashed and flickered, brighter than before--and burnt out. Rydia rubbed her eyes, squinting and swaying lightly on her feet. Tzimfemme held up the pie tin, and Rydia cooed, "shiny," but with less than her usual enthusiasm. Nonetheless, she followed the tin as Tzimfemme directed her to lean against the booth, then handed the Kissy-Wissy Snookums Pie Tin back to her. "Shiny," she breathed again, and sank back into the scenes with a gentle ear-flutter. The naked mage looked out of the corner of her eye at Zool, who was looking a bit fluttery himself.

Parmenion: Tattered's earlier poems often had. . .existential questions tagged onto them, such as "Why is it all this way? Is it right?". That might have been the beginnings of the "go[ing] somewhere" you look for in a poem, but I had recommended that she not include those unanswered questions, since they gave away her control of the poem. Do you prefer the poems with questions?

Tzimfemme grabbed a paper from the nearest table, glanced at the handwriting--Treaty of Peace and Amity between His Britannic Majesty and the United States of America, Concluded at Ghent, December 24, 1814-- then flipped it over and sat down to write. Both table and chair were bolted to the floor, and the inkwell fit snugly into a cutout on the table, but she still struggled to form letters when the entire room tilted: I had been adrift for hours, pulled through the mouth of the bay by the receding tide, and not very confident that my swim-wings were going to remain inflated (stop laughing), so when the current bumped me up against this, I climbed on board. Every crate is stamped "Property of the Navy of the United States"; I opened them all and can you believe it, there wasn't a single can on board? I did drink a few mouthfuls of some execrable port wine though, and will enclose this paper in the bottle while thinking Heard engines buzzing overhead, sprinted up to the deck but nothing to be seen. I knocked my shin on the spiral staircase. Still, I'll go back up, and put on the peacoat this time. . . It landed beside me on pontoons, neat as you please, and he and the co-pilot launched a rubber raft and paddled over here. They didn't seem surprised to find me here. "Welcome to the club," one said, and clinked a bottle of California champagne against the bottle of port while glancing around the cabin. "Bill, could you row back and get some real food? I tried hardtack once in my life and that was once too many." The co-pilot grinned and went topside. "Time doesn't pass here, and the food never runs out, but it never improves either," he told me. We talked about what brought him to investigate and land here--Ted has dubbed himself and his craft the Welcome Wagon, since "Gloria did the same in our neighborhood, and by golly I miss her"--until Bill returned and proudly presented a box labeled "Swanson TV DINNER: Turkey with Gravy." "Technological marvel," he proclaimed. "It's already cooked, all you have to do is heat it, although we let it defrost in the sun and that's as good as baking it, in this latitude. Oh, you have to take it out of the box first." He demonstrated how to lay the cellophane-wrapped tray by the window, as though I'd never seen one before. Ted and Bill both shook my hand. "We have to get back to our rounds, miss, this is our busy season. We'll come back after Roger goes on duty, and then you can let us know who won last year's World Series--" "Red Sox!" It was a religious moment. "But they haven't won for nearly forty years! Miss, wait, not another word, you can't hurry through an explanation like that." They hastened to the raft as though afraid to spoil the suspense.

"I'll call Minta and we'll settle this right now!" Tzimfemme barked. "Oh, don't," groaned Rydia, burying her face in her shawl and envisioning the mess, all the while swerving around the other booths. "I've never paid for it in my life, and what's more important, I've never charged for it either!" The naked mage cut back and forth across Rydia's path, pacing twice as fast as the winged elf walked. "You haven't looked past my costume lately. If money's mixed up in it, I won't do it! If you need to open a kissing booth, you can put up and pucker up, you pallid, vapid--" "Thallid? Bad squid? Canid? Mermid?" "What's a mermid?" asked Rydia. "When'd you get here?" asked Tzimfemme. Minta skipped figure-eights around Rydia and Tzimfemme, reciting, "Mermids are katydids that got tired of air flying an' decided to go diving instead an' they fly inna water nownow an' mermaid kids catch them an' put them in seashells to make underwater kazoos," she finished, and sidestepped Rydia's grab. "Whatcha doin'?" "We're making the most disgusting pie in the world," Tzimfemme intoned. Rydia's ear curled into a ?. "More gross than sour mash durian meringue pie an' lumpy toejam sauce?" Minta guessed. Tzimfemme nodded. "More gross than frost-bitten sea cucumber pie with wet gobbie nose crust?" persisted Minta. "It is. It's. . .Kissy-Wissy Snookums Pie." Minta stopped mid-skip, clamped her hands over her ears, and shrieked one long continuous I-can't-hear-you note. Tzimfemme unleashed a drawn-and-quartered grin over her head, straight at Rydia. Rydia didn't feel the smile. She also halted and stood still for a minute, eartips quivering, before reflecting a real smile back at the naked mage. "I think this could work. . . ." ***** Rydia sat on the counter of the booth and twirled an aluminum pie tin, mesmerized by the light glinting off of its surface. Minta kneeled in the sagging awning and ran up the skull an' pixystix flag on the tallest support. It fell to Tzimfemme, mumbling to herself and trying to work out how this came to be, to finish lettering the sign: KISSY-WISSY SNOOKUMS PIE Create a pie for your favorite Quincunx personality! No Entry Fee ~ Pie Tin is Yours to Keep Whoever chooses your pie will pay for it with a kiss! The Legalese: 5 Gold Awarded per Pieticipation. Limit Five Kisses. Pies Need Not be Edible, just Enticing Any Quincunx Character can be the Object of a Pie Any Quincunx Character may Accept a Pie (Characters will Arrange Own Transportation if not Present)

"Hiiiiiiiii!" Rydia chirped, waving her nearer ear at Tzimfemme, who stood by the table clutching a plump carp in both hands. "Ooo, that's a large fish," she remarked, "put in on the platter, I'll need to marinate it," and she tilted the same ear's tip down towards the serving dish. Bemused, Tzimfemme dropped the fish onto the platter, stepped back to the sign, and pretended to read it over while Rydia sorted through the spice containers like a card shark. "In a minute," said the pointyear, and shook out some salt into her cupped hand, followed by a few spoonfuls of previously chopped garlic, a cloud of paprika, and a spice blend with various-sized particles. The naked mage sniffed--pepper certainly, thyme or maybe dill?--while Rydia rubbed her hands together and picked up the carp; she stuck one hand inside the body cavity and patted one side of the fish inside and out, then shifted the fish to her other hand and patted the other side. She slapped the fish back into the platter and covered it with the pan's lid before washing her hands off in the lake. Tzimfemme tapped her toe when Rydia turned back towards the table. "Your sign mentions pay. . ." "That's one and one-half earlengths, but I don't have half-gold coins here," Rydia explained sheepishly. "It was half an ear wide!" whatever _that_ means, Tzimfemme added to herself, "doesn't that count for anything?" "I suppose," sighed Rydia, flicking excess water from her hands onto the pan and watching the droplets skitter. "Ten gold then, before I have to get my hands dirty again." She reached into the second basket and whistled three notes; an invisible lock clicked open, and Rydia handed up ten gold to Tzimfemme. The naked mage lifted her hand up to eye level and flicked the coins off of her palm, into a mini-mini-portal that had opened several feet away from her; she grinned and sauntered away. Rydia rolled her eyes, then jumped a bit as she caught peripheral sight of something. . .someone. . .Panther! "You startled me," she gasped, still kneeling by the side of the table and on an eye-level with Panther. He nodded. "I hope you can use this, it has a couple extra holes, but I'm sure it will still taste great," said Panther. Rydia pointed one ear up and through the table; Panther reared up to drop the fish on a melamine plate while she picked out five gold and whistled the lock shut again. He padded away with the gold tucked safely into his mane while Rydia scattered cornmeal and flour into another plate, then seasoned it with a pinch of curry powder. She frowned thoughtfully for a moment, ducked into the first basket, and came up with an egg that she cracked into an empty mug, then picked up a knife and cut the trout into thick strips which concealed the bite marks, and chopped some butter into the pan with the same knife. After dropping the strips into the mug, she swirled them around with two fingers, then picked up strips and dredged them in the seasoned meal before flipping them onto the pan. As soon as all the strips were on the pan, Rydia snatched up a spatula and began flipping the first strips; immediately after the last strips had been turned, she scooped up the first ones and lay them on a paper napkin to drain.

When I open the back gate and leave the yard, I don't step out into nature; in fact, if I took three steps past the gate, I'd be standing in the westbound lane of a busy asphalt road. The road is a major thoroughfare in this clotted suburban area, although it was never meant to be one; no other road can take its place. The sidewalk gives misguided pedestrians like me a safe place to walk, at the price of any roadside greenery. The power lines are major thoroughfares of energy, and are most practical when placed there. They can't be blamed for willfully destroying the nature outside my back gate. Whatever moron decided to tie a pair of old sneakers together by the laces and toss them up onto the power lines, though--he can be blamed. (Yes, I say he. What woman would waste a serviceable pair of shoes. . .scratch that, what woman would buy sneakers in _that_ shade of green?) I don't care if those shoes are well out of my reach; they're coming down. I've already brought a plastic tissue-bag from the grocery store along with me to carry home the litter I'll find, and stuffed into it a rusted-off trailer hitch that was lying in the shoulder of the road. It's small, compact, just weighty enough. I wait for the light up the hill to turn red and the cars to clear away, then lean back for the windup and lob the trailer hitch straight up, or I meant to. It flies across the road and crashes into the only wild thicket left in a two-mile radius, couple of oak saplings and honeysuckle vines and a drainage ditch underneath. Birds flutter out in a panic, and who can blame them? They scatter to fences, porch rails, bird feeders, power lines; one of them even lands on the sneakers. Woodpecker or sapsucker, hard to distinguish from this angle, but no other type of bird would cling to the laces that way, and. . .put its head inside? I stand there and watch it feed the chicks, then fly back to the thicket along with some of the other birds, then keep on going. It'll be a good nature walk today.

Topic changed. (While I did like "Sink" for its oblique approach, my mind insists upon reading "everything but the kitchen" instead of "thingy which absorbs".) I couldn't give a critique on this 'til at least five versions were posted, since every one was well-crafted and self-contained, and only by contrasting them can I get a glimpse of your intent. bulletproof eyes This is perfect. Why does it work? I'm baffled. . . .meeting my cold, stale streams of alcohol-tinged breath I'm uncertain if the image you gave is the image you intended. 'Meeting' brought to mind physical connection, as if wisps from the wheels (wet with dew? foggy? old, smoky brakes?) and exhaust curled up outside the window on which you breathed, yet, the 'streams' of breath don't hit the window but whip along in the wind parallel to it. If the breath hit the window, it would have been punctuated and maybe fogged up the glass. silhouetting Another perfect word. This one I understand.