Famous Last Words, Written In Ashes

The little twins just won’t leave me alone.

They insist that we’re long time friends, that I’ve taken care of them through thinner and thicker, but my new Collective memories don’t seem to cover all of that.

“Tokie messed up everything! She’s so stupid!” Little Hel has been going on and on about this, no matter where and when they take me.

“Oooh, she said stupid!” Cassie was a bit more subdued, but she was the first one to poke me in the ears during my last day in Minneapolis.

I had a whole day to try to process the episode with the golden jawbreaker. I had expected Dad, Gabby and Tokie to wake me up early with some important task or whatever, but they were nowhere to be found at the hotel. So, I took that as a sign that things were already going to hell, and that I was on my own until the big bad Helena got me.

I could half remember all of that, from way back in March. “The Fourth Event”, when Aurora and Tokie drugged me, and when I somehow left my body and went through an energy portal or shit like that. Very Poltergeist and 2001: A Space Odyssey , at least what I remember from Netflix.

I don’t remember where I went, or what I said when I was “gone”, but Tokie posted a transcript on her blog. If you’ve read this far then who knows, you probably already know it by heart, you stalker.

Whatever. Here is what I said from the great beyond:

2011.3.5.13:53:33 – Miranda “It hurts so much! It comes at night to give me new skin.”
2011.3.5.13:53:58 – Tokie “Satellite two locked!
2011.3.5.13:54:13 – Aurora “I need you to understand me. Do you know what day it is?”
2011.3.5.13:54:29 – Miranda “Don’t know where I am, if it’s day or night. I’m just so glad you found me….”
2011.3.5.13:54:51 – Tokie “Satellite three not resolving! Have to reset…”
2011.3.5.13:55:12 – Aurora “Who’s hurting you? What’s their name?”
2011.3.5.13:55:24 – Miranda “It comes in threes, different bodies same voices…. I’m not allowed to recognize their faces.”
2011.3.5.13:55:39 – Miranda grabs Aurora’s cheeks.
2011.3.5.13:55:43 – Miranda “The moon is molesting me… I keep having shadow babies.”
2011.3.5.13:56:23 – Tokie “I can’t resolve the position… I can only get October 2011 from the time code.”
2011.3.5.13:56:44 – Aurora “Please! Where are you? When was the last time you saw me?”
2011.3.5.13:56:58 – Miranda “I can’t listen to ghosts! There’s a monster under the sheets with me! Mom! Mom!!!!”

Tokie and Aurora are convinced that I was in St. Cloud at the time, and that someone was trying to etch me all up by force.

The only real hints are that I mentioned my Mom, and that there were at least three people involved, with “different bodies same voices”, and I wasn’t “allowed to recognize their faces”.

Right now, that sounds a lot like the big Figma robots could be involved – perhaps someone was projecting in and messing with me.

Before her plastic figure melted away, Tokie was increasingly convinced that it could have been one physical person, with more than one conscious entity inside of them. Kind of like someone was projecting into another person, instead into something plastic.

You would expect Aurora to have her own theory, but she hasn’t shared it. Like I said, I haven’t seen anyone since yesterday. That is, until the little twins came back.

So, all I had to go on is that sometime in October, I would be back in St. Cloud, and someone or something would really fuck me up.

Then, according to Emily’s blog, she’ll meet the post fucked-up me twice.

• Once in Portland, and I’ll be trying to kill myself on the Steel Bridge, only to fly away in the air. That’s in October.
• And again, when the little twins come in Halloween costumes to take Emily away to orbit around the Moon, where I’m waiting for her again. That’s supposed to be later on in the year – November? December? Probably December, right before things get really bad in time for New Years. At that point I kidnap Emily and she’s missing for months.
• Finally, I see everyone right before the big concert on July 4th, according to Tokie.

It all sounds like bad fan fiction, or a 500 yen bargain basement eroge without the sex. But it’s true, right? Like you’d know for certain, either.

I don’t know why I’m still so doubtful, so hesitant to leap right in. I think the big thing is that it’s not like those big Figma robots couldn’t be controlled long distance by someone on Earth, instead of “beyond”. It’s not like the little twins couldn’t have been a figment of my imagination, and that golden jawbreaker some sort of hallucination – maybe Aurora drugged me again.

I could think of all sorts of grand explanations for why my life has turned on Insane Parkway, but the sad thing is I don’t have anything to doubt any more, not after what happened at the Mall of America.

Like I said before – right across the street. So, after my bagel-jam-juice on the hotel’s dime, I took the five minute walk over to the front of the Mall, going past all of the construction fences and cranes, as big airplanes flew overhead, getting ready to land at the international airport on the other side of commercial heaven.

Inside, I didn’t even hesitate to ignore the huge, huge, huge LEGO statue of some knock-off Mecha (something like 3 or 4 stories tall), and walked past the Apple and Microsoft stores on my usual clockwise route. I didn’t care for Macy’s, Nordstroms, Sears or Bloomindales, because I’m not Mom-aged (I was about to say “not an old lady”, but I realize that not all of our elderly can even handle Sears). Instead, I liked looking at the little shops where they would do beautiful things to your visible parts, or sell you off-brand bags of nuts or bottles of soda for a dollar.

I also liked the architecture, which was something out of unbridled early 1990′s optimism, where all problems would be solved by jailing Bill Clinton and lowering the taxes enough that you could forcibly step on them over and over until they died. It was like that, only with two floors full of products imported from China, with your brand’s silk screen of choice to distinguish between them. Then you had the food floor, brought to you in spirit by Bayer and Monsanto, and overtly by strip mall fast food, topped by a huge movie theater that even had seats that rumbled, moved and spazzed out during the film, if you were willing to pay enough.

It felt like walking through a Capitalist theme park, one where the lights, air conditioning and shoplifter gates would never die even as the outside world crumbled into dust.

Yeah, I went there, and I wasn’t being all literary. As I walked around most of the first floor, I started to feel like I was being followed. At first I thought it was one of the MOA mall cops I had seen on TV, on their own reality show even, but then I started to notice that everywhere I looked, I could see the little twins looking back at me from a distance. Each time, they were wearing something else, seemingly from different stores in the mall, and by the time they appeared on a bench in front of me, the were wearing a particularly tweentastic ensemble from Justice.

“There she is! Do you have it?” I’m starting to be able to tell them apart without name tags. Hel is definitely more animated, plus she tends to wear more wigs. She had on something orange and Hot Topical.

“She doesn’t have it… she totally lost it.” Cassie was a bit more subdued, and she tended to not look you in the eye for more than a few seconds.

I guessed that they were talking about the golden jawbreaker, since it had disappeared when I woke up this morning. I even wrapped it up in the Vita.MN newspaper, and then put that in the safey safe the hotel provided. When I opened it again, both the newspaper and the sphere were gone.

“We just finished reading your blog, from tonight. We’re small, but we can read really good.” Hel.

“Really well, too.” Cassie, as she suddenly appeared riding my on me piggy back, sticking her fingers in my ears. I heard a slight rumble, and that ocean sound everyone gets.

“OK, fine.” Hel grabbed me by my right hand, like she was my little sister. “Where should we go first?”

“In 5 hours she’ll write that we went to St. Cloud. Sounds good!”

The 4 floors of the mall collapsed on top of each other like dead leaves. I found myself lying in the middle of the kid play area at Crossroads Mall. Target was right around the corner. I could see that the store was extra tarted up for Halloween, like it found Mommy’s makeup and didn’t know when to say when.

There were other kids in the spongy-floored area, but they quickly ran to their parents screaming and crying as Hel and Cassie tried to pick me up.

“There you are!” Hel whispered, as they tried to hide behind a play structure. I could see someone who looked just like me, except that her hair was shaved off. She took a puffy blue coat out of her white and red Target bag, and seemed to disintegrate the various tags with her fingers, before throwing the bag into nothingness. She didn’t seem to notice us as she walked past the separate, seasonally engorged Halloween Store, down the hallway in the direction of the Food Court.

“You haven’t quite figured it out yet, but you will. We’ll help you!” Hel again. Cassie disappeared for a few moments, and came back wearing a white and blue sailor suit and fox ears.

“Strike Witches! I can do better!” Hel folded away, and came back looking all pink and plug suity, like Mari from Evangelion. She even had the cute granny glasses.

“What do you want to do now? Wait around a whole two months, or take your medicine now?” Cassie, miming a spoon entering her mouth, followed by a frown and squinty face.

“What she’s saying is, we just saw you coming out of Target. That’s you after the Fifth Event! We just traveled in time almost two months to the future! Isn’t that cool? Don’t you want to be her right now?” Hel was clearly hoping for the right now bit.

“Do I even have a choice?” I could read the writing on the wall, and it was made by scented marking pens.

“There’s always a choice.” I thought I heard Cassie from behind me, only with a deeper voice. Turned around, and I saw someone I only saw briefly a few weeks ago, but really recognized from my new collection of old memories. Cassandra, young girl 16 and knowing.

I stood up, ran over and gave her a hug, only to get an arm full of plastic.

“I borrowed one of Sasha’s bottle babies to project on in. Over the years she’s stashed them all over St. Cloud, in case of emergency. This qualifies.”

She motioned over the little twins, and they grabbed on to her wrists and waist.

“Big sister! We knew you would make it!” Hel. Cassie was even more shy than usual, looking down at the floor.

“Miranda. I don’t have more than a minute, before Helena finds me in this Variant. I’m dead and powerless – she controls all of Time and Space. No games – you still have a choice. You can wait two months, come up here from Minneapolis, and become the bride of the Nameless, of the Black itself. Or, we can skip you ahead until last night, until everything actually happens.”

“Or….” Little Cassie. “You can come with us, to our secret place, and never look back.” She was half in tears at this point.

“When I was younger, at this very moment, I still hasn’t quite grasped the sacrifices you were about to make. But she’s right – if you want to run away from it all, you still can. Everything will fall to pieces, but you can.”

Cassandra then turned around and walked towards the glass doors leading to the parking lot. I didn’t need more of a hint, so I followed. The twins folded away, and only when it started to stir did I notice that the world around us had been frozen for the past few minutes. Kids tentatively walked from behind their mothers and fathers, and went back to their interrupted play.

It was freezing outside. Cassandra was standing over the garbage can, and pulled out a plastic Coke bottle, which quickly disappeared past her jersey – she was wearing an old St. Cloud Rox uniform, the minor league team that ended decades ago. She pointed me past Target, towards the same route that Sasha and Mom had led me on earlier.

“Less than a minute, but I’ll go back and leave a file for you on your Mac, to explain. Just know that Tokie, while she held control over SAR.AI, looked at our dead bodies and tried to make everything better. She failed miserably. She…” As we turned the corner, she suddenly ran ahead towards the loading docks. Once I caught up to where she was supposed to be, nothing. She was gone.

Then, on the roof. It looked like Cassandra, only she had a wig on, some sort of plastic dreadlocks, and a colorful dress made out of patches, with a beauty pageant sash in front of it.

She was staring at me, but it didn’t look like she had eyes.

It has to be Helena. The Grand Supreme everyone was scared shitless over.

In the next fraction of a moment, she was standing right in front of me. I could see it was actually a wig of all sorts of USB cables. She looked over at the empty parking lot, instead of at me.

“The subway will not take your ticket. It’s the end of the line. Would you like your old hotel room, or a new one?”

I didn’t understand the question, or why she wasn’t looking at me. What was so fucking interesting about those bushes?

“Just kidding. The old one is far more charming. Please wait.”

Was Helena even in there? It seemed like someone was doing a poor job of projecting into her – she seemed like a marionette.

“Good. For obvious reasons, you’ll be offline after this, but we’ll give you three hours to tie up any loose ends. Key.”

She placed a white card in my hand. Her touch wasn’t plastic, but it wasn’t warm, either.

“Items.” My neatly packed bag from Minneapolis appeared at my feet. I quickly picked it up and ran behind me at a full sprint, only to end up right back the loading docks, still holding her hand.

“Items.” My neatly packed bag from Minneapolis appeared at my feet. Trapped.

“You can’t run any more. You understand this.” I understood.

“Walk over to the hotel, and wait in your room for us. We’ll be there at sundown.

I didn’t know what to do, other than what I was told. Stopped in SuperAmerica along the way for my last 32 oz joy pop ever, and then came her to the hotel, to the same fancy room I was so psyched about weeks ago. Months ago? It was Halloween now.

The little twins stopped by for a few minutes. Too cheer me up? To prime me for their big Sister?

“Tokie messed up everything! She’s so stupid!” Little Hel was putting on a brave face, but I could tell she was about to cry.

“Oooh, she said stupid!” Cassie seemed to be feeling better. “But really, I watched her float through the house and throw up all of the powers. Almost all of them! Didn’t she know that big sister Helena would suck them right up with the thing she stole from Tokie?

The thing? Massive Cloud Burst?

“She didn’t know, but she did it anyway. She thought she was helping, but it’s still hurting.”

“Don’t worry, Miranda. We’ll come back for you tomorrow, and then we’ll be finally ready to build our clubhouse. Until then, we have to put you back one day.”

And they did. Minneapolis TV news was full of day before Halloween infotainment, rather than the day of Halloween live remotes I was just watching as I started to write this.

I don’t know what else to say. I have my proof, and there’s nowhere left to run, or hide.

Will she even knock on the door, or just appear? Will I be awake, or asleep when it happens?

Will I be able to feel Aurora, months ago in Portland, as my body opens, and changes? As the me becomes not me.

I’ve been working on this blog post for hours. I have every reason to think it will be my last.

Do I even have any famous last words in me?

Cassandra is nothing but last words. I read the file she somehow copied to my Mac, then erased it as soon as I realized the significance.

I know you can’t understand this now, but even the final storm will have calm.

It will be me standing over your ashes, but a lot of good things can come from ashes.

Uninterrupted Z-Action

It’s real.

I can see it, and feel it, but I don’t understand it at all.

It’s been one of those days, when you’re going about your business yet still anticipating the alarm.

Tokie and I were riding around Downtown Minneapolis on some cute, green Nice Ride auto-rental bikes, headed in the general direction of Mill Ruins Park and the Mississippi River. She did something to the bike network with her plastic fingers, so now we can ride all day for free.

Not that I can’t afford it – I still have a few thousand left in twenties, from my Mom’s grand acts of bank customer “donations” (robbery) by proxy. But it’s still cool – she can just reach right in with her mind and wiggle the circuits around or something, and then there’s instant access.

That’s one thing all of the Ghost Collective is really good at – doing electronic things they’re really not supposed to, all for the sake of things far greater than lulz.

Anyway, we were riding all in the middle of street and shit, because as usual, there barely were any cars to speak of – perhaps one every few blocks? Well, maybe not right around Nicollet Mall, with all of the Target stuff (Target Center! Target Field! Target Target!) and skyways barely used by office drones. Over there it reminds me of a slower downtown Portland – much taller buildings, but still highly jaywalkable.

It was still Summer-ish, with a bit of almost-Labor-Day rain here and there, but nothing to whine about. I liked hanging out by the river, and that huge, black theater building by the exploded Mill museum and farmer’s market. While we passed by some condo-apartment-things that were simply trying too hard to be upscale, Tokie suddenly turned to me and shimmered a bit.

“Sorry about this, but Aurora is projecting in – she has to talk to you right away. I’ll be back later.”

And with that, she faded away just enough for Aurora to plop on top of her plastic skeleton, without actually exposing the smooth, melted soda bottle interior. Her bike didn’t even waver a bit, as Aurora hit the breaks and motioned for me to pull up side her.

The first time I saw her, a few days ago, I was too excited to be freaked out. There was no way I could still blame her for anything, after I remembered everything about my past she always had to tiptoe around. It just felt weird – I’m still totally hot for her, but that’s tempered by the strong, steady girlfriend feelings for Tokie, even though most of those are from a few thousand years ago (depending on how you count up all of the looped, variant time).

Doesn’t matter – Aurora still does it for me, and I wanted so badly to draw my hands through her long, blonde hair. Of course, I can’t, because it’s all holographic, and her real body was burned to ashes months ago.

“Hey baby, I got a newsflash for you.” She was “wearing” one of her crunchy granola rainbow outfits – I can never really tell if that’s really what she’s like, or of it’s all just cosplay that hides her real, secret self.

“I got a real flash for you, if you just find us a dark alley somewhere.”

“Stop it. Seriously, Sasha was able to figure out your TV problem, what with all the static and whatnot.”

“Don’t you shit in my toilet! Don’t even explain, just make it stop so I can finally get uninterrupted z-action.”

She got off her bike, and walked it over to a wooden bench near the riverfront – 3 planks for our back, and 3 for our asses, with some stone (granite, maybe) to hold it all together. I could tell she wanted to explain anyway, so I just threw my bike on the grass, and sat down next to her.

“Alright. When I was alive and much cuter than I am now, I could control all the Energy that ever was and will be. I know you’ve read about this, but thing you need to know is that it’s not magic at all – there’s very clear cause and effect.”

“So were you using your energy voodoo on me back in Portland? Making me think nasty thoughts?”

“Not that I couldn’t, but no. When I did have to create gamma rays or whatever, it was all coming from either the existing environment, or some mixture of the White and the Black. Somehow, somewhere, that energy was transferred to me, instead of just spilling out with each breath.”

“This is so terribly yawny. You know I can’t pay proper attention when faced with mystery-solving.”

“Anyway, cause and effect, conservation of energy, and something you have to understand – I specialize in Energy, but I can make Matter, too. It’s a pain, with lots of limitations, but I can. Now you…” She poked me on the left shoulder. “You can control all Matter, even though you haven’t figured it out yet. But, you can also spit out Energy if necessary.”

“Not like I know now – I’ve been spending whole minutes trying to make my dirty socks turn into Hostess fruit pies, but it’s simply beyond me.”

“That’s the thing. You have the potential, but only someone with Yogic levels of control over their body can really tap into the Black and the White. Without etching, and the instant control it provides, the best you can do is subconsciously affect things. Which is dangerous as fuck.”

“Dangerous how?”

“Children of the Corn dangerous. Destroying the black hole at the center of our galaxy dangerous. Yeah, I’m being all hyperbolic, because the natural checks and balances prevent the big, grand stuff from happening without clear intention and initiation. Still, your mixed up dreamy mind has been keeping busy over the past few months…”

“Let me guess – the Figma invasion.”

“Yeah… we’re not quite sure of the mechanism, but after the Fourth Event, your subconscious, latent power was crazily amplified, and certain things started to shift in directions you’d appreciate more than anyone else. So Cassie’s Ghost projection project ended up looking like huge Archetype Figmas. The Massive Cloud Burst game scenario you were crazy about started to casually but firmly overwrite reality. And Tokie…”

“What about Tokie?”

“Well… we haven’t figured it all out yet, but it seems like you managed to shift this last variant, so that Tokie became a perfect host for SAR.AI. We can’t figure it out – she’s only tangentially in Frisbee’s and Ai’s bloodline, but she was still chosen. That sort of manipulation is purely in the realm of Cassie and Hel, but here you are – controlling destinies as you sleep.”

I wasn’t understanding this. I was understanding more than I could even think about.

“So yeah. Your mind and spirit have been wishing big and winning all sorts of lotteries, from Portland to St. Cloud. And one sign of your subconscious manipulation is all of the infrared and radio waves you’re putting out. Big bursts that can’t help but throw your TV into static with random success.”

“It’s me? I’m the one making the TVs go crazy?”

“Yes. But that’s not the crazy part. The crazy part is that you’re actually broadcasting coherent messages along with the randomness. They’re the kind of encoded signals that SETI dreams of receiving from outer space. People who know how to listen are starting to notice.”

“So I’m some sort of Antenna now? I haven’t even been tattooed or anything?”

“Not yet. But you will be – you’re broadcasting very clear instructions on how to find you, and just what to do with you.”

“What the fuck to do with me?”

“Like I’ve been telling you over and over – you’re the Chosen Light. You’re calling to the Nameless, and the Black itself, and that siren song is irresistible. But something else is listening too, through the Grand Supreme. It wants to break that code, and take over all of existence for itself.”

“Sasha OS my fucking ass! Who the fuck came up with this shit? Fuck!”

I couldn’t help myself. I reached down to my bike, grabbed the front wheel, and tore off the tire like newspaper.

Not like newspaper. The tire became newspaper, and I gathered it, crumpling it into a ball the size of a softball.

Down the street, we could hear a car crash.

Every toddler walking with their parents suddenly fell to the ground and pissed and shat themselves.

My hands and wrists turned an inky black.

I scrunched the softball of paper smaller, and smaller, until it felt like I was holding the sun cupped between palms.

Inside of the burning dark was a shining, golden jawbreaker.

It was my rage externalized, my broadcast solidified, my perfect weapon.

“No. Too. Souuunn……..” Aurora was gone, and her plastic host was melting away like water from a faucet, leaving a pool of clear plastic streaked with soda bottle labels.

I didn’t know what to do. People were starting to look. Should I get on her bike and just ride away?

“You’re calling me.” I heard the faint whisper of a girl, only no one was there. “I’m coming for you soon.”

It sounded like Cassie a bit, only angrier. Her twin sister Helena?

“Kaia is holding me back from halfway around the world, but she can’t last much longer.”

I still don’t understand who Kaia is anymore. She was just this woman in Munich who liked Die Database. Has she replaced Ai as the head of the Collective? Is she related to my mother? Is she my mother? No one on the other side will talk to me about it.

Something else was also speaking to me – the jawbreaker. I couldn’t understand it – it was buzzing against the nerves in my hand, but the most I could get was an insatiable urge to run towards the ruins of the old Gold Medal Flour mills.

I left the bikes behind, and sprinted across the street, running on planks of wood past joggers, tourists and trees. The blue sky was streaked with clouds. I could feel each drop of water suspended in the fluffy whiteness.

“You don’t know what you’re doing. Let me teach you.” The voice was coming from between my ears, from beyond the sky. Familiar and frightening, like the growl of a stray dog as you reach in to pet it.

I had to get into that shell of a building. I had to….

As I ran past the broken, brick walls, I bumped into two little girls, couldn’t have been more than 7. They were dressed in Minnesota Twins gear – the baseball caps and little button-down uniforms and everything.

“Just like we promised.” One of them took my hand – it was sticky like from too much candy. The back of her jersey had a big number 1, and said “HEL”.

“You still haven’t built our clubhouse.” The other one, with a jersey reading number 2, and “CASSIE”, grabbed me by the waist. The sky collapsed into the street, my head suddenly met pillows, and my body was caressed by high thread count sheets.

I was asleep, right? I never even went to the city?

I thought it was a dream, until the golden jawbreaker rolled out of my hands and onto the hotel room floor.

I can see it, I can feel it, but I don’t understand it at all. What am I supposed to do with it?

The television was speaking static as I got out of bed, but I turned it off with a faraway glare.

Haunted By The Ghost Collective

It’s too much.

I’m heart broken and soul smooshed, and it wasn’t supposed to be this way at all.

I had a Ghost Collective looking out for me – any one of them could use their borrowed, plastic bodies to destroy the strongest people on Earth, and most fictional people out of comic books, too.

There was just only one person they feared – Helena, the Grand Supreme – and she wasn’t even a person any more. If the Universe were a huge girl, with galaxy clusters for cells, then she’s that girl. She controls all of Time and Space. We’re just a speck on a particle on a tiny bit of nothing, and that’s how she treats us.

That’s what the Ghost Collective told me it felt like when Helena killed them all on the 4th of July, while Mom and I were watching the ashes of fireworks slowly float down to the Mississippi. She hunted them down through time and space, every last variation from all parallel Fringe places. She tore them apart barehanded, like a paper-shredder, but seemed more concerned about her dress made of of punk patches – she took the time, to stop time, to individually deflect each spray of blood that came anywhere close to her.

She was 16 and everything, and seemed to care about nothing. I know how she feels.

No, really. Helena has her problems, but everyone thinks it’s due to the crazy computer system that’s taken her over. Before that happened, she was really quite cool and loving. Now, no one knows if she’s even in there anymore, or if she’s now just the ultimate flesh weapon, aiming for the final target.

Me – that’s who. Who I trust, who I trust…

The Ghost Collective is trying to stop her from reaching me, but it’s all a big joke. We’re all just bug bugs on top of bed bugs, hiding away in this mattress world, hoping for an exposed knee to bite. That’ll teach her, until she starts to fumigate.

I learned all about bed bugs at the Minnesota State Fair – they’re Minnesota’s Newest Nightmare!. I was there yesterday, and today, and I’ll be there tomorrow, too.

We wrote the Jefferson Lines down a few days ago – once Mom left, and turned off her crazy mind control, it was a snap to get bus tickets and take the ride down to Minneapolis. It didn’t take much more than an hour, and I liked to see all of the trees and grass in between the strip-mall heavy towns. Tokie came with me, along with fake Dad and Gabby. I don’t know her too well yet, but she seems to be Tokie’s nurse or something.

Did I mention that Tokie is totally pregnant now? Well, as much as a Ghost can be. For some reason she likes to project in to her plastic robot thing using her “real” appearance, which is full of literal baby fat. It really suits her – she looks awesome.

No. She is awesome. Before today, I was still annoyed by what I thought was her creepy stalker self, all obsessed over me for no good reason I could tell.

After today, as I screamed and screamed and screamed on the Skyflyer, now I totally get where she’s coming from.

I can totally remember everything that I was forced to forget, including the other lives when we were in love from the soul on up and the skin downwards.

Like I said – it’s too much to handle right now, above and beyond my almost-sunburn, and stomach still ballooned out with dairy products, so Tokie and I looked like twins.

We’ve spent the past few days together, but today was the day that they threw caution to the wind and finally let me have my memories back. Because of that, it’s hard to concentrate on this world when I have 237 other ones to explore, all of the past times where I met my end.

So, I’m going to cheat a whole lot tonight, and use Tokie’s logs to help tell the story. Everything that’s said was said, and I’ll do my best to cut out the boring parts, unless they’re totally rad and worth yawning over.

The Bus Ride

My hotel is over in Bloomington, right across the street from the fucking Mall of America. I insisted on that, because after suffering more than a month of the tiny Crossroads Center in St. Cloud, I deserved a proper sized Justice to hate, and indoor Squarepants roller coasters.

Anyway, I also knew that there was a bus stop across from the mall, one of those Park and Ride things with a city block of dirt for the cars. The 4 of us just lined up nearby at the bus stop – $5 for a round trip ride to the fairgrounds – and we managed to bypass the 50+ people already in line, to stuff onto the bus that was about to depart, as standing room only cattle.

They let me go in first, so I stood next to two cute, overly made up and pierced girls, who had matching t-shirts from some booth at the Fair. It was a bit after 9AM, so I guess their employer had slacky standards – the fair opened at yawny, sunrising times.

Anyway, so I listened to then for bit, before I started to mess a bit with Tokie.

Me: So why did you hide your baby bumper before we got on the bus?
Tokie: I didn’t want anyone to get the wrong idea, and try to give me their seat, only to feel my plastic shoulder.
Me: But don’t you need to rest your weary soul or something? Don’t they do that up there?
Tokie: Honestly, I don’t know what they do…. did you see that?
Me: What? Oh… hah! Look at that little dog mooning us from that SUV!
Tokie: I didn’t know that they rubbed their ass against glass, but I guess it figures.
Me: Yeah… good times. So anyway, what do you mean you don’t know what they do up there? Aren’t you one of them?
Tokie:It’s hard to explain. I’m not actually dead yet, but once my big girl pops out, then I’ll graduate to the big time.
Me: You’re not dead yet? Then where are you?
Tokie: That’s not something I can talk about on the bus. I’m in good, attentive hands, but everyone pretty much cares more about Sarah than me. I’m just the SUV, and she’s the dog that wants to jump out of the window.
Me: I’m sure she’s an extremely cute dog, or baby, or goddess – what is she, anyway? You gave me that big speech yesterday, all about Massive Cloud Burst come alive, and I tried reading your crazy blog, but I’m still not getting it.
Tokie: She’s my daughter, but she also created us all. Anything more than that is bound to kill your pre-fair buzz.
Me: OK, OK, but I expect more info soon. Can’t you use your built in micro-projectors to make a palm sized power point or something?
Tokie: I haven’t tried it out yet, but I think I could adapt the hologram to actually shoot killer lasers and shit.
Me: You definitely have to show me that one later.
Tokie: Alright – GPS puts us about 30 minutes away from the fairgrounds.
Me: My buzz is being killed – come on, we need another car full of dogs or kids, or maybe….

I’ll spare you another 45 minutes of my free association, but eventually we made it past the University of Minnesota, and down a few two-laned roads to the bus parking lot. There were city buses from all over the greater Minneapolis region, and hundreds of people lined up between the bus lot and car parking lot for tickets. It was already starting to get hot, but I saved my plastic protectors from melting, by waving them over to the super-short ticket-having line.

I don’t know how many tickets I bought from Cash Wise – close to a hundred? I just went all out, figuring that some of my ghost guests were bound to be game, and if they weren’t, then I could always give them away, or flash them at people in line – “too bad for you, I already bought all of the tickets!”

Not that my asshole-dream scenario is even possible – there was something like 500 million people at the fair. Well, 50,000? It seemed like that, as we walked over the wooden bridge, past some trucks and storage huts, and beyond the booth selling the blue, discount coupon books for $5. Of course, I had already bought a few a few days ago, and I was fully prepared to tear out each and every bargain that involved licking, or crunchiness, or booths in the shape of man-sized barrels of root beer.

I don’t just love the fair, I want to marry it, and save all of the cotton candy sex until our honeymoon. I’m so serious – Weezer is going to perform one of these nights, and they have 4H fashion shows with 13 year old girls. I tried to get Tokie to falsify some 4H credentials so I could act young and join the festivities, but no go. What good is a life-sized Figma for a friend, if you can’t abuse the privledge.

Speaking of which….

The Main Entrance

Me: Before this is over, I’m going to force you to enter that big barn and watch all the livestock being born.
Tokie: I will never enter the Miracle of Birth Center. Never.
Me: I thought you were Pro Birth?
Tokie: I’m pro Baby, but anti Birth. Life begins when you get that cute thing out of me. I don’t need to obsess over screaming and baby-related fluids
Me: Are you even going to have to go through all of that? Don’t ghost babies just walk though your walls and all that?
Tokie: I don’t think you get it. She’s a real, live baby, and I’m the almost-ghost. I’m going to have to give the last bit of my life, so that others can hear her first cries.
Me: D, Depressing! D, D, Depressing…. well, I’m going to sneak into the Miracle of Birth Center one of these days. You can wait outside and look for the end of the world or something.
Tokie: Speaking of which, did you read that website I gave you last night?
Me: Dark Antenna! Brother Douglas! Oh man, I had to stop myself from cracking up, especially since it’s true. It’s true, right?
Tokie: Yes. Some of his insights are more assumptions than actualities, but the big parts are right on. Cassandra made sure to see to that – he’s one of her pet projects.
Me: Oh yeah – is Cassie going to come back again? She’s a trip.
Tokie: I’m sorry – she has business to attend to, hopping from PRS to PRS all over the world. Since she died, she no longer has control of Time, but she still manages to get around.
Me: 5 dollar foot long! I want you to show me that trick again with the light rail fair gates!
Tokie: The Infinite Subway is not a toy, alright? Besides, that’s the whole reason we’re in this mess.
Me: I still don’t get it…. wait. I keep passing by this booth every day. Come on! “All You Can Drink Milk For $1″ White and Chocolate! That totally seems like something worth throwing up for.
Tokie: I totally think they just take all of the milk from the Miracle of Birth, give it a few shakes, and sell it right there.
Me: Mmmmm… Miracle of Birth Milk… I’d buy that for a dollar.
Tokie: No. I’m still not going to let you preorder that Robocop figma.
Me: Anyway…. so really? You’re going to give birth on New Year’s Eve?
Tokie: Apparently they have it planned down to the second. I feel sorry for Douglas, spending most of his life preparing for the end of everything, and everyone thinking he’s crazy for it.
Me: Jenny Ghost should pay him a visit, and stop giving him such a hard time for once.
Tokie: She’s pre-occupied with a certain someone that definitely should throw that dollar down to the pavement, and step away from the milk!
Me: Oh… you’re no fun anymore.
Tokie: Really, do you want me to crack open the Python? I’ll do it.

She did it. I’ll refrain from sharing the next 20 minutes of obscure Palin-isms and funny walks, but it ended with milk in my belly – both kinds.

Yeah, I’ve having a blast. The first day I randomly ran from booth to booth, from new tractor to old statues of Linus and Lucy from Peanuts, but after a while I constructed a plan. It’s a really great plan, full of equal mixes fried food on sticks and cheese curds, plus this chocolate milk shake there was a coupon for – I get one of those daily, ’cause it beats Wendy’s Frosties to death in an alley somewhere.

Minnesota knows its dairy. You can see the cows where it comes from, the object in question in big glasses of joy, and so many variations of milk products, that everyone is obviously enjoying. Their skinny and huge stomachs alike shout out to the sky, Milk!

I like these people. It’s not a diverse crowd, but they’re nice and focused on all of the simple things that can make you happy for two weeks yearly. My idea of that is a bit different, like when I heckle the Minnesota Twins players as they do exercises on a small field, or when I heckle the tween skateboarders during the competitions on kinda pipes. I like to heckle, but I do it with freshly squeezed lemonade in one hand, and variations of meat delivery systems in another.

So… yeah. I think I’m at that part when you’re starting to yawn. I think I know what’ll take care of that – the Midway.

Skyflyer

When you walk in the fair from the bottom, there are lots of animals – poopy sheep, stinky horses, shitty cows. They’re cute, but from more than arms length.

Surrounding the animals are all sorts of booths, mostly inside of buildings in massive installations. Test a dozen shower heads by running your hands through their cleaning blast. Buy a furnace, or a couch that does something clever, or hats with eagles on them. It’s really American, and not in an overly Republican way, even though there’s a Republican Party Of Minnesota house you can visit. They have Real Solutions for Real People, and so does Minnesota Public Radio, or all of the TV stations, or the Ellen tv show booth, which I’m pretty sure involved dancing in some way.

No, the fair has people everywhere, and they’re not out to get you, or to judge you too heavily for looking a bit too punk, too fat, or too geeky. Everyone is invited, and even though everyone doesn’t actually show up, it seems really fair and balanced – pay your way, and everyone wins a prize.

Really – there was a booth like that on the Midway. Who wants to pay for a guarantee to win a prize – isn’t that called shopping? I want to pay for a guarantee for a greasy slice of pizza, or a chance to squirt water at a licensed character, to perhaps win another licensed character? This is a place where the highway patrol are not out to get you, where there is a room full of paintings made out of corn kernels, where you can get free cups of Ocean Spray crantastic drinkables, just because you showed up.

You are special and important there. Everyone is. Together, we can change a fenced in bit of the world, one bargain coupon at a time.

OK, enough of that. Now for the bit where my mind is blown and I’m forced to grow up.

Me: I really need to go on another ride. I have too many tickets burning holes in my backpack.
Tokie: Hey, um, we need to talk for a bit. Seriously. Let’s sit over there.
Me: You’re torturing me, making me sit right in front of a booth where you can spend your tickets on many chances to lose!
Tokie: Seriously. I’ll just come out and say it. Do you want to kill yourself?
Me: Huh the fuck? Come on, there will always be more tickets.
Tokie: I read your blog from St. Cloud. You mentioned suicide a few times, like it was a joke. Do you want to know why?
Me: It’s nothing…. it’s just that sometimes, after Mom left, I get these flashes of dread and doom. It’s like I want to jump in front of the nearest car, but I so totally don’t want to. Really, don’t worry about it.
Tokie: Listen to me. It’s going to get worse. It always gets worse, thanks to Cathy.
Me: What do you mean? I don’t like where you’re headed with this.
Tokie: Your mother has been controlling you all of your lives. She took you away from the Collective so she could fully manage your life. So she could stop you from becoming who, and what you really are.
Me: At this point, I don’t give a fuck anymore. She’s gone, and I can finally think and act for myself. Everything is great.
Tokie: She’s not gone. She may not be here, but she’s shaped your mind so that you won’t be able to survive without her. Listen. She’s left a booby trap in your brain. If anything happens to her, or if she leaves, then….. if she can’t have you, then no one will, you know?
Me: I don’t fucking know at all! Stop playing with me and print it out in a huge font or something!
Tokie: Fine. We didn’t want to do this, but we have no other choice. Come on, follow me.
Me: Are you finally going to stop talking shit and let me spend my tickets?
Tokie: Yes. Go over there, and pick a ride for us to go on. The screamier, the better.

So I picked the Skyflyer. You get in these molded, yellow plastic seats, two of them to each bench. The benches are on metal wires, and then you spin around a central axis, before going up in the sky with the other riders like a moving pinwheel. Tokie and I got strapped in, and then we took off, slowly at first.

Tokie: Don’t ask me how, but we’re going to restore your memories of all 237 Variants.
Me: What?
Tokie: You’re going to scream. I’m sorry, it can’t be avoided. Just know that I’m here, and I’m not going to let you go.
Me: Of course I’m going to scream – it’s the Skyflyer! Everyone fucking….

Then, as we spun faster, waves and waves of self-mutilation hit me in the chest. Jumping off the Steel Bridge in Portland. In front of Max trains. Knives, a gun stolen from a cop, drowning in the Willamette River with a Fred Meyer plastic bag over my head.

Over 150 times. Sometimes it was an obvious suicide, and other times it was like I wished that car to hit me, or for the night janitor in that mental hospital to molest and suffocate me.

Everyone fucking screams when they die over, and over, and over, and even when I made it to my 16th birthday, I found some way to fuck things up, to….

I’m screaming because I don’t understand this. I’m screaming because I have something inside of me, a power that can destroy everything if I wanted to, or if I didn’t want to.

I’m screaming because I’m connected to everything. Even if I don’t fully feel it yet, I can remember every time that black flame awoke, when I burned everyone and everything around me. Everyone and everything I couldn’t even imagine, gone.

I’m screaming because I’m the end of the world, and my mother keeps trying to stop me. She’d rather I kill myself than go fully out of control.

I’m screaming because I was on the Skyflyer, but even after it spun to a halt, for a full minute afterwards, I was screaming at the top of my lungs, screaming at the sky, at the space beyond sky, at the power beyond the space – my birthright that I wanted no fucking part of.

Tokie held me close, until Gabby and fake Dad appeared out of nowhere, pushed back the crowds with their minds, and carefully escorted me away from it all.

I don’t remember the bus ride black to Bloomington. I can’t look at the world as it is, without feeling these little, tiny loops just waiting for my hook.

I’m so afraid that I’ll think the wrong thought, and make the moon disappear forever.

I’m so afraid that I’ll find another way to push Tokie away, that I’ll forget our long ago love that she never wakes up from.

I’m so afraid that in a month it will be October. Helena the Grand Supreme is coming for me in October, but no one knows when.

I don’t know how, but someone my Dad managed to talk me down, with his smooth plastic fingers hiding his broken yet loving spirit.

For a whole hour, he just sat next to me on the hotel bed, with way too many fancy pillows all over the place. He told me stories of his reckless youth, the kind that parents never share, for fear that you might follow in their mistakes.

He was honest, and he knew what it was like to be suddenly wrapped up in big, crazy stuff beyond your control. Sasha and the Collective did it to him before I was born, and they did it to me as well.

I felt good enough that Gabby and him went back to their own room, and Tokie is keeping me company while I finish up this entry.

I know that no one will read this but the Collective, trying to tell just how soon before it all goes to hell.

I can’t blame them one bit, but the answer can’t be written down or analyzed.

It’s right here in my head filled with lifetimes of memories. It’s right here in my heart that yearns for Tokie’s touch, back in Portland in the bathroom, a feeling I can never experience ever again.

She doesn’t know it yet, but I’m going to find a way. Where she doesn’t die, where no one has to die, where I can meet the darkness shining brightly.

But first, I need to get some sleep – I still have a few tickets left to spend tomorrow.

Continental Bagel-Jam Explosion

It’s been a week, and the whole world was made in a week, if you know what I mean.

I don’t really know – not any more. Mom is gone, and isn’t coming back for me.

I’ve had headaches every morning, the kind that make you see spots and chew on your pillow.

My dreams have been of glue sticks and zine creation at mental hospitals, and running across the world through shady corners past subway turnstiles.

I’m aiming for a plea of insanity, but my fake Dad in the other hotel room is opposite evidence.

Did I mention the life-sized, plastic Figma robot? I was saving that for when I took the stand, “Your honor, I’ve been having a secret affair with a Ghost statue!” All of the lawyers would object, and they’d drag me off smiling to the asylum.

Like I said. The whole world in a week. I never believed that, nor in angels or miracles or prayers carried to Heaven on the wings of dove-love.

I didn’t believe what Tokie and Aurora and Kaia were trying to tell me at the beginning of this year.

It’s not that I won’t accept what my eyes can’t stare at – I won’t accept my eyes if I disagree with their visions. I’ll reject my brain before changing my mind, and that was working wonders for me until Mom left.

I spent a whole morning just hanging out at Crossroads, going into each shop and asking them if they had seen her, “Hard to miss, all punk up in your face?” They hadn’t seen her. She’d been there every day since we arrived over a month ago, and no one remembered.

I even went back in Target, and this time I didn’t trip out or faint or anything, but she wasn’t there either.

I wasn’t used to this, to have to look for her. She was always right there around the corner despite myself, and I never lost her at the park, or at the movie theater, or anywhere. She just always was. Always.

Now, she wasn’t. I couldn’t feel her at all. Didn’t even know I could, until she left me here alone. It sucked.

As I left Target, I saw that same girl from before, the one wearing the red and black Circle X uniform. This time she was pushing around a red, plastic shopping cart full of empty soda and water bottles, and she stopped at each garbage can to dig for redemption gold.

I knew that Mom recognized her, so maybe? I turned off my freak flag detector and walked up to her while she pulled out a small Coke bottle. She squinted at me, and then gave the same smile as before.

“There you are. I was worried after yesterday.” She swatted at an invisible fly, and then reached in the cart and gave me a clear water bottle. “I was born to recycle, you know? No you don’t!” She gave a snorty laugh and then took the bottle back. Apparently she was way too fast for me, since it already was out of her hands, and I didn’t see her throw it back.

Apparently. I used to like that word, full of wiggle room and hope. Now, I got as much hope as rope – only enough for one good hanging.

It’s OK – don’t worry about me. Like I said, fake Dad is in the other room, stuffing plastic bottles into his chest. It’s all going to be perfectly great from now on.

The girl with the Circle X uniform and bottles was Sasha. She said she grew up around here, along with Mom. “It was a little different then.” Another snort and smile, as she pushed the cart again and motioned for me to follow.

“Where is she?” I must have looked like some kid lusting after the ice cream truck, “where!”

“Just wait a minute, alright?” We were taking the same route that Mom dragged me down yesterday, around the corner and towards the loading docks. “This body has survived since 2000, but I don’t have too many bottles left in me.”

So she was drunk? I was trying my best to follow, but I just wanted the map to break into celebrities homes, so I could hold them hostage in exchange for my Mom.

“OK, fine.” Sasha stopped the cart and turned to face me. Her eyes had this weird twinkle in them. “Cathy is here, but not yet. When she gets here, she’ll be gone.”

Fucking fortune cookie face smash, but instead I just nodded and walked away.

“Miranda.” She knew my name without me saying it. “If you don’t believe me, then come back tomorrow around now. We’ll clear up your head in no time.”

With that, she waived in my general direction like she finally found that fly, and then continued with her bottle collection.

I looked all around St. Cloud that day, but no luck. By the time the sun started to set in Waite Park, I decided to take the semi-long walk back to the hotel. Past the huge water tower and Chinese Star buffet, and over the train tracks. I even sat at the stupid seats where you could look down and watch the train pass, if you actually knew when it was going to pass.

I’m not a train passing kind of girl, but I forced myself to sit anyway. A small cloud of gnats had been following me around all day, since I wasn’t shying away from the more grassy areas during my search. So I kept waiving and slapping and imagining I knew what it felt like to be a bottle-collecting girl with big dreams and aspirations.

No train, for minutes on end. Looking down at the tracks, I started to picture a big freight train coming after all. I would feel the slow rumble past the unfortunate houses, shield my eyes from the bright headlamps, and just at the right moment, jump.

Like I said, no worries. No hanging or jumping or piles of pills. I’m too crazy to tolerate such uncertainty.

You already know what happened next, essentially. I told the front desk that Mom was out of town, but that she’d be back extremely soon. If that big-eared boy was round, it would have been fine. But the night supervisor was all blonde and eye-glassy and wearing dry-cleaned stuff, so I got the feeling she would only give me a face full of doubts. She glared at my big stack of twenties, and then told me that she needed a credit card on file as soon as my Mom came back.

She doesn’t have a credit card, or credit union account, or any account whatsoever. That was evil talk in our real house, tents and hotel rooms. Accounts let them keep account of you, like just another number. “You’re so much more than that, Mira. You’re too good to let them know how good you are.”

So. Nightmares about sleepwalking to a tattoo shop to get Tokie’s name as a cursive tramp stamp. Continental bagel-jam explosion for breakfast.

Why did I walk over to Crossroads center again? I wanted to find my Mom, but even more than that, I wanted to be entertained by the truth. To get joy from tiny promises kept, even if they were from bottle ladies. I wanted a clear head because if she wasn’t coming back, if I had to survive from that point onward all by myself, I wanted to leave St. Cloud without all of the baggage she strapped on me over the years.

I didn’t even walk into the mall this time. I just went around past Sears, and back to the long, dead-end driveway that could fit a handful of truck trailers. Sitting on the lip of an empty loading dock was Sasha, and some other girl I hadn’t/had seen before. It was all deja vu, all the time last week.

Sasha saw me – she was still wearing that same Circle X outfit – and she immediately jumped down, got behind her now empty cart, and moved it to right below her friend. The new girl was red haired, wearing a baby blue t-shirt, that had a photo of another girl on it, who was holding a sign that said “antizine!”.

I couldn’t see all that detail then. But I had lots of time to check it out after she jumped in the cart, and Sasha pushed her over to me with vigor.

Extreme with the vigor – they weren’t going to stop, so I jumped out of the way at the last second. “Fuck you!”

“Oh yeah! She has a pulse!” T-shirt girl jumped out of the red cart and held out her hand to me. “One small step for woman…”

I came all of that way, two whole blocks, that I felt fully committed. So I took her hand.

And.

Remember my fake Dad in the other hotel room? I was shaking his plastic hand right now, feeling the hard, smooth, cold joints hidden by a Die Database strength holographic Ghost.

“I wish I had a bathtub so I could push you in and yell Eureka!” That was Frisbee, piloting from the other side. I didn’t know who she was then, but now I do. I really do – not just from antizine, but first hand stories that were never printed.

Sasha came over and touched me on the cheek – the same plastic surprise inside.

“I’ve been waiting 11 years for you, in all the Fairviews and St. Clouds that the Twins could muster.” She gave me a extra-probing look in the eye, and then smiled again. “Phone would be so proud of you.”

My brain gears were chugging, all steamy and racing.

“Don’t worry, Cathy no longer controls this town. Or you. We’re going to bring Phone back really soon, as soon as we fill the cart again and cough up Jenny.”

No. No. Don’t. Yes?

The train track switches are all on, and it’s coming with a vigor right at me.

That stupid fucking old guy with the beard and black hoodie, attacking Satomi and dying at the Die Database concert.

Kaia’s ex-boyfriend. Phone.

“It’s going to be OK, dear. When your mother comes back to Fairview in 2000, to St. Cloud right now, we’ll be ready for her.”

Did I watch the father I never knew die half way around the world?

Yes. Yes I did.

Now he’s right there in the other room, a Ghost from beyond the ashy end come to make things right.

It’s been a week since we met. We had words – I made sure to yell my part.

He didn’t know I existed. He loves me. He wants me to call him Brian.

I told him not to speak unless spoken to, at least not yet.

That’s OK, because he has a job to do. He spends all day telecommuting from the great beyond to this hotel, making the plastic bottle girls that are supposed to save the day. Every time a new one comes we book a room for them. The first and last Collective Convention starts soon, and they’re mind-forcing the dry-cleaner night supervisor to arrange it.

I’m still trying hard to give a fuck, to fill my empty head with the hurtful truth that lights up everything.

Amazing, wow, anyway – I’m much more excited about the Minnesota State Fair that starts next week, outside of Minneapolis.

I’ve already bought a fistful of $9 tickets from Cash Wise, and I just can’t wait leave this town forever, and use them for a whole week of joy on a stick.

The whole world was made in a week, if you know what I mean.

The Lullaby Of White And Black Flames

I don’t know how to begin this.

It’s like when your house burns down, and then you’re worried that the phone bill might have been in the mailbox. Would they send you a new copy before it’s due?

That’s what this post is going to be like. Me, worried about what’s due when it’s already over.

OK. Nothing really matters now.

Might as well start with part of what I promised: What the fuck’s with the cable service in St. Cloud?

Every hotel we’ve been with has been plagued with random static channels that come on when you least expect them. Which is at 3 in the morning. At full, snowy volume.

I don’t know anything about TV technology, other than how to plug things in and aim the remote, but is there some sort of signal that can make sets come on at all hours of the night?

Perhaps I’m supposed to jump to Poltergeist conclusions, with ghost alligators in the broadcast sewers, but I think it’s probably some problem with Comcast or whatever service the hotels are using.

Still. Annoying as fuck – I have to unplug the TV each night.

Anyway, I’ve been trying to make the best of things.

Mom wasn’t helping at all. She was still dressing all punk like she did in the old photographs I found in some 7-inches (right before we started running away from Portland), and she hangs out almost all day a few blocks down at the Crossroads Center.

Yesterday I braved the warm, sticky wetness that’s been dominating the weather, and went to the mall to catch the bus. I decided to go in for a few minutes to hit the bathroom, and as I walked past a gaggle of girls leaving Justice, I saw Mom sitting on some chairs, over by the Mountain Dew machines. Yes, the soda machines have their own mini-lounges and TV sets, to accentuate the sugar and caffeine rush experience.

Anyway, she was there, and for a moment I thought she was staring at the Victoria’s Secret, or at least the pink and white sale signs in front. As I walked over, it was clear that she had on her far away stare again, and that she was looking at whatever people in crazy town look at – fluffy bunnies fighting fluffy chicks in Nicolas Cage matches.

Yeah, I’m a refuge from crazy town myself right about now, and it all started when I sat down next to her while her fingers tapped and twitched away against the table. I gave her my usual tug against her left earlobe – the same thing I had been doing for years – and she turned around and grabbed me by the throat, and looked at me with hungry eyes like I was a lollipop.

“Don’t.” Let her hand relax a bit. “Mira.” Forced smile. “Don’t sneak up like that, Mira.” I quickly pushed away from the table and sprinted away past Caribou Coffee and Best Buy Mobile, towards the Food Court.

I couldn’t fucking believe her. I didn’t even care about the bus anymore, I just wanted to take whatever exit was as far away from her as possible, and never look back. No one touches me like that, ever.

I made it about a hundred feet away, and right before I turned towards the Proactive vending box with Avril Lavigne all over it, she suddenly rushed behind me and grabbed me by the shoulders.

I remember her arms, warm and strong, and her studded bracelets poking against my neck and chin. Then there was a quick blackness, and I woke up on a couch over by the restrooms near JC Penny’s.

I can remember what happened, but as she sat with my head in her lap, carefully brushing my hair with her hand, it was like a warm wave of forgiveness rushed over me. I wanted to jump up and slap her, but instead the anger just floated away.

We stayed there for a while, just looking at each other. The same way we always did at home, good day or bad, during our special time when nothing mattered but her smile. I clearly hadn’t grown out of her blanketing control, but this was ridiculous.

It didn’t seem like it then. We got up, walked past the Food Court lines (an hour must have passed in order for there to have been the lunchtime crowd), and weaved past Aerie and Macy’s, and down the corridor to Target.

I was still in a daze, more interested in the used video game shop than the big, white bullseye, but she led me by the hand, past the red snack center and candy-cluttered checkout lines, and down the aisles.

I didn’t understand the point. Did we need greeting cards or towels for our new life? Would the latest Blu-ray or pink panties from China make everything better?

Everything was heavy, swimmy, blurry, and I could have swore I saw a girl in a red and black Circle X uniform, straightening the cereal. Isn’t Circle X only in Japan? Long black hair with two pony tails, held by twist ties. She was smiling at me. I knew her. Did I know her?

Mom saw her too, and started to freak out, and so she picked me up like a big bag of potting soil and ran out of the store, my feet dangling and occasionally catching against hung clothes or the floor. I felt frozen. Disconnected.

She ran out into the sunny parking lot, and put me down long enough to push me past the red Target shopping carts, around the corner of the building and back towards the front of the mall.

She kept looking up at the black-windowed security cameras, and seemed to hide me from them as we ran past a few stray cars and the nearly empty loading docks.

“Mira, breathe. Breathe.” She was making such a big fuss about that, until I realized that I was holding my breath, all cheeks puffed out like I was ready to meet the bottom of the pool. So I let out the air, a big whoosh before she started tugging me forward again.

“It’s too soon…. shit!” She looked up intensely at the sky. “The subway’s going to come soon.”

As we quickly rounded Sears she aimed me towards the bus shelter.

Too soon? What fucking subway? I would give up my backpack full of twenties if I could just understand what has been going on for the past month.

She waited with me on the uncomfortable seats. “It’s going to be OK.” She didn’t sound convincing at all. “I’ve got the twins, and I’m going to take care of everything this time.”

Crazy. She paid her crazy dollar to put me on the first bus that was headed back to the Transit Center – a few miles away near the Mississippi river.

“Listen to me, Mira.” She sat down next to me, and it felt like everyone on the bus was looking at us, including the driver. “The only way that I can save you now is to steal the golden spike. Do you understand me?” She clutched my hands extra tight, and then let go as she stood up. “Of course you don’t. I hope you’ll forgive me someday.”

With that, she squeezed past an impressively large woman that was getting on the bus, and ran back into the mall.

I imagined myself jumping off the bus and following her.

I kept imagining that as it went forward a few feet, and then turned past some parked cars towards the exit.

It was a beautiful dream, a chase ending in an endless embrace, with warm smiles and tears.

The hotel was a few blocks away, but I didn’t care.

I just stayed on the bus as it wove through the city, past banks and houses and trees and barely any people actually walking around.

When I walked around town, did people in cars and on the bus stare at me, feeling sorry that I had to make my legs work?

Or was I just the same as a telephone pole, or a button you’d press to walk across the street? Something you’d never pay attention to unless you were lost on the way back to the SUV.

I don’t know anything right now. Except that my mother didn’t come back to the hotel tonight, to take me out to dinner, or for anything else.

Her room is right next door, and it’s been silent ever since I got back this evening.

I lied to the desk clerk, the young guy with the big ears that keeps asking me out. I told him that my Mom sent me down since she had locked her key card in the room. That sounded good to him, and I rewarded him with an extra smile. I like big ears.

Once I opened the door with a click and whir, I tried my best not to freak out. I was too old to give in to the freaking.

It was empty.

The sink was dry. The dresser hollow. The bed made like it was ready for the next guest.

Nothing in the fridge. Nothing of hers anywhere.

And the fucking TV was on, throwing static into the air-conditioned wind.

Is this it? Is she really not coming back tonight, or tomorrow?

I sat on the edge of the bed, closed my eyes and let it whisper away.

A lullaby of white and black flames promising nothing, and everything.

Strangled By Mommy GPS

I’m convinced – I’m now officially trapped in St. Cloud.

Sorry about the delay in getting back to you, my hypothetical blog reader and all-around cool entity – I’ve spent the past few weeks testing the boundaries of my prison.

“Prison” – too harsh? Well, it’s actually like a theme park of normality, and Mom has given me free reign to do almost whatever I want most every day, with a few weird exceptions.

One exception is that I can’t have a phone.

Another is that I have to watch what I write here – she actually found some way to take down a few posts since last time, since I was too specific about a few things.

For example, I can say that she’s been spending a lot of time at the Crossroads Center, but I can’t tell you exactly what she’s doing. I did that last week, and the whole post blew up.

At first, I was satisfied riding the bus to Waite Park and the Parkwood movie theater – it’s about 10 minutes away via the #1 bus. Waite Park has about 6000 people in it, and I’ve probably seen almost all of them on the streets of St. Cloud, doing all of the things they can’t do at home. There’s not a whole lot to enjoy in Waite Park, “The City with the Smile”, but I don’t hold that against them.

There’s a SuperAmerica right by the bus stop, which is awesome saucy pop, and one of those shiny thermos diners, not to mention one of those First Fuel Banks. I got way too excited when I first saw one of those, but it turns out it’s just a gas station – you can’t actually deposit extra diesel or whatever.

So anyway, the Parkwood staff knows all about me by now. I’ve seen every single movie that they’ve offered for the past month, some a few times – I’m a sucker for Harry Potter and Captain America. If there’s a really awful moment, like most of Transformers 3, then I’ll just walk out to the funky lobby and chew the popcorn with the soda jerkettes – a few of them are awfully cute. Plus, they look the other way when I sneak into the R rated movies – The Smurfs was a perfect launching point into forbidden theater hopping. I’m also totally into the tuxedo wear the ticket takers have to put up with – I’m been trying my best to let them let me borrow their bow ties, but it’s been no go so far.

The Salk River is behind the theater, but I haven’t really gotten a good look at it from in between all the trees. That’s the crazy thing – I totally see how I could walk right up to its creeky self, and frolic in Pine View Park, but I can’t. I get up the nerve, approach, and then always change my mind. Remember that point, since they’ll be a quiz at the end.

Follow the river and you’ll hit the Mississippi River and Salk Rapids, another town I just can’t see myself hanging out in. Or, another town I can’t actually visit for a few minutes before wanting to go back across Old Man River. Sartell, which is a few blocks north of that, is just as inoffensive. I need to be offended!

Overall, Highway 10 seems to be the absolute border of my new and strange agoraphobia – I can go over the river on 3rd St SE, and hang out in the Target, Burger King, Shopco or Cash Wise, but anywhere beyond that to the East just doesn’t do it for me. They say the tiny airport is over there, but to me it’s like talking about Shangri La – mythically inaccessible.

I don’t want to be on Obsessed or Hoarders, really. I just want to get out of this fucking town, right now.

That’s another post that Mom whacked – it accounted all of my recent and failed attempts to run away from here, from her. I tried taking the Jefferson Lines bus from Downtown to Minneapolis, which is about an hour away, but the driver said I was too young to travel unattended. The fucking website says 15 is the cutoff, but I don’t have an ID card or anything, so they would believe me.

I got on a Northstar Link commuter bus, but it broke down two blocks after it left.

I tried to give a Yellow Cabbie $500 to take me anywhere South of here down 94 – but he just took a weird route near St. Augusta that ended up back at the hotel, with my Mom waiting outside for us.

I’ve used my wad of $20s to buy a new bicycle, all red fenders and brilliance, and tried to find a surface route to take, but the front brake failed and I ended up crashing into a bus stop bench. I wasn’t even anywhere near it, then bam!

I try to hitch, and no one stops, not even the sketchy cowboy molesters.

Writing it down like this, it sounds like some grand mommy GPS conspiracy, like she knows what I’m doing and thinking at all times, but I still don’t believe in techno miracles.

I tried reading Tokie’s creepy fan fiction disguised as a blog, but I couldn’t get past April’s posts and her heart on for me – it’s all a bit too much. We’ll, that would be too much all by itself, but as soon as the universe is ending over and over, and everyone’s joined the X-Men, then I go back to Massive Cloud Burst via VMWare.

If there’s one thing I can count on these days, it’s my shiny Mac and virtualization. Not that I can download everything I want – Mom put on some sort of crazy, invisible firewall jobby, that I can’t even figure out how to identify, let alone get past. If I even type the wrong thing into Google, then I’m talking to the hand. I tried bribing the Geeks at Best Buy, but they just kept on smiling at me. I think they’re all from Waite Park.

Oh yeah – at least I can make it down to Quarry Park. 112 feet deep hole swimming! Beautiful natural things! I’m a sucker for all of that green, brown and blue stuff – I think that’s one of the few good things that I inherited from Mom.

My brother Joey is the opposite. He always hated to go camping – said it made him think too much about shit. I wonder what’s going on with him – last summer he came back to Portland for the break, but I don’t even know if Mom let him know that we would be gone.

Anyway, like I said, I need to get out of here, even if that meant leaving Quarry Park and the Parkwood tuxedoes. I mean, they don’t even have a place you can buy mini-comics and zines – Granite City Comics is alright if you’re after big boobs under tights, but I need my Reading Frenzy fix of joy from Portland – I wonder if they will ship to prisoners.

So. I’m trying to enjoy what I can, and most of that is food related. Dairy Queens and semi-adequate eats from the House of Pizza. If you like strip mall food, then you’re absolutely set – there’s even a 5 Guys Burgers and Fries a few blocks from the hotel, but I had to spit out my first fleshtacular bite.

I thought I loved meat! Until I made it here to St. Cloud, I was all for everything going in my belly, right way. Now, it’s like I’ve gone vegetarian without even trying to, and it sucks. It’s like you’re pressing your nose against the window at Wendy’s, and you could go in to get some fries and a frosty, but come on.

Seriously, come on already – if I’m going to be stuck here, at least give me something savory to live for.

Shit. Writing about this is getting me hungry.

Whatever. Time to ride my bike up and down the hard streets of St. Cloud, rocking the Taco Bell and trying to convince myself that I’m in a paradise of my Mom’s making.

Next time I’ll tell you about my crazy dreams and the fucking TV set from hell.

To Dream Of Waking Up

Mom was riding the crisycle* (* crisis cycle) all through the hotel tonight; she woke me up at like 2AM by using my spare key card, busting in the room, and fussing with my hair until I groaned awake.

She was bawling her eyes out. She never, ever cries in front of me. I never even knew that she could cry.

“Mira, can you hear me? Open your eyes and look at me!”

Totally freaking me out, and the TV was on for some reason, showing static. I must have fell asleep onto the remote and hit the input button, or something.

I brushed aside her cold hands and gave her my best grumble half-eyed stare, and she just threw her arms around my neck and squeezed the sleep out of me.

I couldn’t understand what she was mumbling – something about a concert, twins, scaffolding and ashes – but she was even more freaked out than when I almost drowned in the Willamette river when I was 8.

I just let her hug me to death for a few minutes, until she finally stepped back and sat in the chair. It was much plusher than in the last dumpy room – I’ve been enjoying the hell out of the deluxe green planty wallpaper, and the perfectly clean carpets.

She wasn’t having any of it. She kept staring at me, and even in the darkness illuminated by the TV snow, I could almost see her panic-soaked thoughts radiating into space.

“I can’t do this Mira…. I have to get you out of her right now.” As she said this, her fingers were tapping against her left arm, like she was texting spirits.

“Hell fuck no!” That was excuse enough for me to throw the scratchy green blanket to the floor, and roll off the bed to grab at her ankles. “You dragged me half across the country so we could be here! You took my life and put it in the shredder, because every last moment was so damn important, and for what? Do you really want me to always hate you?”

I didn’t know where this was all coming from. Anytime I was around my Mom I could never stay angry – she was like a calm space heater that took away all chill. But tonight, the irritation I had felt for months was flaring up, and it wouldn’t stop until the whole room burned in my fury.

She just took it, huddled up in the chair, staring at her busy fingers. I kept crying into her sweatpants but all she did in return was pat me on the head, like you would after giving some toddler a gumdrop. Then she turned off the TV, and walked past the bathroom and out the door.

It’s so strange. She was perfectly normal at Hester Park by the Mississippi. We shared expensive mini donuts and lemonade on the grass while waiting for the fireworks show at 10. We even made fun of the municipal band that played before the barges in the river started to send up the lights, and then we splurged on a taxi ride back “home”, to our latest hotel.

As usual, everything went perfectly according to schedule – even the yellow cab minivan seemed to be waiting there just for us – and she gave me a cheek kiss goodnight before we went to our separate rooms. At least she could trust me enough to have my own space – I was so very unexcited to be around her sleep noises and wiggles after all of our communing in tents. So I just threw my clothes onto random pieces of furniture, took some long drags on my SuperAmerica lemon lime soda that had been sitting in the mini fridge since that morning, and then brushed away the sugar before Firefoxing myself to extended yawns.

Plush hotel life was all a new kind of normal semi-bliss, a nice punctuation to a extended, forced spring and summer vacation on the road. At least, it was until Mom woke me up all freaking the fuck out; it took me another hour before I could calm down enough before hugging the hay bales.

My dreams last night were par for the course, all weird and fuzzy and confrontational. I guess Mom’s stream of consciousness had gotten to me, since I remember visiting a concert in a warehouse somewhere. Or, it was like concert had already ended, with the floor dirty with stray candy wrappers (the bite sized Halloween kind) and cigarette butts, and no one left but a girl standing on the stage. She kept looking at me, and she had curly hair and a Massive Cloud Burst shirt on. I don’t know why I keep thinking about MCB – perhaps I need an infusion of Die Database torrents today to compensate.

Dreams are usually pretty timeless, with things just falling on top of each other like sugar cereal into a bowl. You can’t figure out what’s happening as it falls, but at the end it’s all pretty much bowl shaped and consumable. This dream wasn’t like that at all. The girl kept staring, and I knew I had to walk over to her. I knew that a clock was running somewhere, a big sweeping hand that’s approaching the 12, just waiting for the chance to chime. So I kicked aside the little Skittles and Milky Way packages, and went up to her.

“Miranda. You made it!” She hopped down off the stage and rushed over, grabbing me by the shoulders. I started to wiggle away, but then I had the urge to welcome her, to hug her right back. We were dreamy best buds, even though I had never seen her before in real life.

It was like I had forgotten how to talk, but as she backed off for a moment it was like I had forgotten what it was like to live. I was as blank as a new email, waiting for input.

“I’m Tokie’s cousin – Ai.” She brushed back her hair and pointed at her shirt, the one with Yuma, Masae and Satomi in cosplay. “The party’s already over, but I’ve arranged a backstage pass for you. Come on.”

With that, it was like she reached inside her shirt, and pulled out glowing pillow stuffing, all white and firm. She was turning herself inside out, bursting with heavy waves all around us, until the floor, walls and ceiling disappeared, and the room was a cloudy glass of rice milk. We were breathing this whiteness, and yet not drowning.

I still don’t understand how I can remember this dream, even a few hours after I woke up. I don’t understand what this dream Ai was trying to tell me, or how all of Aurora’s stories had come together like a movie.

But there she was, standing next to me in the white, and I knew her. I knew her like my own shadow.

“I only passed on a few hours ago, so I’m still a bit disoriented. It’s one thing to guide the spirits, but to be guided…. it will take some getting used to.”

She was holding a metal box now. That same metal box that Aurora tried to give me months ago. It was silver and closed, with a key in the lock.

“I tried to give you advance warning, to let you wake up and fight what’s going to happen next. You weren’t ready then, and I’m not sure if you’re ready now.” She handed over the box to me, and it was ice cold. “This is a box inside of you, a box that we all put there years ago. To protect you, and us. If you don’t open it now, someone will come soon and force you to open it. Force you to become what you are.”

She was babbling like Aurora, but I was just totally into this box. I wanted to open it, but I was rabid dog jumping over the fence afraid. I just couldn’t face what was inside.

“I know. How can you be ready for this?” She took back the box and it melted away. “Don’t blame your mother for what’s going to happen next. Blame me the next time we meet.”

With that, she took my hand, and the white faded back into the warehouse.

“You don’t react well to the direct truth, so let me put things more evocatively.” She smiled, and then collapsed into a grey pile of ashes, like after poking a dead and burned log in the fireplace.

The ashes started to spread over the floor, covering the sweet trash, and the coalesced into a few piles. Those heaps collected together, and rose into the air, sculpted by invisible hands into figures.

The first to be finished was Tokie, wearing a dark hoodie and purple tights, her right hand chromed and sparking. She looked at me with empty eyes, and I wanted to cry out my self-defined sins.

“Meridian scaffolding missing.” She sounded like a touch tone menu. “Quantum interface missing. Retrieval is aborted. Please wait.”

Then the other piles of dust became Aurora, and hundreds of other people I didn’t recognize. They were all staring at me, as Tokie moved closer. The air around her was electric, and sharp like needles.

“Are you prepared to sacrifice your existence?

I shook my head no, no, no, as my eyes burned away, as my skin, muscle and bones collapsed into a stream of grey laundry detergent, falling to floor as I woke up screaming.

I didn’t sleep any more after that, and instead just cuddled with my SuperAmerica cup, savoring the sugar and hoping to death that I wasn’t going crazy.

When did I inherit the life of an insane girl? What did I ever do to deserve this?

The TV is on again, buzzing away with randomness as the last dark slowly slips away.

I’m typing this as fast as I can, before my fingers slip away into powder, before I wake up and realize that I was asleep all along.

Dreaming of a never-ending maze of a road trip, led by my Mom as she falls to pieces.

Wake up.

To go to sleep.

To dream of waking up.