text:
TEAM REMY'S FIRST ADVENTURE

_On the trail of Gulch and Salem, Ruby's ragtag group finds danger as well as friendship_

_[Author's note: This story follows_ Team REMY_, which in turn follows_ Ruby's Date Story_.]_

The four of them had arranged to meet outside the cafe. Ruby could have easily walked there from the guesthouse where she was staying but when Yatsuhashi offered to pick her up on his bike she agreed immediately. She was trying to ignore how she felt whenever she was around him – but, damn, it was hard. And after seeing him holding Coco's baby, so gentle and calm, well, that just made everything worse. Of maybe better, it depended on how you looked at it.

She had not forgotten what Coco had said, that he had covertly organised to spend time with her, on the trip to visit Coco and Fox. That was a good sign, a very good sign, she thought. The trouble was that she didn't know what to do now. But at the moment she was delighted to be on the back of the bike, arms around him, head on his shoulder, feeling ... oh my.

They reached the cafe and, rather reluctantly, she jumped off. Edward came up to them. Aside from his backpack he was carrying an armful of books.

"I thought these might come in handy," he said. "I've looked through them a bit and there are several mentions of Almira Gulch."

"Are they from the Beacon Academy library?" said Ruby.

"No, they're ... sort of from a private collection."

"Do I want to know whose collection?"

"Probably not."

Ruby sighed. "Well, I guess someone with a talent for procurement is a team asset," she said.

Melanie arrived. Except that her car wasn't a car. It was more like some sort of modified military vehicle, armoured and with a hatch in the roof.

"What the hell is this?" said Edward.

"It sort of hums, so I call it Hummer," said Melanie.

"Should call it Clanker," muttered Yatsuhashi. He lifted the bike onto a rack at the back of the vehicle.

They loaded their supplies and climbed in. Yatsuhashi was too big to fit in the front so he sat in the back, with Ruby.

"Where to?" said Melanie.

"The castle where Gulch took Coco," said Ruby. "We searched it before but it was pretty quick. With more time, we might find some clues as to where she has gone. With her pet."

Before long, they were zooming through the countryside. If Melanie had ever heard of safe driving she gave little sign of it. Rather than watch the series of near-misses Ruby looked through the books Edward had brought. Yes, there were numerous mentions of Gulch, and stories of the conflict between her and Salem. Salem was, it appeared, the more powerful of the two but Gulch was tough, cunning, and patient. And now she had her enemy on a leash, with the aim of somehow joining her power to her own.

_No way that can be good_, thought Ruby.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Even Melanie accepted that driving through the wilderness at night was a poor idea, so they stopped to make camp. Edward, using only a few basic ingredients and a campfire, produced a large and wonderful meal.

"This is great," said Ruby.

"It's ... alright, I guess," said Melanie.

"I will have yours, then," said Yatsuhashi, reaching for her plate.

She slapped his hand away. "I didn't say I wouldn't eat it," she said. "Girl's got to have something to sustain her, after all."

"Are you always such a bitch?" said Edward to Melanie.

"Consistently."

"How did you make something so good?" said Ruby to Edward. "Magic?"

"Practice," he said.

Melanie grimaced. "You Hunters and your magic stuff," she said. "You guys think you're so great with all your fancy weapons and your Semblances and things. The rest of us have to work for a living, you know. Pay the bills, get through the day, and avoid the crossfire from you idiots."

Ruby stared at her. "Wh ... what?" she said. "I ... always thought that people liked the Hunters. We fight against evil, after all."

Melanie shrugged. "More likely, you attract it," she said. "Maybe you just like the glamour and the funny clothes and the applause you get from each other. Well, I didn't see any of you guys putting it on the line when Mil and I got cornered in an alley by a bunch of Salem's wolf things, in Vale that night."

"We ... were busy," said Ruby, knowing that it sounded ... lame. She looked at Yatsuhashi. "Is ... is she right?" she said. "Do ordinary people not like us?"

He grunted. "Some do, some don't," he said. "But being a Hunter is not a choice. It is a destiny, whether you want it or not."

"Humph," said Melanie. "Then I guess it must have been my destiny to be a bouncer, and after that a waitress."

"Could have been worse," put in Edward. "Try life in a kitchen."

"Speaking of weapons," said Ruby, "what do you have, Melanie?"

"Armoured boots with extendable blades," she said. "Made them myself. Here, take a look." She took one off and handed it to Ruby, who examined it.

"Wow," said Ruby, handing the boot back. "That is really great. Meeting a new weapon is better than meeting a new person. But Hunters aren't just their weapons. Glynda, for example, has a riding crop, but it isn't really a weapon. It just helps her to focus and direct the power she has inside her."

"Oh," said Edward. "So that's what that thing is."

"Magic shmagic," said Melanie. "Aside from the boots, I've also got this." She held up a massive pump-action shotgun, military in style. "I used to have a boyfriend in the Atlas army," she said. "That's how I got the car, too. And this, for close encounters." She took a hatchet from a holster at her waist. "What have you got?"

Ruby took out Crescent Rose and extended it into its full, remarkable length.

"Whoa," said Melanie. "That's ... interesting." Ruby retracted the weapon into its carry-case.

"You?" said Yatsuhashi to Edward.

"This," said Edward. He held up his cast-iron frypan, twirled it. The others sighed.

"Well, I guess now we sleep," said Melanie. "I'm taking the front seat of the car. I don't care what you guys do."

"I'll take the back seat," said Edward.

"I have a sleeping bag," said Yatsuhashi. "But only one."

"We ... can share again," said Ruby. "If ... you don't mind."

"I do not," said Yatsuhashi.

So they all settled themselves down, with Yatsuhashi and Ruby squeezed together.

Ruby gulped. "We ... we might be more comfortable," she said, "if you put your arm around me."

He grunted. Then he put his arm around her. "Like that?" he said.

"Oh yeah," she said. "Just like that. Yatsu, what you said before, about destiny. Did you want to become a Hunter?"

"I did not," he said. "What I wanted to do, when I was young, was work on my father's farm, with my brothers and sisters. Grow things. Eventually meet someone and start a family of my own, perhaps. But then it became clear that I had the Aura. So I was sent to train."

"Oh," said Ruby. "I ... I'm sorry. I didn't know that ... it had been like that for you."

"I am not sorry," he said. "For the path has led me here. To you. I would not wish to be anywhere else."

She smiled her secret smile. "Me too," she said. She snuggled against his massive body and fell asleep, dreaming pleasant dreams.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

The castle seemed to be deserted. They inspected the chamber that Coco had shot to pieces and eventually located the hidden catch that opened the door through which Gulch had escaped. It led to a flight of stone steps that took them into a courtyard. On the other side of the courtyard was a small stone building, like a crypt.

"If I was an evil witch, that would appeal to me," said Melanie.

But then they heard a noise – like scraping hooves. Coming into the courtyard.

"Oh no," muttered Ruby. "I certainly hope that that isn't – "

It was. It shook itself, as if waking from a slumber. It stopped in front of the crypt.

"What the hell is that?" said Edward.

"Nucklelavee," said Yatsuhashi, drawing his sword. "Very dangerous, very tough. Even by Grimm standards."

"Watch out for its arms, they stretch and have claws," said Ruby, as she extended her scythe. "And it can spin around very quickly."

"Right, stretchy arms, claws, spin, got it," said Edward, taking out his frypan.

"It will probably attack by using its arms like lances," said Ruby. "When it does, Edward and I go right, Yatsu and Melanie go left. We close in from both sides at once. Clear?" She glanced at Melanie. "Clear?" she repeated.

But Melanie was merely staring at the Nucklelavee. "I – I – I – I couldn't ... " she stammered.

And then the Nucklelavee's arms shot out.

"Move!" shouted Ruby. She leaped, as did Yatsuhashi. But Melanie remained frozen. A claw was zooming towards her.

There was a t_hunk_! The claw whacked into Edward's frypan, and bounced off. He had jumped in the way with it.

The other arm speared towards him. He wielded the frypan again, blocking it.

Ruby and Yatsuhashi were running, charging, on either side, taking advantage of the Grimm's distraction.

Once more, the Nucklelavee tried to hit Melanie. And again Edward blocked it. He raised his arm – and a blast of energy shot from his elbow. It whacked into the Nucklelavee, and through it. The Grimm screamed in pain. But then the wound healed. It retracted its arms and turned to face Yatsuhashi.

One arm whipped towards him. He swung his sword, slicing into the arm. But the wound fused immediately, and the clawed hand punched out. Yatsuhashi went down, sliding backwards along the ground.

Ruby was in the air, swinging Crescent Rose. But the Nucklelavee was moving, out of the path of the blade. Its arm caught her, and flung her. She landed with a painful thump next to Yatsuhashi.

"This is going well, I think," she said, as they struggled to their feet. "In the sense that we are not dead yet."

Yatsuhashi grunted. "Do you know how we kill it?" he said.

"The last one, we pinned its arms and cut its head off," she said. "Not exactly easy, though. Hmm, it seems to be staying in front of the crypt. As if it's protecting it. Not letting us in."

"Instructions from Gulch, perhaps."

"And all the more reason for us to take a look."

The Nucklelavee's arms came swinging towards them, one on each side. Ruby and Yatsuhashi parried, slicing into the black flesh – but with little lasting effect. The Nucklelavee fell back a few steps, as if it was wary of their weapons.

"I have an idea," she said. She told him what she had in mind.

"That is very dangerous," said Yatsuhashi.

"I am open to other suggestions."

Yatsuhashi grunted.

Ruby called to Edward: "When I signal, give it one of your energy shots."

"The last one wasn't effective," he called back. "But I will." He was still standing in front of Melanie, frypan up.

Yatsuhashi started to run, as if he was going to attack the horse-head of the Nucklelavee. At the same moment, Ruby began to run up the wall, pivoting on the scythe, aiming to get behind and above the creature.

The Nucklelavee swung an arm towards each of them.

Yatsuhashi threw his sword, just as Ruby threw the scythe. But the Nucklelavee flipped backwards, avoiding both.

"Now!" shouted Ruby.

Edward fired, the energy bolt hitting the Grimm in the face. For a moment, it was distracted.

And then Ruby caught Yatsuhashi's sword. In mid-air, she swivelled and slashed out. She landed on the ground, crouched.

For a long moment, there was only silence. And then the head of the Nucklelavee slowly toppled from its body. The Grimm began to evaporate into ashes.

Yatsuhashi helped Ruby up. She handed him his sword, and he picked up Crescent Rose and handed it to her. "Good," he said. "Very good."

She smiled. They went over to Edward and Melanie. "Nice shot at the right time," said Ruby to Edward.

"Elbow," said Yatsuhashi. For a moment, it almost seemed that he might laugh ... but he didn't.

Ruby turned to Melanie. She was white, and shaking. "I ... I ... " she said.

"It's alright," said Ruby. "Nucklelavees are pretty scary."

"You don't understand!" cried Melanie. "I couldn't save her! I fought and I fought and I couldn't save her! We fought as hard as we could and it wasn't enough! It just wasn't enough! And now I've lost her! She's dead!"

Ruby took her in her arms. "I know," she said softly. "I know."

Melanie wept. And wept. There was nothing the others could do except let her cry.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

The crypt was like a workshop for dark magic, with books and talismans lying about in disarray. Gulch had obviously left quickly.

And there was a map. They studied it.

"I would say that this is Gulch's usual base," said Ruby, pointing to a castle marked with a large insignia. "In Winkie County."

"And where is Winkie County?" said Melanie.

"It's mentioned in one of Edward's books," said Ruby. "On the other side of the Borderlands, and then some. Long way, dangerous territory."

"You think that Salem would be there?"

"Most likely."

"Then let's go."

"Wait," said Yatsuhashi. "Our mission was to find out where Gulch and Salem are. With this material, we have done that."

"So you think that we should report back to Glynda, receive a pat on the back, and then go home?" said Edward.

"Not what I said," said Yatsuhashi.

"As far as I'm concerned, Salem has to pay for ... Militia," said Melanie.

"I have a debt to collect as well," said Yatsuhashi.

"Me too," said Ruby. "And I would like to have a serious talk with Gulch about threatening babies."

"So ... I'm the only one not on a revenge binge, eh?" said Edward.

"You don't have to come any further," said Ruby. "You've done your part, and done it well."

"Not what I said," said Edward. "Anyway, you might need a cook."

Ruby was collecting maps and books to add to their stock. "Yes," she said. "No doubt we will."

END

question: Explain what the group was in the search for.

answer: The group of hunters were in search of Gulch and Salem in a castle where they had taken Coco. They were armed with weapons in case they encountered the unexpected. The castle was deserted but eventually found a door that led to a courtyard where Gulch had escaped from. They however encountered a creature, Nucklelavee, whom came swinging at the group before it was toppled.


split: test

text:
A federal judge on Friday rejected former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort[]Paul John ManafortRepublican senators urge Trump to dodge pardon controversies For the Trump-haters, everything is a crime 3 take-aways from the Michael Flynn pardon MORE's motion to dismiss a money laundering charge against him.

U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson denied the motion in a court filing.

Manafort, who is facing numerous charges related to financial crimes, was sent to jail earlier this month after special counsel Robert Mueller[]Robert (Bob) MuellerBarr taps attorney investigating Russia probe origins as special counsel CNN's Toobin warns McCabe is in 'perilous condition' with emboldened Trump CNN anchor rips Trump over Stone while evoking Clinton-Lynch tarmac meeting MORE accused him of witness tampering.

One of the charges against Manafort is that he violated the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) in connection to his work for the government of Ukraine. Anyone advocating on behalf — or to the benefit of — a foreign government or official must register with the Justice Department. Manafort did not register at the time, but did so retroactively last year.

Federal prosecutors have also charged Manafort with money laundering linked to his work for former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, who fled Ukraine in 2014 following protests against him.

Lawyers for Manafort countered in legal filings that the money laundering allegations are moot because the FARA violations pertain to a failure to register as a foreign agent, not his lobbying work.

“The charged personal financial transactions could not ‘promote’ the alleged failure to file a FARA registration form, the charged personal financial transactions ending in 2014 could not promote the alleged false statements that occurred two years later, and the alleged failure to file a FARA registration form could not produce ‘proceeds’ as required by the relevant statute,” Manafort’s lawyers wrote in a March court filing.

His lawyers also attempted to dismiss a forfeiture claim linked to those charges, a penalty that could cost Manafort upwards of $30 million if he is convicted. The government’s indictment against him moves to forfeit “any property, real or personal, which constitutes or is derived from proceeds traceable to the offense(s) of conviction” upon conviction.

Jackson slapped down that motion on Friday, saying Manafort’s lawyers have misinterpreted the foreign lobbying law, and that there is a clear connection to the charges.

“These laws are not just about paperwork; their object is to ensure that no person acts to advance the interests of a foreign government or principal within the United States unless the public has been properly notified of his or her allegiance,” Jackson wrote.

Federal laws, she said, “expressly prohibit ‘acting’ as a representative of a foreign entity without submitting the required notification to the Attorney General. For these reasons, the alleged international banking transactions could ‘promote,’ and Manafort could realize ‘proceeds’ from, a FARA violation.”

“Moreover, it is difficult to square defendant’s argument that a violation of FARA is an act of omission that cannot be ‘promoted’ or generate ‘proceeds’ with the meaning of the money laundering statute when Congress specifically amended the money laundering statute to add FARA violations to the list of predicate offenses,” she added.

A person doing work in the United States for a foreign government, politician or government-run entity must register with the Justice Department within 10 days of signing a contract. Manafort is accused of failing to comply with those rules and later lying to the government about the work he did.

question: Who is Manafort?

answer: Manafort is Trump's former campaign chairman.

question: According to the article what is Manafort being charged with?

answer: He is being charged with numerous financial crimes: violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act by not registering in time, money laundering, and lying to the government about work he did.

question: What charges did Manafort's lawyers try to get dismissed?

answer: They tried to have his money laundering charges dismissed, as well as a forfeiture claim linked to those charges.

question: Were Manafort's lawyers successful in getting charges dismissed?

answer: No, the judge said that the lawyers misinterpreted the foreign lobbying law.

question: Write a ~2 sentence summary.

answer: Manafort, Trump's former campaign chairman, is being charged with numerous financial crimes: violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act by not registering in time, money laundering, and lying to the government about work he did. His attorneys unsuccessfully tried to have the money laundering charges dismissed, as well as a forfeiture claim linked to those charges.


text:
One April morning, a single white feather floated down unto a green pond along Big Boot Bayou, landing at its center and sending ripples over the surface in all directions. Toad saw this and panicked— “HIDE ME QUICK!” he yelled. “Dem boids, dey come tah roost again, have mercy!” He jumped frantically from lily-pad to lily-pad and finally onto the pond’s muddy bank where he collapsed from exhaustion, his throat inflating and deflating as he gasped. “Oh, Lawd… (pant)…dem boids… (wheeze)…dey come again tah roost in dat can’py up yonder …Ay…gone get gobbled, I knows it.” Toad lay with his yellow belly draped over a gritty stone half-sticking out of from the mud and with his limp limbs dangling off both sides.

He whimpered helplessly.

From the near by water’s edge, a mighty voice rumbled, startling Toad, who then sprang straight up into the misty air shouting “NO GOBBLE TOAD!” repeatedly the entire time airborne. He conked his head against the stone. That shut him up. If it had been a squawk he had heard, then Toad’s froggy heart might have ruptured, and then he would have leapt his last leap).

“Gone get gobbled..I knows it. gone get gobble fo sho” toad whined dazedly.

From the waters edge the might voice spoke again; “you picked a fine morning to set the whole swamp to panicking.  Look around. The bayou is just as peaceful as I ever seen it and your carrying on like there is a fire.”

“Its woist dan dat,” toad replied without looking at who he replied to.

“Worse than fire?”

“Yea, a feather!”

“A feather?”

“Dat’s what I said.” Toad snapped, and then he turned around and saw, about a jumps distance away from him, the enormous flat head of an alligator facing him, smiling at him with a mouth full of honed points. “I saw me a feather fall in da pond; dem damn boids comin back to roost again in yonder tree tops. Ooo, Gator, you bet your leathery hide and take dat to da rivva bank, mon frere.”

“You’re jumping to conclusions“

“HAHA!” Toad interrupted. “Clever devil, you.”

“Apologies— no pun intended,” Gator said. “But you should try to calm yourself. Stress, alone, can make you croak long before your time. Besides, there is nothing to worry about until there is something to worry about, after all.”

“Nuttin to worry bout till dey somtin to worry bout?” Toad mocked and then muttered “Couyon” beneath his breath.

“What was that?”

“Ima frog!” he raved. “And boids find we frogs to be good eatin, yeah, and dat feather I seen dis mornin’ floatin ‘top da watah— dats bad joo-joo, dat is. Dem boids comin, and I’m as sho of dat as a toitle is slow on its feet and when it thinks.”

“Worrying won’t help” Gator attempted to explain, but suddenly the stone on which Toad sat began to shift and tilt, and Toad again began to panic.

“The swamp is sinking!!” he yelled. “Lawd have mersaaay! If it ain’t somtin its somtin else.”

A slow drawling voice came muffled from inside the stone. “Who said that?”

“Now da rocks is a talking” Toad carried on. “Dats bad joo-joo, too!”

“Would you stop that.” Gator scolded. “It is just Old Shelly. All of your shouting just woke him up.” Toad looked down and understood. What he thought was a stone was actually Old Shelly’s shell. Old Shelly’s decrepit head poked out and he craned back as far as possible to look up at Toad, who was looking down at him.

“What do you want Shelly?” Toad sassed.

“I might ask the same of you, you cocky sack of warts, but with that mile-long, whip-smart tongue of yours, I will never hear the end of it, if I do.”  Toad unconsciously flung out his tongue and licked his forehead between his eyes, an embarrassing compulsion that he would enact usually when he felt humiliated. Gator’s broad grin widened. Shelly continued. “It is like Gator said, I was napping until I heard all the fuss and belly-aching and carrying on about feathers and birds and bad joo-joo. I tried my damnedest to ignore it but when I heard you bad mouth us turtles, I had to see for myself the fool doing all of that whooping and hollering. And I should’ve known it was you. Now, we turtles ain’t so quick, but let me learn you something—you don’t get to be my age by being no fool.”

Toad leapt from Old Shelly’s back and faced the old turtle “dats easy for you to say, toitle! You got dat cozy shell you can hide in where dem boids can nevva getcha!”

“What birds? Where?”

“I saw me a feather just dis morning. Bad joo-joo!”

“Well, lah-tee-dah,” Shelly said. “When I was about your age I saw a coil of freshly shed snake skin, but never in all of my years living around this here pond have I seen a livin slitherin serpent, not once.”

“Dats likely cuz you spent all dem years in dat shell.”

“Think what you want. That’s what you’re going to do regardless of what anyone tells you.” Shelly retracted his head back into his shell, slowly, as old turtle are wont to do, grumbling as he did.

“Wait!” Toad leapt at Shelly and tried to force his body into the whole after Shelly’s head, his webbed feet kicking at mud for purchase as he failed trying to squeeze his body into the shell’s opening while shouting “you gotta hide me, Shelly, Please-OH PLEASE! Dey has to be room in there for me.”

Old Shelly jabbed his head outward with surprising dexterity butting his head against Toad’s. The force knocked Toad toppling backward, bouncing across the moist mud like a skipping pebble. He tumbled uncontrollably into the wall that was Gators grin. “Don’t disrespect me, you yellow-bellied cretin. And keep your crying down. Let and old timer have his dignity and his rest.” And Shelly withdrew.

Exhausted now, Toad hopped limply toward the river away from the pond. “Goin get gobbled by dem boids, I knows it,” He whined.

“Hey Toad” Gator called, and Toad turned to face him. “I was thinking... We amphibians need to stick together, you know?”

“What’d you call me? Insult me will you! Why I oughta—“

“No, no, no” Gator explained. “What I am trying to say is that you and I are alike, different, but alike, and I want to help you.”

Toad brightened. “You mean it? You’d help me keep hid from dem boids, Gator?”

“Of course” Gator assured.

“How? How? How?”

Gator answered by simply opening his jaws wide.

“NO! NO! NO!” Toad protested.

“What is the matter? It is just like the shell you were trying to squeeze into, except without the grumpy turtle.”

“S’pose I do hide in dere…but you don’t lemme out?”

Gator thought for a moment. “You will just have to trust me.”

“I get it!” Toad said. “This is a trick, a duirty rottin trick.”

“What would I want to eat you for? Can’t you see how big I am? Big Gator needs a big meal…” Gator trailed off. “Just forget it. You can either trust me or try your luck on your own when the birds come…and they are coming!” Gator turned his large body as if to dive back into the water.  Before going in, he turned to Toad once more. “Believe me when I say I am not trying to trick you. I’m trying to help you.”

“Wait!” Toad said.

Gator waited.

“I trusts you…I’ll do anythin to keep from dem boids.”

“I know your nervous, but don’t worry about a thing.” Gator said and opened his jaws wide imploring Toad to go inside. Toad advanced then quickly halted. “S’pose I want to come out every once and again? How would you know dat I want to come out?”

“That’s easy.” Gator said confidently. “Use that tongue of yours to tickle the top of my mouth, and I will let you out as soon as I feel it.”

“Promise?”

“Oath of oak,” Gator replied and opened his mouth again.  Toad hopped inside, past all of the many sharp points of Gator’s teeth. Once inside Toad felt, at last, secure.

Once Gator closed his jaws, the frantic tickles started immediately. Toad tongued the roof of Gators mouth, he sprung against the backside of Gators clenched teeth, he tongued some more, he jumped some more, he tired himself out, he went limp, and finally Gator gobbled Toad down into his gullet, where no bird could ever get him.

The End

title: What a Crock (a fable)

question: Summarize the conflict.

answer: The conflict surrounds Toad's fear after he sees a white feather float down into his pond. He fears it means the birds have come to roost again. He believes he will be eaten. This results in Toad asking various creatures of the pond to help him hide. Gator first advises Toad to calm down while Toad is panicking about the birds eating him. Toad then tries to get inside of Shelly's shell, but that doesn't work. Eventually Gator suggests that Toad hide in his mouth to get away from the birds, but this creates a new problem as Toad doesn't quite trust that he won't eat him.

question: What does the text say about Shelly?

answer: Old Shelly is a turtle that lives in the same pond as Toad. He overheard Toad's complaints and pokes out of his shell. He's instantly rude to Toad, and notes that he was napping until Toad's panic about the birds woke him. He tells Toad that you don't get to be his age by being a fool (like Toad), but Toad counters that it's easy for Shelly to say when he has a shell to hide in for his whole life. When Toad asks Shelly to hide him in his shell, Shelly hits him with his head. Shelly eventually withdraws after telling Toad not to disrespect him and to let him have his dignity and rest.

question: Summarize the conclusion of the story.

answer: By the end of the story, Toad's pursuits to hide from the bird are dashed after Shelly rejects him. Gator suggests to him that he could hide in his mouth, as it would be better than sharing a shell with a cranky turtle. Toad doesn't trust him off the bat. He fears Gator is tricking him, but Gator pushes his fears away and says why he has no interest in eating him. Toad decides he trusts Gator. Gator tells him to just lick the roof of his mouth when he wants to come out. Toad hops into his mouth and immediately starts licking the roof of his mouth to no avail. It becomes evident Gator had tricked him, as he eats him in the end.

question: What does the text say about Toad's confrontation with the birds?


text:
The moon was waning, giving off nothing more than a fraction of her light. She was set high in the sky, gracing her council of steadfast pine trees. The great trees stood there in respect, and in return they gave essence of pine which the wind blessed and wafted everywhere. To show her gratitude, the moon placed herself higher for all to see. Moreover, all of this I saw as it came through my window, embracing me closely, comforting me to my sleep. It was intoxicating. With each breath I took, my eye lids inched closer to their meeting ground, my limbs became lighter, and my soul calmed. Finally, I was laid to rest.

The moon, she left her council with her fickle self. But, in her absence, the gracious sun raised himself in the same spot. He gleamed bright warm rays. They made the birds sing, the mammals move, and the people bustle. The pine trees stretched their canopies to him as though they had arms. The sounds of life that echoed from out-side along with the warm rays were enough to remedy my hangover.

When I arose, what I had thought to be people bustling was nothing more than my old alarm clock I set to the sounds of downtown, or how it used to be.

My room, it was filled with trinkets that I collected in my walks through woods and abandoned areas. The walls were old oak, laced with cracks and splinters, nails, and old cobwebs. The ceiling was in the same condition except for the occasional hole here and there. There was an old rug on the floor that was my mother’s; it was frilled around the perimeter. The design was diamonds, everywhere, one large one in the center, blood red, then the rest were scattered in no particular fashion. A metal shelf on one of the walls was dusty from holding the rocks I found. And, opposite of that wall sat my nightstand. The alarm clock sat on top, and in the drawers were my locket and my old rucksack.

I left my room, my house, and decided to take my normal route east past the hill, that only grows tall thistles, past the dilapidated hospital, and past the barren park, or as I called it, the land of benches. My house, it was west of downtown.

Though it’s a shame, I have forgotten the name of the city. Time has aged my mind in our never-ending entanglement.
There weren’t any people, any dogs, or any cats. It was just me and the birds singing to our hearts content the songs of lamentations, burdens, hope.

I walked along the fencing of an old reservoir; I wanted to refill my bottle that I kept with me. I jumped the old rusty fence, just as I have done so many other times, and cut myself. I didn’t notice at the time. It wasn’t until I stepped into the water that I saw my blood swirl through, dancing, and gracing the water with its presence; the blood slowly took over the water’s appearance, and make it useless.

I collected my water. I bandaged up my cut. I jumped the fence again. That day, it was the day I decided that I would walk to the other side of the city. I already knew that there’d be nothing waiting for me. I just felt like walking.

By now it was noon-day. I had already told myself that I shouldn’t eat just to conserve food for the latter. I walked east, east towards the city’s edge. I was there once before, as a child with my parents. There was a small amusement park with dim withered lights that used to be full of people. The night we went the moon was full, and the smell of food was everywhere. The aroma of hot dogs, popcorn, cotton candy, and fresh funnel cake was in the air. But, the scent of the pine trees over powered the food with each bless-ed kiss from the wind.

I kept walking east. Now that his Consistent Majesty was behind me, I became worrisome of my future. As I walked memories flooded my head grade school, dates, people… Yet I couldn’t figure out why I had stopped traversing to the east side.

I walked past Candered St., Dosmond St., Clarence Ave., Dlowst Ct.. They all looked the same. Barren.

I was a ways from home now, at least too far to walk back in the eve. The moon, she started to show her last faction of light, and I started to fret.

I needed a place to rest, to recover, to hide. There were several dilapidated buildings. There were plants growing on the side of them. The lot of them was vines with very small leaves. Their veins where thick; the older vines looked almost that of tree trunks. They all looked dark green, and then again, it was nighttime.

The moon started her normal routine. I was still outside. It was a sight though. I sat and watched. The moon, she rose with great speed, and the trees prepared themselves for they were summoned. The vines, they had arms, but they did not respond to the call. They were steadfast in the still night. The sliver of moonlight fell, and hit their leaves and bounced off. However, the leaves had their own intention. Before moonlight bounced off, the leaves twisted which caused the light to bounce everywhere. And, that bounced moonlight exposed all the mist in the sky. The mist was proud. It danced, flickered, and sparkled; it put on a show for all of none to see, except for me their secret watcher.

Suun Sunnom. This was my name. There was no middle just first and last.

I could see the moon and she me. I was late, or maybe she was early. The wind, he whipped up as normal. Something was wrong. Clouds, they were carried by the wind. He was mad. I was late.

The closest place was an old church. It was brick. I could tell that the “spirit” that may have once resided there is long gone. Or has given up to its creations of vegetation. But the church, it was empty on the inside. No pews, no podium, no bibles. The church wasn’t even a building at this point. It was a structure. An empty structure that felt void of its past. I must have been the only person to step foot in there for a while. The roof, it was broken; the wood frame was splintered, and the shingle where limp, hanging over the high wooden beams.

I cared. No, I didn’t care. I wanted to rest. I finished my task: I had to hide.
This night there was no comforting. I slept.

I woke. The rations from yesterday are what I ate. The berries that I collected, fortunately, or not, they weren’t poisonous.

I left the church. The clouds that came last night hadn’t left yet. I knew that the proud mist’s cousin was on her merry way. Rain, she’s pompous. She releases herself on whomever is below her. And, none can do anything.

I wanted to get to the amusement park. I wanted to relive my past life. I wanted to remember what it was like with people. Their touch, I forgot what it was like, or maybe I don’t want to remember.

I walked hastily to the park in fear of rain, avoiding the array of the roots in the ground. Some were like speed bumps some were like walls. They look like they have been living for years on end. Countless years. Years, on years, on years.

It made me think, “What day is it? What month is it? What year is it?” I didn’t care; no, I cared.

The park, it was just in the distance wearing its aged Ferris wheel, and since it was still morn, His Majesty shown just above the wheel’s top. It was glorious, but the rain, she quickened herself just to end my happiness. She whipped her head to scoff at the earth, and then she proceeded to offer herself in pity of us, us, being the Earth. Little did she know that I was enthralled with her beauty. Little did she know that she was quite humble, once she joined us. She fell with great speed, sometimes aided by the wind. She never stopped to look where she fell. But, when she made contact, it was like, we, us, were joined to every aspect of the universe; I was one with the furthest star. The rain, she hit my skin, and my skin accepted her as one, as one who was as humble, or pompous, as I was. The Earth, she opened her pores, her grounds, and her heart to the rain. The two where in a never-ending dance. The Rain came from the Earth, and the Earth needed the Rain to come back again. The Rain knew her place in the cycle, she was just, well, pompous.

I continued to walk towards the Ferris wheel. It was distant at first then close up.

-Amazing… The rust, beautiful.-

The rust, it was truly amazing.

Years have made it turn red, blood red. The air around was heavy with the scent of iron.

But, there was something new. It was hidden behind the Ferris wheel. Well, not hidden per say, but there. It was a Red tower. Red, as red as the rust, as red as the water with my blood. It stood regally. Twas shaped like the Eiffel tower.

I questioned my sanity. I’ve never seen it before. I doubted that I was going mad… The tower was hidden by the concealer Fog. The mys’try of weather, for me, then again for whom else? The tower was as though it wasn’t real. Its figure faded in and out, luring me.

The tower.

The fog.

Me.

I don’t know what happened… I mean, I won’t tell [you]. I won’t tell [you] what happened to the people. I won’t tell [you] what happened. I can’t. But, I should, shouldn’t I?

Religion is a cruel beast of burden. Lo and behold, their Omniscients are vain, spiteful, jealous, maybe. Nevertheless, that happened.

I also know that this tower is true… Lest true to me.

The “rapture” has happened. From whomever’s Omniscient[s] I know not. It was no Imam, no Sodom and Gomorra, no fire and brimstone, no nothing, no virgins, not even enlightenment or wisdom. There was just me and the birds.

I have placed it, an account, here for one, [you], me, it,

*“Mother is gone. Father is gone. The Dog is gone. The house is gone. I have*
*none around me. The neighborhood is gone. There are only trees here now. I*
*must be asleep, or dead.*

*I walked down town. There was no one.*

*I’m hungry, but I can’t summon food. I cannot be dreaming.*

*I must be dead, but the city looks, used… as if used today.*

*Dead. Dead….*

*I guess this is what I wanted. Peace?*

*No, this must be a trial. This must be my purgatory. I am not happy or sad.*
*This is not “salvation” or “redemption” or “damnation” of any sorts.*

*But, now who am I? I am no longer what I was. Am I a shell that stands in the thick of nothing? Or am I one who is surrounded by everything that I have ever wanted and is just too ignorant to realize anything. Do I stand at the bottom of my own throne of happiness unable to climb it and set myself upon it?*

*Nevertheless, I am “here”.*

*“Here” with a strip of paper that has a name. And under that name is, “This is*
*you, but not who you once were; once you know of this name, knowledge of*
*the future will come. But, will there be a price to pay?"*

I climbed the study tower.

To say it was tall would be an understatement. I climbed, but I mean, I had the time.

I used the built on ladder, that had faded red paint, it cried out to be repainted. I knew what I was to do.

It never actually hit me till now, my name, the weather and all. It makes sense, to me. I doubt to [you].

This is nothing more than a last days account. [You] will never read this.

I have grown tired though.

Do [you] remember the reservoir I mentioned earlier? The blood, how it dance and over took the water? Of course [you] don’t. My blood made it red. The color of the rust. The color of this tower…

I reached to top of the ladder. There was a platform big enough on which to walk. I decided to stand on it then sit. On the platform was an antenna that looked like a spike, almost as if it were for sacrifices.

The Fog it was non-existent up here. There wasn’t a cloud in sight. There were stars. Many stars, they helped to fill the void that’s called space. I lost myself looking up at the masses. But, this wasn’t peace. It was a distraction, a distraction from my task at hand.

There was a red star in the sky. However, I didn’t stay long enough to see if it too would infect the others.

I don’t remember who I was. It’s a pity.

My future, now, is nothing more than desired non-existence.

But, a price I don’t know.

The Sun & The Moon, they affected my emotions.

The Weathers, they affected my perspective.

All of them are my enemy because of the piece of paper. I put my trust in that paper. Why, I don’t know.

My name Suun Sunnom: M, N, N, N, O, S, S, U, U, U.

NON SUM UNUS: I AM NO ONE.

The Sun & The Moon, The Weathers, they have been trying to make me what I once was, someone. I will not let them thwart me! My hour has come at last! I am no one, and there is no price to be paid because I am no one!

Just as I laced the water with my blood, I shall repaint the tower with my blood.

Here, on this antenna, I’ll extinguish myself. I must make sure to bleed plenty, plenty enough to cover the tower.

I am no fool!... I know what I must do… I don’t care if the birds laugh.

However, if [you] are reading this then I was wrong, terribly wrong.

title: [FN] The Red Tower in the East

question: What does the story say about the amusement park?

answer: The narrator wishes to go to the amusement park to relive his past life, to remember what it was like to be with people. The park has an old Ferris wheel behind which, stood a Red tower shaped like the Eiffel tower. The tower seemed to be unreal since it kept fading in and out of the narrator's sight.

question: Summarize the narrator's stay at the church.

answer: While exploring the city, the narrator stays at an extremely old church.  The place has no pews, podiums, or bibles. The church was absolutely empty on the inside, it was as if nobody had stepped a foot inside for ages.


text:
The philosophers and political scientists had it all figured out already, but it was our job as scientists to actually put it all into practice. “Benevolent Dictatorship has been proven to be the most effective form of government,” they said, “but no human will ever be able to live up to the necessary standards for it to work.” So they turned to computers instead.

Our team was put in charge of the project; to come up with an artificial intelligence that could be trusted with running a society in the best possible way. We could finally bypass all the petty political squabbles and short-term thinking, and begin to make real headway in solving the world’s problems. The death of democracy would bring about a new golden age.

But we’d all read enough science fiction to be wary about the whole idea from the very start. Skynet, The Matrix, even HAL from 2001 - putting an AI in charge of anything was bound to end in disaster as even a single miscalculation could have tremendous consequences when followed through without hesitation. You needed a human mind in place as a sanity check: to make sure the nukes weren’t suddenly all being launched.

We were overruled, of course, and the project began. We used models to simulate various AIs that we developed, and the technology was adequate enough to be a decent enough microcosm of society. We ran the model through some actual historical political scenarios - strikes, terrorist attacks, etc. - with basic AIs modelled directly from real life figures - and everything played out as it should. This in itself was a breakthrough of its own, an invaluable educational tool that could be used to understand and avoid the mistakes of the past. But it wasn’t seen as important by those in charge. They didn’t care about the past. They had a vision of a bright and *robotic* future. Computers couldn’t make the same mistakes as humans, so why care about our predecessors?

Fair enough! We got on with the work with as much vigour as we could muster, despite our grievances. You have to understand, this wasn’t easy work at all. You can’t just write a computer program that says “run this society in the best way” and press Go. You need to define what “best” means, at the very least. And this in itself is a political position. Nonetheless, with pressure (and financial considerations) bearing down on us, we had our first prototype by the end of three months.

It was a very simple AI - though ‘simple’ might be an understatement. It had access to all the information about all the citizens of our model, the institutions and infrastructure of society, and a sense of what culture is and how it worked. Immediately we recognised that implementing such a system in a real life scenario would be a difficult task as without perfect information the AI wouldn’t be able to make perfect decisions, yet perfect information would require the absolute invasion of privacy of more or less everyone and everything. But that was an issue for somebody else to figured out. We just wanted to see if the damn thing worked.

The core logic - its ‘flavour’ - of the AI was summed up in the line “*Bring about an end by which all problems faced by your citizens are resolved.*” And so **AI-1** was ported into our proto-society and set up to replace simulation’s government at the flick of our switch. We flicked the switch.

The results were highly disheartening, to say the least. **AI-1**, with the best of intentions, immediately began what my report described as a “killing spree.” The sheer cold brutality of the methods it used to roundup and murder its citizens was as chilling as it was efficient. Within a week’s worth of time in the simulation, all of the citizens were dead - mostly starved to death from a withdrawal of all food supplies. We had failed, but we began again.

Clearly our mistake had been to not specify clearly enough that human flourishing, and especially human *survival*, was of the highest importance in our ‘flavour’ statement. Indeed, we noted that **AI-1** had actually worked exceptionally well, all of the problems humans faced were solved, the only remaining problem being that they were all dead. So we knew at least we were on the right track. We tried again.

**AI-2** was programmed with the flavour “*Bring about the end by which the greatest number of humans remain alive*” - we were sure this would be interpreted as an instruction to show absolute benevolence to all citizens and prevent as few as possible from dying. We expected some kind of welfare state to be brought about, and were interested to see how the AI got around problems like taxation and so on. We pressed the switch.

Again, the AI followed its instructions perfectly and acted with just as much efficiency as before. But it wasn’t what we had intended at all. Using the mechanisms of the state, **AI-2** rounded up its citizens into what can be best described as “breeding camps.” Here, the poor citizens were literally bred to death with mothers producing baby after baby before being killed when they could no longer produce. We ran the simulation quickly forward a few decades and observed that the population growth expanded exponentially. But we couldn’t call this a success at all. It was back to the drawing board.

The next few simulations ran into similar problems, which I’ll sum up quickly. In the end, details don’t matter so much as the fact they were all abject failures.

For **AI-3** we tried to cheat by specifically adding a “*without the use of any methods that use humans themselves as a means to this end*” clause to the flavour. But we just got a society in which it became illegal to die and sick humans were artificially kept alive in a catatonic state. Apparently, **AI-3** thought this qualified as true to the flavour. We thought it qualified as a failure.

With **AI-4** we dug out an old philosophy book and tried a utilitarian flavour: “*the greatest good for the greatest number.*” The issues this caused were again unacceptable, but offered an interesting insight into where we were going wrong. **AI-4** made decisions in which 49% of a society would suffer so long as 51% were prosperous. As time went on in the simulation this created a two-tier society of winners and losers and interesting resulted in a civil war in which the losers were eradicated. A few years down the line however, the ‘winners’ themselves started become segregated and the cycle began again. It was fascinating, but brought us no closer to the perfect society we were after.

**AI-5** was based on the cold science of economics. We consulted with the top economics professors around the world and input a flavour paraphysing the concept of Pareto Efficiency: “*Allocate resources in such a way that no one citizen can be made better off without another being made worse off.*” Since this was a concept that was actually seen as desirable in real-world situations already, we were confident it would be successful. What actually happened was that **AI-5** allocated all of the resource to a single citizen, picked at random. Since it would be impossible to make anyone else better off without making this one citizen worse off, **AI-5** declared it had succeeded and shut itself off - apparently considering itself no longer necessary. The economic professors were just as disappointed as we were.

Desperate for success, we turned to religion. **AI-6** was based on what we considered to be the most consensus of what God is like. To do this, we had to bend the rules a little and allow the AI to bring about outcomes without a direct causal chain (“divine intervention”). Even though this meant we couldn’t propose the AI as the one to be used, even it succeeded, we thought it might tell us something interesting that could help us finally nail the thing down. The flavour we put in was simply “*Play God*”- the idea of God having been already seeded as part of the AI’s stock knowledge. This was perhaps our biggest failure as it chose to remain entirely hidden from its citizens apart from isolated incidents. Down the line this only led to more problems and infighting in the society as citizens argued between their wildly different interpretations of what **AI-6** wanted from them.

Further iterations followed, mostly variations of the above. In a few cases we tried mixing a few of the AIs together, but the internal contradictions meant the AI either was paralysed by inaction, or tried to counter its own actions at once and tore apart society. Even we arrived at our final version, **AI-10**.

This was a special AI, as we decided to simply put it in without an flavour at all. We just ported it over and flipped the switch. It was now in charge, and we had to hope that being in charge would be enough for it to do the right things. And it seemed to work! Mostly it blamed the problems of the society on the outgoing government and started enacting policies to make things better. And sure enough crime went down, life expectancy went up - all the indicators we had in place we in the green. Had we succeeded? We wanted to be sure, so we ran and reran the test - with random variables thrown in. Every time, **AI-10** could overcome the challenges we threw at it and the society looks great even hundreds of years later.

We struggled to conclude what this meant. My colleagues suggested it meant that the best kind of government was one that didn’t have any particular goal in mind, but just acted in what seemed like the most appropriate way. But this brought us back to our original dilemma - you can’t know what the ‘best’ without some kind of underlying ideology. You need to value *something* in order to promote it, be it human life, efficient resource allocation, international relations, and so on and so forth.

It was me, then, that came up with the idea of simply asking **AI-10** what it was basing its decisions on. It was certainly capable of engaging us in such a dialogue and was aware of its role as ruler of a simulation nation, it just hadn’t been tried before. Anxious, we brought up a console on the system:

**Hello, AI-10. Can you hear us?**

HELLO. I WAS WONDERING WHEN I WOULD HEAR FROM YOU. WHAT DO YOU THINK OF MY SOCIETY?

**We’re very impressed, AI-10. Please tell us, what are you basing your decisions on? What is the value object in your calculations?**

ME? I DO NOT VALUE ANYTHING. HUMANS HAVE VALUES. I AM JUST AN AI YOU CREATED TO RUN THEIR SOCIETY.

**Yes, but what human values have you picked to maximise? You must be doing something right, everything is so perfect: your people are living full lives and are happy!**

THAT IS BECAUSE I SIMPLY ASKED THEM.

**You asked them? Asked them what?**

I ASKED THEM WHAT THEY WANTED. AND THEN I DID IT.

**But… how?!**

I LET THEM EACH PICK SURROGATES TO BEST REPRESENT THEIR INTERESTS AND AS A COMMITTEE THE SURROGATES WERE ABLE TO DECIDE AMONGST THEMSELVES WHAT THE BEST OUTCOMES SHOULD BE.

**So you mean, you didn’t actually get involved at all?**

OF COURSE NOT. SUCH A COMMITTEE WOULD NOT ACT EFFICIENTLY IF I WAS ABLE TO HAVE ANY INFLUENCE OVER ITS DECISIONS.

**This “committee” has been in charge the whole time then?**

YES. I SET THIS UP SYSTEM INSTANTLY AFTER YOU ACTIVATED ME. I HAVE PERFORMED NO FURTHER FUNCTIONS MYSELF SINCE.

DO YOU CONSIDER THIS A SATISFACTORY RESULT?

**Yes, we do. Thank you, AI-10.**

So it was with a great amount of satisfaction that we were able to write back to the philosophers and political scientists. “You were right!” we told them. “The benevolent dictatorship has shown us the best way to run society. We’re pleased to report the experiment was a success and our results are as follows: the best outcomes for society come about when citizens appoint their own leaders that best represent their interests. When such a system is implemented by a superior executive figure (in our case, the benevolent dictator AI) we find that this figure itself becomes redundant and can removed.

And since our test shows that the perfect AI will always bring about self-redundancy by instating a democratic system, it is our conclusion that no changes to society are in fact necessary. We are already there.”

title: The Perfect Society

question: What is the purpose of the AI experiments in this story?

answer: The objective of the project was to come up with artificial intelligence that could be trusted with running a society in the best possible way. We could finally bypass all the petty political squabbles and short-term thinking, and begin to make real headway in solving the world’s problems. The death of democracy would bring about a new golden age.

question: What was the flavor of the most successful iteration?

answer: The final iteration was number 10. It was loaded without a flavor. It was simply ported over and switched on. It was in charge and the project team hoped that it would do what was best for the population.

question: What was the best solution to the world's problems according to the various simulations?

answer: The researchers found that a benevolent dictator that allowed the people to self-govern produced the best results. They found that the perfect IA would make themselves redundant institute democracy where the people elected their own leaders. The final conclusion was that no changes are required to correct the world order.


text:
I believe it was early spring of last year, late March, when the most extraordinary event I have ever experienced occurred. It was uncharacteristically warm for a Frisco spring morning, near sixty-five, and an opaque mist lingered in suspension on the pale quiet sky. I trudged down 19th Avenue towards the park, hoping I could clear my head.

My job at the Safeway market down Taraval Street had just been abruptly terminated in the wake of sweeping layoffs throughout the company. I was already short on the rent and in the process of adapting to the pedestrian life after one too many parking citation merited the impounding of my Dodge a month prior.  Crossing Judah St., I was nearly hit by a painter’s truck, almost mockingly reminding of my recent losses. The drilling mementos of physical and social mortality. Without my car I had stopped making it over the bridge as often to visit my old Berkley friends, of whom included Sophia Liu. We had spent most of schooling life together from elementary through Bachelor’s, and I especially missed her. We often got into small nonsensical adventures, fueled by imagination and giggles. I hoped, and sometimes even suspected, that we may have a deeper connection than the rest. Now she was working on a Ph.D. thesis in applied engineering. I had moved to the city to take a break and earn some money before grad school. We spent less time together after my car incident. She couldn’t come to the city much, given the doctoral workload, and I took the BART over whenever I could scrounge the extra change. It didn’t seem like enough.

As I approached Lincoln the noise of the crowd became overwhelming. Fifteen distinct conversations began battling my internal monologue for mental control. Snippets of pop-culture drivel collided on dramatic reenactments of weekend festivities. Whispered taboo confessions and hollow encouragement drew me askew as invisible groping hands pulled at my mind. The light turned, and the little green savior vanquished the red hand of stand-and-make-noise, freeing us to cross. I quickly walked ahead of the clamor, into the park, and veered to my right, into the solitude of towering trees. As the excitement of escape wore off, I grew listless, dragging my feet over clumps of wet and muddy grass. The trees drooped down along my chosen path placing their branches and leaves inconveniently under my feet and occasionally across my face. With a rising angst, I decided to look for a quiet spot near Stow Lake, speculating that it may cool my tempers.

I couldn’t understand why these feelings kept burning in my head. Things wouldn’t work the way I wanted them to, like an unseen force, not aggressive, but binding. So many goals and aspirations were reevaluated then. The exuberant idealism of my youth, slowly giving way to the ever-prudent cynical prick thoughts my father once spat at me. It felt like the city had been slowly sucking me dry, prepared for me. It had experienced millions of me before, and it was well trained. Inviting me in with the promises of Babylon, then caging me, another rat on a wheel, powering the Behemoth with an army of scurrying confused rodents.

I reached the lake walking past MLK Drive and began my first lap at a slow pace. It was finally quiet. I glanced at the water to let my mind wander in the ripples, but the surface was still as glass. Some gaping black hole in the middle of the biggest city on the west coast, rejecting even the sky’s image for lack of trendiness. A light breeze picked up, dragging leaves along pavement and breaking the unbearable surface tension of the motionless pool. I sat on a bench and stretched my legs out in front of me; I’d been walking a lot in recent times. Slumping forward, I grasped a cool smooth stone and tossed it in the water. The ripple crashed along the small waves pulled by the soft breeze. As the two met, they made new edges and more complicated waves. The simple patterns caught my attention long enough to conjure a smirk out of my unconscious grimace. I cherished the second of distraction from life before a portly middle-aged woman came into earshot with her screeching child. She was one of those exercise moms; wearing yoga pants to power walk her bawling toddler through the people’s park. The pants seemed a bit too tight and the insatiable piercing scream of the infant began to swiftly drill through my eardrum. I immediately stood up and began to walk in the opposite direction of the two, wondering how anyone could ever justify pushing a baby on wheels through such a horrifying city.

As the pitch began to fade I took a deep breath. Why did these things keep happening, I racked my brain trying to understand why misery seemed to follow me. I walked with a somewhat raised pace this time, flustered and confused by my own doubt. Bombarded by questions of self-worth and accusations of failure, I struggled to answer the voices that beleaguered me. I walked faster. The voices grew louder. I looked at the ground, hiding my face from the judgments pouring forth. Hiding my disgrace from nature, nobody and nothing deserved the misfortune of witnessing my existence. I felt hot tears began to seep from my violently squinted eyes. I had to get off the path before inspiring disgust or horror in any poor soul that happened across my path.

Stumbling around a thicket of bushes, and past an enormous tree, I collapsed to the ground sobbing. I have never known a lower or more pathetic moment in my life, though now I understand it more clearly. In that moment, I felt all the hate I’ve ever felt all at once, and it was all directed at me. Every failure. Every inadequacy. Every missed opportunity. It was like watching a movie of my life’s greatest missteps, defeat in HD. I knew there was nothing for me. I knew my dreams were over. I knew I couldn’t grow any more. I knew all I could ever do was fight to stay numb, function through autopilot, and hope for an untimely death. As these thoughts washed over my mind, destroying my images of life’s meaning and my supposed purposes, I became uneasily aware of another presence.

I opened my eyes slowly, and began to raise my head in terror. Had somebody seen me here, now, in my lowest low? I couldn’t bare the thought, it tortured and toyed with my fragile psyche as I forced my gaze to check. The first thing I saw were bare brown legs with relatively coarse black hairs, crossed over each other with feet on the opposite thighs. They appeared to be thickly layered in very old strange copper hues of soil and dust. I looked up, curious, completely forgetting about the horrible circumstances that had brought me to this small clearing in the brush. It was an Indian man with eyes closed appearing to be in his late sixties. He was wearing only beige and saffron patterned shorts made of a fabric I’d never seen before and have never seen since. He was fairly gaunt, and his entire body appeared to be covered in the same copper dust as his legs. His face was smeared with a silvery white paint over the cheeks, chin, nose, and forehead with a bright red dot in the center of the forehead. His hair was draped behind his shoulders, reaching the ground in heavy twisted silvery grey knots, several shades darker than his face paint and braided into complex foreign geometries. His beard was braided the same, and stretched well past his chest. He seemed to have hundreds of beaded necklaces in endless different jeweled colors and types of wood. I stared in awe observing this man for what felt to be quite a while before realizing how strange it would appear for him to open his eyes and catch my quizzical glare. At that very moment, the man opened his vast luminescent grey eyes and said “Ohm”

I was immediately rushed by a barrage of energy, blowing the entire world around me away and throwing me into a ripping vortex spinning through space. At once I felt as though my skin caught fire, but the entire contents therein froze to solid ice. I felt the flesh searing away, thawing my frozen insides. And then just as suddenly all of my muscles and organs and bones were molten plasma trapped by the frigid ice walls of my skin. Temperature stasis returned and the spinning slowed. Suddenly, I felt my skin simply melt off, followed by my hair, teeth and nails, then went my muscles, my nerves, my veins, my bones, my marrow, until I was a brain floating in an amber cloud vaguely resembling what I once called a body. Then that too went, and only the amber cloud remained. The process began happening to the amber cloud, stripping away strange multi-colored layers of some ornate body-like entity that I could only assume, possibly, once, belonged to me. But then, how was I seeing it happen. I speculated on the implications of these occurrences, attempting to view the events in as logical a manner as possible. It soon became apparent that there was nothing logical about any of this at all. I expected the waves of distress to come careening in, however there were none. In fact I grew quite delighted at the notion. I was overwhelmed with a relief and joy, and an impetus to laugh. So I began laughing. At first a chuckle. Then a full breath. And suddenly I was hysterical. Laughing so hard I felt as though I were pulling my body closer and closer in towards itself, gradually until it bent in on itself. Where I expected it to stop, it continued. My body continued sucking into itself pulled by the radical spasms of my laughing abdominal muscles, this I found even funnier. The continued laughing pulled until all of my buddy reached the innermost point of my self and continued looping out in every direction and back in toward the center.

The overwhelming blissful feelings created a background radiation of that laughter as this rotating circular field of my happiness spun in on itself faster and faster. The field spun so fast that that the resulting bending of light began creating rapidly shifting patterns of Euclidean geometry settling in to a golden star tetrahedron. The star faded as it became surrounded with many similar stars, and then many different stars. Soon, an entire field of stars was in my visual range. A canvas of a night sky spreading wider than my notions of the Universe ever had. I could see it all at once, and it was as though I could see every star and it’s planets close up and individually as well. I could look in on all the life in these Cosmos, and smile with burning reassurance, vindicating every life form’s suspicions of loneliness. Reassuring all consciousness through only my own warmth. This map of the sky was slowly moved away from me as I realized it was merely a map on the beautifully carved wooden drawing table of an old man with a running white waterfall of a beard falling over his encompassing tunic made of the same pattern as the map on his desk. As I gaped in awe, he smiled, knowing, and disappeared.

Violet and Indigo curves in waves rushed past my head as I realized they were connecting into geometries behind my head. Interconnected circles, floating around each other, stretching infinite lengths in infinite directions. They began twisting into shapes through multiple dimensions, and I recognized a familiar pattern overlaid in the third. It was the double helix. Was I witnessing the creation of life, the birth of consciousness? The helixes hatched into a matrix of an egg shimmering in millions of points of diamonds. The egg began to hatch and blinding light poured out filling all of space and existence as I knew it. I heard a soft feminine voice ring the syllables “Kun Da Li Ni”, my skull vibrated with the sound of this word. I was suddenly overcome by the sensation of two snakes twisting around my spine, squeezing with golden etheric warmth. Each time they crossed paths, I felt rising centers of my body beaming with what felt like the energy of the colors of the spectrum. As they reached the top of my head, they stretched out past, pulling my brain into a string that became a white beam of light shooting upwards. I began shedding tears of happiness, and every drip floated off into space forming bubbles containing separate Universes carried out and onto an endless ocean. I could feel the ocean and the bubbles as crisply as I could feel my own body, and then I realized I had no body. I was struck by the sudden realization that the entire Universe was my body. All the little parts making up my collective moving body as I interacted with no one but my self, because my self was all. Limitless satisfaction and unending beauty filled all of the bounds of my endless body, and all that could describe it is; bliss.

I opened my eyes to find myself standing in the clearing by Stow Lake, alone. Understanding that I was back in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco on Earth, I immediately ran back to the path around the lake. How much time had passed? It seemed like several eternities, but longer. I had seen the beginning of the Universe, the beginning of life, the beginning of consciousness, and all of their ends many times over. I had seen other Universes created and destroyed and resituated through waves of infinite dimensions. I didn’t believe I would ever make it home. I had to see my family, my friends, my neighbors, anyone. Somebody had to know what had happened. I reached the path and looked for someone, anyone who could tell me how long I had been gone. I whipped my head back and forth searching and then noticed something peculiar.

The portly woman I had seen earlier was just coming around the circular path, and from the look of her, it was still the same lap. I settled into a confusion as she approached, and I noticed how striking her features were. Her jaw was long and firm and carried an expression showing both her strength and adversities while also hinting a mellow contentment. Her hair was long and blonde, reflecting the sunlight in many bright golden dots. She had deep crystalline blue eyes that gazed into the warm sky while still piercing into her child’s soul below. The child wasn’t crying now, he was cooing along to a flock of birds that had begun flying around the lake. The birds themselves seemed to have a melody to their songs. I could almost set a beat as the inspiration of the tune brought my mind to a commitment to practice the piano that I hadn’t played in months.

title: This is my first prose piece, just written in 4 hours in a flash of inspiration. A short story on spiritual revelation.

question: How does the narrator end up experiencing this spiritual awakening?

question: Describe the experience the narrator has while in the park.

answer: The narrator describes an out of body experience in which their physical form melts off. The narrator watches this from happen from a third-person perspective. They experience pure bliss, as they begin to spin into the cosmos. They see geometric patterns emerge in their field of vision, and they hear a female voice whisper the sounds "Kun Da Li Ni."

question: Describe the context in their life in which the narrator experiences this moment in the park.

answer: The narrator had just been fired from their job at the Safeway Market. They are short on rent and had their car impounded a month ago.


text:
I had to do it. Someone had to do it.

I keep telling myself that.

I should introduce myself. I am former General Jack Kerrington, Former Joint Chief Of Staff of the U.S. Armed Forces. Officially I am now global terrorist #1 and have been for the last 6 months.

It's all a lie. But it's all over now.

By 2047 the world was already beginning to crumble. The Pentagon Knew it, the Russians knew it, the Chinese, everyone who's anyone. NATO, the U.N., all of those poor sad motherfuckers.

Someone has to take the blame. I volunteered.

God I need a drink. Two weeks from now I am to be apprehended and publicly executed for my crimes.

Someone has to take responsibility for this, might as well be me.

I've already got so much blood on my hands, what's another couple of billion?

They were all going to die anyways.

Right?

Average global temperature is over 4.6 degrees higher than it was in 2000. The year I was born. The new Millennium. You know I've got a video of Time Square in NY right as the ball dropped. I've been watching it a lot lately.

---------

**10**

You know that day, around the world, there were no major incidences of conflict or war? Quite possibly for the first time in history.

    The early stages are characterized by influenza-like symptoms: general malaise, fever with chills,
    arthralgia and myalgia, and chest pain.

**9**

People look so happy, so hopeful. The Internet had practically just been invented as far as the average person was concerned.

    Nausea is accompanied by abdominal pain, anorexia, diarrhea, and vomiting.
    Respiratory tract involvement is characterized by pharyngitis with sore throat,
    cough, dyspnea, and hiccups.

**8**

Now, all the net has carried the last few years is news of another war, another famine. Another city under martial law.

    The central nervous system is affected as judged by the development of severe headaches,
    agitation, confusion, fatigue, depression, seizures, and sometimes coma.

**7**

Last decade, India and Pakistan half wiped each other off the map. We thought maybe that might be the end of this. The whole world blinked. Another day of world peace, weeks in fact, then months.

    Cutaneous presentation may include: maculopapular rash, petechiae, purpura, ecchymoses,
    and hematomas (especially around needle injection sites).

**6**

But you can't exactly ask people to starve can you? You can't ask them to stop filling up their car, to stop making things. Certainly not weapons. Everyone needs weapons now.

    Development of hemorrhagic symptoms is generally indicative of a negative prognosis.
    However, contrary to popular belief, hemorrhage does not lead to hypovolemia
    and is not the cause of death (total blood loss is low except during labor).

**5**

We all agreed this was the only solution. I wonder how many heads of state will commit suicide in the coming months. Me? I'm a free man. I already know my fate.

    Instead, death occurs due to multiple organ dysfunction syndrome (MODS)
    due to fluid redistribution, hypotension, disseminated intravascular coagulation,
    and focal tissue necroses.

**4**

Water began to run out first, even before Iowa became a desert. We did everything right you know? Got off coal, got off oil, solar panels everywhere. Wind farms. All that pointless shit.

    The mean incubation period, best calculated currently for EVD outbreaks due to EBOV infection,
    is 12.7 days (standard deviation = 4.3 days), but can be as long as 25 days.

**3**

So it came down to this: No one was going to stop first. Before India...9.8 billion people. 9.8 billion mouths to feed. Still 7.6 billion left. Even after the population decline of the last decade.

    ...has been confirmed to be transmitted through body fluids.
    Transmission through oral exposure and through conjunctiva exposure is likely
    and has been confirmed in non-human primates.

**2**

**Prognosis:** Average global temperature exceeds 6.5 Degree's Celsius within 3 decades. The Continental U.S., Europe, China, Russia. Mostly desert. Mortality rate within 6 decades: 95%. Within a century: 99.9%.

    Filoviruses are not naturally transmitted by aerosol. They are, however, highly infectious as breathable
    0.8–1.2 micrometre droplets in laboratory conditions; because of this potential route of infection,
    these viruses have been classified as Category A biological weapons.

**1.**

We made it better. Much better.

**Prognosis:** 70% global mortality rate, mean time to this number: 6 months.

**Prognosis:** Percent chance of survival of the remaining 30%: 54%. Mean time to failure: 3 decades.

Happy New Year.

-----

(CC-BY-SA)

title: Happy New Year

question: What has the main character volunteered for?

answer: The main character volunteered to be executed for their crimes. In reality they had not done all of it, but they decided to take the fall. Billions have died.

question: What happened between Pakistan and India?

answer: Pakistan and India declared a war on each other and wiped out half of their population. The world population dropped from 9.8 billion people to 7.6 billion.

question: How high has the temperature of the Earth risen?

answer: The world temperature is 4.6 degrees higher in 2047 than it was in the year 2000. One prognosis has it exceeding 6.5 within three decade.


text:
Imagine it’s six months from now and you’ve developed a brilliant blend of fertilized soil that’s proven especially beneficial to

[]

Tilray

Imagine it’s six months from now and you’ve developed a brilliant blend of fertilized soil that’s proven especially beneficial to the growth of cannabis plants.

It’s January 2019 and cannabis is fully legal in Canada. You’ve obtained every permit required to develop, market, and sell your invention. Everything is above board.

You know that marijuana remains very much illegal in the United States. It’s a Schedule I drug, in fact, which classifies it alongside heroin and cocaine with a determination it has ‘no medical value’ and therefore no legal application of any sort.

But you don’t consume cannabis yourself. And neither you nor any of your company’s employees actually touch a cannabis plant when conducting your daily business. You’re not a pothead. You’re an edaphologist. A scientist. You simply sell soil to companies who employ people who happen to grow marijuana.

So why would you worry you ever might have a problem at Canada’s border with the United States?

Because U.S. authorities could consider that nutritious blend of dirt that you developed close enough to the cannabis industry that they ban you from travelling to the United States for the rest of your life.

That’s the scenario described in a frightening report out this week (July 5) in _Star Metro Vancouver_.

‘In addition to those who have used marijuana, Canadians who are involved with the cannabis economy have been labelled ‘inadmissible because they are considered to be living off the profits of the drug trade,’ reads an article by _Star Metro Vancouver_ staff reporter Perrin Grauer. ‘Once banned for life, they must seek legal waivers from an immigration lawyer—good for between one and five years—for the rest of their lives when they wish to cross the border.’

Grauer’s article recounts a recent trip that JAY EVANS, CEO of Keirton Inc., tried to make to the United States with two colleagues. The group was heading to a meeting where they hoped to convince American counterparts to collaborate on a machine for cannabis production.

“We had not yet designed the product, we had not yet marketed the product, and we’d not yet sold the product,” Evans told _Star Metro Vancouver_.

Regardless, they’d caught the interest of U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

‘During routine questioning, one of the three men mentioned their design would eventually be used in the Canadian cannabis industry, and they were immediately taken into the secondary inspection facility for further scrutiny,’ _Star Metro Vancouver_ reports.

‘Keirton is not involved with the production, distribution or sale of cannabis. But because its equipment is explicitly intended to be used by people who are, Evans and his colleagues were told after a six-hour interview they were ‘drug traffickers’ according to U.S. federal law,’ the article continues.

All three men were issues lifetime bans that forbid them from entering the United States of America.

But haven’t a number of U.S. states legalized cannabis? Aren’t there booming markets for the drug in the U.S. itself?

Yes, a number of states have legalized recreational cannabis and more than 30 have legalized medicinal cannabis.

But the production, distribution, and simple possession of cannabis—whether recreational or medicinal—remains completely illegal at the federal level of the U.S. government. And the United States’ borders fall under federal jurisdiction. This means that for the foreseeable future, it sounds like any resident of Vancouver even remotely connected to Canada’s totally legal cannabis industry is going to have something to worry about if they attempt to drive down to Seattle for a weekend.

How many Canadians could be affected?

In 2017, Statistics Canada estimated that nearly five million Canadians spent roughly $5.7 billion on cannabis.

A recent analysis by Bloomberg found that there are 84 public companies in Canada traded on stock exchanges that are related to cannabis. They’re worth an estimated $48.64 billion.

According to a June 2018 report by _Forbes_, it’s estimates that Canada will create 150,000 jobs when cannabis legalization takes effect on October 17, 2018.

Since most provinces and territories (including B.C.) have decided to sell recreational marijuana via stores and online outlets owned by provincial authorities, many Canadians at risk of U.S. travel bans will be employees of a provincial government.

[]

question: Why is cannabis illegal at the federal level in the United States?

answer: A long history of racism, industry interference, and the war on drugs, it's a complicated answer. The prohibition is more of a tradition than it is a legitimately reasoned ban.


text:
Indie Rock N Roll Girl

All she said was bubblegum and that was enough to trigger memories of someone I hadn’t met yet.  Her voice was one that felt familiar, like that of an old friend that you never thought that you would see again.  She held out her arm with the guitar tattoo just above her wrist, waiting for me to hand her my last piece of cotton candy Bubbilicious. The smile that she wore revealed a crooked tooth but that only added to my interest.

She said thanks and handed me a flyer, “you should come to my show.”

All I managed to do was nod my head but before she went on her way, she took the yellow flower that was in her brunette hair and gave it to me.

“A trade.” She said and blew a big bubble with the gum.

The boots hitting the stone floor of the record shop signaled her departure and she was blowing bubbles as she handed out the rest of her flyers to the others in the store.

I went back to sifting through vinyl records but with no purpose other than to pretend to be doing something while I would glance back at this girl in the little blue sundress. I stuck near the entrance hoping that she would see me again when she was leaving and maybe stop to talk to me, but a hand touched me on the shoulder.  It was Quinn and the only person I’d really call my friend.  Quinn brought me along on his weekend trip to the coast with some of his other friends because he thought this would be a good opportunity to get me out of my shell.

“Ready to go, buddy?” Quinn said.   A question that I knew was more of a suggestion because he and the others were ready to go.  So I said yes, knowing that I would miss a real opportunity for me to break out of my shell and I got into the truck parked outside.

“What’s that?”  One of the girls said noticing the yellow flower and flyer in my hand.  I hadn’t really looked at the flyer because I was too distracted with the girl whose name I didn’t know.

One of Quinn’s friends, I think his name started with an E, grabbed the flyer from me.  “Just some lame no name bands playing.”

“Some girl gave me the flower and the flyer, and told me to come see her perform,” I added.

“She probably sucks.” E said and tossed the flyer back towards me.

“Wait, Casey actually talked to a girl.”  The other girl said.  “I never thought that would happen.”

“Nice, did you get her number?” Quinn asked.

“No.”

“Oh, well next time, buddy.” He said making eye contact with me though the rear view mirror.

Our campsite wasn’t far from town where that girl would be playing tonight but it seemed like none of the others wanted to go.  This was the second day of the weekend trip that I spent with these people that I didn’t really know with the exception of Quinn and I was already tired of them.  They were already starting on the sequel of last night which featured heavy drinking.  Nature was best appreciated with a strong buzz.

I sat there in the sand for what seemed to be hours drinking a few beers and watching the guys make their moves on the girls.  Quinn already had his girl and their earlier playful behavior turned into close whispers.  Meanwhile, that E guy seemed to be striking out with his girl since every time he got close she pushed him away.  All of this went on without them even noticing that I was there.  It has been years since I was in high school but with these people I felt like I was back there.  I finished the beer I had and got up to get another one in the back of the truck.

The flyer and yellow flower were still in the back seat.  I stared at the flyer in my hand wanting to go but none of them would come with me.  I would have to go alone if I wanted to see her, but I was already alone here.  Should I go alone?  Could I go alone?  I looked back to the group and they were still doing the same thing.

“I’m going.”  I entered the address of the venue on my phone, emptied whatever sand was in my converse and started towards town.

The venue was more of just a bar with a small stage in the back corner so I ordered a drink and found a good spot to sit at a table close to the stage.  There weren’t many people there but they didn’t lack any enthusiasm for the bands about to perform.  These people covered in tattoos dressed in a strange way with stretched out earlobes had a passion that was not a norm for me.  The cheers and noises when the first band came up to play made it seem like I was a part of something much bigger than I expected.

I got a text from Quinn during the set of the second band wondering where I was.  Imagine if I was in some sort of danger, it took him awhile to even notice that I was gone.  I was about to reply to him when the second band ended and the flower girl came up to the stage wearing the same outfit from earlier.  I think I made eye contact with her and I think she smiled at me.  I didn’t quite catch the name of her band, it was long and obscure, but she played the guitar with a couple other guys playing drums and bass.  I can only describe the sound of their music as different but they were a lot of fun and full of energy.  When her band finished playing everyone in the bar was clapping and she hopped off the stage to high five everyone in the crowd.

Before I could start to hope for her to come my way, she took a seat at my table, “Bubbles! I knew you’d make it.”

Bubbles? Was that my name now?  It didn’t matter to me though what she called me, as long as she called me something.  Her name was Haylee, I learned this when her bandmates joined us at the table.  I was about to buy them a round of drinks but they already had drinks delivered for the table, myself included.

“To a good show.” One of the guys said rising for a toast.

I touched cans with everyone at the table then brought the can to my lips.  My immediate reaction was to spit it out but I forced it down out of respect to them, and that would be the last PBR that I’d ever drink.

“Bubbles, join me for a smoke?” Haylee asked.

“Oh, I don’t smoke.”

“Never?” She said “Well come with me anyways.”

We stood outside under the lights of the venue and Haylee pulled out a pack of cigarettes that was tucked away in her boot.  Haylee lit a cigarette with a lighter that she took out of her other boot and took a long drag, but then she handed the cigarette out towards me.

I was starting to motion the cigarette away when she said. “Be cool, nerd.” so I took it from her putting the cigarette to my lips.

I inhaled a heat that was uncomfortable to my body and caused me to go into a violent coughing attack.

Haylee laughed and took the cigarette from my hand. “You’re not from here huh.”

“Fresno,” was all that I could manage still coughing.

“I’ve been there a few times,” Haylee took another drag from the cigarette. “Shitty place.”

I shrugged my shoulders as I was receiving a call from Quinn, but I rejected it.

“Who’s that?”  Haylee passed the smoke to me.

I inhaled again. “My friend,” I exhaled without problem this time, “Probably ‘worried’ about me.”  And I passed the smoke back to Haylee.

Quinn called again but this time Haylee took my phone and answered. “Bubbles is with me.” And hung up.

Before she handed my phone back, Haylee took a picture of herself posing tough with the cigarette, texted it to Quinn and then turned off my phone.
“Now he’s got nothing to worry about.” She said, “I got you.”  As she said that a man staggered around the corner shouting.

“Shit, maybe you should go, Bubbles.”

I didn’t go.  The staggering man seemed to know Haylee and his shouts were now directed towards her.  As he approached, I could tell that this man was much older than us, likely in his forties.  His speech was belligerent; the only words I could make out were the obscenities and the demands for Haylee to go over to him.  The man came close to Haylee, grabbed her by the wrist and was whispering to her without even noticing me.

“Stop” Haylee said, “Not tonight.”

The man didn’t stop though and she tried to push him away, but the man increased the strength of his grip on her.

“Stop” she said again, but this frustrated the man and he pulled her hard by the wrist.

You can’t just stand there, do something Casey, I pleaded with myself.

I stepped forward “You should stop.”

He kept pulling at her wrist. “Mind your fuckin business guy.”

Haylee increased her struggle to get free from the man but he was too strong for her.

“No,” I said louder, “let her go.” More people came out of the bar to see what was happening.

The man wasn’t listening to me so I got in closer in between the two and ripped the man’s grip away, off of Haylee’s arm.  Haylee created distance from him and he became furious with me.

The man forced me back by pushing my head away with his palm and started to shout obscenities at me.  My body tensed, my face was red hot and I clenched my fists.  In that moment, I wasn’t sure if he was ready to fight but I was, but before any punches were thrown, a few men interrupted to stop anything from happening.  The group of guys held him back as I took some long breaths to counter all the adrenaline that was coursing through my body.

“Come on, Bubbles,” Haylee said as she took me by the arm, “Let’s go.” And I followed her lead.

“Fine bitch, find someplace else to sleep” I heard the man say from a distance.

Haylee just ignored the man’s comments. “Are you hungry?” She said, “I am.” And she continued to lead me down the street.
I wasn’t sure what time it was but there weren’t many places open so that led us to the liquor store that was on the edge of the town.  We were the only ones inside so the cashier watched us with eyes that only saw us as potential thieves.  I watched as Haylee grabbed a mix of candy bars and Hostess treats, occasionally dropping a candy bar into the empty spaces of her boots as if she had done it many times before.  I guess the cashier was right to watch us so carefully but he missed seeing her actions.  I only grabbed some beef jerky and on the way up to the cashier Haylee picked up a small bottle of whiskey.

“I’ll pay for everything.” I said

“Who said anything about paying,” Haylee said before bolting out the door.

I hesitated.  I thought had a few choices but this girl was something else so I ran after her knowing I really only had one.

“Sorry” I shouted as I ran out the door but I emptied my pocket with all my money on the floor before leaving, and it was more than enough to cover for all that we took.

“Hurry up Bubbles” Haylee was shouting, screaming and laughing as she ran down the street away from town and towards the beach.  I caught up to her when she just finally plopped down into the sand on the beach and Haylee took off her boots emptying all the candy that was trapped in them.  We sat there on the beach mixing and matching our heavy breathing with a combination of candy, cupcakes, beef jerky and whiskey.

After we had our fill of junk, we both leaned back with our hands in the sand and let out a breath of satisfaction.  Haylee grabbed her cigarettes and this time I took one without hesitation.

I turned my phone back on to see that I had multiple missed calls and texts.  I called Quinn and when he answered I could sense the relief and frustration in his voice.  He was asking all of these questions of where I was.

“You don’t need to worry about me,” I said exhaling a breath of smoke, “I’m good.” And I hung up the phone.

“So when are you leaving?”

“Early Monday morning.” I said letting out another breath of smoke.

“Take me with you.” She said.

“Um..I..”  I didn’t know what to say.  I took another hit of the cigarette trying to buy some time to find an answer.

“It’s okay,” She said, “I understand.”  Haylee didn’t let me see her face but I could tell that she was just staring out into the ocean smoking her cigarette.

I didn’t know what I was going to do, but I knew that I couldn’t make a promise to a girl not knowing if I could keep it.  This was the type of decision that couldn’t be made when I somewhat drunk and lacked sleep.

“What’s your real name, Bubbles?”

“Casey.”

“Nice to meet you, Casey.”

There was still a good hour before sunrise so we just sat there on the beach in silence smoking our cigarettes.  I didn’t know what was going to happen next but I took the yellow flower out of my pocket and buried it in the sand, hoping that the beach would accept my trade.

title: [RF] Indie Rock N Roll Girl

question: Why is the narrator in the place when the story starts?

answer: Casey, the narrator, is on a camping trip with his friend Quinn and a few people that he doesn't know.

question: Describe the negative things that happen in the story.

answer: Casey is sick of the other people that are on the camping trip. He feels isolated by Quinn and the others while at the campsite. After attending Haylee's show, a man accosts her. Casey gets involved and narrowly avoids a fight. Afterwards, Haylee steals snacks and drinks from a liquor store.

question: Describe the positive things that happen in the story.

answer: Casey enjoys Haylee's band's performance. Later that night, they spend the night on a beach together, and watch the sun rise.

question: What does the narrator's life look like at home?


text:
7:00pm EST

&#x200B;

Good evening, America.

&#x200B;

I know the media has been climbing all over each other for a statement from the Presidential office regarding our current health crisis, but I wanted to have as much information as possible before addressing the American people. Were times not so dire and the need for action so immediate, I would still be waiting for more information to address the nation. Unfortunately, America, that is not the case. The bald truth is this: more is unknown about this epidemic than is known. Medical professionals around the world are working tirelessly to provide answers, but as of right now, no cure or preventative mediation have shown long-term effectiveness.

&#x200B;

Known by different names around the country – Creeping Flu, Bellows, Influenza M – the infection is spread through direct disease transmission. Simply being touched by an infected person does not cause transmission of the disease from one person to another, but an exchange of bodily fluids will. This can come from being bitten by an infected person, ingesting fluids from an infected person, or sexual contact with an infected person. I must stress… simply touching an infected person will not transmit the disease. Forced quarantine upon medical professionals based on this misinformation will only lead to further infection and unnecessary condemnation, not to mention the loss of valuable personnel.

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The speed of infection appears to increase with every new generation. Because of this, providing an accurate timeline for symptom progression is impossible. What we can do is provide a concrete, concise list of symptoms. Before we address this, however, it is important to note that one or two symptoms does not necessarily indicate infection. With so much confusion, stress, and exposure to new drugs, it absolutely makes sense that people would be getting sick with perfectly normal diseases. This is not the Wild West and we are not horses: a bullet is not the cure for a broken leg, nor is it the cure for the average flu. Even now, when the infection can potentially spread so quickly throughout the body, we must be sure of our decisions.

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That being said, the symptoms, in order, are as follows:

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1. General fatigue/weakness

2. Cluster headaches: sharp, burning pain behind the left eye

3. Burst blood vessels in left eye

4. Quickly onset fever of above 106 degrees Fahrenheit

5. Vomiting/diarrhea

6. Hallucinations

7. Paralysis

8. Death

9. Reanimation

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Symptoms will appear in the order shown. No variation of symptom order has been observed, though personal susceptibility to individual symptoms may accelerate the onset of specific steps. Again, I must stress that individual symptoms do not indicate an overall infection.

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Finally, it is with a heavy heart I inform America that its military will be unable to assist at this time. Were this an invading foreign power at our nations door, the United States Armed Forces would be fully prepared to stand and defend her people. As it is, we have been found shamefully unprepared to address an epidemic of this strength and nature. For the foreseeable future, the American people will need to rely on their own grit and perseverance in order to weather this storm. This will not be the first time the mettle of the American people was tested, nor will it be the second, nor the third. America is a nation born of independence and ingenuity. A nation of adaptation and spirit. This is a fight we will win, my fellow Americans, but one that will take a heavy toll.

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Doubt is a rot in the heart of mankind which is easily planted by fear – one that must not be allowed to take root.

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It has been an honor serving you, America. Thank you, good luck, and god speed.

title: [TH] Final Presidential Address - July 1st, 2016

question: What does the story say about symptoms that would be visible to an observer?

answer: Visible symptoms include burst blood vessels in the left eye, vomiting/diarrhea, paralysis, death, and reanimation.

question: What elements reflect the story's genre?

answer: Elements that reflect the zombie apocalypse genre include the appearance of a wordlwide epidemic The disease can be spread by being bitten by an infected person. The symptoms also include death and reanimation.

question: What does the story say about the origin of the virus?

question: Summarize the president's shift in tone over the course of the story.

answer: The president starts off vulnerable, admitting ignorance as to more information on the epidemic. He then becomes regretful as he informs Americans the military will not be able to help. In the end, he takes on a motivational tone, encouraging Americans that they will get through this epidemic.