Day 14.

Taptaptap. Tap tap tap. Taptaptap.

Alison was in the dean's office when she heard it first. Automatically her mind translated the punctuated sounds-- she hadn't spent a summer learning morse code with her father to not understand "SOS" when she heard it. She tapped it back on the cardboard-fabric-plastic cubicle divider and waited. She thought there was a classroom on the other side. At least, she was pretty sure.

Is there a reason you're smiling, young lady? Alison looked up to see the disapproving head-tilt of the dean's assistant.

She shook her head no, hunching over a little farther.

One more day of detention, of Mr. Wallace telling the fifty or so students (in his unique accent) to stop their "tolkein" and be less "noozy." One more day of staring at the inspirational posters, all the same-- bought in bulk from a prison, and placed as high on the walls. Just a picture, a word, and a little quote to get you through another day of mindless un-seized opportunities for the out of the ordinary.

She wondered if there was a random poster generator. INTEGRITY. Two pandas cuddling. "All's well that ends well." Done. Perfect. Inane. Emasculated.

What would the child of these posters look like? He'd Stand Tall, no doubt, taking special care to Not Exclude Anyone, Without Fearing Failure, Showing Accountability.

No one would be able to stand him for long.

He'd get sent to the dean's office for pissing off all his teachers after turning in his Best Effort one time too many. Maybe he'd stare up at the posters, like she was, and feel a certain emptiness.

There were the taps again, muffled, quieter this time.

Help, I am trapped inside a box of sadism.

She surreptitiously tapped back.

Funny, I don't see anyone else in the dean's office.

The assistant looked up, massaging the bridge of her nose. Alison recognized the look in her eyes as "please don't make me tell you to stop finger drumming, that's what eye rolling is for."

She was beginning to think talking might be a vestigial function from an ancient era. Like snake legs, or tailbones.

I'm in English, some kid whose name I never learned is talking about gerunds.

Waiting for the dean to finish calling some kid whose name I'll never know an imbecile.

You wouldn't think it would take that long.

You'd be surprised.

Is he an imbecile?

He's not figured out that detention won't go on his transcript for colleges, so yeah, kind of.

How did you learn morse?

My dad's a captain on a whale-watching boat, he got really into the whole signaling thing. I'm pretty sure he thought that whale song was just extended morse code.

Is it?

Will I ever get out of here?

So that's a no...

Aye aye. How'd you learn it?

I work at the history museum.

Yeah?

Yeah. Visitors love a telegraph. Nine times out of ten, they look like they're trying on a costume when they test it out. They get all self-important and serious looking, like they have a mission. like they're personally saving Romeo by intercepting the misinformation about Juliet.

Alison Deadle? the dean sighed.

What? I mean, yes. Here. Alison clamped her mouth shut and shuffled into the tiny "office" before she could realize she hadn't tapped "bye."

Day 13.

*Band room. A hundred and eight degrees. Cal is late*

KEVIN:Hey Cal, get out to the fields, we're doing basics block and then setting drill. Here's the charts, are you memorized yet? Just kidding, sort of.

CAL: *aside* No one has ever talked this fast. Not on the radio. Not when calling 911. Not with the threat of torture.

BEN: Hey, quietpants, what's up?

CAL: Uh good, I'm good.

BEN: Haha, alright man.

CAL runs out to the field, where everyone is trying to be at attention. HAL is counting off. On 8, most people take the first step. MS. STEPHENS paces around.

MS. STEPHENS: LEFT, right, LEFT, CAL-- LEFT! You are not SAUNTERING, you are not SAUCILY SWAYING OVER TO YOUR BEAU ON THE LACY CANOPY BED, YOU ARE MARCHING *drops voice* And you will look like it.

CAL*whisper*: Isn't she kind of overdoing the whole... history in the Marines thing?

DIANA: Navy SEAL.

MS STEPHENS: Here is an interesting fact. Birds, yes, some of them do appear to be in the sky above you, can migrate thousands of miles to from summer breeding areas to winter grounds. Do you THINK *she whips around* that if they were FACING THE WRONG DIRECTION they would MAKE IT? NO, NO THEY WOULD NOT, AND PBS WOULD NOT MAKE A DOCUMENTARY ABOUT THEM EITHER, UNLESS IT WAS IN MEMORY OF THE FALLEN CORPSE AND THAT WOULD BE ON LATE BECAUSE PEOPLE KEEP WRITING ABOUT HOW DEATH UPSETS THE CHILDREN. For god's sake, Riley, look at everyone else.

Okay. The first game is this Friday. Are we ready? I will answer that. No. Does it matter? I will also answer that. Yes.

RILEY: Really?

MS STEPHENS: No. Get the fuck on your water break, we're going to run through what we're going to do.

CAL jogs off the field, trying to get the 6/8 time firmly down. He trips over a girl (SOFIA) sitting against the side of the bathroom, notices her clammy, sweaty, panicked look. His internal struggle/consternation is clear.

CAL: Uh..

SOFIA: What?

CAL: Nothing. I mean. Are you okay?

SOFIA: Well I just vomited in that corner and there's a kid who always sits there texting his long distance girlfriend at lunch so I feel pretty shitty about that but--

CAL: That, uh, that sucks, do you need water?

SOFIA: Just need to sit for a minute. I would normally apologize for the, babbling, but it's strangely freeing, I've discovered.

CAL: Well that's.... good. Feel free to keep going--

SOFIA: Hah--

CAL: I'm one of those people who like listening.

SOFIA: Yeah?

CAL: Yeah. You learn a lot.

SOFIA: Like what?

CAL: Like when everyone's trying to be quiet, but their little ticks show everything.

SOFIA: You're one of those people-watchers, aren't you? Inventing histories for fun?

CAL: I know it sounds creepy, but it's more like... being a detective.

SOFIA: You've switched schools a lot, haven't you?

CAL: It shows?

SOFIA: Well, it must have upsides... like learning names quickly, or finding... entertainment even where most would succumb to the deepest depths of boredom-sleep.

CAL: Or never having friends.

SOFIA: Or that.

CAL: So I think break's probably over.

SOFIA: I'm playing Hide and Seek with Ms. Stephens. It's her favorite game (she winks)

CAL: Why did that not come off as convincing?

SOFIA: Because you're a suspicious, paranoid hyperalert future stalker in the making?

CAL: Don't hold back, really, we know each other too well for that.

SOFIA: What's my name?

CAL: Girl who vomits in corners?

SOFIA: (grimaces) I'll try not to make a habit of it, cause that's not nearly badass enough for a nickname.. Cal.

CAL: Who's learning names quickly now?

SOFIA: Still you.

CAL: Well I have a lot of other stuff to learn. And no time to pick it up.

SOFIA: Yeah, game's this friday, but competition's not for months.

CAL: Does marching band seem like a very... arbitrary thing to devote so much time to?

SOFIA: What, you mean how, starting with football, a collection of inane quasi-denied homoerotic rituals --

CAL: --touchdown (raises an eyebrow)

SOFIA: Touche!-- and then we support them by dressing up in military-inspired uniform and playing pop tunes from twenty years ago because a) the rights are less expensive and 2) it pleases the parents freezing their asses off in the crowded stands--

CAL: But it makes sense if you think about music.

SOFIA: When do I *not* think about music?

CAL: Because nobody would cry in movies if not for music. It's this-- this motivating force that pulls them out of their comfort zone of living day to day surface life banalities, and into this deeper place.

SOFIA: You're saying when people hear "Funky Town" they're thinking about abstract concepts.

CAL: What about memories or regrets?

SOFIA: When you go to funky town, I don't think you have regrets.

CAL: Regrets of not going to funky town?

SOFIA: After this year, you won't have em.

CAL: Is that a promise?(holds out his hand to help her up)

SOFIA: (takes it, springs up on her own anyway) Get back on the field, One Who Is Surprisingly Audible Once Not Being Inaudible.

Back in basics block. Cal is listening, closes his eyes. The stage is dark, in patches of light, people sing what Cal thinks he can tell from the smallest signs.

HAL: The view is different from up here

up a few feet but away a few miles

some times i feel

like i'm fluttering my hands to stop a train

does what i do reach them

do they even look up from that turf

does it affect them

my arms are fucking sore

This is the last time!

what if i get an erection?

This podium

tells all

Will I fall?

SOFIA: (looking at Ben) The last time

I've called him for the last time

We're over and done

now, we were before we'd begun

now but still

something's lacking

why is it bad ideas are so distracting?

no more sneaking out

no more calling late

no more turnabout

i'm queasy and irate

i won't admire your rollstep or flawless horn snap a-ny-more

gotta get my feet in time

this

last time...

TUBAS: (stage whisper) So I heard from my friend, their band director once had them rehearse in a thunderstorm. One of the tubas got struck by lightning and they said he lit up the whole stadium. His mother had to vacuum his ashes from the astroturf.

MELLOPHONES: I heard this mello at McKinley tripped, knocked out his two front teeth, and kept marching the show without getting out of step. They had to reattach his palate afterwards though...

TROMBONES: I heard at this one school in Wisconsin? The trombone suicides? Actually *were*.

MS STEPHENS: BAND TEN HUT!

The last time

I swear it's for the last time

But it's not quite right just yet so

one more time

The last of the last times

God please at least try

Don't sigh at me

We're not done yet

Reset!

The last time...

Fade to black.

Day 12.

At Night When Everything

i'm feeling my way forward in the dark

of your mind

i'm passing all the thoughts i've ever left

behind

i'm following a path made of all the days

i've ever known you

--all the thoughts i poured out undiluted

will meet at the end

hold your hands up to the ceiling

make a map, make a plan

looking for a way out because of

all the nights i spent curled into

a shape where i couldn't feel

the missing piece

how would i know i'd said the right thing

i collapse inward,

when they talk about love

what i'm feeling isn't anything but

none of the above

i'm just a paper cup,

and i'm one fold away

from not being there

count my dimensions, am i really

meant to live like this

courting the illusion that

our minds are above revisiting

another day i waste my time

i give the line,

where is my mind,

i can't seem to find the rhymes

that stick to lips like

chocolate

and it puts my feet

to flight my legs

to leave my gut

to go the heavy

in my head, the slow

in my soul.

Day 11.

You know when you say a word, over and over and over? How it loses meaning?

Bruise, for example. Bruise I forget frequently.

Bruise bruise bruise.

Or nose.

That's another one that gets lost.

Sometimes names do.

It happens when you least expect it-- when someone introduces themselves, and for a moment

it is as though your mind has undergone the creation of a composite universe, nothingness expanding, before you remember.

Oh, it's uh, I'm _____.

And you can tell, by the set of their jaw or the twitch near their temple, that once they knew a _____. Once that word, that name meant something.

They are hoping to begin anew.

They are hoping you can pull it off.

____ ______ ______.

She knew a ____, who was always touching people. It was natural, the way she breathed. He'd twist hair, rest on shoulders.

He knew a ____, who broke his heart.

They knew a _____, who didn't say goodbye, and they knew a ____ who did.

And soon these names become people, and we forget that other people use this name. We say it it different, have you noticed? And sometimes you can get through an entire conversation only associating someone's face with them.

We're afraid.

We're afraid one day we'll wake up without labels.

Day 10.

Phil Kaye and Sarah Kay, spoken word poets of righteousness and truly amazing inspiration, came to Pali yesterday! I'm so influence-able. When that a capella vocal group came to Paul Revere, I was convinced I was going to learn to beatbox. Although not all assemblies apply-- for instance, I have never wanted to be a bus safety officer or a sexual harasser of any sort. (That last part is a lie.)

so anyway.

i walk from here to there watching faces

change from apeshit to disgraced

in a frenzy feeling crazed and

it's the way we get places

wrapped up, distracted, nervewracked, feeling like we're acting

feeling from the inside and judging from the outside

and seeing as they go by

all we have to realize is this:

you cannot reduce the entirety of a human being to what you see

in keyhole speculations

fragmented conversations

imaginary hallucinations

i slip sideways

between the linked arms

i got the charm of

invisibility

try convincing me

that I'm somebody

I forget because

I'm only seeing others and

it takes looking at my hands to

get that these eyes and hands are brothers

and these eyes can tell stories

tell the ones that are lies

the ones that echo off empty tries

the ones that try to look away, or look you in the eyes

And mine can read how yours change in the sunlight

how it makes me feel like a person revealed

a revelation for an atheist a

standing on your head-wise

we're just sleeping on a train

but we know our stop is soon

we'll wake up when it's time

we'll wake up when it's june

Day 9. Not fiction.

Princess Cake

(although, no food that comes near my family/me ever looks this neat)

God, that cake. I always started at the bottom of my slice, the cloud sweet sponge cake, and then the raspberry, just the thinnest layer, more cake, whipped cream whisked by angel wings, more cake, more cream, and then, mountain-majestic, the spring-green marzipan icing, a perfect powdered-sugar-dusted shell on one side that dissolved in your mouth into almond smoothness.

The best way I know how to explain how wonderful it tasted, is to tell you to imagine a giant scab across your knee that itches in the most appealing way, the congealed fibers begging to be slowly picked at to see the new pink quasi-skin underneath, the kind of tempting that defies manners and normal sanitation standards.

We'd have it after dinner, my aunt b would bring it into the kitchen, and over the course of the night we'd sneak into the kitchen, peel off sizeable marzipan scabs with quiet fingers, off the edges where we thought no one would notice.

Day 8.

"For the last time--" I hacked out, spitting blood.

And so I died.

There are two hundred pages left in this book, and you thought there was no one left to chronicle these exploits.

"Oh," you think.

"I see. He's coming back, he must be. It's been done before, to say the least. Swerved to safety right after the camera cut, or faked his death.

Why isn't he waking up? Where's the next chapter? Wait. Is this for real? Who tells the story now?"

But there is you.

You sidestep your inhibitions.

Face it, you were born to narrate.

Day 7.

In my dream there's a field of violins, the bows changing like sunlit wheat in the wind

The conductor is the eye of a tornado of music.

the whole orchestra bears down, alive and tribal, strong and beautiful and new each season, each page turn with

possibility.

And it is possible that all force, all energy in the universe, bears down only upon these players.

But our bodies are strange to us, they shake without warning, until we let loose the howl,

the barbaric yawp.

The trumpets streak out final rebel cries, a high wound, and slump to the ground,

lost in the sound.

The trombones reach for what is just beyond, give in to a last swoop of air before they too fall by the wayside.

The french horns curl in on themselves and feel the tendrils slip out from under them, and let it happen.

The saxes, the circling birds, lower into wide ripples, landing loudly, refusing to fade away.

The bassoon is the stilling cry of the lark, the invisible loon who called to you at twilight when there were deep and musky shadows to explore.

There is no choice, the flutes stumble forward, flutter tonguing incidentally, accidentally, but they burrow into the safe cover of the string sound, the hovering, sustaining breath.

The clarinets, the noise of river reeds become the turtle who ducks his head in his shell.

The violas, the cellos, the violins, carry on till the sure bow strokes become feeble plucking at drifting feathery notes.

Till all that's left, the only thing standing, is the pure and hurt bass, standing amidst the wreckage, one unquavering voice.

Till the world tilts, and I wake feeling fallen.

Day 6.5

she was the girl who

people took photos of and

titled them love songs

i was the footnote

taking up space on the page

my words were warped first

Day 6.

Ava stared down, her long hair the monster-deflecting blanket she used to hide under at night, and felt deeply ridiculous. Her pink and green striped shirt had never (not even on that memorable occasion when, to make her laugh, Justin wore it with high heels and little else) seemed more offensive.

Looking briefly up, she saw that he was pinching the bridge of his nose again-- another little tic, probably something he'd picked up from some long-suffering Harlequin romance character named Hugo.

When he spoke, she thought that he'd probably taken Hugo's words, too.

"Why are you doing this? Can we just both say what we mean...for once?"

Ava bent her fingers back, one by one, stalling for time.

"It'll take longer."

She didn't like the way he tilted his head at her, too knowing, too psycho-analyzing. Too... Justin-y.

He noticed her squirming. How had he put up with it?

Sometimes people drift apart.

Because they change! We're still the same.

Are we?

Again with the talk-show questions. How do you think Justin, your ex-boyfriend, feels about that statement, Ava? Justin, how would you like to respond?

Everything was too familiar with Justin.

She'd seen it all before.

Do you ever feel like--she'd start a sentence, and trail off, realizing that they'd already had this conversation, when they were both happier and the light glinting off their smiling teeth rosier.

He didn't even ask.

She had liked it initially, his not pursuing her neverminds. Maybe it meant they knew each other well.

When did things turn bad? he asked, the "with us" left hanging.

You started asking questions, she said.

((not even sure what this is, i have a feeling i'm going to think it's unacceptably crappy in the morning though))