Jay and Faith were awestruck by the Zephyr: a shiny white sphere set in the sky like a polished moon. “It’s beautiful,” said Faith, the quivering snow-pile.

“It’s huge.” Jay couldn’t block it from view with both hands at arm’s length. Seams split open along the white sphere’s surface. “And growing!”

“Indeed,” said the Mountain’s Heart, “but the Mountain is larger. We will swallow it.”

“Cool!” Faith pointed her only paw at the white sphere’s seams peeling at the corners and fraying into feathers. “Are those wings?” Yes, wings peeled from the sphere in sheets. When they flapped, the winged Zephyr drifted like an awkward dirigible. “How can you swallow it all the way up there?”

“It’s not the only one with wings.” The bird unfolded its forty-foot wingspan. Faith oohed and aahed. The Heart turned them both a stern gaze. “Don’t get into trouble.”

“What’s in these pits?” Faith used her paw to crawl to a cave. “Can we climb inside?”

“Only if you intend never to resurface.” Reconsidering, the Heart stomped and all the holes on the red mountain sealed seamlessly. “Better safe than sorry,” said the bird. Then it initiated liftoff.

Its exhaust flooded over Faith and Jay. Jay only fell, but Faith flew for meters like an Autumn leaf. “Help! JayJay! I’m too aerodynamic!”

Jay blocked the breeze with his body and Faith fluttered down safely. The Heart of the Mountain zoomed toward the winged Zephyr on thin steam.

Faith shook out another forelimb. “Can you give me a hand? I’m having trouble making myself.”

“You want me to, uh…” Jay mimed squeezing legs from her bulk. “Like, play-doh you?”

“Wait, I’ve got it.” Faith waggled out two hind legs and kicked frost from their feet. “I like being a fox! We gotta smoke centipede more often.”

Jay was distracted watching the Heart of the Mountain cross the yellow sky. “Sorry, what?”

“Centipede! We should smoke more!”

“Oh yeah. We smoked centipede.” He watched Faith shape her ears. “Smoke without me. I don’t like being bullied by a bird.”

Faith gasped with glee. Kicking frost had formed a fluttery tail behind her. “Oh, hohoho! Look at this!” When her tail left the lee made by Jay, it was almost stolen by the breeze. Faith huddled on her haunches in safety. “Can you sculpt yourself, JayJay?”

“If the wind blows you away, maybe I shouldn’t try. We’d both be blasted across the mountain.” As Jay spoke, the Mountain’s Heart confronted the winged Zephyr. The Zephyr’s wings threatened to smack the robed bird from the air, but the bird barreled right. Blue tentacles spilled from its sleeves and constricted the Zephyr’s wing-joints. “Do you think the mountain can really swallow that thing?”

“Bug-Bird seems to have a handle on it.” Faith watched the Mountain’s Heart drag the Zephyr through the sky. “Do you think Dainty and BeatBax can hear us talk?”

“Who?”

“Dan and Beatrice. They’re on the couch with us.”

“Oh. Right.” Jay wiped sweat from his brow. The Heart’s tentacles slung the Zephyr in an easy arc. “I mean, we can hear each other, so we must be speaking aloud. Yeah, they can hear us.”

“Wow!” Faith watched the Zephyr sail through the air. The Heart shot on a burst of steam to beat the Zephyr to the red mountain’s peak, where it phased into the rocky cliff-face. “Oh. Weird!”

The ground shook. Rocks rolled off the mountain’s edge. Jay stood. “What was that?”

Just before the massive winged Zephyr collided with the peak, the peak collapsed into a caldera. The caldera widened and the mountain wobbled. Jay braced himself.

The Zephyr landed in the caldera like a hand in a glove. The caldera deepened to drag the Zephyr into the red mountain with earth-shattering quakes. “Woo!” Faith let volcanic convulsions throw her through the air. “Fun, huh JayJay?”

Each ripple knocked Jay’s feet from under him. A heavy fall snapped both his knees backwards. Jay shrieked.

“Oh! JayJay!” Faith landed beside him. “Are you okay?”

Somehow Jay’s knees were intact and rightward bent, but he hyperventilated then held his breath. His hands shook.

“JayJay?” Faith raised a paw to his face. “Jay, can you hear me?”

Jay retched and held his neck. With a spasm, he spat a tooth on a line of saliva.

“Oh!” Faith reared from the tooth. “Oh no! Jay!”

Jay hacked up three more teeth and spat blood.

“Oh my gosh, oh my gosh.” Faith gathered the teeth, but they sank into her snow. She gave up and pat Jay’s shoulder with a paw. “Okay, okay, let it out,” she whispered. “C’mon, breathe with me, man, breathe with me!”

“I can’t—” Jay vomited a whole mouthful of teeth. Some were broken and chipped. “They’re—stuck—in m—” He coughed bloody shark-teeth. “My—”

“You smoked centipede!” Faith locked eyes with him. “This isn’t real! Hold onto yourself!” She looked into Jay’s throat. His esophagus churned with canines and molars. Shark-teeth swam amid the mix. Faith turned her tail to him. “Open wide.” She dipped her tail’s tip down his neck. The teeth soaked into her fur and she pulled them from his mouth. “There, is that better?”

Jay panted and gave Faith a thumbs-up. He rubbed his throat. “It felt like throwing up thumb-tacks,” he managed. “Maybe I didn’t drink enough orange-juice.” He spat more blood and closed his eyes to clear his tears. “Thanks, Faith. I don’t know what I would’ve done without you.”

She was gone.

Jay stood. He saw white steam rolling up the red mountain. “Faith?” He waved at the retreating steam. “Faith! Wait!”

The steam didn’t stop. With a sigh, he climbed the mountain after it.

Next Section
Commentary

Jay screamed in an arc over the dunes. The desert below was wrinkled like an old pink peach. The sky above was tinted honey-gold as he neared the zenith of his trajectory. The pink and gold spun so quickly he saw only whirling apricot. He shut his eyes and hoped his death would be swift.

A sonic boom opened his eyes. The bird zipped so close it caught Jay in its exhaust. Jay coughed and choked on the frozen fog. Through panic, Jay noted how lucky he’d be to die cold in a scorching desert. Anyone else would die of heatstroke or thirst, but he’d shatter on the red mountain like ice. An interesting first!

His tumbling stabilized. The red mountain’s surface seemed smooth from afar, but now Jay saw a thousand tiny caves like pores.

The bird landed in a foggy cloud. As Jay fell the final forty feet, he felt the fog compress beneath him like cream. The cold mist rest him on the mountainside.

Before Jay could catch his breath, the bird snared his waist with a tentacle. “I am the Heart of the Mountain!” It lifted Jay to show him the caves pockmarking the mountainside. “Today you attain Zephyrhood!”

It tried to cram Jay into a cave. Jay braced his limbs against the hole’s rocky mouth. “No! Stop! Please!”

“The Chain is pulled and the Wheel spins!” repeated the Heart of the Mountain. It mushed Jay against another hole. “Your arrival was fated! Enter!”

The caves were so dark Jay could not guess how deep they ran. He beat the tentacle with his fist. “Let me go! Why am I destined? What did I do?”

“You arrived.” The Heart blinked its green compound eyes. “Into the Mountain you go, toward destiny!”

Jay struck the tentacle with a red rock. Four suckers released, and Jay squirmed from its grasp. The hard terrain hurt his feet as he ran.

The tentacle swiped at him but he leapt into lingering clouds of exhaust. He ran blind, only hoping not to fall into a hole.

The bird beat its wings to blast the clouds away. Jay sprinted to stay with the flying fog.

He tripped. He rolled and scrambled to his feet. His protective fog had fled. “Please, no!”

The Heart of the Mountain loomed over him, and what had tripped him—a white fox with a fluffy tail. The Heart of the Mountain retracted its wings and demanded: “Who are you?”

The fox’s ears lay flat. ” ‘Where am I?’ is more like it.” From the red mountain she and Jay looked down on mile-high dunes. “How’d I get here?”

“This is the Mountain. I am its Heart.” From each sleeve, the bird extended five blue arms of normal thickness but five times normal length. They plucked the fox by the scruff of her neck and pinned Jay to the ground. “Which of you is the prophesied Zephyr?”

“Hey! Put me down!” The fox couldn’t shake the grip on her neck. “Help!” Her body turned to fine snow. The Heart’s hands slipped through her. She fell in a pile beside Jay.

“Time runs short! Which of you is the Zephyr? Shall I bury you both?” The Heart scooped the snow next to Jay and compressed them both in place with all ten hands. “What are your names?”

“Faith,” popped the pile. Snow flecked onto Jay.

“Jay,” said Jay.

“How did you get here?” demanded the bird.

“You threw me,” said Jay.

“No,” said the bird, “how did you get to the desert?”

“JayJay?” Faith’s eyes surfaced on the snow. “Oh, JayJay! We’re still sitting on Dainty’s couch!”

“Yes! That’s right!” Jay sighed in relief. “We smoked centipede-powder. We’re hallucinating.”

The Mountain’s Heart blinked. The facets of its compound eyes disbanded and most of them retreated into the bird’s skull. The remaining eyes scrutinized them both. “Centipede-powder? From whom?”

“Virgil Blue,” said Faith, “by way of Virgil Skyy, taken under the supervision of Virgil Orange.”

The Heart relieved pressure from its palms. Jay squirmed away, but Faith couldn’t control her snow-body. “That explains you two,” said the Heart, “but the Chain was pulled and a Zephyr must arrive! Where is it?”

“How should we know?” Jay stood and brushed dust from his body. He crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m not even sure what a Zephyr is!”

“Really?” The bird retrieved its arms and became a sky-blue cloth cone, like a tepee. It regenerated its compound eyes. “We’re all Zephyrs, one way or another. But for this Zephyr, the Chain was pulled! It must arrive as surely as the Wheel spins! To join all Zephyrs in the Mountain!”

“Virgil Skyy didn’t even mention Zephyrs!” Faith grew a slender limb and used it to shape a snout on her face. “He did mention mountains, though.”

A sound like a gong bowled over Faith and Jay. The roar ruffled feathers on the Heart’s head. It cast its green gaze to the sky. “Oh, thank goodness! I worried it would be subtle.”

Next Section
Commentary

Jay stared at the birthday-cupcake while the world fell away. He didn’t know why Dan paced and wrung his hands. He didn’t recognize Faith barely breathing beside him. Finally the coffee-table, walls, and floor all spun into void.

When Jay blinked, he sat naked on a dune. Heat from the mustard sky baked the sand rust-colored. “Oh no.”

He tried to stand, but his legs buckled under him. He rolled down the dune’s hot slope. Deeper sand was cooler and damper until he tumbled into a moist, shadowy gorge. He pressed his limbs against the narrow walls but found little purchase with the sand. Falling sand revealed tiny tunnels left by worms.

At the bottom of the gorge, Jay panted and desperately felt his body. No bones broken. Two arms, two legs. He counted his fingers. “One, two, three, four, five,” he counted on his left hand. “Six, seven, eight, nine, ten,” he counted on his right. “I’m not dreaming. I’m awake right now.”

This only worried him. In dreams he could count beyond ten on his fingers to assure himself he was safe, but if he had ten fingers, he was really lost in a desert where the sky wasn’t even the right color.

He stood using the East and West gorge-walls for leverage and looked North and South. To the North, the gorge steepened into an overhanging sand-cliff. To the South, the gorge expanded into a wide valley. He limped South.

As his hands traced the walls, Jay noticed more worm-tunnels. Some seemed dug by worms thick as wrists. Could this gorge be the collapsed tunnel of a worm four feet wide? The ground now seemed to undulate underneath him.

He sprinted out of the gorge into the valley. Safe from danger, he hoped, he sat on warm sand. The dunes still trapped him, but the dune to his South was barely half a mile high with a shallow slope.

A red mountain’s rounded summit peeked over the dune. To be visible from Jay’s deep vantage point and from many miles away, it must have been titanic. Olympian.

As he rest, he noticed he was nude. This would be fine in a dream, but in a desert he would shrivel like a raisin. He also noticed he had no genitals. His crotch was round like the summit of the red mountain over the dune. He didn’t even have a belly-button.

The idea made him anxious and he decided to move. He stood and jogged up the Southern dune. He had to scramble on all fours as it steepened. Halfway up, the dune eclipsed a forty-degree angle, and his climbing made loose sand flow like a waterfall. He had to crawl like a meticulous caterpillar.

When he finally crested the dune, he surveyed the desert. The red mountain sat on a mesa like it ruled the rippling sand from a throne. The sky was cloudless, but the sun seemed small. It led two tumbling moons like misshapen potatoes.

Jay noticed a sky-blue triangle on the mountainside. He squinted, deciding if its rounded curves were those an animal or if its sharp angles were man-made.

The triangle widened. Sapphire wings unfolded. The shape rocketed skyward on a burst of steam. “What the hell?” Jay put his hands on his hips and watched the shape surpass the red mountain’s peak on a vapor-trail. When the sound of liftoff reached him, it was a cannon-shot. He puzzled over the shape until he realized it was coming right for him. “Oh, shit!”

Jay jumped down the way he’d climbed up. He slid down the dune on his back and steered with his hands to avoid the sharpest rocks. At the bottom of the valley, he turned to see if the shape had followed him.

A giant bird with great green bug-eyes joined the mountain in peeking at Jay over the dune. The bird stepped into full view: twenty feet tall in billowing sky-blue robes, it glided down the dune on a forty-foot wingspan.

Jay backed into the gorge; he’d rather deal with worms. He was deep in the gorge before he heard the thunder of wing-beats behind him. The bird landed without visible legs or claws, just robes to sand. It withdrew its wings into its sleeves and inserted its head into the gorge, but was too wide to follow Jay. It opened its squat yellow beak. “The Chain is pulled and the Wheel spins,” it said. “You have arrived.”

Jay retreated further.

“I am the Heart of the Mountain. Be not afraid. Come to me.”

Jay did not. He backed away until he bumped against the steep North wall of the gorge.

The bird’s body morphed under its robes. From its right sleeve, a blue tentacle puckered slimy suckers. “Your fate is with the Zephyrs in the Mountain.” The tentacle snaked through the gorge and wrapped around Jay’s waist. Jay clawed at the sand-walls, kicking and shouting as the tentacle dragged him away. “Speed is quintessential.”

Having said that, the bird flung Jay over the dunes.

Next Section
Commentary

Jay’s T-shirt featured a giant blue robot on the moon. Japanese characters spelled LuLu’s Space-Time Acceleration over the stars. While Dan puzzled over the kanji, Beatrice surreptitiously sat left of Faith on the couch.

“Can you read it?” asked Dan.

“Of course,” said Jay. “RuRu no Jikuu-Kasoku. I learned the pronunciation the first time I visited Japan. I always check whether the final volumes of the manga were released when my work sends me to Asia.” The symbols had complex sub-parts made of multiple strokes. “Plus I know Chinese, and lots of characters carry over.”

Dan nodded and counted pilots in their cockpits. When Dan and Jay stood face-to-face, it seemed a mirror stood between them: Dan was pale and Jay was dark, but they had similar haircuts, identical jawlines, and indistinguishable builds. “Here, Jay, sit down. Faith has extra centipede-powder if you’d like to try some. Beatrice and I could trip-sit both of you. Oh, and happy birthday! Faith brought us a cupcake.”

“Oh! Thanks, Faith.” Jay sat on Faith’s right. “And, hey, Dan… Beatrice told me she might need to leave early. She’s on-call at the hospital today.”

Beatrice refused to touch Leo, the water-pipe, as Faith taunted her with it. “It won’t bite, BeatBax.”

“You promised you’d cut back on bug-sticks.”

“It’s not cricket, it’s centipede! And from now on I’ll only smoke my home-grown crickets. They’re organic!”

“Does that really mean anything?” Beatrice sniffed the bowl of powder. “Ick. Do you know what you’re getting into, Faith?”

“Nope! You’re the nurse. Tell me!”

Beatrice used her phone to show Faith a website warning of various bugs. “The psychedelic high from smoking centipede lasts minutes, but it can feel like hours—and some people have lifelong psychological complications after one dose. It’s not just a big bug-stick.”

“I didn’t peg you for a bug-head, Dan,” said Jay.

“With anxiety like mine, you have to be.” Dan set three glasses of orange-juice on the coffee-table and sat right-most on the couch. “Who’s partaking? Drink a little juice.”

Faith and Jay sipped orange-juice. Beatrice did not.

“Allow me to demonstrate.” Dan held the pipe aloft. “I’ll light the powder and plug this little hole with my thumb. Breathe in slow until I unplug the hole.” He mimed igniting the blowtorch while plugging and unplugging a hole near Leo’s stem. “Then inhale, hold it, exhale, and chug the rest of your orange-juice.”

Dan inhaled through the pipe. The water in Leo rumbled quicker when he unplugged the hole. Faith leaned close. “Neat!”

“Who wants to go first?” asked Dan. He held the pipe to Faith and Jay.

Jay folded his arms like the robot on his shirt. “I’ll go first. Let’s get this over with and see if I like it.”

“Thanks, JayJay.” Faith wiggled her shoulders. “He knows I’m nervous,” she said to Beatrice.

“Don’t be,” Beatrice chastised. “Panicking is the worst option on a psychedelic.”

Jay nodded and sipped more orange-juice. “I’ll try to keep that in mind.”

He inhaled through Leo. Dan torched the centipede-powder. White smoke slipped through slotted glass fingers and burbled in ice-water. Dan shut off the blowtorch, but Jay’s inhalation stoked the embers until the smoke looked like milk.

Dan unplugged the hole. “Now.”

Jay gasped the smoke deep into his lungs. His coughs spilled orange-juice on the carpet. He threw his head back to quaff the remaining juice. When he put down the orange-juice, he froze and stared through the wall.

“Wow.” Faith couldn’t pry the pipe from Jay’s grip. Dan rubbed Jay’s knuckles until he released his grasp. “Maybe I should wait until he comes down to take my toke?”

Dan cleared ash from the bowl with a paperclip and packed the last of the centipede-powder. “Take it now. I’ve heard it’s better with company.”

Beatrice watched Faith put the mouthpiece to her lips. Faith met her gaze and coyly kissed the glass buboes around the mouthpiece. “Can BeatBax light it for me?”

Beatrice shook her head. “No. I can’t. I’m barely comfortable watching.”

“Okay. I’m sorry, BeatBax. Thanks for being here for me.” Faith sipped orange-juice. “Light me, Dainty.”

Dan scorched the powder. Faith grinned at the cloud she caught in the chamber. Dan unplugged the hole. “Now.” She gasped the cloud and coughed it into her orange-juice, spilling everything. Dan gave her the extra glass. “Sorry Beatrice, I guess there’s no orange-juice left for you.”

“Hm,” acknowledged Beatrice. She watched Faith chug the juice and sit stock still. “Now what?”

Dan rearranged the pillows to help Jay relax. “We should make sure they don’t choke on vomit or chew their own tongues off, but otherwise they’ll be fine.”

Beatrice sighed. Faith still held the pipe like a vise. Beatrice rubbed Faith’s knuckles like Dan had rubbed Jay’s and put the pipe on the coffee-table.

The four friends sat on the couch. None looked at another.

“I like your outfit,” said Dan.

“Thank you,” said Beatrice. “It’s what all the nurses wear for work.”

Dan smiled and chanced a glance at her. Beatrice fiddled with her phone. “It looks good on you.”

“Thank you,” Beatrice said definitively.

Dan shrank. “Faith told me sometimes I make you uncomfortable. I want to apologize.”

“There’s really no need.”

“I know. She told me that, too. Can we still be friends?” He extended a hand for her to shake.

Beatrice considered it. She finally shook hands without eye-contact. “I need to go,” she said.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to chase you away.”

“You know I’m on-call today. I have to go to the hospital.” She stood and picked up her purse. “Goodbye, Dan. Take care of Faith and Jay. Make Faith text me when she’s able.”

Dan watched Beatrice shut the door behind her. Through the kitchenette window he saw the 1:00 bluebird-line strike Beatrice head-on and smear her across the intersection.

Next Chapter
Commentary

Years later, Dan Jones couldn’t tear his gaze from the bus-stop outside his apartment. He washed clean dishes again and again just to stand near the window in his kitchenette watching buses unload passengers every quarter-hour. By the time Faith disembarked the 12:30 bluebird-line, Dan’s fingers were raw and prune-like. He waited at the peephole for Faith to knock on his door. “Dainty! Ready to help me smoke centipede?”

“Faith! Come in before you say things like that!” Dan opened the door and received from Faith a frosted cupcake with the number twenty-eight written in cinnamon candies.

“Happy birthday, Dainty.” Faith kissed him on the cheek and lounged on his couch. “Share that cupcake with JayJay. You two have the same birthday. Can I hold your bong?”

“Thanks, Faith.” Dan put the cupcake on the coffee-table by the couch and passed Faith a glass pipe. “It’s not a bong, it’s a water-pipe. I named it Leo. I use it for cricket, but it works with centipede. Is Beatrice coming?”

“JayJay and BeatBax missed the bus. They’ll be on the next one.” Faith looked into the water-pipe like a microscope. Dan had cleaned Leo to crystal clarity, so she saw five internal fingers of slotted glass submerged in ice-water. Ten glass buboes circled the mouthpiece for a solid grip. The erect stem of Leo, the water-pipe, held aloft a tiny bowl for filling with powder. “I’m nervous,” Faith giggled. “I’ve been putting this off for years.”

Dan took the pipe from her and set it gingerly on the coffee-table. “How much centipede-powder did you bring?”

“Check it out. You’ll like this, Dainty, it’s about a religion. I got it visiting my uncle in high-school.” Faith passed him the red card-stock pamphlet from her purse. He opened it to see a plastic-baggie filled with brown powder. He scanned the pamphlet, a religious introduction with text in ten languages. “Monks from the Islands of Sheridan were lecturing in Wyoming.”

“And they gave you bugs? And you accepted them?” Dan hesitated to open the baggie. “Maybe you shouldn’t smoke this, even with all of us here to trip-sit you. Taking bugs from strangers is ill-advised at best.”

“It’s okay. I’d met one of the monks before, apparently.”

“You must have impressed them. This is a lot. There’s enough to share with Jay and Beatrice if they want to join you.”

“JayJay might,” said Faith, “but ever since BeatBax started working as a nurse, she’s bugged me to cut back on the bugs. And… um…” Faith stared at Leo, refusing to meet Dan’s eyes, and took a deep breath. “You know, Dan, sometimes you get a little too close to Beatrice, and it makes her uncomfortable.”

Dan covered his face. “I know,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

“I’m… attracted to her, but not sexually, or even romantically.” He wandered back to the kitchenette to watch the vacant bus-stop through his window. “I just think she’s perfect. I’ll tell her that when she gets here. Then she’ll understand.”

“Maybe don’t,” said Faith. “I’m sure she’ll appreciate your feelings if you just give her space. We’re all friends here.” Dan nodded. Faith tried to smile at him. “Hey Dainty, look at this!” In her purse she carried a cardboard-box. She unfolded its flaps—it contained moist earth. Six raw crickets were stuck eyes-down in the dirt, sprouting buds with their own black, beady eyes. “They’re propagating!” she said. “I told you we could grow our own. If I dried them, would you wrap the wings? You’ve got a knack for meticulous work like that.”

“I could try,” said Dan. He compared the budding crickets to a hand-drawn illustration in the red card-stock pamphlet. “I should show my professors this pamphlet. I’ve never heard of a Sheridanian religion. News about the Islands of Sheridan is all crickets and centipedes.”

“The monks seemed reclusive. It makes sense no one knows about them.”

“But they lectured in Wyoming. Were they lecturing across America?”

“No, just the one lecture in Wyoming. They made a point to mention they would never return.”

Dan closed the pamphlet. “Well what was the lecture about?”

“Nothing. It was a silent lecture.”

“Did they… make hand motions?”

“I don’t know. I wasn’t in the room.”

“And you want to smoke centipede-powder they gave you?” Dan wrung his hands. “I’ve smoked centipede, Faith. It’s a harrowing experience at the best of times. What if they cut it with something?”

“Centipedes are prepared by Virgil Blue. Are you gonna tussle with Virgil Blue? This is the way it’s meant to be!”

“If you say so.” Dan poured half the centipede-powder into Leo’s bowl and packed it tight. He brought a black blowtorch from his bookshelf. “Did Virgil Blue tell you to drink cold orange-juice when you smoke centipede?”

“Virgil Blue didn’t say anything. They were the silent one. But Virgil Skyy didn’t mention orange-juice, either.”

“Then call me Virgil Orange, because I just saved you a sore throat. I’ll be right back.”

Dan hurried to the refrigerator. Faith stole his spot by leaning across the couch. “This is a nice apartment, Dainty.”

“Thanks. It was my dad’s before he died.” Dan poured three glasses of orange-juice and looked at the bus-stop outside his kitchenette window. Passengers disembarked the 12:45 bluebird-line. “There’s Beatrice and Jay. I haven’t seen Jay since he started transitioning—he looks great. What should I tell him?”

“Tell him you like his T-shirt.” When she heard a knock at the door, Faith shouted: “JayJay, BeatBax, help me smoke some bug!”

Next Section
Commentary

Three monks lifted Virgil Blue from their wheelchair onto the podium. The silver mask’s bird-beak hardly moved with the ancient monk’s long breath. Under the mask and navy robes, Faith saw not a single inch of skin. The suggestion of folded hands in their sleeves was her only clue someone sat beneath the cloth.

True to their introduction, Virgil Blue remained silent. A murmur crept through the sparse audience. In the front rows, the congregation crossed their legs and focused.

Faith shrugged. “That’s a cool mask. BeatBax would like it, she loves birds.”

“Quiet,” said her uncle. He squinted into the mask’s buggy eyes. “Are you getting this, Faith?”

“Huh?” Faith saw her uncle’s glassy stare. He was lost, now, in the bird. A hush blanketed the lecture-hall as the silver mask entranced the spectators. Faith sighed and clasped her hands on her knee. “I don’t see what the big deal is.”

Her uncle tried to shush her with a raised finger, but couldn’t muster the effort. He just stared at the Blue Virgil.

Faith rocked in her chair. “I’ll wait for you outside. I wanna look at the trees.”

Outside the lecture-hall, Faith kicked off her shoes and bounded to a fence by the cliff to enjoy the forest spread below her. Clouds cast drifting shadows on the treetops. Trees and clouds alike bent to the breeze.

Behind her, the lecture-hall doors opened again. The elderly sky-clad monk pointed the spotted end of his cane to the summits of the Bighorn Mountains. “These peaks aren’t half bad,” he said. “Not bad at all.” Faith wasn’t sure how to react, so she watched him amble to the fence beside her. He saw through the mountains to a horizon only he could detect.

“I’m sorry I left your teacher’s lecture,” she said.

“It’s alright. Virgil Blue is an acquired taste.” The monk brushed his robes. “My name is Virgil Skyy. You can call me Jango.”

“Jango?” Faith smiled and curled white-blonde hair around her finger. “My friend Jilli has a cat named Django.”

“There are no coincidences. Such simultaneity is a message from the Mountain,” said Virgil Jango Skyy. “A similar message brought us here today. We live on the Islands of Sheridan, so a trip to Sheridan, Wyoming was inevitable.”

Faith nodded but turned away. She watched a deer bounce over rivers and rocks. “I don’t want to burst your bubble, but there are lots of Sheridans. It’s a common city-name, like Springfield.”

“Wyoming’s Sheridan has the highest elevation. Indeed, these mountains represent an admirable effort.” He stuck his cane in the grass. “But Virgil Blue’s monastery is on the main island of Sheridan, and I swear, it’s twice the height. You can’t see its peak.”

“Is that where the birds live?” Faith leaned on the fence and fished the brochure from her purse. She showed Jango the photo of the little flightless birds. “They’re adorable!”

Jango shivered and stuck a finger in his mouth.

Faith hid the brochure. “Is something wrong?”

“Those fledglings are sacred,” he said. “Their photography is forbidden. It’s not your fault—you didn’t take the picture, and it’s superstition in any case. But when tourists visit our islands, we remind them to photograph anything but the birds.”

“Gosh, sorry. I just have this friend who loves birds. Why are they sacred?”

Jango’s lips found a sideways smile. “In Sheridan we tell a story: the Biggest Bird birthed the islands and taught her people how to live there.”

“I like stories.” Faith laughed. “Tell me a story!”

“Do you think I came halfway across the planet to hand you the secrets of reality?” He bent his cane at her. “You want the monk treatment, be a monk!”

“Sheesh, alright,” said Faith. “Sorry Jangster.”

Jango shook his head and turned to the forest. “Young lady, is your name, by chance, Faith Featherway?”

“Um. Yes.” Faith checked her blouse for a name-tag. “How’d you know?”

“Look.” He pointed his cane over the fence at a white fox skulking a mountainside.

Faith almost hurled herself off the cliff. “Oh my gosh! It has cute little whiskers!”

“You’ve got better eyes than mine, Ms. Featherway.” Jango laughed. He had two black irises, but one pupil held an island of gray plaque. “You won’t believe me, but we’ve met once before. You wouldn’t remember.”

“Hm?” Faith tilted her head at Jango without looking from the fox. “No, I don’t remember.”

“I owe you a favor.” Jango shook his sleeve and an object fell into his hand. “This should make us even. You wouldn’t believe how I got it through customs.”

“Oh! I always wanted to try one of these!” Faith took the cricket and spun it in her fingers. Its wings were tightly twisted around its body. The stem sticking from its abdomen acted as a natural filter. “A guy at my school sells these, but his don’t look nearly as nice.”

Virgil Skyy pursed his lips. “On Sheridan, crickets are revered as a link to the Biggest Bird meant only for the islands. I hesitated even to bring one for you. But if this man shows people the Mountain, so be it.” He shook his other sleeve and a white lighter fell into his hand. “Allow me the first puff. Cricket-eyes can overwhelm the uninitiated.”

Faith watched Jango put the stem in his mouth and light the ten beady eyes on fire. He puffed a cloud over the forest and passed the insect back to her. “You know, you speak great English for a native from an isolated South Pacific island.”

“I live on the Islands of Sheridan, but I was born in Kansas City.” Virgil Jango Skyy guided her inhalation with his hands like he was helping her parallel park. “I didn’t meet Virgil Blue until my mid-thirties. Back then you couldn’t get bug-sticks in America. Virgil Blue taught me to smoke them in person.”

“Whoa!” Faith coughed a cloud over the fence. Sshe passed the cricket back hacking and spitting. “You mean Virgil Blue smokes bug-sticks too? I figured they were like a thousand years old.”

“Older. Virgil Blue is a title stretching back to the Biggest Bird. Today’s Virgil Blue is two hundred years young. Only the Blue Virgil is holy enough to prepare centipede, which practiced laypeople consume to join the congregation.”

She watched him finish the cricket and tap the ash into a trashcan. “I’d never smoke centipede,” said Faith. “Too many legs—so creepy! Maybe someday.”

“I don’t suppose your friend with the sunglasses sells centipedes, too?”

“He says he wants to, but I wouldn’t call him a friend.”

Jango nodded. “It’s always a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Featherway. I hear Virgil Blue concluding their silent lesson, so I must retrieve them from the podium.” He passed her a red card-stock pamphlet. “I’m sure you and your friends will find this pamphlet enlightening.”

She took the pamphlet. On the front, a hand-drawn bird like a penguin bigger than an ostrich sheltered fist-sized fledglings with its wings. Inside was taped a plastic-baggie of brown powder like coffee-grounds. “What’s this?”

Virgil Jango Skyy was gone.

Written in pen beside the baggie: ‘Powdered centipede isn’t so creepy, is it? An introduction to Sheridan from Virgils Skyy and Blue.’

Next Section
Commentary

The LuLu’s theme played over the end credits. A minor chord introduced an image of a Hurricane Planet. This blood-colored space-orb of biological and mechanical parts swallowed stars and smacked spaceships from the sky. Scarlet spots speckled the black background of space—another trillion planets like it or larger. Each was a single cell of the cosmic horror called the Hurricane.

Jay squinted at the credits, but the names of artists and animators squirmed and resisted interpretation. “Faith, I think I’m having a stroke.”

“No, JayJay!” Faith bent backwards over the couch to stretch to her full length. “Being bug-eyed is making you paranoid. Just enjoy it!”

Jay licked his dry teeth. He reached for the remote and, struggling with the hieroglyphics, pressed the menu-button. “Oh, here’s the problem. The names are in Japanese. We watched the whole episode in Japanese. We didn’t even have subtitles on.”

“Ha!” Faith laughed until she ran out of breath. “I think I got the gist anyway. But that’s what happens on bug-sticks!”

After switching the language to English, Jay highlighted the next episode. He did not select it yet. “So, what’s up between you and Beatrice? Are you dating?”

“Well, yeah, but it’s complicated.” Faith looked away.

“She carries that bible everywhere,” said Jay. “Her family seems pretty religious. Does that make dating difficult?”

“You didn’t hear it from me,” said Faith, “but BeatBax breaks out the bible for unwanted male attention. She plays the pastor’s-daughter routine until suitors lose interest. In truth, she’s totally fine dating a girl and hiding it from her parents. We’ve even talked about smoking bug-sticks before.”

“So what’s complicated?”

“Dainty likes the pastor’s-daughter routine,” she sighed, “and I like Dainty. I wish dating was easy. I just wanna hold all my friends in a big cuddle-ball.” Jay held Faith’s hand. Faith squeezed back and smiled. “Crickets help you open up, sometimes.”

“You know a lot about crickets. Are you sure you haven’t smoked before?”

“What are you talking about?” Faith couldn’t tell lies while folded backward over the couch. Her poker-face broke and she giggled. “You caught me. I’ve smoked a bug-stick before, but just once, I swear. I wanted to share the experience with you.”

“It’s really something.” Jay searched for words to describe his mental state, but found none sufficient. He made sound-effects and exploding motions with his hands. “Where’d you smoke your first?”

Faith kicked the air. “You’ve met my uncle, right? He visited from Wyoming last semester.”

“Yeah, I remember,” said Jay. “He asked if I believed in aliens. He had quite a bit to say on the matter.”

“Well, he is the black sheep of the Featherways.”

“The inside of his fedora was lined with tinfoil.”

“Some people like tinfoil,” insisted Faith. “Anyway, I visited him last month in Sheridan, Wyoming and that’s where I smoked my first bug-stick.”

“Your uncle gave you a bug-stick?”

“No, no. Let me explain.”

“Smell that air?” Her uncle poked his head from the driver’s-side window. He secured his fedora against the wind with one hand and steered the truck with the other. “The higher we drive up the Bighorns, the fresher it gets!”

Faith only smelled exhaust from her uncle’s beat-up truck. Still, the mountains were beautiful, and melting snow encouraged greenery. The valleys below held the forest like a bowl of trees. “What are we doing up here?”

“Your mom made me promise I’d show you the college. Look, there it is!” He pointed at buildings dotting the mountainside near the border of Bighorn National Forest. “Pop the glove-box. There’s a bunch of public lectures today. Choose one that looks good.”

Faith opened the glove-box to find a brochure listing events at Sheridan Cliff-Side College. “Does SC-SC have an art-program?”

“I dunno. I mostly sit in the library to tell sorority-chicks about my theory.” He made a hairpin-turn at top speed.

“This lecture looks neat,” said Faith. “It’s a bunch of monks from Sheridan. I like how each monk has a different-colored robe.”

“What? There aren’t many monks here in Sheridan. Wyoming ain’t their style. You mean Indians? There are a couple Indian tribes in Sheridan.”

“Not Sheridan, Wyoming. A series of islands also called Sheridan—it’s hard to spot them on the world-map in the brochure. They’re tucked in the corner with New Zealand. The most isolated islands in the world, it says.” She showed him the brochure as they pulled into the parking-lot. “See? It says these cute flightless birds live only on the islands, and the monks consider them sacred.”

“I should give a lecture on religion. I’d blow the whole thing open.” Her uncle parked. “Did I ever tell you my theory?”

“Yes, you have,” Faith said firmly as they stepped from the truck.

“It just makes sense. All religions are cargo-cults. You know, cargo-cults. After we dropped aid on island-tribes in World War Two, they built fake airplanes out of scraps. They hoped statues would bring back the sky-gods. Right?”

“Okay, sure,” sighed Faith. They walked into a lecture-hall.

“So if aliens exist (and they do), and if they’ve been to earth (and they have), then that’s proof that all religions secretly worship aliens, and churches don’t even know it.” He tapped his temple and flashed Faith the tinfoil in his fedora. “You have to keep them out of your brain.”

“Cool,” said Faith, regarding not her uncle’s theory but the monks gathered near the stage. Male and female in roughly equal proportion, they each wore a robe of solid color. Some wore a cool color, some warm. None were below forty years old and some were over eighty or ninety. They had every variety of skin-color: bone-white, pitch-black, copper-brown, brick-red, yellow-tan, pink, or even so pale they looked blue. Most were bald.

Their leader sat cross-legged in a wheelchair. They wore a hooded navy robe and a silver mask. The mask had an embossed beak and two buggy eyes, like a watchful bird. The silver bird-mask surveyed the audience until another monk, an elderly man with robes like a clear sky, took the podium and addressed the crowd:

“Oran doran, doran dora. Thank you for allowing us to speak at Sheridan Cliff-Side College.” The elderly sky-clad monk leaned on a cane taller than himself, a curious object smooth along the shaft but with ten black spots encircling a gnarled top. “We come from a chain of islands called Sheridan, located between New Zealand, Chile, and Antarctica, a location named Point Nemo. The name Nemo, Latin for no-one, belies the solitude we enjoy on Earth’s most secluded islands. There we worship the birds, the plants, and the Mountain, though sometimes we worship nothing at all. It is my honor to introduce my teacher, and the teacher of all teachers, Virgil Blue. They will provide a silent lesson. Then we will leave and never return.”

Next Section
Commentary

“No matter.” The Enemy Hurricane redistributed mass to build a new thumb. “Wheel or no Wheel, I’ll end you just the same.”

Lucille smirked and bit her own thumb. “Ikuzo.”

At her command, the Galaxy Zephyr’s pink flesh stretched across space to engulf the Enemy Hurricane’s severed purple thumb. The combined volume returned to cocoon the Galaxy Zephyr. Now Lucille’s ten thousand pilots controlled a giant purple robot twenty orders of magnitude larger than the Milky Way had been. It wore pointed sunglasses like those of Lucille’s late father, Commander Bunjiro. Still, compared to the Enemy Hurricane, the Galaxy Zephyr was merely thumb-sized.

The Wheel increased in diameter to match their new height. Lucille pulled levers with both hands. “Eisu, Fumiko, advance!”

Steam poured from the Galaxy Zephyr’s feet, propelling it above light-speed. The Enemy Hurricane swatted with both arms and uncrossed its legs to kick with both feet, but the Galaxy Zephyr easily outmaneuvered those clumsy limbs. When Charlie and Daisuke saw the chance, they swung the Wheel to shave flesh from the Enemy Hurricane’s chest. The Galaxy Zephyr absorbed the flesh to become even larger.

“If we get much larger we won’t be so agile,” warned Daisuke. The Enemy Hurricane kicked at them.

“Ora!” Lucille smiled as they sliced the sole off the Enemy Hurricane’s foot. “If we get much larger we won’t need to be agile!”

They lingered too long absorbing the sole. The Enemy Hurricane stomped them. In space there was no floor to stomp them against, but the Enemy Hurricane’s gravitational pull alone squashed them against the foot. The Enemy Hurricane’s surface tore the Galaxy Zephyr with tentacles and chomped its limbs with giant mouths.

“Retreat!” shouted Lucille. Eisu and Fumiko pumped steam from the Galaxy Zephyr’s feet, but chomping teeth restrained them. Daisuke made the left hand blast steam from its palm and Charlie swept the Wheel to slice tentacles. At last the Galaxy Zephyr freed itself and fled from the Enemy Hurricane’s reach.

Lucille hid silent tears as she assessed the damage to her robot’s armor. Awful gashes ran light-years deep through its purple flesh. Bite-marks almost severed their legs at the thighs. Medical-personnel flew through the purple flesh tending to injured pilots, but who could heal the Galaxy Zephyr itself?

“Don’t worry,” said ZAP’s bird-pilot, speaking on behalf of Akayama. “I’ve updated our immune-system.” The giant robot’s wounds flooded with rivers of liquid gold which quickly set and solidified. The Galaxy Zephyr was repaired like a shattered and restored vase.

Lucille laughed and wiped her cheeks dry. “Daisuke, you were right. Getting bigger is slowing us down.”

“We just need to keep our distance from the Enemy Hurricane,” said Eisu.

“We’re getting used to its gravity, that’s all!” promised Fumiko.

Lucille wasn’t sure. “Bird-thing, how can we counteract sluggishness when we get bigger?”

“The bottleneck is our Hurricane Armor,” said ZAP’s bird-pilot. “Its merged mind has only a hundred pilots, and we’re spreading them thin. We can’t control our immense mass in a timely manner.”

“So our armor needs more pilots?” Lucille stared down the Enemy Hurricane advancing on them. “Minah. Any volunteers to be merged with our robot?”

“That’s won’t be necessary,” said the bird-pilot. “We’re already producing human simulacra, remember? They’ll be our new Zephyrs.”

Lucille looked at the spinning Wheel. “Sou da. We’ll add pilots to our armor as soon as we’ve made them. But how? What do we do?”

“Look closely.”

Lucille magnified the image on her main monitor. Her Wheel’s rim had blades like the teeth of a circular saw. As the Wheel spun, the blades spun too, but a silver circle near the rim remained stationary. “Charlie, Daisuke, turn the Wheel so its flat side faces me.”

Now Lucille saw the silver circle was the first link of a chain. The next link was half inside the Wheel, which seemed impossible, because the Wheel was almost two-dimensional and each link was light-years thick. “When you pull the Chain,” explained the bird-pilot, “I’ll send a potent specimen from Earth’s recreation to help pilot the Galaxy Zephyr.”

“Wakaru. I get it.”

The Enemy Hurricane spread its arms and clapped at the Galaxy Zephyr. Eisu and Fumiko barely propelled the robot to safety before the clap could crush them. Charlie and Daisuke swung the Wheel and sliced the tips off two fingers. The Galaxy Zephyr nabbed one fingertip, but the Enemy Hurricane claimed the other and reabsorbed it. “You’re a pesky little thing, aren’t you?” it asked with its eyes.

“Funny,” said Lucille, “I’d have said the same to you!”

“Escape this if you can!” The Enemy Hurricane melted its humanoid shape into a blob. The blob flattened into a sheet.

“What’s it doing?” asked Fumiko.

“It’s surrounding us,” said Eisu.

“It’s capturing us in a bubble,” said Daisuke.

“A bubble,” scoffed Charlie. “Doesn’t it know we could cut right out?”

“Not necessarily,” said Lucille. “Our Wheel’s only so wide. The Enemy Hurricane could be too thick to cut through in one swing, and it’ll be harder to attack the interior of a hollow sphere than an enormous human body.”

“What do we do?” asked Fumiko.

“We call reinforcements,” said Lucille. The Galaxy Zephyr held the Wheel in its left hand, and its right hand pulled the Chain.

Next Chapter
Commentary

The school-year was born in hot California Summer, and after a brief, parched Winter and a misty Spring, it threatened to die with the sweltering heat of its birth. Thankfully the end-of-the-year field-trip had great air-conditioning. An hour in the art-museum dried Jillian’s sweat from her forehead.

She studied the map in her brochure while Dan studied a painting. “Early 1300s, the Harrowing of Hell,” he recited without reading the placard. “After the crucifixion, Christ enters the underworld so triumphantly he crushes a demon under a door.” He tugged his shirt hem. Today his shirt featured Princess Lucia, a blue-haired space-robot-pilot in the year 2399. “My dad taught me about it.”

“Neat.” Jillian folded the map. “The next hall has sculptures. Over Winter-break, my dad brought me on business abroad, and I saw lots of museums. Look here.” She pointed to the brochure. “This museum has one of two decorative pillars. The other pillar is just like it, but mirrored. I saw it in Spain.”

“Oh, neat.” Dan swallowed and put his hands in his pockets. “Let’s double-back and find another way to the sculptures.”

Jillian cocked an eyebrow. “Why not finish this hall? I thought you liked these religious paintings.”

“I do.” Dan turned away. “But there’s a Bosch over there and I can’t look at it. Eternal torture makes me fidget.”

“You love Dante’s Inferno.”

“I can read about it. I can’t look at it.”

“We’ll just look at paintings on the other side of the hall.”

Dan shook his head. “You go on. I’ll take the long way around. Oh no,” he said mid-stride. Faith and Beatrice had entered the hallway. Beatrice sat across from a painting of the Virgin Mary while Faith tore paper from her notebook and folded it.

“What’s wrong?” asked Jillian. Dan stared silently at Beatrice. “Hey, this is your chance. You know all about that painting, right? Go impress her.”

Dan covered his mouth and looked at the floor. “I appreciate it, but that’s not an option.”

“I see the way you look at Beatrice, Dan. Tell her, `the artist used so-and-so technique to highlight Mary’s eyes. Looking at your eyes, Ms. Baxter, you must have been painted the same way.’ But less corny than that, obviously. Then ask her out and get it over with.”

“It’s not my place to ask her out,” said Dan.

Before Jillian could ask what he meant, Faith held two folded paper animals to Beatrice: a fox and a bird. Beatrice took the bird and they played with the animals together. The fox and bird touched muzzle to beak, and Faith kissed Beatrice on the cheek.

“Oh,” said Jillian. “Well, just move on, then.”

Faith spotted Dan and Jillian down the hallway. She pointed them out to Beatrice and the couple walked over holding hands. “I thought we’d find you here, Dainty. Talking Jilli’s ear off?”

“Ha, yeah,” Dan managed. He smiled at Beatrice, but when she looked away pointedly, he turned back to Faith. “Enjoying the museum?”

“We’re headed for the sculptures,” said Beatrice.

“Interested? Dainty? Jilli?” Faith pulled Beatrice behind her. “C’mon!” Jillian followed.

Dan stumbled after them. “Wait,” he said, “you’re skipping the best paintings!” Dan strode to an enormous landscape cluttered with nudes. “Like this Bosch. He’s famous for painting Hell.”

Faith and Beatrice hesitantly approached. Jillian winced as Dan made himself look at the canvas.

“Devils flay a man’s flesh,” said Dan, biting his fingernail. “Demons drop a woman in boiling tar.” He bit the skin around the nail until it bled. “A crowd screams inside the mouth of a giant head, but even that head is in agony, obviously one of the damned.”

“Geez. That’s pretty metal,” said Faith. “Let’s go see the sculptures, BeatBax.” As they all walked away, Faith released Beatrice’s hand and lingered to speak with Jillian. “Is Dainty okay?”

“He said he couldn’t even look at the Bosch,” said Jillian, “but I told him to impress you two by talking about a painting, and that’s the one he chose.”

“Huh.” Faith shrugged. “Who’s the girl on his shirt? She’s cute.”

“Oh, that’s Princess Lucia from LuLu’s Space-Time Acceleration. It’s an anime Dan and I like. Wanna watch it over the summer?”

Jillian inserted the last DVD. “Now that she’s got the Wheel, do you think Commander Lucille has a chance against the Enemy Hurricane?”

“Of course! The good guys always win in this sort of thing.” Faith bothered Django as the cat tried to sleep on the couch. “Right?”

“I’m afraid we’ll never know for sure. The show was canceled before the last episodes were made.” Jillian selected an episode. “Ready to watch?”

“Wait.” Faith played with the pink pads on Django’s paws. “Your parents are away, right, Jilli?” She looked up from Django’s toe-beans. “Do you want to try something naughty?”

Jillian blinked and paused the TV. “What do you mean?”

Faith pulled a cricket from the pocket of her torn jeans. Its wings were wrapped like mummy-linens. “I got this from the guy in our homeroom who always wears dark sunglasses. He says he smokes them all the time. They’re not dangerous at all. Shall we share a bug-stick?”

“Hm.” Jillian took the cricket and held it to her nose, as if by muscle memory. It smelled like spices. “What do we do? What’s it like being bug-eyed?”

“First we open a door so we don’t stink up the place, and then we light the eyes.” She sparked a purple lighter. “He said we’d see everything from a new perspective, and he couldn’t describe it any other way. He kept making sound-effects and exploding motions with his hands.”

Jillian passed back the cricket. “How about you smoke, and I watch?”

“But Jilli, I’m scared!” Faith laughed and wiggled her shoulders. “I hoped you could start it.”

Jillian sighed. On the TV, paused during the LuLu’s theme, ten thousand space-robot pilots crossed their arms across their chests. Together they directed their giant robot to cross its arms across its chest, the sum of their confidence. “You open the back door and I’ll light it.”

“Really? You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

“Pass it over.” Jillian took the cricket and lighter. Faith pranced to the back door and Django followed her.

“Djingo, Django, baked into a pie! Djingo, Django, wanna go outside?”

“Of course he does.” Jillian lit the cricket’s eyes on fire. Embers spread through the papery wings. “Now what?”

“Pretend you’re sucking a straw, just for a second.” Faith kicked the door open and Django hopped into the yard. “Keep the smoke in your open mouth until it cools. Then inhale, hold it, and exhale.”

Jillian sputtered smoke and bent over coughing. “Oh. Oh my gosh.” She held her head. “I feel it already.”

“Here, let me try.” Faith puffed smoke out the door. The cricket’s eyes cooled from cherry-red to ash-gray. “Oh, wow.”

“Faith, did I ever tell you…” Jillian rubbed her eyes. “I think I’m trans?”

“Trans?”

Jillian took another puff and clarified after coughing: “My first memory was a nightmare. In the nightmare, I was nude, and I had a dong. I was in a desert near a red mountain with a white fox, and a monster ate us. I’ve never talked about it, but I still feel male, through and through.”

“I’m glad you told me, then. That’s super interesting.” Faith’s last puff burned the cricket to its stem. She swayed, eyes unfocused. “Oh, I’m flying through time. Ha.” They both stared through the TV. “Do you have a new name lined up?”

“Jay,” said Jay.

“Jay Diaz-Jackson.” Faith grinned. “Start the episode, JayJay.”

Next Section
Commentary

Jillian crossed her arms as her mother pulled into the high-school parking-lot. The morning-bell rang and Jillian groaned. “New school, first day of Senior year, and I’m late for class.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t expect the traffic.” Camilla parked and unlocked the doors. “We’ll learn the streets soon, I promise.”

“It’s okay. I gotta go. It’s just…” Jillian stepped out and slipped her backpack over her shoulders. “I wish you’d listened when I said I didn’t want to move. I don’t know anyone in California.”

“I know. But moving to LA means your father can spend less time on an airplane and more time with you.” This didn’t make Jillian smile, so Camilla bit her lip and looked away. “Jilli, what’s that TV show you like?”

Jillian rubbed her forearm. “Which TV show?”

“The anime with giant robots.”

“Which anime with giant robots?”

“The big blue robot,” said Camilla. “Begins with an L sound?”

“Oh,” said Jillian, “LuLu’s Space-Time Acceleration. Why?”

“Look.” Camilla pointed at a student jogging to the school doors. When he stopped to stuff a bulky book in his backpack, Jillian saw a blue robot on his shirt. “Is that LuLu’s robot?”

“Huh.” Jillian giggled. “What a dweeb.”

“Don’t be mean. Maybe he can help find your homeroom.”

“Alright, alright.” Jillian waved goodbye and entered the school. She spotted the boy jogging down a hallway. The books in his backpack must have been heavy, because she caught up at a brisk walk. “Hey! Nice shirt.”

“Oh!” He jumped when she spoke. “Thanks. It’s from an anime I like.”

“I’m new here,” said Jillian. “Could you point me to Room 120?”

“That’s my homeroom too,” said the boy. “I’ll lead you there.”

In Room 120, one of the boy’s friends waved them to their table. She was just under four-foot-six with short white-blonde hair. The boy sat across from her and unloaded books from his backpack, but he never looked away from the other girl at the table, who had hair like maple-syrup dripping down her neck as she read a well-worn bible. Meanwhile the shorter girl picked at a white eraser with sharp fingernails, spreading crumbs across her quadrant of the table.

The homeroom-teacher chalked her name on the blackboard. “Alright,” she said, “I recognize some faces from my freshman art-class, but you’re new here, aren’t you? Yes, you,” she said, pointing at Jillian. “Introduce yourself.”

“Oh, sure.” Jillian cleared her throat. “I’m Jillian Diaz-Jackson. I just moved here from the East coast.” The short girl with white-blonde hair smiled and waved at her, then plucked more crumbs from her eraser.

“Ms. Jillian, tell us something about yourself,” said the teacher.

“Um… My dad travels for business, so he learns lots of languages,” said Jillian. “He paces the house chanting foreign phrases to memorize them. So I learn languages, too, but only words related to finance.”

“Ms. Jillian, how do you like LA?”

“It’s a little hot,” said Jillian, “and I don’t know anyone here.”

“Now you do.” The teacher pointed at the boy beside her. “What’s your name?”

“Dan Jones.” He pulled his gaze from the girl with the bible to shake Jillian’s hand.

“Danny-Boy Jones,” repeated the teacher. “Tell us about yourself.”

Dan thought. “I visited my father over the Summer. He was a professor of religious studies. I think religions are really interesting.” He peeked at the girl with the bible, but she buried herself in the book. “He showed me lots neat books.”

“Danny-Boy, what’s your favorite book he’s ever showed you?”

“Dante’s Inferno,” said Dan.

“Why?”

“Because,” said the short girl with the eraser, “his nickname is Dainty. It’s like he’s the star!”

“Is that so? What makes you Dainty, Danny-Boy?”

“He’s so cleanly. Watch!” She blew eraser-crumbs onto Dan’s side of the table. He cringed, brushed the crumbs into his hand, and tossed them in a trashcan. “See? He didn’t even brush ’em on the floor!”

“Give me your name and confess your motives for mutilating your poor eraser.”

“My name is Faith Featherway,” she said, “and I’m sculpting a fox! But it’s not coming out well. It looks more like a cloud, or a blob.”

The teacher smirked. “I remember you from my art-class. You never did stop with the foxes, did you?”

“They’re the best!” Faith penned a black nose on her eraser.

“Is it? You, last at the table. Which animal do you think is best?”

The girl with the maple-syrup hair put down her bible. “Birds, I suppose. They have wings like angels.”

“And what’s your name?”

“Beatrice,” said Beatrice. Dan smiled dumbly as she spoke, but she didn’t look at him. “Beatrice Baxter.”

“BeatBax,” said Faith. “It sounds much cooler.”

After the rest of class introduced themselves, the teacher took a stack of fliers from her desk. “The school wants us to educate our homeroom about bugs. Who here has heard of crickets?”

Jillian almost raised her hand, but decided against it and kept her hands on her desk. One boy in dark sunglasses raised his hand, and so did Faith, and most of the class followed suit. Finally Jillian raised her hand, joining everyone but Dan and Beatrice.

“That many? Really?” The teacher shook her head. “It was different when I was your age. You, with the sunglasses,” she said, having forgotten his name already, “what do you know about crickets?”

“Bug-sticks,” he corrected. “I know you can make bank selling ’em ’cause they get you totally bug-eyed.”

Some students chuckled. The teacher shushed them before she spoke. “They’re a dangerous hallucinogen. They come from a secluded island and they should’ve stayed there. Never smoke them. One puff is enough,” she quoted from the fliers she passed to each table, “to end up in the rough. So don’t touch the stuff!”

Jillian skimmed the flier. At the top was a photo of a raw cricket which still had its limbs, antennae, and stem. Below was a photo of a prepared specimen, plucked, dried, and wrapped in its own wings. Jillian had always found their ten black eyes somehow familiar.

Next Section
Commentary