by Joshua Guess
Right up until it gets you killed, that is.
Time will tell if the situation with the Exiles will remain nonviolent. I don't expect any particular outcome. Things change, and a time might come when the enemy decides that attacking us is off the table, but they want to pick up their old habits again and go after weaker, smaller groups. If they do, we'll see what happens then.
For now, we've got relative peace. Spring isn't far off, and with it comes a lot of hard work. Too much time and effort is wasted on fighting, and it's time we make the call to set aside the more extreme elements of our principles and deal with the fact that sometimes the bad guys don't die in the end.
And for that matter, that in reality the lines between the good guys and the bad guys is often fuzzy and ill-defined. After all, what kind of heroes (if that's what we're supposed to be) allow this kind of injustice to go by unpunished?
We're people. Survivors. We do the best we can, but we're imperfect. Our ultimate responsibility is to ensure the continuation of our community, no matter how many sleepless nights it may cost us. And I do see a few of those in my future.
But I'll get over it. When you're on rough seas and the ships around you flounder in the storm, sometimes the only choice is to sail on.
An Ode to Brains
Joshua Guess
My eyes opened, light flooding my vision. I stood with muscles stiff and slow to respond. You know how it is when you just wake up.
All around me were friends. They looked concerned, maybe something beyond that. It struck me that I’d never really appreciated how beautiful they were. Lovely didn't begin to describe them. In fact, the only thought I could muster when I saw them was that they smelled...delicious. Like Thanksgiving dinner being cooked.
I took a step toward the nearest of them, but it came out a stumbling shuffle. That wasn't right, was it? I’d been walking since I was a child. I was damn good at it. So what was up with that?
She backed away from me, a stream of gibberish coming from her lips. She was obviously excited, so I talked to her in soothing tones. In my head, it went like this:
“Don't worry! Everything is going to be fine. I know I'm a little clumsy right now, but I'll get my feet under me in just a minute, and then you'll understand that I'm okay. Then we can have a talk about why you smell like a home-cooked meal, and how much I want to nibble on you.”
It came out like this: “Braaaaaaiiiiinnnns!”
That was when the lot of them started to run. I tried to talk to them, but they weren't interested in anything I had to say. The men glanced back at me with rage in their eyes, the women shot me looks of fear. Really, it was like high school all over again.
I followed them through the building, but they were a lot faster than me. When I finally made it outside, my friends piled into a big metal thing. A memory tickled, like I should know what the metal thing with its round feet should be. One of them stood next to it, watching with nervous eyes as I approached, a smaller metal thing in his hands.
In the front, another of my friends was trying to turn something, and the...car, that's what they're called...car made a sound every time he did. When I was several paces away, the one standing there pointed his metal stick at me and shouted. I didn't understand the words, but the tone was clear enough. Offended, I went to have a talk with him. He smelled pretty good, too. In fact--
The metal stick—my sluggish brain informed me it was called a shotgun—made a loud noise, and I was thrown off balance, falling to my back.
While I was laying on the ground, the car made a noise that kept on going. I looked up as the last man hopped in, and it moved away from me.
A few seconds later I began to work my way back to my feet. I felt an odd looseness as I did, and looked down. There were ropy, slimy things hanging out of my belly. That was new.
Some small part of me had the urge to put them back, but that faded as I walked in the direction the car had gone off in. The ropy things weren't in my way, they didn't hurt...
In fact, nothing hurt. Other than being completely famished, physically I felt pretty great. Strong. But I was a little upset that my friends had run off on me.
I wandered down the road, staggering at times, holding my arms out in front of me for balance. Occasionally I’d talk to myself out of boredom and loneliness, doing long monologues on various topics as I tottered along, arms ahead.
“Braaaaiiins,” I would say, clever as always. “Braiiiins?” I would ask in reply, inquisitive as ever. That's how I amused myself as I went in search of my lost friends. Maybe I’d eat when I saw them. I hoped they could fill the empty place inside me.
