Human interaction requires improvisation…
Tag: fiction
aSoSS 28 | Assumption
You don’t need to be working when you’re not getting paid. Don’t make a habit of it, because when you leave college, people will take advantage of it.
Central Campus Classroom Building, 10:00AM, 8/25/2024
the lighthouse beckons. why do you listen? you’ve seen the scars: salmon slashes, tally marks against a dungeon. you call them bruises of honor, a spirit lived in pitcher and storm, throat muddy from screaming in the rain. bow, says the wind, and you do, with your knees in the sand and your face in the bowl of your hands. prayer or punishment? stop trying. the lighthouse blinks once, twice, and then winks out.
Summer reading for engineers? Summer reading??
Mosher-Jordan Dining Hall, 10:30AM, 8/27/2024
the seasons flit past–flecks of paint, a crumbling castle, an anchor in an empty sea. i drag my feet against the asphalt; i find solace all the insufficient ways in the way only a prisoner can. time dilates from within, a scrap the size of a single breath. a flattened lung, once composed of its consumptions, carving out my chest from the inside. i watch, delirious, as my name is etched into a headstone. they will throw my body out into the desert, a skull to be labeled an ancient and nameless king.
Is he really that short? I mean, he’s short but not short short. I guess five four.
Cancer Center Inbound, 3:00PM, 10/17/2024
we must be accepting of the things we cannot control. like two leaves skating the upward draft, we drive each other dizzy with our tongues (straight and sharp as quartz, a lesson in diffraction–light and feeling, are they really separate?) is it man versus man or me versus you? there’s a difference, even if you don’t admit it. i stare at the mirror, at the figure that plays with my hair and presses falsities into my mouth and avoids my eyes, and i know that no amount of time will turn it into a friend.
LOG_032_CITY_OF_MASKS
The second moon of HKC 2901 d is a rainy and rocky one, dreary in climate but abundant in ores and other natural resources. The locals tend to keep to themselves—many have never stepped foot off the moon, let alone traveled to intra-system planets—and they are exceedingly polite but distant toward strangers. Theirs is predominantly a blue-collar community: most are employed in the processes of extracting, refining, and exporting the raw materials of the moon.
Despite this, they hold close-knit ties within their communities. Children, a rare sight, are safeguarded by every member regardless of blood relations. When one falls ill, others shoulder a share of the work and ensure that they do not go cold or hungry. The heart of each town lives in the hearth, where food is shared in communal meals when the day’s work is done.
The strength of their collective identity might also be owed in part to one unique aspect: due to high concentrations of atmospheric ammonia, every human must wear a breathing apparatus when outside of hermetically-sealed facilities. Over the generations, such apparatus have developed meaning in some cultures as both a symbol of practical protection and spiritual kinship. Some are passed down in families, marked by a lineage of workers. To wear their mask is to also belong to the collective, one of an anonymous whole. Among more religious sects, they have also acquired a meaning of modesty, and believers rarely take their masks off in the presence of others. Tourists tend to exaggerate this meaning to wild misinterpretations; planet-hoppers are especially guilty of this, envisioning romanticized lives of simple labor in exotic small towns. The more gauche souvenir shops found on HKC 2901 d tout overly-decorated and often non-functional masks, advertising sacred or magical effects.
– from System HKC 2901: A Primer, First Edition
Ringo From the Stars | Earth Kit
Our protagonist reacts to an emergency situation…
aSoSS 27 | Sidestep
I don’t know where we’re going.
I don’t know either, but that’s why we can figure that out together!
RoosRoast, 1:00PM, 9/7/2024
i can see it in your smile, your hesitation, that your head weighs heavy by the burden of unremembered dreams. do you still dream? it’s a silly question, but your breathing slows. yes. don’t you? somewhere, a siren wails. i resist a glance. i hardly sleep! a deflection, but you don’t press it. both of us are suffering from a deprivation of intimacy, a betrayal of the conscience. i take your hand and we set off together, chained by sentiment, sentenced to walk the earth alone: one of us carrying a burned map, the other a broken compass.
No problem… don’t tell anyone this ended 18 minutes early and we can both get some work done, okay? Alright see you!
Traverwood Library, 1:12PM, 10/9/2024
time should be defined not by length but by density. with each rotation of the hand, a fresh layer of ink is superimposed on the brain–not erased, but written over; there is simply no space to contain our existence. the words form, stack, and topple. you are there but hidden, impossible to uncover. my tears fall alternatingly, like footsteps crushing fresh snow. the things i cry for, are they crying for me?
[grabbing a box of kombucha] you gotta promise me you’ll drink one every morning!
Costco, 4:00PM, 10/15/2024
breathe deep enough and you can feel your belly brush your spine. is your stomach touching your back? the government lacks a measure of hunger, perhaps because it makes fools of all of us: our stomachs, our eyes, our touch. food deserts parch urban jungles. apartments pop up like mushrooms after the rain, grayed and wilted, porous, vacant. you stand up–the sand will swallow us and make soil from our bones–and walk away. the ache inverts my ribcage and gnaws at my tongue.
up above, the vultures wait their turn.
aSoSS 26 | Fit
I liked how our teacher had a coordinated outfit! It was new!
Central Campus Transit Center, 10AM, 8/28/2024
summer comes and the house is not as i remember it. flies cling to the windows like barnacles. i bet a bird died in there, you say as we pass. it must have been heat stroke– but i already knew, i could smell the sweetness in the leaves. trees mourn too, did you know that? everything in the world mourns. the curtains are rustled by an invisible breeze; god’s not watching, there’s nothing to see. what’s buried won’t burn us. the clouds are sharp and shapeless, jigsaw pieces strewn across a coffee-cream sky.
Fit check, how is it?
Nice, got on that Laufey… I know how to say it now, not loofah or whatever…
Alice Lloyd Hall, 5:00PM, 9/13/2024
it was there the day i left, a dust storm dressed in bronze, waiting for me at the corner of the station. you hid behind a newspaper dated a week into the future: soothsayer’s grin, reaper’s curse. i pretend not to notice but we are both done with pretending. the threat of eye contact forces me astray. someone shouts a name–not yours–and you turn. it wears your eyes and nothing else.
your memory is stagnant, a still pond. i forget your face in the swarm of gathering flies.
My favorite pants has holes in them, just from wearing it a lot, and I’m going to patch it but I think this might be their last season…
Michigan Union, 12:30PM, 9/24/2024
it’s not there anymore, is it? the things you save until you can’t be saved. markers leak and stain the canvas; stickers dry and cut your nailbeds. you move out and your nails are painted and the world is over, yet the earth continues to spin. the antenna spits static and the radio hums to life. does the flower wait for the bee to approach before it blooms? kill the fantasy. fall in love with the present.
conscience of theseus: if you replace every thought in your mind, are you the same person?
With another year brings another vibrant campus community! Rain or shine, the human experience perseveres. Whether this is your first introduction to aSoSS or we crossed paths last year, I’m so glad I could be a part of your day =)
Welcome back, stay a while // It’s been a minute and I miss that smile~
