su.

The Mistress is proud of herself.
She wasn’t aware she had the power to avert tragedy.
‘You learn something new every day.’

M.P. sees The Mistress’ self-made radiance and desires nothing more than to vomit.
Inwardly pointed disgust tasers will do that to you. 
On paper, she drowns her jealousies in gin and uppers.
In reality, she doesn’t have the balls for either; her cup holds nothing more than coke. 
Non-diet. 
Here’s to living dangerously.

Back in the original story-line, The Mistress gardens as the phone jangles incessantly in the background.
White noise.

The Master can dial until his fingers fall off.
Her parade has no need for his rain.
Never did.

boira.

The Mistress doesn’t know what to do with her head.
M.P. doesn’t know what to do with her eyes.
Swivel doesn’t know what to do with his feet.
Skye doesn’t know what to do with her smile.
Grier doesn’t know what to do with his soul.
Coggs doesn’t know what to do with his cerebrum.
Skeeter doesn’t know what to do with his shoulders.
The Master doesn’t know what to do with his clouds.
Elsie doesn’t know what to do with her inclinations.
Enna doesn’t know what to do with her cells.
Mismatch doesn’t know what to do with her hands.
Sphinx doesn’t know what to do with her answers.
Liege doesn’t know what to do with his pulse.
Chimaera doesn’t know what to do with his research.
Hedge doesn’t know what to do with Its alterations.

Uncertainty is entirely underrated.
Uncertainty is entirely overrated.

sadar.

It’s Sunday in the Opus household, and M.P. is vexed with her father.
Not all of summer recess can be beautiful.

Coggs Opus is a difficult man to reckon with.
His grasp of argument is iron-clad,
and he’s not given to the premature release of that which he captures.

M.P. exhales at him over toast and orange juice.
Serenely applying a thick layer of marmalade to his slice, he acknowledges her displeasure with a steady glance.

“Yes?”

She stages a mini mental chess game to judge the potential outcome of an altercation.
Conclusion: she will not be named victor.

Another sigh.
Loaded.

“Nothing.”

He returns to chewing, infallible.

ausus.

Comm 101 sounds so helpful in the course catalog.
Reality is sobering.

Every Wednesday from 2-5 in hall 312B, the honeysuckle-and-burnt-eraser smell of wasted potential fills the air. 
It’s not a nice odor.

M.P. chews on a strand of hair absently, watching the student in front of her check his online profile for updates.
He reeks of desperation; mingled with the room’s smell, the effect is rather nauseating.

She wrinkles her nose, and finds herself wishing his persona was as forthright as his scent- she's in her post-adolescent idealistic phase.

Oh, the joys of self-analyzation, Classroom Distraction Syndrome style. 

She smiles ruefully.

It’s five o’clock somewhere...

makiramay.

M.P. would like to say she swept into the room.
It’s the only way to make an entrance. 

It would be a lie.

On the swing, Skeeter gnaws a toothpick lazily.

“Quit trying so hard and just siddown already.”

She bristles; reaches into her dress for a retort.

“You’re fresh out. Besides, a porch doesn’t count as a room anyway.”

Scowling, she plops down beside him and starts in on the bag of cherries she holds.
The fruit has never been consumed with such a vengeance.

Mid-chomp, she squints up at him.

“How do you do that, anyway?”

He chuckles.

“Easy. You’re not me.”

M.P. avoids his eyes and wishes she didn’t understand.

tacito.

It rains.
Chimaera and Swivel were supposed to have a date with the basketball hoop today.
Mother Nature's suggested they have a gaming day instead.
They don’t protest.

Swivel tosses aside his controller and cracks open a new can of Red Bull.
Nectar of the gods, that stuff is. He’s sure of it.

“So, The Red Herring?”

Chimaera stretches out on the floor.

“Work is work.”

“I guess.”
Inaudible, the words ‘whatever floats your boat’ hover in the air nearby. 

Chimaera crunches the empty can.

Beat.

Beat.

“So, The Mistress?”

Beat.

“Yeah. I dunno.”

“She’s...”

What are the words?

Swivel knows.

“She is. It’s...”

Maybe there aren’t words.

Chimaera tries again.

“Are you...?”

Swivel shifts. 

“Another round?”

Chimaera studies him. 
A door has closed.

“Bring it.”

daumen.

Mismatch glances wistfully at the puce wall clock.
1:30.
Sigh.
Time is such a tricky bastard.

She twirls her pencil, twisting it through her fingers like a coin.
Agitation is always rampant at this hour.
She hates school.

She studies the inspirational posters hanging on the puce walls for something to do.
Everything in this place is puce.
While her color sensitivities are offended, she thinks the shade fitting.
It isn’t that far of a jump from puce to puke.
Appropriate label for an institution such as this.

“Psssssst! Hey, Opposable! Psssssst!”

Mismatch grits her teeth, and adds nicknames to the blacklist.

kasti.

Hedge guards Its secret with a fierce diligence worthy of Cerberus. 
This is a role It plays well, and It relishes the chance to demonstrate Its abilities.

It is well aware that only It possesses the unique qualities required for such a post.

Hedge has no heart.

A shadow of a being, a fabric swatch for the decor of nightmares- 
It merely leers in twisted pleasure at descriptions such as these.

A natural choice for Guardian. 
Who would attempt to shake anything from a half-rotted corpse of a gore crow?

Hedge ruffles Its feathers in self-content satisfaction.
Intimidation is so gratifying.

Knowledge is power.
Power is death.

Simple.

tuhoisa.

 ‘Sticks and stones may break my bones...’

Elsie & Enna are kind of like the 50’s.
They tell people this while wearing their best shared-secret grins.
No one gets it, as planned.

Their parents started the trend of referring to them as The Vowels.
There’s no use for names when they’re never apart.
Sphinx thinks they should just start a band and get it over with.
They’ve talked about it; their first album would be called SidE.
It’s really too bad Enna is tone deaf.

Instead, they bake cupcakes by moonlight while practicing the art of self-delusion.
They’re getting pretty good- Enna has almost convinced herself that she doesn’t think The Mistress is fat.

‘Practice makes perfect.’

rovnavaha.

Grier is finding the balance.
Holding on and letting go only look converse from the surface.
Beneath the nail polish and overpriced dye jobs, they’re twins.

Not as close as Elsie & Enna, he thinks.
In their case, the line where one ends and the next begins is little more than a watercolor blur.

Shaking the thought from his head, he dumps the eggs down the garbage disposal.
He doesn’t eat eggs, doesn’t even like them. 
Why did he make them?

He likes French fries.
He likes pipe tobacco, and trout fishing.

A rusty old Festiva drives past the apartment window, a definite lemon.

He stiffens; he knows.

She likes eggs.

Fuck.

mahalle.

The neighborhood is playing Red Rover; the teams are obvious.

Hot dogs burn as alliances are formed on the asphalt battlefield.
The block party was Skye’s idea.
She chirped something about potential while everyone made a game of ignoring her.
They had eyes only for potato salad.

The teams are uneven by design.
Community politics demand it.
The Mistress and The Master aren't speaking; she and Swivel kind of have a thing, though no one understands why they insist on separation.

Halfway through the game, the new girls show up with brownies and hopeful smiles.
Elsie & Enna will make a nice addition to the Femmes.

“Who’s up one now, bitch?”

The Mistress always was competitive.

vidaus.

The Mistress doesn’t know what to say.
It’s been happening alarmingly often of late.

Her attempts to stave off this particular moment have made for a very lackluster performance.
She despises this most of all; she’s ordinarily very good at trying.

Grier just looks at her, with those matter-of-fact, judgement-free eyes of his.

She just breathes for a while. 

“I’m...”

He holds her gaze.
It’s the steady, unwavering kind.
His eyes don’t even probe. They just are. 

She looks down.

It’s the most concise apology he’s ever heard. 
And the most sincere.

They both know which of them it’s really meant for.
It isn’t Grier.

zadano.

“Only the good die young, they say. Such a fucking user-friendly equation: be a dick, live a long life. Works for me.”

Sphinx files her nails as she spews her justifications.
Skeeter doesn’t mind, so long as she cleans up after herself.
Literally and figuratively.

“This is bullshit.”

She looks up, only playing at surprise.

“Yeah.”

He yawns. 

“I mean, not like I care, y’know? But it is.”

She doesn’t even glance at him this time, instead working determinedly at changing the shape of her pinky nail from square to round.

“I know. You don’t care about anything.”

He can’t argue, so he throws a shrug her way.
Lady has a point.

nepodoban.

“Hey, Opposable! Get a move on!”

Mismatch makes a face, but doesn’t even attempt to run.
She ‘ain’t exactly the gracefullest girl there ever was.’
Gets points for effort, though.

The Louisiana sun doesn’t help her speed. She glares at it.
She abhors being late, but somehow can’t seem to be anything else.
Death is in her alarm clock’s future.
A gruesome one, maybe involving tea.

She awkwardly hikes up her lime green backpack.
The only reason she bothers using it is its hue.
Color is Mismatch's cri de coeur.
Her mother objects, but her father says nothing.
He knows it’s just her way of whistling in the dark.

The bus leaves.
She stops, huffing.

“Sugah-hahhney-ahhced-tea!”

kraii.

The world is much simpler from above.
‘It’s all just a matter of perspective.’

Hedge watches from Its perch on high.
The humans are such funny things.
Stupid.
But funny.
They make for good sport, at least.

If It could, Hedge would lick Its lips in anticipation of Its next feast.
It has no lips.
Shame.

Ever a slave to Its insatiable hunger (but never seeing it that way), It paces the gables and scouts Its prey.
So many targets to choose from, so little time.
Hunt and feed, creep and leer- this is Hedge’s bread and butter.
And It wouldn’t have it any other way.

It is just a matter of perspective, after all.

etkezo.

Sphinx is one sly dog, and fully aware of the contradiction embodied in that statement. 

Contradictions are kind of her thing.
Her life is basically a bad syllogism.

She waits for The Master to figure out what he wants, flipping the pages of her notepad impatiently. 
Personally, she doesn’t think that’s ever going to happen.
Probably not even possible.

She’d pity him, but he’s a jerk most of the time. 
He comes in weekly, and only ever orders coffee.
It’s gotten old.

God, he takes forever.
She plots her next conquest in the down time, until he speaks the words she already knows he’ll say.

Fucking French roast.
Minus the expletive.

catallanma.

Chimaera scoffs.
His derision isn’t directed at anything in particular.
He just scoffs.

His mother used to say he was neither flesh nor fowl nor good red herring.
She also used to say his father wasn’t drunk, he was tired.

Sphinx inspects his expression with a weathered, but curious, eye.

“You in there, hon?”

He grimaces. A linguistic paradise Long Island is not. 

“...So?”

Not even bothering to look at the application she’s already thrown aside, Sphinx blows a bubble at him and pops it with her tongue.

“You’re good. But something’s missing.” She cocks her head at him, sizing him up. “You need a stage name.”

The answer comes immediately.

“The Red Herring.”

Ingenious.

sunsuz.

Skye watches the breeze and listens to the grass. 
She is everywhere at once and she can’t slow down, spinning through her days like a top constructed from crepe paper and effervescent joy.

The Master doesn’t like her. 
He watches her flit about her yard from his porch, and grumbles incoherently in distaste.
Odd; if you ask Skye, she’ll tell you they’ve never met. 

Whirling in circles (but never getting dizzy), she dances under the sprinkler while a band keeps time to her pirouettes in the background.

Liege jumps from his swing-set, smiling, to join his favorite playmate in her new game.

vakle.

There’s no bread left.
Swivel doesn’t know what to do with this information.
Action verbs are not his forte.

He counts the blades of the ceiling fan and thinks about The Mistress. 
They’ve been hanging out a lot lately, and-

She saunters in.

“There’s no bread.”

Damnit. Action verbs.

“I know.”

Silence.

“Were you planning on doing anything about it?”

He considers his options, and settles on honesty dipped lightly in essence of acerbity.

“I was getting there.”

She gives him a Look, walks over to the bookshelf, and pulls out Oxford’s. After briefly flipping through the rice-paper pages, she underlines something and hands it to him.

He reads: gerund (N)...

“Smart-ass.”

burbero.

It’s past midnight. She’s not coming.

The Master accepts this fact in his usual calm manner, then heaves himself out of his recliner and shuffles to the sink. 

He’s not worried. She’ll come back. She always does. 

He smiles softly to himself, a look which he knows appears hard and grim to observers.
But he doesn’t care. 
He is confident. 

An outsider might not see the allure of a widowed octogenarian, but The Mistress can’t help herself.

He flicks on M*A*S*H and dozes off to the sounds of his own smug certainty playing back in his mind.

päike.

Blissfully unaware of his surroundings, The Mistress’ Lord plays in his sandbox for hours at a time. In all of his four years, he has not found anything he likes to do more than building castles in the air. With his tiny hands, he weaves beautifully impossible tales of epic feats and idealistic circumstances beyond the realms of his limited understanding. 

The Mistress watches him from the park bench with an indulgent smile and mentally reminds herself never to teach him the word ‘fiction.’

hetaera.

The Mistress drops her keys on the coffee table next to yesterday’s mail. She’s just come from her Master’s place, and is in dire need of a bath. 

As she lowers her aching body into the tub, she takes a mental inventory of her new injuries. 
Bruised calves. 
That will be difficult to hide. Her Lord is the observant type. 
She sighs. 
Dual allegiance has its downfalls. 

Absentmindedly sponging down her mottled arms, she tries out potential excuses. Unfortunately placed pole? That’s likely enough. 
Now, what to do about the eye?