I'm writing a paper.
No you're not, Tea, you're writing a blog post.
Am not.
Are too.
Am not.
Are too.
Am not.
Are too.
This sounds like the sort of argument I have with my boyfriend.
Your boyfriend sounds like an idiot.
He's not.
Are you sure?
Yes, he's just occasionally somewhat dense.
I don't think you're writing a paper right now.
That's because I'm not.
Aren't you?
Well, I should be. I just don't seem to care enough about why we got into the Iraq war.
But it's important!
But I'd rather do math! Also, Archie just called me. Apparently he's really dissatisfied with the social scene at his college of choice and is going to try to transfer here. I wished him luck, but, well--transfers here don't really work.
I guess this is what comes of trying to play the admissions game.
Don't be mean.
Why not?

I do not want to do my homework

I don't want to deal with life, or my endless to do list, or my room, or my family, or really just about anything.

I hate that I get like this sometimes, and I hate that I don't know what triggers it. I just need to stay calm, and keep working, and hope that it all blows over by the morning.

Which it will. Because it always does. Then, in another week, all I'll want to do is curl up in the fetal position and cry, like I do now.

I hate feeling like an emo teenager. When I say that I want to be "more normal", I mean that I want to drive around on Saturday nights with a car full of screaming teenagers, and dance like a maniac to bad pop songs, and sigh over boys, and cry about silly things, and be rude to my parents and talk on the phone too long and maybe, every now and then, actually fail a test.

Sometimes, I want to stop being responsible, and figure out what living is. As Louise Gluck wrote in Meadowlands, "Those/with the smallest hearts have/the greatest freedom" (Penelope's Stubbornness). Because if I didn't care for the world, or my future, or my family, or my friends, or the people who care, I would run off somewhere and die in an errant attempt to find myself.

What has the world come to, that teenagers suffer from midlife crises?

STS

It's like four college apps. Plus a thesis paper. Wait--it *is* four college apps plus a thesis paper.

What am I getting myself into?

In other news, MIT? Please take me. Not that I'm anonymously begging or anything. Because we all know that would be silly.

The Silent Boy

The first part of a story that will hopefully grow longer:

When he was born, nobody heard his cries.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

In November, Lana found(knew) that she was pregnant. She told her husband David. He rejoiced. They held each other and were happy.

In March, the small swell between her breasts and her hips began to grow. She rounded like an overripe balloon. Her husband stood behind her, her back pressed against his front. He pushed(slid) under her shirt, splaying(spreading fanning stretching) his fingers across. The fetus(baby child) kicked. He felt it. She smiled.

In April, the kicking stopped. David lay for hours with his ear on Lana's watermelon(cantaloupe) stomach. She shook and swore that she was feeling the rumble of a body inside her, but David could not hear it, could not see it, could not feel it.

In May, Lana was kicked and David was nothing. He(they) touched to make him feel it, made love to make him feel it within her. She shook and David was empty. The ultrasound moved but the heart was missing.

In June, David argued with the obstetrician. He wanted the baby gone before Lana felt the pain.

Lana refused to believe that the baby was dead. She swore that she would try to nurse the dead child before she let him be put in the ground, swore that his life remained.

David cried for the sadness that Lana would feel.

In July, Lana went into labor. David rushed her to the hospital. The way a good husband(father) should. Lana pushed for a day and half a night.

In August, the other half of the night came, fast and hard. David held her hand, and she screamed the silent scream of the undead. The baby came. His mouth fell open as the medic held the child in his sterile arms. The baby shook ore than a dead child should. David hater of horror cringed at the sight.

Lana held open her arms. She reached for the child. When he touched her skin, Lana began to shake again, as his cries sounded behind her ears. She put him to her breast. He squabbled closer to nurse, and his little mouth began to work.

Only Lana heard him as he sucked her tit(teat breast).

David put a hand on his wife, a finger brushing the child to ask her to give in to death. When his hand came down, he heard it to, the suck suck sucking of a silent mouth.

When Lana and David brought Christopher home, they held him always, for as soon as they put him down, his cries vanished.

In September, in October, in forever, Christopher grew.

I Love Babysitting

Especially when the babysitee is twelve years old, shares his easter chocolates, and watches the sixth Harry Potter movie with you.

So I basically got paid forty bucks to spend three hours hanging out and watching movies. That is, in my opinion, an epic win.

----------------

In other news, here is a story I wrote at the beginning of sophomore year.

----------------

Every June, the town's public library would hold a fundraising event. Seats were sold for a minimum donation of twenty-five dollars. The sizes of the tables varied, as most of them were either dragged in from the various sections of the library or loaned to the building by patrons. Some tables sat twenty people; others held only two.

At one of the smallest tables, during this particular year, sat a comparably small woman. Her companion, a man who, according to his name card, was called Kevin, had yet to make an appearance, so she had picked up the book in front of her and begun to read. A few minutes later, the mysterious Kevin arrived.

"Hello," said Kevin. "I'm Ryan."

"Are you certain that you're in the right spot, Kevin?" she said, looking pointedly at the name card.

"Kevin Ryan. I go by my last name."

"In that case, I'm Jane Collins. Pleasure to meet you."

"Likewise." He paused for a moment to let her speak, but she had returned to her book, so he decided to just keep talking. "Say, what book did you list as your favorite?"

"Jane Eyre."

The man looked at her, waiting for the punch line, and after a few moments she raised her eyes to look at him. "What?"

"Tiny Jane loves tiny Jane. You must be joking."

"I assure you, I am perfectly serious."

"Please, you actually enjoy Jane Eyre? You probably just like it for the similarities. I'll bet you hadn't even picked it up until right now."

"Of course I've read it, and I enjoyed it very much, thank you. Just because some pompous men might declare it 'too girly' doesn't make it any less worthy of praise."

He snorted.

"Oh, you disagree."

"I've read better."

"Such as...?"

"Walden, by Thoreau."

"Please! That's not even a novel."

"It's got great description and interesting philosophy."

"A canned response if I've ever heard one."

"Fine, have it your way."

She returned to her book, and he picked up Walden, flipping through its pages.

"Look at this," he said.

"I'm reading."

"Read this, then. Page 104. 'The note of the whippoorwill is borne on the rippling wind from over the water. Sympathy with the fluttering alder and poplar leaves almost takes away my breath; yet, like the lake, my serenity is rippled but not ruffled.'"

"Improper use of a semicolon."

He ignored her and continued speaking, this time using his own words. "Notice how he uses this passage to unite himself with the natural world. The word ripple is both an emotion and a birdcall, and it also connects his serenity to the lake. And this isn't just here- the whole book carefully constructs human's connection with nature."

"There's no need to lecture me, I'm well aware of what good writing is."

"Then you agree that Thoreau is better than Brontë."

"His nature descriptions might win out, but, truly, anyone could write those. It takes a true master to create strong characters and properly describe humanity. The only character Thoreau respects is himself."

"His guests are just as fascinating."

"He's simply transcribing events to paper. There's no true comprehension of humanity."

"And Jane Eyre's so much better?"

"Yes."

"You going to back that one up?"

"It's not that simple. Part of the beauty of Brontë's work is the change in the characters, particularly Jane. And even the smaller ones behave in such interesting and unique ways. It's truly wonderful."

"I'm not seeing the proof."

She marked her place and began thumbing through the book. "Here's a bit where Jane talks about Mrs. Reed and herself. 'It was her nature to wound me cruelly; never was I happy in her presence. However carefully I obeyed, however strenuously I strove to please her, my efforts were still repulsed, and repaid by such sentences as above,' the above referring to Mrs. Reed telling the principal of Jane's future school that Jane is a lier. Each of the points was carefully made twice. Jane 'obeyed' and 'strove,' and Mrs. Reed 'repaid' and was 'repulsed.' The repetition makes doubly certain that the reader understands, and shows that the character's traits manifest themselves in multiple ways, just as an actual person's would. Aside from that, the passage gives insight into both characters; it shows how young Jane reacts to cruelty and the exact pain Mrs. Reed is capable of inflicting."

Ryan opened his moth for a rebuttal, then stopped himself when he discovered he had nothing to say. "You do seem to know what you're talking about."

"Of course I do! You could have just listened in the first place. Brontë's characters are every bit as valuable- truly, they are more so- as Thoreau's endless love affair with trees."

"Are you trying to imply something about Thoreau?"

"I wouldn't dream of it."

---------------

I would talk about the sweatpants...

but they've been talked to death. Instead, I will share the bajillion compliments about the writing on my english paper, and we can all pretend that the compliments are about us and feel happy. Because, truly, I believe that simply reading nice words can improve our self-concept. Or, well, something to that effect.

-nice use of polysyndeton

-nice us of concrete details

-so much that's conceptually interesting here

-(He was 16 (maybe? less showy anyway))

-well-put

-unneeded?

-too clichéd?

-you might play with asyndeton here

-good sentence length variation

-was

-or just "couldn't sleep"

-I'm a little confused

-good use of great litotes.

-this is great

-(is this needed?)

-same question

-I love this repetition

-great

-beautiful description

-good

-good use of polysyndeton

-good

-good

-love the evanescence

-i love this

-great

-then

-great close

Me? Self-indulgent? Never (insert shifty eyes here)

Those (shifty eyes that unfortunately break my html block) are called shifty eyes. I learned them from Andy, whose name I can't figure out how to pronounce but I suppose I'll have to learn eventually.

And, to finish this off, I'm going to add another mindbender. The dwellings one is just never going to end, unfortunately. I'm sure you're *very* disappointed.

"We turn to stories and pictures and music because they show us who and what and why we are, and what are relationship is to life and death, what is essential, and what,despite the arbitrariness of falling beams, will not burn." -Madeline L'Engle

I must say, great use of polysyndeton. Oh, yeah, it's saying we learn from art. Books help us discover who we are, what we fear, and just help us understand stuff, like, in general. Remind me to practice these intro things for the ACTs.

New Moon, by Midori Snyder, is an awesome book in which Jobber succeeds only by understanding herself. I would go into detain about the climax of the book, but I wouldn't want to spoil it, so I won't. The theme of the story is that the tools to save others already reside inside us; all that remains is to find them. This explains how we truly are and makes the art meaningful.

Stories also allow those of us still in the plane of the living to comprehend death. The Christian bible uses Jesus, the Greek myths se Hades' realm, and, weirdly, my saved version of the mindbender ends here, with the sentence "The better people are allowed to drift freely, floating like browned leaves, while the more nefarious are given painful punishments that will last an eternity."

How decidedly odd.

Beloved has been growing on me

Somehow.

Oddly.

Very, very oddly.

We have a bit of a love-hate relationship, Beloved and I. I love the narrative style, the strange mix of what was with what wasn’t, what is with what isn’t. I love the way it mostly follows a straight storyline, then changes its mind and twists and bends and turns. There’s something about the unexpectedness that makes me pay just a little bit more attention, like a plot twist, but fascinating as opposed to exciting.

My qualm with the book is how emotionally draining it is to read it. Yes, it is designed to provoke sadness, but if it causes so much hurt that the reader stops moving forward, then it’s undermined its own position. Reading a book should not lead me to think of masochism. Yet, the more I’ve read, the less the pain within has bothered me.

There’s some odd beauty in its undulations. I didn’t really see this until it took a sudden dive into the two “I am Beloved and she is mine” chapters. I read the first one at night, before bed, and I went to sleep with “a hot thing” echoing between my ears. When I finally chased it away, I was left with repeating pairs of words, words not even in the chapter itself but that still were stuck, reverberating, inescapable.

The next morning I went on to the poem chapter. I don’t know that it’s actually a poem, since I liked it, and I don’t tend to like poems, but these lines had voices, the same repetitiveness that characterizes Beloved, and words that felt like baby-talk, almost. Words that lacked meaning and yet had twice as much. It’s funny, really. I still have trouble reading the book, sitting down and digging in and immersing myself, but I can still see it, in my head, and it’s becoming beautiful.

Gifted Ed for School Newspaper, Again

Gretchen says the last one was whiny. It probably was, as I am frequently whiny.

Such is life.

Gifted Education

I submitted the first draft of my research paper with that as the title. It's probably the most boring title of all time, but it does get the subject across. Gifted education is, put in the simplest way possible, the teaching of gifted kids. However, any understanding of gifted education must rest on an understanding of what makes gifted kids gifted.

And no, "smart people" doesn't count.

Giftedness manifests itself in many ways. There are kids who learn to read before starting kindergarten. Some bury their noses in college math textbooks for fun. Some sneak literary classics under their third grade desks or devote their spare time to their own stories. Others become engaged in aspects of the sciences, finding a cool looking rock and spending the next three months wholly devoted to the study of rocks, and where they come from, and how, precisely, this particular rock came to be in their backyard.

The constant acquisition of knowledge leaves these students ahead of the school curriculum; studies have found that they typically know half of the information being taught- and that's before the course has even started. They frequently are also learning at a faster rate, finishing classwork with so much spare time that the day becomes a series of tedious waits rather than a continuum of work.

It is understandable, then, that some of these children become bored as the schooldays slog slowly on. I gleaned a list of time filling activities from interviews with gifted students. They fill notebooks with doodles, and stare at the clock in such as way that six hands appear, and play snake on calculators and perform Beethoven's 5th with their fingertips on their desks. One girl even went to far as to exercise discreetly, contracting various muscles or doing calf raises, to the point that she would experience muscle soreness. Even so, they cannot find enough useless entertainments to fill the long classroom hours.

The emptiness that is left is time used by other students to acquire new information, but also to learn how to think and work. Gifted children, however, are in want of a challenge. Leaders in the educational field focus on the importance of a perfect level of difficulty. A too challenging class yields frustrated kids who come to think that they can't learn. One that is too easy yields frustrated kids who come to think that they don't have to. Gifted kids can be spotted by their yearning for complexity, but when they don't find it early on, they don't know how to cope when it eventually shows up.

To give them this complexity, they need challenging classes at a young age. However, it's a lot harder to put gifted kids into their own classes than I've made it sound. For one thing, how does one decide if a child is gifted? The OLSATs, while great for finding precociousness, don't show much in the way of passion or complex thinking. On top of this, there is the force of the parental unit. No parent wants to be told that their child is not gifted; some even go so far as to hire tutors to get their preschoolers to pass the tests for gifted kindergartens. Teacher evaluations can get around the testing issue, but they're biased, with children misbehaving due to boredom frequently overlooked, and racial prejudices showing far more than they should.

These are a few of the problems associated with finding gifted kids to put into programs in the first place. This is completely disregarding finding teachers supportive of gifted kids, training teachers to teach them, finding funds for the classes themselves and this training, working any sort of acceleration into curriculum, making groupings fluid enough that borderline students are stuck between too hard and too easy, and doing all of that while keeping insatiable students satisfied and prickly parents pleased. I couldn't do it in ten pages, and I can't do it in five hundred words here. It's absolutely evident that gifted children need some form of added difficulty; it's just as evident that getting it to them may possibly be more complex than the complexity these children crave.

Continuing Work on Research Paper Compression

I continue this essay:

...a way to provide gifted kids with their needed levels of difficulty. Every now and again we'll get students who exhaust the honors and A.P. curriculum in a given subject (typically math or science) but, for the most part, students get a sufficiently engaging education. The problem with this is that, in every subject but math, they're stuck waiting until ninth grade to get it....

Ughhhh

This isn't coming out right. I don't know if it's writers block or what, but I just can't produce anything worth reading. I'm not sure if what I wrote before is worth reading. I'm not at all certain that anyone would care enough to read the piece in the first place, and, even if they did, whether my writing would be interesting. I don't know how to make it interesting. I don't know how to take this awful, painfully dry piece of crap and turn it into something a bit more fun.

But maybe I'm not looking for fun.

Or maybe I am. I have no clue. I'm confused, and tired, and I have another application to finish tonight, and I can't do the math homework, try as I might, and I'm going to fail my test on Tuesday.

I'm resisting the urge to write FML here.

Oops.

The Pain of Grammatical Errors

How does anyone expect to be taken seriously in life if they can't even bother to properly punctuate an important class assignment? I attend one of the best high schools in the country, but these kids seem to be barely literate. I'm reading briefs for cases, and I have to stop myself from cringing.

Examples are below, my comments in italics:

• Is The Washington State mitigating factors law a violation of the Eight Amendment's Ban on "Cruel and Unusual Punishment"?

Because Everything must Sometimes be Capitalized, and punctuation goes Outside the Parentheses.

• He went into the School Library and opened fire on the students, causing 4 students to dies and 5 to be brutally injured.

Spell out integers under ten. Since when is a school library a proper noun? Has your English teacher taught you nothing?

• The Court found that he had bipolar disease but was sentenced to death due to the brutality of the crime under Washington State Law.

Murder is only brutal under Washington State Law- it is soft and fluffy in North Dakota. Bipolar disorder is no longer a disorder; it is now a disease. Don't get to close- you might catch it!

• The ruling of the Washington State Supreme Court was incorrect because the

Yes, let's all not finish our own damn thesis statements, what a phenomenal idea!

• In Ten similar Case of Eddings vs. Oklahoma, Eddings was convicted of murder, he was then interviewed by a team of psychiatrists and was proven to have an unstable behavior, he was exempt from the Death penalty due to prior cases like Lockett v. Ohio through individualized consideration of mitigating factors required by the Constitution.

This is a boy who will not pass is SATs, he will never write a word after high school, his college professors will bang their heads against their desks due to the absurd grammar of his general writings.

• Although People who are 18 years old aren't considered to be a minor, this could've also been a factor within this case because the Teen's mind hasn't fully developed.

I want to stop skewering Stanley here, but it just keeps getting worse and worse. In fact, I'm just not going to read the rest. Moving along...

• No 09-_______

Is it really that difficult to fill out the form?

• Is the Washington State mitigating factors law a violation of the Eighth Amendment's ban on "cruel and unusual punishment."

Weirdly, Word auto-corrects this to a question mark outside of the parentheses. Has my grammatical education steered me down the wrong path?

Song to Nick Jonas

By A Middle Schooler Near You (well, Tea after she got out of the shower today, because she was entertaining herself. In the shower. And by entertaining herself, I mean writing bad musical-theater-y songs, not whatever you were thinking of, Kathrya)

(Sung kind of to the tune of "A New World, for some of the bits, and kind of to the tune of Ocean Avenue. No, I don't know why)

Nick Jonas

I love you I love you I lo-o-ove you

Nick Jonas

When you ask me to marry you I'll say I do

Cause you're all that I want

from 3000 to forever

and you're all that I need

when I'm burnin' up this world

It's Nick Jonas forever, with the hair and too tight jeans

my Nick Jonas

I saw you

in concert last month and you almost touched my hand

you smiled

at somebody else but I know it was meant for me

Cause you love me right now

with the heart that you have

and you wish you could be here

and not on your dumb tour

it was Nick and me forever, just the two of us, no more,

Nick Jonas

I think we need to talk

I wrote this song last week

and some things have happened since

I've changed

I've grown

I've moved on with my life

Because, you see, Johnny

Johnny from science class

he has hair that's just like yours

except it flips counter-clockwise, way to the left

And Johnny

with his eyes so blue that the sky gets jealous

told Eric who told Laura who told Darby who told me

that Johnny

Thinks that I'm cute

and it made me kind of excited

So, Nick, you're all that I wanted

from 3000 to forever

but I have grown

you've gotten old

and it's time to move on

Because last week in science class

while he was burning methane gas

Johnny tore his eyes from the flame

and he looked at me and said

"movie? friday?" and I said "what movie?"

and he said "whatever you want."

So on Friday, Johnny and I saw New Moon

and a new light dawned on my life

Nick, dear, I loved you once, but better days have come

I can't marry you now

It's not you, it's me,

There's someone else

You're too distant

My heart now belongs to

Taylor Lautner

It's doesn't quite fit but you're really more cute

Taylor Lautner

You've taken my heart so you'll have to commute

You're all that I want

For today and for forever

You'll hold me close

And ditch Taylor like bad weather

Because Taylor

I lo-o-o-o-o-ove you.

Extended Family Members

After a seemingly endless string of family get-togethers, I've deduced that the best way to deal with someone you don't know is to kiss their cheek and smile happily when they ask how school's going. It's really quite effective.

Beyond that, I'm wayyy to tired to think right now, so I'm leaving you with a ninth grade essay about a poem. (who's excited? I'm excited!!)

In the past week, I have read and reflected on Robert Frost’s poem, Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening repeatedly. In my first reflection, I wrote about Frost’s use of simple words to convey images. These words “that are used frequently in common discourse can paint a clear picture in the readers mind.” However, I mistakenly thought that simple words meant simple meaning. Reading the Donald Hall article changed my mind. For instance, he wrote a thirteen-line paragraph about the word “downy”, considering not just one, but four implications of the word. Before reading that, I hadn’t even considered that a two syllable word could convey so much meaning. It taught me how the words in the poem provided the imagery of the man in the snow.

The first reading delved into words by looking at their meanings, but the second brought each individual letter under a magnifying glass. I had noticed the sounds and rhymes at first, devoting a half a page of my original reflection on the meter and observing that I “[liked] that the rhyming syllable changes with each stanza”, because it “[kept] that poem from sounding repetitive”. However, when reading the Mary Oliver packet, I learned that there was more to the sounds than just the rhyming words. Instead of just consonants and vowels, there were liquids, mutes and aspirates; two words with the same meaning, like rock and stone, cause completely different emotions. With that piece of writing, I looked at the poem almost as a mathematical expression rather than as a piece of writing. Each consonant and vowel brought specific meanings that could be affected by the other letters around it. I took an entirely different viewpoint, and it helped me to understand the poem differently.

Despite the possible overanalyzing of minute parts of the poem, I improved my understanding of theme. In my first reflection, I didn’t even mention it, but after class discussion, I considered it a bit, saying that it was that “one can pause and see beautiful [sights], but one should continue onward”. I still think that somewhat, but have also noticed the ambivalence of the speaker. Hall commented on that, saying that the speaker “attributes one side of his feelings to his horse” and is unsure of his own wants. The speaker would happily stay in the woods, but “[he] [has] promises to keep”. He ends up giving up his enjoyment for the sake of his responsibilities. The ending of the ambivalence with this firm decision made me think instead that the theme was that obligations are more important than enjoyment. I found this frighteningly depressing.

Leaving enjoyment for the sake of what is right is responsible, but it can lead to a very boring life. The sadness and scariness of the concept led me to consider the darker aspects of the poem. After the first class discussion, I saw the word dark as slightly creepy. It is “usually used when describing scarier [settings] like a dark and stormy night” but in this case could have been indicating tranquility. After reading the packet by Hall, I leaned much more toward disturbing. I had “originally thought the poem was simply a peaceful reflection on a quiet wood”, but I was then “wondering much more”. From the second packet, I learned that “dark and deep” are both words “beginning with a mute and ending with a mute”. That is what gives them their firmer, harsher sound. I noticed that, depending on the perspective of a reader the poem could be seen as either incredibly sad or sweet and tranquil,

When I first began my study of the poem, I saw it as a simple, happy bit of writing attached to a meter. As I discussed and read more about it, I saw depth in smaller parts of the poem, and considered its mood and theme.

I'm even too tired to make witty comments about said poem. I have failed you. I am sorry. Oh, so very sorry.

Royal Flush

Last time I played poker, I kicked ass. However, we were playing for checkers, so I didn't win any money. Goddamnit.

Speaking of Royal Flushes, though, I couldn't find any notecards today, and I didn't want to do something immediately productive, so I decided to study spanish, but couldn't, due to the lack of notecards. To circumvent this issue, I found a stack of post-it notes that my father received recently. On each side is written, in large letters A ROYAL FLUSH. On the the upper fourth of each sticky is written:

A ROYAL FLUSH Portable Restrooms 1-877-###-####. www.aroyalflush.com

Said website opens to an extremely classy picture of a portajohn on a beach. Needless to say, phrases such as mortificade fondo (embarrassed bottom) are feeling right at home.

Were you aware that the standard portable toilet weights 235 pounds?

That is 101 pounds more than yours truly! I definitely could not lift that.

Speaking of portapotties, I love Glee. The T.V. show, with the singing glee club members. I almost wish it were September just so I could watch it again.

Also, since I'm working on my portfolio, here is a short paragraph of my musings on race.

I'm underexposed to those of other races. It is difficult to view black people as unique individuals when I only talk to two or three of them, and many others would say that those kids "act white." It reminds of Mean Girls, when they introduce the lunch tables, and there are plenty of cliques for the different social groups of white kids, but the groups of racial minorities must form their own, like the "Asian nerds" "cool asians" "unfriendly black hotties," as opposed to the multitude of white groups. Unlike white people, whom I see as individuals, or, at the very least, specific labels, black people are in their own category, labeled only as "black."

Deep, huh?

AND, as if your day couldn't get any better, I leave you with a piece of fiction I wrote last year, for English class.

Enjoy!

They meandered their way down the old path, arms around each other. She tripped frequently, much preferring the view of him to that of the path. It was just so wonderful. She couldn’t think of a better word. She and Derek, finally alone. She snuck another look at his smiling eyes, and snagged her toe on a rock. He caught her just before a tumble became unavoidable.

“C’mon, Lynn. Let’s sit.”

They settled themselves with his back against the tree, and her back against him. She leaned into his warmth, pulling her knees up to her chest. He reached his arms around her to fiddle with her shoes. He talked idly, and she responded with half her mind. There was always talking. The small town they lived in used to have farms and a small factory, but the products of the factory had long ago gone out of style, and the farm produced less than the amount needed to sustain the town. People were living on their savings, constantly talking about what they had lost. Lynn and Derek, still young, mostly just farmed, and usually together. They were always talking, but this nearness, this closeness, was so wonderfully new. Lynn leaned into him, smiling again.

“If we don’t get going, I won’t have time to show it to you,” he said, pulling himself up from behind her. He walked about ten feet away. “You coming?”

“I’m working on it. Maybe I’d be a bit more motivated if you would tell me what you’re taking me to.”

“Nope. It’s a surprise.” He grinned.

She smiled back, and then stopped when a barrier suddenly appeared between them. The sky began to flicker light to dark so quickly that the wood seemed bathed in twilight. Derek’s arm reached out imperceptibly, and sparks shot across the barrier where he touched. Then he was gone.

“Derek!” Lynn shouted and leapt up. She was halfway to her feet when he appeared again, but before she could even process that he was back, the wood was once again empty. “No!” She tried to run forward but landed with her face on the earth. He had tied her shoelaces together when they sat against the tree. She lifted her head up, searching for him. The grass turned brown, wilted, and then grew again. When it reached its tallest point, Derek returned for another moment. The cycle repeated thrice more while Lynn lay on the ground.

Lynn lifted her head to look at Derek. With each flash there was some difference, some change, it was, it was- he was getting older. He had filled out a bit, and now his hairline was receding, each reappearance with less hair. His clothes, body, and facial hair all changed, but one characteristic stayed the same; his sad eyes gazed solemnly at Lynn during each instant he returned. But he was getting older. He already looked middle aged.

Lynn pulled herself up, but her tied together shoes kept her from reaching the barrier quickly. By the time she got there, Derek would be a withered old man. She hauled her body off the ground again and threw herself forward, towards the barrier. Her hand slipped through, but she didn’t notice.

Then, she felt a quick pressure on her palm. Confused, she looked up, and her eyes caught Derek’s as he held her hand. An instant later, the connection was gone. Another moment, and he returned. She tried to squeeze back, but by the time she could react to his presence, he was gone. She began to time a returning squeeze with the growth of the grass, matching them so that she clasped when he held her. She smiled up at him, pleased at her success and enjoying the small touches and the fleeting glimpses of him. He was growing into a beautiful old man.

A moment later he vanished, and this time, he did not return. He was young, then old, then- “No!” Lynn cried. Her eyes began to fill. She went to wipe her face with the hand behind the shield, but could not break away. She watched the hand through her tears. Its nails grew longer and longer, looping into a spiral. The veins became more prominent; the skin wrinkled. The joints tightened without her control, and she couldn’t open them. Soon she lost all sensation in it. The hand curled into a tight ball, then began to shrink further. It was eaten away, and Lynn pulled her arm back from the shield. Skin had grown over the edge, but she was now without a right hand. She pulled herself back from that horrible wall that had taken both her hand and her Derek.

She gazed down at her stump of a hand, then turned and watched the endless cycle of the trees. She stood there for hours, trying to comprehend the events that had just occurred. Finally, she took a deep, calming breath, and turned to walk back to town. When she was about halfway there, the strobe light sky ceased, and she was once more bathed in sunlight. By the time she reached the town, it was empty.

“Hello”, she called, her voice quaking, “Is anyone here?” The was no response. “Hello?”

The she heard someone call. “Rodney, I found another straggler.”

“Huh?” Another man, most likely Rodney, responded

“Never mind, I’ll bring her in myself,” he yelled back, then rounded a corner and came face to face with Lynn. “Hello!” He said brightly, “I’m just going to bring you in for a few tests, then you’ll be free to go.”

She looked at him blankly. “What happened?”

“It was a bit of a scientific test. Six hundred years ago, a group of scientists isolated your town in a time bubble. Basically, every second for you was a few years outside, or something like that. I was never much good with math.”

“Wha- why- How could you do that? Isn’t it illegal?”

“You weren’t producing anything, and you were taking in more benefits than you paid in taxes, so they figured there wouldn’t be any negative impact on the economy. And, well, the guy who instigated it is long dead, so he can’t exactly go to jail. All we’ve got to do is pay a few fines, which is well worth the new scientific knowledge. There were all sorts of different microbes six hundred years ago. And there’s been some change in genetics overall, and you didn’t have psychiatric drugs, so your mental processes are fascinating, and you are stock full of extinct microbes. Did you know, we’ve already found sixteen variants of Acute viral nasopharyngiti? It positively amazing.”

Lynn fought to comprehend the barrage of information. “You imprisoned my entire town just because we weren’t contributing to the economy?”

“It’s not like you were harmed, and it was only for a few hours, technically, and-“

Lynn cut him off. “Not harmed! My right hand eaten in front of me, my boyfriend is dead, and no one even asked me anything!”

“Well, um.” The man seemed unprepared to deal with anything except happiness. “ You’ll be monetarily compensated, I’m sure, and we can get a prosthetis no problem. And just think of your gift to humanity. The world has changed so much in six hundred years. You’ll be able to bring history to life. It’s amazing, it’s wonderful, it’s-”

“Horrible!” She cried, and sprinted away from him, past the boundaries of the town to the graveyard that lay a behind an old church. She let the adrenaline from her shock carry her through the gate in the old stonewall. The graveyard looked faded, broken down, but also larger than it had before. She ran past many sections, searching for the area that bore Derek’s family name. She found it at last near the back. There it was. It said his name, his birth and death dates, and then a short statement. “A man who lived many long years, but whose heart shall always belong with the love of his childhood.”