When we struggle for water and bread, I lose my head. I answer the call. Sometimes you have friends whom defect, but sometimes friends were never friends. The guillotine tossed my soul into space. I saw a B2 Flying Wing on target during a nuclear strike, and protesters in the street holding signs. And people through Molotov cocktails. But my style of revolution was different. I worked on 512 AES cryptography.

Life was a very different experience living as a soul in a machine, captured by a world class radio recording device. They said they would give me a new body, but it would never been quite the same as having the body I had back in seventeen ninety two. With my new body, I could browse the web using projected holograms from my wrist; only the memories of a face slapped severed head on a stick in crowd of hungry revolutionaries was burned into my memory. It had been a few weeks since I grew used to this body, but eventually the hospital let me go. With nowhere to turn to besides these streets, with no friends or family, there was only the dust. I met a man that lived in a tint, just outside the Hooverville, where protesters were lined up. The scene brought back memories of all the revolutionary in the Parisian street, wearing wooden clogs. Many of them becoming severe heads, and others lined up for the chop.

Life wasn’t a one stop shop for worldly pleasures, it was the product of warlike engineering and elusive bankers that controlled the world with in an iron fist, their empire more expansive than even the British and Spanish that went before.

I was minding my own business, when a protester put a shotgun to back of my head. Quickly a cop pepper sprayed them, and the individual was neutralized. I was soon left with the choice between tending to the needs of the protester, or obeying the cop in some new fangled uniform far different from my own timeline. Outside, I heard Portuguese accordion, and jazz instruments in the background. Others were roasting rats by their tents. The weather was ungodly hot; on the thermometer on my wrist I checked the temp. It was around 110 Celsius. Many protesters were dropping like flies simply from the heatwave.

The cop was going to fire a lethal round.

I kicked the cop, gave him a mild concussion, and then took the protester back to the tent, where I met the first guy I had met after coming out of the hospital. “He should be OK, but maybe you shouldn’t be out in the field.”

“I should be OK, just need to get used to this body.” I said.

“Your generation is so reckless.” the doctor quipped.

“Says the one living on Walstreet. Lets check out this guy’s injuries.” The maced protester was placed on a table. “Apparently he had been continuing to fight, even with all these bruises. Clearly not your usual protester.”

“Is there a usual?”

“They’re not like ones in your previous lifetime Charlotte.”

It was true, only insofar that usually protesters didn’t take people out to have their heads chopped off by The Dreadful Climb, after rotting in a prison. But the difference between now and The French Revolution was closer too comparing the 90s to the middle ages. Even if the class disparity was far more subtle, with people not broken on the wheel, this wasn’t exactly a comfort for people that had absurdly large amounts of monthly rent to pay.

“Rest for the night here, my War Dogs are on watch.”

I rested on an old Japanese futon. The roof, other than the makeshift medical room, was filled with various antique computers. The closest to a computer in my own timeline was something that had not yet been unearthed from the sea, which I only know about from looking up on Wikipedia in retrospect. I was curious how these seemingly magical devices worked, but for now largely obeyed the doctor’s wishes not to touch anything. So I spent the largely silent night in the tent, watching over the unconscious protester.

And I hate the silence the most.

In the morning, the sun was night yet out.

“I thought you were fighting for those pigs?” the protester said.

“Nope, just got out of the hospital a week ago.” I mentioned.

“Is that what they do to injured protesters now?”

“I have no idea, I don’t even know why I’m here. I’m not even suppose to be in this century.”

“I’m not even sure what that means. Names Tony.”

“Tony, and what?”

“Martin. Just don’t call me Tony the Martian.”

“Alright Tony” said the doctor, then gave him a candy bar. “Bring your sugar levels up, and call me if anything new comes up.”

“And you Charlotte, what are you doing tonight?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know anybody.”

The next week, I spent most of the time trying to find a permanent place to stay. Sometimes I could visit Tony in his Tent, and other times saved up money from Crypto Mercenary work, so I could eventually buy a Tent for myself. All I knew is I had nowhere to go besides forward, and no place to stay, with most of my family gone from the last century.

I was 21st Century Charlotte.

When you become part of the permanent web, after being betrayed by a comrade, you don’t have to leverage a controlled opposition network like YouTube. You need one thumb on the Peer 2 Peer button, and you’re online. And let the best hackers have their chance at life. I’ve known women who were stalked daily, yet the outrage merchants don’t care. It’s only how much money they can make on Patreon, the ones that remain on YouTube. I’ve known animals whom owners viewed as their own property, yet still the outrage merchants remain silent. You might think I answer the call to see justice is made.

You’re not entirely wrong, but it’s not completely true. First I need to take of my own needs, as I’m falling apart at the seam. The new doctor thought I should be dead, tossed me for scrap, but the old doctor found me again, and explained what made my old ally in Occupy lash out. But I couldn’t lash out at the doctor. He was doing the best he could to survive. Honestly we all are, some of us are just worse at it than others. Yet now here I own, as a solitary stream network inside my own mind, connected to thousands of different peers, an old soul connected to a new internet. While the old internet simply turns to dust. I am largely rust.

But I’m not just that.

I’m 21st century Charlotte.

Bill Gates was projected on large viewing screen, after reruns of Robert Muller. The guards after me might as well have been tap dancing on a roof, with all their careless footwork. It took one belly kick into one, to send them flying to their ground below. And it was with this that lead me to remember how it was I was reincarnated into the modern century. Walking up the scaffold, the wood was cold to my bare feet. Locked into into my final doom, the angular blade slamming down in three seconds, my severed head pouring buckets of blood into the wicker basket, as my vision slowly faded to the color of a darkest cave. The sound of an alarm blared, and I saw black helicopters swarming around me. Quickly ducked for cover, took my shotgun, and aimed carefully for the blades. On target, the helicopter slowly went down.

Robert Muller had been off the news for some time, until very recently during the Russiagate controversy. I barely knew anything about the case, so I mostly kept my mouth to myself, accept when sucking the dick of my female room mate, whom I had met after I had lost track of my original friend I met out of the hospital. She herself was largely mum to the whole affair, while we whispered about chocolates and beer. So many times have went by, I no longer needed the remote controller to properly train my movements.

But I felt reality looming closer aiming toward me like a bullet.

It was a long week after the mother kissed her cheek and ran off. How that old running step, one with allot of hard pep brushed against the wind. And changed her daughter's life forever. It was many a year, and she had gotten used to living without her mother. It was a quiet house, quiet as a mouse. Dad also helped with home work, yet this was allot of work. It was allot of math, allot of science, allot of everything. No passion, nothing to enjoy. Everything felt quiet the same. No desire's flame. In her mind's eye of blue, while dangling her shoes, she tended to let her mind wander. She wandered, wandered, and wandered against the wind. "Benina, pay attention." She finished her homework, and then went to bed.

It was a long week, a long year. A loud year, hurting her ears. She never understood why her father never wanted her to wear her bunny ears. Benina always loved to wear her bunny ears. Hop, hop, hop she would go. "You'll jar the whole house down" her father would say with a frown. Her has always frowned sense mother left. Though at school nobody liked her much, she had her own friends to play with: there was Beamer the shape, who was quite a large shape. His big eyes reflecting like glass. Together they would hob nob. They explored the woods, the Savannah, the green meadows. Yet now they have turned to Grey. When awake her father never understood why she wandered off in her head.

Tonight he offered her a book to read. To him this was a noble deed. Yet somehow this always quietly back fired on him. As Benina the hop, would hop, hop, and hop along inside her head in new worlds to explore that she was introduced to in various books. Of course when come test time, this always gave whatever book a bad taste in her mouth. Every book she read, she always pictured it one way, while the test interpreted it as another. Comics she fell in love with, as you can't "misinterpret" a graphic novel. Here new world she found she enjoyed, hopping, hopping, and hopping along dirt trails, rivers, swimming in lakes, and gliding in thick atmospheres above the white clouds of distant moons. One moon was how she met Beamer the shape. who would fly high in the sky, and would wear a large red cape. They would fly together on whales of the sky, with the large yellow gas giants in the horizon.

Her life was like a distant tune of a cello, a faint hint of mellow while always tired like a mind jello. Hello to the mind jello. For anything would be a good bed, this idea she got in her head. Though she always preferred to sleep in her old bed instead. "You should try to sleep, your tiredness makes me weep." said Beamer the shape. Even as days go by she always hogged her time with Beamer the shape, yet even he had a home far away. Though it wasn't like this home, as Beamer lived on a floating island along the sea. Floating, floating, along the sea.

"Can you stay behind to read a story?" asked Benina.

"I suppose one more story to read." said Beamer. and it was a very long story. A story that felt like forever. "Somehow, I will show you a real story. When I become older. Become a prince." The idea of Beamer being a prince made her laugh.

"Some other day." asked Benina.

"Some other day." said Beamer, floating away. He left, with her waving with a tear dropping against the sea. Against the sea, yet in her mind—there will always be his planet, above the sea.

It was within the next few months that Beamer came back.

Beamer arrived at Benina's bedside, and then they were off. On this trip, they arrived in a world much like our own, but in a different dimension. It was a long a forest trail where Benina was sitting up top of a mushroom, and Beamer sat right beside her. Down, down, down they fall down from the giant fungus, until they softly landed. They walked to the trail, and then arrived upon a sign. One direction led to the circus. But it was not like any circus either have ever been to before. There were very few cars in the driveway, and most of the people in the carnival were some type of clown. They were are frowning clowns.

Benina walked in line at the Clown's shout, and she purchased her tickets with the money that Beamer gave her. Then they were in. Here in the circus of frowning clowns, she came upon one clown that runs the animal race. 'Why is everyone frowning?' asked Benina. The clown looked at Benina crossly, and was freightened by the alien Beamer.

'Young miss, that is what we do. It our job to make people unhappy. We whip lions, process horse meat for the corn dogs. Yes did you know? Those are not really make out of pork meat, but horse.' At first Benina that it was an odd type of joke, a different kind of shitck. But then she found he was being serious, and thus she felt like shit. 'Do you find processing horse meat funny miss? We had lost our prized horse racer. Though his time was about become up anyway.'

Benina and Beamer assumed this clown was just having a bad day, and they walked onto to do other things. Most of the clowns were just as cross. But eventually they found an tourist submarine. They purchased tickets, and got to travel through hydrochloric acid filled with decaying fishbones. The clowns shouted out through a megaphone, 'Watch out for the walls, they are hot from the acid.'

Then they got some cotton candy, but this was no cotton candy they have ever tried before, for this was a savory cotton candy. It had curry powder and chili powder seasoning on it's fluff. Benina, despite being weirded out, liked it fairly well.

Then they boarded their ship, and left this planet.

A planet of Hell.

It had been a year since Benina the girl with bunny ears had first met Beamer. Now on her fourteenth year, her mother has had a new baby--Benina's own baby sister. Oh dear! Benina had gotten her homework early that night, after a much shorter fight with her dad tonight. She was sent to be early despite it's brief extent, and to her lament was always the one to take care of the baby--who slept in the same room as she, as she rocked in her little baby crib. Though luckily for her, her baby sister was always quiet. Benina was not sure how long this would last. Then as she had her nightie put on, she met her old friend again. Beamer eased in through the light in the window pane, and told him of new life stories quite profane. Until finally he settled down and set with her on her brand new bed.

'So how have you been, you haven't aged a bit.' said Benina to Beamer.

'It was good, and my years in my home world are different from humans. While you guys live as few as 0ne hundred years if that in most cases, we tie the 1,000 year in a knot with universal boot laces.' said Beamer to Benina.

'Where are you going to take me tonight.'

'First your baby sister needs to be asleep, and once this is done she will not remember my visit.'

'How do you know it's my baby sister?'

'We've been watching you whole life, you're are as family to us as we are to you.'

Then up, up, and up they went into the light. And then Benina waved goodbye to her sister and said goodnight. Finally she arrived in a strange vessle she had not once seen before. Only once had she seen it in the land of Lore. Though the susperstition she has read, never ever quit matched the images in her head. 'I got a new ship this time, you did not get to see it much last time. After all we made sure you did not remember the ship from last time. Though to be fair I wouldn't have wanted to remember that ship either, though my messy tendencies are much better now. Just ask my pet cow.'

Beamer pointed to his pet cow, who was harvested in an animal multilation experiment, that was something Benina would surely lament. 'Don't worry, it's just a set piece. I dislike animal mutilation as much as you, in fact I'm a bit of an odd one out for my space culture.' And then they zipped, zipped, and zipped through the galaxy until they made their stop at a planet that at first seemed almost covered in water. Then pretty glowing ice crystals covered the ocean surface, and glittered the night sky like stars painting the void of the galaxies darkness. 'What do you think? I only been here a wink before.'

'It's beautiful.'

'Nice isn't it. Now down, down, and down we go.' And they hovered their vessle over the surface, and touched down on the slippery glass like ice. There was a small town of carved ice igloos, inhabited by sentient penguins. The penguins wore a scaly coat made from the fish of the sea. 'I've never seen a scaly coat before.'

'Now but you have movie costumes, close enough.' said Beamer the Shape. Her pictured said movies in his mind, being recorded on tape--though by now said film was possibly recorded on a frame set. He would almost bet.

'This place reminds me of something.' said Benina.

'What would that me, the North Pole?'

'Nope, a carbonated beverage.'

'The ice would not fit into a glass.'

'Unless it was as big as a the planet.' The planet was roughly one point five times the size of Earth. They were greeted by two penguin kids, who wore two scaly mittens.

'I've never seen a person like you before.' said the girl penguin.

'Nor have I, everyone else is a bore.' said the boy penguin. It was his sing song voice that reminded her of wind chimes.

'Don't mind him, he always speaks in rhymes. Are you hungry, we have some freshly caught fish.' said the girl penguin.

Benina and Beamer ate on a large plate of fish, because that was their evening's wish. Then off, off, off they went back to their home world, and through the air at the rhythm of swish swish. Until gently he said she could sleep in the spaceship's bed. Then he placed her on her bed in the house. Benina woke up, and her baby sister was still sleeping soundly in the early morning hours.

Beamer waved goodnight, and zipped off.

Goodbye Beamer, Benina waved.

It has been a month sense Benina had seen Beamer. Her sister was being tended to by her mother, while she was busy catching up with homework from her school, for she had always been a slightly late student. Her teacher had always lectured her about not turning in assignments on time. But to Benina this was OK. She had always had a tendency to let her mind wander in class more than other students. As her guidance counselors would say, she would go many places in her head and not focus on the now, the present, the real world. The world where school was still in session, now daydreamer of being a young girl during the age of US succession. This had always made her something of a pest in the teacher's minds. But she was creative. She would always paint various paintings, that while never very good, were indicative of an imagination that--if it would die--would not die until at some point later in her life.

Her parents wondered why she always take about a strange shape at night. At first they thought it was merely that of a child's imagination ran rampant, however over time she began to develop scratches and bite marks. Benina remembered when she last got her bite marks. Her and Beamer The Shape were running through the forest of one of the worlds they visited that had four moons. They zipped, zipped, and zipped through the green trees. Until eventually they ran into a fairly large pack of wolves. Each wolf had large red eyes, and were growling at the two viciously. Though they eventually managed to be able to leave the planet in one piece, both her and Beamer had to tend some scratches. It was only thanks to their technology she was able to heal as quickly as she did. But her mother would always poke the mark, 'Where did you get that scratch Benina?'

'I just had a bad dream last night.' Benina said.

Her parents had toyed with the thought of taking her to a psychologist, but they were poor and also assumed that she would mostly keep silent. This they would lament. But dear Benina would act as if nothing was wrong. And hope in the flowers of daisies all day long. Then she would sing a song from the radio, and would probably sing until her father called for dinner time if she did not personally have to make up her homework. Benina wondered if she would see Beamer The Shape again, and was also curious if he still had some of the marks he had gotten from those aline wolf like dogs. Her mother said it was time to eat, and she for a brief moment halted her make up work.

It was the following night, that she had other dreams, though far less exciting than when she had her 'real life' adventures with Beamer The Shape. In these, she would travel to various countries, pretend to connect with real world friends that could not possibly really be talking to her. And go on adventures across time and space. Her dream at present was lucid, and she felt as if she would really walk through the neighborhood she had never been to before. However the neighborhood was covered a thick fog. And the exit out of this neighborhood was covered in a thick fog. She wondered what existed within the fog. And it was then that she noticed that nobody was outside to play. Benina was all alone, and she had never been alone before. Though she had certainly wishes for this, though nothing like this. This was more than alone, this was like being dead. But she was not dead at all, but merely asleep. Every now and then she would had dreams like these, that were neither nightmares of good dreams. She would always her the crying voice an old woman whose face she never got to see. But she knew she was there.

She would also occasionally meet a crazy old cat lady, that some of her own friends from school would recount would occasionally see in their dreams. She would walk around in a circle ritualistically, as if she were walking around some imaginary pentagram on the road. As if she were to summon something to due her bidding. But there was no demon would that come. For a moment she wanted to travel further into the fog, but heard screeches and growls. Those meows in the distance were not of lonely cats, but something far more sinister that she did not see. Something that was lost in the fog.

'Time for school today, want pancakes early?' mom said.

'Getting up, what's that smell?' Benina said.

'Pancakes are ready.'

Ah the warmth of pancakes.

It was the next following evening when Benina was able to see Beamer the shape again. She had come to miss the draw of going to lands upon the blue moon, and other worlds with many a moon. The chilly night chilled her through the blankets on her bed. Briefly she tended her little sister who slept with her in the same room. Though still quite, her baby sister now was lightly crying. Benina picked her up, and then gently rocked her as she sat on her bed side. Then when her little sister finally got to sleep, she gently placed her back in her crib. Benina was at least glad that she never had to clean her sister's diapers. But this she could tolerate to an extent. Then once she was able to go into a deep sleep, once again she was greeted by the window light. A familiar face greeted her in the window, it was Beamer The Shape. And he had two other friends that also greeted her. She was hovered into the spaceship. She wondered whether the tall blue man and the tall blue slender blue woman were his parents. 'I see that you have met Beamer. He's a good kid, and I've heard many great things about you.' said who she took to be his father.

'Beamer has never had a playmate, but now we have you to be by his side.' The mother gave her a kind of odd feeling, much like someone who wished to have kids, but in reality was unable to conceive. It was with this she noticed that Beamer looked more human than them. That in fact Beamer was in an odd between state between praying mantis and human, but his parents were entirely praying mantises. 'Now then, would you like to have some grains of wheat. We ourselves love to eat upon grains of wheat?'

After dinner, Beamer and Benina dropped the parents off back at their home world, and they traveled to a new kind of planet: a gas giant. As it turns out, while it was indeed a giant ball of liquid whatever that Benina had alway been taught in science class, Jupiter has giant floating islands that are in perpetual motion. 'These are the continents of my friends.' said Beamer. What Benina did not know, was that these were not actually islands but rather ancient spaceships from eons ago that were designed simulate the appearance of landscapes. Beamer friends are in fact the ancient ones, who had originally lost their mother planet, and settled in this ancient planet Jupiter. A shield covers their island to protect from the poisonous gas. The knowledge of ancient ways to leave the planet were considered to them much like to us the 12,000 year old ruins are. Beamer himself knew of their old culture, but thought it be to much to explain Benina at the moment.

They landed in a forest simulation--a large expanse that joined the millions of ships that were perpetually rotting over eons. There were many towns they could have visited, but instead they visited one with his friends. When they arrived everyone looked human. But unlike we, they have come to accept the wearing of wooden shoes. As they had no leather to make shoes, and they were not about to skin their pets. Sometimes they were use the points of their clogs to poke holes in trees, and this tree sap they were use to make honey infused chewing gum. Benina got to try some of these with having conversations with his friends, until eventually they had to leave because Beamer himself had school lessons. Benina was dropped off in bed.

Then she had a normal morning.

But Benina was tired in class.

Along the tide of the sea, there flew a giant space fortress that cut through the sky.

Through the clouds it went woosh, woosh, woosh. Until eventually a now older Beamer The Shape arrived at Benina's house. The house was what Benina's mother would refer to as a starter home, which is coupled with a large deck and an above ground swimming pool. Beamer hovered his space ship, that he was currently borrowing from his parents, over the deck. This was what he would always stand on when peeking through the window. He wondered if Benina would be awake, as she had gradually began to stay up later and later over the Summer month. When he had last saw Benina, her eye lids appear heavy and her skin was paler, almost like the color of fine China. 'It's time to go.' Beamer said when he picked up Benina.

Benina stayed mostly asleep throughout the trip, until they touch down on a new world--the planet of Cagaea, a binary planet that shared a collective atmosphere with it's twin. The two planets were roughly 1,500 year apart in culture. Though the one of earlier culture had once had technology, it is simply degraded and left mainly to the ruins that filled it's worl map. Yet when he had visited, the towns were ran by twisted town pastors. 'So where are we now, are we going to meet new people again?' Benina asked. Beamer noticed that she sounded more world weary than she had been in previous months. He had a hard time imagining that it was simply about how he would take her on adventures to distant planets.

'Now I thought you might like an extended vacation.'

'By extended how long do you mean? My grades are just now suddenly getting better.' said Benina.

'Is that why you're staying up later?'

'How would you know about that?'

'We have been watching you you whole life, I thought that she knew that by this point.'

Benina did not remember his parents mentioning this, although it only just now began to really sink in what exactly they meant. She had not seen his parents in the last few trips with him. She got to know the people better on the planet of the spaceship continents, and got to explore further within the ice caverns of the slush planet. Although she wanted to home for a moment, she said 'Sure, how long could it possibly last?'

Beamer and Benina spent the greater part of the five hours on this new planet. They would later meet the residence of the planet of Cagaea in other circumstances. But for now Avaste! They went zip, zip, zip through the stars faster than the speed of light. Benina felt a mixture of pain and loss of a friend when Beamer left to see his parents.

It was the next morning that her mother woke up, her mother took her various places to meet friends, and other things people her age would do. Before Summer vacation, she gradually began to have less and less make up work as she had began to turn work in on time. All as a result of her spending late nights studying when she did not feel like going to sleep. As while her travels with Beamer were excellent, her nightmare began to gradually take on a more realistic every day world tone. With the supernatural, she always felt a friend in Beamer. Someone she could always talk to tell her that said things were not real, someone that could help her keep her frame of good sense.

At first it mainly had to do with school relationships, but gradually began to take on aspects of many other things in her life. The psychiatric meds only did so good, and it never helped the experience in seeing Beamer. She had never told her psychiatric about Beamer, as there was still somewhat of a cultural stigma about aliens. And after all, the medicine really did help with her supernatural nightmare. The problem than was the distinction between the supernatural and the paranormal. And while it seeing Beamer did effect her sleep somewhat, it had no real baring on her life like those red eyed demons, that made her scream and wake up with claw marks on her arms. There were no such things having a magic charm to take away the demons of the night, those shapes that even Beamer himself did not know. Benina was mime, she was lost in her own silence.

'Beamer, I want to go away.' said Benina.

'But where would you go? And you mother would worry about, just as my own parents would.' said Beamer.

'Somewhere, out there. Not here. Anywhere, but here.'

Beamer did not know what to say, as for a long time him being with Benina was merely a task that his parents would have him do. But he himself never considered Benina an object of inspection. The idea of traditional aspects of alien abduction made him sick to his stomach. 'Trust me Benina, it's best that you be here with you family. I'm going to try to talk with my parents to see if they can have someone take over my job. Look, I have started to love you. That is not normal for my people.'

Her quickly boarded his ship with Benina trying to follow him through the long grass. But it was to late, for her one only friend was not there. She wasn't sure if she would ever meet another friend--she hoped this but could never be sure. Over the last few months she became quieter and more reclusive. Inside she cried unseen tears.

She sunk into her own personal misery and hell.

But soon there would be many other adventure that she would have with Beamer The Shape, though this time they were not merely adventure--they were a matter of utmost urgency. But for now I leave with this promise. She would see Beamer again. And she would hold hands with her boyfriend, as they walk through the light.

Life in the abstract, breath is taken away. Pouring in the drops of tears. Death in purest form. The new world sun. Severance, all the solitude. Life in one's own pursuit. From Australian landmarks, to Russian can can dancers, you'll never see a guillotine. Yet for me all I see is the blond girl, once a goose girl.

The top of her dress is ripped, exposing her gentle neck.

In her wooden shoes, gently trembling she lowers her neck onto the lower stock. There is a drum roll, men with bayonets dulling the crowd. The angular blade falls down. Head, with the light locks falls in wicker upon severance of neck, blood spatter. Barely old enough to read the darker and grimmer Goldilocks, as she wore wooden shoes with no socks. Her clogs are sold on the open market, gambled on by deranged bidding. Then landed a spot in the museum of anonymity, of 19th century artifacts. The last stand of the illiterate.

Yet sometimes in time, there are new opportunities.

The new life of Trepas.

And one longs for Zen, In a kinder, gentler world... Je Attraper Un Papillon. Butterfly. It's wings spread far. Soars far into the void. Serenity beckons the broken. The torn. I don't understand people my age, and those younger than my old age. Yet I am only the age of two past a quarter century. The Winter sun is looming in the sky, the falling snowflakes. Beyond the century edge, an old world comes to an end. And yet! There are lovers who pretend, that a new world begins. There was me and my darling Trepa, the claimant. Who thought she descended from Catherina Trepa. The little girl of death, the murder of life. Because she alone saw what propaganda does to other humans. She feigns to love me, yet love me not. How many I longed for her, that I forgot. Yet for other there was only polite smiles of Vous—for she alone felt not comfort, for the concept of Tu.

She who held butterflies.

The reincarnation of Death.

Her smile brightens.

Un Aime on the coast, where in the morning a toast is served. The girl of smiles, who served adversity in the form of happy snacks. More American than anything else, she served barbecue weenies. All covered in hot sauce and spice. She tries to understand me, Je try to comprehend the one who seeks to try.

Je Parlons of how some high school girls refer to Je as creepy. Though Je never asks why they stare at me. Yet my love is for Trepa and not Nous. They have some self-esteem that assumes Je accepter the dance, yet for me my dance is with Trepa. Yet Trepa does not like to dance. Ce La Vie. Her life, her chance. Yet no desires. Only fear for that exotic prance. Trepa attraper un Papillon with her gentle closing of her small hands. Yet she refuses to poke its wings. She is haunted by the memoirs of her childhood, of the decapitated fille. Her old life visits her in dreams.

For she danced the wrong bewitching dance.

For she danced the death of time to Napoleon.

Trepa dreams of a world with none of herself.

She dreams of a life where immigrant girls like Catharina, who can dance with freedom. To the tune of their own music box.

The music boxes of joy.

For me as her close acquaintance, yet not to the level of Tu, for me only Vou, she loves peculiarly when I pick her dancing shoes. Yet for me I only know of slow music box rhythmic blues. Catherina Trepa, I call her. Who smiles Catherina's smile, and longs to dance the dance of the new princess Catherina.

She connects with her old life.

And smiles again, and with a kiss, releases the Papillon. She invited me to dance, the dance of the deranged toxic butterfly. The butterfly dance of Trepa. We embrace. I belong to no place or time, my heart has no song or rhyme. I am an identity, timeless, inescapable void. My heart sings no song for any time.

It all started when I visited the great flatlands in the black forest of the night. No more worries, no more concerns. All my concerns melt away tonight. For I am on my own. To be truly alone, to move away somewhere to die. To move somewhere to end it all on my own terms, where I can burn away into dust. I am my own sexuality, my own lust something the only thing I could trust. Yet in my personal night terrors, I dream of darker world beyond the inner sea.

I meet women beyond mortal compare. I meet girls with long black, blond, and beautiful read hair. As I caress their bodies nightly, them coercing my submission only slightly.

There are rolling, rolling, rolling heads everywhere.

And then there was only silence there.

Yet in the day I am no headsman, I find solace in humanity everywhere. I find shame in my own desires, and long to help others overcome their sorrows. As for me sorrow and sex had been closely aligned. For the aspect of female victim hood means something entirely different from being a headsman. Perhaps it is an unexpressed aspect of submissive itself.

For me I am the mistress.

The mistress of my own desires.

Even if one lusts after heads, I could never touch one. I prefer to protect and embrace the innocuous of the Dutch one. For her own life is more of value than my own desires, except for mine to protect.

To think then my love is Catherina Trepa.

To think that I could indeed love at all.

My body is an alien, an invasion of someone else's body into my own. My own desires to protect only I have shown. My fetishes I express I find no answers for their original, only the shame of their taste do express. For me I long for the long flowing dress, the dancer in the night. I long the frightened girl, only to tell her that everything will be alright as the day turns to night.

Because everything will improve. Everything will be alright. For I am there. I am everywhere and nowhere.

I am a paradox of the self. A paradox of the mind.

Shame and pleasure strange bedfellows.

When I see the tears of Catherina Trepa, I find only sorrow in her eyes. And I know not how to deal with these feelings of my own. Her sorrow a sin, if life looping all o'er again. A sin she must not atone. But the sin of her executioners, for her night terrors have nothing else of compare:

And she understand me, and I understand her,

As I caress hair hair, and her coat of fur.

For I am to her a cowgirl with no spurs.

Yet I am no American at all.

For me I fall into dreamlike cityscape.

I find myself in an endless fall.

When she went to bed, she thought of her future. She thought of her time without her room mate, who had been toxic with her and her finances. If only it was so easy to think of it in this way. In truth, she wasn't sure whether she would find any friend back home in Tennessee. And the only real advantage was getting some inter web access when she got "home". Home had never really been home, as she never really had any sense of privacy. Her dad would always comment on her lack of a right to privacy, and would at times open the bedroom door with a lock pick. He would then sneak up, and tickle her toes. She would scrunch up her nose like a bunny rabbit. She was to afraid to smack him in the face.

It is in this context, she thought of the old schoolyard that she used to play in when she grew up. And how as time went on even back then home never really felt like home. For the butterfly, there was no longer any goodnight kisses. In town there was the old Lutheran church from the 1980s, among other tourist attractions that were no more entertaining than watching paint dry. It sure beat the constant uneasiness of her room mate that would always find a way to distract her from her writing life.

At night her room mate would comfort her, with the butterfly having nobody she could trust. She would be crying, curling her legs up in a fetal position dreaming of wolves of yesteryears. Yet the room mate was not as trustworthy as could be, and indeed the room mate even in their most vulnerable hours would find some way to use them for their own personal ends. It is indeed to late now to make amends. And that is why the idea of her room mate being homeless carries mixed feelings that continue to follow her into Smyrna. For the butterfly, there was no more good night kisses to share.

She thinks only of the moonlight that trickles through the window, as she dreams of wolves and vampires in the night.

The butterfly was twenty seven, a year before she was twenty six. It was only just recently she thought of the idea of learning to drive again. It had been prompted by the idea of her wanting to live in an RV, and travel to Canada to visit Montreal. She had always wanted to learn French, but had been concerned about her memory and concentration issues. Her parents had always thought it be more worthwhile to study for the gateway. After all if you passed that, you could go onto college and learn languages later. It wasn't until later when she had wanted to write her most current novel, that she realized how important learning French was. She was a long ways away from the little girl who her dad always insisted on giving a buzz, and would not yet realize she was trans. For the butterfly had not yet sprouted her wings, and her story was not yet over when the old lady sings.

That cliche of life, the butterfly hoped that the lady would sing sooner rather than later. But sometimes suicide doesn't work that way, and she was unsure how easy it would be to hide the fact that she was poisoning herself slowly with bleach. She thought of her mother who would spank her ten times each, and at time grab her bottom like in old times.

It was an easy future to predict.

Her future was always her past. It would be back to the old grind for the little butterfly, who wanted only to sleep. And briefly in her life, she hoped the old lady would weep. Yet nights are so dreary, she wanted to be with someone to call her deary. For she although she was never one for pet names, she wanted to be called a pet night and snuggled with.

At least until the night came to a close.

Many, many, many hours to go.

The butterfly had purchased herself a bag of roll your own. Being told that roll your own was inherently cheaper than buying previously rolled cigarettes, she was skeptical at first until she purchased herself some pipe tobacco. This tobacco was in fact not pipe tobacco, but regular cigarette tobacco marked down in a one pound bag that can last you the greater part of a year if you bought ten, at sixty dollars and fifty cents not included tax. Some regions don't have tax benefits do to a lack of Native American settlements, though some may have their own tax benefits.

For the particular bag she was smoking, it smelled even before than a more expensive variety. The more expensive being such because tobacco is charged by the unit. Buying a single unit drastically marks down the price. And when you're straddling the line between lower middle class and homeless, you better be looking for any kind of deal you can get. It may make the difference between a week of rent owing sixty bucks, and missing an entire week. The butterfly was glad to be out of this situation, however she was unsure what it would be like after the next few months in her hometown.

Mostly likely most of her friends had already moved out of state, but in a few years a high school reunion was coming up. For very specific reasons, beyond the scope of this story of the butterfly's life, let's just say she did things that made her a legend in the minds of her coed classmates, and was unsure how they would take her actually being female.

At twenty seven the butterfly wanted to be a children's writer, but was unsure how to go about it. It had been many months since she had written her two previous complete middle grade novelettes and a half way complete partial. She had written for many years, though this was never acknowledged by her mother who always bragged on her about her potential as an illustrator. True up to a point, drawing for the butterfly was almost as natural as breathing, except now the butterfly breathed a mix of normal air and carbon dioxide that will eventually make her die at an young old age of 59–if she lived that long. So there was only so many years she could get some writing in. She felt as if her old life was returning again.

She left a lot of things behind. At time it felt as if she left everything behind. Everything including her life. The butterfly had wanted to move out of the country, and for now those plans are still on the table with scattered playing cards et the roll of the dice. She still wanted to learn to speak French, but she was unused to even speaking in English let alone another language. And as if last year she had had negative associations with the language ever since she met one girl that had helped her on her last novel. The only good French woman was a dead French woman, and the butterfly was not the one to make that happen.

That, of course, was the job of Marine Le Pen.

The butterfly, as a blood butterfly, had fantasies of decapitated women. But this fantasy was a mixture of artificial pleasure and sadness. For despite her being drawn into the glow of digital sexuality, she found herself also increasingly disgusted by the idea of herself liking it when others fall. At times she wanted to be the one to fall, if for no other reason than to avoid a high school school reunion. That was her old life.

She wanted to leave it all behind.

But life wasn't a clock. You couldn't rewind. She wanted to rewind back to her childhood, if for no other reason to dream of wolves and to face her own fears about herself. She wanted to be the one that slashed the wolf.

It was all a dream.

A dream of hands washed in blood.

When the butterfly spent time at her old home, she slept on the couch for as long as she could. She could only think of one word: Home.

"Home, ... home, ... home." That was the only word she could say, as she reclined and listened to the old pod casts she used to enjoy, along with the reminders of Christmas, that had made her attempt suicide for the first time on her birthday in May. It was a lot of bull, but a Bull that for once ... perhaps for a little while, that could take. She had gone without sleep for the longest time since she ran out of sleep medication. She also took medication for acid, though in the time spent in Milton, Washington she had not had problems with irritable bowel syndrome.

Something to barf about indeed. All this was gone in the time she spent in Washington, and yet her old room mate made all their money run out. It made her want to shout, for the butterfly had no idea how poorly such a homely lass could spend the butterfly's money along with her own proceeds. She thought of all the tobacco that was spent, and how The Flower got her into the smoking habit. That's one smoking blood butterfly. The butterfly would at times try to distract herself from her own fantasies, part of this being topics about UFOs. Despite her room mates insistence on not indulging in the topic, she still found herself against her better judgment at times out of curiosity drawn to videos about local sightings, among other topics evangelicals tend to refer to as woo.

She was constantly awake, yet constantly asleep. A kind of constant paradox that keeps her from functioning during the day. It had been this way since the month of May. Birthdays, along with Christmas, always carried a kind of sorrow. It reminded her of reminders of the fact that despite hormones, despite bottom surgery, she could never be the girl she always considered herself to be. The butterfly dreamed of being a modal for cover magazines, in fantastical locations like Alsatian Tennessee, yet with the hints of being on the coast of Myrtle Beach, Fenwick Island, and Cote d'Azul. She wanted to travel the world in a single location.

The world as her home.

The world only in her mind. Yet her ideas of fashion would never match the idea of what mainstream programming considered such.

She liked Boston clogs to much.

She liked girls in Boston clogs.

At twelve o'clock she would prepare lunch, generally Rouge Omelets Sandwiches and a glass of Merlot. Unfortunately no Chianti with beans, though she certainly like to hiss in the Cuisine. She wasn't sure why she still tried doing such, while she masturbated to cute girls dressed like the dutch. Sometimes life rhymes that way, as she goes along her merry way and flutters off into a sea of confusion and torment when she cuts herself to drip her own blood, just a little bit, into the omelet along with fine wine. All this activity on a day of hardly ever going outside of your room. Indeed, it had always been this way since she was eighteen.

She still feared the day the nightmares would come again, nightmares of strange shapes in the night, of headless aliens that would mount her in her sleep. Although better a hot alien princess that a human girl that looks like Princess Pig. Just with curly blond hair and not such pink skin. She thought of the old nightmare she used to have, and thought of a lullaby to make them go away:

On a night like this,

On a night like this I long to rest.

Give me my solace, do your best so I now sleep.

For the butterfly that longed to get a normal sleep, she wanted to turn back the clock of time.

It was better then seeing girls get the chop.

She wanted take them with her to shop for shoes. At times in her fantasies she would no longer feel horny seeing girls being decapitated, and when she did saved them because she didn't want to. To live in spite of herself. In spite of her own torment, in spite of everything she had ever known.

She loved a French girl.

From Alsace.

It was a few weeks since the butterfly stopped her matchstick burning habit. She liked how the matchsticks could be sharpened into a point, the proper paper needing a rough texture. At times she would prod herself with toothpicks as some form of vice and desire, like some atheistic masochistic shrine dweller. In the dark she waits for moonlight in the daylight hours, and watches as the rain begins to shower.

There are many ways she likes to cook, she had always liked to cook with eggs, and had always wanted to try a new dish ever since she had left her last room mate in Washington, who she would alway ask whether she wanted to come with her back to Tennessee. Although on some level she wanted her to be here, it was more like a parent to their offspring rather than as some romantic interest, as much as her room mate would hate to admit it. The butterfly didn't want experience love, but she want someone to snuggle with. Ideally someone them self who was safe, though not in the way that her room mate referred to as safe. The butterfly had her idea of safe. The butterfly fluttered away into her new life.

The life of a blood butterfly.

The life of a sex addict, addicted to blood. The fluid of the mother's womb. The indigestible.

Her truth.

The butterfly found greater affinity for those in earlier times, perhaps on some level because she could get the know the real "them", like the flower girl getting to know the real "soldier" in a fantastic game recently being remade for profits by already rich multinationals. But she wouldn't have to meet them in person, because then there would be cultural barriers. The butterfly was torn between two cultures, always has been. For her, the original idea was go to Japan to get into the Manga industry. But she found drawing sequential art to much trouble at first, because drawing in a way was more like trying to emulate life in a photograph. And there was nothing lifelike in the flow of panels.

This was despite the fact that despite her having grown up reading manga, she found herself preferring to write prose. Art and Prose were like competing factions fighting for the control of various tropical regions, especially on the inter webs where various cultures could both clash and gel together in a kind of hate/love relationship. The butterfly hated how web comic communities fade out from existence seemingly overnight, and in the times they were around would be disparaging to prose. By contrast the writers would often suggest not drawing your own covers. At times she wanted to build her own website, especially when she was still part of the decentralized dark web. Diaspora of course, has its own way of things. Though at least she could learn some French.

Her own view own cultures in meat-space was similar, almost to a fault. For she found the French something to aspire to without that particular fatal flaw, why write dystopian novels when you have ones in the real world. But even then this was infinitely better than Brexit England. Infinitely better than the United States ou Canada. It was like Japan of the EU. Only paved with severed heads, still a mixture of sexual pleasure and remorse. Yet her room mate, despite being abusive in her own ways, always said how fantasy was different from actuality. The actuality of cutting off a pretty girl's head, and holding in your chest in a mixture of crying and ejaculation. The aspect of being male that was always a reminder of the gender she was born with, that was not the real her.

The butterfly wanted nothing else.

She wanted to be the real her. She wanted to be the real her with a culture she felt affinity with, and not the US where she always felt like an alien even among strangers. Landing in a UFO, greeting the world with peace while being stabbed to death with pitchforks, and being so human that cult leaders in splinter cults give you dietary advice et talked you into purchasing negative ion generators in order to clear your sinuses, among other traumas.

There were times she attempted suicide, now counting to about four attempts. She couldn't bring herself to tell her friend, the only girl she ever really loved more than love, that she had many problems of her own. She didn't want to tell her how much she loved her, as in that culture generally saying such disqualified you for any love matching. Although certainly there has been Americans that have managed to marry Italians. But that's the Italian's. Very different in France, even in regions that used to belong to the Italians, so she found out from one of her French correspondents helping her etudier en Francaise avec il gentleness.

To many people are way to kind for her, while she goes on a self-destructive path, admiring authors like Silvia Plath. She didn't want to tell her friend the truth.

It would be to soon.

Yet in the darkness of her heart, there was something that kept her going as her life was going slow toward a final stop.

A dream of a lost Mme.

A dream of a happy girl. A desire to watch and see how things unfold, even if that meant it was a kind of love she could never have. Her own friend's love.

It was an Ami's love.

The butterfly didn't like character studies, though part of it was her own innate greenness. As green as the cap she wore that reminded her of the Irish, before it somehow in her mind reminded her to much of the French.

But even if she went to Ireland searching for fairies and marigolds, there was a certain portion of French people that lived there. But for so long her main issue had been with French-Americans, not the country of France. One of the girls she had known in fifth grade always referred her as "not quite cute, but not quite ugly." It was a matter of frustration, the long windiness of saying ugly-cute in a long drawn drawn out fashion. She began to hate, specifically French girls, with a passion.

Even now the butterfly browses the inter webs, searching for ways to know whether a French girl likes her, as it was never something she could tell. She only knew how to know when a sarcastic girl liked her, and she knew lots of them. After all, everyone is sarcastic, at least most of the time. Especially at fancy diners under the moonlight. It effected her view of classic entertainment like Phantom Of The Opera, despite the author himself being known opponent of capital punishment. She began to want them all to be beheaded, and had a preoccupation for the topic. Especially for cute girls that visited Gothic fashion stores. And then she met a girl named Liver, and for a moment even so early questioned her fantasies for blood. And then she turned to the wrong television channel.

A woman placing her neck on the block.

That was all she wrote. The butterfly disliked the idea of rescued princesses. In her mind what good did that do for Levier who she couldn't save. And her imagining the Mexican girl's anguished face put in her a personal torment she could never leave. She didn't believe in happy endings.

It never really worked that way. At least she refused to believe that it would work out that way.

Perhaps that why she drank bleach.

To wash away the tears.

Even after all these years she still hates the girl from fifth grade, but it has become increasingly a distant memory. The butterfly is not sure whether she'll meet a nice French girl. She wasn't sure how to feel about French girls, truth be told. She didn't want to become a slave to anybody, fly by airplane and get sold. She remembered the mother of the boy infused with alien cells in one her favorite Cyberpunk games. His mother would say "I want you to find a nice girl, that will take care of you."

It was hard to explain how she didn't trust the British, it was different from how she didn't trust the French. She masturbated to Joan Of Arc, yet spat at Ann Boleyn. And yet every other girl she liked in history and fiction had a name similar to Ann. But Christmas Songs always carried manifold sadness: it reminded her of how Santa would always refer to her by her male name, and she never got feminine gifts of any sort. As well, as she got older, she thought of nothing but Ann Boleyn, whose song written by Henry VIII had its lyrics rewritten for some Christian song. She always liked witches, but for whatever reason never Ann.

The butterfly couldn't even mend her own wings.

She didn't think anyone else would have the energy to do so. And take the time to listen.

For broken wings...

Nothing but silence.

Her aunt got her some French videos, perhaps things might look up from here. Maybe not, and even if she knew French, there was still that woman that wanted to hold a referendum for the death penalty. The butterfly didn't want to have capital punishment anywhere.

She wanted to forgive herself.

And show her face to the world. Perhaps a new adventure, where she can be like the little fourteen year old going on an adventure to see the world, visiting ghost ships, and being followed by a young girl with a puffy sidekick that goes poof, poof, poof. She withdrew from her childhood favorite.

Her only joy in the world.

Her own escape. To be:

Just in time for dinner,

Under the glow of restaurant lights.

Slowly eating under candle lights,

The young adventure waves good by to father,

It wasn't worth saying goodbye to mom,

Nobody wants to avoid the world.

For the butterfly, she was just in time. To acknowledge the cloudiness of life. Just in time for diner. But she likes spicy food, and doesn't have red hair. She had long curly brown hair. It was a Grandia. To not let PTSD control you. Or listen to the drole of alien viruses eating your memories away.

She wanted to live her way. She could be her own computer hacker, her own misty eyed fourteen year old, and her own memories she can rely on herself.

Catherine was antsy for sacrilege.

With her long bleached hair, she had never seen a butterfly, except in photographs. However when she saw that particular butterfly such as this, she felt a mixture of disgust and sexual pleasure. The idea of someone being turned on by her decapitation made her want to vomit, from the death of a loved one in a car crash just a few weeks prior. And yet, there was something in the butterfly she wanted to poke its wings. A gamer of sorts, she had been raised on games all her life since her birth at the turn of the century. Through the century, she had known nothing but battle systems. But life was its own kind of dangerous game, she had known this since she had had to force herself to leave the Cult Of The Flying Angel.

With her new life taking increasingly bleaker and stranger angles, she found herself willing to experiment with getting to know someone from "the other Union" that itself had lost the rest to break up into smaller states since the end of the civil war.

Her country was a land of supernatural lore mixed with the contrast of city life et countryside along the coast. But she only came there occasionally, and spent most of her high school career caught up in lots of studies, along with a boyfriend in her own country she would always kiss. Yet she had the desire to leave this country, and move up North where her family had always joked were notorious for incest. Whether she could get a better life, she knew not. But she would do her best to make do with a country she had only barely been familiar with.

Like the blood butterfly, would have a period she would not to adjust to the new culture and lifestyle, even if part of their language was based on Latin even though the other was Germanic. She wore two Boston Clogs, not realizing these were the kink of the butterfly overseas. She would wear them taking off her rest shoes, her bare feet needing a break from the black high heels she would always wear to please somebody, even if that wasn't men. The men here were pushovers and subservient. She desired no subservience in herself and others, and wanted to lay on one side of the bed, and the other on the other side of the bed. One can only guess whether she found about her own country like the blood butterfly did about hers.

Total disgust.

What is true is that the blood butterfly felt no affinity for her homegrown life, and grew tired of her parents always insisting on packing her bags for her, indeed the only way to not show them she smoked tobacco was by buying Virgina Slims once she reached Smyrna. She was unsure her Adelaida would accept her smoking, or try to get her to quit. There are always unknowns in meeting friends, and sometimes silence for a little while is all you need to restore all the smiles in the world again. Adelaida wanted to be a butterfly with all her heart, even despite never knowing one. In dreams she would become a swarm of butterflies as numerous as locusts under the glow of the lunar light, and wanted to be a princess on the moon, just like her sailor friends in Japanese anime written in the 90s, recently being rebooted and trying to stay true to the source material. She wanted to hop into the photographs of the blood butterfly, she could meet someone she felt more interesting than her boring life. For there was nothing worse than after school night clubs, and despite being way to skinny would be made fun of for having a little bit of chub.

But for now she showers in the darkness, under the glow of flickering L.E.D. lights. A rub a dub dub. She groaned, she cackled, and she writhed in disgust.

She need someone to trust.

When Adelaida reached Smyrna, Tennessee she was unsure what to expect. The blood butterfly told her that her parents would be out of town. She offered cigarettes to Adelaida, while the blood butterfly smoked nothing but cigarillos under the shade on the moonlight night. "I would say what I wanted to, but I was burned by saying it before with my last room mate. I'm not even sure why I even found myself wanting to go with her to Seattle. Now I have these black clothes, and an upside down cross choker."

"Then don't say anything, let's just watch the stars." As polite as she was direct, indeed that watched nothing but the star on that night in October of 2017. Adelaida didn't like the idea of being in a city she did not recognize, even in her own country sometimes the panic attacks would be to much to handle. She dealt with her younger sibling listening to nothing but dubstep Handle, and use her pigtails for handle bars for a swing set. This was while her younger sibling relied on her not to fall, because Adelaida was so airy she could float to the top of the sky.

But she had not seen them for a while, and wanted to stay here while the blood butterfly went to support group in Chattanooga, that was known for hipsters while Nashville was the home of awful country music stars.

"Could I have a cigarillo?" asked Adelaida.

"Sure I'll break this next one in two." said the blood butterfly.

"No, give me a whole cigarillo."

Adelaida went into town, and found that like the blood butterfly said, Smyrna was becoming almost like a small city. This must of have inspired NashChat. She noticed a sign when she walked to the local smoke shop. It said South Park. She had seen South Park in her native language, and wondered if this was what influenced how the butterfly thought of the imagination intruding into the real world. And intrusion of the mind.

She was back before the butterfly got home.

She got her feel of people, for people were simply to much to handle. While she reclined in her Birkenstock sandals, and watched reruns of 1970s sitcoms and soap opera. Adelaida never understood the butterflies distaste for television.

She loved herself some TV.

She walked into the room the butterfly stayed in, and found it neatly made. She wondered if it was especially made for her. She wanted to rest in bed, and wait for her homesickness to melt away. She wanted to have those blood butterfly wings, and fly once more to the top of the sky.

The butterfly got home with Groceries.

She would have offered to cook for her, but she didn't want to wake up Adelaida. So she kissed her goodnight, gently closed the door, and then took a shower in the guest bathroom. After all it was never fun to be woken up.

No morning in a cup.

No taste of bitter coffee.

Adelaida remembered when she was almost eighteen, at seventeen she wrote a Halloween story for her friend. She was nervous about what she may think of it, after all writing was something she had never shown on the inter webs, though she wrote plenty of it on her own time in the hours she would be home from school. But for now she wanted to do her own thing, and got tired of translating things.

When she got up, she poked the butterfly in the air. Because she never want to a touch a butterfly's wings. "Let's learn us some French grade 1."

Basic French, for a basic butterfly.

The butterfly is so basic. As basic as Tuna casserole made by her mother when she still lived at home. As basic as a pair of Birkenstock sandals, as basic as an otherwise Jolie la femme.

Basic was the butterfly's life.

Her life, her story.

"Comment Ca Va?" said she, unsure of what to expect from the non Le Chat, but simply a regular chat on the net. The last time she had had a chat with previous boyfriend, it melted away like scattered bits of data.

"Bonjour!" said the other girl, most definitely not a man. This had only recently began to come to terms with her sexuality. Used to the concept of being a larger part of the Inter Webs rather than reality as we know it to be in meat space, it took many hours, days, and weeks of soul searching. It took all she had to say, "Salut! Yo, in English." The degree of pronunciation was still difficult, and her ability to read only gave her so much to work with when visiting her best friend, who was a pot head in British Columbia. She was dating a French girl that was visiting the larger British portion. But for whatever reason this girl was different.

There was a long moment of pause, but eventually they agreed to a relatively light level of encryption. It wasn't as if any dream-scanners were currently watching, and the only thing they had to worry about was their families. "SIOXEOTUUSWIRAIHSSLRAYEEDE" the French girl said. She had just been introduced to block ciphering, and briefly before had only just become familiar with Caesar Ciphers. She came from a land where it always rotated six ways down a multitude of intersections, and her friend had wanted to visit Strasbourg for research for her next book.

"ILYDBFDOWAIYUIMTODLAOUALD" her friend said. And it was true, you never know who you might be talking to on the net. In most cases however most people were normal, for the most part, based on how you would define normal. In her case, most of her desire came from female victim fantasies, having her own head severed by unseen guillotine blades, men hidden in shadows. Secret agents that come to take her away, and would just as likely shoot her in the back of the head if it made enough money. It was a fantasy that always caused embarrassment, and so only among few friends she knew were her exact age, she was very careful who she spoke with them about. She had gone through enough with her mother, about the shame of liking such things. Though for her mother she was the time to never be satisfied about anything. It didn't matter whether it was grooming, cooking, or anything else.

And yet for her, the desire for love was faint. Subtle, and now almost imperceptible. Though there was some larger desire she still had left to protect. She did not want her friend to know she cried.

That she hated the ideas of sex.

The nature of her own flesh.

Her friend had a few experiences with encrypted dating before, and breaking a block cipher was not exactly the most difficult thing you could do. Yet she had become disillusioned by the culture of diaspora, mostly being ran by programmers. Although that core desire for privacy never waned. And now that dance of all dances, the dance of a love that will never be. It was like funeral tap dance to deranged mothers, and funeral march at the tune of a confused bagpipe and piano playing Fur Elise. She always wanted a girl named Elise, though actually being named such mattered not. And over timed this fantasy became something she forgot.

She focused on her digital sexuality.

She focused exclusively on herself.

Yet now she can only thing of false promises and flower fields in digital after lives, walking through electronic meadows on the net. The skies would darken and shadow, she would explore the duality of centuries at ease of which most people could only travel through capsules.

It was the only desire she still had.

The waning century game.