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purkinje-effect · 2 years

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The Anatomy of Melancholy, 85: Pr¡soner’s C!nema

Table of Contents. Third Instar, Chapter 16. Go to previous. Go to next. CWs: Unreality, religious themes, nonsexual voyeurism/surveillance, drug use, nonlethal child and animal violence, insects, cosmic nihilism, thalassophobia. I felt bad about the surfeit of footnotes, until I realized that this is the first truly Berries chapter since Flyblown. lol eye of the storm jokes, √-1, see's seizes and sees seas see? (Title card and chapter quote, footnoted as [0].)

“...[T]he granite Into which it reaches, the beaches where it tosses Its hints of earlier and other creation:… The sea has many voices, Many gods and many voices….

And the ragged rock in the restless waters, Waves wash over it, fogs conceal it; On a halcyon day it is merely a monument, In navigable weather it is always a seamark To lay a course by: but in the sombre season Or the sudden fury, is what it always was."

— T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets, "The Dry Salvages"

True to Angel's narrative, near Burlington Glassworks Mayor Knott concluded a heated discussion with several Children of Atom. She did not require See's instruction to seize the Lane's attention: instead, she upturned leather palms and gazed upon bronze faces which hung in attendance immemorial over the entire Concourse. Everyone stopped in place, and the crowded din faded out in whispers. No longer dampened by the sound of the population, the storm's rolling infrasound echoed all the more unearthly down the corridors of the mall.

The See's cordoning the GCD parted, guns crossed, and unlocked its front doors so that its inhabitants could hear the Mayor's speech. Sticks circumnavigated 'Choly, and tried to squeeze out the doors as far as the guards would permit. Behind them all, 'Choly questioned how the entire Concourse could have known to give her berth, let alone witness her now. But then, she commenced, and his jaw dropped at the too-perfect acoustics of the granitic interior. Knott's voice resounded with clarity and depth, as though she alone possessed a microphone to some vast bronze auditorium devoid of flutter echo.

"I know you lot are rushed to get comfortable before the nor'easter hits. The Hall has extended significant relief for the extra crowding I'm sure we can all already feel. The Children can provide far more expert provisions for what comes next. It is critical that you hear me. Many of you weren't here two decades ago, but you all know the stories. Similar conditions are upon us! Rest easy: there will be no risk to life or limb, provided we support one another. We are still protected from the rads, ice, and wind. We are the primary hazard. Please understand. The light effects are a symptom, not a cause."

With Knott behind him, Haidinger stood where instructed, wherein she held his gloved upturned hands in hers. As he began to speak, he shied from the notion his voice might carry in kind, only to be shaken that it carried so far.

"It oversimplifies our situation, to compare it to 2258. My studies analyze that event at every opportunity. It was the last time the Aurora affected the Concourse, but the building still provided some dampening of its effects. The Aurora of this storm will arrive completely unobstructed. As such, tomorrow's Division Day will be unprecedented for Ant Lane. The Aurora may place undue strain upon those who do not travel a Hinter orbital, who have not wintered a Granitic Mass. Be not afraid! Yea, though even Atom's whisper can deafen, She cradles us within these holy walls. We walk hand in hand, neighbors, and learn together what the granite has to tell us. Community is our Foundation! The Children will begin our door to door Division Day visitation, doling all the grace and hospitality we have to give. Sutter Grove will provide spiritual counsel on request. And while doubtful, should the Aurora ail anyone, we have remedies for you, as you'll allow."

As Haidinger and Knott dropped their hands to their sides, the decibels of the people's murmurs eased back in to match the actual sound level. 'Choly recalled that one benefit of the Berry Mentats intuited his proximity to other living things: he appreciated in his Deenwood days that with Berries, unannounced approaches startled him far less often. Though he could hear people again besides the otherworldly soapbox, he still found himself trying to lipread. Before he could glean anything Haidinger and Fresnel discussed with Knott, See's shouldered him and Sticks both back inside to re-lock the drugstore.

'Choly steadied himself at the front window with his cane, still reacclimating from even a few days without it. He couldn't lipread the Hall figureheads' discussion, but he could make out bits of what the community had to say. Rather than lambast the Children for the armillary shifts, the Laners now bickered with an overwhelmingly condescending Satellite population. Satellites jeered that, for having such well maintained immersion in armillary lighting, the Laners were so coddled by their elevated social status that these experiences came as foreign and alarming. See's intervened far less frequently now than they had when Laners blamed the Children.

That's the Fog, you nitwits, the Satellites mocked. Haven't you been out in the Fog before?

Clearly, 'Choly guessed, the weapons ban mostly seeks to cut out lethal altercations, but who's to stop a thrown punch or a series of low blows? The First Amendment protected free speech, not assholes. And they can't blame me for not knowing a thing about armillaries—I've only been here a month now or so.

His indignation collected in his turbinates, only to diffuse in a crinkled sigh. The Children, animated in their mirthful procession in the promise of an unprecedented religious event, distracted him.

Sticks huffed. Rebuffed, he lost all interest in the goings-on outside the lease, and returned to the living area. 'Choly followed him only with a glance of resignation, keen to give his companion some space. Standing in the dark of the store-front for a time, he eventually retreated to return to the stock room. Sticks had reclined to nap, and he let him.

'Choly finished filling the last of the Stimpaks, then cross-referenced his texts regarding Wanda's treasure. Nothing for Stimpaks mentioned blood origin—and he could interpret such an omission as indication either that any donor would suffice, or that no donor save the recipient's specimen would. Sooner than lock himself in indecision over a possible universal oversight, he prepared the benzoquinolines and processed the jar. When the substance resembled what his previous treatment had yielded, he lidded the beaker, and gathered a bag of silt bean flour, a tube of toothpaste, a bottle of cinnamon mouthwash… and a bottle of Melancholy's salts.

He looked up from his work, when a knock at the front door rang out. Sticks rose and addressed their visitors. 'Choly came to the open stock room door at the unfamiliar voices. Following Sticks inside, three humble Children of Atom bobbled radiation-ringed tonsures.

"Neighbor, please do not suggest that we intrude," a pilgrim murmured. She carried with her a large basket of bread and fruits. "See's cares not for your comfort during Division Day. Do let us attend you."

"I'm kind of busy," 'Choly said. "And we don't lack much in the way of amenities."

"You're interrupting him," Sticks insisted, elated that someone agreed they should leave. "You couldn't spare a loaf, though, could you? Smells heavenly."

"Oh, um. Of course." She beamed and handed him a paper-wrapped boule, and produced a small jar as well. "There's also sunflower preserves."[1]

The ghoul accepted the gifts with a smile.

One of the other Children was intent to scrutinize the interior layout of the lease. He paused his orison when 'Choly coughed about it, and turned to the lease's owners.

"It is customary for Her Children to inspect the soundness of each house," the Child explained. "As did our forebears, so do we make all necessary preparations."

"That how you kids figured out about the building damage?"

"Sticks!"

"What?" Sticks gesticulated with the bread. "An honest question."

"What do you know?" the third Child demanded.

"There is no damage," the praying Child insisted, choosing his words. "It is… a malfunction."

"Brother Bertrand, don't speak of things beyond you." The first stuttered a nervous chuckle. "None of us have yet learned how to care for Ant Lane's inscrutable structure. Such questions, you can ask the Sacristan."

"They sure don't teach you much about the things they expect you to do." Sticks set the food on the cabinet counter. "I suppose I wouldn't bother, either, if I knew my new hires were eager to scurry off to their next stop on a perpetual road trip."

"Our elders teach us plenty." The third Child soured at him. "You may be Undying, but you still turn away Atom's warmth from your heart."

Relish glinted in Sticks's dark eyes.

"No, I turn away people who insist on coming into my house uninvited. If you won't leave until you've accomplished whatever you're set to accomplish, what will hurry things along?"

The three hemmed as they looked to one another.

"Our good will brings you food, company, comfort, security. Everything a survivor of Division Day would require in Atomic shelter, we bring to you."

"A scripted answer, but I'll accept having a program to follow."

"You've graciously given us food," 'Choly said, "and cased our lease. But we're comfortable, and don't want company."

Sticks broke off a piece of bread and shoved it in 'Choly's hand.

"Couldn't have said it better." He spoke through his teeth. "We have each other. Isn't that right?"

'Choly looked at the rustic heel. He missed Angel already.

"Well, yes."

"I suppose then we've provided what we're able. Allow us to complete our blessing, and we'll trouble you no more."

'Choly opened up the jar and used the back of a spoon for a dripper. He took a bite of the tart-sweet floral breadstuff. No matter how solid food tended to treat him, he could always savor a complex interplay of flavor and texture… especially when he could say he'd last eaten nearly twenty-four hours ago. He took another bite, and chewed thoroughly before speaking.

"We might be annoyed, but we are appreciative. Really."

The Children brightened. Bertrand resumed his Keb prayer, and the others joined him. They allowed Sticks to lead them back to the front, and nodded to the pair while they awaited See's escort.

"Atom keep you, neighbors," the first blessed. "And may this Division Day seed some faith in you."

"Qu'Atom vous garde," the others agreed.

"Goodnight," Sticks dismissed.

Before the doors shut, they already resumed a low perpetual canon: The stars shall bend their voices, and every stone shall cry…[2] 'Choly could now distinguish the deep baseline vibrations of the building from the quiet hymn all the Children in the mall wove in round. They cut in and out of singing and humming as they performed tasks, only to resume at a future interval upon completing their task. Between the conflicting auditory sources and the soundproof front window glass, even the English lyrics muddled unintelligible, though he could still make out the tune in places.

Sticks returned to the bed. Reclining, he fidgeted with his Pip-Boy with a dull frown. 'Choly walked over to the stock room door, but turned to his companion.

"It's not like you to turn away free attention like that."

Sticks frowned harder at his wrist.

"Well you sure didn't sound like you wanted them sticking around, yourself. I've told you before, those cultists trouble me. Today hasn't been the greatest. Bugger off, all right? Busy yourself doing fuck all back there, for all I care. And whenever you're done in the back, make sure to lock it up. I need some peace of mind with all this Angel malarkey."

"I, all right."

'Choly couldn't quantify what could have so upset Sticks, but he supposed it could just as easily be chalked up to the culmination as soon as any one part. With a fist of carbohydrates in his system and a sigh, he resumed his task. He could overhear Sticks doling some of the loaf for himself, and, for his companion's sake, he wondered whether the Children intended to visit again during their lockdown.

He did not load the Stimpak-like substance into pneumatic syringes, since he would in turn empty them. He referred to the Merrick Index's entry for the Limit 115 suppressant, to compare to the ratio he'd used last time from memory in Lowell. Going off the ingredients of each component, he loathed the implications in chalking up his comparable precision to routine. As he worked, he appreciated that his hot plate housed a magnet stirrer. He ought to have felt guiltier adding hubeine to the mix without Angel around—without Angel awake, he asserted--to contest it.

Unlike last time, the homogeneous mixture did not separate. The batch narrowly yielded three Melancholia. Two, he bottled, and the remainder, he drank right from the beaker, as not to dirty another dish. He struggled to reconcile with the origins of the blood, but the medical and nutritional benefits outweighed any consequence to himself. The cinnamon offended his mouth far less than the mint. He'd take it.

Sticks was asleep when he next poked his head out to check on him. 'Choly shrugged and polished off his fresh meal substitute, then rinsed the glassware in the bathroom sink. Hubeine's low, although heavier and faster-acting than the familiar morphine, did not seem to enervate or otherwise impair him. He hemmed. While he had no idea how his companion could possibly sleep at a time like this, he had no idea how he himself could possibly sleep either. He put his gloves back on and deposited the glass on the living area cabinet counter.

He returned to stand in the stock room doorway. Gazing at Angel's inert form, his mind replayed Angel's final moments of consciousness, and the Mister Handy's bated confidence entrusting the entire drugstore's inventory to him. He prayed Angel could turn back on when all this was over and done.

The visions could only increase in intensity and frequency, the deeper inland the storm progressed. No, he'd show Angel how responsible he could be. He'd show them both. Without others to act as his reason or modulation, he exercised his own agency. He could prove he didn't need to abstain fully, in order to exercise self-control. His strategy was not borne of impulsiveness, either, he insisted. Convenient access may not have justified his pending chem dosage, but it did serve it. Necessity compelled him to engineer a very specific, tailored result.

No longer watched—without Sticks, Angel, or anyone to put his actions under a microscope—he had room to breathe. It would hold him back, to moralize his choices, especially what he chose to put in his body. He navigated in the dark front end, using only the egg-sized twin armillary baubles to make his selections.

His proclivity had always been to watch, had it not? The gaze held in it power; to know something was to observe it, preserve it. He intended to maximize efficiency and output for an extended session of capture lever stenography. Anything penned by holotape risked magnetic field corruption, but he couldn't help but abide by habit anyway: at the very least, the familiar pastime would carry him through this ordeal.

By the light of his baubles, he would pen-scrawl periodic annotations to later compare against any garbling in his transcription. Composition by both pen and Pip-Boy would forever remind him of his Flyblown session.

No Jet this time, he thought, so let's see how it compares, for reality to be the hallucinogen.

His Foucauldian cocktail entailed the following: Melancholia, to nourish, bolster, and distract from any bodily aches. Melon anodyne, to invigorate and delay the need for sleep. Coffee, both to combine its caffeine with the anodyne's eugeroics and to comfort. And Berry Mentat, to hone perception and maximize comprehension. The hubeine in his meal replacement would curtail any possible migraine for choosing Berries over the original flavor. And so, partaking in these chemical benefits, he opted to continue people-watching, and returned to his seat at the bay window. Unfettered from the psychology of contagion and starvation, he became observation manifest. His neighbors need not know of his voyeurism to validate it.[3]

He could sleep when he was dead… or at least, when this was over.

A proficiency in science came with it a lagging second knowledge of mathematics. 'Choly's unconscious eye traced the rolling sequences and the intervals of the chroma of the light, and with a certain whimsy, he could follow their hyperbolic oscillations as though some melodic weirding of trigonometry. Though he couldn't fully deduce the formula of the fractal sequences, he could correlate the patterns to the intervals at which the wind howled. 'Choly marveled in the mounting mathematical rhythm, and listened for some cipher by which to hear the messages carried by the wind.

The Children of Atom carried on as expected. Fueled by disaster panic, the Satellites mostly stocked up on shelf-stable food and entertainment, for the timeframe they would be shuttered from the Concourse. Laners staffed their leases at peak presence, aiming to maximize sales profit and deter the allure of shoplifting. Of the two, the impending unknown experience of a full-force nor'easter rattled the Laners far more. More arguments, more repetitive behaviors, and a greater unease manifested in the sheltered than in those sheltering.

The high winds and frost of the nor'easter buffeted the gabled skylights which ran the full length of the Concourse. Amid the mounting magnetic field, ultraviolet plumes bloomed up to coronate the Lane's denizens. 'Choly skepticized the onset of his ability to see auras with the naked eye. He questioned the origins of the various things he'd ingested in the past hour, but could not say any of them seemed likely hallucinogenic, not even the hubeine. No, these 'auras' most plausibly resulted from the magnetic field's effect on his biology, under the Berries' effects.[4]

The next hard light shift alternated in an equilibrium of green and red. A certain rictus possessed him as he watched rootlike fibers overtake the Concourse. Like ghostly kudzu, these fibers grew fast and thick enough to impact the paths by which people traversed the space, as well as their gait, as they stepped around and over immaterial winding gnarled knees. And yet, from the fibers' absence of aura, the Berries demonstrated for 'Choly that they were not living things, and should not elicit the perceptive flinch of any real threat. Something about such a deduction felt off, but he couldn't finger why.

'Choly stayed put even after curfew. See's shepherded those staying at the Anchor Inn northward, while the Satellites rooming in leases required that tenant to remain locked up. At first, he thought the Children joined the Satellites at Anchor to stay for the night, but they made repeat trips for hours. The church members qualified as Laners, of course, as they both staffed a lease and roomed in an anchor, but they fell in a different social status from Laners outright. They could go more freely than the Laners—at least, for this holiday—and with that privilege, they aided the overcrowding-weary staff of Anchor in dispensing hospitality throughout the night.

It was true: the armillaries' chroma was not the cause of the visions. As the Concourse gradually dimmed with the application of curtains and relocation of glass, this revelation became all the more apparent to 'Choly in the fashion by which available light illuminated image and reality all the same. But light did not exist in this space: only color.[0] The armillaries' wavelength, which he elected to call sigma radiation, defied what little he knew of thermodynamics.[5] He questioned whether the human eye only interpreted such a wavelength as possessing color, perhaps averaging incongruous sensory data rather than perceiving any property directly.[6] The Berries' ultraviolet aura smoked just as brightly as before, a variation to this place's typical hues which only served to fascinate him further.

No wonder trips outside hurt so much.

With the Concourse armillaries curtained, and the GCD's armillaries in the back half, the spatial arrangement of chroma blurred his sense of scale in adjacent leases; in conjunction with the Foucaldian cocktail pulling him into a full sense of third-person, everything felt somehow all the more like a model of the real thing—if any of this constituted reality. From his vantage, he could see the pottery shop to the left, the shoe dealer across the way, the entryway to Sutter Grove, and to the right the Glassworks entrance. The handrails and ledge obstructed most of his view upstairs, but the irony only compounded his loathing, that he could still make out the presence of color in the doll shop long into the night. A dread of infinitesimal smallness gripped him, knowing of the diorama at the Grove's entrance: he asserted not that the diorama might contain a model of itself, but rather, an even larger model contained this one.[7] But even then, this arrangement en abyme lasted only as long as any of his neighbors kept their armillaries uncurtained, and he outlasted many.[8] Only the Children's valence to and from Sutter Grove persisted, in the end, a vigil by armillary on the eve of Division Day.

It began at 1:54am.[9]

The infrasounds rounded to more of a fringe echo, cradling and containing their locality as though an aura noticeable only through a human's other senses. Yet, the noise surpassed any rudimentary ken of sound. At once both infinitely more complex and infinitely easier for 'Choly to read the pattern of it, the chirping reverberations of the magnetism and radio pollution harmonized with the infrasound like an nth-dimensional Lissajous pendulum[10]. He strained for some sensory input by which his feeble mortal form could parse the development, somehow more profound and sinister than any utterance flung down these hallways long past midnight.[11]

A great peal swept the Lane, like the sharp deep cut of stone stroking stone. The layered euphonic chord lingered as though substance. 'Choly straightened in his seat. The sound had awakened many. At once, the green-red shift ceased its additive effect, and offset in a manner he could only consider looking through 3D glasses, without the glasses; he no longer interpreted the chroma with a golden overlay. Again came a metallic wavering, reverberations alternating directionality swayed by forces outside the source of the sound itself. The entire structure vibrated, between the two centuries of mall traffic, and all the vitality which preceded its construction. Crackling came from overhead, and he leaned out into the bay window: what he could only describe as electrical arcs jittered in an irregular, intermittent current amongst the bronze faces.

The Aurora unraveled slowly at first, a ribbon of strange parametrics, flowing in a red and green gradient through the whiteout canvas above the skylights. Exponentially, it flowed outward in a curtain of fractals, spilling a deep blue across the ceiling of the mall which poured a concentrated cyan light all down the Concourse. The stink of pine and brine trailed along it. Wherein the Aurora passed through the armillary chandeliers, their luminosity refracted to cast the chroma of the glass as true colored light, commixing with the Aurora's golden shadow and casting bizarre benthic caustics. The more he could process and intuit the patterns, the less he felt he could term the constellation of energies converging at the nexus of their coordinates a fractal at all.

Something brushed his face. A hand gesture to wipe away the errant lock of hair implicated a betrayal not of gravity, but of fluidity. Glancing around him, articles of all kinds began to behave as though underwater, most evident in the undulations of cord and textile. His breathing fluttered amid the nascent air pressure of silence.

Within the Aurora, images took shape. Great elegant headless figures, high as the ceiling, dragged their torsos through the curtains of light. The hands of their six arms possessed too many thick, callus-padded fingers. A vertical orifice ran from between their shoulders all the way down their guts, teeming with long, lithe tendrils. They had no legs by which to propel themselves, instead reliant upon thick ropy tentacles comprising a lower half. All around them sprouted mutated, equally alien flora, ranging from brambled to globular to algal. Thronelike haloes flared across their forms, independent of any physical structure. Something about the shifting gleam suggested to 'Choly these parhelia represented some manner of sensory body.

His neighbors curtained their armillaries in an instant. His attention fell upon the Children's congregation throughout the Concourse. Amid a universal void of hearing, focusing on their mouths reminded him of their language barrier. The Children did not shy from these creatures, and instead began to move about in a slow dance around them. He clutched his armillary baubles but stopped short of concealing them.

"Seems I got my horrorshow after all," he uttered voicelessly.

So what if these things notice me? Like the roots from the green-red shift before, neither these creatures nor the plantlike things emanated the ultraviolet Berry aura as did the Children or other denizens. He couldn't fathom where these images could possibly have originated. Did this evince extraterrestrial life? Extradimensional life? Were they from Earth, older than fossil records, existing only within the granite which humans carved and set them free?[12, 13] It would have disappointed him more, that these things didn't appear real, if not for their sheer alien beauty held in the largest holotape playback he'd ever witnessed. His annotations persisted in a frenetic transcript of pencil and digital manipulation.

He acclimated to the resonance of the space, and could make out several local sounds. The Aurora chirped in the same way a bonfire crackled, distinct but lacking a concept of volume. The Children continued their hymn in round, oblivious to whether it was audible for some time. His respiration no longer echoed in his skull.

The Children's dance parted abruptly. Darryl sprinted about, quartering and panting in a fit of drool. See's surrounded the mutant, frantic to any possibility contact with the granitic projections would prove hazardous. Several had nets at the ready. One cast theirs, but Darryl loosed a volley of saliva which corroded it mid-air. He loosed several more sprays, and See's scattered. 'Choly squirmed back in his seat, titillated by the sight of Darryl's terror manifest but also terrified what that acid might do to glass… and then him. The Clark sisters' mastiff lunged to grab one of Daryl's biceps in his teeth, to facilitate See's finally netting Darryl with nonlethal force. Several guards escorted him back to Grey & Gould, while the rest sped after the freewheeling dog to detain it.

"You keep asking me what Darryl is." At Sticks's trembling voice, 'Choly looked over to the shirtless ghoul standing witness at the other window. His lone curled blond lock drifted in demonstration of its length. "I still don't know, but those things… They've got to be one, full grown."

"How long do you suppose this broadcast will last?"

"Broadcast? Whatever's going on, it's got to be because of the storm, right? Could be hours, days. We're at the whim of nature. They… they can't see us, right?"

"Not in any conventional sense." A smile tugged at him. "I'm sorry I dragged us here."

"Don't be. We got what we came for. Just, now we're paying for it in spades."

"...I've had my Melancholia."

"Forgive me if I'm not ready to get face-to-face." Sticks glanced over to him. "I'd think you'd be enjoying this."

'Choly's gaze returned to the Children, resuming their dance.

"Aren't I? I doubt anyone else is. Except the Children, of course. Bozhemoy, what are they doing."

"Ugh. Don't know. Don't fuckin' care." Sticks flapped his hands at the Aurora, and its witnesses. "I'm leaving you to your stories, couch tato. I can't handle looking directly at… whatever this is. Gonna try to go back to sleep. Emphasis on try. Christ."

'Choly took the interruption as an opportunity to freshen his nootropics and eugeroics. With a false familiarity, the chemist sat again and followed along with the Children with a soft murmur. He watched it all like a muted show lacking subtitles. If he couldn't trust the color to abide by the physics of light, what trust could he place in any of his other senses? Was anything he heard sound? Anything he smelled scent? He distrusted the entirety of the experience, somehow, especially his sense of time—would his trouble all along have been solved with a sensory organ which could more accurately measure time, sooner than approximate by a very human, crude assessment? Days from now, he could very well come to understand that none of this had transpired at all.

But, it would make for a very good story, wouldn't it? At least the Berries highlighted the players from the effects, but they did not circumvent the soundproofed glass, or bestow him with any scope of Perception acuity on par with Angel. Owing to the nigh-sacred geometry at play in this moment, Berries had been the correct choice, but there were dozens of flavors of Mentats. The notion of branching out at his next convenience delighted him. Grape had been easy enough. Orange would be easier still. And then, any of the variations in the MKExceed Papers… He smiled.

The historical storm carried the Children's throng deep into the night. As hours passed, fewer Children involved themselves directly in dancing with the Aurora's images, but they all gathered along the Concourse to bear witness, and feel the resonance of the granite at their backs. Many spread their palms against the brilliant surface, overlapping with their cousin's beside them to continue the circuit, and closed their eyes to let the vibrations enrapture them.

'Choly wondered whether their eyelids painted the same spectacle as their open eyes. He refused to shut his eyes a moment longer than the occasional blink.

The Lane crept awake, at some point seized by a hunger which outweighed their desire to sleep and ignore the storm conditions. The procession of ultraviolet plumes worked its way toward the Court. Many more than typical took their food back to their leases and rooms. He supposed the tin washers in the Court made an enormous sum during storm season. Denizens walked through the Aurora, unconcerned with its images, only in avoiding the path of Children still at play. He began to notice the same figures passing by on their way to the Court, often empty-handed. Had they lost their sense of direction or forgotten something in the magnetic fields, he could only speculate.

"Have you even slept yet?"

'Choly loosed a lilted breath.

"I don't… intend to." He glanced to his Pip-Boy. Just past eleven. "Really, I can't imagine how you've managed it. Just look at—"

Gunfire silenced all but the storm's static aria. Something pushed See's further and further Southbound. The guards' use of force drove the mall's denizens to take shelter, watching terrified that anything warranted the Lane's full military might. 'Choly watched an ant crawl up the bay window, and made note of it.

"Ants!" Sticks gnashed his teeth as the insects overwhelmed See's and began to drag them Southbound screaming. "How the fuck are they inside? The whole mall's sealed shut!"

Box the mastiff sprinted through again, barking and nipping at the ants. Every so often, he pried one off a guard, but even more would swarm up to take its place. He yelped when they swarmed him, and ran, dragging along a few attached, toward their source rather than their destination, like an ultraviolet coma scattering a dust tail of ant gore.

See's still on their feet cried out to the Lane announcing full lockdown. The guards attending GCD's entrance had dispersed, but neither Sticks nor 'Choly dared open the doors to hear the civil announcement. Leases and anchors alike flung their doors shut, but the ants still grabbed dozens more to drag away.

"You'd think they'd be trying to get into the Food Court," 'Choly questioned. "Why would they need to take lives? And drag them to an already sizable cache?"

The infrasound rumbling gave way to an even deeper one. Many rightfully feared the storm could rend the building asunder, and hid under the most secure installments of their leases. When 'Choly continued to sit despite any number of possible threats, Sticks grabbed him and threw him down behind the counter to hide with him. Gravity eventually let the scattered papers and his armillary baubles settle all over the floor.

Sticks slapped him.

"I know the storm's not the only thing that's got you sideways, but can you exercise even just a little self-preservation!?"

'Choly's mouth parted. The sound of shattering glass drowned any answer.

He stopped shielding his head, and sat up, ears attentive. He could hear the Aurora's rolling frequencies of chirps and squeals. The settling of glass floating and colliding contrasted the uniformity of the ice striking the building's exterior. Human sounds all but halted. Eyes wide, he stood, and at a caution, he approached the shattered bay window. Ants were crawling into his neighbors' broken windows to extract more people to drag toward the Court. He retrieved his cane from the floor beside his chair, and choked up on it, less like a walking aid. Grateful for the reinforced layering of his officer's gloves as he steadied himself on the broken pane, he leaned out the front window.

Outside the Food Court entrance, a sinkhole had fallen in. His head prickled hot, to see it had consumed the expanse of mismatched tiles. As ultraviolet plumes billowed up from the pit, he pulled himself back inside the lease as slowly as possible. Translucent, rootlike fibers suckered over the mouth of the pit before erupting in every direction. He scrambled back to hide behind the counter again.

He steadied his breathing, but couldn't stop staring at the ultraviolet aura emanating from even his own hands. He looked to his side, but found himself alone.

"Sticks?" he whispered, eyes wild. "Sticks!"

He crawled to the doorway to the back of the lease. The bathroom door and stockroom door were both wide open. His lungs burned as he sat in the floor outside the stockroom: the back door lay open as well. He had half a mind to flee, too, but the explosive growth of filament slammed the door shut as it subsumed even the utility hall at explosive speed.

He returned to his hiding place behind the counter. The bathroom abutted the hallway. He gripped his cane and watched the bay window from around the side of the counter. The Aurora didn't emanate the violet glow. Why did these tubificid, rapacious fibers?

He felt a pinch to his armpit, and brushed it off. It wasn't an ant, or a filament. It didn't matter.

The room warped around him. He swerved, to steady himself against the counter shelving with one shoulder. He wiped away the cold sweat pouring down his face. Again, his ears felt like he'd been trapped in a jar. His eyes followed all the room's nascent curves.

Vaguely, he made out Sticks's yells outside. He crawled closer, finding any meaningful straight line difficult. He stopped several feet from the window, praying the ultraviolet filaments would not notice him. He reared up on his knees to peer over the bottom of the broken window, out into the non-Euclidean Concourse.

Feverish, he squinted to pinpoint the location of the voice. Ants continued to drag bodies, dead and soon-to-be dead, to the pit. Glass shattered down the way, followed by a splash of fire. Two more such displays, and 'Choly could safely presume he would find he'd run out of mineral spirits, and had no more spare glass bottles. His mouth became a line. The filament screeched at a pitch just barely within the human hearing range. It shrank from the fire.

When the filament encroached on the window pane, he gagged out a yelp and scrambled backwards on his butt, to hide behind the counter. His heart thrashed in his chest and head, and he couldn't sit still enough to keep from tottering. Suddenly, every ounce of focus bottomed out into the desperation to stay lucid. The drift of the ultraviolet plumes and his inability to track his surroundings generated the sense of atavistic specters all about him.

He spilled forward onto his face. He kicked and righted himself face-up on the floor, only to find his assailant atop him. He pawed for his cane. A flash of pain sliced across his cheek, then several dull scrapes across his forearm and throat. Amid the suspicion the ants had found him, he could make out an ultraviolet aura and a faint mess of dense curly blonde hair. He managed to garrotte her with his cane. He snorted hard and squinted through the blur of sweat and aural plumes.

As he steadied his breaths, he found his left hand held a knife. He had not yet disarmed his attacker. His hand trembled in the understanding his cane's handle contained a dagger, and that he'd come this close to holding it to a little girl's throat. His hold firmed, even as she tried to stab him over her shoulder.

"Wanda," he heaved. "Wanda, where did that blood come from. The blood you sold me."

"They weren't going to use it anyway." She gagged and squirmed. "Just like you're not going to need yours much longer."

He sheathed his dagger to grab her wrist. He squeezed until she dropped her kitchen knife.

"The storm won't last much longer. I know things look grim, but attacking people isn't going to help."

"No. You've got to let me drag you to the hole." She slammed her bare heel into his right knee and he bawled. No longer restrained, she stood and started kicking at him. He shielded his face. "If you won't let me, go see it yourself."

He strafed her in the leg before she could grab either weapon. He could only pin her in a chokehold by wrapping his legs around hers in his lap. He threw the knife as hard as he could toward the window. He praised that he didn't hear it connect. He took a moment to steady himself again. They'd rolled around in the floor up to the dead center of the drugstore floor. He didn't want her to get free before he had an explanation, so they sat in the web of boreal caustics.

"Wh… what's in the hole?"

"Hunger."

"What's hungry…?"

"No. Hunger is in there."

A shape lurched outside. He clamped a hand over her mouth. The filaments coating the Concourse slumped in front of Sutter Grove, only to struggle to right itself again, resembling someone tangled up in fishnets. Unable to break free, whatever shape deliquesced time and again. The tall, amaranthine figure held long enough to appear to walk toward the GCD front door. 'Choly and Wanda froze. The figure tilted its head around the side of the broken window, to peer in at them. Its form shifted to intimate a leg raised for climbing, but it stopped mid-motion to once again deliquesce in near-inaudible screeching.

A Molotov cocktail spilled flaming oil across the front of the drugstore facade. The ultraviolet aura faded from all new growth in the Concourse, leaving only the coronas of its denizens. When 'Choly let go of Wanda, she fell limp in his arms. His heart heaved. Removing a glove, he confirmed a pulse. He wheezed in relief, only to remember the ants. His eyes still wouldn't wholly focus, but he could make out housecat-sized dark shapes outside. They seemed as out of sorts as the rest of the mall's inhabitants, not marching to the pit but walking there without instruction. The cinema continued on, either entirely unaware of the ants beneath it, or uncaring toward their fates.

"Mindy?" Sticks crouched to step through the broken window. "You still in one piece in here?"

"What was that about me having a sense of self-preservation?"

"Not enough people were doing anything about it." The ghoul glanced down. He'd donned the full soda jerk uniform, and slung on his oiled longshoreman's coat. He was covered in dark pungent smears, likely blood and insect guts. "You had your hands full, even without the ants and whatever— What the fuck even is that shit?"

"They're leafcutter ants. They farm fungus. I… I think that's some kind of fungus."

"You think?"

"Well, nothing I've ever known grew that quickly, or…"

'Choly couldn't form the description for the specter.

"You know you're bleeding, right?"

"Am I?" 'Choly could only loose a weak laugh as Sticks offered him a hand up.

Sticks scooped up Wanda, to follow 'Choly to the back end of the lease.

On his way to the bathroom, glass crunched under 'Choly's foot. He glanced down in the chroma from the living area, to identify that he'd stepped on a single empty Syringer dart.

Go to Next »»»

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[0] Prisoner's Cinema: an optical phenomenon most commonly experienced by those kept in prolonged darkness, or exposed to Cherenkov radiation, wherein the individual "sees" lights which have no source. The experience is named after the initial observations in prisoners kept in dark cells.

[1] Sunflower bears dual association. It ties with the sun, wherein its flowers follow the daily path of the star through the sky. And it ties with radiation, wherein its roots purify exposed sites. The sun is fueled by nuclear fusion, so in a way, one in the same.

[2] "A Stable Lamp Is Lighted." A slightly higher than typical amount of Christian customs have got wefted into the tapestry of Hinter Children's observances, and this includes a handful of hymns. "Rock of Ages" is the most well known to outsiders, owing to their mecca in Vermont, but here they sing "A Stable Lamp" specifically for the ritualistic reverence of a Granitic Mass awakening anew. (Thank you, mydearzampano, for suggesting this hymn.)

[3] Allegory of the panopticon. Here, 'Choly feels empowered by his ability to bear witness, doubly so without witnesses. He's grappling for some mote of control amid an inevitably stressful experience: and he's habituated to annotating and measuring everything.

[4] Phosphenes: Optical effects resulting from various atypical stimulus applied to the eyes: pressure, radiation, chemicals, etc. Prisoner's Cinema is often described as phosphenes. (See also magnetophosphenes, phosphenes generated during exposure to magnetic fields.)

[5] Sigma radiation. The Stefan-Boltzmann constant asserts that the higher the level of energy in an object, the more radiation it emits. It explains, for example, why heated metal brightens. 'Choly's field of science doesn't dip into thermodynamics; here, he's just picked a Greek letter designation that he figures wasn't already in use, since it's so far down the alphabet. The capital variant of sigma is also used in mathematics to signify summation.

[6] Green and red chroma. Lacking the retinal structure for it, the human eye cannot perceive yellow. When we see yellow, it is our brains averaging red and green because they're the next most approximate interpretation. The human brain averages colors in many ways, including how we perceive pink. (See also Stygian and Impossible colors.)

[7] Mise en abyme: Art which contains a replica of itself, implicit of infinite recursion.

[8] Circling back to the comparison of the panopticon and the diorama, as per Anna Friedberg's "The Mobilized and Virtual Gaze in Modernity: Flâneur/Flâneuse," printed in Mirzoeff's Visual Culture Reader, p.261. (In the PDF of the text in the included link, Chapter 22 starts on p.270 of the file, and "The panopticon versus the diorama" is the last of the five pages. The whole chapter is reading-worthy.) Analytic parallels drawn between the panopticon and the diorama, via discussion of the way flânerie impacts behavior. The directionality of optics changes everything about its impact for both source and subject. https://analepsis.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/104915217-mirzoeff-nicholas-ed-the-visual-culture-reader.pdf

[9] 154. The Wire album, esp. "Map Ref 41°N 93°W." Imagery of cartography, and the interstices therein of metrics and actuality.

[10] Lissajous figures are parametric representations of mathematical knots, most often measured either with a pendulum or oscilloscope. See also Lemniscate of Gerono.

[11] Danielewski's House of Leaves. "... imagining performed by the human eye is neither active nor passive. The eye does not need to produce a signal to see nor does an object have to produce a signal in order to be seen. An object merely needs to be illuminated…. Unfortunately, humans lack the spotted neutral hardware present in bars and whales. The blind must rely on the feels light of fingertips and the official shape of a cracked shin. Echolocation comes down to the crude assessment of simple sound modulations, whether in the dull reply of a tapping cane or the low, eerie flutter in one simple word—perhaps your word—flung down empty hallways* long past midnight." *Always.

[12] Stone Tape theory, wherein the crystalline structure of stone can be imprinted with strong energies. It commonly refers to recorded emotional energies as an explanation for haunting as a phenomenon, why ghosts repeat behaviors, and how emotions and personalities become linked with a location.

[13] "I saw the angel in the marble, and carved until I set him free." — Michelangelo

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batmanonthecover · 3 years

Photo

BATMAN #173 - August 1965

Cover Art: Carmine Infantino

SECRET IDENTITIES FOR SALE

Script: John Broome

Art: Sheldon Moldoff as “Bob Kane” (Pencils), Joe Giella (Inks), Gasper Saladino (Letters)

Characters: Batman [Bruce Wayne]; Robin [Dick Grayson]; Commissioner James Gordon; Mayor of Gotham City; Johnny Jason (movie Star); Myra Holt (actress); Mr. Incognito [James Carter] (villain, introduction); Incognito's gang (villains, introduction for all); Elwood Pearson (villain, introduction)

Synopsis: While the Caped Crusaders are raiding the hideout of Mr. Incognito, a photographer takes pictures of the action with a special x-ray film, revealing the criminal's identity. The man offers to provide the identity to the Police for a million dollars while also offering the secret identities of the Dynamic Duo to the underworld for a price.

Batman story #1,095

WALK, BATMAN - TO YOUR DOOM

Script: John Broome

Art: Sheldon Moldoff as “Bob Kane” (Pencils), Sid Greene (Inks), Gasper Saladino (Letters)

Characters: Batman [Bruce Wayne]; Robin [Dick Grayson]; Dr. John Grover; Gotham City District Attorney; Franklin Knott (villain, former lab assistant of Dr. Grover); Bunky Galliver (villain); Galliver's gang (villains)

Synopsis: Batman is asked to investigate when four air-tight cases are blown when the juries involved return "not guilty" verdicts. Batman soon discovers that one juror, Franklin Knott, has been on all four juries in disguise. Knott, who is running for Governor, was a former lab assistant of a Dr. Grover, who had discovered E-rays (which can influence human behavior), and which rays Knott has been using on jury members.

Batman story #1,096

#comics #dc comics #batman #robin #carmine infantino #john broome #sheldon moldoff #sid greene #gasper saladino #joe giella #1965

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epacer · 3 years

Text

Classmates

Gregory Lloyd Johnson, Class of 1975

From Crawford High, to global broadcast entrepreneur....... who knew?

Today we’d like to introduce you to Gregory Johnson.

Greg J is a well-known media marketing executive, event producer, radio broadcaster and global thinker. After serving in the United States Marine Corps as a weapons systems technician aboard the F-4 fighter aircraft, Greg’s professional broadcast career began to definitively form at national urban radio syndicator Bailey Broadcasting Services, headed by urban radio legend Lee Bailey. As Director of Sales and Marketing, he was the catalyst for the development of successful radio promotions and sales strategy for a line up of nationally syndicated programming including the highly acclaimed RadioScope. At 102.3 KJLH, a heritage radio station broadcasting in Los Angeles and owned by music icon Stevie Wonder, Greg served as the Marketing Director for over 20 years, creating, producing and executing a lineup of promotional strategies, campaigns and events. He built and produced a number of well-established music festivals which attracted tens of thousands of attendees in the Los Angeles community. (Of note, 4th of July Fireworks Extravaganza, Knotts Berry Farm Gospel Showcase, Taste of Soul, multiple music festivals commemorating the MLK holiday.

After leaving KJLH, (He)I connected with his partner who (he)I have(has) known for many years from her work as a business leader/influencer in the gospel music industry. Rhonda Love is a writer, filmmaker, marketer, and former Executive Assistant & Scheduler to the Mayor of Long Beach, Dr. Robert Garcia. We began to operate at DreamKreator Studio – our digital media space in the East Village Arts District of Long Beach, CA. Greg’s global reach is predicated on his mantra to build bridges of music arts and culture between Africa and America. To that end, he promotes travel and tourism to Africa, coordinating travel groups to the continent. He is the host and producer of AfroPop Radio, a podcast featuring contemporary African music; he imports his own line of coffee from Cameroon(Kalimba Song Coffee Company) and is a sought after speaker on subjects of African cultural exchange. Greg’s commitment to his community is underscored through his service on the Board of Directors for the West Angeles Community Development Corporation where he serves as Recording Secretary and the Arts Council for Long Beach where he serves as Treasurer. Further Greg has been named among the 100 most influential African Americans in LA four consecutive times.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?

Well, we are, at the foundation, a marketing and media communications company. Being new and independent comes with its own set of challenges. We have to constantly be about the work of letting people know who we are and what we do. We also have to lean into the adaptational use of digital devices by our core audience – meaning folk have to learn how to use the available technology and how to consume our content. Our core audience is the mature adult and the digital transformation moves quick and fast for them. Believe it or not, those are the easy challenges. COVID-19 has changed the entire paradigm of how we consume media so in a way that has been great for us in terms of listener/viewers discovering our content and then discovering how to use it in their daily lives. Safe at Home forces them to use the available technology and learn how to use it. So then we have to be mindful of what value do we bring to the masses? On the other hand, we are still slaves to the parameters that advertisers need in order to place buys with us. Again, we are independent so our corporate name isn’t as well known when contrast against says an IHeart or Radio One… Nonetheless, we relish in our independence and our ability to pivot and adapt to the new media landscape.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?

The Hannibal Media Group strives to be a leader in digital media communications and Lifestyle Marketing. As such, we develop, create and promote a variety of digital media properties which are broadcast across tablets, mobile, streaming and podcast platforms, mobile apps and desktop computers. Our core programming target is the individual who enjoys the urban cultural lifestyle from a decidedly global perspective. We operate out of DreamKreator Studio, a small digital media production facility that I operate with my Partner Rhonda Love. It is from our small space in the East Village Arts District of Long Beach that we conceive, create and execute our brand of media. We are known for our well-documented expertise with music, arts, and events management. This experience provides a powerful backdrop to provide brand marketing solutions by integrating intimately into the lifestyle of the target consumer. While we are very community-minded, we are very intentional about our global outreach, we are dedicated to build a transatlantic bridge of music, arts and culture with the African Continent and the west through online broadcasts, feature films and documentaries, events A legacy of broadcast programming, marketing, advertising sales and promotions along with major events management anchors our reliability and experience.

Our track record illustrates exceptional discernment for new music trends and arts productions. We are most proud of our ability to produce major community festivals as evidenced with the City of Inglewood’s KingFest- an essential part of the City’s Martin Luther King Jr Festivities. This year, COVID-19 canceled our ability to gather together at parades and festivals so we linked with the City of Long Beach and a prominent business development organization known as Leadership Long Beach and created a virtual experience for the community. We had live music performances by Kenny Lattimore, Sy Smith, The Reel Band and Brownsuede. It was viewed by thousands and is still getting raves from across the world even though the 2021 holiday is over. We went on to produce virtual events for the Long Beach Branch NAACP and the Arts Council for Long Beach.

Our innovative brands include: Beach City Radio(www.beachcityradio.com) – our 24 hours online radio station. Beach City Radio is a global platform for the expression of soul, urban pop culture, culturally relevant news and conversation, and community inspiration through the art of music. Beach City Radio reflects the lifestyle of the adult global urban listener 25-49. The station broadcasts both music and talk. BEACH CITY RADIO broadcasts on the worldwide web 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Our music format offers a diverse and relaxing soulful mix of adult contemporary music, classic hiphop, soulful house, soulful jazz and inspirational gospel. Additionally, the station actively seeks to present new and soulful music from the international diaspora. The core Beach City Radio listener is a mature, sophisticated, socially conscious individual. A progressive thought-leader who is self-determining, discerning, well-informed with a global consciousness.

Kalimba Song Coffee Company (www.kalimbasongcoffeecompany.com) – We import our own line of premium Cameroon Boyo coffee direct from farmers in the mountains of Cameroon West Africa. We are linked with a collaborative of 600 small farmers who pick the cherries, mill them and we facilitate the import to the US where they are roasted and sold direct to consumer.

AfroPop Radio (www.theafropopradio.com) – AfroPop Radio is a weekly exhibition of contemporary African Music. We have designed our playlists from charts on the African Continent, conversations with African Radio Personalities, African artists, tastemakers, influencers, record executives, television personalities and various industry pundits. We seek to build a bridge of music, arts and culture between Africa and the US. The podcast has grown exponentially as we explore the deep diaspora that is contemporary African Music. NOt only are we heard wherever you get your podcasts, we have been picked up in Washington DC on 96.3 DC Radio HD4 and dcradio.gov…

Coffee Conversations with Greg J (www.facebook.com/coffeeconversationswithgregj) – This is our twice-weekly, livestreamed mid morning talk show wherein we feature casual yet compelling conversations with influencers from around the globe tackling a variety of subjects. Past guests have included Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, Trombonist Jeff Bradshaw, Broadcasters from all over the African Continent, Congresswoman Maxine Waters, Ambassador Arikana Chihomboro-Quao, Former LAPD Chief Bernard Parks, Dr. Anthony Samad, and many more…

What sort of changes are you expecting over the next 5-10 years?

Certainly, radio has changed right before our very eyes. Pre-COVID, it was already evolving to digital platforms and expressions. I was already cognizant of these changes and started the business with this at the center of my consciousness. But now, in quarantine, the broadcast paradigm shift has accelerated. Thus we are having to pivot, adapt and overcome the circumstances around us. Events, as an example, are not going to happen anytime soon as we know them. So we pivot into the digital space, creating unique experiences for consumers. I also see more culturally relevant podcasts being made available to the masses. Our podcast, AfroPop Radio has grown exponentially as people discover it because of the increased popularity of contemporary African Music. I see the ability for filmmakers to gain more distribution of their work through digital platforms. The day of waiting on the big studio to do whatever it is hey do are over.. The digital paradigm has created new opportunities for creatives. *Reposted article from VoyageLA, April 12, 2021. **Contact information can be found at the following link: http://voyagela.com/interview/community-highlights-meet-gregory-johnson-hannibal-media-group-dreamkreator-studio/?fbclid=IwAR05Cm-Kvs8IKhgWE8ign_83Gpx_TaqXUgq-vwMskeePoCl0s6gKVGaFbTI

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dr-archeville · 5 years

Link

George Knott isn’t going to be Raleigh’s mayor.

The upright bass player and self-described malanthrope says he doesn’t want the job. But he’s running anyway. His campaign — such as it is without fundraising — falls somewhere between a protest and a joke, centered on antipathy toward high-rises and downtown development and hatred of bike lanes and leaf blowers.

There are, to be fair, a few other points of interest, too: a proposed ordinance banning discrimination against LGBTQ people, eliminating the Hillsborough Street roundabouts, abandoning the restrictions on ADUs, and somehow purchasing the remnants of the Durham-Orange light rail line on the cheap.

What the hell. George Knott filed his paperwork, so he gets ten minutes to tell us why he’s kinda-sorta running for mayor.

INDY: You call yourself an impossible candidate in the mayoral race. You’ve raised no money and don't plan to, Your tagline is, “He’s not the only mayoral candidate that doesn’t care about you, but he’s the only one who will come out and say it.” Where did that come from?

GEORGE KNOTT: I've got a theory that anybody who actually wants to run for political office has some sort of a pathological condition. I don’t want to run. I don’t want to be mayor. I’m running for reasons other than me actually wanting to be mayor. I am a malanthrope. I don’t — I love humanity. I don’t like people. I will fight for people who are the underdog, people who are, who have been treated ill by society, but don't show me pictures of your grandkids.

So what are the reasons that you're running, then?

When Nancy [McFarlane] announced that she wasn’t seeking reelection, I knew there would be the potential for great change to happen. And when some of the other candidates started announcing, the change that I was hoping we would have an option for is not there.

What change was that?

People have called me an anti-growth candidate. I’m not anti-growth. I wished Raleigh had been growing organically. I think it would have grown organically. I think that [Charles] Meeker was one of our greatest mayors, and I think that he really set us on the path that, where we could have become an amazing city on our own. But what’s happened since him is, our policies as a city have been to subsidize corporations to come downtown. What happens is we’ll give cash incentives or we’ll give tax abatements and we’ll have these huge companies move downtown and they create jobs, but they don’t create jobs for people who live here. So you get these high-paying jobs, you get new people, they want to live downtown. And it’s, what happens is, you know, like, you know, housing, existing housing gets bought up and torn down and redeveloped. Existing house, the price goes up, [so] you and I, as taxpayers in Raleigh, you’re paying money to subsidize million- and billion-dollar companies to bring in people to raise the price of real estate beyond the point where we can even live here. I think it’s criminal. And I would like somebody to come out and say that. I think that every problem every one of the other candidates talks about, they’re all serious problems. There’s not one thing they’re talking about, that's trivial, but I think almost all of them can be traced directly back to our government subsidizing big business.

But every city offers businesses incentives. And a lot of people who are moving to Raleigh aren’t moving for these tech companies. You say you’re not anti-growth, but some of your policies don’t really read that way. Like, what is this about rolling back lax guidelines in the unified development ordinance?

The first time I looked at that code, there were things like if you tore down a building, the building that you put up couldn’t be any taller than the average of the roof lines. And now it’s not there anymore. There’s like setbacks for these buildings. We have these high-rises that come almost right up to the street. I don’t know when they redid it, five or ten years ago, and the way that the city's changing, it just doesn’t, it doesn’t feel right. It’s a means toward the wrong end.

But cities grow and change. I mean, what’s the alternative to growth?

Um, that’s a good question. And, I mean, that’s a good point.

And people are coming here because there are things about Raleigh that are attractive.

Well, for now. The path we’re on there’s a definite outcome. Like we’re on a path and we’re either gonna end up like San Francisco or we’re gonna end up like Detroit, and there’s no middle ground. And the thing is people who work for a living, it doesn’t matter where we end up ’cause we won’t be able to afford it.

So another one of your platforms is you want to get rid of some of the bike lanes downtown and ban e-scooters. What’s with that?

If you ride a bike on the street, you should ride a bike on the street. The traditional downtown, six by six blocks square, and a lot of the streets are two-lane streets. And on some of the streets, you have the choice between parking and a bike lane. You go to some of the places where there's smaller businesses that have been here for years, for decades, and they don’t have parking lots. They rely on street parking. Of course, the city wants them gone and for high-rises to come up with high-dollar tax income. I think if you ride a bike, you should ride it on the street, and if you ride a scooter you shouldn’t ride a scooter.

But if you ride a bike, you are encouraging more people to use alternative transportation and that helps alleviate the parking issues.

You know what else would it help eliminate parking issues? It's not putting all these high-rises downtown.

Where should we put the high-rises?

The bones of Raleigh cannot support what we are allowing to happen.

What do you mean by “the bones of Raleigh”?

Like the two-lane streets everywhere. This development on Peace and Capital Boulevard. Capital’s four-lane and how many hundreds of people do we expect to put there with their hundreds of cars?

So you're against growth — you're against height, basically. Because if not downtown, then where?

We opened up Research Triangle Park in 1957, and we’ve got the space out there to have really nice big industry. Of course, it’s not sexy to have a big tech company out in RTP anymore. It’s real sexy to have it downtown.

But I mean, those high-rises aren't just holding businesses; they also have residential units, places for people to live where they can walk to their job or use public transportation. And the alternative to building up is urban sprawl, which has a lot of environmental consequences. And that also exacerbates our traffic issues.

And that's true. I mean, I guess there’s no way around it.

I wanted to get to one of your other ideas: banning leaf blowers.

Oh, I hate them. I grew up in North Raleigh, and now I live in Midtown, and I didn't move. Raleigh moved around me. You wake up Saturday morning, it’s nothing but leaf blowers just all over the place. And it’s not only the noise — I mean, leaf blowers are horrible for your yard. Then again, yards of grass are pretty negligent. I wish that everybody would just have a natural lawn, but that’s just me personally. I am proud to have a very brown yard.

Are your neighbors proud of that?

I live in the suburbs so I don’t talk to my neighbors. That’s another artifact of living in the twenty-first century. Nobody knows each other.

Another one of your priorities would be getting rid of red-light cameras.

Oh yeah, sure. So if you run a red light and a police officer stops you, what’s the first thing they ask for?

Your driver’s license.

Yeah. You know why? So they know who committed the offense. But a red-light camera, they send a ticket to your car and then, because you own the car, you are obligated to pay that ticket. I don't think that's — I’m not a lawyer, I'm just a bass player — I don’t think that should be legal.

So you hate people, you hate politics, you’re not raising any money, and you don’t think you’re going to win.

That’s true. But I do think that what I’m talking about is, it might not be the most important, but it should be part of the conversation. Believe it or not, I've gotten a lot of traction from people who’ve lived here for a while, or people who work for a living. You know, people who don’t reap the benefits of having an enormous downtown. So, I don’t know. All I would ask your readers: Every single candidate has a website, and please look at every single one of them because that’s really the most important thing.

Editor’s note: The INDY has previously interviewed Raleigh mayoral candidates Mary-Ann Baldwin, Caroline Sullivan, Charles Francis, and Zainab Baloch.

Contact staff writer Leigh Tauss at [email protected].

Support independent local journalism. Join the INDY Press Club to help us keep fearless watchdog reporting and essential arts and culture coverage viable in the Triangle.

“George Knott told us to grab a photo off of his website. We chose this one.”

#NC #Raleigh #George Knott

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contremineur · 1 year

Photo

Detail from the early 17th century Barkham monument at St George, South Acre (Norfolk)

To the east [of the church] runs a homely, low arcade, dividing off the north aisle. This aisle contains the most significant feature of the church, the Barkham mausoleum of the early 17th century, behind a contemporary wrought iron screen. Sir Edward Barkham, who died in 1623, was a former Lord Mayor of London, and the memorial he shares with his wife Penelope is one of the most delightful in Norfolk. It was made by the Christmas brothers, and features Sir Edward and Lady Penelope lying together, their heads facing west. They are dressed elegantly in the clothes of the day, but it is really the details of the tomb which catch the eye: Life as a young girl, and Death as a grinning, shrouded skeleton, flank the inscription, while an hour glass sprouts gilt wings. Below, two sons and three daughters kneel in prayer, but they seem distracted, lost in thought and peering around corners. Between them, a charnel cage is filled with the skulls and bones of the Barkham dead.

image and text from here, just one entry in Simon Knott’s remarkable gazetteer of the medieval churches of East Anglia

#simon knott #south acre #norfolk #christmas brothers #mausoleum

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lostandbrokenshell · 5 years

Text

Darkest Before Dawn. Part 1

There will be bo pairing with reader and the seed family :) possibly someone else though I haven’t decided yet! Farcry 5 fanfic. Rated M for Mature language and sexual reference. No pairing or plans for smutt.

You took a deep breath in and as you pulled up to your new house. You technically haven’t seen it yet but since the price was so good you didn’t want to wait. The real estate lady was certainly nice, you got the idea she would be fun person to drink with on ladies night. The moving crew dropped everything off yesterday other than the clothes in the jeep with you. Grabbing your bag and putting your long red hair back you step out to get a better look. Its a small cabin with a little garden and shed, the shed had access to a bomb shelter fully stocked already.

“So this is home now.” You mumbled to yourself as she walked up and put your bag just inside the door. You wanted to check out the shelter, it felt weird being excited about it in a way but in another way its a great reason to buy more fun guns. Before you could finish your thought though someone stumbled from the bush he looked at you like a deer in head lights for a second.

“Hope you’re cool and not a narc, you didn’t see me!” He says as he ducks into your cabin moments before a cruiser pulls in.

“Evening, Joanne or Rookie” he said with a small chuckle as he got out “Wasn’t expecting to see you untill tomorrow but you wouldn’t of happen to see a man come through here? Wears a baseball cap and green hoodie?”

“Sounds serious Sheriff what he do?” You asked your curiosity was the worst, you should just tell him but you wanted to know first.

“Arson mostly, he’s known to make his own flamethrower and set things on fire.”

“No shit! He makes his own flamethrowers? Do they ever blow up or anything?” You asked, probably a little more excited than should be as the Sheriffs face shifted. “Sorry Sheriff, no, haven’t seen anyone yet your my first official visit. Sorry I couldn’t help more.”

“No problem, Welcome to Hope County Deputy Knight.” He said with a big smile he gave her a nod as he got back in and drove away.

“You are officially my favourite officer ever! Thanks for not narcing on me. The names Charlemagne Victor Bowshaw, but you can call me Sharky.” He said as he stuck his hand out. Smiling you take it.

“Cant do that all the time for ya, honestly it was the homemade flamethrower that won me into not giving you up. Joanne Hope Knight, you can call me Jojo.”

“Well your pretty fucking cool for the popo Jojo.” Sharky said with a big grin “I tell you what i will drop off a flamethrower for you! I got to get going though Sheriff left in that direction do im going in this one!” He said as he ran off into the bush as quick as he had appeared. You watched him in amusement hopining more of hope county was like this. Smiling you headed back inside and pulled up your bag the letter was poking out of the side pocked a little. Your smile dissapeared. For years you wondered, looked and now that you found them something wasnt right. You pick the letter up and look at it again.

Dearest Joanne,

We hope this finds you in good health. We have been looking for you for some time and we thank God that we have been able to find you. Our family is not complete without you, we hope you find your way into Hope County where we can meet in person as its been so long. We where just children when they split us up but we have been and always will be family. Its not to late Joanne, its never to late to start a new home to be with family.

Love Joseph Seed.

You dont remember your life much before adoption. You remember the farm a bit and the fire. John held you as you watched it burn and Jocob told you ‘They cant hurt you anymore’ and Joseph stood there with you all as it burned. After that you went through a few foster homes before being adopted they moved to Canada where you stayed. Even after your adoptive parents moved back, you even lived in Canada up until your adopted parents died. So you decided to move back and change carrer path try something new. Thats when Joseph started sending you letters, he probably couldn’t find you before because you where in Canada. You forgot about them in a way until that first letter and it felt weird being their because of it. The family you forgot, but never stopped loving. You didn’t tell Joseph you where in town, or that you where a new Deputy. You even took a blind leap of faith and did as little looking into the town as possible so you can experience it fresh and new. Sighing you look out the window it was getting dark and tomorrow was a big day so you decided to go to bed.

Pulling up to the station first day of duty, your stomach is in knotts, the uniform itched and it was hot. Taking a deep breath you rest your head on the steering wheel releasing your breath slowly you get and head to the door. The Sheriff was talking with a man in a Marshel vest and an older gentleman in a sweater vest.

“I want to move on this today, not tomorrow. We have the warrant, we know where he is lets move.”

“The Mayor and i agree, this is something that definitely needs to be delt with but its delicate. You need to...”

“Get your men, get in the chopper and lets move out.” The Marshal demanded angerly as he stormed past you out the door.

“Welcome to Hope County Sheriffs Department.” Whitehorse said with a big sigh and nodd to you. He rubbed his temples and looked you up and down for a second sizing you up. “Awe shit, i cant bring a shiny new rookie on this dammit. Spend the day inventoring learn where everything is, office and papper work is over there. Storage for guns and ammunition there anything else ask one of the other Deputies. Pratt, Hudson, Nancy lets go over the plan.” He said as he turned away and headed to the back room three deputies in tow all looking at each other. You don’t know how long they talked in there before leaving but after a few hours there was the sound of panic so you stopped inventorying the amo.

“Wow, usually this busy and chaotic? You ask as you head over to the radio where everyone was huddled.

“Lost contact with the sheriff, the long range radio is out it looks like Carl busted it before he took off for whatever reason.”

“He might of ran to look for his wife, Nancy you know? One of the Deputys that went with the Sheriff those peggies are scary shit alright?!”

“Well what the fuck can we do? Two, no three deputies but ones a shiny rook. What the fuck do we do?”

“Gentlemen geez.” You interupt annoyed “Give the shiny rookie a map with last know coordinates. You two hold the fort while the expendible checks it out, I’ll grab a short range radio and check in.” They stopped arguing and nodded.

“Sure you up for this?”

“Its part of the job someone needs to.” You reply as you turn to head to the storage to grab some gear. It didn’t take long for them to have map ready or for you to hit the road. It didn’t take long for you to see some smoke in the distance. You put your foot down a little harder something wasn’t sitting right. You where fairly close to the smoke billowing into the sky when you noticed a bunch of people on the side of the road. It wasn’t until you where to close that you noticed the guns, they opened fire and you swerved to try and get away. The Jeep stopped and you jump out on use it for cover and grab your weapon.

“Hope County Deputy Knight, put your weapons down.” You yell and they replied with more bullets just white truck sped off of the side road and and hit the group of people and stopped. You look over the Jeep to see the Marshal in the truck.

“Get in the fucking truck these people are crazy.” He yelled at you, you didn’t need much more motivation you seen two more trucks speeding towards you. You ran to the passenger side and jumped in. “They brought the helicopter down, fucking Nancy was one of them, fuck these people are fucked.” You where sure there was probably more to that but the sounds of bullets hitting the back of the truck. It looked like he was going to yell at you to shoot back but you where already leaning out the window.

“Holly fuck, do they have air support?” You yell as you pull back in as a plan also followed in behind the trucks and opened fire.

“This is fucked up, this is FUCKED UP!” He yelled as he swerved onto a different road and you try to lean out to shoot at the trucks still following. But the where putting distance between you.

“Their pulling back.” You yell.

“Hold on, theres a road block by they bridge, shoot em!” You turn forward and start clearing apath to push through. The second you cleared it you heard the plane come in from behind you and you get back into the cab.

“What the fuck is goi...” you never got to finish the scentace the road before you exploded. There was cheers from the people as the truck fell towards the water. You don’t remember hitting the water or the stuggle to get out, but you heard the marshal as you laid on the shore as the darkness crept up over you. He was yelling at them to let him go and you fell into the pitch black.

#farcry 5 fanfic #farcry5 #oc #darkest before dawn #seed family

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tvguidancecounselor · 2 years

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TV Guidance Counselor Episode 543: RJ City

January 21 -27, 1956

This week Ken welcomes professional wrestler, podcaster, YouTube sensation and kindred spirit RJ City to the show.

Ken and RJ discuss being in Toronto, Alison Rosen, doing too much work, wrestling, Ethel Mirman, TV tapings, Ravishing Rick Rude, Stand Up Comedians, Ken's ignorance to Canadian wrestlers, grandmothers introducing RJ to old show biz, vaudeville, how nothing really changes, Lipstick and Dynamite, Gorgeous George, Milton Berle, the search for the wrestling episode of the Mike Douglas Show, John Mikel Thor, Mason Reese, Charles Nelson Riley, how somehow nobody "knows", getting a Cameo from Ruth Buzzi, Lidsville, The Sid & Marty Kroft amusement park, Lawrence Welk, creepy cult vibes, One Toke Over the Line, weird accents, racial insensitivity, Fred Penner's Place, Mr. Dressup, working at CBC, missing Degrasi, I Love Lucy, The Hilarious House of Frightenstein, Wyatt Earp, having the first name "Welcome", shooting poker chips, Hugh O'Brien, hideous old male comedians, Shirley McClain, Dick Dale on Lawrence Welk?, Wally Cox, Ernie Kovacs, Edie Adams, The Gentlemaniacs, Sidney Lumet, plays on TV, Kathleen Freeman, Mayor of the Town, Jerry Lewis, David Arquette, evil Jerry Lewis, The King of Comedy, telethons, You Can Quote Me, game shows, publishers, the effects of smoking on human skin, finding graves, loving Phil Silvers, talking to Dick Cavett, Don Knotts, Red Skelton, Anthony Perkins, Bates Motel: The Series, Budd Cort, Rich Little's impressions, Cleo the talking Dog, Jackie Cooper, cheesecake photography, Howling II, Monkey Phases, Wayne and Shuster, comedy by the man, Lorne Michaels, Bob and Ray, the movie "Who?", the Lawrence Welk fan club, Champagne music, blimp hangars, Bishop Sheen, Oral Roberts, getting set up with Charro, Xavier Cugat, bizarre mustaches, Where They Are Now, and the strange UFO obsession of Jackie Gleason.

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foofygoldfish · 6 years

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deputy alice riley

Soooooooooo this is gonna be long, but it’s pretty much anything you could ever want to know about alice lol

her full name is Claire Alice Riley, though she pretty much only goes by Alice. Staci calls her Allie, and she haaates it.

She was born in Falls End on October 30th, 1992.

Her face claim is Anya Taylor-Joy, just shorter (5′) and with pink hair. She naturally has dark brown hair, though when her hair isn’t pink, she dyes it blonde.

Her childhood in Fall’s End was fairly average - her sister was annoying (Jane was the designated babysitter, and hated it), so was her brother (he loved frogs and spiders, she… didn’t; though she got him back by her loving snakes and him being terrified of them, which is still true), her parents were happily married. The car crash happened after a Girl Scout’s meeting (the troop disbanded not long after, but not because of the crash) that her dad picked her up from. She came out with a broken arm and a concussion, but that was it. She doesn’t really remember much from the few hours before or after the crash. A few years after, the Sheriff had Jane (who had custody at this point) send her and Caleb to California, where her aunt and uncle were her legal guardians. Her uncle is a chef for big events, so he had weird hours, but they were able to live comfortably and (to Alice’s amazement, Caleb’s disdain) to have passes to Disneyland and Knott’s Berry Farm. Her aunt works in the industry and travels a lot, but both of them tried to be home more for the first few weeks after the twins moved in. The twins were both involved with theatre, but Caleb is the one with the real acting talent - Alice thought about being a voice actor, but it’s more of a hobby for her than anything.

Her family owns the Fall’s End Garage - she’s not the best at the mechanical side of running the shop, but she’s pretty good at running the business side of things. She wanted to ban peggies from the shop, but Jane wouldn’t let her.

Lives in the house behind the garage in Fall’s End - it was her parents, her sister kept it after she moved in with her then-boyfriend - she didn’t want to stay, but nobody was really looking to buy houses at that point, so she boarded it up for the twins. Jane joined after the house was “given” to Alice, so the house was fine.

She misses LA like crazy, especially once winter hits. She loves having rainy days again, but ten years of no winter? Her dream.

Her brother, Caleb, thinks the testy festy is hilarious, and after everything is over, is so mad that he missed it. Alice doesn’t agree with him. At all.

She’s technically Catholic - she was baptised, went to her first communion, and then pretty much stopped going to church. She goes to Pastor Jerome’s masses for the comfort and traditions when she moves back, but she doesn’t really believe.

She loves being on the water. She prefers surfing and kayaking, but adapts to the lakes and rivers of Hope County quickly. She’s not a huge fan of fish, but she starts to like fishing at some point. She definitely prefers it to hunting, and if given the choice, will definitely go fishing.

Speaking of hunting... Alice has a habit of darting off into a field of bliss when she’s bored hunting in the Henbane. She doesn’t actively do drugs, and doesn’t want to be an angel, but... She gets bored. And has impulse issues sometimes.

The Seeds tease/taunt her because of her height - she doesn’t even come up to Jacob’s shoulder, which I also think is kinda hilarious lol. Staci used to tease her too, but the entire department learned not to/were told by Whitehorse to stop (unless she can’t reach something and she doesn’t have anything to climb on)

When everything’s done, she helps Grace open up a little cafe. There’s plenty of people to help run it, and she thinks that (after a nice vacation) it would be good for Grace, and eventually Jess as well.

The Sheriff forces her to take a vacation after everything. She tries to go back to just being the Junior Deputy, but she gets roped into continuing to help the resistance. She pretty much takes over Virgil’s responsibilities as mayor, and helps to set up a small school for the few kids left in the county.

If you’ve seen Wynonna Earp - she has the same blue and white truck as Wynonna. She came back to Fall’s End with her little electric car, but that isn’t really feasible to keep using, so she took it up to Missoula one day and sold it. The salesman tried to sell her a fancy new truck, but she was happy with the one Jane had kept for her.

Most called gun for hire: Jess and Grace. She’s not the best at being sneaky, and her eyes aren’t the best for sniping (she had an optometrist appointment for a week after the initial mission, she obviously missed it), so she almost has one or both of them with her. When she needs to just fuck shit up, she’ll call Sharky, though

She started at the sheriff’s office as a secretary - it was a job, and she’d be able to look after her sister (“who didn’t need looking after” but there had been some fainting spells), and then after Hudson’s partner died, Whitehorse told her that she could apply for the role, and she took him up on that.

If she did join the cult, she’d have a fairly nondescript position - probably something administrative, as that’s what her degree is in. Definitely something behind the scenes and non-violent.

Fucking loves disaster movies. She’s a slut for disaster movies. Like, she’ll sit through all the shitty SyFy channel ones as well as the big budget ones (San Andreas is one of her favorites - it’s so cheesy, but it has Dwayne Johnson and Alexandra Daddario, AND GIANT FUCKIN EARTHQUAKES. And the guy from Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries who is a total teddy bear)

She doesn’t really like planes or helicopters - if they are needed, she’ll get Nick or Addie. She knows enough to take off and land, but she’ll avoid flying herself if at all possible. The mission where Kim has her take Carmina and blow up peggie supplies? Fucking terrifying.

She rock climed and did some parkour back in LA. She didn’t keep up with it when she moved, but it obviously comes in handy...

Alice has two cats: Crookshanks and Data. They are both huge Norwegian forest cats, Crookshanks is an orange tabby, and Data is a grey tabby. When she’s not home, Mary May happily takes care of them.

She has a shitton of anxiety problems. She had a decent supply of meds when shit went down.

She has a major panic attack after driving Nick and Kim to the clinic. Even without the shit all over the road, she was terrified that she would crash and hurt or kill the Ryes.

Relationships:

Jane - She’s 8 years older than Alice. Alice absoultely does not approve of her relationship with John, and is horrified when she finds out that her sister married the fucker.

Caleb - Both of them are horrible at keeping in contact, so he’s not worried at all when she goes off the radar.

Joseph - She thinks he’s full of shit lol

John - Direct quote from when she’s told her sin is wrath: “No, it’s not wrath, it’s I fucking hate you.” Once they’re able to laugh about it, Hudson doesn’t let her live that down.

Faith - Uh, she obvs thinks Faith is the cutest. She has a hard time keeping her sass to an angry level, rather than super flirty.

Jacob - They fucked. After the Rye’s barbeque with the infamous watery mac n cheese. I still haven’t figured out why? She hates him now, and absoultely regrets the one night stand (...mostly. She thinks.)

Mary May - Her childhood best friend. They tried to keep in contact after Alice moved, but they eventually both moved on - Alice with new friends in LA, Mary May with helping to run the bar.

Pastor Jerome - He doesn’t mind that she isn’t a practicing Catholic, and welcomes her with open arms. She tries to get people to go to his church again after everything, to mixed levels of success.

Dutch - She’s not a huge fan of him, but she’s grateful for his help, and he is grateful for what she does and how she helps Jess.

Eli - He can’t reconcile the image of the Junior Deputy and the Alice he knows in his head - she doesn’t act anything like the rumors flying around the county, but he loves her (as a friend).

Tracey - They don’t get along very well - it’s a very strained, very professional relationship. Tracey knows that Alice likes Faith, and is very worried that she’ll be too soft on her.

Virgil - She loves his pins, which makes her super cool in his book. They quickly become friends, and he becomes a sorta mentor to her before his death.

Nick and Kim - Nick finds it hilarious that she hates planes so much, and he only uses it to tease her sometimes. Nick quickly becomes like an older brother to her, and she spoils Baby Rye rotten after she’s born.

Adelaide - Also amused by Alice’s feelings on flying, but doesn’t bring it up often as Alice was a frequent visitor to the marina before shit went down. Adelaide doesn’t understand Alice’s crush on Faith, but she will tease her about it (as long as Alice doesn’t defect).

Grace - The two met once before Grace’s parade, and then again at Alice’s dad’s funeral. They get along pretty well, and Alice always has her with her when liberating outposts or doing anything that requires her to have good vision.

Hurk - He drives her insane. She thinks he’s funny, and a really nice guy, but he’s so loud.

Sharky - On the other hand, she loves Sharky. She teases him about the time he puked on Grace every time he mentions having an upset stomach. They’ve drunkenly kissed a few times, but they both try and act like it didn’t happen.

Jess - In the main story? Her girlfriend by the end of the game. Jess teaches her how to hunt properly, even though Alice hates it. Jess joins in her teasing of Sharky about the puking. She hates it when Jess uses the fire arrows - Sharky and Hurk already set her clothes on fire, she doesn’t need it from her super-stealthy person! At the end of everything, she tries to convince Jess to play video games (instead of killing people), to some but not much success.

Relationship wise: They start off with drunken kisses, then one night stands, and then realise that the amount of one night stands (and nights when they fall asleep together) they have mean they’re kinda girlfriends.

Fangs - She sleeps with Boomer in her bed every night, despite her cats protests. She’ll cuddle with Peaches and Cheeseburger when it’s cold and she’s outside, but it’s a little harder to get the two of them inside the house.

Marshal Burke - She thinks he’s a decent person, a little egotistical, but decent. She’s super shocked when he shoots himself.

Whitehorse - He’s part of the reason she starts to not mind fishing. He’s her surrogate dad, and has been looking out for her since her dad died. They’re both relieved to see each other after the crash.

Hudson - She’s not too sure about Alice at first, but she quickly becomes protective of the “city girl,” and willingly does all of the night driving.

Staci - Her brother’s ex-best friend (for the same reasons as with Mary May). She didn’t really get past “I tolerate you” until the events of the game. After he’s rescued, they become platonic cuddle buddies, even after he starts his thing with Stella. They both agree to not tell Caleb exactly what happened to both of them.

#deputy alice riley #oh lordy this is longer than i anticipated and i still cut out half of what i have in the word doc #apologies to anyone on mobile

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