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A grove
The original entry

Ah, a more cheerful entry. Let's see how I can lecture you with it.

Oh, yes, I do recall that I was invited to a picnic at Alison's. I shall certainly be there with bells on. Hope against hope I am not being literal. And I shall attend for far longer than a few minutes.

I don't know why you would be stingy with your time when you were invited to a picnic. It sounds foolish. What better activity could you have had on your schedule?

Alison lived up a mountain. I imagine driving up dirt roads to get to her house, though I cannot be certain that is not a confabulation at this point. Living so far from town and other children did much to make Alison the person she was. She was eerily, charmingly adult when many of her peers were not. She had to be, as most of her company were grownups and she was bereft other people to imitate. It led to a certain contempt in her for her generation and a fondness for a woman a few years older than her with a Janeane Garofalo sarcasm, herself imitating cinema idols.

I think that I can remember this picnic or at least flashes of it. It was in a grove on the mountain. You cut a sandwich with too big a knife that you carried in your bag, thinking that seemed cool. The whole thing felt sacred, in a way, and exciting. To be with people you liked, being overdramatic in the woods, far enough from the nearest town to feel secluded, young enough not to know any better.

I'm grateful that you held onto a friendship with Alison as long as you did.

How could I not, I so adore the nice marble pedestal that Alison offers me. Well, not so much her, as her cutie-pie friends.

I don't recall this as well. Alison's friends thought overly well of you. You carried a small myth about you. Alison used to say that she could ask any new person around her age which of their friends you had dated, which does make you sound sluttier than you were. You were outgoing, however, and knew by proxy several hundred people.

Adulthood does not allow for this. People move away, the internet distracts them, and whatever myth once followed at your heels dissolves. I have a few reliable friends, more now than a few years ago, and we rarely have picnics on mountains or expect to.

As for my breeding plans, I have none... actually, personally I don't, but that is very serious, long and sad story that I will share with you later, if promised complete confidence.

I don't know about sad. Anxiety-provoking, maybe. Why would you be sad about it? Why it would be a long story? You grew up around children of all ages thanks to your mother babysitting. You never felt the desire to be their father. I like my student, I love my niblings, but I feel a little too restricted by just having pets. The world has enough people who can be nurtured and loved.

I am just very protective over Zanna and there is something so terribly ironic about an Aryan skinhead dating an atheist Jewish princess. I am sure to appreciate the humor in it.

I don't remember this boy, but I suspect he didn't last long in Wren's affection. You were protective of Wren. You loved him--actually loved him, not just liked him a great amount--and worried about what the world could do to him.

You are not around for much of that, however. He seems to have handled the world well.


Thomm Quackenbush is an author and teacher in the Hudson Valley. He has published four novels in his Night's Dream series (We Shadows, Danse Macabre, Artificial Gods, and Flies to Wanton Boys). He has sold jewelry in Victorian England, confused children as a mad scientist, filed away more books than anyone has ever read, and tried to inspire the learning disabled and gifted. He is capable of crossing one eye, raising one eyebrow, and once accidentally groped a ghost. When not writing, he can be found biking, hiking the Adirondacks, grazing on snacks at art openings, and keeping a straight face when listening to people tell him they are in touch with 164 species of interstellar beings. He likes when you comment.