Deborah Fuentes Wants You to Read This.

 

Yes, it's true: most of us here still live in the shadow of our initial exposure. I've stored some of the parts which I pilfered in the nearby ruins. The rest were sold at auction to recoup expenses. The two boys who were tardy caught up eventually. We were so lucky that it never occurred to them to dream about what we'd been through. If it had, then they might've been in a better position to provide a more accurate oral history than the one for which they were originally cited in the charging documents. It may sound funny coming from a person like me, but I'll never get over the weird sounds they made when we pulled in later the next day, seemingly without a care in the world.

I took her temperature the following week, and, just as I suspected, her exposure was minimal at best. This alone counted for a lot since she'd sworn up and down that she'd never spent more than five or ten seconds finalizing her plan to look through my things for a non-descript item just to get my goat. Due to my allergies, whenever it appeared that the Sun would emerge victorious from a malific cloudbank, I'd have to transfer some funds to an off-shore account as a kind of 'insurance policy'. I was guaranteed five weeks a year on the mainland. In the event of a man-made disaster, only one or two of us were to be released into the general population. I'd placed all my cards at the bottom of the deck. To infer otherwise would mark you as grossly insensitive at best. At worst, some of the guys who work in the mess hall are under my direct control. Please, just do the math. It won't let you down, is all I'm trying to say.

A pair of dilapidated slippers provided the last piece of the puzzle. I'd gone over and over the color scheme of our boldest outfits. Anyone who wanted to play ball with us wouldn't fare so well without at least one salient diagram under their belts. To live in such a way that folks on the outskirts start to get even the mildest inkling became a sort of 'prime directive' as we moved forward. I let it be known that any controversial opinions should be left at the entryway. Either way, after we culled a disingenuous supervisor from the Gang of Eight, anyone still experiencing cold feet would now be able to skate through to a definitive appointment. For my own part, I'll never forgot those who had tried and failed to injure my pride at the expense of a week or two in an improvised infirmary. One day I expect to see them holding a cotton ball behind each ear, looking for all the world like every intransigent Coach it's been my distinct pleasure to throw head first out of the back door of an ambulance racing to stanch yet another troubling incident. Does that help you?

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