A fully vetted account of likely events.

 

I am carefully warming a pretend dish inside the sanitizer. Just to the right of the sanitizer, you'll find a precious booklet decked out with commemorative stickers. My step-brother waits outside. His curb is still littered with detritus. I'm done making calls, the likes of which have kept some folks active for days. I have been warned to not attempt to relive vaunted moments. This seems like a good time to circulate photos for maximal effect. The habits of our elders provide no excuses when our own regulations are on the line. I have taken some myself. The impact was nil, but no one ever said boo about the incandescent sound values which would erupt in  a shallow quarter. People are better off when they believe something is being done. In their own name or not, you'll know them by the way the powder snakes across the parking lot in their stead. No use giving up the ghost if even one child can be saved. Or, at least that's what they want me to say to avoid subliminal repercussions. It will all come out.

As I try to lead our newest trainees in a Festival Song, the structural integrity of the Rec Center is called into question. I lead the last available witness to describe the process whereby most of us can expect to be shunted. As he gently delivers his remarks, I can't shake the feeling that one of us has swallowed a bill of goods, hook, line and sinker. He sits in the back seat of my sedan while I confer with a veteran officer. The officer lays it on the line pure and simple: there's no choice but to get this kid to the hospital on the double. If I told you right now that I was somehow totally ignorant of the fact that this guy was lying through his teeth, then you'd have every right to call me on my shit. But since I have no intention of laying out an entire panoply, maybe you should just relax for once in your life, okay?

So, once we were certain that our names had achieved pride of place on a transnational waiting list, I felt that I could now guarantee no less than six period-perfect lineaments would be deposited in our duty locker. It's all we would ever need to start enhancing our appearances before one or more mobility-challenged miscreants had absorbed all the lessons and made a clean break. My own timing had been decidedly 'off'. There was a noticeable snapping sensation in my left foot, which wouldn't earn me any plaudits from accessorized bensonites. I felt certain that a person in my position could no longer afford any cracks in my probationary heptacion. What with all the runaways in our midst, someone would have to speak ground-level truth or expect to find an anonymous note in their folder. I outright refuse to hold our leaders hostage to contemporary fashion trends. If anyone doesn't like the looks of this, then I've got news for them. As for the rest of you, please.

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