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221bsunsettowers · 3 years

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Tarlos: Found Forever on a Field Trip

I’m a few days late, but here’s my story for Day 6 of Carlos Reyes Week @carlosreyesweek, “What If/AU”! I'm a preschool teacher, so the Fire Safety Squad is based off of a field trip I take my students on, and while I've sadly never met TK and Marjan on said field trips, much of the rest is based off real experiences of mine (including the garbage can bathroom on the school bus, a story in and of itself). And like Carlos, while my job can be absolutely exhausting, I love it so much!

Found Forever on a Field Trip

Carlos has been taking his preschool class on a field trip to Fire Safety Squad for years.

But this year, there's a new firefighter volunteering to teach the children about fire safety...

An AU featuring Preschool Teacher Carlos and Firefighter TK.

Can also be read on A03

The school bus pulled up to Fire Safety Squad, and the twenty preschool students on the bus squealed and screamed in excitement, only their old school seat length seat belts keeping them from hurling their bodies up and into the aisle.

Luckily Carlos was no newbie at this.

Having taken his class on a field trip to this same spot three years running, he had his large coffee with an extra shot of expresso balanced in one hand as he exited the bus, counting heads as he steered the children and their chaperones to the sidewalk outside the building. "Franny, you know you have to stay with your chaperone!" Carlos called out towards a young girl sprinting towards the front door, before reaching out and gently turning a young boy's hand upside down, the dirt the child had been about to throw at his classmate dropping to the ground instead.

"Mr. Russell, please remember that you are not allowed to show the children videos on your phone," Carlos reminded a father, keeping a smile on his face and his voice full of cheer as he saw the man scowl and shove his phone in his pocket seconds into a Paw Patrol episode. "We're about to go inside anyway, which is so exciting!"

Facing his class, Carlos couldn't keep the grin off his face. He was already exhausted at 9:30 AM, a child had had to pee in the bus' trash can because they couldn't hold it anymore (even though they had gone right before they had boarded), and he had heard Baby Shark a minimum of thirteen times in a row, but as he looked at all the eager faces, he was reminded all over again why he loved his job. "We're about to go inside friends, so remember to stay with your chaperone, listen to the firefighters, and have fun!"

"Yay!" Carlos heard the children yell as he led them inside. Stopping at the front desk, Carlos pulled the field trip file from his backpack, passing over the permission slips, waivers, and payment information before sheparding his class to sit criss cross applesauce on the floor. Lowering himself down next to him, his students immediately tried to get as close to him as possible, pressed up against both of his arms, poking him in the back, and one even sitting on his foot.

"This is the best, Mr. Reyes!" Franny exclaimed, clapping her hands together as she stared around the space. "Are there going to be real firefighters right here?"

"There sure are," a voice answered back, and Carlos turned his head, and oh, this man must be new here, because Carlos knew he would never have been to forget him if he'd seen him before. Green twinkling eyes, beautiful big smile, and those arms the AFD t-shirt showed off...Carlos forced himself to blink, but he knew he'd been caught staring when the man winked at him and grinned.

Carlos pretended he was propping his face up in his hands just to hide his red cheeks from his students, their parents, and said firefighter. He heard the man laugh, and then he heard him start speaking.

"Hi everyone, I'm Firefighter Strand, welcome to Fire Safety Squad!" The children screamed and clapped, but when Carlos raised his hand, they all raised a hand and settled back down. Firefighter Strand gave Carlos an impressed nod, before turning back to the students. "My friend here is Firefighter Marwani." She raised her hand and waved.

"We're here to teach you all about fire safety," Firefighter Marwani said with a smile, pointing at the organized pile of equipment in front of them. "Now, when we go to help put a fire and help people, we have to wear a lot of special clothes and carry a lot of special tools. And we have to put them on super fast as soon as the alarm sounds."

"How fast do you think we can put all this stuff on?" Firefighter Strand called out with a grin, and the children all started shouting at once, guessing anywhere from a second to infinity minutes. His students helped the firefighters count down from three to zero, and then they were clapping and cheering as the two raced to get everything on correctly as quickly as possible.

When they had finished, the firefighters talked the students through every piece of their uniform and every tool, explaining what they were for. They made sure the children saw them in their full gear, so they would know never to be scared if a firefighter came to help save them from a fire, and showed an example of a fire safety plan they could make with their families in case of an emergency.

Then the children were released into the play areas of the building, where they could climb stairs and slide out of a play building with fabric flames, try on child size firefighter uniforms, drive mini fire trucks and motorcycles, and even play in a real decommisioned fire truck. Carlos watched with a wry grin as the parent chaperones took off running after their extremely hyped up group members, trying to convince them to all make the same choice of where they wanted to go first.

"Agnes, please wait your turn, Lucy got there first, you can slide down right after her!" Carlos called out, waving at the children who grinned mischeviously back at him.

"How did you even see that happening?" Firefighter Strand's voice came from over Carlos' shoulder.

"When you get your teacher certification, you also get a pair of eyes in the back of your head," Carlos said with a laugh, turning around and freezing as he ironically realized just how close he and the firefighter were actually now standing.

"Well, if they're as pretty as your normal eyes..." The firefighter said with a soft smile, ducking his head, and Carlos was delighted to find he wasn't the only one with blush-tinted cheeks. "I'm TK. Are teachers allowed to have first names?"

"We are in fact," Carlos teased, smiling back at TK. "Mine is Carlos."

"Well it's very nice to meet you, Carlos," TK grinned, reaching out to shake Carlos' hand.

***

One year later, Carlos got off the school bus balancing two large coffees. "Friends, it is not a choice to run at the squirrels!" he called out, three of his students sighing as they turned back from their prey. "Everyone, please sure you stay with your chaperones! Let's do a head count and then we can head inside!"

Pushing the front door of Fire Safety Squad open, Carlos headed for the front desk, exchanging smiles with the receptionist as he passed over their paperwork. "It's all he's been talking about all week," she said with a wink.

"He's as bad as my students, I swear," Carlos laughed, before ushering his students to sit criss cross applesauce on the floor. Before he could lower himself down, he felt a familar pair of arms around his waist, and turned to meet TK's twinkling eyes and beaming smile.

"Hey there baby," Carlos said softly, meeting TK's grin with one of his own before handing over one of the coffees. Firefighter Marwani, now Marjan to Carlos, winked at them before quickly gaining the students' and parents' full attention. With all eyes elsewhere, Carlos leaned in, lightly brushing a kiss against TK's waiting lips. "I missed you."

"Three hours is an awfully long time to be apart," TK bantered back, intertwining their fingers. Raising Carlos' hand, he lay a kiss across his knuckles. "I missed you too, sweetheart. I miss you every second we're not together." Carlos blushed, and TK beamed. "Love that I can still do that to you even after a year."

"Well I love you," Carlos answered with a smile, squeezing TK's hand.

"I love you too," TK said, leaning in for one more kiss before stepping back. "And now I must go, for my other adoring fans await!" With a dramatic bow, TK hurried over to the group of children, who started up a new round of cheering now that they got to have two real firefighters in front of them.

Laughing, Carlos joined his students on the floor, and was immediately glomped onto by as many children as possible. He saw TK's eyes grow soft before he launched into his speech. "Hi everyone, I'm Firefighter Strand-Reyes, welcome to Fire Safety Squad!"

My Tarlos taglist (if you want to be added, let me know!): @bikingthroughhawkins @officereyes @i-had-bucky @highqualitykhakis @meloingly

#carlos reyes week #tarlos #9-1-1 lone star #fanfic #fanfiction #writing #au #alternate universe #first meeting #firefighter tk #teacher carlos #carlos x tk #tk x carlos #strand-reyes #marjan is there too #soft boys #they are both great with kids #and adorable #field trip fanfic time

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femalechibiblogger · 4 years

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My Top 10 Most Tragic Villains

1. Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader

Anakin Skywalker is one of the most important characters in the Star Wars franchise. In the first movie, Anakin is only mentioned and is described as being a skilled Jedi Knight, a good pilot, and was also a good friend. Even in the prequels and cartoons that came years later, Anakin is shown to be kind, caring, and determined to save those closest to him. However...no one would have expected a great Jedi and friend to become the most infamous villain in the series. Anakin’s darker feelings, such as anger and jealousy, made him vulnerable to the Dark Side of the Force. When he has visions of his pregnant wife, Padme, dying in childbirth, Anakin is determined to do anything that he can to stop his vision from coming true...including betraying his friends, killing children, and helping a Sith Lord conquer the galaxy. However, Padme still dies, and Anakin becomes the Sith Lord: Darth Vader. Anakin had lost everything...his friends, his wife, everyone...and now all he had left was Emperor Palpatine and the Empire. But for many years, Anakin was unaware that his children had survived: His son Luke, and his daughter Leia. In the end, Anakin chooses to save Luke from Palpatine, and dies knowing that his son never gave-up on him.

Despite Darth Vader having been a villain, he is only a villain because he was deceived and tormented until he lost everything and everyone who loved and cared about him. For many years, Anakin was haunted by his past actions, and lived in great regret of what he had done. But in the end, we see that he still had some good left in him, as Palpatine could never destroy Anakin’s love for his children.

2. Arthur Fleck/Joker (2019)

Arthur Fleck is the main character of the original DC Comics story in the movie, Joker. Arthur is shown to be a mentally ill man who suffers from uncontrollable laughter due to a brain injury, who lives with his delusional and emotionally disturbed mother. Arthur worked as a clown, but his dream was to become a comedian. However, Arthur had been mocked by many people in Gotham, which caused him to kill three men who were harassing both him and a woman on a train. Arthur’s actions cause an uproar consisting of people who are either poor, unemployed, mentally ill, or all of the above. As the story progresses, Arthur discovers from shocking truths about his life: His mother had lied about him being the illegitimate son of her former boss, billionaire Thomas Wayne... His mother was actually his adoptive mother, and that he allowed her boyfriend to abuse Arthur...abuse that had caused him his head injury which is the reason for his uncontrollable laughing. Tired of being lied to and ridiculed all his life, Arthur kills his mother, dresses up as a clown, and kills people on live television. Not only that, but the protests that Arthur had unintentionally caused resulted in the murder of Thomas and Martha Wayne, whose murders were witnessed by their son Bruce.

This is one of the few stories that actually features Joker’s backstory. This movie is not based off of any comics, and is therefore an original story. While Joker is one of Batman’s most dangerous villains, this may be one of the greatest portrayals of his former self. Arthur Fleck had suffered his whole life, until he snapped and would become one of the Gotham’s greatest threats.

3. Simon Petrikov/Ice King

The Ice King was the main antagonist of the cartoon, Adventure Time. Throughout the series, Ice King would attempt to kidnap princesses, especially Princess Bubblegum, and would often fight the two main protagonists: Finn and Jake. However, Ice King’s past was unexpectedly revealed in the episode, Holly Jolly Secrets. At first the episode is comedic and shows videos of Ice King’s hilarity...but it all becomes serious and sad near the end. Ice King is revealed to have once been a human named ‘Simon Petrikov’, who specialized in mysterious, supernatural artifacts. Simon had a great career, and was madly in love with his fiance: Betty. But one day, Simon found a mysterious crown buried in ice and snow. When Simon put it on his head, it gave him visions that made him act insane without him even realizing it. This drove Betty away, and Simon began to slowly change physically, emotionally, and mentally. In the end, Simon was driven completely insane and lost all memories of his past. His obsession with princesses is because he used to call Betty his ‘princess’...though he did not remember calling her that. In the series finale, Simon is freed from the crown’s power and is returned to his old self.

While Ice King was introduced as a comedic villain, and was the main antagonist for most of the series...he is still a tragic villain do to him once being a sane man with a good life, but began to lose his mind because of the crown’s magic. At least he was transformed back into his old self, in the end.

4. Mr. Freeze

Mr. Freeze is one of the most famous and tragic villains in the Batman universe. Mr. Freeze is, of course, a villain who uses the cold in his crimes. But in the past, Mr. Freeze was a scientist named ‘Victor Fries’ who had a loving and caring relationship with his wife: Nora. Victor loved Nora more than anything in the world. But at some point, Nora was diagnosed with a fatal disease with not long to live. Desperate to save her, Victor had Nora cryonectically frozen in order to keep her alive until a cure for her illness was found. Unfortunately, however, the equipment malfunctioned, causing the lab to explode in ice with Victor in it. Victor survived, but the explosion caused his body to only be able to survive in extremely cold weather. Nora had also survived...but her condition was even more serious than before. Victor created a suit to help him live, and began to commit crimes so he could continue keeping his wife alive.

Mr. Freeze’s motive for his crime spree is his wife’s life. He would go to extreme lengths to save her life...even if it meant becoming a bad guy.

5. Zack Foster and Rachel Gardner

While number 5 on the list consists of a duo...Zack and Rachel make one heck of a team. Zack and Rachel are the two main characters in the anime, Angels of Death, in which all of the characters are, in fact, mentally unstable individuals who like to kill people.

As a child, Zack had lived with his mother until her boyfriend set him on fire for his own enjoyment. While Zack survived this attack, his mother abandoned him at an illegal orphanage, where many other orphans were mistreated and starved by the couple who owned the orphanage. Zack was forced to bury the bodies of the orphans who died there, and was treated as a pet by the couple. One night, Zack watched a slasher film, which gave him the idea to stab the couple to death while they slept. Afterwards, Zack left the orphanage and was soon taken in a blind, homeless man who was the first and only person to ever show him kindness. However, the man was killed by a couple of sociopaths. Zack found out and killed them. For many years...Zack would kill people who were ‘happy’ and lied to him, thus earning him the title of a serial killer.

Rachel had lived with her parents before the start of the series. Rachel’s father was a cop who had a drinking problem, which resulted in several fights between him and his wife. Both of them blamed each other for Rachel’s lack of emotions, but only stayed together because of Rachel. Rachel’s father saw her as an insane girl, and her mother hated her and would even beat her. One day, Rachel found a stray puppy and wanted to keep it, but her parents wouldn’t listen to her and just kept on fighting with each other. But later on, she went back to where the puppy was and it bit her. This caused Rachel to blackout, but when she came to...she saw that she had killed the dog without even remembering what she had done. She then “fixed” the puppy by sewing it back together, thus “making it her’s”. When Rachel returned home with the puppy that night, her father snapped and stabbed her mother to death. Rachel witnessed it and ran back to her room, with her father chasing after her with the knife. Rachel took out a gun that her mother had hidden from him, and shot her father in self-defense. Rachel then sewed her parents’ bodies together, as her way of “fixing” them and creating her “perfect family”. A week later, the police arrived at the house and saw Rachel with the sewed up puppy and her parents. The police thought that Rachel was a surviving victim who was in shock, and was sent to a mental institution for treatment.

Zack and Rachel are quite complicated, as they have both protagonist and antagonist qualities. They both kill people and use each other to escape a building full of death traps and killers...but they also care and understand each other, as they have both suffered years of abuse to the point of developing murderous instincts.

6. Dr. Doofenshmirtz

Dr. Doofenshmirtz was basically the main comedic-antagonist of the cartoon, Phineas and Ferb. Doofenshmirtz is the arch nemesis of Perry the Platypus, and is always making some kind of ‘inator’ device to conquer the Tri State Area...though many of his “evil” plans backfire and are not really THAT evil. Though the reason why Doofenshmirtz is an evil genius, is because of his bad childhood.

Both of his parents neglected him, he always lived in the shadow of his younger brother, his only friend was a balloon, no one ever came to any of his birthdays, he was forced to wear dresses after his brother was born, and he was even disowned at one point and was forced to live with ocelots. So, yeah...it’s no wonder he turned to a life on crime.

Doofenshmirtz is quite hilarious and not very evil...but his terrible childhood makes you wonder how he hasn’t killed anyone! At least his arch nemesis and teenage daughter care about him.

7. Denzel Crocker

Denzel Crocker is one of the main antagonists of the cartoon, Fairly Odd Parents. Crocker is a fourth grade teacher who is obsessed with catching fairies...which makes the people around him see him as crazy. Of course, there is a reason for his obsession with fairies.

When Crocker was a child, his single mother worked two jobs and left him with an abusive babysitter. Because of this, he had fairy godparents...just like Timmy Turner. His life with his fairies was the only time in his life when he was happy. However, after Timmy went back in time and accidentally revealed that Crocker had fairies, his fairies were taken away from him and his memory was erased several times. People even forgot all of the good things that Crocker had done with his fairies, and was now hated by the townspeople. Because his memory was erased more than once, his appearance changed...but he still did not forget the existence of fairies, only forgetting that he himself had fairy godparents as a child.

Crocker’s obsession with proving the existence of fairies has caused him to become a laughing stock, to the point where he was expelled from Harvard, was denied funding for his fairy research, lost his girlfriend, and he never moved out of his childhood home. Crocker is capable of building extraordinary machines and is quite smart, but he wastes his talents on trying to prove the existence of fairies. If only Crocker had never became obsessed with fairies, he may have been able to live a normal and decent life.

8. Wellies

Wellies are the residents of Wellington Wells in the game, We Happy Few. Wellies are known to be decent citizens in Wellington Wells...but their minds and emotional states are from from decent. They kill or throw out anyone who becomes a Downer (a person who either won’t take Joy, or cannot take Joy due to having a bad reaction towards it). But their villainous characteristics are all caused by denial and drug usage.

In an alternate timeline, England surrendered to Germany during WWII and the citizens of Wellington Wells were forced to send their under 13 children on a train to Germany. The children never returned, even after Germany lost the war, and all of the townspeople were so traumatized by what had happened that they now rely on a drug: Joy. Joy is a pill that makes people forget the past, and put them in a state of constant happiness. The Wellies are addicted to this drug, as they cannot bear to remember what had happened to the children. To make matters worse, their whole civilization is now on the verge of collapse due to many problems caused by them always being on Joy: Broken machinery, plagues caused by pollution, towns beginning to collapse due to poor maintenance, starvation due to lack of food production, and a government who cannot bear to face the reality of their situation and would rather be on Joy than solve the problem.

Because of their reliance on Joy, Wellies are completely unaware that the town is collapsing, and would rather be in denial than face reality.

9. Mary

Mary is the hidden antagonist in the game, Ib. At first, Mary appears to be an innocent girl who claims to be trapped in the Fabricated World like the main protagonists, Ib and Garry. However, it is revealed that Mary is actually a girl from a painting who wants to escape the Fabricated World by replacing either Ib or Gary in the real world.

Depending on the game’s ending, Mary either replaces Ib or Garry in the real world by leaving one of them behind in the Fabricated World, or is defeated by Ib and Garry and remains trapped in the Fabricated World.

Mary was the last painting made by the artist: Guertena. She saw him as her “father”, because she was created by him, and was devastated by his death. Mary is very lonely in the Fabricated World, and wants so desperately to exist in the real world. Mary would do anything to become real and have a friend and family of her own. Years of loneliness can make a person desperate and insane.

10. Zombies

Zombies are always the villains in anything zombie-related. They are undead humanoids who eat human flesh, and drive survivors to do questionable things and fight for survival.

However, there is something that some people seem to forget: Zombies used to be normal, ordinary humans who did not become zombies by choice. They were turned into zombies either because of a mysterious virus, or a nuclear weapon that mutated them into creatures of the undead.

Zombies do not remember who they once were, and some even end up killing and eating their own loved ones without even realizing it. They have basically been ripped of their humanity and are now walking shells of their former selves.

#top 10 list #zombie #villain #tragic #dr. doofenshmirtz #angels of death #ib #video games #cartoon #denzel crocker #we happy few #wellies #ice king #mr freeze #darth vader #joker #arthur fleck

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getoutofthisplace · 4 years

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Dear Gus,

I turned 38 years old today. I’ll post the detailed account I posted to Facebook of how I spent the day below, but I left out the part about how after talking to Nene, I kept standing out on the patio at Yiayia’s house. I watched you and Mom through the window. You sat in her lap, laughing at whatever she was doing. I’m so happy you and me and Mom all have each other. And that we have everyone else. I’m so happy you are happy.

Dad

North Little Rock, Arkansas. 1.8.2020 - 6.23pm.

PLAY BY PLAY:

I don’t know what time it is when I wake up. The room is still dark. I can just make out enough of the bedsheets to notice that Liz is already gone. She had to be at the hospital by 6:30am for work. I lift my phone off the bedside table. It’s nearly 7am. Gus calls for his mother from his crib, but he doesn’t complain when I open his door, turn off his space heater and his sound machine.

“I want Mama,” he says. His pacifier muffles his words.

“Mama’s at work,” I say, opening the wooden blinds.

“No, she’s not,” he says.

“Where is she?”

“She’s in there,” he says, pointing down the dimly lit hallway.

“Okay,” I say, picking him up. “Do you want some breakfast?”

“I need a fig bar and a banana and a vitamin,” he says. He says it every morning.

He tosses his pacifier into the kitchen sink while I peel him a whole banana, careful not to break it, and put it into the Ziploc bowl with a leftover fig bar. His teeth marks are left from a bite he took yesterday. I add the gummy purple vitamin and hand him the bowl. We walk into the living room and I use the remote to turn the television on.

“I want to watch Dino the Dinosaur,” he says. The show features Dino and his friend Dina, dinosaurs of the triceratops variety, who learn about colors or numbers or shapes in every super-short episode. Neither character talks, but a woman with a soothing voice narrates everything. He loves it. Liz and I can’t stand to watch the show, but it’s better than when he got hooked on Trolls, which has no educational value. Or any redeeming qualities whatsoever.

As I leave the room, Gus erupts into a scream. I know immediately that he has noticed I’ve given him yesterday’s fig bar. He cries and says something unintelligible about it.

“Do you want a new fig bar?”

He says something else unintelligible about it.

“Do you want a blueberry or a raspberry fig bar?” I ask.

He stops crying and says he wants raspberry.

I put the new fig bar in his bowl and take out the fig bar with the missing bite. I start to throw it in my mouth, but remember I haven’t weighed yet. I record my weight every day into a Google spreadsheet I share with my cousin John. We have compared weights for years, but got serious about it in 2018 when we began recording our weights every day in the document, the title of which is “Fat Boys.”

When my grandfather was alive, he must’ve thought his grandsons were all a bunch of lanky, weak kids because he offered $100 to the first of us who could get to 180 pounds. He wanted a grandson that could help him contend with livestock. Zachary earned the money, but now that our grandfather’s gone, we’re all on the other side of 180, trying to get back.

I step onto the scale. It reads 187.8. Down a pound from yesterday. A win. I pop the half-eaten fig bar in my mouth and walk to the back bathroom to take a shower.

I see Gus’s blurry shape through the frosted glass of the shower. I stand on my tiptoes to look at him from over the door.

“I need my milk,” he tells me. We call it milk, but it’s really rice milk. He’s allergic to dairy, so we’ve cycled through all the milk alternatives for the last couple of years. His doctors thought he might also be allergic to soy, so we gave up on soy milk, then we discovered he probably had a tree nut allergy, so we quit almond milk. He wouldn’t drink oat milk, so here we are. For now. Our gastroenterology specialist has asked us to bring in another stool sample for testing. He scolded Liz this week for rescheduling Gus’s scope recently, even though his staff told us to reschedule because of a cold. It was an unnecessary risk, they said. The abnormal results from the lab tests weren’t that big of a deal, the doctor himself said. But when Liz sat in front of him this week, he felt differently. He felt we weren’t taking Gus’s health seriously. He threatened to not reschedule if we were just going to cancel. When she recounted the conversation with me over the phone, I could feel my blood boil. There was a time when I believed in the authority of doctors and could stand to be talked down to within reason, but that time is no longer. Now I need them to recognize the importance of customer service. My instinct was to drive to Children’s Hospital and kick his office door down, but instead I told Liz to write down everything that he told her and the tone in which he said it because as soon as we no longer need him to tell us what is wrong with our boy’s digestive system, I will make sure everyone within earshot understands what an arrogant prick he is. (Stay tuned.)

“Did you poop?” I ask Gus.

“No, I didn’t poop,” he says.

“I think you pooped,” I say, hoisting him onto the changing table. I am late and don’t really have time to take the stool sample now, but I want to get it as quickly as possibly so we can get back the lab results.

I strip his pajamas off him and check his diaper. He wasn’t lying. There is no poop.

“Where are we going today?” Gus asks me.

“I’m going to work and you’re going to school.”

“Oh no, school’s closed today, Daddy.”

I glare at him, but he’s committed to the lie—he doesn’t smirk.

At work, my coworkers have hung a couple of “HAPPY BIRTHDAY” banners in my office, which I share with Derek, though he isn’t in yet. They hand me the birthday sombrero to wear and we stand around the small conference room singing happy birthday. My brother-in-law has sent two breakfast casseroles and a large mixing bowl full of fresh fruit. We eat and catch up. We are a closely knit team, but it feels like we haven’t talked as a group since before Christmas, with everyone coming and going. A child has started at daycare. A spouse has gotten a dog. I express my growing anger toward the doctor. A 9:30 meeting breaks up our reunion and we all go back to work.

Derek and I debate where to go to lunch. I pull out my Excel sheet and begin reading off the names of local restaurants. We discuss a future study in which we spend each week only eating one dish, comparing one restaurant to another. We will find the city’s best ramen, the best pizza, the best cobb salad. But for now, we just need lunch. It’s already after noon. We go to Senor Tequila because it’s closer than anywhere else. We each get the special of the day: Bean burrito, cheese enchilada, Mexican rice for $6. We’re both amazed at how cheap that is. Derek quickly does some math on how much money he would save for the rest of his life if he only ate a $6 lunch. The figure is relatively astronomical. But then he surprises me by buying me lunch for my birthday, which would throw his number off, probably.

This morning, Liz tasked me with deciding what I’d like to do for my birthday dinner. She is unsatisfied when I tell her I don’t know. She tells me we can go somewhere, or she can make me something, or her mother has offered to order take-out at her house. I tell Liz I will decide later and text her before she gets off work at 3pm.

As that hour approaches, I am overwhelmed with the mountain of work I am facing at the office. I need the mental boost that comes with being able to scratch anything off my to-do list. Something easy, something quick. I text Liz that I want to go to her mother’s house and eat what we refer to as Korean tacos—chopped salmon and rice wrapped in seaweed. Accomplishing that simple task and being decisive gives me confidence to also ask her to make me a cherry pie, though I tell her it doesn’t have to be today. Just soon.

When she gets off work, she calls to say she’ll make the pie tonight if I’ll go get Gus from daycare.

In my truck I’m listening to Dani Shapiro read her memoir, HOURGLASS. I’ve mostly read fiction lately and Shapiro has reminded me how much I love memoir done right. So right that I feel like I’ve known her, personally, for a long time. Like we have a history that would warrant me picking up my phone and texting her to say, “I’m finally getting around to reading your book, old friend, and it is beautiful.” I wonder if my mother would like the book. I think she would.

I race across town to get to Gus’s daycare in Hillcrest before 5:30pm, but when I get there, I have time to spare. There are only five minutes left in my book, so I turn my truck’s engine off and watch the other parents wrangle their children into their respective cars while I listen to the very end—“This audiobook has been a production…”

I meet eyes with a mother I don’t recognize coming out of the school, and I realize just how creepy I may look, sitting there outside a daycare in my nondescript pick-up truck, no sense of urgency to get out and retrieve my child.

“Daddy!” Gus says, running into my arms when I finally go in and stand in the doorway where he and his friend Luna are the last two children.

“Does someone at your house have a birthday today?” Ms. Cathy asks Gus. “It’s Daddy’s birthday!” Gus says. And I feel incredibly loved by my son. He doesn’t have to love me, I think, but he does.

On the way home, I explain to Gus how the red lights and the green lights dictate when we stop and when we go. He is fascinated. He applies the rule to all the lights he sees.

“What is that yellow light?” he asks.

“That’s a controversial subject, son.” I say. “Some people think it means slow down, but I’m in the camp that just thinks it means it’s time to commit.”

“Oooohhhh…” he says. “I don’t want to go home.”

“Where do you want to go?”

“I want to go see diggers,” he says. We are in a construction equipment phase.

“We’ll have to keep an eye out for some on the way to Yiayia & Papou’s.”

“Are we going to Yiayia & Papou’s?”

“Yiayia & Papou, we’re coming for you…” I say. It’s a game we’ve played for probably a year. I say the names of the people whose house we are going to and he will say what it is he wants from them.

“We’re coming for you and your toys and your Paw Patrol,” he responds.

When we get there, he runs into the living room for the toys and the Paw Patrol, which are also toys.

“Happy birthday,” Zill says.

Athena hugs me. Liz kisses me. I can tell she is eager for me to see that she is making my cherry pie.

“I didn’t have time to make Nana’s crust, but look at those cherries,” she says.

They are the red of earthy roses, a color not found from a can of cherry pie filling.

Athena pulls two beers from the refrigerator. “They’re both Birthday Bomb! beers, but one is aged in a whiskey barrel!” she tells me.

Liz and I are on a diet that only allows us to drink once a week and this week has already been spoken for.

“It’s a special occasion,” she says. “You should drink them.”

Athena pulls a frozen mug from the freezer and I pour the stout into the glass. I sit with Zill in the living room. We toast that our country has somehow managed to not initiate World War III yet. Athena brings in a plate of large, chilled shrimp, which grabs Gus’s attention.

“What are those things?” he asks.

“Those are shrimp,” I say. “You love shrimp.”

“I need to have them,” he says.

I hold one by the tail as he eagerly bites into it. He wants to take another bite before he finishes the first. He’s ready to move on to the next shrimp entirely, but I regain his attention and show him the meat that is still in the tail. He devours one shrimp after the other. So much so that I look around to see if anyone else thinks I should stop him. Liz is happy he’s eating protein and not carbs, so I let him continue.

My mother calls me and I step out onto the back patio. She wishes me a happy birthday and we talk about my day. We talk about the extended family getting together Sunday maybe to celebrate everyone who has a birthday in January—me, my sister, my grandmother, my aunt and uncle and oldest niece, Caroline, who came within hours of being a February birthday that night in 2008 when we all waited so long in the waiting room at the hospital in Memphis.

“Stop by so we can give you your birthday gift,” my sister texts me. They live less than a mile from us.

By the time Liz gets Gus bathed and I insist on waiting around to see the Final Jeopardy question, which I initially answered partially correct, but then second-guess myself enough to ultimately miss entirely, our family is tired. I drive Liz and Gus home so she can put him to bed, then I double back.

I look through the window and see Laura and Chris sitting in their living room, which is halfway through a remodel and in a state of disarray. I walk in without knocking. The lights are mostly out, but there is a lamp over the new keyboard my mother got her granddaughters for Christmas this year.

“Where’s Liz?” they ask. They prefer their aunt to their uncle.

“She had to go put Gus down,” I say, noticing the paper taped to two chairs facing the keyboard. On each paper is our names—“Guy” and “Liz”—our assigned seats.

Caroline casually walks out of the hallway onto the makeshift staging area in front of me. She holds a cardboard beard to her face and delivers lines she has written and rehearsed, but that don’t quite steer a clear narrative. Her younger sister emerges from the hallway with a similar prop and a less confident set of lines. They ramp up the drama by throwing their cardboard disguises away quickly and each donning a man’s necktie with the tags still on. They go back into the hallway and return with a gift bag for me. Inside, I find a vintage tie rack on which I will be able to hang the ties they have gotten me.

When things settle down, Cate sits at the keyboard. “I tried to learn ‘Happy Birthday,�� but I couldn’t,” she says to me, before playing the first notes of another simple tune from the songbook in front of her. We all clap when she finishes. I hug both my nieces and their parents.

“Did you ever take piano lessons, Gunkel?” Cate asks me.

“I did, but not for very long,” I say. “I could never coordinate my left hand while I was also using my right.”

Like I always do when I am in front of piano keys, I play the recognizable right hand to the melody of Beethoven’s Fur Elise.

“Can you teach me how to read those notes?” I ask Cate, nodding toward her songbook.

She shows me which notes correspond and together we try to play something. I enjoy the time with her, and I enjoy reading the music, even if it’s in such a simplistic form.

Again, I thank them for my gifts, then say goodbye. As I back out of their driveway, I notice a text from the woman who was married to my father when he died. They were married for nearly two decades. She has already wished me a happy birthday and so before I open it, I think hard about what information she might have to give me, but come up with nothing.

“Abbey passed tonight,” her text reads.

My father’s dog. A Jack Russell terrier he got when I lived with them. She was nuts, but also cute and loyal and absolutely fearless. Every time Dad introduced her to someone, he would say, “She’d fight a bear,” and he would tell of the time she came wandering home after fighting a wild animal, her insides dragging behind her.

Now, when I think of Abbey, I think of my father in his hospital bed at home in White County, depressed and ready to die, and in the corner, guarding the window, there is Abbey, standing guard for him, happy to wait as long as she needs to. I will always love her for the happiness she gave him.

When I get home, the lights are out. Liz and Gus are asleep. Suki and I walk to the backyard and I throw the tennis ball for her over and over until she no longer brings it back. I wash my hands and see our family cookbook on the counter. It lies open to the page listing my Nana’s pie crust recipe. I imagine Liz pulling the cookbook out this afternoon. And I feel incredibly loved by my wife. She doesn’t have to love me, but she does.

This is my wonderful life at 38 years old: cherry pies, tie racks, and memories of my father and his dog.

#happy birthday #gus choate #family #38 #liz choate

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funface2 · 5 years

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20 Pics Of Blondes Having Fun On Motorcycles – TheThings

“Blondes have more fun!” is a stereotype that has its origins in a post-WWII Clairol advertising slogan:

Does she or doesn’t she?

Only her hairdresser knows for sure!

Do blondes have more fun?

If i’ve one life…let me live it as a blonde!

The perception of blondes having more fun has been exploited in culture and advertising for years. But studies indicate that women in general, blondes, brunettes, redheads and others are having more fun on motorcycles.

According to the Motorcycle Industry Council, the trend of more women buying motorcycles has experienced steady growth in recent years. A 2018 survey shows that women make up 19 percent of motorcycle owners. The demographic has almost doubled since 2009 when only 10 percent of bike riders were women.

While no research has been conducted to determine what percentage of women riding motorcycles are blondes, like the slogan says, they are probably having more fun.

Here are twenty photos of blondes on motorcycles.

Continue scrolling to keep reading

Click the button below to start this article in quick view

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20 Blonde Fixes Shoe on a Vintage Harley

Via: Pinterest

When preparing to venture out for a spin on a vintage Harley-Davidson, all the personal equipment must be in good working order. The shoes are an example. Lacking motorcycle boots, this blonde is attaching the Velcro strips on her street shoes to ensure a tight fit for changing gears or applying the foot brake.

A helmet is not necessary…it would ruin the effect of long blonde hair blowing in the wind.

19 Riding a BMW Bike

Via: tumblr

This blonde looking at someone behind her is about to say: “Don’t even think about joining me for a spin on my BMW. Today I am going to ride alone with my leather jacket and riding boots. If this bike was a Honda or a Yamaha, you might be welcome, but this is a Beamer!”

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18 Sarah Harding Downgrades to a Scooter

Via: dailymail.co.uk

Intruder Sarah Harding, who emerged riding a motorbike through a pile of mud during an episode of The Bachelor, claims she’s a motorcycle enthusiast.

However, she somewhat tarnishing her image of an easy rider when the 26-year-old was seen outfitted in her all-black biking gear and riding a scooter around the streets of Brisbane.

17 Women Love Choppers

Via: totallyradchoppers.com

Women who love choppers start their passion at an early age. They begin by taking bikes apart piece by piece to learn how they work. They move from dirt bikes to road bikes and then to choppers. They are passionate about their hobby, like Megan Margeson who rode her 1964 Harley Davidson Panhead Chopper last summer on a 5,000-mile trip from California to Canada.

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16 Blonde on a Victory Motorcycle

Via: WallpaperSafari

The Victory motorcycle brand was launched as a Harley Davidson competitor in 1998 but has not been profitable in recent years. In January 2017 the parent company Polaris Industries announced that the brand will be discontinued, and the company will concentrate its efforts on its recently revived, and much more successful Indian Motorcycle brand.

However, blondes can still have fun riding a Victory, and parts are still available if needed!

15 Anna Sophia Berglund

Via: soymotero.net

Anna Sophia Berglund was discovered by GXS Motorsports, a company specializing in marketing and promotion for motorsports. She worked as a promotional model for two years before modeling for Playboy where she was the Playmate of the Month in January 2011.

Berglund has made guest appearances in episodes of the television series Desperate Housewives (2004), Hannah Montana (2006), and Cavemen (2007).

She is one blonde who knows how to have fun both on and off a motorcycle.

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14 Pinky and Her Electrifying Pink Motorcycle

Via: twitter

Pinky uses her brightly colored, electrifying Harley V-Rod motorcycle ride to raise awareness of “Distracted Driving.”

“Wherever I go, I let people sit on her, take pictures, tell my story. Kids and women really love it!! Men stop and typically stare at her and then come over. I have a bottle of NOS attached to the side, not hooked up. ‘Pink Storm’ attracts everyone’s eye. Once one person comes over…. I have a crowd.”

13 Pink Rides Her Motorbike Wearing a Bikini

Via: celebritywotnot

The “So What” and “What About Us” pop star Pink turns heads in her stripy bikini top riding her Triumph motorbike and flashing the peace sign.

Although her blonde hair is not visible beneath her helmet, Pink enjoys her ride while showing off her array of tattoos including the drawing of her late dog ‘Elvis’ and a favorite poem.

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12 Christina Aguilera Rides Motorcycle with Cam Gigandet

Via: aceshowbiz.com

Sometimes blondes have more fun as a passenger on a bike, like Christina Aguilera shown here riding on a motorcycle with Cam Gigandet.

The “Genie in A Bottle” hitmaker was working on her first feature film Burlesque when this photo was taken. Gigandet, wearing a leather jacket paired with jeans, costars with her in the film and acts as her personal motorcycle chófer.

11 Marisa Miller Thinks All Men Should Ride a Bike

Via: Pinterest

Supermodel Marisa Miller thinks all men should ride a bike, so she went to work for Harley-Davidson becoming the first-ever spokesperson for the motorcycle company.

She claims, “Riding a motorcycle will make you a Better Man because you get that adventurous side back in you. I think a lot of people struggle with in their marriage or relationships or getting older because you end up stuck in a rut.”

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10 Katee Sackhoff Of Battlestar Galactica

Via: Gotceleb

Well known for her role as the aggressive Captain Kara “Starbuck” Thrace on the sci-fi television series Battlestar Galactica, real-life Katee Sackhoff shares a passion for speed with her onscreen character. A motorcycle enthusiast, she asked Richmond, Virginia’s Classified Moto to make her a custom bike.

When completed, the Classified Moto KT-600 which included parts from Honda, Kawasaki, and Triumph was a true modder’s dream bike.

9 Cameron Diaz on a Motor Scooter with Tom Cruise

Via: Visordown

Tom Cruise gained fame in the 1980s film Top Gun riding a Kawasaki GPz750R motorcycle. He has ridden bikes in several of his Mission Impossible films, but for Knight and Day, he chose to ride with blonde actress, Cameron Diaz. The bike of choice was a Ducati Hypermotard. The stunts performed in the film were perhaps a bit more exciting than most women bike riders would choose.

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8 Kate Hudson Patriotically Rides a Motorbike

Via: Pikdo

Female motorcycle riders don’t always need to drive a Harley-Davidson Sportster, Ducati Hypermotard, or a Kawasaki Ninja H2R Superbike. They can select one that is a bit more modest like the minibike ridden by Kate Hudson.

If she doesn’t get enough attention on the miniaturized two-wheeler, the flag-adorned hair clip should do the trick.

7 Miley Cyrus Riding Cam-Am Spyder Limited ST Motorcycle

Via: CelebMafia

Miley Cyrus has an enigmatic history that includes her family-friendly Hannah Montana days to wearing scantily clad attire, her sexy dance moves, and as the singer of serious fare like Wrecking Ball.

However, when she goes out for a ride in her Cam-Am Spyder Limited ST Motorcycle in Beverly Hills, she thinks “safety first” and wears a helmet.

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6 Shakira Prefers to Ride than Drive a Motorcycle

Via: PopSugar

Shakira is seen here riding on the back of chopper with what is undoubtedly a computer geek motorcycle club out for a weekend excursion. The group is easily identified by their helmets. Shakira wears none.

Although a ride with friends is entertaining, word has it that Shakira prefers to go on motorcycle rides with Piqué’s dad.

5 Maria Costello Motorcycle Racing

Via: Pinterest

In 2009, Maria Costello was awarded an MBE (Member British Empire) recognizing her career as one of Britain’s leading female racers.

The 45-year-old hopes that other women follow her lead. Costello admits, “I think my role has become that of a pioneer. I’ve been around for such a long time now, and I like that, but it’s great to see more girls coming into the sport.”

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4 Tamara Raye on a Triumph Bonneville T120R

Via: themotolady.com

Blond Bombshell Tamara Raye is a musician and motorcycle enthusiast who works as a rollercoaster engineer at Disneyland. When she is not designing or repairing an amusement ride, she is cruising on a motorcycle. Here Tamara is posing with a 1964 Triumph Bonneville T120R. She will, no doubt, change her high-heeled shoes for some riding boots before going out for a spin.

3 Elsa Pataky Loves Bikes

Via: Pinterest

Celebrity News claimed this photo made Elsa Pataky and Chris Hemsworth the hottest couple in Hollywood.

Elsa had a robust career in entertainment as a model, actress and film producer before partnering with Hemsworth. She also knew something about motorcycles. She stated, “I’ve also raced motorcycles before, so I know all about the competition and the world of racing. I think it’s very sexy.”

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2 Jewel Signed Up for Riding Lessons

Via: indianmotorcycles.net

When singer-songwriter Jewel’s husband, rodeo star Ty Murray announced he wanted a motorcycle, she signed up for riding lessons.

Jewel commented, “I just figured I would become one of those motorcycle widows where you’re always at home and your man is always on the road, and I thought if I wanted to see my husband, I should probably learn to ride one myself.”

1 Gretchen Rossi on a Cosmic Harley

Via: zimbio

The “Real Housewives of Orange County” star Gretchen Rossi is occasionally seen on the back of a motorcycle with her partner Slade Smiley. She was captured in one photo carrying a pumpkin back to the house after a visit to the “pumpkin farm.” In this photo, she helped unveil the “Cosmic Harley” designed by artist Jack Armstrong, at the Harley Davidson showrooms in Marina del Rey, California.

Sources: aceshowbiz.com, thedrive.com, babesrideout.com

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islandofkiwi-blog · 7 years

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Time’s Mirror Episode 6 - A Web Series by Steven Embers

Chapter 6

Lacey and I went back down the spiraling staircase to the first floor and into the hallway. From there we found the stairs to the basement behind one of the very few doors in the house – I’m pretty sure that the Valentine castle, even though it was twice as big as the average house, had half as many doors. Upon opening the door, the sound of a dozen, whirring machines resounded up the stairs. It sounded like an entire factory of workers lived in the basement.

When we reached the landing at the bottom of the stairs, I was surprised to see that there was almost an entire factory in the basement. Several, complex machines were sectioned off all along the walls of the room like the bookshelves in the library. In the middle of the ring were three long tables with expensive looking equipment organized neatly on each of them, but there was only a single, concentrated man who was wearing a white lab coat and was gliding back and forth between three different monitors with sophisticated looking software running on each of the screens.

“Dad!” Lacey shouted across the room to get her father’s attention.

“Just a sec, hon.” The man wrote something into a notebook, but I didn’t know how he could concentrate with the constant noise of the machinery running in the background.

I looked around as we walked into the middle of the room. The ceiling lights were long, fluorescent tubes and the walls were painted grey. Two doors looked at each other from opposite ends of the room. The design was a lot less romantic than the rest of the house but it fit the atmosphere.

“Hey Lace, did you ever manage to—Oh. Hello?” He turned to talk to Lacey and noticed a stranger standing with his daughter. I recognized him as the man in the photo on Lacey’s desk. Short, brown hair that was greying along the edges and distinct facial features; he looked just a shade older than the man in the picture. His posture was strong and he was only a couple inches taller than me, but as he came closer I felt small standing next to him.

“Did you go hunting?” he asked Lacey. His voice was deep and rich and his smooth tone provided a small mask to the insinuation that I was a piece of game to be hunted.

“Dad, this is Bailey,” Lacey said, avoiding the question.

“Lacey, we’re here to restock, we don’t have time for another Brooklyn incident.” he replied, and I started to sense an argument about to erupt.

“Oh, come off it,” she said. “He’s a match.”

“You found one?” He looked surprised, but after a moment he seemed to reconsider his emotion. “Never mind that, we don’t have time. Put him back where you got him from.” He turned around to continue working.

“Come on,” Lacey prodded. “You know how lucky this is. He’s even on board.”

He wheeled and looked his daughter in the eye. “You told him already,” he stated, accusingly.

“Yes. But I thought you said you could finish the first part in a week.”

“I can. But it would take another couple months to fine tune it. We can’t just take him with us.” His gaze shifted to me, his green eyes scanning. “Can we?”

The awkward situation grew increasingly awkward as Lacey’s father began to examine me. I had to look away as he undressed me with his eyes. The standoff continued for a while before Lacey snapped him out of it.

“No. We can’t,” she said. “But you keep telling me to worry about tomorrow, tomorrow.”

“Hard to argue with myself,” he admitted.

“Yeah. So you want to try that introduction again?”

He looked longingly at his equipment and then back at me. After letting out a heavy sigh, he stepped over and typed some commands into the keyboard and the machines gradually stopped whirring. The silence that followed made me feel very exposed, comparatively.

“Doctor Valentine.” Lacey’s father extended his hand. I shook it.

“You’ll have to forgive us. This operation does not run as smoothly as it should.” He made a face at Lacey. “I didn’t catch your name.”

“Bailey.” I said with moderate confidence. I was beginning to think I’d started a new chapter in my life where the people I met didn’t react when I introduced myself, but some things never change. Doctor Valentine’s response was subtle ridicule which told me he didn’t share his daughter’s filter.

“Are your parents a spiteful sort of people, Bailey?”

I considered the possibility for a moment, but I knew it couldn’t be true. “They thought it was important for me to overcome some trials early on in my life,” I said.

He thought for a moment and then gave a lopsided smile that looked kind of like approval. “Oh, I smell another Brooklyn incident with this one, Lace.”

“Dad! The job.” She sounded embarrassed.

“Okay. Okay.” He turned his head to address me. “I don’t know how much my daughter has told you, but I’ll start with a short presentation. Excuse me while I set some things up.” He walked away and went to rummage through some drawers.

Lacey faced me. “Sorry about him,” she said. “He’s a little crazy.”

“Don’t apologize. You prepared me for plenty of crazy.”

She laughed. “I suppose I should be sorry for myself then.” She looked almost bashful. “No more games here. I’m not going to try to make your mind up for you, but I promise that if you stick around you’ll have that adventure that you wanted.”

She had a look in her eyes that made me believe that she was telling the truth.

“I have some things to finish up so I’m going to leave you two alone for a bit, okay?”

“You know, when I got in the car with you I thought you were trying to kidnap me. Turns out all you wanted to do was leave me in a basement with a strange man.”

A smile broke her face, but she didn’t respond to the comment. Instead, she gave me a piece of advice. “Be careful around him.”

I cocked my head. “Isn’t he your dad?”

“Just keep your wits,” she cautioned. “He can be more persuasive than I can. And I have breasts.”

“I find that hard to believe,” I said, thinking about the last few hours. “The persuasive part, I mean.”

She smirked. “You’ll see, I’m sure. Just remember that it’s your decision, and it’s up to you to make sure it stays that way.”

She disappeared up the stairs after that and I looked towards the doctor who was still preparing his presentation. I pulled out my phone and sent a quick text to both my parents that I was at a friend’s house. By the time I sent the texts, the doctor called out that he was ready.

“Lacey left?” he asked as I approached.

“Yeah. She said she had something to do.”

He looked at me like he was studying me and I felt strangely aware of how I was standing. “Want my advice?” he asked.

“Okay?” I said, but I wasn’t sure what he meant.

“Be careful with her.” His voice was serious, but it felt like the standard dad-to-daughter’s-guy-friend protocol. But then he said something off script. “She’s not to be trifled with.”

“Isn’t she your daughter?” I raised an eyebrow at him. This family was clearly not normal, but I had known that from the start.

“Yes, and she makes me proud every day of the week. But you really shouldn’t mess with her, and I’m not just saying that as her father.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” I asked. Usually, when you tell a secret you’re not supposed to stop halfway through, because that means your secret-holder has to make up fanciful tales in his head to try to fill in the holes.

“You’ll see, I’m sure.”

I guess the common denominator between this father-daughter pair was their wanting to keep me hostage to a million unanswered questions. Doctor Valentine dismissed the subject and pulled out two lab stools, inviting me to sit next to him. He dimmed the lights from a dial underneath one of the tables. A white screen lowered from the ceiling in front of us and the blue light from an overhead projector lit up the screen.

“Let’s start with what Lacey told you.” He said it plainly, but I didn’t realize that it was supposed to be a cue for me to answer until he was staring at me blankly.

“Oh.” I stammered. “Well she said you were working on some genetic experiment and that she knew I was a match because she kissed me – she explained that part, but I’m still not sure what she meant.”

“Ah.” He seemed excited. “The Clairvoyant’s Kiss: learn everything about your victim’s genetic history with a simple lipstick. Imagine a litmus test, you know that paper that changes color according to the – no wait. Don’t imagine that, it’s nothing like that. I don’t have time to explain it. It’s just a compound that responds to a certain genetic code.” He paused, and looked a little frustrated that he couldn’t explain his invention in lay-terms. “Is that all she told you?”

“Yeah, pretty much.”

“Okay.” He sighed. “Well I guess we start from the beginning. This is the presentation that I used for my pitch meetings, revised slightly, so some of it might be over your head.”

“Good to know,” I said, sarcastically.

“Don’t interrupt,” he said shortly. “We’re going to fill the entire basic genetics section of a college-level Biology course in thirty minutes.”

I almost groaned before I realized where I was.

The doctor pressed a button on a remote clicker that he produced and a dazzling picture of shining stars in outer space popped up on the screen.

“Life,” he started philosophically. “The perpetual question. An inevitable product of the growing universe? the invention of an alien race? or the handiwork of a divine Maker? A million theories for a million observers. Ah, life.” He breathed, and I thought about his words.

“That was the first draft of my introduction. Useless words.” He fake spat in disgust. “Let’s talk real. Life is super-duper. Fantastic miracle in the middle of a cruel cosmos: breathe, eat, have sex, die. Hooray. The real question is sentience. This thing.” He tapped the side of his head. “What are we doing here? Why can we, and why do we, feel the compulsion to observe? And why does it seem like humans are so damn special when it comes to this?” He clicked the button and a new slide of the double-helix shape that I recognized as DNA appeared.

“DNA. It holds the building blocks of all life. It is the recipe for creating the proteins that make up every living thing on this planet. You want an almighty power that has a personal investment in your life? It is in your veins, in every fiber of your being, in every cell that lets you be the thing that you were born to be.

“DNA tells a story. It holds the secret to your life and the secret to every living thing around you. It says what color your eyes are, and how big your ears look, and even estimates when you die. We call the indicators for these secrets, genes. And I want to show you how genetics can answer my question.

“Everything that has life is made from DNA. That’s why some people believe that we have a connection with monkeys and dinosaurs and flowers, because we do. Life began from DNA, and life gave birth to intelligence, and intelligence sired the comprehension of morality and it breathes urgent fire onto curiosity. Which might make you think: if we go straight back to the origin of it all – right down to DNA – can we find where that curiosity comes from?

“Have you ever wondered why humans were chosen as the bearers of conscious thought? Why can we fight our instincts when most animals have to obey?” He looked at me, a long shadow cast over half of his face with the other half lit by the blue light reflecting off the projector screen. His expression was curious, and he seemed to really want to engage me.

He continued with a more intrigued tone, like he was bouncing an idea off me. “If consciousness really can be born from DNA, then maybe it was just a roll of the dice to see which species developed it first. Maybe instead of being a moody, teenage monkey, you could have been a moody, teenage fish attending fish university and discussing racial equality among plankton and rebel shark terrorism. Or maybe there is something uniquely special about human genetic structure; maybe sentience isn’t a product of genetics at all. To find the answer, we have to do science.”

I saw a strange, ecstatic glint in his eyes, but it could have been a trick of the light. His instructor’s voice returned as he pressed his clicker, and the DNA on the screen transitioned and unraveled to form a straight line that cut the screen horizontally.

“DNA is made of four, different bases which pair predictably to form a sequence. This creates the blueprint that makes up the living organism: two strands of identical data, with one just the inverse of the other.” The image on the screen was color-coded so you could see that red always paired with green and yellow always paired with blue; I was familiar with the concept from Biology class.

“The order of these pairings determines what is made from the code,” he said, “and these four bases make up all DNA that exists or ever has existed. Four bases – four building blocks that, when you shuffle them around in a certain order, construct the entire skyline of the vast and varied Tree of Life. I see beauty in the fact that, over the history of all life, DNA has never changed languages; the recipe for creating life has consistently been passed down for countless generations spanning trillions of new species and different life forms.

“I believe that if we can become fluent in this language, we can solve many of the problems that we have as individuals and even as a society in general. It’s a fairly new endeavor in the science community, only a century or two in the making, and technology has greatly helped our efforts in this field. But I have found a more dynamic solution to experimentation that I hope will forward development by decades.

“Imagine a person who can freely modify his DNA sequence. This man would be able to lift the limit that contains the size of his muscle cells to gain super-strength; he could increase the number of photoreceptor cells in his eyes to have super-vision; he might even be able to boost his genetic immunity to diseases to live a longer life. He would be a super-man.”

I could feel my heart start to race as I found myself fantasizing; I barely noticed that he was luring me in like a cultist lures his devout followers, enticing me into his way of thought with promises of grandeur.

“Well, I have developed a safe and effective way of creating that super-man. I have created a device that will allow a person to manipulate his DNA just by thinking about it. This would let us dive into a human’s genetic code to isolate and modify genes that might answer my questions about sentience.

“This is where you come in. You could become the super-man, and all I would want to do is observe. If you’re interested I can tell you how it works, but if you’re not I suppose this is just a waste of your time.” He looked at me, appearing very relaxed as he propositioned me. “What do you say?”

This is one of those moments which I look back on and just feel silly for being so easily manipulated, but at the time I remember being so enthralled by what he had to say, and I wanted to know if he could teach me to shoot laser beams out of my eyes. I was like a child, snatching at a trinket you put just out of his reach with no regard to whether it’s safe or not.

It barely took me a second to respond. “Tell me more.”

Doctor Valentine smiled, and the shadow covering half his face made the expression look almost sinister. It only lasted a moment, though, because he turned back to the screen and continued his presentation.

“Okay, then. Let me leave you with a little demonstration. I’m sure you’re wondering why we picked you, or how we picked you. Lacey told you that you were a genetic match for what we want to work with, but I’d go so far as to say that this project was made for you.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Every person’s genetic sequence varies slightly,” he explained. “Tiny differences in the blueprint determine what you look like and other various nuances that make you a unique individual. That’s why DNA testing can be used for crime scene analysis, because there are indicators that are usually different in every person.

“When I constructed my project, I used a baseline of a random sample of human DNA. I calibrated everything based on this specific sample, but that turned out to be a mistake, because to safely experiment, the genetic sequence of the subject would have to be nearly identical to the master sequence. I had no idea who supplied the DNA I used so I’ve spent five years looking for people who could be matches, and more importantly, matches who would be willing to volunteer.”

He pressed the button on his clicker and the projected image dissolved and reformed. Then I was staring at my own face. Or someone very nearly identical to me. The peach-colored face was looking straight ahead against a plain, white background. He had short, light brown hair, lightly brushed to one side, and brown eyes stared at me as I studied the image. He shared my jawline, with steep slopes coming down to form my chin. The lips were pressed tightly, the edges curving downwards in a slight frown that seemed almost as natural as when I looked at my reflection in the mirror. The only noticeable difference was that I had a dimple in my nose where I’d broken it when I was a kid and ran head first into a flag pole and the boy in the image had what I assumed my nose would look like if I hadn’t broken it. I could tell it wasn’t just a computer edit of a photo Lacey could have snapped of me and prepared for this magic trick.

I tilted my head as if to get a different angle of the flat image. “Whoa,” I heard myself say. “How did you do that?”

Doctor Valentine explained. “This is the predicted appearance of the test subject we need. It’s calculated from the blueprint of the master DNA sequence, and it shows us an estimate of the appropriate test subject. The image is assembled from an elaborate database that I personally collected of reference images and genetic samples, and this is only one of the tools I created to help my experiment. It’s just the tip of what I have to show you, but I hope it helps you see that I’m not kidding about this.

“Right now you have a choice to make. Lacey and I won’t be able to stay here for very long, so you will need to decide by tomorrow. But if you choose to join us, I can give you power beyond anything you ever dreamed of and together we can solve one of life’s greatest mysteries. In exchange you will have to fully commit your time and your body to this project. I know this is a lot to take in all at once, and I want you to really think about what we’ve talked about today before you give me an answer. You have the opportunity to be something great, because the core of this project is you. You can be the catalyst for revelation. You can reveal our past and provide a glimpse into our future. You can be Time’s Mirror.”

Boy, did he know how to make a guy feel special.

TO BE CONTINUED

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