Tampered Tales

By John Steiner

Theme I: The Other is a Mirror into Ourselves

The storyteller is an honest liar, for they admit fully to their fiction. However, a tale can be false, yet tell us the truth. For while the adventure speaks of "The Other," it reflects back upon us what we know to be within ourselves.

Wry Folk
Oh, the age of innocence. A time in childhood where you could clap your hands and say "I believe in fairies."Then one such creature is found, only it's not a fairy and definitely not from this world. Six year old Jesse and her mother quickly learn that things which appear small, harmless and cute potentially bring with them more than one world's worth of trouble into the house. The binding ties of any civilization of any planet are that they fiercely protect their young and seek their safe return at all costs.

Red Rover, Red Rover
People of the Earth had only their own eyes through which to see themselves. That all changes when the technological eyes of an alien probe comes to our planet in study of the local inhabitants around the world. What future lays ahead of Homo sapiens depends on streams of sensor data and number crunching of the undetectable and seemingly innocent Red Rover.

Four Days in Backwater
The Great Coyote chase to build the first faster than light vessel over, America's U.S.S. Roadrunner is the third place design out of four nations. Yet it is first in FTL speed. It is also the first FTLV to discover traces of civilizations in other solar systems. The crew of U.S.S. Roadrunner are in awe of the aliens they meet, and take precautions the best human minds advise. However, the aliens see under privileged wayward yokels needing to be humored and humbled. Here Homo sapiens discovers all their theories of first contact fall flat on bad premises and do nothing but give the employees of Planet Copan's truck stop a good laugh.

Small Time
With new technology comes many uses. Some constructive or even lifesaving. Others for great harm and to satiate personal ambitions. Many often end up what hobbyists tinker with in the garage. Others still become the expression of mischief. In Todd's day hacking long since departed the digital world and entered into the very physical realm of biology. DNA became the new code to write and manipulate. Small Time racing of "mini-mounts" drew talent from all corners to be applied to a myriad of species. All bred to small stature, yet still strong enough to carry a rider heavier than they. Todd also dabbled in "Jacking" with a G of genetic code to wage a harmless war of ridicule against the corporate world. He fit the bill of real bioterrorists all too easy, even if it was clear to the authorities he didn't do it.

Theme II: In Dreams, Thus Speaks the Universe

When the universe so commands, the story writes the author. Such tales come to us as we sleep, waking us with the urge to reveal what was shown us when our closed eyes rapidly darted from side-to-side.

Encyclopedia Capella
We think of autism as a rare affliction brought onto few among us. In Mr. Ency's world nearly everyone, including Ency himself, exhibit the condition. A distant colony finds itself inextricably sinking into the proverbial sands of their desolate desert planet. Being an habitual encyclopedist cursed with such keen attention to absolutely everything around him Mr. Ency can't help but record all of it. But it's what lives in the wild dunes between cities that will test him and everyone else aboard one of the great hover ships cruising over burning sands.

....and more!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Melange Books, LLC
• Release date: Aug 27, 2013
• ISBN: 9781612352992

John Steiner

John Steiner earned his Associate of Biology at Salt Lake Community College, where he is currently working as a tutor in math and chemistry. He exercises an avid interest in history, science, philosophy, mythology, martial arts as well as military tactics and technology.

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Special Smashwords Edition

Tampered Tales

by John Steiner

Published by

Melange Books, LLC

White Bear Lake, MN 55110

www.melange-books.com

Tampered Tales, Copyright 2013 by John Steiner

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should go to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of the author.

ISBN: 978-1-61235-299-2

Names, characters, and incidents depicted in this book are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author or the publisher. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Published in the United States of America.

Cover Art by Mae Powers

Dedication

In memory of Rod Serling and Carl Sagan, who respectively taught me to think around corners and see the infinite.

TAMPERED TALES

JOHN STEINER

Theme I: The Other is a Mirror into Ourselves

The storyteller is an honest liar, for they admit fully to their fiction. However, a tale can be false, yet tell us the truth. For while the adventure speaks of The Other, it reflects back upon us what we know to be within ourselves.

Wry Folk

Oh, the age of innocence. A time in childhood where you could clap your hands and say, I believe in fairies. Then one such creature is found, only it’s not a fairy and definitely not from this world. Six year old Jesse and her mother quickly learn that things which appear small, harmless and cute potentially bring with them more than one world’s worth of trouble into the house. The binding ties of any civilization of any planet are that they fiercely protect their young and seek their safe return at all costs.

Red Rover, Red Rover

People of the Earth had only their own eyes through which to see themselves. That all changes when the technological eyes of an alien probe comes to our planet in study of the local inhabitants around the world. What future lays ahead of Homo sapiens depends on streams of sensor data and number crunching of the undetectable and seemingly innocent Red Rover.

Four Days in Backwater

The Great Coyote chase to build the first faster than light vessel over, America’s U.S.S. Roadrunner is the third place design out of four nations. Yet

it is first in FTL speed. It is also the first FTLV to discover traces of civilizations in other solar systems. The crew of U.S.S. Roadrunner are in awe of the aliens they meet, and take precautions the best human minds advise. However, the aliens see under privileged wayward yokels needing to be humored and humbled. Here Homo sapiens discovers all their theories of first contact fall flat on bad premises and do nothing but give the employees of Planet Copan’s truck stop a good laugh.

Small Time

With new technology comes many uses. Some constructive or even lifesaving. Others for great harm and to satiate personal ambitions. Many often end up what hobbyists tinker with in the garage. Others still become the expression of

mischief. In Todd’s day hacking long since departed the digital world and entered into the very physical realm of biology. DNA became the new code to write and manipulate. Small Time racing of mini-mounts drew talent from all corners to be applied to a myriad of species. All bred to small stature, yet still strong enough to carry a rider heavier than they. Todd also dabbled in Jacking with a G of genetic code to wage a harmless war of ridicule against the corporate world. He fit the bill of real bioterrorists all too easy, even if it was clear to the authorities he didn't do it.

Theme II: In Dreams, Thus Speaks the Universe

When the universe so commands, the story writes the author. Such tales come to us as we sleep, waking us with the urge to reveal what was shown us when our closed eyes rapidly darted from side-to-side.

Encyclopedia Capella

We think of autism as a rare affliction brought onto few among us. In Mr. Ency’s world nearly everyone, including Ency himself, exhibit the condition. A distant colony finds itself inextricably sinking into the proverbial sands of their desolate desert planet. Being an habitual encyclopedist cursed with such keen attention to absolutely everything around him Mr. Ency can’t help but record all of it. But it’s what lives in the wild dunes between cities that will test him and everyone else aboard one of the great hover ships cruising over burning sands.

The Rez

Most American Indians have had live in two worlds. Whether they grew up on The Rez or, like Randy Crowfeather, constituted City Indians. Believing that service as a Navy Seal prepared Randy for anything, he would discover how wrong he was. When the bodies of mutilated white people show up during one of Randy’s frequent visits with grandfather there came with it a tragic family past to be confronted. It is said that all Indians must, at some point in their lives, make a choice.

Dimensional Cloister

All parents hold their children up as being special and destine for great achievements. In Aziz’s time the scale of greatness would span across the entire multiverse. Brought to a school for gifted children, Aziz learns he isn't the only little boy who can send his mind slide back and forth along the temporal threads of his life. Now he's to learn how to save humanity from extra-dimensional parasites that unravel the very existence of their hosts throughout all time.

Hellbound

Suppose you lived your life all wrong. Imagine that because of bad decisions or even inadvertent choices prior to death your soul had been condemned to hell. Then what...? A tale of learning coping skills no living spirit would need in order to accept and accommodate an afterlife of deafening horror and blinding pain lasting eternity.

Theme III: Conjure Me A Tale

The act of storytelling is a form of sorcery. The teller casts a spell upon their audience in summoning up tales that never happened, yet impact the reader as if they had lived the adventure.

Enkindle

Just because you've studied sorcery for more than fifty years doesn’t make you a sorcerer, Eric’s master, Iccabazzi had said. Were it so easy sorcerers would be everywhere. The power of magic remained an external tool to him. To BE that power and have it within him as the air he breathed Eric needed to face the challenge of the dragon. Only it could make sorcerers of mere mortals. It more often made smoldering ash of those who failed.

Counting Coup

We’ve all heard the story of Custer's Last Stand, and in recent years we learned the more accurate sequence of events as told by Crow scouts working alongside the U.S. Cavalry. Suppose there's yet more to tell. Most armies pray for divine intervention in battle. With the arrival of a Manitou, a spirit of the Earth, one side will receive that aid in their darkest hour.

Arrows of Winter

Sure, being a diplomat in a feudal age can be tough in any civilization. On an alien arctic world harboring two indigenous species, one avian the other a rather out-of-place serpentine people, the rules of victory and defeat don’t change. The prince whom Ayawa served had to pay tribute to another kingdom who staked victory over his air forces in battle. Part of that tribute would take more than questing for the famed Redsmiths and healers of the serpentine Fshajar. It required that Ayawa learn nobility isn’t only bestowed at hatching, but also earned though noble acts.

To Drop A Bead

Carl Bohonowicz struggled with more than simply getting people to say his name right. As the police department negotiator he didn't quite seem suited to the job, and possibly the reassignment was a punishment as well as a leash.

Then came the Randal Ivison hostage case. We all wear masks. How much they hide and what they let through are the only true differences.

Theme IV: Too True to be Real, Yet Was Lived.

Bride of the Blackbird

On the first day of summer, 2010 a small neurotic songbird wages mono a mono war against an equally dark clad talking ape to defend The Misses and their beloved nest of hatchlings. An absolutely true tale of nature's comedy in the style of the great humorist himself, James Thurber.

About the Author

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Theme I: The Other is a Mirror into Ourselves

The storyteller is an honest liar, for they admit fully to their fiction. However, a tale can be false, yet tell us the truth. For while the adventure speaks of The Other, it reflects back upon us what we know to be within ourselves.

Wry Folk

Life was dangerous out here. These woods concealed a hundred ways to kill you, now with a new gargantuan hawk establishing its hunting range. The local expression use to be ninety-nine ways to die. In mid-spring it became time for the first right of passage these youths undertook. The young endured a trial for each season starting with the mildest.

Yayluwatsa held tight the Mind/Matter Rod in greenish grey wiry fingers, while looking, listening, and feeling for danger. Touch sensitive elliptical depressions covered the rod, each hued in their own color and a raised glyph he knew by heart and fingertip the functions represented.

He wore other, less advanced tools, crouched at the fork of two branches on the skyscraper high tree. They included wilderness survival necessities but not exclusively. Over scant, form fitting cloths not for keeping warm or cool spiraled chemically synthetic leafy vines about the body and extremities as camouflage.

Yayluwatsa’s tail, long and lithe with a thick tuft of dense soft hair enveloping the tip, and devoid of any covering, twitched, waved and swayed for balance. Long back pointing ears made slight twitches in picking out of the noise anything meriting alarm. Hard-edged cheeks, small chin and tiny nose narrowed into a short vertical wedge shaped muzzle, above which surveyed large black eyes. Those eyes aimed in spot checks in avian head jerks in response to the sharper sounds. A silky down of hair on his head and back of his neck shone black mottled by flecks of singular red hairs and a central stripe of bright yellow running atop his scalp from just behind the hairline.

A tumbling swish in the grass drew Yayluwatsa’s eyes almost directly below his post. These youngsters weren’t being tested in protecting themselves from wildlife. Explaining why the shoulder height feline low crawling up behind an initiate, who let himself be very much distracted by a ladybug, escaped the boy’s notice.

Yayluwatsa’s mouth parted in alarm to expose small incisors, needle sharp canines, even a glimpse of spiky molars well developed for eating insects and other hard-shelled creatures.

Rather than call out to the little one, unknowledgeable in handling such dangers, he propelled himself down through the Y branch. He somersaulted midway of the dizzying rapid drop to land between the cat and boy.

His true demeanor betrayed solely by agitated flicks of his tail, he called sternly to the boy to flee without glancing away from the predator many times his size.

Sizing up its proportions, he knew it to be just a cub, yet with retractable claws and sharp milk teeth it could rend terrible wounds onto him.

He held the Mind/Matter Rod firmly close to his side as though ready to swing the trailing end with all bodily power. However, the device offered still greater protection where rested an exploring fingertip in preparation.

The cat made half swats in the air toward him, though nowhere near close enough to merit a defense. Too young to know the purpose of hunting, it longed more for a plaything. It romped to one side ducking down ready to pounce, but instead darted off to Yayluwatsa’s left after the boy.

The youngster proved mindful enough to recall the instruction of ascending the nearest tree. The wily cub followed more clumsily up after him. Crudely, the cat hugged the trunk with its paws for the extended claws of its feet to anchor and advance in kicks, pursuing of the boy’s more agile scaling.

Rather than make this a linear chase, Yayluwatsa gauged the height of a branch the two had yet to reach while breaking into a sprint. The armpit high grass didn’t hamper his long bounding strides, to where he seemed to shoot up at an angle. At this age, youngsters couldn’t make so flighty a leap, nor could this species of cat at any age.

Near the base of a branch, he directed the boy to follow. The initiate moved past him ever outward on the branch as taught. The point was to find a branch where either the animal wouldn’t venture or couldn’t be supported by the branch. Against aerial threats, the means to survival reversed, as the more distal reaches were convenient placing to be picked off clear of other branches without risk of hitting the ground.

The cub soon made its way onto the same limb, foolishly taking the bait Yayluwatsa served as. Four long toes on each foot offered him a sureness the cat lacked. Thick, black pointed nails secured each slow step.

He reset his five-finger holds on the rod with one tip again to the bioelectrical-based thought sensitive control. A pinpoint of rapidly pulsating light manifested over the rod’s end with an angry electrical crackle. More than just a flow of electrons in midair, the process became an act of creating them from their more fundamental particles.

With the animal deterred, he moved back more quickly up to the boy barely half past his knee. Climb onto my shoulders.

Once the youngster’s weight felt right and balanced, something the littlest of children knew to do at birth, he sprang powerfully to the next tree. Where he landed hung significantly closer to ground thus giving the boy less to descend. Yayluwatsa turned to look at the tabby kitten thinking how often the titanical beings appeared mystified as to why these small creatures would so readily put themselves into places they couldn’t climb down from. Knowing that itself, the kitten began to meow loudly and incessantly suddenly filled with fear of the freshly discovered height.

* * * *

C’mon, Mom! Jesse cried impatiently.

A woman of contrastingly ample lower body yet markedly slimmer build above, wearing a blue and white tank top and tan, knee length, loose shorts, got up from a blanket covering grass to follow. The girl, six, in a tee shirt and jeans with a hole in the knee and grass stains atop grass stains, bobbed in an urgency the thirty three year old couldn’t fathom.

She stopped, turned around promptly to send little Stevie, who’s choppy stomp walk started after her, back under the other mother’s eye. Just over a year, Stevie’s world ended in wailing rain at the thought of her leaving his sight. Jesse, rolled her eyes and huffing at his babyishness, commented yet again, Did he hafta come?

With a hand through her barely shoulder length black hair, Marilyn inquired into the federal case, I thought something was missing.

Beady! He’s up in a tree! I can’t get him to come down. Then she dashed off. Hurry!

Not in the mood to run, Marilyn at least took up a brisk walk she wasn’t accustom to, but could when the contingencies needed for raising kids called for it.

Jesse, it seemed, couldn’t run fast enough to suit her need. Just before she reached the incarcerating tree in question, Marilyn called to Jesse, This is why it wasn’t a good idea to bring him to the park. He’s just too little to be running around.

He hasn’t done this be-fore, Jesse protested pointing up at a branch nine feet up.

Oh, I don’t know how we can get him down, she sighed at the monumental sight.

C’mon, Beady. the girl called up in a much higher summoning tone. C’mon!

Her mother was caught up in the remote control rescue effort. Come on, come on down.

She also tried kissing noising, to which Beady’s ears picked up as he half turned to her.

The kitten’s widened eyes frequently checked the height between startups of stepping around. He cried loudly for hands to reach up for him, unable, or unwilling to comprehend why their arms weren’t long enough.

His calls became more insistent and pleading. They beckoned to him some more, yet Beady seemed sure physics somehow changed since the ascent.

A couple, looking to be mid to late twenties, appeared on a stretch of woodland trail in curiosity. When they approached, Marilyn noted it briefly, and then seemed to realize their presence. In her second look she felt a tinge of envy and longing at the younger woman’s shape and the luxury of longer hair, but brushed that aside in self-discipline.

The woman, blonde too, offered in sympathy, Anything we can do?

He got himself up there, so he should be able to climb down.

The blissful blonde gave her honey a nudge with a subtle elbow. He immediately went into action as she said, Mark’s a veterinarian.

Marilyn wasn’t sure how that helped, nor, more bluntly, did Jesse, We need a fireman.

It’s okay, Mark, in his GQ/Sears Catalogue presence, assured, I’ve had plenty of experience getting cats from tight, out-of-reach places. They’re not too keen on vaccinations.

He had to jump to a lower branch and pull himself up to the one Beady was on.

Beady wasn’t too sure about a total stranger reaching for him, even if it achieved what he wanted already. He still meowed loudly, while backing up unsurely keeping his eyes on the man.

Mark started humming something to the kitten leaving his hand held out but holding still. Beady took a minute to think about it then came within reach. Once down, he handed Beady off to Jesse, who still didn’t take back her previous comment about a fireman.

After the couple left, Marilyn turned to Jesse but in bemusement not scolding. She didn’t say anything as they headed back to open park. The festivities for the kids would be starting soon, and Jesse remained serious about not missing—

A fast moving rustle in some of the trees behind them pulled Jesse around in a flash.

She always wanted to see a deer. This far north in New York State there were some living in the woods, but Marilyn didn’t expect them to get this close to the park.

This swishing, though, issued from up in the trees not near the ground. A squirrel then, she figured, and took Jesse’s defiant hand to go back.

* * * *

With hearing as poor as theirs, Yayluwatsa still couldn’t risk calling out to the other initiate with the natives so close. However, a flurry of encoded gestures did finally get her attention, by which she saw his step-by-step instruction on how and when to escape by the route he devised.

The smaller, much smaller, girl heard the scamper and scanned for the source. Yet, with the danger past he resumed watching over all the five month olds in their spring trials.

In terms of finding food, whatever insects, snails and pill bugs they could find, if the wildlife could be taken down, the initiates were on their own. Unlike, when dealing with animals such as the kitten, should they tackle spiders, poisonous centipedes or stinging insects and fail, it wasn’t for him to intercede. It wasn’t too often a spring initiate counted wasps or bees and the sort among their successes.

They would be tested again in the fall, the following summer and finally in winter after that. Only those who lived through them all, and on the winter rites of passage, return on their own from the woods, would be considered true men or women.

Being born within a five-day period at the end of the native’s ‘October’ into ‘November’ they reached physical adulthood a shade past two years. Much longer than needed to conclude safer forms of technologically augmented education, give them a rundown on what to accomplish by permitted means and how. On their last trial he’d abandon them to the dusk of the first winter’s day.

Across the ocean, natives in First Continent once celebrated these same times, for they drew inspiration from the sightings of Wily Folk initiates walking those trials. Each test took place further from the community, thus the opportune time to be spotted by natives, naturally, proved to in the winter; the one season natives spent most of their time indoors. Here and now they abounded in the open in new rituals barely related to those of old.

Yayluwatsa went his rounds, bounding through an arboreal world, often over slow living and slow to perceive natives, checking up on all the youngsters. Two he knew to be his own.

Wily Folk lived furiously fast and short lives compared to natives, rarely reaching beyond fifteen years. A week to natives would pass as three months. A shorter childhood accompanied river rapids of a learning rate and stony solid memory retention.

Yayluwatsa, himself adventured nearly halfway through his sixth year, and this his third as Head Dominus of Initiation Rites. Seven days duration and everyone made their way to the toadstool circle; not a first yet inordinately uncommon.

Unlike himself, children this young could hardly leap over a foot, so he led the two hundred or so back along a route of branches more densely grown. The Mind/Matter Rod, sheathed on his front from one shoulder to opposite hip, beset no obstruction onto Yayluwatsa either when running upright or bounding on all fours.

Deeper into the ancient woods than most natives ever went, even infrequently, his lead brought the batch of young to the base of an exceedingly elderly tree with the trunk partially engulfed into the base of a knoll of less naturally displaced earth. Through a snarl of exposed roots greater and lesser they skittered and pattered, as Yayluwatsa kept watch in assurance what lay unknown remained hidden from native awareness.

With the last in line inside the profoundly safe underworld, he too darted swiftly. He stopped just so long as to lay his hand upon the rod still to his chest and willed the roots to entangle about themselves more tightly blotting up most of daylight’s peering rays. Lacking muscles and a nervous system the movement of plants involved manipulating the bioelectrical fields about all living things and plants especially proved compliant.

Away from any hint of daylight glowed, to Wily Folk vision, adequate lighting from mold genetically engineered for its illuminating quality. Still further into a subterranean world lay the first hints of a higher civilization than imaginable of the small, arboreal alien residents.

City planning unfurled into a tree outline. Each clan’s collection of interfused bubble construction homes set onto the same major traffic arms and a network of lighter suspension bridges. Nearer the central region thrived social halls, dining promenades and exchange centers for goods and services. The proverbial trunk of community clung facilities of major manufacture, shipping and distribution, as well as storehouses and processing plants for reclamation. Also, here, operated the many utilities pumping out the essentials, and back in the waste of a metropolis, outside electrical or other forms of power. Instead, each home generated power for all other city zones. At the roots of this earthen esoteric society functioned emergency service departments, with armed forces divisions based at the periphery, while at the core resided the governmental seat closely accompanied by enforcement staff and infrastructure.

All regions of the city reflected the surface in decor with bright color from all the seasons prevailing over anything of nature’s palette. Even winter’s crystalline white shared the stage to which one’s eye savored in audience. Added on at differing levels of each house, terraces and suspended balconies, fashioned into the leafy shapes of all manner of tree species. Some of these Yayluwatsa witnessed children scampering across and climbing about in play as he walked by.

The city sheltering cavity glistened reflectively with a lining of metallic beams and mesh. Hollows sporadically pockmarked it leading to concealed entries on the surface, such as the one his troop and he used. Others went to shafts and corridors permitting vital inspection and maintenance on the Faraday lining and augmenting array of devices. It all shielded the Wily Folk habitation from discovery by the world’s indigenous population and their inferior technology.

In spite it all, a battery of evacuation contingencies had been drawn up and frequently drilled through by residents. This pocket of civilization could vanish nearly without a trace.

Yayluwatsa, himself disappeared into throngs of Wily Folk when passing through the social-economic heart on his way to his clan’s residential zone. All along the way, the scenic serenity instilled lightened contentment; he received and offered back warm greetings.

Yes, the census told several tens of thousands dwelt here, but it never hindered anybody from knowing everyone else’s name. Most maintained at least a passing acquaintance if not personal relationship with half or more.

Some briefly inquired Yayluwatsa of their clan’s young and his assessment of their trial. To which Yayluwatsa offered honest appraisals be they hopeful, less than encouraging or truly inspirational promise. Talk of his affairs made a transition toward home the closer he got there.

After traversing the last of the minor limbs and bridges, he passed through a threshold of the extended family’s abode. Sleeping chambers served as its many foyers of entry into the expansive domicile. A floor plan derived from an era immemorial. Important to, even in sleep, adequately warding off outdoor dangers meant detecting them as far away as possible, ergo facilitating best both fight and flight at the exits. Into each curving sidewall recessed a bedding berth. Small sleeping chambers had one or, at most, two.

This being Yayluwatsa and his partner’s chamber he caught silent welcomes from prominent scent markers of his and her making. The scents originated from glands in the base of the palms and, more intimately, under the chin.

As proper, the first in receiving him came Owalaysi by a tight embrace about his middle and a cheek to his chest with dreamily closed eyes. It assured his homecoming by the feel of his taunt form and body heat. He, in turn, buried his face in the yellow stripe of downy hair on her scalp, first for a quick sharp inhalation in verification of his chin fragrance then to nuzzle affectionately. She drew him in to take her whiff and return the tenderness.

Among other family members the more elderly, one at a time, entwined the back of their left hand against his, each to take in a hint of scent of the other’s presented palm from where they stood. A triad comprised the head of any household ranging from seasoned middle age to early elderly and more often men than women.

After the ritualized greetings, Yayluwatsa reached into a satchel under the coils of vine to present a small beatle in offering to the family’s mother. The mother accepted a wrapped insect; such gifts a traditional sign of respect to her unique authority, with a perky fanning of her red crown hair and smiled. Thank you, Yayluwatsa.

While paired with Owalaysi as lovers, Yayluwatsa sired once with the mother. Only the latter of who held the exclusive right to bear children into the family. A mother’s hair, crowned into red locks of coarse bristly hair, projected backwards in horn-like tufts. From her exuded hormones though not to forbid other pregnancies. Instead, it encouraged all women under the same roof to flush, seemingly at will, any ova from their wombs even if fertilized.

These so newborns, entering the world always in pairs, became the conflux of nurturing attention from a broader circle of relatives. Gestation of a mere twelve weeks birthed infants so small each fit into a pair of cupped hands.

Mothers conceived every year with whichever unrelated man she preferred in the household she or they entered into. Younger male triad members stood the best chance of siring kids but not with a certainty. If she moved out or died an unconscious and passive determination of genetic, physiological and social factors, ensued among the remaining women. Whoever held the highest status developed crowning tufts, a softening enlargement in body proportions befitting a mother and slight breasts swelled to full development. The process for a successor lasted a whole year.

One of the triad announced, The evening meal is soon to be ready, so if you will.

Everyone gathered in the largest, center most chamber. There they perched on stools spread about the room individually or in pairs. Before them stood spindly spider leg sconces for dishes brought in by young women and boys yet to enter pubescence. Among them entered two of Yayluwatsa’s little sisters.

In the dish Yayluwatsa’s and Owalaysi’s nimble fingers drew from brimmed centipede segments broiled to a dark brown. Handfuls of fleas and smaller mites both baked over open flames and spiced heavily filled in empty spaces. A pair of pill bugs opened to crescents framed the display further appetizing with aesthetics.

Life was good. What could go wrong?

* * * *

Mom didn’t get why Jesse grew more enchanted with going to the park. She thought that the kids’ day she dragged Jesse to might be why. Really, she wanted to see what Beady saw.

That thing Jesse heard in the trees moved only when she wasn’t looking. When she tried to find it there only moved a spot of green stopping in its tracks not a squirrel or chipmunk. A bird would’a just flown away not scurry in trees like that.

Jesse snuck Beady with her, when Mom took her to the park. Bringing Stevie along became a new edge to keep Mom distracted.

Jesse also had a jar.

The van stopped, making her rise to see Mom had parked. It was her signal!

She popped the seatbelt, snatched the Barbie lunch box with her arsenal, clenched hard on the passenger side door handle, gave it a liberating kick and scrammed for the park edge.

Mom went to undo Stevie from the baby seat she resented from her own vague memories in it, but had the Momniscience to use her special powers of Megaphone Call. Don’t stray too far, and be back when your watch beeps!

She checked her pink and yellow watch to find two hours were all hers. The watch was an artifact, just like the Barbie lunch box and other things from Dad.

It came from back when he was around and pretended to care what ALL little girls were into. She didn’t like much of anything from Dad, and Mom didn’t seem to either. Though, Mom saw purpose in at least some.

Mom preset the alarm to go off to remind Jesse of whatever Mom saw as important. Jesse started finding uses for Dad Things also.

Once under the cover of the trees Jesse skidded to a halt to set the lunch box down. With a plastic crack, she gave Beady a much needed breath of fresh air. I’m sorry if you got shook.

The kitten’s answer to adults became the same as always. M’wheeaahh!

By that, Jesse heard his readiness to get on the case.

Great, more Dad Stuff sneaking into her thinking! She hated kid’s mystery stories too.

She liked things used for pets, like the fish tank net just barely fitting into the bottom of