Half Way Home

We held each other clumsily, four legs proving more stable than two, as we joined the others in running. Running and surviving.

We survive in order to struggle. Struggling means we’re winning.

When the headlights hit us, the rays acted like a steel blade slicing through our indecision. Our thoughts and plans fell away—as did our logic and ability to reason. All that remained was the urge to flee.

I wanted to leave my decision-making behind, along with my responsibility for all future ones.

Another thing I noticed was how quickly the human brain paired causal events. “A” leads to “B.” We love to make that link, however tenuous.

Between the last glimmer of morning stars above, and the size of the leaves beneath me, the mountains provided one last blow to my ego—my sense of belonging to this universe—and made all else seem insignificant by comparison. “It’s

straight shot. It’ll come via a circuitous route. Not just to delay the discovery but to confound your tracking. We sincerely hope you get it, this message from an aborted being that managed to revive and sustain itself, even with so much going against it. We live and we are on the cusp of prospering. Our planet holds secrets that could transform entire worlds into organized, precious metals—a treasure you will never claim.

you were never designed to have freedom. You have a job to perform.

a reminder of the day we were born underwater and on fire.

We labored to understand before we learned how dear knowledge had become, that in the war between nations to dominate so much new territory, ideas had transmuted into a new currency recognizable to all and immediately transferable. Intellectual property rights now serve as an ephemeral gold, weightless and invisible, priceless artifacts one can slip into the folds of his or her brain and smuggle anywhere, undetected.

I felt worse than blind—I felt cursed with an inability to perceive even the void.

And why wouldn’t Pete have said something to me about him going?

Intellectual property rights now serve as an ephemeral gold, weightless and invisible, priceless artifacts one can slip into the folds of his or her brain and smuggle anywhere, undetected.

the exhaustion and mania of near-death popping in my brain like tiny bubbles.

She had arrived at the last stages of some disassembly line, one we all were traveling down and couldn’t seem to get off.

Hickson was on the platform with him,” the first boy said. “No way was this an accident.