What do you believe is at the other end of the rainbow?

It's not easy to keep a sense of mystery in your life.  Even when you're a kid, you have to lie to yourself.  "There could be a mysterious cave in these woods!"  But you know the land around your house is dead flat.  There are no caves.  Maybe a sewer pipe, but no caves.  And those woods aren't endless, you dip; you live on an island, after all.  You can sometimes allow yourself a temporary thrill, but reality always settles in.  "A spirit moved the Ouija board pointer to 'YES'!"  When the thrill wears off and your friend goes home, you can contemplate the fact that your friend is a liar and of course she wanted it to say that Corey liked her.  You learn that the pointer is called a "planchette" and you put the whole thing away and only see your friend's random posts about her dog on social media.  How can a person possibly expect to keep a sense of mystery in the face of reality and logic and reason and explanation and depression and hopelessness?

On the cover of what magazine would you most like to appear?

It was a candid shot, taken out of disbelief.  A girl--possibly a lady--being assaulted on the street.  It was dark and still wet from earlier rain.  I was hurrying back to my apartment from photographing wet pavement on the neon-lit streets three blocks over.  Pretentious and hack.  Maybe worthy of stock photo work.  I had my camera around my neck, like an idiot in this bad neighborhood.  I heard her scream, cut off.  I saw them clearly.  Woman and man.  Man wrapped around woman from behind, her feet losing the ground for a moment.  His hand blocking her air.  I lifted my camera and started snapping.

How do you feel about offshore drilling?

"Due to economic and health safety concerns, the United States of America is formally withdrawing from the rest of the world.  We have implemented a timetable that will bring back not only all military personnel, but any government worker, wherever they are deployed, before the end of this year.  While we cannot demand, we strongly encourage tourists currently in foreign countries to return as soon as possible.  At the end of the year, we cannot guarantee you will be able to return."

The President cleared his throat before continuing the worldwide address.  "At the end of the year, our boarders will be sealed.  Funding, including relief funding, to foreign countries will be concluded.  The United States of America is discontinuing all programs outside of our current borders."  President Ullrum looked in desperate need of sleep.  He ran his hands over his face, breaking the long-held tradition of complete formality in these addresses.  But these were different times.  "My fellow Americans," he began, and chuckled, "whoever is still around and able to see and hear this broadcast, we've come into strange days, my friends.  Strange days, indeed."

If you could be any ice cream flavor, which would you be and why?

The ice cream truck in my neighborhood peddles death.  Not even hiding it.  The music is out of tune and changes pitch and rhythm.  It sings, "Here he comes, the ice cream man, he's come to scoop your brains out."  And yet, they run.  The tinny tinkling and the footsteps thunder taking them all one by one.  Not just the children, but the adults who should know better, too.  The darkest days, with lowering clouds, rumbles of thunder, ominous and low, you can feel it in your chest before you realize what you hear.  The streets shadowed in the light grey of dusk, the time of day you're most likely to be hit by a vehicle.  Leaves and dried things scurry and hide, but the customers, the customers always come running.

Two years after having a baby, you discover that, through a hospital error, you were given the wrong child. What would you do?

When I turned ten, my parents asked me to the living room for a family meeting.  I thought they had found out it was me who covered the boy's room ceiling at school with hundreds of wet wads of paper towels.  Thrown forcefully underhand, they stick with a satisfying "thwack" and surprising longevity.  "Longevity" is a word I inadvertently learned from my Word a Day calendar.  So was "inadvertently".  I didn't want to learn, but junk like that sticks to my grey matter.

Luckily, I knew not to confess without listening first.  Good news: they didn't know about my escapade (March 5th Word of the Day.)  Bad news: they weren't really my parents.

If you were a Disney princess, which one would you be and why?

Elmore's stepfather pulled him out of high school the second he turned sixteen, forcing the boy to stay at the farm and work on the equipment and help with the cows.  He had loved school; it was one of the only ways he had to escape his stepfather and his two stepbrothers, older and bigger and dumber than he was.  Adam and Drew were bullies and learned how to beat their new brother from their father.  Elmore's mother seemed to be running out of apologies for the man she married.  She whispered her sorrow over and over as she cleaned Elmore's cuts and put ice on his black eye.  Elmore whispered back that they should leave, but his mother's excuses would come pouring out again, and they stayed another week, another month, another year.  The year he would have gone to prom.  The year he would have graduated.  The year he could have left.  But not without his mother, no matter her excuses.

What’s the difference between religion and spirituality?

"Brother Carlyle," the monk cleared his throat and shifted in his bare, wooden chair, "lives alone."

The reporter was beginning to get annoyed, but tried not to show it.  "I understand that, but why did he choose to separate himself?"

"He didn't, Miss."  The monk was newer, that is, he became a member within the last ten years.  Most of the monks were quite old, but this one could still be considered young.  She arched one eyebrow and he continued in a whisper, "Brother Carlyle was sent away."

Now we're getting somewhere.  The other brothers, friars, monks, priests, or whatever they were, kept giving her the runaround, but eventually, Tia Teagarten always got her story.  She leaned in and matched the monk's volume, "Why was he sent away?"

Describe your life ten years from now.

I always yelled at the women in those movies who, while running away from an attacker, kept looking back over their shoulders, wasting valuable energy and time.  Thick, jungle leaves slapping me in the face, twisted roots looking to trip me at every step, I found that looking back couldn't be helped.  I turned back just like those stupid women, looking to see if my attacker was any closer than he was before.  I refocused my concentration on running and added a burst of speed.

It was only this morning that I was lounging on the cruise ship's deck, sipping a bit of orange juice and looking forward to going ashore with the guests.

If you were a crayon, what color would you be and why?

The nightly cacophony of sirens, thumping, whining music, and shouting were muffled when Lora was finally able to slide home the metal door on the alley side of her squat.  The building was brick and it had been cemented blind decades ago.  The roof was only partially collapsed, but the place was four stories tall, so the upper floor made a good enough roof.  Lora had been lucky to find it still empty, and she kissed her fingers, touching them to the door in blessing, before cranking her hand light.  Her ritual ten cranks would give her enough to add security to the door, though the alley provided much already.

Lora had only squeezed down the alley because she was trying to escape the Yard Dogs, the gang that had taken over her former street and caught her out after dark.  It was tight, and full of garbage, and she prayed it was not a dead end.  Feeling her way blindly, she touched the metal lever for the door.  Hearing the Dogs howling, she was frightened enough to try to move it, and by a miracle, the door opened.  Hoping she wasn't stepping over a threshold through a collapsed floor and to her death from a long fall or a basement drowning, she managed to close the sliding, metal monstrosity and wait, panting, tense, until the morning.

Without any light inside, Lora had to keep risking opening the door.  Eventually, it was light, and she saw where she was.  The building she was in was the oldest, and the brick hulk next door was built right up to hers, without regard to any of the windows or doors already in place.  Her building had been closed for much longer, and nobody much cared to access it, so, they didn't.  The alley was narrower than she had initially thought, and the scrapes on her shoulders proved it.  Adrenaline had allowed her to push though, but in the future, she'd turn completely sideways.  Lora left the mouth of the alley filled with garbage, occasionally supplementing it when it began to look trampled.  The alley was uninviting, and she made it more so, with nasty-smelling bags left near the entrance.

It was the longest she had ever been able to stay in the same place since she was a child, and she warned herself every day not to become complacent.  Lora added rituals to her locking and checking and booby traps and intruder indicators.  She followed her rituals every time she left and every time she returned.  Making her way up to the second floor, she checked her intruder indicators--twine strung, dust undisturbed.  She made sure her "alarm" system was in place--boxes and tin cans, crunchy gravel and thin metal sheets.  Finally, she made it to her nest.

Lora kissed her fingers and pressed them to the room she had made from materials found in her building.  A precious sewing kit had allowed her to create luxuries, like cushions stuffed with old clothing and even blankets.  One patchwork blanket made a roof over her crate and scrap wood nest.  Others lay on the floor or folded neatly in the corner.  Ducking in through a flap, Lora knelt down and removed her shoes, untying the scavenged laces carefully and putting them on her shoe mat.  There was another ritual she followed that had nothing to do with security of her body.  It was, instead, security of her memory and her heart.

Kneeling on her blankets, she removed the coat she always wore.  She had sewn in special pockets on the inside, carrying her memories with her, in case she couldn't come back.  Lora pulled out a grey packet of cloth, and laid it on the cushioned floor of her nest.  Cranking her hand light twenty times, she perched it on a low pillow.  With her right hand, she unfolded the first flap.  With her left hand, she unrolled the packet.  With her right hand, she unfolded the top, bottom, and remaining flap.  Inside were the only connections to her former life: a four-inch real graphite pencil, no point; a tiny piece of a formerly yellow blanket; two, one-inch pieces of red crayon, no label; and a folded photograph, one-inch square.  Lora arranged the items in a line then picked them up one at a time, holding each to her nose, and reminding herself of who she was.

If you could meet with President Obama for fifteen minutes, what would you discuss with him?

I wish the world would embrace peace.  It sounds like such a hippie thing to say.  Unfortunately, the hippie movement was undermined by resistance to change and drugs.  Those resistant to change pointed to the drugs as the reason why hippies shouldn't be listened to, and some hippies were more into "expanding their minds" than peace, but those undermining reasons never mattered.  Only peace mattered.  Only peace matters.

I have a secret.  It's huge.  I mean, it's unbelievable.  It has made me see how humans will never believe the message of peace.  It has made me see how humans will never relinquish their love of power and money, which is what made religion what it is today.  Religion is humans controlling humans, I see that now.  It's not peace and harmony.  Religion is the leading cause of death and suffering in the world, so how could it be peace and love and harmony and all that bull?  It's not, and I can prove it with my secret.

The Savior is here.  Don't dismiss me as a crazy!  Isn't this what everybody's been waiting for, so why is it so unbelievable?  I didn't believe it myself, at first.  But now I do, and...  I'd better begin at the beginning.

What do you look for in a role model?

In Grand Park's Magician's Corner, mages were allowed to busk, license prominently displayed, of course.  Licenses were cheap, but not easy to come by as there were a limited number given each season.  Auditions were held every year, and everyone had to reapply, even the veteran performers.  Sometimes they didn't get in.  Competition was fierce for those spots, and some years, fights broke out in the audition lines.  Magicians were known to have disappeared after not getting in, too.  Sometimes they reappeared other years, and sometimes... they performed the ultimate vanishing act.

Holly loved to take her lunch breaks from Nova, the upscale clothier, in Magician's Corner.  Grand Park was only a five minute walk from Nova, which was in line with the other major clothiers on Parkview Avenue.  She was a relatively new salesgirl in Gloves, brought on when Messiah Blanchett wore long, elegant gloves to King's Court.  Messiah was always fashion-forward.  But Holly had been coming here far longer than her most recent job.  Her grandfather had been Maurice and Magnificent, back in the day, and performed here in his youth, before he hit the big times, which was decades before Holly was even a glimmer in her parents' eyes.  She had adored Papa Maury and followed him like a puppy.  Holly learned a lot about magic, the art of performance, and magicians.  She still kept in touch with most of them, and they waved or said hello or stopped by to show off their most recent creations when she sat on the steps of Benedict's Statue to eat her bagged lunch.

Today was the third day, however, that Holly came with butterflies in her stomach, hoping to catch a glimpse of a new magician.

If an alien came to earth how would you show it love?

For more than a week, the nights had been sweltering, the air thick with humidity and not a hint of breeze.  The evening news kept predicting blessed rain, but always at the end of the ten-day forecast.  No matter how close the days crept to the prediction, the rain stayed out of reach.

Naomi wheeled her TV cart to her farmhouse's front window and sat outside to listen to the gentle babble over the sounds of crickets and peepers having sex in the fields and woods that surrounded her for miles.  A gentle stream would usually be heard, but that had dried up close to the start of this unholy summer.  She lay back in the hammock strung from the house to a pillar of the wide porch and wished for a breeze.  Tonight would be another night out here, she thought.  Is it ridiculous to drag out a fan?

The thin, white, over-sized shirt she wore for pajamas was already clinging to her back and chest.  Living alone and so far out in the countryside, her house not even visible from the little-used road, Naomi thought maybe she'd go without, but her natural modesty wouldn't let her stray any further than the already daring nightwear.  She decided on a bowl of ice with a washcloth plus the fan.

Just as she swung her bare feet to the wide-planked porch boards, her television flickered and went out.  Naomi stood still to take stock.  The light in her kitchen was also out.  Conclusion?  She thought in her careful, scientific way.  No fan for me.  People with air conditioners loved to hog electricity, despite the warnings of brownouts and blackouts, and now look where it puts the more environmentally conscious.  In the dark.

Naomi let her eyes adjust.  She plotted out her route to her favorite flashlight, to the linen closet for a washcloth, and finally to her freezer for the quick removal of one tray of ice.  And a metal bowl.  She'd set it on her chest and absorb the chill until she had a bowl of water, but at least she might be able to sleep.  Before she implemented her plan, she was lured off her porch and on the dry dust of the path before her house.  The stars, without any light pollution, were brilliant, and she could see the long, dusty arm of the Milky Way.  It fascinated her as it always did, even though studying the stars was a part of her job.

If you could be any type of candy, what type would you be?

Charlotte and her younger brother Daniel, still flushed from the cold air, took their places on the family room floor and poured out their hard plastic pumpkins.  Halloween candy thunked and crinkled to the green carpet and they began to sort.

Daniel still had his Oscar the Grouch mask, but it was pushed up onto the top of his head.  Charlotte's old lady wig itched, but she didn't want to take it off because she thought she looked so cool.  She had been proud to have fooled so many into thinking she was Daniel's grandmother.

Their mother sat at the kitchen table with their father and actual grandmother, who looked much younger than Charlotte's old age makeup.  "Don't eat any before I check it," called their mother unnecessarily.  They had been doing this for too many years not to remember, though Charlotte knew Daniel had already eaten a Snickers in the dark gap between Mr. Grant's and the big white house with pillars.  She had pretended not to notice, but she saw Daniel check the wrapper himself and wasn't worried.

Their father added, slightly more necessarily, "Don't eat too much before dinner.  Pizza's coming!"

Charlotte loved Charlie's Pizza, but she was concentrating.  Three piles: love, like/maybe, yuck.  Charlotte and Daniel finished their sorting at about the same time.  Now the bargaining began.

Pageant Question: Do you think more doors have been opened for you or by you?

"How could you not have explored your entire house yet?"  The dinner party was Gretchen and Hutch's housewarming.  They had bought the house sight unseen, and discovered it had been left full of the previous occupant's belongings, plus quite a few rats and an enormous wasp's nest in the carriage house.  It had taken them three months just to make the bottom floors livable and Hutch, considering himself to be quite the handyman, was planning to gut and replace the ancient kitchen himself.  In celebration of clearing their living room, dining room and twin front parlors, they invited over eight of their closest friends.

Gretchen shrugged her white shoulders in her sleeveless silk jumpsuit.  "I don't know.  We just haven't.  Every room we opened, I've cried over.  You've seen the pictures.  Horrendous!"

"Yes, but Bennett's right," agreed Jessica.  "I couldn't live in a place I didn't look over throoughly.  I mean, what if there was treasure?"

"Or a body," added Marty a glint in his eye.

"Or more rats," said Hutch, opening another bottle of wine.  "I, for one, would like to let sleeping rodents lie until I'm done with the work I have already on my to-do list."

Pageant Question: What is your message to young people today? Why?

When the world swung wild it reeked with the dead.  Bodies washed to sea, buried in mud, ripped, smashed, torn, or simply gone.  We did it.  We ruined ourselves.  This is the mantra we were taught and it has become a part of our genome.  We tell the story of our own destruction in a thousand different ways so we do not forget.  Never forget.  It was the flood, that in back times was called the Flood.  Not a literal flood everywhere, but a washing away of humanity nonetheless.  And it was good.

Good for the world.  This we also have been taught so we do not forget.  The Great Unburdening helped the Earth as it destroyed humans.  Humans are destruction.  Humans needed to be destroyed.  Not completely, though.  Here we are, after all.  We live on, but we remember.

Pageant Question: What living man is the best role model for your generation? Why?

There was a man on an interview show promoting his book about poverty.  He was very controversial because he was advocating for eliminating poverty from other parts of the world because America's poverty wasn't as bad as it was elsewhere.  People in the United States were outraged, but it started conversations, and, as it turns out, the author was right.

Father Francis walked the streets of Rome in darkest parts of the night.  He carried with him food and blankets.  The street children came to know him and they all called him Father.

Alternative Version: What is the best advice you could give a younger sibling?

Carmen was quiet on the drive home.  Leanne knew the evening with her family hadn't gone well for her husband, who was tight-lipped through most of it, but she had finally been happy.  "What, Carmen?  What's the matter?"

"How can you let your brother treat you that way?"

Leanne was surprised not only by the statement, but by the heat.  "Treat me what way?"

Carmen's fingers were white on the steering wheel.  "He was mean to you."

She didn't mean to laugh, and clamped down on it quickly as she saw Carmen was serious.  "I'm sorry, Carmen, but I didn't notice."

"How could you not?  He laid hands on you."

"Yeah?  So?"

Carmen's mouth worked, but he was so astonished, he couldn't speak.

"Listen, Carmen.  You're an only child.  You don't understand."  Leanne was getting frustrated at her husband's unhelpful indignation.  She didn't want to have to defend her relationship, especially not to someone who didn't treat her family with respect.  Someone whose own family clamped down on their emotions, hiding their feelings and letting them burn for years.  Leanne always thought that Carmen being an only child had hurt him a lot.  She knew he thought having a younger brother had hurt her, but Carmen was wrong, as he so often was.

When Leanne finally left Carmen and filed for divorce, she knew his not understanding her relationship with her brother, or her whole family for that matter, was at the heart of their problems.

Pageant Question: What is the best advice you could give a younger sibling?

Doug, are you okay?

It was probably high school when Mom started warning me not to "be a Bahre", but did she ever warn you?  You know what I mean, right, about Grandma Bahre?  About Grandma's sisters.  About how that side of the family seemed to be "pleasers" and let themselves be doormats?  It's not exclusive to girls, you know.

Don't think I haven't thought that it could be my fault.  Did I boss you around?  Was it because we could never play together for long without me getting frustrated and walking away that you found that crazy wife of yours?  Was it because Mom praised me for things you weren't doing?  Though I know it's self-centered of me to even think this way, I can't help but feel guilty.  That's a Bahre trait, too.

I was there, Doug.  I found myself in the exact same situation, but I got out.  Nobody helped me, though.  I had to realize it myself.  People whispered, that's for sure.  Mom and Dad yelled at me, but only when I did something wrong.  They never looked behind it to wonder why I had turned away.  It was because I was "being a Bahre".  Abused.  Doug, you're in an abusive relationship.

She's crazy Doug.  Mother of your children or not, it's not good for any of you.  It's not too late to get out.  Leave her.  Take the kids.  You can get Services for yourself--you don't need her for that.  You're not alone, man.  Those people who whispered behind my back were whispering what it took me years to come to terms with: I needed to go.  So do you.

Does she still steal?  Does she still lie?  Does she still threaten you?  Does she still try to get you to hit her so she can have you arrested?

I haven't seen you in a long time.  Have you lost yourself in her abuse?  I lost myself.  I didn't know who I was anymore.  I hated the real me and tried to be what he wanted.  What are you trying to be, Doug?  What do you want to be?

Pageant Question: If you knew that a friend was being abused by a boyfriend, would you report the abuse, even if she asked you not to?

"I can help you."

The voice was soft, genderless.  I kept trying to pinpoint whether it was a man or a woman, but I couldn't decide.  It was insistent.  It wouldn't let me ignore the real issue.

"Get up.  Let me help you."

I couldn't see; my eyes were swollen shut from crying and my nose was closed for business.  I hurt from laying on the floor.  All my muscles seemed sore.

"Tell yourself the truth.  I will help you."

I was sure the people in the other apartments had heard this time.  The walls were so thin, I could hear when the girl in 3 got a kitten.  It mewed constantly when she left for work.  I never saw any of the other tenants.  I knew there was a guy in 2 whose toilet ran every thirty-five seconds.  When I was in the shower, I counted down to when I had to back away from the stream or risk getting burned.  Was the voice one of them?  Did he leave the front door open when he stormed out and somebody came in and saw me on the kitchen floor?

"Now is your chance.  Trust in me to help you."

Pageant Question: It is okay for women to wear pants, but why are people so uncomfortable with men in skirts?

"Mr. Ripley," whined Marcus.  "Can you let us out early?"

"You know the answer to that, Marcus.  You're in tenth grade and you know everything, don't you?"  Mr. Ripley ambled over to Marcus' desk.  "You haven't finished your worksheet.  Finish those problems and then you'll be able to talk."

Sharon, always wanting to look good, waved her worksheet in the air.  "I'm done!  Tell us a story, Mr. Ripley!"

The class quieted when Mr. Ripley strode to the front of the room.  "You all wrote down your homework?  All the problems on page 80?"  Cult-like, the students answered that they did.  Ever the showman, Mr. Ripley used the drama of silence.  "Why is it that women can wear skirts and pants, but men can only wear pants?"

The class took a moment before erupting in laughter and their own opinions.  "Scottish people wear skirts!"  "My Uncle Danny wears skirts!"  "Men have different parts!"  "Women shouldn't wear pants!"

Mr. Ripley regained attention by unexpectedly standing on a chair.  "Women's skirts come in so many great patterns and colors, and they're so comfortable and free-flowing, why couldn't I come to class in a skirt?"  Amid the heated debate, the end of class bell rung, and students scooped up their books, still paying attention to getting out their opinions rather than wanting to leave, which had only minutes ago been their priority.  Consensus seemed to be encouraging Mr. Ripley to come to class wearing one of his wife skirts to see what happened.

Pageant Question: You have been granted a miraculous healing power that could terminate any single disease, which one disease would you choose?

Father Mark wasn't used to having parishioners actually wanting to speak with him.  He was used to having brief, polite conversations at the end of Mass; stern conversations with parents of Sunday school kids; whispered confessions muffled by oak and worn velvet.  But not a request to go out for coffee, and never from someone his own age.

The cavernous church emptied further with every funeral.  Grey, silver, white and bald heads dotted the first ten rows.  One Sunday morning, at 10:30 Mass, now the only Mass held because of the poor attendance, there was a new face under a shock of unruly dark brown hair.  A new, young face.  The young man stood and sat and knelt just slightly after everyone else, not as familiar with what Father Mark once overheard someone call "Catholic aerobics".

One Sunday evening as he dozed in the confessional waiting the usual handful of "I took the Lord's name in vein when I couldn't get my pill bottle open," Father Mark popped to attention when he heard a new voice.  "Father, may I speak to you?"

Pageant Question: Do you think contestants with cosmetic surgery should be permitted to compete in beauty pageants? What if the contestant was in a severe accident?

"Marsha, did you not hear me?  I said I'm leaving you."  Brad stood tensely in their dining room, gripping the back of a chair.

Marsha sat, implacable, in her chair at the far end, her face a mask.  "I heard you," she murmured, "and I am furious."

"Why don't you show it?  This is one of the very reasons I'm leaving you; you never show your feelings to me.  I can't tell what you're thinking."  Brad's eyes pleaded with his wife of ten years.

A tear leaked out of Marsha's left eye and ran down her smooth cheek unchecked.  "I am horrified, and shocked beyond my ability to comprehend.  Brad, I didn't see this coming."  Her eyes blinked slowly, left, then the right.

"Get mad then, Marsha!  Show me you're angry!"  Brad's forehead creased with his frustration, his lips tight and white.

"Don't you understand, Brad?"  Marsha stood, her face white and smooth.  "I am showing my anger."

Brad's brows raised, his mouth became a tiny "o".

"Yes, Brad, this is the most my face can move."  There seemed to be a moment of concentration passing behind her eyes.  "That was sadness."  Another flicker of brain activity registered.  "That is anger."  Masha's shoulders shook for a moment and she made an odd exhalation though her porcelain face remained immobile.  "I laugh at your confusion." 

Brad's sun-speckled hand came up to his mouth, bracketed with creases.  "My God, Marsha.  What have you done to yourself?"

Pageant Question: Which constitutional freedom do you value most as an American?

"Freedom of religion," whispered Grandfather, "means freedom from religion."

"Hush, Papa!  You don't want to be heard."

"Now, Mother, we're safe in this shelter.  I've made sure of it."

Grandmother still worried, but she went to the pantry to pull together dinner.  The cans and pots hitting the counter too hard meant she was angry.  At the time, I thought it was because she thought Grandfather was careless, which he never was, but now I know she was scared for me and for my brother Matthew, who was a year younger.  She was afraid we'd repeat what Grandfather told us and get us all killed.  We were only eight and nine, but we knew the stakes, and so did Grandfather.

Pageant Question: What is the strangest food you have ever tried? Did you like it?

The side-by-side duplex was built in the late 1800s, and Franco's grandparents were the first occupants.  He only had vague memories of his grandfather, whom he remembered with a touch of fear, not based on any interaction he himself had, but because of the stories his mother told, usually involving the man's belt.  His grandmother, however, Franco remembered clearly since she was still in a nursing home.

Both Carmella and Enzo were straight off the boat from Italy when they bought the duplex using all the money they had in the world.  Enzo was a skilled craftsman, a cabinetmaker, and Carmella would make wedding cakes in the basement with her sisters, who lived next door.  The basement kitchen was well-equipped and usually covered with flour and sugar as the women baked nearly every single day.

Eventually, Carmella's sisters died, spinsters.  Enzo died relatively young of a heart attack.  Carmella would live, and live, and live through it all, basking in her suffering.  Franco's mother and father lived in the spinsters' side, next to his aging grandmother.  His father would equip a downstairs closet with a toilet once Carmella stopped being able to climb the stairs.  The house began to smell.  It was a glorious day for Franco when his grandmother was dragged away to the nursing home.

Franco was charged with cleaning up his grandmother's side of the duplex.  Clearing out all the paintings of Jesus, the Rosaries hanging from every corner, the urine-soaked clothing left to moulder on the second floor his grandmother hadn't been able to reach in years.

The basement still had the kitchen, though it had been unused since the late 50s.  Carmella never allowed her grandson down there, and Franco took great joy in exploring what had been forbidden.  He was the one who found the wine cellar filled with jars of old sauce, made from the original recipe handed down the generations, jars of moldy peaches, and a six pack of Utica Club beer.

Pageant Question: What is the best thing about living in the 21st Century?

Shar was always in a hurry.  No matter how she tried, she always seemed to underestimate the time it would take her to get ready.  Not, she'd reflect, that is was always her fault, but she seemed to draw minor disasters to her like flies to a corpse.

She threw herself into the Pod Car waiting out in front of her building and instructed it to take her to work.  Shar considered getting ahead on messaging, but she was still tired and wanted to use the commute for extra sleep.  "Pod Car," she instructed, "Sleep Mode."  Her seat flattened out and the windows increased their tint until it was lovely and dim inside.  "Pod Car, music, calm meditation, low volume."  The music chimed and gently undulated.  "Pod Car, music, lower volume, two increments."  With her eyes closed, Shar let the calming music wash away her recent worries.

Pageant Question: Before you, there were Baby Boomers and Generation X. How do you think history will remember your generation?

The first lesson to learn is that humans never learn their lessons.

The world we knew and loved, cherished and abused, lived in and died in, was destroyed, beginning long before we noticed we were destroying it.  Humans mentioned "the tipping point" over and over for decades, but hadn't realized we passed that point before the words were ever mentioned in conjunction with humanity's destruction.

But I digress.  In the moment I'd like to describe, I was in a food line, hoping to get to the front before they slammed the gates shut.  My mother told me that back in the day, she heard about food lines like this in Russia, where they waited hours and hours for a lousy loaf of bread.  She had wondered how it had come to this in the United States.  I hoped to get that bread.

On this day, I was alone as my mother had died about ten years ago.  God, ten years?  Time slips, though the days are the same.  I had no other living relatives, as far as I knew.  Cholera took my mother.  She laughed as she died; laughing that cholera, a disease she associated with slums in India, would kill her.  "Love in the age of cholera," she said.  "I love you," she said.  That was all.

I had been in this line for three hours when, at least thirty people ahead of me, they slammed down the gates.  It had been brewing for a long time, but this was the start of the worst riot in memory.  Even without television or internet to spread the news, the news spread, and the whole country rioted.  Hell, maybe even the whole world--what was left of it.