If you haven’t read Between Two Worlds, this won’t spoil anything. If you have, it’ll fill in a little detail.
I not need this shit. I not need that asshole.
Knew he gonna flex his dick and call for wolves, cos he ent stopped the blah on it for like two bleeds. Knew his brown curly plan also. He reckons he whispers when he sits with C-dog and he talks of food and boots and bats and sheets and his want for a tent big as a dome. Cept when C-dog, he nopes, Glin Bolt, he louds. He louds til every tendant in semble hears, even with fingers so deep in ears they touch in the mid.
Ring, she stood and lifted arms and screamed mute when she learned the wolves, they gonna march. She bailed to the bub, her eyes saying she ent gonna march any place else.
I shoulda followed. We all shoulda followed. Glin Bolt, he gonna crumble to ash and bone if we ent sniffing his stink and sweeping the path shiny front of him. He the rep, but tendants run Peba, truly. He asks and we yes him or nope him cos he a bag of wants and we know the if and the how of it all. He a wet fart without us.
Tendants and C-dog, I suppose. We run Peba joint. C-dog, he decides. Glin Bolt, he fiddles, he fakes, he sneaks, he snakes. Tendants, we work.
Truth truth, Glin Bolt, he not want any cept dry cold pockets of coin and wet hot pockets of tendants too green to nope the ask from his balls.
I know better, thisdays. Aleast on that.
Yeah, I shoulda followed Ring to the bub fast as, hair streaked in a yellow trail behind like the sunstrip. Shoulda banked coupla beakers and walked to cabin and hid in my bunk. Cos a long min after Ring, she left, the asshole, he comes out his room and he stands mid of the tendants all hair and bluster and he points me, and he says I gonna march with him.
“Where?” I ask, cept I reckon I know, and I tryna fill ticks thinking of a nope he gonna allow.
“Where I say,” he says.
“I got—”
“We ent marching this sec, girl. When we march. You gonna come.”
“C-dog, he gonna—”
“Oh, C-dog, C-dog.” He smooths his moustache. “You a tendant, Kerb.” He smugs, cos he membered my name. “C-dog, he chored you as a tendant since— I not care. He gonna keep choring you as a tendant ever ever. And I know, you gonna say your cabin, they need you, your bunkmate, she gonna void without you, you gonna snot and dribble on your pretty legs and hope I choose nother.” He leans in, breath nosing of rot. “I ent.”
He ent. I know it. He knows I know it.
Aleast here in semble I know it ends. Each day I return to cabin and my shoulders, they loose. Each day I flush all the shit from the asshole. On top of cabin as the sunstrip, it ticks spinward, we raise beakers and we burn throats with firewater and we know we gotta repeat repeat repeat but aleast for coupla nours we can blank the day. Blank semble, or hospital, or farm, or store, or barb, or mess, or complex, or academy, or build, or what.
On a march? He gonna smell me and hum and run his finger up my arm and brush his shorts on me and squeeze ass and tell me I gotta march front of him. Each night I gotta sleep cuddling a scythe or some. Each morning I gotta hygiene with eyes narv sove spinward spoutward til I twirl and fall like I blasted.
“When we gonna march? How many days?” I ask, tryna fake happy.
“Soon,” he says. “Many.”
“Soon soon? Many many?”
He twitches his brows and his mouth, and he returns to his room, and he shuts the door.
Guess I gotta fill a pack. Guess I gotta find a scythe.
Back in cabin, I tell evrun over hot soup and hard bread. My bunkie, she not say she gonna void. I reckon she gonna drop to my bunk and turn her bunk to nother place for her shit.
After, she brings out a bottle of falldown brown she says she found some place — we learned coupla winterbreaks back not to ask. The six in cabin, plus a guy from cabin east who got a twitch for me, we sit on top and we drink til it dry and we wet.
I not member much.
I member we find a scythe, glinting dark on the rec with the sunstrip spun to Norf. The guy, he slices tip of a finger and raises it red to me, laughing me to suck it. I say I figure he knows how, he not need me.
He got eyes on nother in cabin now.
My bunkie, she shakes my knee. She says they gonna make sure the asshole Glin Bolt, he ent gonna touch me on the march.
“You gonna paint me with red paste?” I say.
“Nope,” she says, and she lifts the scythe.
Nexday the breeze, it blows my neck, my long hair gone. It gonna blow my neck across near the whole sector on the march. I reckon a blown neck, it why guys come angry. Like when you blow the ear of a dog and it twists and snaps.
Evrun in semble smiles me at the cut hair. I smile cos I not see it. I smile cos Glin Bolt, he not like it.
Gonna pack the scythe, any case.
Anthony Camber 