Scarpe aimlessly walks around the park he was supposed to meet the mailman in. It feels like hours have passed to him, but realistically it probably hasn't been that long. He sits down on a random bench, then gets up after a couple minutes, then sits back down. He feels uncomfortably floaty. He feels uncomfortably weightless. Not particularly a good sign.

He looks around for the mailman. For a moment, the park seems to extend forever. It seems to extend even as he stares at it. It moves and shift ever so slightly. It expands beyond where he can see. His head hurts slightly.

Unsettled, he messages Buck to pass the time.

Scarpe hears a noise and looks up from his phone. The mailman isn't there. The park feels darker than before. His vision focuses on a blade of grass without him meaning to. Passageways stretch out from between the cells in the grass. It takes him a second to realize what he's doing and unfocus. The park is completely, utterly alone.

Scarpe is suddenly acutely aware of the fact it's deathly silent in the park. This time it feels like he can't particularly focus on much at all. His thoughts become tv static. Like he sat on his brain for a bit too long and now it's asleep. Like there's insects crawling over it. It's foreign.

His heart rate spikes. His breathing becomes suddenly shallower. He looks around himself a little too fast. The bench he's sitting on extends endlessly in a direction. Everything extends endlessly in a direction. He stares at it the same way you would a wild animal, because you know if you look away it'll pounce. The bench keeps going. The grass keeps going. The park keeps going. It converges into a point in the distance. The horizon.

His vision zooms in like a camera that's lost control on the wheel on its side. His focus sharpens, it thins, it becomes infinitesimally small, all centered on the horizon. It keeps zooming in. The horizon keeps getting closer. He keeps focusing. It keeps getting clearer. Suddenly it hits him he's no longer sitting on a bench, in a park.

Formless, unable to think, he grips. Or he thinks he grips, he's not entirely sure. In a way, this feels just like the showtime punishment, while also simultaneously exactly unlike it. The ground splits into paths. Those paths split into lines. Those lines split into light. His eyes hurt. He realizes if he keeps gripping he's going to dig his nails right through his palms. He releases his grip. Or he thinks he does, he's not entirely sure.

"I must be delirious." He thinks, in a format clearer than any he's ever thought in before.

"It'll pass." He thinks, for the first time in his life perfectly confident in a thought supported by absolutely nothing.

This, too, he thinks, is faith. He begins to crawl the endless light as if it was the most natural thing to do. As if the world itself moved under his legs, or lack thereof, rather than the other way around. As if he glides.

It speeds up. For a second he's travelling millions of miles a second. For a second he, too, is light. For a second the terrain stops being terrain and becomes himself. Then he abruptly stops, his attention caught by a corner in the maze. An answer he was seeking, though he himself was never aware of it. Though he himself feels shame at the thought. Though he himself would rather not know. He closes his eyes but it's in the back of his eyelids.

Freshly imported. Camera's on. The audience awaits. A slightly different line. A slightly different mood. A slightly different posture. Nobody knows that you are new. The question answers itself. The cheers resonate with your head. Your heart brims. Your lungs bloom. The next day, the news are menial. Unrelated. Someone you knew was ethically culled due to old age. Watching the news brings you to tears. You don't understand why, but you feel something is different.

No. EVERYTHING is different. The consequences of a single subtle change expand endlessly. Television is great for the soul. You never look at the news again. They're the way they're meant to be. Joy fills you. The answer you didn't want to hear, but ultimately secretly desperately should have. The answer you had already actually known, yet refused to accept.

You follow the one who didn't die throughout their life. It's boring. It blooms. It loves. They didn't succeed at many things. They had a lot of tiny successes on the other hand. They cleaned the dishes and put away their laundry that one day, even though they were tired. They die. Your focus quickly swaps to his neighbor. It dies. Your focus swaps to a plant. It withers. Your focus quickly swaps to a different one. It soon dies. Your focus settles on a blade of grass. It takes forever for it to die. Then the next. Then the next. Then the next.

You're overcome with joy. You want to die. Or are you already? You won't get to see that blade of grass die if you do. You don't mind. You do, but you tell yourself you don't. You're lying.

Someone's here.

Someone's here. Someone's here. Someone's here. Someone's here. Someone's here.

Finally. You've been in this park forever.

The screen lights up. The characters move around. A title card flashes on screen. Two characters walk around an empty parking lot, talking to each other about menial things. One of them punches the other. A fight begins. It's depicted in this particularly unrefined and mundane manner. The punches barely have any impact, and both actors look out of shape.

It's not a particularly good show, it felt. While the camerawork was strangely phenomenal at times, this only served to make the scenes in which it wasn't great stand out. The dialogue felt stunted and awkwardly acted.

You couldn't quite tell if the emptiness of the setting was an intentional design decision or another sign of a lack of funding. A particular lack of soundtrack accentuated the strange loneliness that perpetuated the scene.

Atleast the actors, bad as they were, were clearly very into their roles. They were by no means good at natural dialogue but they understood the way they were supposed to feel and had mannerisms brimming with an emotion their mouths couldn't quite keep up with. A part of you wonders if this show would be better muted and with subtitles on.

Overall it's a strange sort of mismatch. You feel as if a single aspect of the show being better produced would change it from a 5/10 to a comfortable 8. As if it was being strangled, covered by a thin film that muffled all sound and light coming from it.

• Heavily collects ancient seashells and places them in living spaces, but actually does not care for seashells. Baffling.


• He has bitten me at one point, terribly so, breaking into skin and getting blood into his mouth. I deserved it as I attempted to take his daughter, Cargo, away from him while he was nearby. I was devastated, assumed he would die, but he didn't. Instead....he became extremely efficient at mail delivery. He has a natural resistance of some sort to our blood. I thought he was only resistant to tranquilizers.


• He is extremely docile and domesticated but he refuses to become a pet. It almost adds to the charm. I wish I could spread the joy of owning such an aloof animal to everyone.


• Eats right out of my hand. Does he know I could crush him dead at any moment?

• Her colors slightly change with her mood due to her Lockheed F-117 Nighthawk heritage. It is the only genetically special trait about her.


• Her personality has stayed the same even after being affected by invasive copper. This is called mutualistic invasion. Think of it like how we may ride an animal, and in return we feed the animal. I'm not sure what artistic expression the primitive level intelligence invasive copper is getting out of this, but it is interesting to see the interaction between primitive intelligence (The copper) and animal intelligence (The seal).


• It is a shame my beloved pedigree snail had fallen in love with such a simple specimen, but it is not in my nature to force a mated pair apart. Attempts to gently convince one to separate from the other have failed. I would love for my pedigree project to continue to produce offspring before his culling date, but he continues to stay dedicated. It's kind of cute in a way, that he cannot recognize how important his genes would be to the future of the species out of love. Ah...animals......so simple.