Baghead
A short story about a clerk.
Baghead by Zachary Evans
Small and controlled movements. A clerk pressed and scrubbed at the basin of a slushy machine. Brown mixed clumps of hardened sugar came out with every movement. Back. Forth. Up. Down. Knicks and cuts wrapped the clerk’s hands as he persisted in his task. The jagged edges of varied - now polished - surfaces would hook the man’s skin. The clerk’s long, greased hair swayed as he cleaned. The bulb on the third aisle flickered, whirred, and clicked above the hot chips and ramen. An array of slightly lopsided posters overlapped on the gas station windows. The attendant saw a shadow through an advertisement for a “$4 hot dog combo meal.” The shape crept closer to the door. The door chimed. The figure emerged into the blinding white store lights.
The gas station employee hunched over his register. The lengthy stranger jittered through the store’s aisles in front of the clerk. The man behaved like a dropped soda can. He hissed and rumbled slightly from the mouth. The figure was stature-filled and worrisomely bony. The stranger was not unusually tall, but certainly taller than the man behind the counter. Something about the stranger’s demeanor wasn’t inherently peaceful. Then again, most people who walked into a gas station this late aren’t peaceful. Still, something restless tried to emerge from this particular shadow’s body. The employee called out,
“Anything I can help you with?”
The mysterious man lurked toward the counter as the employee spoke. The stranger’s eyes darted to every poster, paper, box of beer, energy drink, and speck of dust in the store. The man’s eyes observed everything. Everything apart from the employee’s own eyes.
“Yeh huh… yeh man, can I get a pack of cigarettes?”
“Sure. You wanna be more specific?”
“Uh. Yeh… uh. The red ones.”
The stranger deeply inhaled. The figure clenched his teeth. The fresh air entered his lungs created a hiss. His hands harshly massaged his shoulders. He rapidly tapped the counter. The gas station attendant was quick with a checkup.
“You good man?”
“Yeh, I uh… yeh man I’m just uh bit um. Yeh, cold, I guess.”
“I can see that. You should grab one of those hand warmers… on me.”
“Ah hey man - uh thanks. I’m… ya know, I’m good”
“Alright. Well, here you are. You got cash or card?”
“Uh cash, man.”
Rogue air escaped the figure’s lungs every time he fidgeted. Then, just like the clerk had asked, the stranger reached for his pocket for some cash. With a brief pause, the stranger looked to the left behind the employee.
Then, the two made eye contact.
A second later, the eye contact was broken.
It was clear that something had been placed on the employee’s head. However, it could not have been by the stranger in front of the register. Deep, low rustling surrounded the clerk. The employee felt a firm hand grasp at shoulder. Roughly three men pierced the darkness with their breaths and voices. The clerk could feel cold steel graze his exposed neck hairs. He did not hear them come through the back? The man heard more faint whispers in his blind solitude, but they all faded to alphabet soup. The gas station employee realized he was six feet above his final destination. However, despite the most egregious and dire situation, the man had not felt what he thought he’d feel. No pain. No regret. No shock or awe. He just felt undeniable and wholehearted indifference to the fact that he very well could die. In fact, he would die here. Despite not being able to see through the covering they placed over his face, the clerk’s mind got lost in the aisles of ramen and iced tea. The words the new strangers spoke bounced off the employee’s ears like rain pellets on a steel overhang. They tapped silently. They would not matter.
“You gonna say somethin’?!”
“What?”
“Good morning?! We’ve been talking to you?!”
“Sorry, what did you say?”
“I know you set up my brother, man! Don’t fuckin play stupid, you understand me!”
“What’s his name?”
In what was likely a combination of pride and arrogance on behalf of the gunman, the trigger was cocked back. The minimum wage employee never heard a sound, but he knew the trigger had been pulled a multitude of times.
The world that surrounded the recently deceased clerk became a warped kaleidoscope. The man could see outside the bag that covered his head. Shelves and posters on the fray of the employee’s vision became geometric but simultaneously amorphous. He could not register the true shape of things; he could only feel they had edges. His conscience drifted from his flesh. Thunk. The man’s physical body was sprawled out on the floor next to the small bits of broken glass and lottery tickets. This new form was unnatural. Serene. It was like the man stared at a lake on fire from a distance. He drifted.
His soul reached out to his physical body like a child’s feeble hand to its mother’s finger. The bullet wounds on his tangible form created lit tethers to mirroring points on my bloodless form. The ropes that connected the two bodies were entirely invisible to people with fleshy “real” eyes. They could not see the clerk’s soul as it drifted. The gunmen below shuffled at a low shutter speed; their voices hummed and whizzed. They all fled the store. The energy of the recent bullet wounds rippled through the clerk’s weightless form as he floated. The burst appeared as cubed water ripples just below his ethereal skin. The feeling of his death gave him an unexplainable head high. He pulled on the white strings that connected him to his earthly shell. He performed like a spider. He tugged at his own web.
Then, Earth hit. The weight of gravity’s hand bludgeoned the man’s soul inside his fleshy frame. His eye bags sank like they had been glued to the floor. His hands were filled with sand. He began to feel a deep burning from where the bullet had landed slowly fade. When he came to, a new figure stood in front of the clerk. A concerned good Samaritan watched.
“Holy shit! He’s - Oh my god he’s… he’s getting up?!”
“What happened?”
“You just got shot man?! Like - you just got shot in the head. You good. What?!”
“Yeh.”
“I called an ambulance, just… Oh my go- Just stay still.”
The clerk pulled the covering off his face. A paper bag. His hair fell off in clumps until he only had short, soft hair. He looked the Samaritan in the eye. The clerk then looked down at the paper bag to see a hole from one end to the other. Thick red brain matter dripped from the inside of the bag. The cigarette wall behind had more red cases than before. However, the clerk’s hands were knick-free. In fact, there was not a mark on the man: even fewer small cuts and rashes than before he was shot. He wasn’t just alive. The man was blemishless.
Days became a chime at the register after that moment. Landon Labelle was the name of the clerk. This name was the same one his mother gave him. Landon’s father secretly detested the name because it was not his own. The clerk’s newfound immortality led to a growing popularity in the locally owned gas station. As a sign of appreciation, the gas station owner gave Landon a $2 raise and weekly free lottery tickets. Landon was now forced to act as a celebrity at a convention booth. At the store, a single-file line wrapped around the unused pumps. The news would try to interview Landon, but the responses the media got were limited. He was a small-town god with few words to give the masses.
People asked for his blood for their dying grandparents, aunts, moms, and dogs. Landon would occasionally give it up; although, it never worked any miracles as the people had hoped. Researchers ran countless tests and experiments on the clerk. They wanted to find a cure for cancer or whatnot. Landon figured it was a way to spend a couple of hours, so he accepted modest paychecks. He went in with the ideology that it was the right thing. Really, he could not care less. Anyways, the research on Landon concluded that the man was frequently bruised. He was not remarkable in any physical category. Landon’s blood type was O positive, and he had rashes from his workplace scattered across his body. The only thing that rightly puzzled the researchers was the lack of bullet wounds or internal damage. None of them had any idea how he could be alive, especially when buckets of his blood were poured on the floor of the gas station.
The first murder of Landon was not the only one. People would frequently try to kill the clerk. The culprits were often people who were consumed with sensationalized news. The immortal was hated by a different side every other day. Whichever side he was on, somebody had something to hate. Often, the murder attempts would succeed, and Landon would get a fresh haircut for some inexplicable reason.
Ever virtuous, the police got involved in both the store and the investigation. However, security started to doze off after realizing the man did not care and could not die. Landon would always reemerge unbothered. In fact, he felt even better than before he passed away. Besides, who were they protecting? All wounds, ailments, scratches, soreness, hangnails, or headaches seemed to be rectified when his soul reconnected with his flesh. Regarding the whereabouts of his original “killers,”… all dead ends. They couldn’t even arrest them on the charge of murder, only attempted murder. Even still, the immortal man didn’t seem to mind all too much. He let all his persecutors go and did not press charges. He was not engaged with the idea of justice, only the sensation of feeling.
From then on, flowing crowds faded in and out of the aisles of the stores in front of “the Baghead”. Hordes of people with indiscernible facial features all bought price-gouged sodium-rich snacks for a chance to talk to local - do nothing - hero Landon Labelle.
The clerk’s old high school friends visited him frequently. They were all quick to remind Landon about their outlandish adventures together. As any other colored soda would, these people and their memories just blended into the deep and bubbling brown of an oversized soft drink.
“How have you been, Landon?! It’s good to see you man!”
“You too, man.”
“Great, well, hey! Really really quick, remember that girl, [Name]. I have her number! She’s single and thinks you’re hot, man. You should ask her out.”
“Great man. Do you want a bag?”
“Uh, yeah, man. Hey, here’s her number.”
“Have a Bagtastic day.”
“Do you, uh, even remember me, man?”
“Just about as much as everybody else. Have a good one, man. Next.”
Landon slipped the girl’s number into his pocket. The man’s memory seemed to slip frequently. He couldn’t tell if this was a newfound forgetfulness or the same one he developed from abusing Xanax and edibles. Either way, He’d clock in and out, and not a single person’s interaction gave him any understanding he did not already know. They were all unnamed faces with very little to offer.
Landon’s parents called him frequently. Landon never answered. He knew they weren’t going to give him any beneficial advice. In the best case, they would ask him for money. Worst case, they would suddenly pretend to love him. However, the clerk didn’t end up working in a gas station because his family set him up for success. Eventually, he picked up one of his dad’s calls just to ask if immortality was genetic. A simple curiosity. His dad said, not as far as they knew. Click. Landon would never get to the part where his dad finally falsely claimed he was proud of him. Landon knew his father never liked his name. Luckily, the only thing people knew him as was “Baghead”. It’s been that way ever since the news used it as a buzzword.
Soon enough, Landon called the phone number he was given by a high school stranger. In no time, his high-school crush straddled his waist every night. The immortals’ apartment was always warmly lit by the one working bulb in the quaintly sized bathroom. She kissed his neck. This fact wasn’t felt, just observed. The bed shook. Landon’s breath was stolen from his lungs with each vigorous motion that passed. However, it did not feel like much of anything. No satisfaction. No reward. It was just what had happened every night for the past couple of months. Landon sank into the mattress with that dead-eyed look on his face. Inside a rubbed and pressed body was nothing more than a dormant soul. The woman fell from on top of the man. She slowly tucked her head against his shoulder. Her nails combed his chest.
“Is it just going to keep being like this?”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know… just like indifferent?”
“I don’t feel that way.”
“Yes… You do, Landon.”
“That’s not true.”
“It is Landon.”
She tucked her head into the pillow as the waterworks began.
“Could you just tell me that you love me and we’ll be ok.”
“I don’t want to lie to you.”
You could hear her wipe her tears to try and save face… integrity… whatever. She composed herself over a few short moments.
“Ok. Ok, fine then. Do you want a cup of coffee, Landon? Is that what you want?”
“Sure.”
She got up and prepped a cup of coffee. She was beautiful to Landon - logically speaking. Her proportions were correct. She had lovely dark eyes. Her hair was jet black. She met all the requirements for someone Landon might have envisioned himself with. However, he could not lie. He did not love. He did not love anyone or anything despite his best attempts. However, she may be the closest he would ever get.
Landon’s partner had poisoned the coffee he was about to ingest. It wasn’t a secret because she had done it many nights, so he could “float”. It prevented Landon from coming back for a couple of moments while his body reset. She usually waited patiently on her phone or watched a movie with his corpse resting on a chair or mattress. The immortal sat slumped over like a sack of potatoes. Drool ran from his mouth. His hair fell out in clumps. However, as he floated away this particular time, she got up from the bed and grabbed her makeup bag, his cash savings, and some K-cups. He watched her from above in the Kaleidoscope. He did not fight it. He didn’t wrap his hands around the ethereal line of pills forming from his mouth. He did not try to drag himself back to gravity. As he floated, she looked up at where she guessed he would be. She was right on the money. The two locked eyes. For the first time, Landon felt her heart beat. Some deep part of him hurt for that girl. Her name was Lucy. However, he was out in the nothing, and she was standing on the ground. Then, she was gone. He never looked around for her. She never reached back out to him.
The novelty of immortality grew stale to onlookers. Especially because - in the customer’s eyes - Landon could not help anybody else achieve immortality. Alternatively, the man was too selfish to give eternal life to the public. Although Landon’s time as a research lab rat deflated that theory.
Every day, Landon’s face always showed the same blasé look. He simply looked up. Down. Left. Right. Every emotion felt more neutral with the setting suns. Companies would offer up brand deals and advertisement gigs for all sorts of stuff. Landon’s “I don’t care about anything” attitude was sellable and fit the mold of a deity. However, the man never felt truly above anyone else, just exactly even. In that indifference, the immortal could not seem to be bothered with achieving moral enlightenment, grand success, a perfect marriage, or any of the other notable pursuits of life. He was always precisely in the middle.
Landon eventually gave up hope that the gas station would take him anywhere. He knew it would not. However, the progression of a simple man seemed to appeal to him for a time: to come up the honest and Godly way. He wanted to pull himself up by his bootstraps and sell questionable potato chip flavors. Dill Pickle? Pomegranate Delight? Cold Soup and Stale Bread? Who the hell made things? Regardless, Landon quit, and his boss had crocodile tears. Landon did not care. He grabbed a lottery ticket on the way out.
Suddenly, because of his newfound joblessness, the immortal went homeless. He grabbed his dad’s busted-up guitar and headed down the echoey, humid apartment stairs for the last time. He clunked down the steps with his few things. The door hissed and opened to the hungry and consuming sun.
Outside the apartment was a bearded dragon crawling through broken glass. Landon’s eyes shifted to where he likely emerged from. A married couple - seemingly at least - but only the woman wore the ring. Their hands both punched down on the air, and the muscles in their necks tightened. Small bubbles of spit slipped from their throats. They jumped, kicked, screamed, and demonstrated in every way the most bitter kind of hate. They bucked at each other with words until she got in the car and slammed the door. She left with no goodbye or I love you. Only then, in her absence, did the man feel anything he had just said.
Landon walked several steps and placed his hand on the man’s shaking shoulder. The stranger recognized him; he wiped the snot from his jaw.
“You - You’re the baghead?”
“Yeh.”
“I didn’t know you lived here?”
“I don’t. Not as of a couple of minutes ago, at least.”
“Did you move your stuff already?”
“Nah. You can take it if you want.”
“Hey, man. That’d be great… that uh… my wife took my stuff.”
The stranger sharply inhaled. He rubbed at his eyes before tears could properly form. The man looked at the concrete for a minute. It was a long silence. He kept breathing deep breaths. Eventually, he cried. Landon didn’t know how to feel. He just stood there in silence. He did not ask how the man was feeling. He already knew.
“Sorry, man, I’m sorry - it’s been a rough day.”
“It’s ok.”
Landon patted his back in an attempt to comfort the distraught figure. Then, the bearded dragon bumped into Landon’s worn boot. The weeping man looked at it with red eyes.
“Is that her lizard?”
“Guess so.”
“You can keep it if you want.”
“Alright.”
Landon had never observed that level of grief while looking at a total stranger. Even when his grandfather died, nobody felt quite so heartbroken. He watched and studied the man like an animal. Despite not feeling, Landon knew right from wrong. For instance, Landon knew he had treated Lucy poorly, but he didn’t feel any form of regret. He could only feel excruciating physical pain. Landon could only feel a knife in his chest or flames melting his skin. Did that make him evil? Was it some buried trauma that he never noticed until now? Possible. However, it was more probable that the man just wasn’t a human being in a traditional sense. A feeling and a complete person. Landon did not even know if he wanted to be healed from his condition. Hate seemed hellish to him; maybe his indifference was justified.
Landon bought a portable plastic tank and some food with the little money he had left for his scaly companion. He did not feel any attachment to the creature, but he named it Slushy. It seemed fitting. The reptile was concerningly blue. The man had never seen another bearded dragon like it. Then again, maybe he didn’t see very many bearded dragons.
Landon began to walk the concrete hellscape of Orlando, Florida. His comically dark outfit trapped his bubbling sweat. Water poured down his sleeves and coated his hands. On this particular day, Landon opted to wear his usual dark leather jacket and black jeans. The heat index read 95. He crept by and slept near cardboard boxes and tents in the night. The immortal always ended up sleeping with his head on his backpack. As Landon drifted off to sleep, his bearded dragon watched inside its case. Smaller lizards and salamanders passed by on the opposite side of the plastic.
The days ticked by. The former clerk found himself in homeless encampments playing songs for people. The usual crowd didn’t care who he was. He related to them in that way. His acoustic guitar would wallow and tremble as he beat his dirty fist against the wood. His father’s name, written in Sharpie, became less visible with the day. The man became an unknown. He found peace in the rotten swells of human civilization. He would die quite frequently and watch the others who died breeze past him. His flesh became more connected to the ash around it as he watched more people depart. Despite this, his soul still felt the same loneliness. He began to put various bags over his head again so people would know where to find him. He poked holes where his eyes would be, and he drew a smile. Now, ever since the people without the news knew who the baghead was. At least it was even. The lost people could request a song or two.
Landon wasn’t sure why he played the songs; playing music just became something to do to keep the clock spinning. Slushy got good at a dance as he witnessed his owner’s performances. He would bob his head and stomp his feet. The people seemed to find more joy in the lizard than in the immortal. Maybe they could sense that the animal had more feeling in his art. In any case, Landon was content with that fact.
The world moved on without the baghead in headlines, and the convenience store would claim they ended on good terms to keep selling baghead merchandise. However, nobody would visit the store after Landon’s departure. Brands would still call Landon’s long-dead phone, which he refused to charge. It seemed to be the only piece of himself he could kill. In the life that he lived now as a wanderer, he saw all the most horrible ways to leave this earth. None of them shocked or startled him. The man just watched. He did what he could, and he kept playing his guitar. None of it kept him up at night. None of it made him feel grief.
He’d often walk with the souls outside of his physical form and talk. He’d drift with them for a while. He’d wear a bag over his head even in that; peculiarly, he’d always ask the people to call him by the name Landon. They would almost always ask
“What happened?”
“You overdosed.”
The people who passed away would always explain that it couldn’t have been them, they were in good health, or -if they did not know better - they would ask Landon where their mom was. In all those instances, the immortal felt the same nothingness. He tried to comfort them at that particular time of need. He believed it was all he could do. He would sing to the lost souls for hours. He would perform all the songs they’d wish they’d heard at their favorite concerts. Then, they would often thank him, or cry, or ask for some favor. Landon fulfilled it all out of sheer boredom. This particular stranger did all three, and - as part of his favor - would ask if the baghead could publish his book. Landon responded,
“Of course.”
The man took a while to realize that he would never see his dream fulfilled. When he did, he asked Landon,
“Why would you do that? Why are you doing all this?”
“Something to do, I guess.”
“You aren’t- That isn’t your responsibility?”
“It’s not. Not really, I guess. It just gives me something to do.”
“Bullshit.”
“What?”
“People don’t do stuff like that when they’re just “bored”.”
“I have a lot of time to be bored.”
“Yeah. Yeah, I guess.”
The newly dead man looked around at the abstracted office surrounding him. Bodies whirred past the glass of his door at a low shutter speed. All of his coworkers were too scared to come in. Important people always did have a way of making everyone feel on edge.
“Why are you here… baghead?”
“I was outside in the alley a couple of blocks down. I felt energy… so I kind of floated here. Also, you can just call me Landon.”
“Then why do you wear the bag over your head?”
“My face is very tired.”
“Ah. Ok, I mean… yeh, sure, I guess. Also, what happened to you? You’re homeless, you said?”
“I guess.”
Landon was noticeably disheveled to the man. The abstracting patterns on his clothes and guitar could only conceal so much. The bag just concealed whatever blank look Landon had on it at the time. His indifference was still noticeable but harder to read. The suited man took a deep breath.
“So you’re not here to teach me some moral lesson? Or at least tell me I’m going to hell?”
“I don’t know what I’d teach you if I’m being honest. I happened to be a block away.”
“Huh…”
“What?”
“I always thought it would be different, ya know. No offense, but I thought it would be different.”
“It might be different after this. This is just somewhere.”
“Right, somewhere. I just thought it would be at least more intense or… scary.”
The man scratched at his nose.
“Do you know anything, Landon? I mean, about what’s going to happen to me? I don’t mean that rudely - I just don’t understand why you’re here. What are you doing here?
“I don’t really understand. I’m just here because you were close by.”
“I mean, ya know, don’t you have something better to do? I’m sure with the number of people who know about you, you could be rich or… famous. Or like, at least married? Or if you’re not into that, then like, out clubbing? Why are you here? Why are you trying to comfort me?”
“You were just the closest person.”
Landon knew the man was still in denial - many were. The stranger’s brain couldn’t begin to process the fact that he is truly dead. That permanence is hard to process. Especially because the man had the same head high as the immortal. The only difference between the two is that one would be short-lived. However, the man processed something that many others didn’t in their short time being dead.
“Landon, can I tell you something?”
“Yeah. Of course.”
“I don’t think you would be here if you weren’t a good person.”
The stranger adjusted his tie. You could hear small cracks in the crystallizing books on the shelf; all the little noises stood out just a bit more. Landon tried to come up with something, but he was never good at receiving compliments.
“Thanks.”
“You’re very welcome.”
The man smiled and almost laughed to himself. Landon thought denial was a precious thing sometimes.
“Could you play me a song, Landon?”
“Sure. What?”
“Play whatever you feel.”
Landon published the man’s book. The writing, if it were generously described, was some self-help nonsense that had been written a million times over. It did not interest Landon in the slightest. However, it meant something to the stranger, and Landon supposed it could take up a couple of days. The immortal didn’t really know or understand where the people went. All the souls were abstracted after a certain point, and they would become triangles and other vaguely geometric shapes. It looked peaceful. There was never any screaming; most of the people were just absorbed into the nothingness. Landon believed they had waited their whole lives to be a part of the void. When he said goodbye to the man, it had been some hours. Landon never asked his name. He never saw him again, and he did not cry for him.
The walls of Landon’s childhood bedroom started to decay as he remained the same. Perfectly intact. Physically better than he’d ever been. Landon and Slushy started their voyage upward. The pair hiked towards Jacksonville and along the interstate to North Carolina. People offered to drive the pair, of course. However, he always declined the offer politely and kept walking. Any time his body felt broken or bruised, he’d quickly “off himself” and wake up a refreshed man. No knicks. No cuts. No hair. Every time he’d pull the trigger and drift just a little while longer. Fewer people would offer to drive him every time he came back to life.
The weeks ticked by as he continued his trek. He stopped at convenience stores and pet shops. Landon’s clothes became entirely brownish-red. The fabric crusted and crunched with the weight of his own dried blood. The gravel beneath his holed black - now crimson - boots decayed with his ascent. Further up the mountains, he trekked. The man had become a cryptid in the woods, and police officers would often question him about what he had done. He would tell the cops the truth, that he was a blood-soaked immortal with a bag over his head. He would show his face - his now globally known face - and he would continue to walk.
As Landon roamed the bible belt, he frequently stopped at churches and talked with pastors about eternal life. His appearance haunted the various congregations. He smelled of curdled iron, urine, and rot. Flies swarmed him, and maggots were deeply embedded in his clothes. Many believers renounced their faith at the mere sight of the former clerk, and many others viewed his “death state” as a form of purgatory. Landon only wanted answers. He would not argue. He did not raise his voice. He asked in the broadest of terms,
“How can God possibly exist and make a man live forever?”
The priests, pastors, youth ministers, and worship leaders all had various answers to give. It was something like,
“The universe is full of divine mysteries, that doesn’t make God any less holy!”
or
“Maybe you’re just called to a higher purpose. God is probably using you for something we don’t understand yet.”
or
“Immortality and God don’t contradict. Besides, many biblical figures lived hundreds and hundreds of years.”
However, Landon viewed himself as fully agnostic. If God somehow had used Landon, he would be none the wiser. The man was a miracle - certainly. Miracles did not prove God’s existence. It only proved that he was an exception to the only rule of life: Death. Landon concluded that he couldn’t be bothered with the idea of God. He would never meet the man anyhow. He would be dragged back to weight by strings. Saint Peter would never greet him, and it really did not matter all too much. That would be a problem for the day he finally did die.
Small and controlled movements. Landon would hunch through the woods. He and his lizard were made into mountain folklore. He would go everywhere, and it was all the same. Back. Forth. Up. Down. A purposeless figure wallowed through life with nothing but a faint idea of indifference. His Dad’s name would slowly fade from the guitar entirely. He would never find out why Lucy was so special. He would never find out if he were a good person. He would never find out if he were part of some divine plan. The meaninglessness of it all haunted him, but his indifference prohibited him from caring. He scratched off the lottery ticket he took on his last day of work. He won. It was all just small and controlled movements.
Sorry for the punctuation errors, I did not run the text through anything and didn't do a thorough enough read through to catch some of them. I just wanted to get something out there; I hope the story is readable! Thank you for your support <3
I LOVE THIS STORY SO MUCH! The imagery is so so so fantastic, and it is such a fascinating thought experiment!!! I can't wait to learn more about this universe