On the contrary, my dear. I can get you out of my head, and I will do so.

After the initial euphoria of the 'oh my god a girl just kissed me for the first time ever' period, I have begun to regain a sense of perspective vis a vis said girl. The first two weeks were bliss interspersed by slavering anticipation of another kiss, but the second two weeks (where we were on opposite sides of the country) were hell. I couldn't concentrate on my nice, relaxing canalboat holiday - no! I had to sit and stare at a bad photo, and sigh and sigh and sigh.

Well, no more! We're both going to university in a few weeks, once again on opposite sides of the country. I am not going to waste one of the most exciting times of my life (Fresher's Week, and the term that follows) staring into space and thinking of 'very pretty girl who considered me worth a smooch'. I will enjoy intimacy while it lasts, but hey - I've survived for 18 years already, surely I can survive for another three. That's ignoring the fact that my university has a 50/50 gender split, and I now know I'm not a completely socially inept geek when über hot intelligent girl will go out with me.

I imagine this stoic philosophy will last a few days. I'm hopelessly clingy, it seems.

Hi.

Fleadirt new to this place, find it very interesting and confusing. Little confusing (why clampe's wife have translucent teeth?), not very confusing, but very interesting. Fleadirt generally regarded as quite intelligent (Flea admit regard from other fleas, who mostly concerned with jumping and biting. Also Flea admit Flea regarded as insufferable, as well), and hope to contribute useful information to... what is term? Nodegel?

Well, Flea go now. Hard to type with stylet, take while. Back later, maybe.

"These animals are making the ultimate sacrifice for you, to provide you with a better education. You need to treat them with respect."

I hear him say it again and again in my head and still I flash back to that moment where I motioned with a freshly killed quail at my lab partner.

Tyson,

swish
that is just completely
poke
inappropriate. I can't
swish swish
believe you.


It's the voice I hear as I try to hold on to a 35 pound carcass on a surgery table, trying not to drop her on her face into her clear synthetic casket. She still hits the ground.


Scalpels flash toward my hands, through skin and muscle and nerve and everything else that made this thing tick. I think about the pain of a nick covered in the natural exudates of a once-living creature. I think about needle stabs, and how they kept me from participating in activities I took for granted. I remember the feel of ticks across bare ankles after clearing soiled bedding out of a kennel. I think about my face against the shoulder of a terrified, ill animal and the way canines feel when they sink in to flesh and the sting of another booster. Here I am, risking life and limb so that I can pursue the dream of fevered young undergraduates the nation over. I made it, I'm here, and what's going to happen to me in the mean time?


I look across a field of abandoned, severed bodies at a boy with a pretty smile and lovely eyes and a stain across the front of his scrubs. With wet gloves and a meaningful smirk and something not quite love in the air, I say...



Do you ever just stop and look around... and realize how fucked up this really is?



But this is it. This is life. We talk about death and filth and cruelty at the dinner table. We know more about the things you never wanted to know than you can begin to imagine. Every single day we do things that are despicable, and we smile and we laugh, because this is it. This is what we are now. How many people like me turn back to literature and poetry and art at the end of the day? When it is all over, there will be people who donate their bodies to science. I'm not even through with my education, and I feel like I have already given my body, my mind and my soul.

How fucked up is that?

I wonder how many times the car would have needed to roll to kill them both. I know it rolled four times. Would five had done it? Six? Where did the car land? Did she hit any rocks? Did she hit anything else, besides the ground?

I wonder what it was like, waiting there in the desert, having just crawled out of the wreckage of your car and your still friend stuck inside. The fear, the confusion, the agonizing pain in your head and elbow, and wondering when help is going to arrive.

How badly was the driver hit on the head? Is she okay? Will she need brain surgery? A hole in the head to drain out the fluid? Perhaps her skull was cracked and she's bleeding into her own brain even as I type this. Spooky. Was she drunk? Was she high? She fell asleep at the wheel after all, but perhaps it was simply exhaustion. Driving 500 miles all night will tire a person out, I hear.

The passenger needs surgery on her leg. Can a simple bone reconstruction go so badly as to kill someone? A slip of the hand, and the bone is further broken.... Or, the pins won't stay, they won't hold the bone together... the bone will never heal properly. Will she ever step foot inside another car again? This is her third car accident she's been in, after all. You'd think it was some sort of warning from a higher power or something.

No one has let me know anything more about the accident. Even though these people don't mean a lot to me, I am suddenly concerned about their mortality. More than anything, I wish for someone to hold me and let me know that everything will be okay.

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