Week 1 in the cave (Shelley's thoughts):

Oh now really, this isn't so bad, is it really? When the girls dared me
to do this I thought only on summer vacation and even then it's just to
prove a point and they said you know, Shell, most girls wouldn't even
talk about living in Boren Cave for a month just to win a dare we have
boyfriends and parents to look after tee hee and I said, I've got Paul
and they said Paul doesn't count tee hee.

I've set up all the way in the back by the lichens away from the entry
because if I'm going to I might as well. All my clothes stuffed into a
sleeping bag make a good mattress and I can just switch them in and out
when I need to, not that anybody will see me here. Flashlight and some
books and my paints. On the second day the girls dropped down a soccer
ball I don't know why but they also sent food and water like they said
they would. Laura is the best of them, an okay sort, I knew I could
trust her.

There's even an underground stream farther back which I can use for you
know. I hadn't thought about that before I came down here. I am very
lucky.

Week 2 (Shelley):

Paul has started coming around at least I think it is him, one set of
feet on the echoey part near the entrance instead of three. He paces
around and then drops chocolates lonesome ones individually wrapped
whose outsides are all broken once they land down here not that I mind
eating caramel filling off of my fingers. It's too bright up above for
me to look out the entrance now that my eyes have adjusted. Paul never
shouts anything down but I suppose I never shout anything up.

The whole world could be gone up there except those four, I thought that
today. They could have had another Big Bang like in science class and
started back from the beginning again. I would miss most of Carville
certainly the movie theater.

No bats no bugs no lizards. I would not mind a lizard so much.

Week 3 (Shelley):

The girls drop something else with the food every day. I can even hear
them discussing it I don't know a toy mouse a frock a cigar box a whisk.
They are not gifts exactly because I could tell if they were but I do
not know what they are then. I have painted them all dark colors so they
will be in harmony with their surroundings like in science class again.
I ran out of paper otherwise even painted some of my clothes maybe I
will wear them like that after I leave we will see.

When Paul walks around the entrance though I have given up figuring out
if it is him he really uses less space to walk around up there than I
have to walk down here I thought that was funny.

Week 4 (not Laura, who is an okay sort, but one of the other two):

Oh not again is today the last day or is it over tomorrow? I don't know
why in St. Peter's good name we agreed to this can you say that? but she
did prove her point, whatever it was you know it's the oddest thing
every time we go over there I just wish I could be an acrobat and leave
town with the circus does that make any sense?

written for Michael Moss in my living room 7/4/03

It seems like my initial reactions are so often wrong that I will probably end up not liking this piece, which I was very satisfied with when I finished it. There's a definite resemblance in the staging to the previous story, which I think means I shouldn't have let Patrick out of that basement, because that's where the action was.

I may have been on thin ice with the basic stylistic conceit; specifying right off that they're her thoughts felt awkward, but I couldn't have it seem like she was writing but only semi-literate. Even so the "I am very lucky" at the end of section 1 sounds kind of simple-minded to me now. I don't know about that whole paragraph; as I was finishing the previous one I started worrying about how she would go to the bathroom and, wisely or not, figured I would put that detail in along with the fact that Shelley hadn't *exactly* planned the whole thing too carefully.

I don't know, maybe the syntax is condescending. Or just off. The "lonesome" chocolate is tacky.

I was back in Wisconsin for my high school reunion last weekend, and I'm not saying Wisconsin is like this, but you can still feel the waves of parochiality radiating off some things (and people), which may have spurred this story's setting. When is it set, do you think? The 50s?

Now that I think about it, this also bears some resemblance to unpublished microstory #6c, which I think is destined for the next round of story-cards I print up to give out to people. I hope Michael wasn't expecting science fiction. Actually, it's been long enough that I doubt he was expecting anything anymore.

- everything is by Aaron Mandel; please ask first if you're about to steal something -

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