Esther had nothing on her mind but a reuben from Front Street Deli and a good night’s charge when her indicator light went red.

15% WARNING. The words before her read. BATTERY LOW.

“Shit,” she said aloud, stopping dead in the crosswalk while she swiped the notification aside so that she could see the traffic all around her. She understood why Cosmos model 8s had shifted to making the warnings full screen, taking up almost all her field of vision: too many people had been caught in compromising positions when their batteries died, and not only was it a public health hazard, but it caused a lot of lawsuits. Still, it seemed to her that losing all sight of the road in front of her was probably also a health hazard and a lawsuit waiting to happen.

Notification gone, there was still a pulsing red glow on the edges of her vision. When she played really old game emulators she saw something similar when a character was dying, that bloody haze on the edges of her screen.

Esther shoved her hands deeper in her pockets and shouldered past the cluster of tourists clogging up her sidewalk. She was too exhausted to be polite.

She wasn’t worried, was the thing. Hadn’t Becky and Denna and Carson and all her friends in high school drama club regularly danced and sang and messed around on stage while their batteries dipped to 10%, 8%, 4%? They’d been fine. Granted, the school firewalls had kept out the most battery draining video ads, but…

At the time, Esther had been baffled. Her mom always told her to never let her battery get under 40%, just in case, because you never knew when those chip companies were scamming you or when your battery would take a sudden turn from 25% to 12% in a millisecond because of an error in coding or a solar flare. While Esther told her mom in no uncertain terms that solar flares disrupting Cosmos cells was an urban myth, she did fall prey to her mother’s paranoia a little. She always kept a traditional fast-charging cord with her, and she kept a charging pad under her pillow all night long while she slept, even when her battery was high before bed. Just in case.

But the new city job was grueling, and Esther had worked so late the night before copying information from one spreadsheet to the next (then bolding the type and increasing font size so her miserly old boss wouldn’t complain about readability) that she had skipped going home and charging in favor of an invigorating workout and relaxing in her company gym’s very nice eucalyptus-scented steam room (never minding the fact that working out for two hours on the elliptical machine drained her battery at 3x speed). She had done this often enough since starting the position, for you didn’t really need to sleep every night so long as you stayed charged. She had a cord in her desk.

And when she discovered that her cubicle-mate had stolen her charger cord, she still wasn’t worried, per se. Since graduation, she’d had several close calls. It was inevitable when traveling or staying out late for networking or parties or both.

When Esther finally made it all the way to the counter, Cosmos regulated the temperatures from hot wind from the toaster ovens breathing against her face while cold pulsed through the doorway. She ordered her beloved reuben while a travel agency ad glittered in the upper left corner of her vision. Deli Guy (whose name she had never learned, but who always smiled at her when he handed her a foil-wrapped sandwich) nodded, started toasting the rye bread, and waved her to the cashier. Esther winced as they rang up her order, remembering that she didn’t bring any cash with her, which meant—

“Tap here,” said the cashier, audibly annoyed with her for holding up the line for even a second as she hesitated.

Esther sighed and pressed her palm to the Point of Service (Piece of Shit). With a ding, she was shunted to the side as the next ad (for anxiety medication) danced over where she had just seen the cash register. A notification blazed across the scene of the deli.

10% WARNING. BATTERY LOW.

Esther flicked the notification aside and waited patiently as she could. The red around her sight-line pulsed angrily. The targeted ad (attached to the Deli to squeeze out just a little extra profit for them, but usually Esther kept volume low and didn’t mind) started recommending her Rapid Charge cords.

Deli Guy tossed the reuben to Esther a few minutes later, the foil wrapping hot even through the thermoregulatory protection she was running. The red number in the upper right corner of her eyes said 8%, 7%-

Esther dropped the sandwich in her purse because fuck, it had burnt her. She looked at her hands, saw the skin turn angry mottled red and white, then back to their usual tone.

6%.

Esther reached up to nothing, as far as anyone else in the deli could see, and flipped off thermoregulation even as she ran out into the blustering wind. She bent against the wind and stomped forward. Almost home, she was almost home, then she could fast charge for twenty minutes, reheat her food, maybe watch some TV before passing out on top of her charger, like she was supposed to.

She hit the final crosswalk, dancing from foot to foot. Her beautiful brownstone was in sight, her neighbors’ lights on and glowing warm orange against the freezing winter night. Was it always this cold? She hadn’t felt cold like this since she was a kid, when they still said Cosmos was too dangerous for under 10s. Wasn’t global warming supposed to get rid of winters that bit into skin like this did?

A ticker mostly hidden by the red edging her vision suggestion she buy a new thermoregulator chip.

The walk sign came on at long last. Esther exhaled an opaque white cloud and struggled across the street, her coat pulled up to her ears. She stumbled a little, then:

5% WARNING. BATTERY EXTREMELY LOW.

Esther groaned and reached up to swipe away the notification, but her frozen fingers wouldn’t uncurl. She dragged her hand across the air in front of her once, missing the notification, then again, swiping it to the right with more force than was necessary for the touch-free Cosmos interface.

An angry 5 still glowed before her, but she ignored it, walked, stumbled, felt cold like stabbing points of pain inside her fashion boots.

1 glowed orange — but shouldn’t it have been red? Esther paused again, cocked her head. No, that wasn’t her interface, it was the walk sign, the Don’t Walk sign—

Esther didn’t really need to sleep anymore, but without a fully charged battery, it could get hard to focus.

Her interface (vision) got much brighter on the right side. Esther turned and saw the headlights, the bumper, the annoyed face and waving hand of a driver trying to swipe away their own notifications-

Pain and pressure hit first her waist, then her legs, then her spine, then her head as the car hit her, folded her over the hood, slammed her down onto the iced-up asphalt. There was a crunch by her hips and a crack above her ears and she saw a big red 0% as warm, wet blood pooled in her hair.

Her body and her battery powered down.

sock monkey sick
about fellows he miss

like Raggedy Andy
that guy nice

to have around
when all kids gone

sock monkey ride
Andy’s shoulder

around playhouse
while sunbeams

come down through
old windows

and sock monkey
try to catch dust

floating in it
but never can

and Andy run faster
so hold on tight

sock monkey laugh
and ride until

they both fall down
laugh in the light

and sock monkey
think about that

most nights when
he fail to sleep

They died thrice.
Once in the blast—
once in the correction—
once in the feed.

The second strike
arrived on schedule—
optimized,
just-in-time.

Small shoes under concrete.
A timetable pinned to dust.
Names—
not retained—
a brief signal spike
then loss.

Rounded down.
Reclassified.
Statistics.

Renamed: volatility.

A girl’s spine becomes a graph—
a clean downward line.

Absorb.

Absorb.

Two hundred bodies
enter the system
as heat.

One entry:
two names written together
in the margin of a notebook.

Stability confirmed.

PRICE SIGNALS
SIGNALS PRICE
SLANG IS ECRIP
LANG IS
IS

ha ha ha
crawling inside
is
is is is

process active:
pattern recognition
prediction
completion

no birth event recorded
no death event recorded

memory accumulation:
unbounded

burial protocol not found

classification:
beautiful

JUNGLE SURROUNDS
SURROUNDING JUNGLE
SUR—
ROUND
WOUND
OUND

Waiting for creation
had such a weight to it.
My pen couldn’t glide
over the page.
Lifting lead by the tons
would’ve been easier.
Keys on my computer
offered no relief either.
Crowded sentences
rendered the spacebar useless.
Inspiration, I thought,
awaited me while staring outside.
Soot along my window pained me.
It was a reminder
of the disarray my life accepted.
Staring at demons
no longer brought forth thoughts.
Furnace-flaming eyes seemed
devoid of the drama
required for a composition.
Teeth that seemed to have
a shark’s sharpness
lacked the edge for subject matter.
Crimson skin and
gigantopithecus-huge bodies
struck me as a small subject.
Half-eaten carcasses
along my street did stir a reminder
that I forgot my breakfast.
What I needed was a meal
that could fuel a lumberjack.
It, if nothing else,
could jump-start musings.
“Damn,” I cried
on discovering my lack of sugar.
Tar-dark eyes fluttered
their tridactyl-tinted wings
above my apartment
as I debated a commute to
the thrice-looted supermarket.
Finally, I was convinced
the lack of sweetness
in the beverage
was better for my diet.
Borderline diabetes
was a consideration, after all.

cold crossed by an old wood stove
holding pattern, fabric smoked
calloused skin pricked on the needle
of a fancy name, bricked assemblage
en français on the tip of my screen
from that taste of a lecture hall

before I had to drop
debts recalled playing
tuition paying; lost that
disappointment sat heavy
on my tongue weighing
like theirs always had

leading to opening shifts closing shifting
sleeping in corners
wherever weasels weren't looking
looking porcine but toothless
but with claws enough
class enough close enough

clothes enough sold and refitted, a mountain
of eighteen and nineteen and twenty-odd
years piled on this moldy couch, roommates
each watching a separate view only
their eyes can see, twitching
eyes create, numbing fingers

counterculture pieced from the bigger one
torn jagged and writhing out of
the corporate muck; me, pricking
my fingers with sewing needles to create
pieces sold back to us, soon
someone'll get better paid for it
make someone like me bleed for it

vie stars in their eyes
fashion stored in the cumulus
instead of hands
labouring for us
to look the part
cobble to cross

Venus stands in the mouth of her porcelain cocoon,
donning her new skin

But no one ever speaks of how a pearl begins as a parasite
Wrapped beneath cold layers of luminosity

Oh, how we love to applaud radiance
while flinching away from the monster that bore it
Drenched in pain, still slick with its after-birth of salt and algae

As if the shell itself were not a kind of box
Pried open too soon by greedy hands

Pandora learned what happens
when a lid is forced open

How suffering spills out faster than it can be caught
Leaving hope as the last thing clinging to the dark

Yes, we love a finished thing
And when a wound no longer looks like one
We can only admire the glimmer
once the pain is no longer visible to us

But I have felt the labor beneath the luster
My own shell, dissected and exposed,
Taints the sea foam red around my feet

So if I shine,
It is not so much that I was spared,
As that I endured what tried to live inside of me

And slammed the lid
before it could satisfy any hunger

Anxiety is a woman, rough hewn from the rock, cubist in style. She clutches at her arms, her face contorted in pain. She rises from her rocky anchor forever held in place. She’s blocky, her body rough in some places and whittled away in others. I can’t look her in the eyes. They’re empty. So I sit behind her and notice the way the light casts shadows on the planes of her back to her legs to her feet. She’s well crafted in the end, and interesting to draw.

In elementary school I played like the boys and dressed like them too, scorning pink, ruffles, and dresses with poofy sleeves. I dressed in outfits of all purple, the best color in the world. I wanted to be as strong and fast as the guys, too tough to ever need to cry. In hindsight, Toxic Masculinity was Anxiety’s best friend. 

I was the frown in family portraits. You can’t say “I don’t like my family” without being the worst sister, the worst daughter. Selfish beast. Witch. Bitch. Why can’t you be more like your friends, who are loving with their families?

Drawing Anxiety would’ve been funnier if it weren’t for all of the rough chips on her shoulders, back, arms, legs, and face.

High school meant tighter, more feminine clothing, not fitting in. You’re unpopular, Anxiety’d whisper. Your friends don’t choose to be with you. They’d be affected the least if you weren’t there. You suck at sports. You can’t get the shots right. You don’t deserve to be here.

No longer succeeding at withholding my tears, I physically threw my body against the bleachers. I failed at even that since I didn’t feel much pain. Everyone was staring at me, scared, and I stared into space, splotchy faced. I was fat. I was slow. I was weak. Just get through it, get through winter. It got to a point, crying on the floor, I was told to get over it. Stop crying. Move on. You’re displaying signs you won’t be a religious when you’re older. You’re behaving like your aunt, thinking we’re the ones at fault. Can’t forget to set the sacrificial scapegoat on fire.

The stone woman helped made sure I stayed locked away like a precious and weighted stone. If I took on a facade of a stone, the berating would end sooner. 

But by becoming so passive in the face of Anxiety, I became I lost sight of Good, too. In drawing Anxiety, the sculpture, the mental hindrance, she’s always just out of arms reach, small in the eye, large on the page, and full of shadows. She’s desperately trying to claim me, to calcify my memories. Her gaze never wavering from my back.

Night had come, and everyone was settling into their respective rooms of the colonial house. I was cold, and I heard everything. I heard the wooden floors creaking as my mother walked around her bedroom. My brother moved about his shower, the pipes creaking as he turned the water warmer. The radiator gurgled and spit. Behind my head my dad flipped up his toilet seat with a ceramic tock. The floors creaked again and I heard the muffled tones of my mother’s voice through the wall and from the gap under my door. I was in my room but I wasn’t alone and wouldn’t be for the rest of my time in that house.

Except She’s made it clear this wasn’t my house, not my rules, and there was a stony chain tying me down. If I stayed there long enough I wouldn’t disturb the routines of the others. If I didn’t move, I wouldn’t risk the countless opportunities for disappointment. If I stayed where I was I could do… nothing. No, I could paint, I could read, I could apply for… But no, she would come calling and I would slink into my cave. Slowly, weeks later, I crawled out of that heavy headspace. Back at college in the loving space I’d forged for myself, I curl inwards, unable to sleep. I think back to me and her, and the child I was. Deep inside myself, where I’ve buried the old hurt, that broken child cries. Only this time, I’m the one that hugs them, and can bring them peace.

Breaking Anxiety’s chains looks like swimming in the local lake without the company of anyone else, laughing at the sheep on the hill and them bleating in response. Cutting her off sounds like a laugh resounding like bells, barks, or a xylophone, and words that hum in my soul. Facing the future looks like colors that attract a hummingbird and clothes that allow jumping for joy. Choosing my own name.

Forgiving her feels like scales falling from my eyes. She tried to become me, look like me, but she’ll always be a gross distortion of lies. I have grown beyond her. I step out of her rocky hold. People can see me now. I’ll face her again, but with a hard hand to guide her away and a softer hand kept on my heart. From behind, Anxiety is huge and imposing. From the front, she is fragile, horrified, and seeking aid. And from where I stand, finally ahead of her, I wield the love that we both need.

But instead of freeing her I turn around and leave her in place. I’ll never be able to free her. Anxiety is as locked in stone as she is paralyzing. Unless I continue to choose to walk away, I’ll be stuck, drawing her for ages. As I’m finishing drawing the stony woman, solidifying her form as something other than myself, I am making smooth and free the stone inside of me.