The Community
has gone to sleep
due to a session error.

The night is still. It’s all still. Strangely enough, even the currents that had been carding through your hair have stilled— not stopped, but more like they’ve been paused. The right strand of your butchered hair is still suspended in the air, like someone else is controlling it on strings, and your lashes are still against your lined monolids with the previous movement.

Then the sky flickers. And implodes.

If you are in the middle
of working upon something,
we recommend that you close this message

“God!” someone screams, desperation— “Lord!” someone cries, enlightened. Then the clouds part, the sun is staring down at your still strands floating in the sky, a huge eye peering into your world. You had been getting back from work, and now you watch the land bloom into red.

Fountains of it. There’s no reason for us to associate red with danger other than instinct; and yet that’s what gets you to move. That’s what makes you run, run run run, despite the still wind and the hopeful & shocked cries behind you. You’re wearing heels— actually, you’re wearing flats, no, you’re wearing sneakers, and we’re running. We’re running, running running running, in our heels flats sneakers.

We band together like we were always one. We have not chosen sides; we do not choose sides in the face of fact. But truth is subjective, this much is true;

and save your work
before refreshing the page
to reactivate the Community.

and so, as quick as we had run, and as quick as we had merged, we break apart.

Atoms split. Neurons blink like lifeless eyes. Memories are parted into strands of hair, curled, braided, and then snipped into a billion pieces; one for each death and birth.

The sky drags orange on its fingertips that reach down upon us like a claw in one of those scamming carnival machines.

And we are caught in its grasp; but inevitably, by design of our own sins, we are dropped.