Follow-Ups

Often I tell a story to show a snapshot of an idea, but since these are all real people they have continued their lives. Here's what happened to a few of them:

My friend from Jump is in a happy relationship which has lasted over a year. He bought a house, and they happily live together in it.

The man from the fruit stand in Better People never even called me back to say he didn't want to hire me, but I did get a job with one of the better respected computer-related companies in the world. Go figure.

I did in fact almost fail my background check, but not because of all the moving, but because it was a little tough to prove I ever worked for the feds. Crash sorted me out, he's the man.

The bounty hunting team lost. We were carrying the robot live (long story) and the motherboard shorted literally as we placed it on the competition field. We lost the competition but wound up with lots of interested sponsors. Pippin and I lost track of the team after that, he's still being completely absurd and enjoying it.

I'm no longer homeless. My first housemate I lived with for a year. He has a little dog, but it's well trained and well mannered. Now I live in another crazy community, but thankfully I don't have to run it, so I never feel like I have to stop anything from happening.

Being barefoot at my new job is much better tolerated.

I did call Nexus once when I needed a hand. He hung up.

Scavenging never goes out of style, the Torii and my new home both have furniture from the adventures with the feds.

Joat had a baby.

Magpie and Gilby lived together for a whole year. Impressively, nobody wound up getting punched, though there were a few close calls.

Gadget is still the politician, and is happily doing grad research.

Mime got her life together and is now getting licensed to do real estate. She's still boy-crazy, but I feel her taste has improved significantly.

My new meds cause me to bruise all the time now. Hilarity ensues. Related: I did lose the weight again, but I never managed to get my little plant.

3Stack runs the program I ran with the feds now. He's grown a lot in some ways, but is still a little silly.

My grandmother from Rice is fairing poorly, and has trouble remembering a lot now. She's scared, and we're trying to be comforting. My other grandma is comfortable and as happy as she can be, given the circumstances.

I do less breaking and entering now, and mostly scheme about taking over the world with varied success.

The project from Up is put on hold more or less indefinitely but has been absurdly educational.

Drummer's geographical challenges haven't prevented him from getting an extraordinarily respectable series of software jobs.

My friend from Las Vegas and I realized the situation was a little impractical but we're both still good friends and remain in touch.

Vex runs his own company now, where he makes tools that suck less.

Arbor totally still is bitter about that damn burrito. He ran into PJ recently and brought it up.

Bruised

"Pikachu," my boss looks concerned, "did you get in another bar fight?"

"Another? When did I get in a first bar fight?"

Crash brushes past the comment, still pointing to my face, "You have a black eye, and its not the same one you had last week."

***

"Badge?" the guard says, "ID?"

I show him both and he nods, "Have a nice day ma'am."

I lean to one side to put the wallet back in my pants pocket and get some leverage on my bicycle to kick off.

"Uh, ma'am?"

I look back at the guard who seems to be struggling to find a polite way to ask this, "Is your...eye alright?"

"Mosh pit."

***

"Holy shit," Playlist says, "what the hell happened to your arms?"

I look down at my forearms blearily the morning after karate practice. They are black and blue on more than half the surface area.

"Conditioning drills,"

"You look like a battered wife."

Its a standard karate drill. Everybody who I know who has taken any martial art seriously has gone through this drill. Shihan always says that if you do not get bruises from it you were not working hard enough. For at least 500 years this drill has been a part of the training of every practitioner, and yet suddenly now these same marks on my arms are a source of concern.

***

Pacem sits on the couch across from me. The chain on his bike caught and threw him, using the right side of his body as a brake. His ankle is wrapped, as is his wrist on the same side. Just below his knee is a long strip of skin worn red from the friction burn and the asphalt. His toes on the other foot are wrapped from a separate incident. He must have had to explain it six or seven times in about 45 minutes over dinner.

***

When did we, as a society, begin living in an environment where our body's natural healing abilities became sources of distress? A few small scrapes can be considered a natural part of an active life. I might take this to excess, but I'm still somewhat floored at the way some people treat every little scratch like an emergency.

***

"I fell today," the IM flips onto my screen from 3Stack.

"Oh?"

"Yeah, the EMS came and everything."

"What?"

"And the firetruck came too."

"The what?"

The injury was a friction burn in gravel, small enough to be covered by a single band-aid within a few days. I had broken two bones and a black eye the same weekend.

***

"She's pissed because you bruised her," he said.

I was baffled, "how did I?"

"You gripped her shoulder too hard for the throw."

"Its judo sparring...don't these things happen?"

My friend sighed, "She found it upsetting, she--"

"Should grow up," I snapped.

"You need to take good care of your sparring partner. Your partner is your best teacher."

***

"Hey Magpie, you scream like a girl!"

There wasn't a response.

"Hey Magpie!" I shouted, getting out of bed to walk to the doorway of my room, "Did you hear me? You sound like the three stooges!"

There's a spot of something red and slick on the floor. More lead me to the kitchen where I find Magpie standing with his head leaned against a cabinet. One finger is held high in the air. with the opposing hand wrapped around it. The blood runs through his fingers and down his forearms.

"I can see the bone," he says.

"Uhh..."

"I want to go to the hospital NOW."

Four hours later Magpie is sitting back in the living room with five fresh stitches.

"Two weeks," he says.

"Until what?"

"Until I take them out."

I'm a little baffled, "Until you have them taken out."

"No, I'm going to do it myself. I would have put them in myself but the cut was at an angle."

"You're...kidding right?"

"No I'm serious... I've done it before."

Trust Magpie to find a cultural shift and run the other way.

***

I'm amazed how protective parents are of their kids now. I remember elbow and knee pads being available for roller-blading but I remember all the kids taking them off as soon as they rounded a corner. Helmets on bikes were a struggle.

I saw a kid today clutching the handlebars of her bicycle, teetering from side to side on her training wheels. Her little pink helmet matched the elbow and knee pads she wore.

"Slow down!" she called to her brother, "I'm scared to go that fast!"

***

My childhood dog sits wagging her tail at the foot of the cherry table. Her ears point up and swivel forward as the stranger talks.

"Yellow lab?" insurance man asks.

"Ah, mostly German Shepard part yellow lab."

"She looks like a yellow lab to me."

The dog's ears swivel again on top of her head. Yellow labs have ears which flop at the sides of their heads. As a matter of fact, aside from her coat, she doesn't look like a lab at all.

"Owning a German Shepard might impact your insurance. Its lucky she's almost entirely a lab."

When did a dog safe enough for police work become a liability?

***

"So you want to learn?"

"Yeah."

He looks at me skeptically, "technically we don't do submission wrestling here if anybody asks. The administration considers it dangerous."

"A 500 year old sport is suddenly too dangerous?"

***

There is a commercial on my television paid for by the county. Its on the dangers of mosquito bites and why wearing bug repellent is important.

Honestly, I do not think there is anybody out there who wants mosquito bites. I'd also be hard pressed to believe that people don't know that bug repellent repels bugs. This commercial, however, pales in comparison to the media hype that turned swine flu, a disease less deadly than the normal flu, into what was suppose to be a worldwide pandemic doomsday scenario. The entire setup reeks of a whole society that is too hyped up over very small physical dangers.

***

My mind snaps back to the corridor. Crash is pointing to my eye still. He's told me stories about bar fights he was in, about being a national champion. I've watched him fight. Why is a little bruise such a big deal?

"What did you do?"

"It was just a mosh pit man..."