“We use words to communicate the sense of sound, light, and thought. We use words because it is so important, so it all won’t fade away.”

- Shizuku Tsukishima, If You Listen Closely

Season 1, Episode 5 - Interautumnal Interlude VI - "I'll Write a Story!"

From up on Blueberry Hill, inside the Domino Dojo, about a month ago. Halloween had come and gone, but Derek Domino had been too lazy to remove the pumpkins and jack-o-lanterns he had decoratively scattered around the Dojo. A large jack-o-lantern rested on the living room table as he and Reed sat on either side of it, a Checkers - Domino EditionTM board lying between them.

Reed gave a dull grin as Domino felt right into her trap. After he made his move, she triumphantly picked up one of her black checkers, spun it between her fingers, then slapped the board three times, each impact indicating an enemy red checker she jumped over. She let it rest on the other side of the board upon the completion of its rampage of destruction. She crossed her arms smugly, convinced the win was hers.

With a shrug, Domino grabbed a red checker and jumped over five of her pieces, winning the game. “You need to learn to mind your surroundings,” Domino reminded her, then stood up and performed a couple of dance moves that were hip with today’s kids to celebrate.

Reed rolled her eyes. “A student is only as good as their teacher.”

“Did I ever teach you checkers?” he retorted. “That’s a good line, though. Where’d you get it from?”

Reed made another smug arm cross. “I actually happen to be writing a story with Isaac right now.”

A millisecond later, Reed realized she had said something that should’ve been left unsaid. She glanced over at Domino - his brow looked furrowed, his eyes deep in thought.

Then he immediately stood up and slammed his palms on the table, shaking the checkerboard and pieces. “Please tell me you have a character inspired by me!”

“Well…yeah. He’s the old mentor our two heroes get mentored by.”

Domino groaned; Reed just raised an eyebrow.

“You made a character based on old man Derek!” he complained. “You should make one based on young man Derek!”

“They say to write what you know,” Reed answered. “And I only know you as an old man.”

Domino then let out a dramatic sigh. “I could tell you more stories about young man Derek then. I already regaled you with the story of me besting the nefarious fake-Derek-Domino Wayne Cornwallis. What about the time I saved a village from an evil priest? My bout with the young Master Himura before either of us had mastered our swords? I even once saved a local youth center from closing down by defeating an arrogant businessman in a skiing match!”

“I can use that as inspiration for me and Isaac’s characters,” Reed supposed. “But you’re the old man mentor who-”

Domino stretched out a hand to interrupt. He rested another hand across his face. “Don’t tell me. I get killed off in the second act to serve as character growth for the main characters.”

Reed didn’t answer.

Domino let out a groan of defeat and slumped back to his seat.

“If it makes you feel better, I want to get this thing published as a daily serial in a newspaper or magazine,” Reed said. “So you don’t really die in the second act. More like Chapter Fifty-Five or something like that.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” Domino asked.

Reed just shrugged. “I can at least give you the rights to any sort of Derek Domino animated character. Well, that might actually be an issue. How about this? I can at least ensure you’ll get a spot to try out for voice-acting your character in an animated adaptation.”

“I’ll take it!” Domino said, swinging his arm in front of him with pleasure. Now that the interest in himself had been accomplished, he grew interested in the story itself. “What kind of book is it?”

Reed spoke in a dull tone, but passion escaped from the corners of her mouth with each word. “Isaac and I - or rather, me and Isaac, since I’m clearly the main character with the better emotional arc - we have these psychic powers, and we work for a school and fight bad guys and teach them the error of their ways. And along the way we uncover conspiracies and revolutions and the like. It’s set in this fantasy clockpunk world.”

Domino nodded along in excitement, then looked confused at the last phrase. “...clockpunk?”

Reed motioned with her hands. “Imagine our world, but it runs on big gears. Like those Swiss clocks. It’s our own modern world except the technological force behind everything is different. Like an exaggerated old technology.”

“That’ll sell?”

“Sell?”

“To make it as a newspaper or magazine serial, don’t you need an interested audience?”

Reed never seemed to consider that. She rubbed her chin as she mulled it over. “Well, Isaac says there’s an amateur market. If we can’t make it to the top, I guess we can do that. And I’m an interested audience. I like to think I represent the average teenager in today’s society.”

“I fear for today’s society, then,” he mumbled. Reed rolled her eyes, but the passion was still there, visibly and audibly detectable no matter how dry and dull she kept her words. And that was good enough for Domino.

“So, when do I get to read it?”

That made Reed immediately seize up. “Read it?”

Domino gestured at himself. “Yeah, it sounds interesting, especially knowing you wrote it.”

Reed almost seemed to sputter a response, but controlled herself. “You can’t read it.”

Domino frowned. “Why not?”

Reed answered like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Easy - because I know you. I can’t have anyone who I know reading this.”

“But…you’re publishing this?”

“Under pen names. And I swore Isaac to secrecy.” Reed involuntarily shivered at the thought of someone like Coleridge or Dan or Piper reading her story. “It’s funny. I can go fight people in a sewer or whatever all day, but someone I know reading my story…that’s the scariest thing I can think of.”

“But why? You should be proud of it.”

Reed scratched her stomach, the black spots on her skin having appeared soon after receiving those wounds in the sewer fight; red rashes now appeared around them from where she scratched so hard. The sweatshirt she wore and the lack of communication to anyone about it hid them all, of course. “I don’t know. It makes my stomach churn. Someone able to connect what I wrote to myself…having it influence how they feel about me…”

She shivered once again. “I don’t know how anybody can knowingly share a story with someone. Without a pen name and anonymity…I just can’t do it.”

Domino scratched his head at that, but hearing something like that fit perfectly with his knowledge of Reed - knowledge that practically nobody else outside Isaac and that misty-eyed blonde Audrey knew, and they barely knew anything.

“Well, I won’t press you. But you better believe I’ll be buying that newspaper or magazine and writing fan letters.”

Reed nodded at that, wondering if she should have told him in the first place. But once something was done, it couldn’t be undone. And it was nice to see the enthusiasm he displayed upon hearing about it.

Reed looked at a nearby clock. “Well, I gotta head home now. Isaac and I are writing more tonight.”

Domino walked her to the Dojo courtyard. “Be proud of your work, Reed!” he called out as she departed down the long steps to the street. “And if you’re going to kill me off, at least make me a psychic ghost or something!”

She tilted her head back and gave a small grin. “No guarantees.”

With that, she headed down the steps. The thought of bringing words to paper and making a story - Isaac was right about it. It really was fun. Having a hobby, creating something with your own two hands - Reed never felt this way about something before.

All the passion and excitement managed to surge to Reed’s surface for once. She picked up her pace down the stairs, feeling the autumn breeze at her back. All of Blueberry Hill and Elizabeth Pond stretched out before her down below, thousands of houses and buildings, the elevated rail forming a ring around it all, the sun starting to set in the horizon.

What a feeling! As she flew down the stairs, Reed felt like she could do anything.

When she arrived at the bottom, she just felt like running. She wanted to feel the breeze on her as she sprinted, so she did. Her greatcoat didn’t feel like it weighed it down for once - nor did she feel like she needed it for once, either. She moved through rows and rows of houses, planes flying overhead, a blimp in the distance. She dashed across the bridge that spanned an artificial river, hearing the laughter of children as they launched toy boats into the water.

What a feeling!

Unfortunately, it subsided once she got about two blocks into her sprint. Reed slowed to a halt, wheezing from the exertion. She even had to place a hand on her chest as she found a nearby bench to sit on. But, also for once, the exertion and subsequent exhaustion didn’t feel all that bad.

She felt content just sitting there. Usually, she just sat around because she wasn’t content with anything and anyone, but the actual act of just sitting and looking at the world around her felt immensely enjoyable that day. Well, maybe not immensely. But the feeling was certainly there.

The ending credits to the underrated classic Japanimation film Susurration of the Soul played on Isaac’s television. Unlike most of the other tapes Isaac and Reed watched, Reed actually owned this one. A well-worn VHS cover resting next to the videotape player indicated several years of use and several years of watching.

Reed remained on the couch while Isaac worked (slaved away, he would tell Reed) over a hot stove, stirring pasta in boiling water.

“You were distracted during the last fifteen minutes of the movie making that,” Reed complained, her arms crossed.

“The last third of the movie is slow,” Isaac answered, looking through his cabinets for a jar of tomato sauce.

Reed wasn’t convinced. “But that’s when, you know, all that character development jazz and what-not happens.”

“Well, we already watched this movie this past August. Three times.”

“And it always holds up,” Reed answered, watching the credits roll by with pleasure. “It’s my favorite movie for a reason. I used to think movies like this - atmospheric ones with character drama - were boring. But, one day in middle school, it just clicked for me. Maybe because I was almost the same age as the main character. If it weren’t for this movie, I wouldn’t have developed the taste of a true cinema connoisseur.”

Isaac glanced at the VHS tapes for French cinema she also brought and decided not to get the ball rolling on that - he had already seen enough of Victorine and her “adventures” in Nazi-occupied France to last a lifetime.

“Well, at least you’re passionate about something,” Isaac supposed. He shut the oven off and poured the pot into a strainer positioned just right in his sink. “And Susurration is a good movie.”

Reed said. “One of the foundational pillars of our friendship. Good thing we both like Japanimations. I think I would’ve thrown you off of something if you kept regaling me with stories about football and tales of Rddhi heroism.”

That reminded Isaac of something. “Oh yeah, I wanted to tell you a theory I read about in an academic journal the other day.”

Reed grinned. “You’re a smart kid.”

Isaac shrugged, then reached for the strainer. “I don’t usually read them, but Esther lent one to me. A lot of the writing went over my head, but there was one literally about pillars of friendship.”

“How relevant.”

“I know you’re interested in hearing about it.”

Reed knew she had been caught, so she just shrugged to hide her interest.

Isaac poured the spaghetti back into the pot. “They say, for most modern friendships, the connection between people is based off of one thing. Or rather…back in Patuxet, right, only a few people had radios, let alone televisions. Patuxet’s literacy rate wasn’t exactly the best, either, so magazines and journals weren’t that popular. So, the only mass media that reached us was sports and music.”

“I see where your love of football comes from,” Reed supposed.

Isaac nodded. “It was the only thing we had. The girls cared for music, the boys cared for football. When it came to the rest of the country, that was the only mass media that united us with it. We talked about football so much. The best players, upcoming stars, the chances of any of us making it.”

Isaac motioned at him and Reed. “But look at us. Now that we’re in the city, we have many other things to talk about. Not only sports and music, but movies, Japanimations, dime novels and news serials, even academic ideas. Our conversations can cover a lot of ground.”

From her own upbringing, Reed knew that academic essays always had that annoying habit of trying to prove a point. Oh, this is why my topic is so important to society and why you should give me more money to allegedly fund my studies.

“So?”

Isaac stirred the tomato sauce into the pot. “Does something like that divide communities? All ten kids used to only know football. Now, if three know movies, three know Japanimations, and the others know sports, and none of them know the other stuff…does it hurt friendships? Does it fracture people into smaller groups? Maybe a three-person group is stronger than a ten-person group, but does breaking the ten-person group hurt society?”

Reed cocked her head at him. “What the hell are you trying to say?”

“So uncultured…” Isaac sighed as he finished his creation. He searched for plates while letting the spaghetti cool down. “It’s great that Japanimations provided us a bridge to be friends. But does our interests in Japanimations block other bridges from being formed with people with no interest in them?”

Isaac kept wondering. “I know Dan is sweet on a girl - well, he’s sweet on a lot of girls - from Palmer Beach who he met through a Japanimation newsletter. So maybe more interests can make more friendships. But maybe they can prevent even more from forming.”

Reed rubbed her chin. “Well, I have no respect for education as a profession, so I don’t know if I believe it. Why do people study society so much, anyway?”

“Well…society is all there is, at the end of the day,” Isaac supposed. “Now that we have mass societies again, it makes sense to study them. They’re discovering a lot of old research from before the Unleashing and comparing it to now. And c’mon, you make a ton of observations about modern society, too.”

“That’s just a hobby,” Reed said. “I don’t make a career out of writing it. But, speaking of writing and going back to earlier - I wanted to watch this movie again because it put me in a writing mood. A mood to create.”

To further add to the mood to create, Reed stuck up a Dopamine Rusher up one of her nostrils. She breathed in deeply, then tossed the discarded Rusher in the trash. She wiped her nose and grinned. “They say the best writers did it under the influence of cocaine.”

“I’m sure.”

Isaac scooped out spaghetti for his own plate, then had a thirty-second argument with Reed to convince her to get her own share. Reed sighed and did as instructed, lazily tossing spaghetti onto her plate as Isaac sat back down.

Isaac uncomfortably eyed how close Reed kept the journal to her spaghetti plate and nodded.

“That’s great," Reed said. "It’ll allow for some great meta-level analysis on the characters and their values.”

Isaac grinned. “You’re a smart kid.”

Reed let out a small smile and started writing. “I’m the best goddamn writer to ever live. Now, am I supposed to use there, their, or they’re here?”