There's an illness going around, isn't there? My breath smells like charcoal, my eyebrows are cold, and no matter what, I can't write the word [ ]. See?! Can someone page the witch doctor?

My teacher unfairly accuses me of using local hidden variables in class, just because I’m Sideways.

No matter how she looks at me, no matter how I turn, I’m always Sideways.

Power cannot enlist true creativity. In 2006, the Reality Police thought they had found the famous gold of Psychic High School, about which the so called Masters of Reality were losing so much sleep. They seized a huge strongbox hidden in some dark corner. When they opened it, however, they found only coal. Little did the Reality Police know that the pure gold of Psychic High School would always turn into coal if touched by enemy hands.

The Laboratory of Individual Psychic Power transmutes the basest metals of daily life into gold through a revolutionary alchemy. The prime objective is to dissolve slave consciousness, consciousness of impotence, by releasing creativity's magnetic psychic power; impotence is magically dispelled as creative psychic energy surges forth, genius serene in its self-assurance.

A palace of ideas shelters but imprisons lived experience. We only need to hold out our hands and touch one another, to raise our eyes and meet one another, and everything comes into focus, as true magic.

"Bell!! This way!!"

Kumo calls to me through the explosions. The smoke and dust makes everything confusing. Do I have a concussion?

"Down! In here!"

She leads me into a cellar. There are a bunch of kids down here. Some are receiving medical care. Others are preparing a spell in the open area of the basement. My ears are ringing.

"There! Sit at the sigil! Do it!!"

She sits me down at the edge of the chalk.

"Do it now!!!"

I have seen the end of the world, many times, sold to us like a fairly entertaining sci-fi movie with Tom Cruise. So adorable. Are we to believe this “end of the world,” or is it yet another appropriation of our deepest fears and fantasies, sold back to us as our very own collar and leash? Another ball and chain?

I always get sick sitting at the edge of the circle.

"SITTE GE, SĪGEWĪF, SĪGAÐ TŌ EORÐAN, "

It gets so spinny. I get dizzy easy. And sick.

"NÆFRE GE WILDE, TŌ WUDA FLEOGAN,"

Like on that metal merry-go-round at the park.

"BEŌ GE SWĀ GEMINDIGE, MĪNES GŌDES,"

It makes me sick just thinking about it. And it seemed so easy to hit your head on it, or get caught in the bars while it's spinning.

"SWĀ BIÐ MANNA GEHWILC, METES AND ĒÐELES!"

!

I've got a face full of bark chips. The basement is gone, and that evil metal merry-go-round is spinning behind me.

SO TICAEI, SAN SETIN. SO TICAEI, SAN SETIN. DU BOLEUW CONVA, HANVADUF GISAINADA.

look in the visual world if you understand what I just said

I am unable to stop it

I am doing it.
why am I doing it?

in my head all I see;

a table, a knife, my family.

goodbye

I lost a friend.
I'm going back to school.
Alone.
Why.

"Aw. It's not the end of the world!"

The woman is very nice. She has a lanyard. A teacher maybe?

"We just pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and try again!"

Try again? Looks like I made it the first time. To a place that's not the end of the world.

I get up off the ground. Dust off the bark chips. There are kids on the metal merry-go-round. Kids on the swings. Nothing blowing up.

"Thanks," I tell the teacher. "I don't think I'll get on the merry-go-around again right now. Maybe I'll go sit on a swing."

It's a beautiful fall day. I helped complete a spell that should have brought 12 more kids over with me. 12 more kids escaping one reality as it was collapsing, looking for another that was relatively stable. I made it. What happened to the others?

"Tweeeeeet!" The teacher blows her whistle. "Ok everybody! Recess over! line up outside the class room!"