#earthbound

I will be picking the line-up for ART ENTRIES very soon. Stayed tuned next week for an announcement! 

Story and poetry submissions may take a little longer, but hang on tight!

Who is sick?
I can examine each one of you for $.
You don’t have enough money.
Go home, and then come again.

Who is sick?
I can examine each one of you for $.
I don’t think there is anything wrong with you.
I don’t think anyone has anything like that.
Or is it just my misunderstanding?
I can only treat an illness.
Sorry.
Go home, and then come again.

Who is sick?
I can examine each one of you for $.
I don’t think there is anything wrong with you.
I don’t think anyone has anything like that.
Or is it just my misunderstanding?
I can only treat an illness.
Sorry.
…by the way,
What a sad look in your eyes… you, the boy in a red cap.
You must be homesick.
That’s nothing you need to be ashamed of.
Anybody who is on a long trip will miss home.
In this case,
the best thing to do is to call home and hear your mom’s voice.
Go home, and then come again.

Who is sick?
I can examine each one of you for $.
Your friend, right?
It’s very serious.
You must feel nauseous.
What a sad look in your eyes.
I don’t think there is anything wrong with you.
I can only treat an illness.
Or is it just my misunderstanding?
Sorry.
…by the way,
That’s nothing you need to be ashamed of
in this case.
Go home, and then come again.

Who is sick?
I can examine each one of you for $.
What a sad look in your eyes.
You’ve been poisoned. You must feel nauseous.
Sorry.
You really don’t need any treatment?
All right.
Please pay $ for the doctor’s fee.
You’re all well now.
What a great doctor I am!
Go home, and then come again.

- [a found-text poem, via Earthbound]

Sorry for the Resubmission but I noticed the sizing was off by an inch!

(Submitted by Nonakani)

Ness wiped the sweat off of his forehead, leaving a thin trail of dirt behind.

He and Paula had been trapped in this cave for hours at the very least, and Ness’s eyes had long since gotten used to the near absence of light.  He had also adjusted to the scrapes on his elbows and knees, to the sore weight of his pulse in his fingertips and the throbbing of a fledgling headache.

There was only one apparent exit - a single door, metallic and gleaming - and Ness had beaten at it consistently with his baseball bat since he’d first awoken and felt its startling iciness while blindly groping around their prison.  After wiping his hand on his shirt, Ness struck the door once more, and the clang of wood on unbending steel echoed off the walls.

He paused again to clear his face and left another smudge.  It was becoming harder to keep a solid hold on his bat.

Ness turned to where Paula was sitting, his hat and backpack set beside her in a heap.  Though she was on the floor, legs crossed, her dress covered her knees in a neat little circle.  Her eyes were closed, and she cradled the flame that gave them light in her bare hands.  She was serene and unblemished.

Ness coughed, clearing his throat of dust, and Paula looked back at him.  Ness thought that maybe he had disturbed her, but there was a triumphant gleam in her eyes.

“Ness,” she said, a tremble of excitement running through her nearly-whispered words.  “It’s fine now.  You can stop.”

Ness stared in return.  “Not really.  And I could use some help, if you’re feeling up to it.”

Paula’s shoulders slumped and she turned her head; Ness hadn’t meant to come off how he did.  She was maintaining their light, after all, and he hadn’t thought of her as a burden for even a second.  But Paula spoke before he could apologize.

“No, Ness, it’s not that.  I…”  She seemed loathe to admit it despite her previous tone, as if still not used to confiding such things.  “I…contacted someone.  Jeff, our third friend.  He’ll come here and rescue us, I’m sure of it.”

She looked as sure as she said she was, which made Ness pause before he replied.  “…I’m still gonna try and get us out of here,” he said.  He turned back to the door, braced himself, and he returned to his increasingly vain attempt to break the two of them out of the cave.

“Ness,” she said again, more insistently, after he hit the door a few more times.  “I’m positive Jeff heard me!”

“And I’m not gonna wait for whenever he gets here,” Ness replied, spacing his words between the clanging of his blows on the door.  “Don’t worry, Paula, I got this!”

“Ness!” Paula cried in response, and Ness acted as if he didn’t hear her while glancing at her in his peripheral vision.  She stood, still holding the psychic flame but also kicking up dust around her shoes. He beat at the door, obstinately silent even as it didn’t budge, and even as Paula inched closer and closer to him.

“Do you…not believe me?” she asked, almost voiceless, and Ness swung a final time.  It was the last that he could manage: the bat cracked, as loud as any other noise Ness’s efforts had made. The bat’s two halves were barely connected when Ness, grip loosened, dropped it to the side.  Shuffling and forcing away her shock, Ness could feel Paula at his back, sudden and close.  For a while, his heartbeat swallowed any words he meant to say, the two of them standing in silence as Paula’s flame threw Ness’s shadow on the door.

“You know,” Ness finally said, and he heard Paula draw slightly away, “this whole thing started when I met this bug.”

“A…bug?”  Paula had also found her voice again.

“Yeah, a bee.  Well, he said he wasn’t a bee, but still.  His name was Buzz-Buzz, and he told me not to worry about the future.  Then he died.”  The words were dry in Ness’s throat.

“Oh.  I’m really sorry.”

Ness could tell she meant it.  She was always sincere.

“It was Pokey’s mom - you’ve met him - that did it.  She swatted him right out of the sky.  The thing is, right before that he’d just saved my life.  He could stand up against aliens, but not the bottom of a shoe.  He said he was from the future and that he’d help me out, but then he died.”

Ness hated how he sounded, as if some plea had made its way in to his voice.  He leaned forward, resting his head against the door.

“It’s not that I’m worried about getting hurt,” he continued, though he still wasn’t sure whether or not that was a lie.  “And I didn’t leave Onett because Buzz-Buzz said I had some great destiny.

“And it’s not that I don’t believe you, either!  I heard you, that time.”  He sighed.  “I just don’t…I don’t like this, okay?  I don’t like that all of this was somehow meant to happen.  That everything was somehow meant to happen.  What am I doing?”  His hands clenched into fists, he stomped a foot in protest.

“If I can’t break down a door, how can beat Giygas?  I’m not going to wait for some ’friend’ when we’ve never even met and we’re in trouble now-”

Ness stopped as Paula’s hands enclosed his.  They were warm, and her flame, now unheld, began to fade into darkness between them.

All the hesitation she once had was swept away.  “I’ll help you.”

—

They stood near the opposite end of the cave at the door, their hands held.  Ness had replaced his hat and backpack, finding comfort in their weight.  It made it far easier for him to call upon the power within himself, and now, the auras of their own gathering power gave them light.

Together, Ness and Paula had decided to throw one final, powerful attack at the metal door.  So they cleared a space and - after sharing a final, silent nod of their heads - they turned the last of their focus inward.

Paula gathered power far more quickly than Ness did; she was far more used to her PSI than Ness, who had only just started really using it regularly at all, never mind in this particular way.  He struggled to keep up with her at first, taking almost double the time for his outstretched hand to glow as brightly as her’s  But he was sure that his free hand entwined with Paula’s was somehow increasing his strength.

Ness pushed away the sensation of his eyes still stinging, of his shaking limbs and hoarse breaths, and thought of his favorite thing. And once the very idea of it warmed his chest and sparked before him, manifest and multicolored, all he had to do was aim.

“One,” he counted.

“Two,” answered Paula, her own left hand running with a current of electricity as bright as the energy in Ness’s right.

“Three!” they shouted together, and their PSI shot forward.

The blast was bright enough as it was, but on impact it loosed a thick fog of dirt.  Ness shielded himself from a flurry of tiny rocks, and he heard Paula coughing beside him.

Once the dust cleared, both their shoulders fell; the door still stood.  It was so dented it was nearly unrecognizable, yes, and the rock walls framing it had lost near half their mass, but they were still trapped.

However, there was light.  Ness saw Paula looking up and he did the same.  Their attacks had ricocheted and carved away at not only the walls of the cave, but the ceiling, and a hundred tiny pinpricks of light burst through.  Loose pieces, too small and too numerous to count, still fell as the cave around them settled.

Before either of them could speak, a shadow passed over them.  Paula, who had looked just as defeated as he felt just a moment before, straightened, and Ness reached for her as the shadow flew over them a second time, and grabbed her arm by the third.  He just barely managed to pull her to him before the ceiling of that side of the cave collapsed entirely, bringing with it what Ness could only describe as an alien spacecraft.

It was five times larger than either of them, and while metallic, it was far more reflective than the door that still stood, though beaten, behind them.  The craft looked like it had seen better days itself, its surface decorated with scratches and dents, but it mirrored the sky with such intensity that Ness’s eyes watered in spite of himself.

He looked in awe at it, and then at Paula, who had turned to Ness with the exact same expression.  They were both filthy, but could clearly see each-other.

Ness’s hand slid down from her wrist to her hand, and she grasped it in turn. They both wondered if it was really so bad that the other may have been right.