what boys will do with the promise of ice cream

He agreed to help her. However, it's hard to say whether he knew to what extent.

She picked him up at the gate around 11 Saturday morning. In her back seat sat a red blanket, a camera and a Wal-Mart sack with a box of condoms.

They rode the 10 minutes out to the trails with little conversation between them.

Pulling up to the lot, they saw a troop of boy scouts wandering about. Clearly, the boys had just gotten there.

"This may be interesting," she said, grabbing the blanket and sack and sticking the camera in her back pocket.

Avoiding the scouts, they made their way down to the forested paths, passing a lady and her dog on the way.

"Maybe Saturday morning isn't the best time for this."

Continuing down a path, chosen at random, they decided on a leafy patch just inches from the trail.

Down went the blanket, and he quickly followed, awaiting instruction.

"I don't really know," she confessed. "Uhh... pull your shirt up a bit."

Two-hundred-fifty-three pictures later, she bought him ice cream for a job well done. And the photos made The Argo.

sweeping the lawn

Greeted with crisp autumn air, she locked the front door and made her way to the car.

The front stoop seemed oddly bare, and she looked to the driveway's edge to see a pile of leaves. Someone was busy this morning.

In the car, cutting a corner and then pouring round the next, she noticed a man in the middle of a yard.

Next to him stood a vacuum.

As the car drove past, the man didn't look up from his task -- vacuuming the leaves from his lawn.

17th and Topeka Boulevard

Red hat, ear flaps and white-fur-collared brown coat, he walked up to the light post.

Pausing next to the large metal pole, he took his time to balance a tree limb the height of himself against it.

He pushed the walk button and moved to the curb.

The light changed.

The red-hatted, ear-flapped, white-fur-collared brown-coated man abandoned his wood companion and crossed the street.

'I want to fucking tear you apart'

She Wants Revenge
Oct. 27, 2007, at the Black Cat
Washington, D.C.

varying perspectives

Driving to 13th and Lane, she continued her mild complaint.

"Yeah, so he only likes music he happens on himself," he inferred from the passenger's seat when she finished.

"It sure seems that way," she said. "[My former boyfriend] had a different approach, he was more open. ... Or just more fake about it."

"Well, at least [your boyfriend at present] is sincere," he observed.

Never before seeing the situation as such, words failed her. That small third-party observation changed her entire perspective for sincerity could never be a fault in her eyes.

To the stars, to the stars,
to the silver scars that mark the night.
Alight! Alight,
and leave this silent world behind.

"To the stars! To the stars!" Le Loup