Zora Grizz

That sanctimonious, goody-three shoes, bastard lied.

​

As soon as the craft-chopper descends from the stars,

finally low enough to get a visual, I see there’s more

burning here than just a citrus orchard. This miserable, self-righteous, pain-in-the-ass, colony is trying to burn one of my Healers on a damned stake. I glare at the scene of burning trees and retreating colonists before me. It’s then that the thick, gray, smoke suddenly shifts in the wind. I can see a long bolt of messy blue hair on the Healer struggling frantically against their bonds. My heart leaps double-time in my chest.

 

The Healer is Amal. My normally level-head suffers a moment of sheer panic and rage before I manage to inhale deeply and, glowering, try to focus on an immediate strategy.

 

I obviously should have destroyed Margo when I had the chance, but a villain’s work is never done. I curse and let the craft-chopper loose into high gear. We speed forward, towards the rising flames.

 

You see, this all started so long ago. Way before I was even a thought in the back of the universe’s mind. You’d think it wouldn’t even seem to matter to a body anymore, which way the damn thing got told. But it turns out, a story is all in the telling. Now…let me see…

​

#

​

Many years ago, the humans of Earth were neck-deep in high-tech warfare, and laser bombs, and bio bombs, and anything else you could think of. In the midst of this drama, something especially dramatic occurred. Something that changed the course of human and Zoxulan history alike.

 

It was a Wednesday, as these things tended to be, when an intrepid, left-handed, school-librarian from Flint Province, name of Charlie Khalida (They/Them), went for a walk in a lonely forest. Deep within the trees, Charlie found what the Zoxulans had hidden on Earth, countless millennia before.

​

#

​

As I fly the craft-chopper into the smoke, I reflect on what it is that got me in this mess today (a Wednesday, if you’ll believe it). And it’s that Margo is the no-holds-barred, absolute, worst.

 

And I aim to tell her so directly.

 

As a matter of fact, I’ve been on this Margo-hunting vendetta for quite some time now. But I do believe this, here and now with the sick-sweet smell of burned oranges in the air, will be our final tango.

 

I’m not sanctioned by anyone to hunt Margo (She/Her) down, though many a colony would thank me. I’m just an asshole with a grudge, a rusty craft-chopper, and a Sacred Axe.

 

And now, a girlfriend tied to a stake to boot.

 

I aim the craft-chopper lower and maneuver us into position above the flames nearest that aforementioned stake.

 

“Sloan!” I shout behind me towards the cargo area. “Get ready to empty it!”

 

A gruff voice, belonging to the burly ex-pirate who is my business partner, bellows back at me from the hold, “What, now?! Are you serious?! We’ll lose th-”

 

“I KNOW THAT!” I screech back. My tan skin is dripping with sweat from nerves and the growing heat of the fire, leaving a trail of goopy green mascara running down my face. I can taste its sourness when I open my mouth to yell at Sloan. I can feel sweat running through my curly brown hair, currently wrenched into a hopeless bun at the nape of my neck. I hear Sloan (He/They) grumbling in the back and shifting the rusty release bars on the cargo hatch. “On my count!” I holler at him.

​

#

​

You see, Zoxulans used to do Exploratory Space Observation Missions way back when, especially to planets with evolving species. And like on many missions, the Zoxulan crew exploring an early Earth had followed the standard Zorxian formula to predict outcome, timeline, evolutionary abilities…all the usual bits. I won’t bore you with it. And like with most observation missions at the time, before the crew’s departure they’d installed a standard call-box on the planet. You know, for later. When the evolving species could use it and stuff. Opposable thumbs, all that jazz. Zoxulans loved to hear from species they’d left a call-box with eons ago. I’m told that on Zythum, the flaming planet and home of the Zoxulans, there used to be legendary parties amongst the Zientists and space explorers, celebrating calls from uniquely evolved species on different worlds. I mean, why not, right? Seems like a pretty good reason to party to me.

 

Anyway, so Charlie, right? Our Charlie gets real stressed out one day, as hey, ya do when the world’s gone to shit and the water’s radioactive and your government-issued rations always taste like ash no matter what the plastic box says they are (chicken tenders, stroganoff, Naan, broccoli), and the library never gets the good books you want to show the students and you’re stuck lending them Bradley’s The Tales of Prospero’s Cheesy Propaganda for the millionth time. So Charlie goes for a walk in one of the only remaining forests in the region.

​

Most people avoided the forest. Life was dangerous enough without shadows lurking in trees. The familiar was safer, or at least the devil they knew: hot concrete, ruptured asphalt, stacks of housing units leaning in dangerously towards one another, reminding the humans of something their grandparents used to call “community”. But not our Charlie. Charlie loved that cursed forest. Probably spent more time in the woods than their housing unit, truth be told.

 

But on this particular Wednesday, Charlie ventured off the familiar trails their two, government-issued, size Q, shoes had gradually pressed in the forest floor. That day, they just kept walking. They became thirsty, but they were used to that, like everyone was now. Charlie considered maybe walking forever. Walking until they couldn’t walk anymore, then just seeing what happened.

 

But thankfully, that was not in the cards for our dear Charlie. Because right then, they saw something in the woods that absolutely did not belong there.

 

A gleaming, red, telephone booth.

 

#

 

I swing the craft-chopper around so that I’m facing the encroaching fire, hovering just ahead of it. I’m between the fire and Amal (She/They), a murderous glare on my face. I inch closer to it, gauging the fire’s speed. I think I can do this in time to save her.

​

Then Margo strides out of the flames directly in front of me…because of course she does. Her bipedal two legs are sheathed in those horrible khaki pants and white sneakers she wears, because of course they are. Her retractable tripedal leg, which extends forward from the left hip (generally) and distinguishes us Zoxulans from humans (also makes us excellent jumpers) is sheathed in the same traditional, iridescent, Zoxulan spandex (Irizidex) that most of my own clothes are made of. Yet no matter what she wears, Margo dresses to manipulate. I dress for sheer efficiency, and generally can be found in Irizidex with my sturdy, hempfabric, vest (crowded with untold pockets and loops), and a sleek utility belt to hold my pearl-handled phasers, among other things. Margo’s third foot ends in a black, lace-up, battle boot. All of mine are in well-worn hiking boots. Zoxulans can change their cosmetic appearance at will, though it’s a difficult skill learned under intense supervision and many don’t bother with it at all. But we don’t always rely on physical appearance to recognize one another. It’s more of …something in a stance, in the set of a jaw, in the gleam of an eye. We know who is inside, animating.

 

And boy do I know Margo.

​

#

​

Charlie blinked, wondering if they had lost their mind. They’d seen it happen to people before. The students called it “Leaping”. It was as if one day someone was fine, downright chipper. And the next they’d Leaped: ranting, raving, seeing things that weren’t there, destroying ration supplies, setting things on fire. They never came back from it, either. There were always a couple of students whose caretakers had Leaped. Charlie let them live in the school library and nick teacher rations until they completed their credits.

 

Charlie stared at the red phone booth in the woods and took a deep breath, cringing at the familiar sting in their lungs. They ran their hands over their face, sliding across the familiar black cloth of the eyepatch. Charlie was pretty sure they were still sane. They walked closer to the phone booth. Charlie had seen pictures of these, from Before. But this one looked….strange. There was no door, like in the pictures. It was completely glassed in on all sides. And so pristine. Of all the things, that was the most alarming. There was no dirt, no dust, no residue, no grime like there was on most things. Charlie had never seen anything so clean in their whole, Earth-forsaken, life (that would be the Zorxian preservation formula, which also helped keep the forest intact).

 

And that color. Charlie just stared. That red. It was so beautiful it almost brought them to their knees.

 

Now Charlie was close enough to see their reflection in the glass. Their natural, brown, hair. The lean, powerful, square of their shoulders. The dark eyelashes sweeping out from their right eye. Then Charlie noticed something else. Affixed to the far side of the booth was a small, red, box with a glass front. There was text printed across the glass in big, bold, letters that read,

​

“BREAK ME”

​

Inside the box was a shiny, Basque, axe.

​

#

​

Margo is absolutely beaming as she strides steadily closer and yells over the sound of the flames and my engines, “Vega, you sweet young thing!” She winks and grins delightedly at me, showing me all of her unnaturally white teeth. “You came!” she crows. She even claps her hands together in glee.

​

The pearls around her pale neck shimmer.

​

“Sloan?” I growl murderously towards the back. “NOW.”

​

Margo is slipping into her attack stance and I stomp the accelerator in a feint. We jerk forward and stop just as Sloan wrenches the cargo door open and 5,000 units of glistening Burgundy Bohrvia, the thick, fire-extinguishing, dust Zoxulans invented for the apparently very fire-prone humans, hurtles down onto the lemony flames.

 

The Burgundy Bohrvia circles out and spreads of its own accord to extinguish any fire it can find, then sinks down into the earth, pushing fresh, green, grass up in its wake. The one downside to Burgundy Bohrvia is that while it has no effect on humans, it’s as dangerous to Zoxulans as fire is to humans (which humans exploited horrifically in the Incendiary Wars of ’68, if I may remind you.) I could never have been in the cargo hold with all of that Bohrvia, wrenching open those doors like my magnificent partner in crime, Sloan, could. Or have been ok after being surrounded by it like Amal currently was, the burgundy dust glittering in her bright blue hair, making it look downright iridescent. I blink, dragging my eyes away from her. I need to focus.

 

I look out across the smoking citrus trees, trying to find Margo. But she’s simply…gone, and this troubles me something fierce. There’s no sign of her anywhere and disappearing is not what happens to Zoxulans who get hit by a cargo bay full of the dusty stuff.

​

Silence sits uneasy on the charred orchard, the only sound soft, new grass pushing up through the soil and the swish of rope hitting dirt as Amal finally wins the battle against the knots tying her to that damned stake.

​

#

​

Charlie looked from the box to the inside of the booth itself. There was not an old fashioned telephone, as Charlie would have thought. Instead there was a very thick, metal, cord pulled taught between the ceiling and the floor of the booth. A note was affixed to the middle of the cord in that same bold lettering that read,

​

“CHOP ME

TO PLACE CALL”

​

So. No one on Zythum would ever tell you this, but I will: the Zorxian prediction formula isn’t always spot-on. In this case, the exploratory crew all those millenia ago had ended up with a communication device that was a cross between a British telephone booth and an 1800s Egyptian pull-chain toilet. No one’s perfect.

 

Charlie kicked in the glass of the small box holding the axe, clearing the remaining shards from the edges with their shoe before reaching in, just as they had learned to do in countless evacuation drills at library school. Charlie removed the axe.

 

They then tried to kick in the front glass wall of the booth as well, but it was like stone. The glass wouldn’t budge, wouldn’t crack. They looked at the axe in their hand, felt its pleasant weight engaging their muscles.

 

Charlie hefted the axe up and swung it hard into the front of that glass, shielding their face with their other arm.

​

The glass shattered at the first touch of the axe.

​

#

​

You see, like Amal, I was born on Earth. Lived here my whole life. My parents were galactic explorers who had left Zythum to wander across star systems I’ve never been to. Though they did eventually decide to settle down on Earth.

 

My home is Earth, not Zythum. My family is Zoxulan. My friends and my crew are human and Zoxulan alike. My world is both human and Zoxulan and always has been.

 

There is good on both sides and bad on both sides and I’ve been told I’m mostly bad by just about all of them. I reckon they may be right too, but honestly? I don’t care two which ways from Wednesday. I’ll be damned if I let Margo leech my volatile little patch of universe out from under me.

 

Earth? It’s mine.

​

#

​

Charlie stood there, alone in front of a red phone booth in the woods, shattered glass scattered around their feet and an axe gripped firmly in their left hand. What the hell was this? they thought. What were they doing?

 

They could feel their breathing start to speed up, their lips going slightly numb. The onset of a panic attack. Breathe,

Charlie thought to themself. They thought of all the things they loved about themself, just as Charlie taught library students to do when they needed to take a moment to re-center themselves. Charlie thought of how beautiful and wonderful people were, and how lucky Charlie felt to be able to see that in all of them.

 

Charlie thought about their mother, Dezi (She/Her). How she would sit with Charlie on the hill at night, starlight gleaming on her round, ebony-bright, cheekbones as she slowly did Charlie’s hair. Dezi was known across the settlement not only for her art, but for the one-of-a-kind names she gave the paint shades she mixed by hand.

 

She’d lovingly adjust Charlie’s black eye patch (murmuring,“Space-Delight-Onyx”) against cheeks she’d named, “Oak-Leaves-In-Autumn”. Charlie’s hair? “Macadamia-Surprise”. Charlie was grateful for Dezi. Dezi loved everything about Charlie; every wonderful, infuriating, thing that had sometimes made Charlie unsure about themself. Dezi taught Charlie to love those things as well. She used to tell Charlie that they were her paint, “Bookshop-Sunbeam” come to life, giving Dezi all she’d ever wanted: someone wonderful to give the world to.

 

To Charlie, Dezi had always been the paint “Kaleidoscopes-At-Dawn”.

 

Charlie stood in those woods and thought about the deep joy they experienced in a limitless, fluid, expression of their own identity: free to change, free to explore, free to decide. Charlie thought of many, many, things. Then they took a deep breath and slowly let it out, feeling more themself, feeling ready to continue with this strange day in a long forgotten forest.

 

Whenever they were faced with scenarios that boiled down to “do a thing or don’t do a thing”, Charlie inevitably did the thing. They liked that about themself too.

 

Charlie stepped very deliberately inside the red telephone booth (“Cherry-Star-Disaster”, they thought). They gripped the axe handle (“Stained-Tea-On-A-Map Brown”) with both hands, steadying its weight in the air. And with their eye open wide, they swung the axe as hard as they could at the taught metal cord, the exact color of “Steel-In-Winter”.

 

The cord snapped in half, the tension of millenia finally released and its two ends now resting limply…as an eerie and unearthly sound filled the whole of the world.

 

Charlie knew this was the sound that the last color Dezi had ever named would have made. The world rang, inexplicably, like “The-Neon-Pomegranates-Of-Hades”.

 

#

 

We came, answering that call. The Zoxulans arrived en masse. They brought an Introductory Parade of craft-choppers, wingships and starzoomers, all gliding through Earth’s eerie blue skies, so different from those on our own beloved planet of flames. We hadn’t received a call from anyone in ages and were so excited to meet these humans. We weren’t even overly concerned that amongst our Introductory Parade was 54.7% of our ice fighters, waving happily from ice-engined wingships. There hadn’t been a serious freeze on Zythum in ages, and there was no reason for concern.

 

…We didn’t hear about the devastation until it was too late. Two days after the giddy departure of the Introductory Parade towards Earth and its humans, an uncharacteristically ferocious freeze had broken out across the southern half of Zythum.

 

41.2% of our planet was now frozen and dead. There had not been enough of the ice-fighters there to melt it before it killed the flames beneath. So many on Zythum were now without the space to live.

 

And yet here was Earth, a dying planet and its people, who needed our assistance.

 

As much as we now needed theirs.

 

Things were rocky at first, strange, but humans and Zoxulans eventually established a friendly rapport. The Zoxulans doctored the failing planet Earth. Food could grow in the soil again. The water was now safe to drink. It no longer hurt the humans’ lungs to breathe the air. The Zoxulans won humanity over by saving them from their own imminent destruction.

 

And that was that, for a time. They lived together, the humans and the Zoxulans, so many of whom came to Earth to start over. The two peoples were learning, helping, and growing with one another. Earth had become a safe home for humans for the first time in their own memories, and had become a new home for the Zoxulans.

 

There were occasional skirmishes, yes. And once every hundred years or so there was generally a short lived war going on in someplace or another. And this had led to scattered colonies of wayward humans that held onto old ways no longer practiced on Earth. These colonies were not great places to be and most people avoided them.

 

Now fast forward, as the humans like to say, a few thousand years and we get to the good stuff: yours truly. As you may have heard from other sources, I’m Vega (She/They).

 

I run an outfit of …“entrepreneurs”…shall we say, The Mollymawks. We trade in Favors Accrued, Adventures Misappropriated, and Loved-Ones Returned. Says so right on my business card and on the hulls of The Mollymawks’ craft-choppers.

​

But my outfit, well, it’s different from most.

​

I’ve cultivated a rather unique unit in our ranks: highly trained teams of Zoxulan and human healers working together. This sets us apart from other outfits as no one else much wants to mess with Healers. See, their skills work both ways and that can cause, well…issues. With intense study and training, Zoxulans can learn to heal the Earth: its soils, its air, its water, its habitats. Humans have evolved their medical knowledge to heal human and Zoxulan bodies alike. This all comes in handy in our line of work.

​

And lately? Business was booming. My crew was growing. Our Healer teams had been getting dispatches for assistance from colonies far and wide, and were even making inroads with some of the wayward colonies. They always returned with heaps of collected favors to be stored and used when convenient. Amal and I had even been planning an actual vacation to explore the nebula belt, Lucasis. All the right people were angry at us and all the rest were wary. Life was good.

 

…And then Margo showed up. Of all the cursed things.

​

I still get angry just thinking about the first time I saw her face show up on Earth. How dare she. But there it was: Margo’s stupid Earth-face, talking on the news reel at our outfit’s weekly movie night.

 

The scattered colonies of those wayward humans saw her on the news too, but they weren’t angry like me. They became enamored. Long story short, those colonies ended up placing their misguided faith in the wrong person: Margo.

 

So what is Margo? Sheesh, what a question. Margo’s a leech. She goes from world to world, colony to colony, siphoning their energy and power until they are nothing and she is everything. She shows up at their doorstep and turns on that million-watt, high-voltage, charm of hers.

 

Then she shows them how genuine she is. How all she wants to do is help. And hell, maybe she does for all I know.

 

But help them right into traffic is how she’ll help them.

 

Help them right on into the blazing heart of a bonfire, she’ll help them.

 

Riiiiight on out of that big, blinking, door to existence she’ll help them, sure.

 

Margo? She’s a giant, neon, EXIT sign, and no one ever realizes it until it’s too late. Every time. Every planet. Every colony. She shows them what they want to see, and she’s good at what she does, I’ll give her that. This time, on Earth, she gave the wayward colonists her rigid (and seemingly delighted) adherence to some Old-Earth gender role called “Woman”.

 

The life and power she slowly siphons from these colonists? They don’t realize it, not at first. Their desire to turn their power over to her comes from their strange, old, ideals and then from the straight, shiny, blonde hair she’s chosen. The soft blue eyes. The shape she chose for her body this time. Her colorless skin. She speaks softly, unsurely, constantly demurring to her ever-present male counterpart for confirmation or assurance (Steve (He/Him) is pretty much just a brainless sock-puppet with Margo’s hand…making him talk. He’s one of her gormless pawns, currently parading around as another Old-Earth gender role called “Man”). It’s an utterly ridiculous charade to watch. She feeds these wayward colonizers exactly what they want to see: some deranged fever-dream of power and control from eons past. For the privilege, they let Margo go right on ahead and punch their tickets to the great big ‘ole EXIT door in the sky.

 

She’s buried deep in the wayward colonies now. But I know how to track her. Margo has very…peculiar…hobbies. An easy way to find her has always been to look for a resurgence of ancient beliefs and practices that a species had long since left behind. The more ridiculous the practice, the more delighted she gets.

 

Two months ago, I’d been sitting in a tavern and picked up on some rumors. It was said something called “witch-burnings” were being attempted in the western wayward colonies.

 

The rumors all started and ended at a colony calling itself, “SourTown”.

 

All I could think about were the countless times I’d hunted Margo down and been too late: another world brought to ash and Margo slipping from my grasp like smoke. I heard the witch-burning rumors, and I was out the door and in my craft-chopper, setting a course for the western waywards within the next minute. I didn’t think to tell anyone my suspicions. I didn’t think to send out a bulletin or to take precautions. I just put in the coordinates and left, visions of the remains of Saturn, the Persephone system, and the Lion Asteroid Belt haunting my memories.

​

I was a fool.

​

I wasn’t aware of the dispatch that went out several hours after I left to chase Margo. My Healers got it. It was from a western wayward colony, name of SourTown. They were desperately requesting a human healer, even sending a Portal Link with the dispatch (which was rare and indicated great need). Amal and her team had accepted the dispatch, using that Portal Link to travel to the wayward colony of SourTown instantaneously.

​

#

​

I’d had to stop about an hour out from SourTown, at the Mediterranean air-colony of Orbata, to recharge my craft-chopper. I was inside the station when I saw a newsreel playing across the hoverscreen.

​

Fires raging in the orchards of SourTown.

​

Reports of a Healer somewhere in the midst.

​

Global lemon shortages anticipated.

​

Communication outages as smoke reached the Link Networks.

​

I inhaled sharply. Pulling my MobileLink from my pocket, I confirmed that indeed, the communication device was useless. No signal this close to the smoke. I racked my brain frantically. Then a sly smile spread itself across my lips as I recalled exactly which colony I was in…and what was stored in it’s warehouses.

 

“I’ll be back within the hour,” I told the station guard. I loped across the tarmac to collect a certain Mediterranean ex-pirate who was a dream with locks.

​

#

​

And that about catches us up, don’t it?

​

I land the craft-chopper and hop out onto the fresh grass, scanning the area for trouble. But just like Margo, it’s not there. All that’s left is the smell of lemons and smoke.

 

Amal storms up to me in that charred orchard. Before she says anything else, she moves close, hissing into my ear, “this place is full of ghosts” and shoots me a loaded look. There’s a lot to Amal and I know to believe her. Then she relays how furious she is that I may have forgotten to mention my hunch about Margo being in the western waywards. And Amal’s right to be mad. I know that.

 

…But I can’t risk someone else finding Margo before I do.

​

I have to be the one.

​

See, there are things even Amal doesn’t know about me. Not yet at least. Don’t get me wrong, Amal’s got plenty secrets herself, the most pressing being just how exactly she came to be in that bar in Rio colony, where we met 2 years ago. And we’ll get to it all in time, she and I. See, I have hopes that maybe…one day…well. I see the look in her eyes sometimes, on slow evenings when our feet are propped on the dash, stars zooming past the windows, and she looks at me like…well like she wants to fly through these stars with me forever. And I think I’d like that. I really do.

 

But I’m not ready to tell her about Margo yet. I’m not ready to see…what? Revulsion? Fear? Hatred? Or…some other damning thing…in Amal’s eyes when she looks at me.

 

The thing of it is, when I saw Margo striding through those citrusy flames, I thought only one thing: “Gotcha, sister-mine.”

 

…Well, I guess I’d better tell it like it is, since things seem to be getting so damned clear between us, don’t they?

 

See, when Margo was a teenager, our parents hauled off and abandoned her on a distant planet called XzU-4 (yes, I can see that name sounds familiar to you). I was young and didn’t realize what they’d done until much later. Margo and I’s eventual reunion and inevitable rift is a story for another time. But we were never able to find out why our parents left her there.

 

But what’s interesting, what we did learn, is that what Margo takes away from worlds: I add. It’s who I am, like destruction is who she is. I build, I create, I push limits, I expand: Not all of it good and not all of it bad, certainly. The Mollymawks, my teams of Healers, my networks of favors…so many things linking us all together. In my head, it’s like I see a glowing web of copper, gold, silver, and bronze threads, glowing brighter as the Earth and its peoples, humans and Zoxulans alike, become healthier, stronger. There are those who question my methods, and I’ll admit many of the favors I’ve accrued are grudgingly given, yes…but they are given.

 

Now generally, I play it close to the vest, though I will confide in you since you’ve been sitting there so nicely and all this whole time, that there’s many a government The Mollymawks have toppled. Many a monarchy we’ve ended by spiriting away the heirs: returning royal spawn to the dragon they love, to the pauper life they want back, to the frog in a lily pond that was their only true friend. There are many ghosts that I’ve brought to empty, gilded, chairs, to be the eyes and ears of the mischief makers.

​

Now I know you think I’m wrapping things up here, and I can see the questions building in the back of your throat, mostly about that Sacred Axe I’m reckoning. But don’t worry.

​

My story’s not over yet.

​

Neither is Margo’s,

​

or Amal’s,

​

or Charlie’s

​

or Dezi’s

​

or Sloan’s,

​

or The Mollymawks’

​

or even the Earth’s for that matter.

​

But I do need to get on out of here. My craft-chopper is waiting for me outside and it gets mighty upset if I leave it idling too long. Please don’t be mistaken though: the gag and being tied to that old chair? It’s really just a silly precaution, as I know you saw when I came in just what I can do with these pearl-handled phasers (they’re Healer-made, you know. Funny what Healers can create with a little knowledge of anatomy and something to be mad about).

 

Now I do appreciate all the help you’ve given us, with lettin’ Amal take that security guard on over to Tower 5, and lettin’ me ransack through your secret files like this. I gotta hand it to ya, they sure were well organized before I started in on ’em. I’m truly sorry about the dismal state they’re in now, but yall’s XzU-4 organizational systems are well and truly beyond me.

 

So as much as I’ve enjoyed you hearing my story like this while we wait on Amal to finish up over yonder, I’m gonna have to ask you to stay tied to that chair just a little while longer, while we put some distance between you fine folx and these files and whatever else we may or may not have seen fit to take with us. But I’ll keep it all nice and safe, don’t you worry.

 

You see, Margo and I, well, we’re just like most sisters. We’re very, very, different…but we can be very the same when we put our minds to it. And if she’s going to play in my backyard? Well then. I’m just going to have to play in hers.

 

…Y’all have a good night now.