The 1st Amendment is the right to spew.

Everywhere, constantly spilling over into the air, fighting for space in the soundscape, whittling away lives with a constant stream of borrowed thought, there's vomit.

I don't think it's bad or anything. It's important to cough up something every now and again, proving sentience through demonstration of rationality, debate of a problem, finding a solution to a dispute, making something beautiful.

It's just messy.

The right to speech fills everyday with slogans, signals, billboards, boasts, quiet condemnations, generous gestures, and vitriolic tirades all hacked up for some reason or another. It's the right to open your skull and let everything out, pour it into the world and watch what happens.

It demands you must.

Make a lie of yourself, say what you want, pick your moment; regurgitate your favorite things until no one can see you under your chosen words.

Better yet? Display yourself. Flay yourself. Make a filet of your mind and serve it up for us. If you don't how will you ever know if you're really alone?

There's no choice. It's baked in. You're doing it, one way or another. There are laws for it, complicated restrictions, elaborate justification for why one way is good and another is bad. The bottom line is that the 1st is a clumsy way of spelling out a right to assert that we exist, a clumsy way to justify the frantic need to simply be heard. The 1st is two fingers down a throat.

The 1st Amendment is the right to vomit, puking up pieces of a person so others can see.

Early morning, the space between deep sleep and the alarm. It was a dim, peaceful grey that cast a spell of hazy imprecision over thought. Reaching out to scrape my phone from the nightstand, I checked my messages. A flier was being sent to every group chat I had.

Steve, two steps ahead of me, was already texting pictures of black tents looming over treetops as I lurched from my bed. He’d thought of me as soon as he’d seen the flier, and gone to confirm. Even frozen on the screen their sides rippled with rainbows, flowing like an oil slick. I swear I could have thrown up. I frantically texted back, “The Shatter Ball is here.”

The flier was simple. A single image, black background and white text, was passed from phone to phone a hundred times by the time I really looked at it. Cryptic rules, half written in an indecipherable jumble of different fonts and languages stretched across the page: no “elders,” after dark, bring nothing. Part gibberish, part invitation, part veiled threat as it promised “retributions” if its decrees weren’t followed. Below the flier’s rules was a short caption. Markedly different, it broke away from the scrambled mess and violent rhetoric of the rules themselves. Hand-written in delicate, flowing cursive there was something like a poem. Still disjointed, the gentle hand was more comforting than the rest of the flier’s words.

’Come one,

Come all,

to the greatest show never seen.

Where the whole can be made broken

and a thousand other impossible things. To the deadly desperate

and grinning keen,

come find the Shatter Ball and be made unliving things.’

There was a sense of allure to it, something that made me hungry and thirsty, but too nauseous to put anything in my stomach. The Shatter Ball was calling us, arms outstretched, one hand reaching to caress, and the other balled into a tense, waiting fist.

Alisa still took it as a joke. “What’s the point of keeping it a secret? It looks like Hot Topic set up a circus outside of town. Everybody will know it's here!” Annoyed at my dismissals, she even threatened to expose the whole thing, post the pictures to a public group chat. She wouldn’t do that to me.

She was shaky, nervous, gittering as she prayed I wouldn’t call her bluff. She behaved like I’d somehow forgotten everything I knew about her and she could fool me by putting on a brave enough face. She was trying to gauge how serious I was, how far I would go. My stomach growled at the thought of caving and the curling invitation was all I could think about as I made it clear it wasn't worth testing. I’d never forgive her if she spoiled this one thing, ruined something that I was starving for like an animal. It wasn't worth losing a chance at whatever was inside that fairground.

Her fear blended into Steve’s anxiety. A slow, blooming mania in him at every story I let slip in my excitement. I’d read in message threads of grinning, pointy-eared boys with arms bent at wrong angles. Talk of the dead-eyed girls with translucent skin set his teeth on edge. Even as Alisa played at being unaffected by the Shatter Ball’s infection, Steve wore it proudly. He chewed the insides of his lips till his spit was red. He scratched at the leather of his car seats, and tore free the stuffing. He chain smoked constantly, barely even trying to hide his shaking hands. Alisa pretended and Steve looked as desperate as a leper. Whenever I watched him I’d wonder if I looked the same.

The black tents were a fungus spreading spores, growing in our lungs, spreading on the breath of any mention of their existence. There were cryptic posts about an “Obsidian Room” and the mysterious Ringmaster, a Walking Woman who moved without flaw. The Shatter Ball asked only that we do what we'd always intended, that we simply take one step to insure that this show was without pearl-clutching, soccer moms, or clucking librarians. Curiosity killed rebellion stone dead.

Summer plans derailed, hurriedly re-organized into secret rendezvous. Family trips were met with excuses and college decisions became secondary in the face of a radical change in priority. Windows all over town were jimmied open and well-oiled to avoid any squeaking as rogue athletes, musicians, holy rollers, honor-roll-regulars, and underachievers slipped into the warm dark of July.

___________________________________________________

It was long after the street lights came on when Alisa and I stumbled into the diner parking lot, eyes darting toward every sound. She grinned when we spotted each other, clutching herself despite weather. We found Steve sitting in his car in a dark corner of the lot, only the angry, red eye of his cigarette, hovering on the driver’s side, visible in the black. A half dozen butts littered the ground around the car.

Steve’s car smelled like a coffin. Empty cans on the floor rattled as we got in, clinking together noisily as Alisa and I swept them off seats and bent them under foot. The fresh bruise coloring his right cheek made Steve look all the more stony, a thundercloud before the storm. He said nothing, just peeled off into the dark. Inevitability hung over us, heavier and heavier, as more and more people appeared alongside us in trucks and little packs of bikes. It was like watching specks of dust circling the shower drain, slowly pulled into the vortex, gently swirling with the flow before being suddenly sucked down in an instant. Finally, nerves shot and praying for any distraction, Alisa and I began to discuss what we’d been reading online in preparation for the show. Anything to break the suffocating pressure. Steve stayed silent, staring at the road, purple knuckles gripping the wheel.

“I heard they were in Maine last. Put on only two shows before they were run out of town by an honest-to-god lynch mob.” Alisa, ever knowledgeable, rattled off a familiar set of facts gleaned from online forums. “There are probably just a couple different performance groups putting on the same show, like an international ballet company.”

I flinched, but managed to keep my voice even, “This thing’s been running since like the 70s. It’s practically a fossil. If there were multiple groups there would’ve been more shows per year.” Alisa, feeling more herself suddenly, gave a smug, pitying look in response, “Oh Starchild, thinking there’s magic in the world. The owners just want to cash in on the limited supply for that demand. It’s so simple if-”

“They don’t charge admission.”

Steve’s voice cut through the brewing argument. No hint of annoyance, he said it like he was commenting on the heat yesterday or how his car needed new tires. It was like a gunshot in the car.

“They don’t charge no admission and never have, that’s what all the stories say no matter where they are. The tents come, people go in, and they come out and never really tell what happened. That’s how it goes, just a bunch of different crap that don’t make sense together, buncha weird shit going on that’s apparently the greatest thing since weed and poptarts.”

Steve was willing to talk right now.

That was a good thing, his silences could stretch for weeks if he felt so inclined.

Steve knew enough about the Shatter Ball to know they didn’t charge admission.

The fact made me swallow a prickly feeling in my throat, blinking to banish the sudden sting behind my eyes. Alisa stared at him, probably waiting for some explanation or a follow up apology for being, “so geeky.” None came. Steve sat, oblivious to the awkwardness, settling back into the rhythm of the road. The odd flash of reflected headlights shifting the shadows across his face, hiding his eyes in the dark.

I see the division; right or left, up or down, good or evil. I see the division, its like watching a river flow past. There's an impulse to pick aside, as if one bank looks less muddy than the other from a perch among the reeds.

In fact, just imagining the river places you on a side, the most natural thing, choosing a side as if there is some correct way to watch a river. The side where you're standing must be good, or why else would you choose it?

The river is oblivious of the bank and its inhabitants, busy carving as it flows, eroding as it rushes onward as a raging torrent or trickling past in languid dribble. The river takes no sides, the banks are made around it, ignorant of its course.

I see the division between the two sides, the two choices, and decide one seems a fine choice before switching to favor the other. My feet are untroubled by the mud of the banks, it flows between my toes to be carried away as I stand in the current. The river cares little for my choice, regardless of the side. I care little for the river, and less for the banks. I build litte dams across its path and watch as they are dissassembled by the greedy hands of the rapids. I stand in the center and feel it part around me; neither right nor left, neither good nor bad.

It is what it is.

The blast moves outward, a crawling explosion, throwing debris into a tumbling wave of random impacts and wild reactions. The massive cloud of cosmic wreckage, roiling, violent revelry, shifts endlessly but is unchanged.

There is nothing lost, nothing gained, nothing created, nothing destroyed.

Breaking the chaos there are small eddies, swirling points where flotsam becomes trapped in a patterned whirlpool. Within the eddies there are tiny islands of logic in the explosive sea.

The islands are still part of the blast, an inevitable and yet wholly unexpected result of the crashing wave sweeping through space. The beings that inhabit the islands are still part of the blast, thrown together and falling apart in an instance. They are a part of the squall, no less part of the mushroom cloud than anything else. “Living,” is being part of a bright flash, the shock of an infinite explosion, proof of the detonation.

The definition of insanity is telling people that the definition of insanity is "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

It isn't.

My teeth dig into a leather armrest, fidgetting nervously, obsessively picking at my own hands because its new and it'll keep Dr. Monde interested and excited. I've never hinted at having any form of anxiety before, but its his favorite explanation for why I attacked Richard with the remote control two months ago when he wouldn't stop trying to suck on my fingers. I like to do little things for him.

"What does the inside of my mouth taste like?" I rasp it out before a fit of wild thrashing, making sure to convulse enough to seem compulsive but not too close to an actual seizure. I briefly wonder if that's actually a good question.

He remains impassive, waiting for the fit to pass even after I throw a squishy, stress ball past him to rebound off the wall and *snap* against the back of his head. He takes it all in stride, the picture of calm, but frantically scribbling notes on my every move. He is in love with me, but not the person in front of him. Over the weeks I've provided him with groundbreaking data for a thesis that will be famous and entirely contradicted in week. He assures me he is alright when I reign myself in.

He thinks himself my first. Asking question after question as he imagines I have no history before him, not one that matters really. He's made one up for me to suit himself. He guesses I am homeless. I am unloved. I am abused. he is gracious. He is sharp. he will understand me and develop a bond, put me back together or be the manager of my madness. He is a hero, explaining away a private wonder for disgusted onlookers in white coats. Better than the men who wear blue, they're too smart to love me as the doctor does, far too smart to believe the tears as the intellectual pieces together for me an alternate reality where I am the urchin he desires.

He imagines he's taking care of me, helping me, saving me from the life in the alleys with its sharp edges and screams. he is saving me from not just the noose, but the imaginary boggart in my head that clearly must have transformed me into someone else, someone meant to be here before him more than the person he sees through his rosy glasses. His smile brags that he can box it in when the whole point is that it is uncontained. It is to be uncontainable. I can't really go to pieces and come back because falling apart means being irreperable or else I couldn't possibly of truly been really gone in the first place. If I could come back then "I" was just overshadowed by the mania but still somehow intact this whole time, that's called denial not insanity.

And yet Dr. Monde persists. If am a lucky I will be free in a years time and when I am I will visit Dr. Monde to see how well he recognizes me without restraints.

I drew my first characters on her birthday, behind a locked door. I sketched rubber hose limbs as plates shattered over missed dinner reservations. I added white gloves to hide bruised knuckles, substituted a rolling pin for the skillet. I drew her more like Red Hot Riding Hood than Jessica Rabbit.

I storyboarded the second short personally; two Tasmanian Devils rioting in little boxes, contained by thin black borders that held everything together. I wanted her to see my every thought. I'd known about her and Harvey all along, but when I suprised her with his caricature in a screen test she laughed through tears.

She and Harvey never met at the altar. We took a wrong turn at Albuquerque and sold Harvey’s ring for an Acme subscription.

Looking back, it’s all gags; anvils, bombs, and mallets that do no damage as we just squashed, stretched, and snapped back again.

“Some people like chicken bone bases, some others beef, but if you don’t like mine you’re a damn idiot.”

It wasn’t much of a nursery rhyme, but Mom had a point. Even after she married my step-dad and our dinner talks turned to stock options and investment plans she still made stew the same.

She taught me how to mix the pot with donuts in the stock car parking lot, head out the window, howling at security.

She showed me to pick spices by gashing three knuckles open pushing a store shelf onto a stock boy that tried to cop a feel in the seasoning section.

Together we added my first kiss and half her spit cup, adding scabs, scrapes and mosquito bites to taste. We let it stew all day with lemonade on the front porch.

At dinner, we ate with our hands and caught fireflies in our mouths.

*Scribble* *Scribble*Pause.

I can see her hand’s stutter-stop motion from the back row. The note only half hidden under a binder, there are two boxes so what’s there to write?

I’d consulted cootie catchers, pulled petals from daisies, made bribes to friends and gifted candy to enemies, but still I’d shuddered when I dropped the note on her desk in passing as I got up to sharpen my seventh pencil.

The clock was mocking me, jittering hands under cracked glass frittering away seconds, waiting on the answer of the only girl in school that called team captain for kickball.

*Scribble* *Scribble*Pause. *Scribble*

I’m stuck, waiting on the girl who only half smiles, because she pulled out all the baby teeth on one side, “to get it over with.”

I touch my sore face, the shiner on the right side from kicking sand in her hair.

I think I love her.

“It’s easy to make candy ribbons.”

Momma had said that with a smile. She taught me to tie my fingers with them, the glassy, orange peels, shining with diamond granules and to press down just enough to stretch them thin and wrap them tight. They smelled like Sunday.

She made them for my birthday, my graduation, and put them in boxes when I moved out. She’d laughed and pressed them into my hand with her old ring and said, “Now it’s a sure thing.”

She’d been baking when her heart stopped; candy ribbons for a baby girl. They burned.

I can’t listen to messages; I’m busy preheating the oven. I ignored the funeral arrangements; I have to boil more water. How can I focus on will readings and family gatherings when I can’t even get the pieces thin enough to tie?

The recipe for candy ribbons was so easy before.

Dad said, “They’re eating us alive.”

Like locusts, one and then many, swarming over store fronts and houses, filling themselves with our home.

They’re eating the shell of the church. Shutters click, flashes from hungry, glass eyes lit the broken walls again and again as they claw at the spaces where the windows were blasted out. With little knives and markers they leave their names and scribbled condolences before they nibble away their souvenirs from the crumbling edges.

The hive drones noisily, half truths and trivia regurgitated over ruins, making national treasures from shell shrapnel.

It’s patriotic to snatch it all up; in boxes, bags, pockets and hands. They carry it home for mantle pieces and memento boxes. They pack our land for takeaway cartons and carry-on bags to be picked over with cocktails and family photo albums.

They’re starved; slavering jaws searching for even the smallest taste of grief.