They stood in front of their burning livelihood, fingers twiddling behind their backs expecting a response from him, that is the grand master, piles upon piles ago. Addressing the malarkeys that had happened upon OUR livelihood, the Grand Master said, with one aged shrunken finger pointed at the desperate invaders, “Not meant for you, this place is neither yours nor meant for you. But this does not mean we don’t sympathize with your troubles. Therefore, we firmly declare you permission to remain on our Earth for as long as it is needed to build back up your ship. This, however falls under the agreement that you and your heritage follow our directions and stay within a provided area, acknowledged by my superiors. Are we in agreement…..acquaintance?” Not having much of a decision whether or not to agree, our intruders shook the Grand Master’s hands. They have been stuck here for a pile of three and twenty. They no longer have a livelihood, given that it now lay in an after fire on the ground, so they borrowed some of ours in the form of trees and bark. Now we call them malarkeys and they call us mollusks, and they’re still not so pleased to be stuck here, just we’re not too pleased to have them.

The other children at the facilities, as we were taught to call it, always pointed at me muffling their giggles with a palm covered mouth. “when you begin speaking,” they would say, “your lips get all twisted up, like that rope of that swingy tire, and then your tongue goes flappy flip, and the sentences spin and swing around, so they sound funny to us.” They would catapult away, pushing each into bushes still snorting with laughs over their funny sentences, that were not so to me.




It would be quite a dis-statement to claim that their muffled giggled cavorting did not poke at me. For they did it in the worst manners. All their empty words sent me falling into the tree, that happened to lay right outside the facilities, on extended wanders through and to nowhere. It had always been just words they aided against me. Of late though, little stresses had rippled their ways through the anger filled malarkeys that floated around the trees, These ripples poked fun at the poppies and mums and then translated over to the puddles of their children or my facility mates. Which in general finishes with an unfortunate horror of mine, that contained no giggles or laughing.




As I mentioned before on the occasion I would wander along in the forest after the other children poked fun at tones of mine. And on no occasion did they bother to go trailing along behind. But things turned during one specific event when one of the unlearned transfers and his drones happened upon myself tittering on a swing and looking at the empties of the branches. Not being able to contain their own ripples, they tore at my hair, and onto the gravelly gravel I catapulted. “That funny little way you use in talking,” he sneered, drones snickering behind him, “sounds like the marbles of an untaught malarkey.” He placed a foot in my eyes, as did his drones, then skirted to the other side of the building to find another to poke at, leaving a stained me on the ground.
For a pile of seconds I sprawled against the gravelly gravel, redirecting my thoughts as in what I would do next. The trees being my usually release after an unfortunate happening came to mind presently. As I blended back into the branches, scare upon scare of a stain nibbling down onto my shirt, little did I know, the untaught transfer mollusk and his drones were stalking out of the corner of the facilities watching to see what I would attempt next. Him and his screwy followers snickered and whispered and plotted amongst themselves and then firmly demanded to steal after me in to the trees.
A pair of miles beyond our little civil, a cliff, born of man was plopped among the trees in a less than ideal place for a cliff to be built. A top the vertical dip, an elder wall oversaw our stranded malarkeys below, the only sign of their presence signified by a mechanical monster of a mother ship, currently eaten up with the green of the vines and trees. It was this wall on which I sat up on peering over the shoulder-touching trees, wondering, where perhaps the things so argued about in the civil hid.
Surprise stuffed into the edges of little fingers that drilled into my spine, lightly pushed me off the wall. And with dirt scraping the bitty bottom of the jeans I donned, the ground on the other side boomed into my face, rolling me topsy-turvy around, letting little rocks plunge into my stomach, wetting splotches of red onto my skin.






Eyes kissing the sky above, rocks scattered and stuck to my back below, three heads popped out from the wall, peering at me over the rocks, high up. Untaught little schmucks snickered, while one cupped his hands around his mouth and clearly yelled down, “You’ve gotten what you deserve! Broken talker like a malarkey!” The heads disappeared, and I was left on the opposite side of the wall, pile upon pile of red staining everything.















What the tiny fools had accused me of was nothing more than a mistake. A funny little dialect that just happened to flow in the same way of the talk of the malarkeys plagued my speech. Not for no reason at all, just because, that’s how the voices of my entire heritage played out. In an odd manner, not much but at least enough to cause a little shove over the wall.
I made a decision, instead of attempting to scale the black wall, I would trek the small pile of miles to the next civil over, where in place of a wall atop a cliff, lay a guard atop an iron gate, who was bound to provide some aid of sorts.
A hand neatly cupped over the red stains on my attire, I faltered along towards the setting sun where the westward civil lay somewhere beyond the trees. A bit off from the wall, I began to feel the slightest bit rottener. The woods around beginning to flicker and blacken before my eyes, I slowly, let out my legs, and sunk onto the dirt filled clearing. Strange. The trampled grass underfoot seemed not like the grass of a wild no-man’s land, but instead that of a well-travelled path. Fingers tickling against the stokes of it, the noise from far away trees was barely heard, but I lifted my head anyway and peered upon the shape of an oddly person, that was no such thing. For instead it was a little malarkey, with big arms stuck out too long, covered in misshapen black veins that shined through the plastically, transparent skin. Fat emerald eyes peered through me, as I peered at it. They began to trace my cupped hand interest glinting the edges of a gaze. He wanted to know what I was holding pressure on.



















They all spoke the same about the malarkeys. Untaught, selfish creatures, only here to obtain and use whatever is take-able. Everyone believed the monsters to be just that. Monsters. But…..I needed help. The stain had now flooded the better part of my hand, and was still growing. Growing until I would lie upon the ground, not a twitch or a twitter found within. So my hand dropped, and I followed the eyes of my new clearing mate, which slowly widened as it scaled the extent of the stain. I plopped over letting it run onto the ground, and with little black bugs flitting here and there watched the malarkey move slowly toward me.



How helpful those little things are. I lay stretched out no longer a backbone against the dirt, no longer morning sky above. White paint walls instead lay in place, drinking in the bright forest colors that lightened every up before. No windows, only a door, a sleeping spot and an aid cabinet, all heated white, making any particulars eyeballs burn and water. Must be some sort of gush-gush center used for little strainers like me. They have one task, make sure no more ruby stains leak through the white wash clothing that rule their existence. They wrap and wrap and wrap their bandages, till nothing can poke through the pure fabric. This process had been completed with me as well. My fingers under my shirt, I ran them this way and that inspecting a tight white wrapping around my stomach. Not even a memory of what had happened after everything faded away caught me. One bit of a minute I was all stained and gushing out onto the dirt…and now, well in all respect I was aided and relatively okay, back in, what was believed to be some sort of civil. May even be my own.






























A white clad aid-ie floated over, inspecting a clipboard in her tiny little hands, and looking over my already woke up self.













“You happen to be a real, real lucky one,” she mumbled, scratching on her clip board, white clothes rustling










“You’d been brought to civil med any later, probably been deemed exterminate.” She scratched another thing or two, stuck a little pin into my bag, then began to exit.





































“Hold on a bit,” I called her back to me with a croak of a dried up frog.






















“Who happened to be the aid to my discontent?” She shook her head at me, little hat twisting against the fog colored hair.











































“Unknown, just happened to discover you at the foot of the steps, no comment from any civilian about at that hour. Just you and you alone.” She nodded as if to agree with her own mind-set then left me to my thoughts.
















Before everything became blurry, something leaned over me, worry crossing a face-shape of my first viewing. It wasn’t any civilian of my own that had aided me; no, no one would have been on that disastrous side of the wall by choice. That led to the last most guarded and unfortunate idea, it had not been anyone who had saved me, instead it was a sort of anything. The malarkey with those shiny green emeralds, have completed a favor that had happened to expel death from me. The entity that all of everyone had branded as a monster, had risked a death upon itself to sneak into our mollusk civil and deposit me on the floorboards of this gushy-gush. I owned my present existence to it. And yet, it wasn’t just a gratefulness that now plagued me, it was a shame that suddenly haunted my bones. How dare the rest of the civil push them from its borders when they go so far as to save of our own? Instead of hoisting me through the main mile of the civil, in open daylight cries relating to its saving of me, it had shrunk in the inky blackness of night, letting not a anyone see its form with me. Why? Because little holes had poked their way through our entire agreement of them living and us leaving them to rebuild a livelihood, they were too terrified to broadly attempt to portray them aiding us. We were what scared them now, scared them into wanting to abandon everything and try and go as quickly as possible.

Four or three sunny days floated by full of white aid-ies, shoving pills down my throat, putting medicine in my arm, and poking at stomach stitch marks while mumbling about stained clothing. Finally, with a few stern nods from this and that low master, I was able to make a scheduled prison break, and leave the smelly gushy-gush center for good.
Out in the clean pumped air, everything felt the same. Civilians walked or rode along, not bothering with me or any others, their thoughts instead redirecting to whatever lay ahead in their day. Though it all seemed unchanged, as I trailed along the paths, back to my facilities, I suddenly had an unfortunate sense, it didn’t feel like any part of this place fit me anymore, not the civil or those within it. Even as I walked the course of my “home-sweetie” facilities and saw my own space of living, none of it felt of familiarity. Back in classes no one seemed to want to know what had become of the few days I had not presently attended class. They sat like they always had and scribbled glaring down at their pieces of empty knowledge. The transfers and drones paid no attention to me, other than poking insulting whispers among themselves, like they always had, and all of everyone followed their ways. Back in the same old, same old, following the usual chronological series of events, nothing seemed to have changed, and yet…. everything had. All was the same in the civil…..so maybe it hadn’t adopted a sort of difference, but I had.


















Floating along the bricks in the center of the civil was where the majority of my time was spent now days. I no longer let myself near the wall I had been pushed over. I could no longer waste hours in the trees without the fear that another group of mollusks would send me over the wall, this time no foreign aid to defend me.
That day freezing clouds had begun to close over our little civil, and bittle droplets of white had accumulated on the bricks on which my feet tiptoed on. Usually when it was cold like this, the air in the entirety of the civil became loud with the silence, the civilians too happy by their fires to bother leaving. But today, the iscle air hung with the noise of yelps, sounding more and more, as I neared the civil center.




Many gathered round, arms on themselves and their jackets, eyes reluctantly turned toward a grey shape upon the bricks with another stanced over it. Push this one, push that one, they moved aside without complaint, they were disgusted yet mesmerized. Front row,up here they watched with delight, no noise, but cold smiles explained enough. It takes a monumental second that eats my soul to look, I know what’s happening, but it still sent my recent meal into my throat.

The civilian with the rope I didn't recognize, he was too statuous,the enormous hulk almost hid the form below him, on his knees transparent skin leaking black that was underneath onto the brick ground. I knew this one, the shape the curve of him, and those big emerald diamonds for eyes , leering closed every time the civil threw another flogging at him. This was not just any malarkey. This was my malarkey the one that had aided me so. Before I could think, I was tripping into the clearing, catching the hulk with the rope, and standing in front of my wounded savior. The hulk sneered in disbelief.






“We found him breaking the agreement,on our side of the ancient wall. This is the justice for all those who break it, five hundred whips,” he chuckled, “or as many as it takes to destroy this pathetic malarkey. Now move girl, you’re out of line.”





“I am not leaving,” I felt that I should have had fear, creeping in my legs sending me falling back into the crowd, crying, letting him finish the job. But no feelings of such possesed me, not the terror of dying or being beaten by this soulless monster, had leaked through me yet. There was nothing driving me away from this stance they would claim to be unjustified.This awful civilian would not touch him again, I would be dead before he did.


The hulk coldly stared me down.
“You want to take this husk of a species floggings little prick?” I replied by not moving. Everyone around was as loud as an empty square as he shrugged and rolled back his rope. The first slammed into my shoulder,the noise echoed through out the square and the world. Knees practically collapsed, but no scream sounded from my mouth, I would not give him any such satisfaction. Before recovery from the first could be found, another racked my back. Teeth went through my tongue, and a flood of staining crashed into my mouth. Some reason kept me upright, kept me staying in front of the malarkey. For every crack aimed at me, for every awful stinging mark left under my clothing, I refused to leave. I would be dead before the civil touched my malarkey again.
One hundred and seven. I had counted to that number, still barely on my feet, when the next smashed my jaw, sending the ground to kiss my face. Now through gushed up eyes, I was looking at the malarkey on the ground before me,emerald eyes peering back like they had before. With stringy legs barely meant to hold up, he left the bricks, pulling me up alongside him.
The cracks of an empty rope had stopped, the hulking punisher studied us in disgust. Us. We held arms, holding ourselves up with each other's strength. He let the whip fall to the ground, and made an animal grunting noise in his heart. Pulling a revolver from a deep within a pocket, he aimed the far faster but deadly weapon at us. As it gleamed in a grey sun, I could see the sudden worry flowing through the faces of crowds. Be them harsh, be them soulless, be them the ones who taught their little bits of children to hate, they still had their values burned into their skulls. I was one of their own, and be me protecting their object and despise and distrust, I was still one of them and a child at that. It didn’t matter if I was protecting a malarkey, or beating a copper. To them one never shot a child.
Maybe this is why when my new comrade shot forward knocking the guard to the ground, and exited the square with my hand in his, everyone stepped aside. Maybe a bit of fear of him drove the civilians, maybe it was fact the guard had beaten me down to my knees. Either chance, they moved and we were off, the branches brushing the fingertips of one hand the other still clasped together, as we headed toward the oh-so-fated wall.
It was bound to happen next, crouched down beside the wall and the bushes we meet eye to eye. not a word needed to be exchanged, he wanted me to come, over the other side, down climbing instead of a push to get over. It would barely take a bit of minute to descend. To say goodbye to this civil, to the facilities, to everything I had ever had a little knowledge of, all erased a new plan placed before my thoughts. I could stay or I could go, join my “monster” and rebuild the path to his home, or go back to the facilities the transfers and their drones, the feet in the face, the insulting whispers, all things I had despised. After what I had experienced the past time and time, a large sense of decision occupied my ideas. Never could I return with what I had learned. I met eye to eye again, this time with a absoluteness set in way. Placing one foot over the wall, he followed,using the vines as a rope, I slowly descended till the souls of my shoes plopped the dirt below, and a new sky shined high above.
How helpful those little things are. I lay stretched out on t, morning sky above, fingers under my shirt inspecting a tight white bandage wrapped around my stomach. Not even a memory of what had happened after everything faded away caught me. One bit of a minute I was all stained and gushing out onto the dirt…and now, well in all respect I was aided and relatively okay. No longer was I near the wall, but instead far off, somewhere tangled in the unknown branches, where a large number of them must have a civil of sorts nearby. I didn’t know where I was, but I still intended to go to the next civil over, wherever it was. I could barely see the group of six, plundering back through the trees. Maybe if I just requested a directional finger to where the gate lay, I could find myself a way there.









































“Hold on a bit!” I called out to them, and stumbled to my feet, painfully falling after them, into the woods. They seemed unaware of my presence, even when I was only a few meters behind. Instead of mentioning my joining of their little troop, I trailed a long more in back, hoping they would take note of me one time or another. But they didn’t, and we trampled along through the dense trees, never looking up at where they were headed or back at my ungraceful form, catching on the roots and branches.







We walked into their civil, at first without my knowledge that we were there, for there was no structures that lay on the ground. Instead up above in gargantuan trees were pieces of metal stuck together to make little shacks that hung out over the branches