My third arm twitches.

Left third arm, that is. From the coat of neural webs I have draped on my spine, long white strands flow from under finger tip. Up, through fluid-wrinkled wrists, goes the hypnic jerk, impulse command rippled from number three involuntarily, and sensory response comes back, reporting about drenched fingers pressing against the inside of a polymer cocoon.

At the neural intercept, second vertebrae, the signal comes out to me via fiber optic cables, and she never finds out that she tried to wake up.

Unlike brain chatter, body data does not need to be desynthesized. It is raw and direct, a literal command, fed into my own bio-adapter through which all of my Locksteps feed their nerves, interloping with my own. This signal is mapped by the anatomy algo, and projects a sensory feed direct to my real left hand.

Brushing up against, stretching out, a yearning towards, and through a viscous bag, polyether wall, like a wet suit, bath-tub sized, and full,…

Gayhole, n.

A jail.

Gayhole is an archaic spelling of the word gaol, which in turn was borrowed from Norman French gaiole. Via a process of folk etymology, the Norman French gaiole was spelled as gayhole.

Incidentally, the alternative spelling jail has the same etymological root, from Latin caveola, meaning "little cage," but was borrowed from Parisian French jialole.

The modern English…

 

 

We drove all night to the beach  

taking turns sleeping against jackets balled up for a pillow 

 

We walked miles up the side of a mountain

getting there just before dark,  greeted by owls and a half moon

 

We waited in line for hours for concert tickets

leaning against a wall and sitting on a concrete sidewalk

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