Cent's Yuenyeung [ Too Much Tea, Not Enough Coffee ]

To: Cent

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Oh, that's a great memory! I wasn't, actually around back then. The world's always been a mostly empty place to me. My parents have told me some stories, but I can't really imagine what it was like, to be around so many people constantly. They don't really know what happened, either, we live in a pretty out of the way place. They only heard about it from other bugs after, whatever it was happened. I guess that's part of why i like imagining the past of things, everything feels like it has a mysterious history to me, like, at some time it probably meant something to someone.
I did look up some stuff about science once, but from what I read, it seems like it used a lot of math, in order to check that everything made sense I think? I'm not very good with numbers, or, well, I'm not very good at remembering all the different things you do with them, and which one you would do depending on what you want. I think I would like doing it, though, if I knew how.
For fun, I guess I'd say I go on a lot of walks? Pretty much every day, in fact. That's when i find stuff and think about it, or, just think about things in general. I choose different paths each time, usually. Our internet's out of date, or has a connection problem, or something, and can't really load pictures or video properly, so I don't use it that much.

To: Dalorh, Kinda Unsure

Well, we occupy ourselves with what's near, I think. I've nearly always had internet in one form or another, so it's tougher for me to think about life without it, but... a life without it wouldn't be bad at all. Just have to get used to it. We grow to fit our bubble, you know? Going on walks, living more for-real in a world, that's a totally viable path. I imagine it really lets the mind race, a heck of a lot more than cooped up in an apartment in Bends!

I've actually been trying to get out of the apartment, actually. I guess I read your message way back when you sent it (ha!) and thought walking around could be helpful. Also, I started out having a good reason to, and I guess it just expanded from there. Now I go out and trawl the building with a friend, because having somebody to talk to is a surprisingly great motivation to get moving. Bends is so big, we'll probably never run out of places to explore. At least not before we've went through a few hundred dispensers' worth of caffeine, haha.

Maybe walking around has been enough. I'm sorry for not replying sooner, but I'm also not mortified at being completely unable to. I guess for now we're living the best lives we can.

Our parents' parents and so on-- they definitely lived in a different era. My mom was lucky enough to see both sides of it. I feel like looking back on it is impossible, because it's a different world than we ever could imagine. It escapes our scope of reality and enters a whole new one. I mean, we can imagine, but we can't ever actually be there. If we only trust our eyes and antennae to know what's real, then the bug-filled past is just what we hear about, what we guess about. We're more like the humans whose world we got, but they never could have known our lives, either. They never could have guessed what living such an isolated existence is like.

Or maybe they could, I guess. But if you only trust your eyes and antennae...

Well, it gets harder to imagine anything but the present. There's still so much that's good about the present, so many people with stories I haven't heard about. Sure, there are great stories of people living before they could live forever, but I'd like to think that it's all just explanation for the real stories going on right now, in every place, every passing second.

Maybe writing about people's lives in the moment is the way to go. After all, you're not helpless in doing it. I guess if I were writing fantasy or science fiction, I'd probably write it like a journal-- day by day. What do you think?

- I Will Reply

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The wind could never be considered gentle around Bends. Whatever New York City had lost when the humans left, the buildings' dizzying scope had never gone away, and the strange contours ended up making the windflow nigh-unbearable. Still, Cent bore it with stride. She sat against a metal floor by the entrance back in, only a few inches, with the mantis further out, riskier, sitting on a tiny bit of the grate with only a small railing to either side of her. The human-designed scale of the fire escape meant holes in the floor about her size, and a bad step, being carried by the wind, could mean a turbulent fall. But the mantis didn't seem to care, much.

Cent had no clue how to act around her. She was at once completely approachable and utterly impenetrable. The roach was struggling to display any more than surface-level emotions around her, but there was this aching need to be more genuine, more honest, more real. Conversations had been calming and easy, and she didn't feel the need to pull away and retract. It was the easiest friendship she'd ever had. Sitting out at the edge of the world, watching the cracked concrete road flicker stories below, Cent was happy to just shoot the shit.

"I'd actually be willing to bet you wouldn't need any flying to make it down, Cent," the mantis chittered. "If you went totally flat, the wind would carry you pretty softly. You'd need to be kind of lucky, still."

Cent shrugged with four arms, stepping near the railing just to get a taste of the height. "I don't love the idea."

Tieni grinned with elongated mandibles. "Okay, but you wouldn't DIE if you fell. It'd just suck."

To that, the roach could only laugh. "...yeah, it'd suck."

"I could probably get in the glider and pick you up," Tieni mused, now prancing around looking off. "The timing would be tight. What's your terminal velocity?"

Cent snickered again. "I don't know that stat off hand."

"There's totally a formula for it!" The mantis honed in on her, examining her height carefully. "I mean, I don't recall it off hand, but we could find out. Your phone gets connection, right?"

She let out a short breath. "Actually, since you're lighter," Cent said, "it seems like it'd be tough for you to even catch up with me."

"It'd be a race." Tieni continued examining her out of curiosity. "...eh, I don't think I could get to you. So if you do fall, just be safe and fly, yeah?"

"I'll try not to forget."

The idea of falling with promise of being saved was vaguely exciting. Cent wasn't all that invested in aviation, but there was an unspoken requirement for her to care more, and thus she found herself caring a good bit more. Hearing the mantis happily chitter about her flying machine- the autogyro- woke her up more than coffee.

Tieni sat down a bit, letting her snazzy-looking jacket (for aviation purposes, clearly) flap in the wind. "I love these grates they put on fire escapes. They're accidentally crazy dangerous for us."

Cent mused, "Maybe it was cheaper to make them this way? Less metal used?"

"Maybe. It didn't seem to compromise safety, I mean, it's a fire escape, and it's held up this long."

"I wonder when the railings got put up."

Tieni perked up again. "Probably right after humans left. There were probably a million bugs just slipping through the cracks, all the time."

The roach just snickered. "Oh, God, that's really horrible."

"I mean, not all of 'em died." Tieni laughed softly. "You wouldn't, for example. And there were a lot of cockroaches in New York that could fly." She glanced off further, thoughtful. "Actually, I can't think of a lot of building dwellers who'd die from the height. Were there a lot of beetles?"

Cent shrugged. "I know that we've got millipedes and centipedes now, so the railings are nice. Well, one millipede and one centipede. Neighbors."

"Yeah, I think I met them?" Tieni nodded slow. "I totally don't blame people for wanting to stay indoors if they're shaped like that. I can't imagine you get a lot of control midair, which is really all falling is about."

"Makes sense." On reflection, it really did. Gliding was just falling with control. "It's cool being able to hang out with the whole world below. It's genuinely fun. I guess I didn't do a lot of it-- before recently, I guess. Just to get out of the house."

"I definitely started my job wanting to get out of the house. Not a bad reason for stuff." Tieni grinned again, mandibles folding up in that specially-contorted way.

Cent nodded slowly, took a long breath, and smiled in response. "I still like the house, but yeah, it's good to get out. Usually it's pretty exhausting, but this feels OK."

"Does it?" Tieni's expression, and tone, got to be more emotive. "That's really nice of you."

"Yeah," Cent said, realizing she was pushing the bounds of a milquetoast conversation just that little bit more. "I'm pretty much always at home being alone, and I like doing that, but I also... like, uh. Good people. You're good people."

The mantis sat back against a railing. "Hey, thank you, Cent. You're good people too." There was a ringing to it that a lot of people wouldn't put in their voice. There wasn't any sarcasm, just that easily-reached friendliness. Like Tieni wasn't trying to reciprocate the gesture, but that it just... made sense.

Inevitably, the conversation would discard any mention of stakes once more, and it'd be about aviation and falling and the life of a caffeine delivery-bug. But the little moment of honesty was fuel for Cent. Even as they parted ways, she felt a little giddy. Still apprehensive, but giddy. Excited to exist and be alive, to put herself out there for more than a few moments.

Home, and replying to the lone email which had sat for what felt like eons, was easier than ever to return to. When she sat, thoughts came flooding back. She wasn't worried if she couldn't make it happen, because there'd always be the next day, the next conversation with Tieni, the next walk through halls she hadn't seen and words she hadn't said. But the message did complete, the email did get sent, and she sat back with that giddiness still resounding through her cockroach shell.

It took a lot to exist outside of a chair, talking to a new friend about things she was hardly familiar with. Maybe it was a good kind of exhaustion.

She fell asleep in seconds.