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

To: Cent, Realized Their Purpose

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So, um... Ore showed up the other day. And I told her I wanted to join her on the way back. So that's happening. Excited for that. Now I'm just waiting for her to finish delvering caffeine to all the local spots. It's not just the vending machine near the station. There's a couple of families further into the forest that need direct deliveries for a variety of reasons. So Ore left to take care of that. She was supposed to be back last night, so I'm a little concerned, I guess. Berry decided to go look for her. I'm looking after the station in the meanwhile.

At times like this I just need to stay positive, I guess. If I'm leaving with Ore, I'll have to go say goodbye to the hive. Despite all the bad things I can say about it as a whole, the bees there are family, and I do care about them a great deal. I'm going to print out that paragraph you wrote about the importance of names so I can read it aloud to them, because you say it so much better than I ever could.

The ant wars are definitely going on in some form somwhere in the general direction of east. Sometimes travelling bugs come through with stories about it. To my knowledge it's not really so much about space anymore. It really is just a senseless war fueled by an ancient rivalry. That's my interpretation, at least. It's not something I have given much thought to, but I think anything you hear about the ant wars should be taken with a grain of salt. There's likely a lot of misinformation going around. I was tempted to imagine the ant tractor as just an ant that grew as big as a tractor, but maybe that's the sort of topic I shouldn't be making things up about.

Out of curiosity, I did ask Ore if she knew of a bug named Tieni, but nah, guess that would be too much of a coincidence.

To: Mímir, Concerned

I hope Ore's alright! I wouldn't worry too bad, and maybe use this time to talk to your hive.

Tieni was gone on a long expedition the first time I went to look for her. Our machine was out for a little extra long, and it got me and my neighbors worried, but it turned out she was just a little behind schedule because of all the hassle that comes with delivering caffeine. I mean, there's people who berate her just because she brings the coffee delivered a little wrong, or the tea in slightly the wrong flavor. Not to mention the old bugs who are still bitter that their favorite kind of bean or tea leaf can't be grown anymore, and always remind her that it's somehow her fault for that.

Or the bugs who think she deserves shit because she's trans, which would be plenty enough to make me want to quit. I don't get it. I don't get how people can be so upset over something that has nothing to do with them, and that has nothing to do with anyone, especially not now.

Anyway, I guess those are things you should keep in mind if you're headed out! I had the idea to ask her if I could go on an expedition or two, too, because it seems like a real interesting time. I'm headed out tonight to shadow for the second time at the mixing plant she gets shipments from. I'm really excited to be able to hand her a package of stuff and be like, hey, come ship this out! It's made with love! Something like that. I have no clue how it'll actually turn out.

I appreciate that the paragraph about names had some meaning. I mostly don't know what I'm talking about with stuff, so it's all pretty much made-up. I do think your hive would benefit from names, though. I think we put so much meaning in our names that when we discard them, we become a new person, and I bet taking on a name for the first time has a similar effect.

I mean, hey, 'tractor ant' is already a name that makes you think of so much. And calling that senseless conflict a 'war', like it's some noble organized thing, gives it validity, too. It sounds awful, Mímir. Whichever way you go with Ore, it should be away from that. I've never thought about how things can get living in the wilderness. New York City, as empty as it can feel, is infinitely more claustrophilic than the woods.

Makes enough sense Ore doesn't know Tieni, but I do love when coincidences like that happen. I'm guessing you're nowhere near New York, though. They've got caffeine carriers all over the world now, so it feels like a one in a million shot. I guess weirder things have happened!

- I Will Reply

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To: Cent, Realized Their Purpose

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Hey. I'm here to respond to your email. I received it quite a while ago, but I couldn't bring myself to spill my guts to a stranger. Bugs change, though.

I'm Rose Hotel. I named myself after a musician. I know that's an odd concept. Most of the bugs where I live only experience sound in a vibration way. Hell, my friends describe music with words like "cacophonous", "unpredictable", and "ugly". But uh. As a cicada, I spent most of my life dormant below a human establishment where music was played. 15 years, can you imagine that? 15 years of sound grating on my brain until it made a little more sense. And you know what? Music is beautiful. I wish I could share it with everyone. I wish I could open your head and pour myself in there so you could understand the soup of audible motion. It flows like water and washes over my perception. It feels like life. It feels like change. I really wish I could share it. Just, with anyone. Anyone at all.

I don't know why I went on that tangent. I'm afraid that if I delete it I'll lose something important.

There's only one other bug I met that showed interest in music. A chill fellow, Named himself Marco. He tried so hard to get what I was showing him. I think he was about to, even. Maybe 3 or so months and he would've understood. God, I think you already know where this is going. He's not with us anymore.

I don't think that you'd be willing, but would you like to listen to music with me? It doesn't have to be an all the time thing. Just maybe, 30 minutes a day, you could put some on in the background and let yourself soak. I just need to share this feeling. You don't need to understand it yet. I could even recommend some of my favorites.

This is very stream of consciousness, sorry. I think I'm conflicted between thinking of you as a stranger and thinking of you like a chance to start over, and I realize that might be uncomfortable for you. I think a while ago I probably would've been content to leave this message sitting in my inbox forever because I didn't need anybody else back then. Bugs change, though.

Sincerely,
Rose Hotel

To: Rose Hotel, Changed Bug

Oh, my god! I haven't met a bug who was around with humans in so long, at least been able to talk to them at all. My mum was born a good time after, even though she lived through the Burst. I can't even imagine what it was like hearing music made by those huge instruments and human musicians. I guess as a cicada you never really had a choice, huh?

I looked up Rose Hotel. I was going to say I don't think there are any in the area I live (New York City), but then I found the band you were talking about! I can't listen very well on my home setup. With how sound works, I'd need a speaker six hundred times bigger to make sound with a full frequency range. The ones that came with my mini-computer are barely enough to hear spoken word, and it's not able to store very many media files anyway.

I play an instrument (well, not proficiently, but...) and do like the sound of music, generally. I don't know of any good way to expose myself to it besides staying at home, because staying at home is most of what I do anyway. There are jazz clubs in New York City, and jazzy instruments my size, and even a bug I know on the internet named Jazzmon, but I can't say I've actually been there to hear any of it. It's hard to get out of here, but I guess music can make you feel like you're being transported.

I'm sorry about your friend Marco. Losing someone who gives you a rock to stand on sounds absolutely terrible. I didn't mean it at first, but for a couple people this email has been sort of a rock in the cascading river to hold onto. I can't promise anything- I never can- but I really would like to be here to reply, and be present, and help give you reason to stick around. It's still nice to have people. I thought I could live without my dad and stepdad, for all the help they gave me when I was growing out of my shell, but

I guess over time you realize how much you need good people.

If you send me some music, Rose, I would love to hear it. Like I said, it won't be of great quality, but that's okay, right? I would love to get it stuck in my head and let it swirl around.

- I Will Reply

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To: Cent, Realized Their Purpose

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Sorry for the late reply, our internet dropped out for a bit and it took a while to get working again.
Actually that's a lie. There was a problem with it, but it fixed itself again after a bit, I don't know how. The real reason is because..
..I don't know. It's hard to explain. Someone came by I didn't expect to see. It wasn't related to this but it made talking to you feel weird. Not like, because of you or anything but
bluh. whatever it doesn't matter right now.
It's good to hear that you went to that event with your friend. I think there's a festival that goes on every year somewhere near where I live, but I've never been before. I should probably check it out, but I don't really know if I'd enjoy it. I'm not that social myself, I usually just talk occasionally and stay silent most of the time, and I'm fine with that, but I've never been in a group of more than a dozen bugs at once. I don't know if I'd really fit in that well around more people than that.
I tried looking up that Sequence Break thing you mentioned, and it seems really crazy? It might just be my internet but I got a lot of different stories, like one about a rocket flying without any fuel, or the moon staying still in the sky, or an old-fashioned astronaut rising from an ocean. I don't know, I couldn't find any sites that looked official. I feel like it'd make more sense in a book. Do you know if anyone's written any books about it?

To: Dalorh, Kinda Unsure

Don't worry about it, yeah? I wasn't able to reply for ten months, remember. It's not like there's always an easy answer or explanation. Honestly, sometimes it would be easier if there were some kind of mean explanation, like I hated the people on this email list, but it isn't that. It's inexplicable. I really appreciate you sending a reply regardless, Dalorh.

I'm not great at social situations. Online, there's so much time to prepare yourself, but I don't usually have the ability to go further in person. On the flipside, staying quiet does work alright in big crowds. I think that's where a lot of people go, because it gets too loud to do much more. When I went to the Sequence Break, everyone was so social, I felt like I had to be a part of it, but that drained the shit out of me. If I'd just retracted a little, I might've been okay.

Maybe you should just... try a festival sometime? Do it with prep time, be mentally ready, and make sure you get sleep at a normal time. But those experiences are still nice to have. They can bring you out of a slump sometimes, but they can put you in a new one if you're unprepared.

I don't know. I'm talking out my abdomen with a lot of this. Truth be told, that's just the mantra I tell myself when I go out and 'experience the world'. It's hard to know if it's really a benefit, or just something pretending to be nice. Maybe that's something you have to figure out yourself- sorry.

The Sequence Break is really hard to look up. In a stroke of surreal internet authoritarianism, I don't think you can even type out the bartender's name and expect it to get where it's going. Sure, you can type it out in context, like- on the foggy night, I went out to the Sequence Break- but it totally nixes your email if you try anything more.

The way I heard it, especially from the bugs at the bar, the bartender showed up one day, surprised all the humans, and hung out and wallowed in fame for a while. After a couple years, someone pulled a weapon and the bartender ended up dying. The whole bar equipment that humans had been trying to decipher for decades shot up into space right then and there, and they sent astronauts after it. They found something out of our solar system- a planet or a moon or something, I think- that made them all want to leave, and we still don't know what.

That's the bare essentials of it, I guess. I think it's been embellished plenty, so you've probably heard parts of truth, and I probably don't have the whole truth either. If there are written books, you could probably find the bartender's name written out, too, but I don't know of any. If you've got any libraries nearby, you should ask about it! I can't find any when searching the Internet, but given that they probably name the bartender in the title... yeah.

If you don't mind me asking, who came by that you weren't expecting? Was it a good kind of visit?

- I Will Reply

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The emails she had sent in the morning were, of course, a sign of terrible things to come. Tuesdays were universally exhausting post-reply, worrying, like getting hit by a bus over and over. The morning would work fine, she would send out messages to strange bugs around the world, and then she would be snapped forcefully back into reality, like how she was happy for her father but didn't at all know how to interact with his new husband, or how she was wasting away in a chair most of her life, or how she would go to the mixing plant for the second time and get yelled at for being late.

Then she'd apologize, and the bug- who, by mention, was probably not real- would say, 'don't be sorry, be better.' That stung more.

But the bug's name was Centinel, like a little looming figure over Cent, and the rest of the mixing plant didn't acknowledge her existence, and didn't at all have the same sentiments. But they were universally better at her than this. The quaint little memories of making coffee for her mom melted away to reveal her own inability to do the task well. It wasn't a single cup, it was vats of the stuff, mixed perfectly with preserving agents strained through elegantly-ground coffee. When she watched, it was a beautiful cacophony of coordination, and then she thought, why am I doing this?

Then Centinel would sit atop one of the banging vats and say, you aren't doing this. You are not good at things that you try to do, because you don't really like doing them. BANG BANG BANG. You aren't good at anything because you have no passion. The bug like a shadow would flitter around the room and remind her that in this room, she was the very worst. BANG BANG.

Of course, the director of the plant, who Tieni helped Cent meet, was plenty nice. Nice and disconnected, but still nice, and didn't seem to have any interest in criticizing the roach for forgetting all the basic knowledge about caffeine production. BANG BANG, BANG BANG! Instead, Cent was her own critic in the absence, and Centinel was the looming shadow, pretending to be the director of the plant. BANG. "You're wasting the time of everyone here," she would say. BANG BANG BANG BANG. The banging of the walls and the vats would shoot the time ahead. She wouldn't have the opportunity to learn what to do.

The cycle ended. In the proceeding moment of silence, she'd think about sailing on a little plane with Tieni delivering caffeine, not producing it.

Then she remembered that she was gay, and quiet, and so bugs would screech at her for anything short of perfection, and Centinel reminded her she was weak-willed and too lazy to deliver anything to anybody, that she would immediately miss the time spent at home, that she would fail the task Tieni was so good at. BANG BANG BANG. Centinel was loud, like the banging of the vats, whirring around in a sudden cycle, beginning again. It had been only four hours, hours which had shot ahead at lightning and snail's pace. BANG BANG BANG. She had no opportunity to learn and was running out of time, and all she wanted was to be home again. BANG BANG.

BANG BANG. (You're confirming what Centinel is saying.)

Six hours had passed. BANG BANG. Cent had gotten a chance to try to apply what she'd learned, and it was horrifyingly bad, worse than she was expecting in the worst scenarios of her mind. BANG BANG- CHRRRK- BANG BANG. She'd started a cycle and then ended it twice, she'd wasted electricity. BANG BANG BANG. The good tea leaves she picked out were sour, and the batch was weak enough to be called water. BANG BANG. Nobody spoke, and nobody judged. Of course you'll improve. BANG BANG BANG BANG. Centinel knocked on a vat and pointed out that it was damaged because of her. BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG--

The fly home was debilitating.

Tieni was her ride home, on the plane, ten storeys above the street. Cent must have been putting up a terrible energy, because they barely spoke on the journey back. She resisted crying because Tieni would never, because nobody else in the mixing plant had had any trouble, and she was trying to pretend she didn't think she was out of place, out of time.

Limping off the plane on a small strip of metal atop the fire escape, she started to head inside again. From behind her, Tieni called,

"See you tomorrow!"

It stuck with Cent, and reset her. She had a little enthusiasm in saying goodbye, and then returned to the chair, and returned to the computer after eight hours of hellish banging, and it had turned itself off.

That's odd, she thought. I was in the middle of things.

Cent thought about it a little longer, then sunk into the chair as if she had begun the day again without all that had happened before. It was tricking her brain, and she noticed it was tricking her brain. Her computer was off, and that Rose Hotel album wasn't going to be mid-way-listened, it would be back at the beginning again.

It would start over, like Cent would have to in the morning.

Okay.

...alright.

She will fool herself into thinking it's okay, and try again tomorrow. She would see Tieni tomorrow, and say, "hey!" She would live for another day, miserable as she was.

Alright.

Okay.