The PaRaLlel Serials Vol. I: It Exists

Issue 1 June 16, 2014

The ScrollFollow the scroll along the side

of the page throughout the issue

- - -

From I t Exists Issue 1 (Amazing Elr oy, The Magician Bk. 0): "The

man in a canoe decides that he can use a companion and the only

one he really wants is Apr i l . He si ts up in the boat and stares at the plank of wood that was an

empty seat across from him. He closes his eyes for a second and

when he opens them again, Apr i l is si tting across from him..."

Continued on Page 2

From Made in Amer ica (Mar ia One-Shot): "I t seems obvious that

Mar ia is looking for something and maybe she plans ver y soon to

take off on a plane or a boat in search of i t, but why does i t also

seem that she is char ting a course for the star s? Does she have a plane that can launch her into space? A ship that can navigate corners of the oceans into the

depths of space? What is i t that Mar ia is looking for?" Continued

on Page 5

From Rebel Max's Jour nal (Vol. 1): "I had a dream about Ladoga

recently; I was in the park playing basketball and al l of a sudden, a big hand came out of the sky and

r ipped the cour t up from the ground l ike i t was al l a prop. I t

was a funny dream, not the

Selections from Rebel Max's Journal (Vol. 1): The Encroachment of Things by Maxwell Roberson: Meet the inhabitants of Ladoga, NC through the w r i tings of Maxwell "Rebel Max" Roberson. Max was a w r i ter w i th nothing to w r i te about. Unti l he went home. This week, Max makes a new fr iend who takes him back home w ithout even tr ying.

I t Exists Issue 1 (Amazing Elroy, The Magician Bk. 0) by Roy Cureton: Say hello to the man and his preternatural abi l i ty. This instal lment of I t Exists f inds the man in a canoe, and he makes his gir l fr iend appear out of thin air ?! Or wait, does the man have a gir l fr iend?

Emma (or The Ar tist) I (PRL Legacy Ser ies) by Maxwell Roberson and Roy Cureton: Emma is an Ar tist. Not an Ar tiste, or whatever the PC female ver sion of ar tist is. The woman is a beast. And I should warn you that her wor ld is a l i ttle warped.

Let the Beat Build (Par t 1 of 4) by Wesley Livingston: Wes tel ls you why music matter s to him and why i t should matter to you. And yes, i t takes 4 par ts to make the point (the man w i l l take any excuse to make a playl ist).

Stone Hand (leaders and Leadership) by Roy Cureton: And an exper iment, a ser ial poem. Ladies and Gentlemen, meet Stone Hand, the Great, or The Ter r ible, honestly i t 's kind of hard to tel l .

Welcome to the PRL Ser ials, where you can read an episode rather than watch i t, because that's what's hot in the str eets r ight now.

This Week:

Made in Amer ica (Mar ia One-Shot) by Wesley Livingston: This week's One-Shot is from a ser ies that w i l l debut in Volume II of the ser ials, Made In Amer ica. Mar ia is beauti ful and smar t, and maybe after this one-shot, you'l l think she's a bi t cr azy too. But did I mention that she's beauti ful?

Volume I of the PRL Ser ials is ti t led "It Exists" in honor of the volume headliner. I t is promised to be 12 of the most interesting issues of a per iodical that anyone could ask for. You might laugh, you might cr y, you just might come up w ith your ow n adventure for a character and decide to submit i t for consideration to be featured here, in the PRL (the contr ibutor 's emai l is the same as the edi tor 's emai l: r dc2104@gmail.com; w i l l also consider or iginal works). Whatever your r eaction, I hope you f ind something interesting here to look for ward to.

2 PRL Serials Vol. I, Issue 1 June 16, 2014

nightmare that i t sounds l ike, and ever yone that was on the cour t r an away l ike i t was a car toon. The hand pulled ever ything up

and left just a white background. I woke up to a str ange sound then; the bedroom w indow was up and I craw led out of bed to close i t."

Continued on Page 6

From Emma (or The Ar tist) I (PRL Legacy Ser ies): "Emma

takes pictures to hug the moments she loves best w ith l ight and save

them f lat in her pocket." Continued on Page 9

From Let the Beat Build (Par t 1 of 4): "Music is the br idge to my

past and i t 's one of the ways that I bond w ith loved ones. I t seems that I inher i ted music from my family; the music they played

when I was too young to have any musical tastes of my ow n, became

the r ubr ic by which I made my ow n defini tion of what good

music is." Continued on Page 9

From Stone Hand (leader s and Leader ship): "Men can spr ing to

l i fe/ from stone,.../and i t happened once when Stone Hand/ was born"

Continued on Page 9

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Contr ibutors

Wesley Livingston, I cal l him Wes, is a w r i ter who l ives in Ashevi l le, NC. He loves the

mountains and the leaves, and his favor i te past-time is si tting alone in his backyard w ith his tablet,

r eading the news and getting into arguments w ith str angers in the

comment sections of var ious poli tical websi tes. Wes is mar r ied,

his w ife, Valer ia Zapata, is a physicist at the PARI in Rosman,

NC. Wes is a father of two daughter s who l ive in

Washington, DC w ith his ex-w ife. Wes contr ibutes as a wr iter and

developer to PRL Cosmos stor ies.

Maxwell "Rebel Max" Roberson is a paralegal in dow ntow n

Char lotte, NC by day, and when he is not w ith his fami ly, his longtime

gir l fr iend Mar y and their son Zach, or in Ladoga, NC where he was born and where most of his

extended family l ives, he is w r i ting stor ies about Ladoga. Rebel Max says that he got his

nickname from a good fr iend that he met whi le doing r esearch in

PRL Heroes Presents:

I t Exists (Amazing Elroy, The Magician Bk. 0)

before he had a name, when he was just a man...

- - -

1. The Man in a Canoe

The man in a canoe is a sight to see, laid back, one foot up on a side. His legs are long enough that his foot skims the sur face of the water, sending out r ipples. He is tal l for his age, a lanky man-boy of seventeen, and he has dark skin l ike his mother. His father 's skin is l ighter, tan and always sl ick from the baby oi l he applies in the morning. The man is f i t from days r unning and playing in the humid air of the summer on soft, clover covered hi l ls behind his r ural home in the southern, piedmont r egion of NC; where he was born, as were his parents, and their parents, and so on. He l ikes to

cl imb tr ees when he sees them and he is tal l enough that he can reach the high branches and pull himself up from the ground. He got a lot of good pears that way; the man is a big fan of pears.

He is using the canoe that his father r eceived as a gi f t so many years ago. The man's fami ly doesn't have ver y much at al l , they are poor by most standards, but the man had general ly been a ver y

happy chi ld and never felt that he was left wanting for anything. His father does odd jobs as a handyman and he is also a custodian for the local school. His mother works when she can, she suffer s from lupus and when she feels healthy enough she does laundr y at a local motel. His fami ly l ives in a house at the end of a dir t road that the man's grandfather bui l t many years ago, amidst mid-sized hi l ls and patches of tr ees. I t is an impressive two stor ies and there is a por ch on each. There are eight total rooms, two bathrooms, but most are empty unti l the holidays or when family visi ts; which isn't too often because of the r emoteness.

The man in a canoe is celebrating; he was happy to car r y his father 's canoe by himself to the lake that was a mi le from his house, and he smiled as he tipped i t into the water. He cl imbed into i t and pushed off from the muddy bank w ith a paddle and he had been on his back, looking up at the clouds for hours, dreaming about his next step. The man is a r ecent high school graduate, he walked the stage for his diploma only hours ago, his parents and tw in sister in the audience. He's been looking for ward to l i fe after school, the thought of being in complete control of his ow n existence exci ted him. He thinks about the places that he can go. He has saved a couple thousand dollar s from years of helping his father w ith his odd jobs and he's also gained enough practical ski l ls to f ind employment in any new place he could f ind himself. The man has exper ience w ith car s, r esidential electr ical w ir ing, plumbing, roof and shingle r epair, and most landscaping duties. He is alone on the water because the day is f inal ly here, he can be whatever man he

PRL Serials Vol. I , Issue 1 June 16, 2014 3

Ladoga. "I have strong opinions, I guess," he l ikes to say, but I think i ts just a play on his government

name. Max contr ibutes as a developer and wr iter to PRL

Heroes stor ies and PRL Legacy Ser ies.

Roy Cureton is also a paralegal in Char lotte, NC by day. He l ike to

mole around the wor ld, pop up in places to take in the sights, and

then move somewhere else to do i t al l over again. The Paral lel

Ser ials was his idea; he wanted to create a place to showcase some of his f iction. As the "edi tor " of

this endeavor, any mistakes should be attr ibuted to him and

not the excellent contr ibutor s who so graciously lend their work to the publication. He contr ibute as

wr iter and developer to ever ything and the Volume 1

run of PRL Poetr y's Stone Hand (leaders and Leadership) is all

him.

- - -

The PRL Heroes signature denotes stor ies that take place in the wor ld of I t Exists, star r ing the man who can turn nothing into

anything he can imagine.

The PRL Cosmos signature denotes stor ies that take place in

the wor ld of Made in Amer ica, the wor ld introduced by the Mar ia

One-Shot.

The PRL Legacy Ser ies signature denotes epic stor ies that w i l l r ecur

in multiple volumes of the PRL w ith no end in sight.

- - -

Send questions or comments to the edi tor at r dc2104@gmail.com.

- - -

Have you ever wanted to w r i te a stor y, one piece at a

time w ith the help and suppor t of other w r i ter s?

Consider contr ibuting to the PRL Ser ials, we'r e always looking for new w r i ter s to

w r i te and develop PRL Signature stor ies and

contr ibute or iginal work.- - -

chooses, in whatever place he f inds himself.

Ultimately, the man in a canoe is scared and has r etr eated to his safe place alone where he could be wor r ied, away from his fami ly's expectations, their needs. The man has forgone much of a per sonal l i fe in ser vice to his fami ly that he knew never intentionally put burden on him. He had always just been ver y r el iable, helping to pay bi l ls when he could, playing chauffeur to his sister, f ixing things around the house to save his father the str ess, he was even know n to cook a meal or two a week to r el ieve his mother. And needless to say, by the time the man is a seventeen year old high school graduate and dreaming up to the clouds in a canoe, he has ver y few fr iends who aren't r elatives and he has never even had a gir l fr iend. But the man has pined for a gir l for years and his thoughts shi f t to her. Her name is Apr i l and the man has know n her most of his l i fe; they attended the same school and she would graduate next year w ith his sister. She knew him well , the two were fr iends, but she could never imagine the man having feel ings for her because he never seemed to indicate any par ticular affection when they interacted, only standard niceties that one can expect from a southern gentleman. When the two were in their ear ly teens, Apr i l wondered i f she could have feel ings for the man, but when she tr ied to kiss him on the stair well at their school, he pulled away from her and she assumed that he didn't share her desir e to be anything more than fr iends and classmates. In actuali ty, the man had dreamed about that kiss for years, he was only ner vous that he had no practice. After the encounter, he asked his sister 's advice, and she explained that, "I ts

hard to learn how to do something i f you never practice i t." Which made sense to the man, but the next time he managed to be alone w ith Apr i l in the stair well , she wasn't interested in him anymore, she had a boyfr iend by that point. Their fr iendship since that time was only that, an occasional fr iendship that r eal ly only existed when they were in the same physical location, l ike a classroom, or the school gym. And over the years, she became less human, less r eal, but more vivid in his imagination where he dreamed that she was interested in al l the same things that he l iked, and that she looked for ward to his conversation.

The man in a canoe decides that he can use a companion and the only one he really wants is Apr i l . He si ts up in the boat and stares at the plank of wood that was an empty seat across from him. He closes his eyes for a second and when he opens them again, Apr i l is si tting across from him, wear ing the last outf i t that he could r emember her wear ing; a shor t, white skir t that stops well above her knees and a white tank top that accentuates her breasts and slender fr ame. Her skin is even l ighter than his father 's, and her hair is cur ly and tamed into two puffs on ei ther side of her head, making her look younger than she is.

"Why'd you leave the ceremony so fast? You didn't even take pictures w ith anybody. You that r eady to leave high school?" Apr i l asks, her voice almost sing-song and so soft.

"I just needed to do some thinking. I t 's hard to think w ith a lot of people around cr ying and hugging." His graduating class was about two hundred people and even though he'd know n many of

4 PRL Serials Vol. I, Issue 1 June 16, 2014

Get to know the Contr ibutors a little better with the PRL

Contr ibutors' Lists:

Wesley Livingston's Top 5 Favor ite Books (alphabetical

order )

Ficciones by Jorge Luis Borges

Flatland (A Romance of Many Dimensions) by Edw in Abbott

Abbott

Master ing the Ar t of French Cooking by Jul ia Chi lds

Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cr y by Mi ldred D. Taylor

This is How You Lose Her by Junot Diaz

Roy Cureton's Top 5 Favor ite Aliens (alphabetical order )

Howard the Duck

Mar vin the Mar tian

OutKast

Paul

Thanos, The Mad Ti tan

Maxwell Roberson's Top 5 Favor ite Words (alphabetical

order )

And

But

For

Neither

Nor

10 People Roy Cureton wants to meet before he dies (in no

par ticular order ):

Char les Simic

Paul Beatty

Angela Basset

Ir a Glass

Supreme Cour t Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor

Br ian Michael Bendis

Lestor Holt

Car l Castle

Serena Wil l iams

President Bar rack Obama

them his enti r e l i fe, he didn't r eal ly feel a strong sense of loss at the thought that he would no longer see them ever yday. Most of them were annoying to him because they had made the classroom unbearable, always talking and making jokes when he was tr ying to learn about new places and things. And when he spent his lunch per iods in the l ibrar y r eading, they were the ones who inter r upted him w ith questions to make him feel weir d for enjoying the quiet of the l ibrar y. He would not miss that and he wondered how many l ibrar ies he could f ind to si t and read across the countr y.

"I 'm tr ying to decide when to leave and where to go." The man knows that his time at home w ith his fami ly has come to an end.

"Well, you can go as far as your money and the kindness of str angers w i l l take you," Apr i l says, using the soft voice that the man loves, but sounding much more thoughtful and w ise than she was when he talked w ith her at school. "Just pick a dir ection. What about nor th? To Canada?"

The man had not thought about leaving the US so soon. I t was inevi table, though; he'd r ead about countr ies in Afr ica that intr igued him and he knew that one day he would see them, but not before he knew more of the US, and when he was better able to afford the tr ip.

"You could just go nor th, as far as Maine. You could fol low the Appalachian tr ai l . Or you could see the Midwest, the nor thwest, just the west coast." Apr i l says.

"Where would you go?" The man asks, smi l ing at Apr i l across from him. He thinks that the two of them could have been something special.

"I 'd go wherever you would go." She says smil ing.

The man and Apr i l are

inter r upted by someone cal l ing the man from the shore of the lake. He paddles over in the dir ection and discovers that i t is his sister.

"Mama and Daddy been looking for you. Somebody here to see you." His sister can't stop looking at Apr i l who is sti l l in the canoe as they talk on the muddy bank.

"Why is she just si tting there?" His sister asks. "Hey Apr i l . When did she get here?"

"She's not. Who's here to see me? Somebody from school?" The man wasn't expecting visi tor s.

"I don't know, he said you met at the public l ibrar y. He's our age, Hispanic guy. Apr i l is gonna disappear isn't she?" His sister hasn't taken her eyes off of Apr i l who is sti l l in the canoe and has not moved.

"Yea, soon enough.""Were you having sex w ith i t?"

His sister asks sheepishly."Why do you have to be gross?

No, I just needed someone to talk to. Let's go back, I wanna see who's here." The man cannot imagine having sex w ith Apr i l as he made her that day in the canoe, he wanted the r eal thing or nothing at al l .

The two head back in the dir ection of their house. Behind them, Apr i l had disappeared into thin air.

"You could have just talked to the r eal Apr i l , she consider s you a fr iend. Or f ind some other r eal gir l to talk to." His sister wor r ies that he w i l l never be able to f ind love because he can make anything for himself out of thin air for a shor t time before i t disappears.

When they make i t to the house, the man's sister heads for their parent's car and is off to r un er rands after r eminding the man to br ing their father 's canoe back to the house. BREAK

PRL Serials Vol. I , Issue 1 June 16, 2014 5

PRL Cosmos Presents:

Made in Amer ica

from crazy to a land far, far away

- - -

Mar ia One-Shot - Issue 1

Mar ia is a fair ly tal l woman. She is 5'9'' and has excellent posture, so she seems to be 5'10''. Her complexion in not dark brow n, but she is defini tely not white, and she has a mole on her cheek that is small but noticeable. Her hair is long past her shoulders and she loves to have her hands in i t; maybe the long sigh and str etch up, f ingers weaving through her f low ing mass of thick black hair that she sometimes colored to be l ighter, and she runs her f ingers up, then exper tly knots her locks into a formation that is neat and youthful. She has a ver y pleasant face, she is beauti ful but there is a ser iousness at her brow that can sometimes make her seem older than late twenties.

Mar ia is an excellent cook and al l that, she is almost a per fect woman (The nar rator uses the quali f ier 'almost' because of his r el igious convictions, but admits that Mar ia is pretty damn close to per fect). And none of that matter s at al l to her. Well, i t matter s, Mar ia is well aware of the impor tance of keeping up appearances, but even keeping up appearances is small change compared to what she is actively working towards.

In the past six years, Mar ia has had three di f ferent jobs. She was a f l ight attendant for two years and tr ained to be a pi lot. She worked on a cruise l iner the two years after that, and worked pr imar i ly w ith the ship's captain where she learned a lot about navigation. And for the two years after her time at sea, Mar ia took a job as a custodian at Columbia Univer si ty where she mostly cleaned and maintained the classrooms in Pupin Hall , where wor ld r enow ned physicists bored

undergrads to sleep. I misspoke before, for the sake of r epeti tion of course, Mar ia is cur rently a custodian at Pupin Hall and she uses her amazing looks to get a fr ee education that students paid hundreds of thousands of dol lar s for. She would stumble into a professor after his last class and she would f l i r t w i th him and get him talking about his lecture, and before they both know i t, i t 's an hour later and Mar ia understands physical theor ies that are elusive enough to most other s to make them obscure.

I t seems that Mar ia is looking for something and maybe she plans ver y soon to take off on a plane or a boat in search of i t, but why does i t also seem that she is char ting a course for the star s? Does she have a plane that can launch her into space? A ship that can navigate corners of the oceans into the depths of space? What is i t that Mar ia is looking for?

Today, she is off work. She has family that l ives in New York but she rarely sees them. She spends her time off at the Natural Histor y Museum, or at any park next to a body of water. She is usually w r i ting in a notebook that she sl ips into her jacket breast pocket when she is done. Today, she is at River side Park next to the univer si ty and she is star ing at New Jersey l ike i t knows something that she does not.

Beauti ful Mar ia, who would make so many men, and women i f you'r e into that, happy as a par tner, as a lover. Obviously so smar t, but maybe lost too, looking for something that only you can see.

In her notebook, when she is done star ing dow n New Jersey, she w r i tes, "There are places ever ywhere that can take me anywhere, and there are also places that don't. The combination of science and magic, my gut that tel ls me that I have been to an al ien wor ld, w i l l help me f ind that place

10 Things in Maxwell Robinson's Wallet (in no par ticular order )

Ticket stub for The Lego Movie

Two twenty dollar bi l ls, a f ive and three ones

Picture of his w ife and son

A debit card

Ladoga Public Librar y Card

Wesley Livingston's Last 10 Google searches (star ting with

most recent)

Wesley Livingston

80's music

when did Michael Jackson release bad

true detective season 2

newsroom season 3

Alison Pi l l

octogenar ian

cur rent pope

funny jokes

stand up desk

- - -

Quote of the Week (06/16/14)

"I can?t bel ieve that I can get paid on Monday, more money than I have ever r eceived at a single

time in al l the years of my l i fe by the way, and by the end of the

week, I have so l i ttle left, l ike I?m going back to the bad par t of col lege w ith no money to go dr inking w ith my fr iends. "

from The Encroachment of Things, Selection from Rebel

Max's Journal Issue 1

- - -

The PRL Find the Quote Game

06/16/14 Issue

In which ser ial does the fol low ing quote appear?

"...tables, hard l ike beauty queens..."

Keep scrol l ing for the answer. Or r ead the enti r e issue.

- - -

The Scroll Continues on Page 9

6 PRL Serials Vol. I, Issue 1 June 16, 2014

Selections from Rebel Max's Journal Vol. 01

by Maxwell "Rebel Max" Roberson

The Encroachment of Things

My gir l fr iend, Mar y, says that I just love wasting gas. She says I 'l l look for any excuse to dr ive when I could just as easi ly walk, or take a bus or a tr ain for long range tr ips, or avoid a tr ip altogether. She doesn't l ike that I r efuse to get a new car to r eplace the old one I 've had since col lege, and that I continue to put a lot of mi les on i t. I guess I do l ike to dr ive, but more than anything, I l ike to be in Ashevi l le, walking around, feel ing the way I had before I gained as much as I have now, al l of which I measure in dol lar s.

I don?t think this is me. One day, I just woke up and when I looked around I had a gir l fr iend that I wake up to ever yday, a son that wakes me up ever y time I

think I can steal a moment to shut my eyes after a long day, a job where sometimes people yel l at me in my face and I have to be professional, and even a nice apar tment w ith wood f loor s and fancy faucets that are touch activated in a complex in South Char lotte that makes people who knew me before look at me di f ferently, as though I am a r icher man than I am. I don?t take i t for granted, I am proud to be a provider for a fami ly, but this is not what I imagined my late twenties to be.

By the time I f inished col lege in Ashevi l le, I was a bona f ide stoner and I had enough fr iends around me to make me feel l ike I could be something ar tistic. But i t 's harder than i t looks and over time, al l that f iction gave way to the r eal i ty that I got my high school sweethear t pregnant when I begged her to go camping w ith me one weekend and she reluctantly accepted. She enjoyed i t much more than she thought she would and snuggling

that I know I have tr aveled to before."

It 's heady l istening in on people's thoughts. Maybe she's w r i ting a play. But who cares i f she's crazy? She's so much fun to look at. /BREAK

PRL Serials Vol. I , Issue 1 June 16, 2014 7

close in a sleeping bag in a tent made her more interested than normal and we didn?t make the r ight choice in a cer tain r egard. But, I love my son, he is my l i ttle buddy. My gir l fr iend hates that I cal l him that, she says i t 's a sign that I haven?t ful ly accepted the fact that I am a father and that my son is a r eal per son who depends on me for his sur vival. Maybe that was tr ue, I was immature at f i r st and I looked at my son l ike he was something my gir l fr iend had made that looked l ike me, but only she knew the best way to care for him because he seemed so fr agi le, and I can get ner vous under pressure (why I?m not in the NBA). But I?ve gotten much better and as my son grows older, he doesn?t seem so vulnerable and he?s always tear ing things up. I?m exci ted to see him grow up; I know he?s going to be a basketball player, he?s tal ler than other kids his age. I t?s hard to imagine al l the stuff around him. I can?t even see myself f ive years from now. I can?t imagine the choices I 'l l make. I think about qui tting my job al l the time. I t?s str ess that I could do w ithout, and even though i t pays well , I know i t to be tr ue that more money br ings more problems because i t?s impor tant to use your money to gain access to excessive things. Take the wood f loor s for instance, I suggested to my gir l fr iend that we stay in our old apar tment when our lease was up, I actually suggested that we tr y to lock i t dow n for as far into the future as possible, but she insisted that we move to one of the new ly bui l t models on the other side of the complex. Granted, I could afford i t because of a r aise I had recently r eceived, but l iving on the other side of the complex completely threw off my or ientation and I got lost for a couple weeks when I left for work in the morning. Since moving to Char lotte, I?ve become much more methodical. The str eets can be confusing to

navigate w ithout GPS because there are al l these crazy dedicated r ight turn lanes and sometimes I get swept up in tr aff ic and have to turn r ight when I meant to continue str aight, or what looks to be a four way inter section w i l l only be three ways and you'r e for ced to pick a dir ection. I t 's not as bad once you get used to i t, but our new apar tment is tucked into the middle of the complex and I don?t have a choice but to f ind my way out of the confusing in-roads of Daisy Mi l l Commons. I can?t stand i t, ever y bui lding looks exactly al ike and I hate to admit that i f not for my GPS I would have just stopped dr iving altogether and only left the apar tment when my gir l fr iend left.

That was a ver y long explanation of the annoying problems that money br ings, but i t?s by no means the worse of them. I can?t bel ieve that I can get paid on Monday, more money than I have ever r eceived at a single time in al l the years of my l i fe by the way, and by the end of the week, I have so l i ttle left, l ike I?m going back to the bad par t of col lege w ith no money to go dr inking w ith my fr iends. And I know that maybe I shouldn?t be dr inking al l the time, but sometimes isn't hor r ible and I?m al lowed to get away; even Homer Simpson had Moe?s Tavern and he was the best father in US histor y.

I think I?ve always know n I would be a father, i t just makes sense, but I thought I would be in my thir ties and I would have tr ansi tioned into fatherhood w ith a savings and more f inancial stabi l i ty. My dad told me that he wasn?t stable when he had me and I wasn?t even my parent?s f i r st chi ld. I know I?m not the f i r st guy to be surpr ised by a baby, but I just thought my l i fe would be di f ferent. I bel ieved that I would get to tr avel the wor ld and w r i te things about the exper iences that I had. But i f

ever yone got to do i t, i t wouldn?t be special.

This is sounding much more depressing than I meant i t to. Let me rei terate that I love my gir l fr iend and my son, and I w i l l always do what I can to provide for them, and I am exci ted for the l i fe I have ahead of me, despite my tr epidation. The only r eason that Mar y and I are not mar r ied is because we both decided that i t was unnecessar y and she gets a bigger tax r efund i f we f i le separately. I t 's one of the few immature things that I have left to throw in her face when she gets on me about ways I could act my age; she chooses not to acknow ledge the fact that video games are an acceptable form of enter tainment for people of ever y age. But, we have fun I think; we l ike laughing about the ways that we cl ing to youth as we tr ansi tion into more r esponsible ver sions of our selves.

I?ve been tr ying to r econnect to my hometow n since I?m closer now. When I left, I didn?t think about going back al l that often, and Mar y had no intentions of l iving in Ladoga. Char lotte is a nice place and I r emember going to the ci ty when I was a kid on what felt l ike the most special occasions. I saw my f i r st ci r cus at Time Warner Cable Arena in 1989 when I was six. I went to Discover y Place around that time and I r emember i t being much cooler as a kid. Char lotte has enough of a metropoli tan area to make you realize that you?re in a big ci ty, but i t?s not crowded at al l . Ladoga, my hometow n, is much smaller, about an hour southwest on highway 74 and then onto inter state 601. I t si ts just on top of South Carol ina and r ivals from Monroe, Wingate, and Marshvi l le to the nor th love to joke that Ladoga is Union County?s footr est. I t?s only funny to nerds who look at maps, though. I think Mar y l ikes the distance, but I hate i t because I can?t help but be there

8 PRL Serials Vol. I, Issue 1 June 16, 2014

at least once a week to see my parents or my grandmother, who is my only l iving grandparent.

I can?t l ie that I l ike to go back. I l ike to play basketball there; i t?s the only place I don?t get ner vous and miss shots for no r eason. I was pretty good in high school, but when we made i t to playoffs, I was always on the bench. The coach didn't tr ust me in pressure si tuations after I missed ever y fr ee throw in my f i r st playoff game as a junior. I knew that I couldn?t hack i t in col lege, but i t didn?t bother me too much because I was also r eal ly into the news when I was a kid and I wanted to study journalism. I used to watch the six o?clock news w ith my dad when I was l iving w ith my parents and I would spend hours in high school r eading blogs and ar ticles online. I have a fascination w ith pol i tics. I think i t?s a show that we love to gr ipe at. By this point, you would think that more Amer icans would demand more than the appearance of the ideal civi l ser vant, but we w i l l always vote for the prettiest people who yel l the loudest because i t makes for good tv. I don?t think Amer ican poli tics w i l l ever r ecover from the divisiveness that emerged from the Bush and Obama administr ations. The two sides do ever ything they can to undermine each other, which is a masochistic move seeing that we?re supposedly al l in this together.

I 've been interested in w r i ting and books for most of my l i fe, but when I went to col lege, I thought about becoming a TV personali ty and people said I had the face for i t. I ended up dr i f ting back towards w r i ting, though, and by the time I graduated I was a pothead who barely went to class and always smelled l ike mar i juana. I didn?t go to Ashevi l le to become a pothead, I went because i t felt di f ferent from al l the other schools I had visi ted. I t wasn?t as homey as Chapel Hi l l , where the journalism depar tment

is much more impressive, but Ashevi l le felt l ike a cool place to l ive for a whi le when I visi ted.

Ladoga is a cool place too and I?m happy to tel l people that. I don?t think that I want to buy a house there because Mar y doesn?t want to, but ever y time I go I feel l ike I never left.

I had a dream about Ladoga recently; I was in the park playing basketball and al l of a sudden, a big hand came out of the sky and r ipped the cour t up from the ground l ike i t was al l a prop. I t was a funny dream, not the nightmare that i t sounds l ike, and ever yone that was on the cour t r an away l ike i t was a car toon. The hand pulled ever ything up and left a white background. I woke up to a str ange sound then; the bedroom w indow was up and I craw led out of bed to close i t. Mar y was sound asleep. When I l i f ted the bl inds, I saw a car str uggling to star t, then a man and woman get out and pop the hood. I wondered why nei ther of them had phones to cal l for help and eventually I cal led dow n to ask i f I could do anything for them. They were grateful and I w rapped myself in a robe to go dow n stair s.

I t was about 3am and the neighborhood was quiet. The man introduced himself as Wes and his gir l fr iend Valer ia. They were an attr active couple and I couldn?t help but compare them to Mar y and myself. Wes is tal ler than I am, but I think I have a more mature face than he does. He is not l ight skinned, but l ighter than me. Valer ia is beauti ful and i t?s hard to compare her to Mar y. She is defini tely attr active, but I think my gir l is the most beauti ful woman in the wor ld. Wes explained that he?d lost his phone and Valer ia always forgot her s. They had taken the tr ain to Char lotte for a wedding and bor rowed a car from Wes?s grandfather to get around. They ended up in the apar tment of someone they barely knew for an

after par ty and apparently the car wasn?t in the best condition and had just given out on them when they were headed home. I offered to dr ive Wes back to his grandfather?s house before I even knew where the man l ived. In r etrospect, I don?t know why I was so generous. I t just felt l ike the thing to do since I was up and able. I r an up and told Mar y that I was helping some people before I f inal ly thought to ask them where I was taking them.

?It?s r eal ly far, Max. I appreciate your kindness, but I can?t ask you to dr ive al l the way to Ladoga tonight.?

I couldn?t bel ieve the odds. I t?s a small wor ld I guess.

As we drove to Ladoga, Wes sat in the front seat and Valer ia closed her eyes in the back w ith the breeze on her face and her legs str etched out. She looked exhausted and Wes looked l ike he was barely hanging on. Ever y now and then his head bobbed to the side when he dr i f ted off . I talked to keep him awake, asked him about the wedding.

?Valer ia?s father works in a r estaurant in Char lotte. His boss is a good fr iend and invi ted us to his daughter?s wedding. Best wedding I?ve been to, so much fun. We?ve been dancing since six.?

Wes told me that he l ived in Ashevi l le, that he had recently r elocated from DC where he did what I thought I would be doing w ith myself .

?It was a good time, honestly. DC is cool, and i t?s the best place to be for that journalism stuff .? He sounded bored w ith i t. ?But I guess, after I got divor ced, I just wanted to do something di f ferent. My uncle was working in a r estaurant in Ashevi l le and when I came to visi t him, I knew that I wanted to l ive there. I t?s fun but i t?s not New York. I t?s not big and there?s tr ees and mountains ever ywhere. I never

PRL Serials Vol. I , Issue 1 June 16, 2014 9

thought I would l ike nature stuff , hiking and al l that, but i t 's the best par t about i t. My l i fe is completely di f ferent out there.?

I wanted things to be di f ferent. I wasn?t envious of Wes, he told me that he took his divor ce hard and he always missed being away from his kids, but i t seemed l ike he'd gotten a pretty good consolation pr ize. I wanted to ask him i f he smoked weed, but I didn?t want to hate him i f he said he did and I r eal ized that he had a pretty good l i fe. He was a good guy and when he told me about his fascination w ith the ci ty of Ladoga, I wanted him to be my best fr iend.

?I think the enti r e histor y of my family unti l my dad moved to Virginia is in Ladoga. We visi ted when I was a kid, but to hear things about i t now is crazy. I t?s stuff you wouldn?t bel ieve happened in such a small place that's easy to over look.?

By the time we made i t to the home of Wes?s grandfather, we were both w ide awake and tr ading stor ies about the things we had heard or w itnessed f i r st hand in the tow n. I also told him about my wor r ies, that the old me was disappear ing and I was becoming something that was altogether unrecognizable to me, and he said that I shouldn?t feel bad. ?Change does that to a man.? And he offered me a chance to dust off my pen, to feel my old self again. ?Why don?t we put together some stor ies about Ladoga?? We exchanged emai ls and have been in cor respondence ever since.

By the time I got back to Char lotte, the sun was coming up. Wes and Valer ia had both given me an open invi tation to their home for dinner as payback for my generosi ty. Mar y was proud of me but joked, ?I?m glad you didn?t get murdered.?

BREAK

Emma (or The Ar tist)

A PRL Legacy Ser ies

I . (For ward)

Emma w i l l bui ld you a house of sticks in minutes. Then she w i l l take pictures as you walk around inside, fol low ing you closely, gently, and in r ange of beauti ful moments where l i fe is on the verge of emotional shi f t. Like when Jul iet moved to speak, somewhat urgently; I sat smi l ing my eyes closed. After wards, she w i l l give you the house w rapped in a box w ith a big bow and a card, probably r eading, "Thank you for letting me bui ld this house for you, you helped me grow."

Emma takes pictures to hug the moments she loves best w ith l ight and save them f lat in her pocket.

I I . (For ward cont. - tables)

Her latest work features tables, hard l ike beauty queens, w ith al l those chair s and chandelier s l ike

dangling uvulas. Imagine that prostr ate in an angled mir ror,

merely hanging. Then fol low i t up, and you get to dangle on the

hanging cl imax of Jul iet's urgency, her move to speak. Emma threads

l i fe in str ips as dotted images. Then she l ines i t among mir ror s to make single moments prominent.

BREAK

The Scroll cont. from Page 5

- - -

PRL Poetr y Presents

Stone Hand (leaders and Leadership)

Stone Hand?s Inception by Roy Cureton

Men can spr ing to l i fe from stone, maybe they are awakenedfrom sleep as heavy as hard rock and i t happened once when Stone Hand was born

i t was the hand that touched him that picked him up from his mundane posi tion among his l i feless brothers waiting to be unlocked

the hand had clear intentions to secure a future fr ee of boundar y and what better way than to sir e the heir apparent in a land of oppor tuni ty

Stone Hand need only weasel into signi f icance w i th fun gestures and jokes and make f i rm eyes when a mood ar ises to demonstrate a capaci ty for the ser ious-

three dips in water and the handbears Stone Hand to grow, to go for thto conquer a wor ld waiting to be led

- - -

PRL Bogus Announcements:

for June 16

Lunch today w i l l be your choice of pizza or mister i meet (we can't legally use the words myster y or meat because no one is cur ious

what i t is and i t contains precisely 0% animal products); w i th a side salad (just lettuce l ike ever yone

loves), bread (single sl ice of white bread), and creamed corn (legally we have to disclose that the corn

was not pur chased alr eady creamed, nor did our cafeter ia

staff make i t cr eamed corn, i t was mostly improper r efr igeration

and time; two things that maybe should be on the payrol l because they are r esponsible for 80% of

10 PRL Serials Vol. I, Issue 1 June 16, 2014

Let the Beat Build

by Wesley Livingston

Par t 1 Time Travel

I l ike music for a lot of di f ferent r easons. Music is the br idge to my past and i ts one of the ways that I bond w ith loved ones. I t seems that I inher i ted my love of music from my family; the music they played when I was too young to have any musical tastes, became the r ubr ic by which I made my ow n defini tion of what good music is. I t works that way for a lot of things, morals and personal tastes in food for example. I ts str ange to me when I meet people who don't l ike music or don't have ver y strong associations w ith i t, but i t must be that they had no musical inher i tance, no one to show them the ways that music can be the r elease of emotions that might be too complex for mere conversation. Personally, I can't imagine a wor ld w ithout a soundtrack.

One of my ear l iest memor ies of musical inher i tance happened when I was a kid and I got the chicken pox. I was laid up at home in my room for two weeks. My family l ived in an apar tment in Nor folk , VA and I loved school then so i t was a speci f ic kind of tor ture

to take such a long and unexpected break. I was probably eight or nine and I was par ticular ly popular at school around that time because I won an impromptu contest to see who could jump the fur thest from the sw ings (I 'd also throw n in a f l ip that my brother taught me at the neighborhood playground). And in the midst of al l the adoration, I got sidel ined for a couple of weeks, locked in my room and denied visi tor s for fear of contamination (except for one boy whose mother wanted to expose him because al l of his sibl ings had alr eady had the pox and he hadn't; I didn't l ike that boy, ei ther, he was a know i t al l and he asked questions r ight before r ecess to delay the commencement of the per iod). Over the course of that week, I spent a lot of time w ith my mom who has been a singer al l of her l i fe. Not a professional singer, but she sang in church and w ith her sibl ings and fr iends. She told me that she sang w ith her church's choir, the band that tr aveled to other churches for r evivals, her school 's chorus, and a shor t-l ived group that she and her fr iends formed in high school.

Time Travel Playlist

P.Y.T., by Michael JacksonSmooth Operator, by SadeJoy and Pain, by Maze and Frankie Bever lyBack to Life (However Do You Want Me), by Soul I I Soul

- - -

P.Y.T., by Michael Jackson

All my l i fe, I can r emember my mom humming and singing around the house, and I r emember the r adio was always on an eighties R&B station because i t was the music of my parents youth. When I had the chicken pox, the f i r st day that I was hold up in my room, my

our menu i tems).

Band practice has been cancelled due to inclement

weather. This shouldn't be a big deal because ever yone on the

band is an adult and should have a car, but someone please give

Gar y a r ide home; he's too shy to ask.

The ad for free gynecological ser vices that is hanging next to the cafeter ia should be r egarded

as suspect. I t is not a proper ly sanctioned ad and who knows

who posted i t. We can't r emove i t, because of our fr ee speech policy, but I think i t 's w ise to steer clear.

The south parking lot closes at 8pm sharp. The groundskeeper w i l l ask you to leave or cal l a tow tr uck i f he sees a car parked out

there, so al l you car sex connoisseurs w i l l need to f ind a new safe parking space for your

late night r endezvous.

Congratulations to Joe and Matt, our IT team, who recently got mar r ied in Por tland, ME. They would l ike to thank ever yone for their well w ishes and gi f ts. They would also l ike to apologize to al l the mar r ied heterosexual couple's

for somehow ruining their nuptials and undermining the

sancti ty of their unions.

Happy bir thday to Gina in HR! She recently turned 25 and

celebrated w ith an amazing par ty here at the PRL off ices. I t was a

r eal tr eat for ever yone who missed her 25th bir thday par ty last year. And don't fr et i f you

missed i t, we'l l doing i t again at the same time next year !

There is a plastic container in the back of the break room

fr idge that would make a nice science project for someone's grade school kid. I f you are

interested, the si lent auction w i l l star t tomor row at $100.

The west side carpool will not run tomorrow. Justin w i l l be out

of tow n for the ampersand conference in Rock Hi l l , SC (i t 's

cour t mandated because he uses the ampersand in l ieu of the the letter 'a' in his w r i ting and i t was dr iving ever yone nuts). Members

of the west side carpool should plan accordingly.

I f anyone has seen a black glove with the fingers cut off, please return i t to the secretar y at the

PRL Serials Vol. I , Issue 1 June 16, 2014 11

mom took the oppor tuni ty to tel l me how she met my father when they were young in Ladoga, NC. I was young, so i ts possible that I didn't r eal ly care al l that much, but my mom knew my sensibi l i t ies back then and left out the romance and kissing; the eighties R&B we l istened to as she slathered me w ith calamine lotion took care of al l that.

"I was l ike a model when I was in high school," my mom said laughing. She was never the type to brag, but she really was back then. I 've seen pictures of my mother from that time w ith her slender l imbs, long fr ame, and str aight black hair. She has big, brow n eyes that have not changed over the years.

"Your daddy and his fr iends used to fol low me and my fr iends around, asking us out on dates, to be their gir l fr iends, I know you'r e too young to understand i t, but you'l l get i t pretty soon. Your father was handsome back then. Al l the men in his fami ly were handsome, but your daddy was the prettiest man I ever saw. He w i l l deny i t

now because he destroyed al l the pictures, but he used to have hair l ike Michael Jackson in the eighties. By the time we were sixteen he had cut i t al l off , but he was sti l l handsome." I r emember my mother looked so nostalgic for those days as she told me the stor y, and I understand now that time had seemed to move so fast since she was a teenager. As adults, our youth is a ser ies of memor ies that f lash through our consciousness l ike l ightning bolts when something in the present r eminds us of those old days. Music is an excellent catalyst for jump-star ting the l ightning storm.

Ever y time I hear P.Y.T. by Michael Jackson, I w i l l always think of my mother because she told me, "Your daddy used cal l me his P.Y.T. and that was our song. Wherever we are, when that song comes on, we have to dance."

Smooth Operator, by Sade

My parents were mar r ied when they were senior s in high school. I t wasn't a shotgun

front desk. He says that the pads of his hands get cold whi le he type

(and don't tel l anyone I said this but I think he might be a time tr aveling hobo from the ear ly

eighties).

I f anyone knows the password to my laptop, please let me

know (and no, this isn't a tr ap to f ind out who knows my laptop password, I just forgot what i t

was). Thanks in advance for your assistance.

- - -

The Bur ied Joke of the Week

A vegetar ian and an octogenar ian are on a deser t island for days. There's no r eal food and they

waste away over time, eventually the octogenar ian is at the edge of

death, on his back in the sand. The vegetar ian holds the

octogenar ian's head whi le he str uggles through his last words.

"You should eat me after I 'm dead, maybe i t 'l l be enough to keep you al ive unti l a plane comes by." The vegetar ian is solemn but he can't help but size up the octogenar ian, he is desperate for some real food,

and says, "I think I can manage that, you'r e so close to dust i ts not l ike eating meat at al l , and I w i l l give your death meaning." The

octogenar ian dies and the vegetar ian sur vives long enough

to see rescue.

- - -

Answer to the 06/16/14 PRL Find the Quote Game

"...tables, hard l ike beauty queens..."

from Emma (or The Ar tist) Issue 1

- - -

Wesley Livingston's Topical Rant:

I sti l l f ind i t hard to bel ieve that Russia invaded the Ukraine. I

can't bel ieve that invasions sti l l happen, i t seems l ike such a tool

of the past. I have this notion that, nowadays, al l acquisi tions are

monetar y and the powers that be r ule w ith their wallets. I 'm just a

sad product of my time where nothing is r eal and I 've bought into the tame view of the wor ld from the west, that ever ything

bloody is just enter tainment and equali ty is more than just a

plati tude. I think of myself as an informed individual, I r ead wor ld

12 PRL Serials Vol. I, Issue 1 June 16, 2014

wedding, ei ther. "I just r eal ly loved that man and I knew that I wanted to be w ith him," my mother said whi le she stopped me from tr ying to scratch myself. "He was just so sweet and handsome." My parents are sti l l ver y much in love and now that I 'm older, I understand the ways that my father worked extr a hard throughout the years to keep his mar r iage from going the way of my grandparents, who were divor ced long before I was born. To this day, my father 's parents can't be in the same room, and i t must have been a cautionar y tale to my father who never stopped working to make my mother love him.

"He always knew what I l iked and he never seemed interested in any other gir l but me," my mother said. "He might look l ike your grandpa, but he wasn't a smooth operator l ike that man. I wouldn't be surpr ised i f you got uncles and aunts your grandpa don't even know about." The stor ies of my grandfather 's phi lander ing are epic and even though my father loves his father unconditionally, he often used my grandfather as the negative example that my brother and I were warned to avoid grow ing into. By the time I was in high school, I r eal ized that my grandfather had a r eputation as a hear t-breaker as big as the eastern half of the ci ty of Ladoga.

"Your daddy was smooth, I thought he could've had any gir l he wanted in high school, but he chose me. He'l l say that I chose him, and I did, but i f you ask me, he didn't have a lot of competi tion." I 'm sure that by this point in the stor y, I was barely paying attention and my mother was only talking out loud because she was deep in her memor y, r el iving al l of my father 's romantic gestures from their youth. I learned later that my father dabbled in poetr y as a teenager, but only to sing the praises of my mother. I 've r ead some of the poems and they r esemble the

simple, fun-loving nature of ear ly r ap music w ith a spatter ing of Shakespearean f l ights of language and inver ted syntax. He was upset w ith my mother for show ing me, my father is quick to dismiss the character of his youth because of his cur rent per sona as a ser ious member of the US Navy, but I always appreciate learning about the man my father was because i t makes so many things make sense. I f my father was the man he is today when he was in high school, i ts possible that I would not exist. My parents had evolved together over the years and have grow n into a sor t of compound person, two independent enti ties that form something speci f ic together. The individual components are just as interesting as the sum of their par ts, and the evolution of each component is qui te fascinating.

I know that my mother was mostly nostalgic for her youth as she told me about her high school days w ith my father. She has always been a ver y beauti ful woman, but of course her body as a mother of three in her twenties was ver y di f ferent than her body just a decade before.

Joy and Pain, by Maze and Frankie Bever ly

"Where does time go?" I r emember my mother saying whi le I was r elaxing in the bathtub, the water helping to sooth the i tching. She sat on the toi let, only using i t as a seat, star ing off into the bygone days of her youth, the smooth sound of Maze and Frankie Bever ly f loating through the house.

I r emember my parent's bathroom then was f i l led w ith so many lotions and vials and bottles that my mother used to keep her skin youthful and f i rm. She exercised often and whi le my sibl ings and I were at school, she would jog to keep active and f i t. She wasn't obsessed w ith maintaining a youthful appearance

news and l isten to NPR, but somethings can never be more

than words on a screen, moving pictures, and I can't say that r egretful ly, I don't say that

r egretful ly, because isn't that the w ish of ever y peace keeper who

has died in the name of progress? That people can know the bl iss of

ignorance to violence, destr uction, and mayhem? It was

also their w ish that the "wor r y fr ee" mind state be ubiqui tous, so they would not be happy that the benefi ts of their sacr i f ice stopped at me. I dishonor their sacr i f ice i f I r emain ignorant to the pl ight of those in need. And even i f I can only tel l someone else the news, that sovereignty is an arbi tr ar y

notion that has taken men's l ives (not only in eastern Europe, and

notably in the middle east), then I at least did that instead of open my second bag of puffy Cheetos

and settle on the couch to r eruns of a tv show that I can quote

verbatim (which is what I was doing pr ior to Roy cal l ing me and asking me to w r i te this). I guess

1st Wor ld Gui l t is also a sign of my time, I can't even enjoy my

Cheetos anymore.

- - -

Next Week! In the PRL Ser ial

Does the man go back for his father 's canoe? If I were him, I 'd hi t the tr ai l to the mountains and

head to Maine. I t 's a beauti ful place. The One-Shot w i l l continue Made in Amer ica. Rebel Max has a lot more journal to share. The

Legacy Ser ies continues Emma (or The Ar tist). PRL Poetr y has more

Stone Hand. Wes has another playl ist that he bui l t just for you. I ts l ike a mixtape but you need

the internet and at least Youtube to enjoy i t. Unti l next time, enjoy

some outtakes from his Time Travel Playl ist:

Through the Fir e by Chaka Khan; Never Too Much by Luther Vandross;

Square Biz by Teena Mar ie; I Can't Go For That (No Can Do) by Dar yl

Hall & John Oates; I Keep Forgettin (Ever y Time You'r e Near )

by Michael McDonald; Can You Stand the Rain by New Edition; Wanna Be Star tin' Somethin' by Michael

Jackson

- - -We hope to see you back here

June 23, 2014.

PRL Serials Vol. I , Issue 1 June 16, 2014 13

necessar i ly, she only wanted to look good for her age. And I know that she wasn't afr aid of losing my father, i t was a matter of her ow n self esteem, she wanted to be happy w ith her ow n image.

When I was done in the bath, my mother made me lunch and as I sat spooning soup into my mouth (and scratching myself under the table), my mother talked about how fast my sibl ings and I were grow ing up.

"You turn around one day, and things are di f ferent, ever ybody's older. I sti l l r emember when you was in diapers. Boy, ain't nobody can stank up a diaper l ike you used to." She scrunched up her face at the memor y. "But I guess time f l ies when you str essed out."

When my parents f i r st moved to Virginia after my father joined the Navy, they didn't have a lot of money. They l ived in a bad neighborhood where there were muggers and drug dealer s, and my father got in more than one f ight w i th neighbors to defend his w ife and his home. He told me the stor y about the guy who sol ici ted my mother whi le she was pregnant w ith my older sister, how he almost got ar r ested and kicked out of the Navy because he had broken the man's nose and bones in his cheek.

My mother did her share of f ighting as well . After my brother and I star ted kindergar ten, my mother was ver y involved in our school 's Parent Teacher Association, but was banned after an alter cation w ith another mother who l ived in our apar tment complex. The two had been feuding for years, they both had husband's in the Navy and i t seemed that they were always pregnant at the same. My mother never talks about the incident so I 'm not sure of the exact cause of the f ight that happened in our school auditor ium, but maybe i t was jealousy or maybe they were so simi lar that they just didn't l ike each other.

But we had al l sur vived those

di f f icult per iods and for my mother, i t seemed that those di f f icult per iods had been so engrossing that she lost tr ack of time and the years just f lew by.

Back to Life (However Do You Want Me), by Soul I I Soul

I f you can remember the soundtrack of a moment from the past, you can recall most anything. When I think back to my time w ith the chicken pox, i r eal ize that my mother was a time tr aveler, and she used her music to r el ive the decades of her l i fe up to her present. And I think that my mother gets lost in her memor y because she genuinely l iked the l i fe she had l ived, not because her present is unpleasant. We aren't much more than our memor ies after al l and my mother uses her music as a sor t of album of her exper iences.

By the time I went back to school, I knew al l of the lyr ics to Michael Jackson's Wanna Be Star tin? Somethin?, and I had my ow n associations for al l of my mother 's favor i te songs. I didn't get my mother 's voice, so I don't sound

as good as she does when I sing Teena Mar ie or Luther Vandross, but I feel l ike I know her better because I know what she was l istening to dur ing al l of the impor tant per iods of her development into the woman that I love and respect so much. When I hear those ar tists from the eighties, I always r emember the i tch from the chicken pox, the smell of calamine lotion, and my mother smi l ing at her past.

My mother passively taught me that that a song could be much better for accessing memor ies than a picture, just by turning on the r adio.

And when i ts time to go out and do rather than si t and reminisce, you can go into the wor ld unencumbered, fr ee from fussing w ith a camera or some other technology, to simply l ive and let music be the soundtrack to new memor ies in the future.

That's the pr imar y r eason I l ike music so much, why I use i t in my w r i ting; to give context that hopeful ly helps a r eader tr uly understand a character or si tuation.

But there are other r easons, three more r easons. BREAK

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The PaRaLlel Serials Vol. I: It Exists

See you next week for Issue 2!

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The PaRaLlel Serials Vol. I: It Exists Cards

CARDS

Volume I of the PRL Ser ials

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The PaRaLlel Serials Vol. I: It Exists Cards

Issue 1 Card Index, June 16, 2014

(Original A rtwork by Roy Cureton, Copy by Wesley Livingston)

:Soft Hills - It Exists: 1. The M an In a Canoe; June

16, 2014 Card ................Page 17-18

Aliens - M ade In America: M aria One-Shot Issue 1; June 16, 2014 Card ....Page 19-20

Writing Saves Lives - Selections from Rebel M ax's Journal Vol. 01: The Encroachment of Things; June

16, 2014 Card . .......Page 21-22

Abstract Thinking - Emma (or The Artist) I & II; June 16, 2014 Card .......Page 23-24

Slipstream - Let the Beat Build: Part 1. Time Travel; June 16, 2014 Card ...Page 25-26

- - -The PRL Cards give you one last look at the artwork and stories from the issue you just

enjoyed.

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The PaRaLlel Serials Vol. I: Issue 1 Card 1

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Soft HillsSome hills are deceiving. The best ones are nice to roll around on; they feel like

a soft bed and you are close to the smells of the earth; the smell of grasses and dirt. Even if you find yourself stuck in the mud, it doesn't feel harmful; not like rolling around in blood that could be filled with disease, or bleach that can eat the skin like an acid. M ud may be filled with decay and bugs and germs, but that is no threat necessarily, and if it's hot out, it can actually be beneficial.

You should become acquainted with a good hill, maybe get a little dirty on a muddy one, even one dry and dusty. But avoid the soft hills; the ones that give too easily underfoot when you are walking along. A soft hill is probably hollow inside where it was burrowed through by some animal it would be best avoid.

When the man is back at his house, watching his sister drive away on the road that soon got lost in the hills of the horizon, he notices the spot in the distance where, in his youth, he had happened upon a soft hill and the encounter was like a coordinated assault. He was walking to a convenience store that wasn't particularly close to his house, but he didn't mind the distance because he enjoyed the quiet scenery of his rural neighborhood. A s he crossed a hill, he felt it give under his foot enough that he fell and sprained his wrist. A nd he felt the sting of the ants from the underground tunnel he had disturbed. He jumped up quickly and ran for his house where he stripped and turned the water hose on himself to wash the ants away. He went back to the soft hill to wage war on the ants and he spent much of that summer being stung and setting fire to ant hills.

It Exists: 1. The M an In a Canoe

June 16, 2014

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AliensSomething strange happens when we stare into mystery; our minds bottom out

and we are left to float in the unexplored regions of our subconscious fears as we seek understanding. The depths of the oceans are mysteries to us humans, as unexplored as space, and they contain things that are inconceivable to us, despite our very educated guesses. But it feels more realistic to us that a life like our own is alive far out there in space than to imagine something humanoid in the water. The aliens will come from outer space (from an unfathomable distance away) and they will look, talk, and act like us; they will eat, sleep, and fuck; shit, shower, and shave; and we will bond over biped problems, like running slower than animals with four legs. Or the aliens could be huge bugs, cockroaches with rockets, who will eat us as fast as they can (but if that's the case then something horrendous could just as likely come from the mysterious depths of the oceans).

If (When) the aliens come, the first question we should ask them is this: What is the purpose of your visit? A nd then we proceed from there. If they are genial, then we can be too, and cross our fingers that they can afford an NBA franchise because it'd be cool to see basketball in space. M aybe even an English Premier Football team.

M ade In America: M aria One-Shot Issue 1

June 16, 2014

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The PaRaLlel Serials Vol. I: Issue 1 Card 3

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Writing Saves LivesIf we have a motto here at the PRL Serials, it's this: writing saves lives. A nd

we mean it in every sense of the words. The act of writing can save a life. Writing, or a written work, can save a life as well. A nd this is true for many reasons.

It?s a line we lifted from Stephen King, the prolific storyteller most known for stories about dead things, or things that threaten death. King's writing lifted him out of a difficult financial situation, literally saving him from poverty.

Think about the ways that a poignant story can hit so close to home and give a reader the understanding that their experience in not uniquely terrible, or so misunderstood and different from a preferred norm. That alone can be enough to pull someone from the brink of devastating and drastic action.

A nd think about the release, the letting go of pent up frustrations onto a page; an action that can help a person reorient their point of view, help them embrace the light more readily.

Writing saves lives because it is an important aspect of the human experience. Writing is an extension of our inner monologues that are characteristic of the wonderful brain and sentience that we possess and it serves as evidence of the progress we have made in understanding the world around us.

So write something, the life you save may be your own.

Selections from Rebel M ax's Journal Vol. 01: The Encroachment of Things

June 16, 2014

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Abstract ThinkingI came across a painting after I got some news that rattled me. The painting

made me stop and stare for longer than I meant to. It was hanging in a bathroom of all places, on the wall opposite the toilet in the bathroom that wasn't quite a closet, but a slightly bigger version. The walls of the bathroom were a muted yellow and I wondered if it was a joke, but when I got lost in the painting, it made perfect sense. The odd strokes of blue paint, the spare dots of red that were far enough apart not to suggest blood or violence though the red was deep and warm with life, against the black background in the rectangular frame - it all came to life against the muted yellow and I felt that I was tunneling into it. Like the rabbit down a hole of feelings that aren't easy to articulate, but they are familiar and personal feelings that will likely give rise to cryptic dreams.

I read that our ability to appreciate abstract art is heightened by thoughts of our own mortality. A pparently, being faced with the ultimate unknown softens us to the carefully constructed mysteries of an abstract work.

When I finally left the bathroom, I went back to the chair in the used bookstore where I go to read the latest issue of the A tlantic that I never have any intention of buying, and I wondered if the old man who owned the store had enjoyed his life; if he regretted dying from the stress of trying to take on the big man when he could have lived at least another good decade in retirement.

Emma (or The Artist) I & II June 16, 2014

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SlipstreamThe time machine has already been invented, folks. They hand them out on

some international flights, they come bundled with whatever device the kids are using to listen to music these days, they're in junk drawers all across A merica, and Dr. Dre apparently is a master scientist who makes time machines that are a cut above the rest. I'm talking about headphones of course, the device that you slip in or on your ears to drown out the present and take off through your consciousness to the setting that best suits the sounds.

The result of our experiments with time travel used to be carefully documented in ledgers, sometimes known as mix-tapes or playlists. But those ledgers are now made by machines, and instead of charting our own course through our pasts, we get swept to new places that feel familiar based on the suggestions of an algorithm. Sure, those smart playlists are usually pretty damn good, but we can't forget the beauty of building a set of memories in a playlist for someone we know well enough, someone who means something to us and would appreciate the stroll down memory lane.

Let the Beat Build: Part 1. Time Travel

June 16, 2014

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Volume I of the PRL Ser ials

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The PaRaLlel Serials Vol. I: It Exists Card

See you next week for Issue 2!