Always Amy's Fault

It's not that I'm unaware. I may be mentally ill, but I'm not stupid. This morning I noticed everything — really noticed it, the way you're supposed to. The sky over the marsh had that scrubbed, just-rained watercolor blue. The lagoon reflected the same color as a heron went about its business with no particular hurry, as though not to disturb the reflection.

I watched the scene evolve as I drove out of Chatsford, and thought, well, there it is; a beautiful morning, delivered with perfect timing. And here I am, for once, paying full attention.

But here's the part nobody warns you about: knowing everything is fine does not translate to feeling fine. Events, it turns out, have almost nothing to do with it. Hand a neurodivergent brain a perfect morning, gift-wrapped, bow on top, and it will still go looking for the fire exits.

This one's on Amy. It's all her fault.

I should clarify. When I say Amy, I don't mean the tiara-wearing critic who runs the bridge of my other stories. This Amy is smaller, older, and considerably less housebroken. Dr. Coast calls her my amygdala. I call her the intern nobody hired who somehow got the corner office anyway.

Since last Thursday, or possibly since the Cretaceous, (Amy keeps her own calendar) she's taken up a new hobby: police body-cam footage. YouTube, apparently. I don't watch the stuff myself; I haven't got the stomach for it, and Spectrum only carries me so far into the modern age. But Amy has her own streaming service. She's always known what I'm watching, where I'm going, and what I'm thinking, so I assume she's found some private feed running straight off the electromagnetic field between my ears.

This morning she gave me the look. The one that means she's about to speak, whether I invited her or not.

"What are you complaining about?" she demanded. "I do everything for you. I've saved your goose countless times, and all you do is complain about my methods and compare me to the Red Queen of Wonderland. Can you name one thing you've ever done just for me?"

I opened my mouth.

"Yeah. That's what I thought."

"I don't get it wrong all the time," she added, before I could recover. "Just sometimes. Like yesterday, at the reception."

Ah, yes. The reception. A perfectly civilized, seated affair with place cards, salad forks, and a string quartet working through Pachelbel like it owed them money. Somewhere between the toast and the entrée, Amy decided the appropriate response was full evacuation. "Run for your life!" she cried. I very nearly took the tablecloth with me.

"How was I supposed to know it was a sit-down reception?" she said, entirely unrepentant.

"It said so on the invitation, Amy. In fancy script, with a calligraphy border."

"I don't read invitations. I read rooms. And that room had exits I didn't like."

Here's what I've come to understand, however grudgingly: Amy isn't wrong about danger, she's just wrong about scale. Somewhere back along my family tree, being the nervous one kept an ancestor alive long enough to have a descendant like me who could still take a Sunday morning drive, noticing herons wading the lagoons. 

I don't approve of Amy's methods. But I do answer her calls, most of them, because the alternative is not taking them at all, and I've seen where that road leads.

So this morning I let the sky be blue, and the coffee be good, and I let Amy grumble along in the background, running body-cam footage without consulting or warning me. It wasn't a quiet morning, exactly. But it was mine, static and all, and I noticed every bit of it.

And that, Dr. Coast, is what I'm calling progress.

Mindfleet Academy: He's A Rocket Man

Ambassador's Log: Stardate 2026.203

Invented Mission Name: The Chicago Incursion

or 

The Real Rocket Man

Of all the command vessels in all the sectors of the United Federation of Emotional States, Captain Amy was assigned to mine. She runs on anxiety, mischief, and an inexhaustible supply of inspired absurdity. Even so, I consider it a privilege to serve aboard her mindship, even when the privilege announces itself in neon pink. What choice do I have, really?

The alert systems were flashing that neon shade; a vibrant, pulsing declaration that Captain Amy had selected because she felt the traditional red lacked sufficient emotional urgency. A reasonable position, honestly, if you know anything at all about her.

"Pink alert!" she shouted into her command console, "Stop everything and look at me!" Her glittering tiara was slipping down her brow when she demanded, "All stations, report! Why is the Ambassador not present? We have a Tier-1 cosmic crisis, people!"

First Officer Reason turned from his science console, his expression a masterclass in elegant, unbothered composure. "Captain, the only anomaly I'm detecting is that your dopamine receptors are firing at 400% capacity. Did you discover another vintage vocabulary word, or is there something else on your mind?"

"Touch grass, Major Reason!" Amy snapped, crossing her arms and sticking out her lower lip in a magnificent display of petulant royal authority.

From a loose wire panel near the floorboards, Cadet Reginald the ferret poked his sleek head out. Around his tiny neck, a newly modified MA-1 language translator collar crackled to life.

"Dook?" he offered, with an air of philosophical inquiry.

"Listen up, people," Amy declared. "I have just intercepted a transmission from the Earth Sector. A message from the prime timeline announcing the latest voyage where no man has gone before: The Icon. The Legend. The original commander of the Starship Enterprise, Mr. William Shatner himself, has broken the space-time continuum."

I stepped onto the bridge, curious despite myself. "Shatner? The man is 95 years old. What could he possibly be doing to cause a pink alert?"

"Glad you asked," Amy beamed, her impatience dissolving instantly into pure, radiant fan-girl delight. "He's headlining Riot Fest in Chicago's Douglass Park this coming September. He's performing a heavy metal set, backed by thirty-five musicians, covering everything from Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, and Judas Priest. He calls it chaos with purpose." 

She paused for a beat and then added, "He calls it loud imagination!"

The bridge went gloriously silent.

Then Cadet Reginald fixed a tiny, unblinking stare at me and said "Dook, dook," which the MA-1 collar rendered as: "Loud music is bad for the ears. No evolutionary advantages. It's a biological tragedy."

Major Reason adjusted his holographic brain display with the calm satisfaction of a man whose logic gates had processed something significant. "Are you telling us that a 95-year-old icon, who flew into Earth orbit at age 90, is going to front a heavy metal band at a rock festival?"

"Yes!" Amy shouted, radiant with triumph. "Therefore, I am filing an immediate request for a special observation assignment. The FMS Coastal Voyager is heading to Illinois!"

This is a good place to pause and confess something. Earlier in the week, Amy had cornered me in a masterful display of weaponized emotional logic and extracted a binding pledge: by the end of the quarter, I was to submit a formal recommendation promoting her to Fleet Admiral. The thought of an amygdala holding fleet command had kept me searching for a loophole ever since.

Chief Engineer Anxiety's sigh resonated from below. "Captain, Academy regulations explicitly forbid deploying an emotional command vessel for personal excursions. We manage existential dread and GPS failures. We do not do heavy metal mosh pits."

"Regulations are suggestions written by people who don't own tiaras," Amy declared. "If the Academy objects, we'll navigate around their coordinates without authorization."

"That's called a mutiny, Captain," Lieutenant Joy observed pleasantly, as though she were commenting on Amy's choice of foot joy. 

"It's called unapologetic exploration," Amy corrected, and then she fixed a sharp gaze on me. "And you, Mr. Diplomat, are going to help, or not? Must I remind you of our executive agreement?"

I met her eyes that sparkled with a wild, joyful, utterly uncontainable glint, and I felt something click into place. A beautiful, elegant, perfectly diplomatic solution to my conundrum.

If I bless this music fest expedition, I realized, I would hold the leverage I needed to nullify the promotion request. She gets Chicago. I get freedom from the Admiral scheme. Everyone wins. Especially Shatner.

"You know, Captain," I said with the smoothest diplomatic purr I could muster. "Regulations can be unreasonably rigid. Music and space share the same essential truth: both reward those bold enough to explore them. I believe I can facilitate this unauthorized mission of yours by talking to a few people I know in the Academy. Consider it done."

Amy rose from her captain's chair, tiara blazing, and turned to face her crew with the serene confidence of someone who has never doubted the universe would cooperate.

"Make it so, Ambassador," she commanded, and turning to the astonished crew, she said in her most Amy voice, "Engage!"

An Occasional Eden

The morning had opened warm and moist, and my stroll around the gardens had left me glistening, but now I was seated in the cooling shade of the forest canopy and refreshing the tissues with the contents of an icy cup. 

Despite my poor choice in upholstery for the morning walk, I nonetheless had achieved a Nirvana-like repose.

Thunderstorms might be troubling the coast elsewhere, but here in Airlie Gardens, just east of Wilmington, I enjoyed a peaceful calm that comes only to those who have done absolutely nothing to deserve it.

The air was redolent with birdsong, and ocean breezes rustled the leaves of camellia and azalea. I was restoring the soul while  Ms. Wonder wandered the garden's interior, camera in hand, producing something she called a pictorial essay, whatever that is.

A young man who'd parked his noisy pickup in a space near the picnic area gave me a look as he passed by on his way, unless I missed my guess, to join his waiting family. It was one of those looks that, if translated into the common tongue, would have included phrases like 'silly old coot.'

I recognized it as a look of envy, although what actually sparked the green-eyed monster in this young geezer, I cannot say. But I didn't blame him for it. There was a time, not so long ago in the grand reckoning of things, when I would have been the one striding past, purposeful, slightly overheated, things to do and somewhere to be. 

There is a curious gift that comes with slowing down and having fewer somewheres to be: you finally notice the cooling.

On a morning this warm and humid, a table in the leafy shade with cooling sea breezes and icy refreshments is highly desired, if not downright coveted.

After all, getting right down to the heart of the matter, who could be offended or cast blame on others when surrounded by a garden paradise like the one known as Airlie Gardens, especially in the middle of the celebration known as the North Carolina Azalea Festival? The answer, of course, is no one.

We do well to remember that we don't know everything about other people's lives. Best to assume that anyone entering the grounds of one of the few Edens left on earth is committed to spreading goodness and light. Otherwise, such a person is risking being expelled from the Garden and chased away by avenging angels with flaming words. No one wants that.

First Light Dispatch

The world ends every night. Most people don't mention this, perhaps because it ends so quietly and returns so reliably that we've stopped noticing the miracle of it. I notice because I’m usually up before the day gets its groove back.

There's a particular quality to the backyard at this hour that resists description but insists on being witnessed. The darkness isn't fully dark, it's that deep blue-grey that belongs exclusively to the half hour when the night has spent itself but the day hasn't yet committed. The oak trees are silhouettes. The fence is a suggestion. The feeders hang motionless, empty of visitors, patient as monks.

I stand at the French doors with my first cup of Jah's mercy, Ms. Wonder still asleep upstairs, and I wait for the world to reconstitute itself. It always does. But it always makes me wonder, just for a moment, if this will be the morning it doesn't.

A lone dove arrives first. She’s drawn the short straw and descends from the hedge before any other creature stirs, landing on the feeder platform with a soft, decisive thump. She doesn't eat immediately. She simply stands there in the pewter light, as though she's been appointed to verify that the backyard is still where they left it. First Dove of Morning. Inspector of Dawns.

Satisfied with her report, she begins to eat, and her presence seems to give the others permission. A cardinal appears in the crape myrtle, not the vivid red of his afternoon self, but a muted, sleepy crimson, as though, like me, he needs a moment before achieving full color. A chickadee arrives, then another. The Carolina wren announces herself from somewhere in the jasmine with a single declaratory note, as if to say I'm here, I'm here, I'm here, which is really all any of us is ever saying.

The light shifts. It happens gradually and then all at once, the way important things do. And then Breezer, the spokesperson for the squirrel family, appears. Breezer of first light is not the Breezer of the afternoon fence-top provocations or the orchestrated campaigns against the crow gang. This Breezer moves deliberately, almost carefully, as though the morning is something to be handled with reverence.

He takes his usual route from the oak to the fence to the feeder, but without his customary theatrical flourish. No tail-flagging. No pausing to survey his domain with that particular squirrel expression that suggests he's already three moves ahead of everyone else. He simply arrives, selects his breakfast with quiet discernment, and settles on the fence post to eat.

I watch him and think about the night he's just come through, tucked into his drey with the darkness outside and the world temporarily dissolved. What does a squirrel carry into sleep? What, if anything, follows him out of it?

He pauses in his eating and looks directly at the French doors, directly at me. We regard each other across the silver morning air. There is, I think, a moment of mutual recognition, two creatures who have once again made it safely to the other side of the night.

Mr. Woodrow, the woodpecker, lands in his breakfast tree with the gravitas of a judge taking the bench. He surveys the assembled company: the dove Sisters of the Immaculate Order of Brunswick now arrived in full congregation, the cardinal achieving proper red of the day, and Breezer finishing his breakfast with quiet efficiency. Woodrow delivers three measured drumbeats against the bark. The day may proceed.

From beyond the fence, a dog offers a single bark—not alarm, just announcement: Still here. Still here.

The light is fully gold now, that brief perfect gold before it whitens into ordinary morning. The dove sisters glow in it. The cardinal blazes. Even the fence posts look distinguished.

And then I see a signal that the opening act is winding down and the main event is about to begin: Breezer's tail is twitching. Slowly at first, just the tip, a subtle oscillation that could almost be the morning breeze. But I know better. I've seen this before. That tail twitch is the squirrel equivalent of cracking one's knuckles, of rolling up one's sleeves, of the faint smile that precedes the opening gambit.

The night is over. The reverence for its passing has been observed. The world has been successfully reconstituted, and the morning duly noted. Now, apparently, it's time to cause some trouble.

Breezer spots something in the neighbor's yard, something I can't see from where I stand, but his whole body shifts with sudden attention and mischievous intent. The contemplative creature of five minutes ago is gone as completely as the blue-grey darkness. In his place is the Breezer I know best: alert, calculating, and radiating the particular energy of someone who has just had a very good idea.

He glances back at me once, then launches himself along the fence with his usual breathtaking speed and disappears into the oak branches with a rustle and a flash of tail.

The dove sisters watch him go with what I can only interpret as resignation. Mr. Woodrow delivers another measured drumbeat, this one sounding distinctly like here we go again. The cardinal retreats to the crape myrtle. The chickadees resume their cheerful indifference. The day has officially begun.

I finish my coffee at the French doors, watching the backyard settle into its daytime rhythms, the negotiations and skirmishes, the territorial claims and peanut politics, the ongoing saga of creatures going about the urgent business of being alive.

Every morning is a small act of faith, it turns out. Not just for me, standing at the French doors and wondering if the world will remember to come back tomorrow. It requires a measure of faith in all of us.

And every morning, so far, it has remembered to return.

Burns Notice

I'd made a small scene at the Circular Journey Cafe that morning. Nothing that would require legal counsel, you understand, but enough that Amy was still replaying the highlight reel with editorial commentary when I arrived home.

You interrupted the conversations of everyone in the cafe, she said. The couple at the table by the door has filed a noise complaint.

"You may be aware, Amy, that in the spy trade, when an operative is suddenly cut off from reliable intelligence and left to improvise, it's called being burned. That's how I felt when Island Irv didn't show up, burned. It wasn't pleasant. I felt the need to stir up some activity among the patrons."

She didn't respond, which was just as well, because I was home and in the presence of Ms. Wonder.

"Wonder!" I said. "It's so good to see you."

She gave me that look of hers that says, You saw me about an hour ago.

"I know that we had breakfast together; it's just that I seldom see you at this hour of the morning."

This time her response was to engage in one of those eye-rolling frenzies that I've mentioned so many times before. I considered nicking her for diverting from an appropriate response, but decided to let it go. There were more important concerns.

"Wonder," I said, "my friends seem to agree that I talk too much and it's disturbing. Disturbing because I'm sure I've heard from reliable sources that the key to winning friends and influencing people is listening to them. It seems I may be losing friends and annoying people."

"And influencing people is what makes you happy?" she said.

"Why do you think I talk so much if not to influence people?"

"Splain, s'il vous plait," she said, because she's cosmopolitan like that.

"Simple," I said. "When I see a situation that demands strong action, I exhort others to take that action and rectify the situation. That requires a lot of speech. Actually, a lot of buzzing."

"Like a hyper-caffeinated bumblebee?"

"Wonder!" I said, for the second time that morning.

"Oh, all right," she said. "Just a little joke. Don't get your knickers in a wad."

"I do so enjoy it when you quote me," I said, more than a little pleased with myself that she remembered one of my signature phrases. Not mine, of course — it was the phrase of the day, suggested by the P.G. Wodehouse Society.

"Why is it important that someone else take action?" she said. "Why not you?"

I almost scoffed. She knows full well that taking action is dangerous for me and for innocent bystanders, if there are any. But I bottled the scoff just in time. After all, she was only trying to be helpful.

"You know why," I said, "but it's nice of you to pretend that you think I'm normal."

"Typical," she said, and once again I wondered what on earth she was talking about. I took a breath and steeled myself to speak of Princess Amy for the first time that day.

"You're aware that my limbic system gives me a little shove toward the fray with a sic 'em, boy — and the next thing I know, I'm standing in front of a judge who fines me fifty dollars and orders me to make restitution for damages."

"You do remind me of a tank rolling through a minefield," she said.

"Wonder! You're supposed to be on my side." I adopted a philosophical tone, hoping it might soften the terrain. "Besides — rank is but a penny stamp, and a man's a man for all that."

"Wow," she said, with a look that didn't exactly reflect her words. "I'm impressed."

"Not one of mine," I admitted. "Just something I heard somewhere and liked so much that I throw it into the conversation now and then. Probably Shakespeare."

"Burns," she said.

Now here's the thing. Given that we had just been discussing my tendency to talk too much and get things wrong, you might expect me to have taken the correction gracefully. What I said instead was:

"Do you think so? My apologies then, Poopsie — I really didn't mean to be abrasive."

"Robert Burns," she said. "The poet."

"Oh, good lord. Poetry! Thank you for pointing it out. And it's still morning, too."

She smiled in that particular way of hers — the one that is equal parts fond and long-suffering — and said, "I apologize if my words seemed harsh before."

"No apology needed, Wonder," I said. "You know it's the Genome way — when offered a piece of grit, his oyster constitution goes to work and builds it into a pearl richer than all his tribe."

"Well put," she said.

I was pleased — exceedingly pleased, this time. She had complimented me, and that is the one thing I want more than any other. More than winning friends. More than influencing people. More, even, than getting the last word at the Circular Journey Cafe.

I only want to please Ms. Wonder.

I searched the databanks for something to say in reply — something worthy of the moment, something that would let her know how much her words meant.

"Fierce Qigong!" I said.

She looked at me for a long moment.

"You talked too much at the café again, didn't you," she said. It wasn't a question.

"Extensively," I admitted.