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[The video opens to show an exceedingly nice terrarium sitting on a desk, which is located in the room Justin is borrowing from Neil and Todd. A copy of "The Importance of Being Earnest" is lined up neatly to the left. Aaand zoom in.]

From the Diapheromeridae family. [The view shifts to show this beauty.] And this one's from the Phylliidae family.

[Justin, clearly behind the camera, sounds even quieter and less enthusiastic about life than usual, which is an accomplishment.]

I plan on naming one Gregor and one Mendel, but I'm not sure which should be which. I'm open to suggestions.

[The video switches off.]

[Text]
I've never been interested in entomology, but this combination--plant and animal--is interesting. Worth buying on impulse, now that I'm financially secure for the moment. The bank had an account for me. I made decent money before I left.

The network is a good place to ask open-ended questions. I'd like to ask this: What do you do when you feel as though you're missing something? Not that you've misplaced something, but that there's something fundamentally important to you as a human missing. Drink? Are there any more creative answers?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Not after you've lost everything else.

After everything else is lost, death is always a decent choice.

[Her smile is thin and strained, her nails terribly subtle as they drag along the side of her neck, stopping at her collar bones.]

I wasn't brave enough to ask him.

[And Barbet would have refused besides. She was his, and he would not let her go.]

You didn't have to ask.

[She did. And she can't force herself to say so. There's a faint flush creeping over her face, anger and frustration and misery.]

[Justin nods. He can't know what Carla's situation was, but he does know that free will isn't always free.]

You need time alone.

I think so.

[She resents the consideration, it's true. If he were standing in front of her, she might hit him, but these little network devices make a strange disconnect between thought and reality.]

Good luck.

[With... whatever.]

[She laughs bitterly.]

Thanks.

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