On the chain gang Martha met a woman called Louise, another idealist whose eyes were flashing diamonds, whose scent was cinnamon, a decent deodorant and pride, whose voice was an old river song that dredged up the kind of feelings and complicated emotions that had long ago been left there under the water and/or had accumulated in the layers of thick silt and mud. The two of them fell in love, set up house together in a house they subletted on a nearby estate. It was sinful what they did, at least as far as their neighbors were concerned, but that lot were fucking idiots mostly that got their news for real off of Facebook and had other stuff to deal with/problems of their own.

Outside the city boundary meanwhile things were volatile and the actual front line of what they sometimes called the current conflict kept moving around so you could never really know for sure where it was safe to go out and where it wasn’t. Mortars – probly fired by western special forces – rained down constantly on what they said was insurgent holdouts (ie places people were still living) in Hillsborough and The Manor, sending thick towers of horrible smoke rising right up into the air that could be seen for miles around and making it impossible for people to see where they were going.

The King of Endland (sic) himself tried to make a decree to stop the bombing but at the last minute they caught him and put him in a prison for ever.

Some pieces of the information are missing so please try to checking the connection. Some part of it have gone missing are missing. Try checking a connection.

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Far off wheresoever he still claimed to live in the mountains, G’s dad died of a suspected climbing accident that doctors would not confirm and then as the poets say “his new wife/gf or whatever did a fucking runner”, leaving Martha to pretty much pick up the pieces plus the tab for the funeral and other arrangements.

By the time it was all over and her ex was in the ground – morticians paid, service and speeches got thru, the unpacked pre-packed sandwiches either eaten or else slid from off of their plastic platters and down into the trash – M. was technically bankrupt, a pauper in everything including her name, spinning empty plates, juggling bad debt from one card to another, only just making ends almost meet. One night when M was sleeping exhausted something snapped in her love (Louise) who then like packed her bags w/out warning and snuck out of town all alone on a Red Cross branded convoy that was equal parts refugees, battle-scarred war tourists and fighters in disguise.