grace the cockroach

Chapter 2- Cassandra’s account.

I’ve been waiting for everyone else to leave the van to write this.

Today, nothing new. It seems like that every day at this point. I’m not gonna stop writing though, because I can still think and I can still write. I’m trying not to wonder what it’s all for because then I’ll cry and Carson will call me a baby again. He only does that to me.

Anyway, aside from all that. 

Usually it’s just me and maybe Valerie back at the van. Valerie’s been working on all sorts of pretty things that she makes out of the scraps of fabric and buttons and bits of metal and plastic she collects when we find old buildings. Once we found a little kid’s plush in one of the burnt-out houses and Valerie fixed it up and buried it outside like a memorial. 

Shit. I hate this. 

Reilly is so nice to me. It’s like, she’s more expressive than any of us even though she almost never talks. You can just tell what she’s thinking when you look in her big, round eyes. She looks a lot like a rat, in the nicest way possible because rats are really cute. Reilly’s really cute too-her thousands of freckles and her black curly hair and her strong arms and legs. Those are freckly too. I’m rambling, now, but that’s the point of diaries, right?

I think I need to admit to my self that I’m, like, madly in love with Reilly, actually. You know her last name is Reilly, too? 

I keep noticing that David’s glasses are almost completely shattered, and when I think about it, he seems to always be wearing them? His face is so thin now they fall off any time he looks down. I wonder if I could fix them, if I put my hand to it? Fixing things has always been one of my talents, I think. I’ve tried to apply it to people, but I usually just break them even more. So I’ve just been trying to be there for everyone in ways that are less offensive. Does that make sense? It’s really selfish, I know. It’s because I don’t want to be humiliated again. I need to stop, I’m trying to stop. I’m sorry.

Chapter 1-Reilly’s account.

People always said that I was quiet. Apparently I talk too little. But I’d rather talk too little than too much. Besides, not that it matters much at this point, when there’s only the five of us. David says every morning that we’re going to run into someone eventually, but it’s been eight months and counting. At this point, it’s all the more water for us, I guess. 

The journaling was Cass’s idea. I guess she had kept a diary for longer than all of us. If nothing else, it’s good to keep a record of our existence. For archaeologists or whatnot. But I don’t think there are any left. Damn. 

That’s interesting to think about, isn’t it? There are probably no more archaeologists. Well, at least David is preserving the age-old art of bullshit. Not to say I don’t like the guy. He’s a nice person, if incompetent. The band was his idea in the first place- him and Carson’s. 

I guess they dreamed of stardom or something. Valerie went along with it, obviously, she’s David’s best friend. I wanted to do something with my musical qualifications, and Cassandra came along because she’s just like that. She’s so supportive of everything we do. I wish I could have been like that. Plus, it helped that her dad owned a junkyard. So we got this old ice cream van fixed up- David thought it would be funny at the time and he wouldn’t give over about it- and we set sail for the high seas. We got a few gigs in some bars and the like, but it was obvious to everyone that we’d never make the big time, or anything close to it. I don’t think that’s how the expression goes, but I can’t remember and I don’t really care. 

I found a corpse in an old shack today. She looked sick and clammy, with sunken cheeks. Impaled on the mattress springs. I couldn’t figure out what had killed her. There was water in some of the pipes in there, but not much. And a live potted plant. Just this little pathetic daisy thing. I took it back and Carson flipped out because we couldn’t have another mouth to feed. But Valerie said it could’ve been the last one ever, and she gave him the stare that always makes him back down. She has these sharp green eyes that usually look kind of glazed over because she’s always thinking. None of us really know what she’s thinking about.

The ice cream van is kind of funny in a way. Because we’re dying of heatstroke out here. You can’t even stand still out in the open for too long or your bare skin bubbles up into these huge horrible blisters that are so tough you can’t pop them with a knife, you have to actually saw into them. The others hate going outside, but honestly, I love it. It’s vast, and empty, and I can run for as long as I want in any direction and I’m not likely to find anything. Anything at all.

and I’ve written way more than I thought I would have. I guess I had more to say than I ever thought. I’m going to write more some other day. But I have to do this at night, and usually I just fall asleep straight away. I’ll see you. Keep yourself safe, I think.

i’m asking this everywhere i can- i recently bought a manga copy of golden wind volume 1 and it’s missing 12 pages? they’re just completely blank. around when bucciarati attacks giorno on the train it goes two pages, two blank, two pages, two blank and i looked up the manga online and this is not how it actually should be. it seems these pages are completely unprinted.