Triangles Are My Favorite Shape

Rachel’s cousin Will and his Yale roommate Allen both have the measles. Rachel shows limited sympathy (”Poor boy!”), before immediately mocking them and calling them “childish” for getting a disease only little kids get.

Rachel and her roommate “B” (It stands for Bertha!) attempted to steal a sign (what sort idk) from a fair they went to but found they “were carefully guarded”. She wishes Will could have been there to help.

Will has a crush on a girl named Jenny, who Rachel knows, and is constantly asking Rachel if Jenny has mentioned him.

“B” often sits next to Rachel as she writes and suggests things to add to the letter or just generally distracts her.

Will and Jack, who are brothers, don’t write to each other. They write to Rachel and tell her to write to the other and pass on a message for them. Rachel keeps asking why they do this, but goes along with it anyways.

Rachel always explains why there are ink blots or areas of sloppy writing in her letters. Explanations so far include such classics as: the dinner bell just rang, it’s after lights-out and I’m writing this in the dark, “B” is shaking my arm, “B” is kissing me, this pen is broken, the postman is almost here, and there was a bee.

For her 18th birthday Rachel received: a new Kodak camera, eighteen white rosebuds, silver manicure scissors, a pair of shell side combs, a silver pencil, and a vase of pink roses. However her favorite present was from her father who wrote to say she could just buy her own present and he would pay for it.

Rachel is always mentioning the pictures she takes with her Kodak. I wish I knew what happened to them. 

In addition to Calvé, Marlowe and Sothern, Rachel has now also gone to see performances by Ellen Terry, Henry Irving, John Philip Sousa, Ignacy Jan Paderewski (playing the piano, not governing Poland), and freaking Sarah Bernhardt! 

Rachel likes to put question marks in the middle of sentences to denote sarcasm; i.e. “I am very ? sorry for you.” and “Men were not excluded and we had the pleasure ? of meeting several.”

Update: It took eight years, dozens of emails, an unbelievably kind invitation from Rachel’s granddaughter (also named Rachel) and 16 hours of travel but…

Guns are like brown recluse spiders. They've been around since I was a kid. And while I don't like them and I don't ever want to own one or shoot one, I take steps to ensure they aren't in my life. My friends and family don't really own any guns. If they do, they are usually kept in a safe and out of sight. If I see one in public in an open carry state, I just avoid the person and move on with my day. Cops carry them, sure, but again, cops have always carried them. I grew up watching movies and TV shows with characters using them. Kids I went to high school with would go hunting with their families. I see billboards with gun shows advertised. They introduced active shooter drills in middle school, and I even participated in an ALICE training event offered by a local community college for free.

1) @/KaylaAncrum: Man who falls in love with a sphynx and solves her riddles daily, in spite of the threat to his life.

The boon he requests every night is to sleep by her side in the warm sand and wake up safe. As he grows old, then forgetful, she reconfigures her riddles to accept any answer.

2) @/KaylaAncrum: Idk I just think it would be neat. Nice Ace love story.

I just think the parallel of him working hard and studying to be able to solve her riddles in his youth, While she struggles to think up riddles he couldn't possibly lose in his final years, is romantic.

3) @/KaylaAncrum: Sad ending. I think he would die in his sleep beside her and she would eat him in a very Where The Wild Things Are “I'll eat you up I love you so" Way.

Keep his bones, bleached white in the sun. Wear them maybe. The only man who mattered.

4) @/KaylaAncrum: There has to be a night, where he finally gets one wrong. Where he's already made his bed and lay his grey head down, eyes closed. After he answers, her lion ears prick up and she thinks

"Ah. This is the beginning of the end."

And thinks hard all night until his answer is right

5) @/KaylaAncrum: I also kind of like the idea that other people still come and challenge her riddles and fail and she eats them while he just stands there, petting her shoulder, while they beg for their lives.

Monster (literal)/ Monster (figurative) Romance.

6) @/CyberpunkP(cuts off): Could do a kind of tragic parallel with real world dementia patients as the last and hardest riddles are

"Do you remember what day it is?"

"What is your name?"

"Are you awake?"

/End ID ]

[ ID 2: Digital, semi realistic artwork of a Sphinx (a creature with a lion's body, human woman's head and wings) climbing downwards while reaching her paw down to a tiny, frail human figure resting on the ground, with signs of aging. The sphinx looks upset. Text around her body, going down with her, reads:

"A riddle once more given

To delight your addled thoughts

And usher forth the quiet night

In which your head lay naught

Upon the cooling stone

Nor shrubs and brittle reed

But upon the soft sands shifting

To lay quiet at my feet"

"It creeps out from mine lovely mouth

And travels down mine tail

A boon upon thine body

Upon thine mind so frail

To land within your open palms

Held aloft in desperate want

Bring recognition to your face

Now so pale and gaunt"

"Please, now do remember

All the days of which we've passed

Side by side, amongst the sands

And the love that we've amassed

Let this riddle now remind you

Of your cunning and your guile

The softness you once found

Within the sharpness of my smile"

"A riddle that to some

May seem nothing but a ploy

For they know nothing of my love

For they know nothing of my joy

To others, may seem simple,

Naught but a silly game

But dear one, please do tell me"

"What is your name?"