Oct 5, 2021

“Who wants to see the monster move?!” The five year old shouts. Claudia’s grandmother offers her a warm roll on the kitchen counter, it’s right before dinner and Claudia is immersed in the imaginary and everything fun and delightful—through her eyes the world is so vivid, dazzling, and colorful.

Year 4931

Preetha embellishes her stories like she does her mashed potatoes—with lots of cheese (raw and grass-fed). Cheesy only in the best of ways. She was almost done regaling to the her co-workers, when Claudia—now 47 and a half—looked down at her half eaten pastrami stick. She muses about being in Italy. “—and that was when—BANG—the band plays right when she picked up her hat!”

Later that day Claudia begins seeing the most unusual hat in her head. She picks it up and puts it on her head. Then like the woman in the story, she parades around the room of onlookers in all of her glory and vice and announces, “I will funnel you! And you! And you!” Pointing towards the crowd she’s encircled in, “To Italy and beyond!!”

Note: Italy had been transplanted to another planet in sector 45 of Galaxy Princeton just 93 years before. Her great, great grandmother had been born and raised. And to get there you could either grab a cab, use a tablet, or basic witchcraft. *Funneling is done to teleport on a massive scale.

Snapping her back to reality, she receives a call on line 1–it’s Ariel Code read HG—2000 (Washington, in sector 3, one of the earliest places to be transplanted from Earth). “Hello, this is Claudia Clemens for CC3–“ A gruff voice from the other end mutters, “Am I on a private line?” He repeats the same question again to his Vancouver (*all-purpose bot). “Oh for the love of Samsara—VINNY you’re a bucket of bolts and frayed hardwires, I—“ the phone cuts off. Unbeknownst to the people at CC3, the call was scrubbed from existence.

Days later… Claudia is checking herself out in her bathroom mirror, pursing her lips, with her hands on her lips in her full length mirror—when she received a notification. A free, all-expense-paid trip to the capital of Italy: Rome. “Turn around bright eyes,” sings softly behind her—the monster in her closet. She takes five paces towards it, pauses, then opens all doors with a push of a button. Picking up her all black vacation bag, she accepts the trip (scamming being a thing of the past, she would often win cool things, including trips around the galaxy, and her vacation-time was vast).