by Amy Letter
paths forking project ongoing media mixed structure branching often recursive boundaries untimed limits unspaced rules optional rules followed Only 3
04. Archive for paralinear Access
05. Random to jump from branch to branch
A woman wakes to the world, curious and alone. There is a man there, and he is angry, lonely, sad. She does what little she can to make him happy, but he does not seem to believe that she is quite as real, quite as human, as he is.
She learns about his world, his hobbies, and slowly he opens up to her. A connection grows between them. They are alone on an asteroid, but it doesn’t matter. They have each other. That is enough.
One day, a rocketship comes. The woman hides. She waits for the strangers to go away, but they don’t. The men are arguing. She knows. She hides behind small boulders and she knows.
Her love runs to her like doom: “Show them!” he says. He wants her to prove to the strangers that she’s a real person.
She opens her mouth, but nothing comes out. What can she say? How does she prove she’s a person? How can anyone?
It doesn’t matter: already the rocketship captain is reaching for his sidearm. She is overcome with grief. He pulls the trigger. Life, so pretty and so just-begun, is gone.
2. Doom
3. “We Can Work It Out”
