what some call insanity

I prompted mmegiry with "Richard Adar" and somehow wound up writing that one myself.


She never mourned Richard Adar, not really – she gave herself ten minutes after the initial attacks to cry for everything she’d lost before splashing water on her face and moving on to the next catastrophe.

Occasionally she’ll come across a thumbnail of him in a newspaper and pause, or catch her breath when Billy says something with that look on his face that sends her back twenty years and six campaigns.

“It’s nothing,” she says when he asks her what’s wrong, and can’t stop herself from smoothing his hair back. “You just remind me of someone I used to know.”

And mmegiry prompted me with "picnic".


Laura used to love planning field trips – she’d take her classes to every museum in Caprica City, to the zoo and the famous aquarium in Ithaca, to galleries and plays and one time a circus. There was something about being outside the classroom that excited her students, put an eager sparkle in their eyes.

She hasn’t seen that sparkle in many years, since well before the attacks, and seeing it now leaves her aching. These kids are happy with dry bread and a slice of soft apple, with fresh air so cold it bites. They’ll never know anything else.