Raphio Tanzania, Marana Peru, Mission Wild Bolivia

Raphio Tanzania 72%

“What do you think?” he asked me, turning in a slow circle with his arms out wide. His brown skin glistened under the stage lights, and he looked like a feral king.

“Not gay enough,” I said. “More eyeliner, and I think we should add some feathers.”

He reached to preen along his side, where the jacket was still ruffled from our scuffle before. “I have feathers,” he replied.

“You have turkey feathers. They’re brown. They should be blue, and green. We need to find a peacock.” Not that anyone would explicitly notice once they heard him sing, but those few moments before could make a difference.

Marana Cusco, Perú 70%

“We can’t go in there.”

“Why not?”

A woman falling sideways, her head splitting open against a rail. The bubbles gushing into her throat, she can’t get them down enough to take in air. Her ulna cracking, and—I pulled my palm from the doorframe, turned to lean my back against the wall.

“Let’s just…” I swallowed, reminding myself I could breathe just fine. “I think I heard something that way. A trumpet, maybe. Let’s try there first.”

I really had heard a trumpet, but soon or later, I knew, we’d have to come back, whatever we found. But… definitely later.

“This corridor’s the same as all the others,” she said, running a hand along the wall as though she might try to Listen.

“It’s not,” I said, though I wasn’t about to press the point and demonstrate. Even though the heavy soles of my boots, I could tell this whole hall was about drowning.

Mission Chocolate Wild Bolivia 65%

[Redacted. I decided to turn these notes into a poem and submit them to a literary magazine. If it’s accepted, I’ll link it here. Check back in four months, I guess? But anyway I liked this chocolate a whole lot and it apparently reminds me of love and flowers.]