“Game shows are designed to make us feel better about the random, useless facts that are all we have left of our education.”

“We thought all this teaching was to make us smart. What it did was make us stupid. With all the little facts we learned, we never had the time to think.”

“Tell the world what scares you the most” says Brandy.She gives us each an Aubergine Dreams eyebrow pencil and says “Save the world with some advice from the future”Seth writes on the back of a card and hands the card to Brandy for her to read. On game shows, Brandy reads, some people will take the trip to France, but most people will take the washer dryer pair.”Brandy puts a big Plumbago kiss in the little square for the stamp and lets the wind lift and card and sail it off toward the towers of downtown Seattle.Seth hands her another, and Brandy reads:Game shows are designed to make us feel better about the random useless facts that are all we have left from our education”A kiss and the card’s on it’s way toward Lake Washington.From Seth: When did the future switch from being a promise to being a threat?”A kiss and it’s off on the wind toward Ballard.Only when we eat up this planet will God give us another. We’ll be remembered more for what we destroy than what we create.”Interstate 5 snakes by in the distance. From high atop the Space Needle, the southbound lanes are red chase lights, and the northbound lanes are white chase lights. I take a card and write:I love Seth Thomas so much I have to destroy him. I overcompensate by worshipping the queen supreme. Seth will never love me. No one will ever love me ever again.Beandy is waiting to rake the card and read it out loud. Brandy’s waiting to read my worst fears to the world, but I don’t give her the card. I kiss it myself with the lips I don’t have and let the wind take it out of my hand. The card flies up, up, up to the stars and then falls down to land in the suicide net. While I watch my future trapped in the suicide net Brandy reads another card from Seth.We are all self-composting”I write another card from the future and Brandy reads it:When we don’t know who to hate, we hate ourselves”An updraft lifts up my worst fears from the suicide net and lifts them away.Seth writes and Brandy reads.You have to keep recycling yourself”.I write and Brandy reads.Nothing of me is original. I am the combined effort of everybody I’ve ever known.” I write and Brandy reads.The one you love and the one who loves you are never ever the same person.”

“Of all the priceless objects left behind, this is what we rescue. These artifacts. Memory cues. Useless souvenirs. Nothing you could auction. The scars left from happiness.”

“According to Plato, we don't learn anything. Our soul has lived so many lives that we know everything. Teachers and education can only remind us of what we already know.”

“Inside the hole, the red lips say, ”we all grew up with the same television shows. It’s like we all have the same artificial memory implants. We remember almost none of our real childhoods, but we remember everything that happened to sitcom families. We have the same basic goals. We all have the same fears.” The lips say, ”The future is not bright.”

“We can spend our lives letting the world tell us who we are. Sane or insane. Saints or sex addicts. Heroes or victims. Letting history tell us how good or bad we are. Letting our past decide our future. Or we can decide for ourselves. And maybe it's our job to invent something better.”