I'm still not over the fact it's basically 'blow-high.' I mean, I knew all along it wasn't going to be as bland as 'blah-hadge,' but you see BLÅHAJ and it creates certain expectations about what letters do in a word that are totally upended here.

I googled 'nuclear deterrence' and google asked me if I wanted results closer to my location. like what stores around here sell ICBMs

'A Chost Wasted on Tom Lehrer'

After the GLAIVE ORMER clusterfuck, nobody was outside suspicion. None of the former cell were allowed contact with each other. Everything they did was triple-scrutinised, analysed for hidden meaning.

Latimer stayed quiet, almost shell-shocked, for a long time, shuffled to a safehouse for safekeeping.

The first thing, eventually, was a cheap art print tacked to the wall. No way for it to be visible to the outside, no obvious political or subversive meanings; a still life, fruit in a bowl. A little colour, in a relentlessly beige and shabby space. Possibly even a promising sign of psychological health.

The second thing was a fired clay paperweight. Handmade, small enough to fit in a palm, glaze-washed. Not a credible weapon. Covertly removed, x-rayed, core sampled, and replaced when Latimer was out of the safehouse for a debrief.

Little touches. Splashes of colour. Nothing to them. And a while after the small, plain glass vase, occasional flowers to go in it. A long enough while, staggered through the other little touches, that the single overworked agent tasked with analysing her movements for covert meaning gave them a cursory glance and reported them as uninteresting and unrevealing, like everything else she did; the quality that had made her an asset to begin with. Boring, boring Latimer, not worth a second glance.

The vase is visible, using binoculars, from certain windows on the top floor of a specific building some distance away. Slowly, quietly, the flowers send a message.

So when I was a kid I dreamt of being an author the same way I dreamt of being a Power Ranger. Then I grew up and realized "oh shit, people can just become writers, nobody can stop you. So I started writing.

I love writing, enough that I kept doing it and I started to get involved with other writers and with the publishing industry.

And since then, my dreams have gotten smaller and smaller every year.

Have you considered going on a killing spree, or otherwise committing some major atrocity? Stay with me. Once you're apprehended, and the true scope of your despicable acts is understood, you'll have publishers beating down your door for your story! Describe your crimes in lavish detail! Write about your evil talking dog! Write anything! They'll print it! We're talking millions of copies sold! MILLIONS! Of course you'll probably have to surrender your royalties to the victims' families, but at least you're on the shelves!

Signed,
a fellow writer