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You&& (working title) is a queer novella about when home is other people, including the monsters lurking in the woods. Check out the about page here. You&& is a sequel to Sometimes The Mountain Buries You.
Before you left Basin's small cabin, they asked you if you were in their head so much because you're new. You didn't have an answer, you're still working on one.
In a way, Basin is more familiar with these things than you are. Basin knows so much about you because they met someone you never will. Enough that you reckon sifting and pulling their every memory of Sheppard and the other person they thought of every time they thought of Sheppard would take days. The proposition feels wrong somehow, intrusive, because of how Basin feels—pain; heart-weary and heart-ache, and a complex blend of emotions—whenever they think of Sheppard and the other person they thought of every time they thought of Sheppard.
While picking plants, shifting twig and needle, rotating rocks, and tracking the things that shouldn't be here, you instead hold close something else Basin said—something that creates a complex blend of emotions in you. Your name.
As much as something else tells you that you're dangerous, you're lethal, no small part of you recognizes the benefit Basin's company. You know how to tend your wounds, how to better move in and out of minds, what tea is, the uses of many plants, having a name, being in the company of another person.
It's enjoyable to you. You know that for Basin it's integral. The company of other people, even when they're not there, is everything to Basin. All-encompassing home.
Home.
Here, in all-encompassing nature how it should be, you think and feel, Home. Here, the birds and mice, deer and bears, are home. Here, rock and dirt, tree and brush, are home.
This is your home. It's different from what Basin calls home, from what Basin needs.
In your shelter, your eyes wander. Is this home? The things you've collected feel home maybe. The rib bone in your hand less so until you give it a place amongst the collection.
You consider expanding your shelter after the coming winter. Maybe with a space for fire. Maybe Basin knows more useful things that you would be partial to and would be partial to knowing about before making your own home.
The next time you visit Basin is a Tuesday. You knock the way they told you to. Their kitchen smells strongly of spice and herb, their dish rack is towering with large bowls and large utensils, the proximity of your arrival to what being withdrawn from Basin's mind shows recent memories of many people sharing food—withdrawn because their question is still bothering you—makes them press their lips into a flat line. You are probably glad to be withdrawn from Basin's mind, you reckon they are running through how it could go if you visited after cooking too much on Monday evenings.
When you inform them that you are not injured, their eyebrows also press into a line. "Well, since you're here, would you like leftovers, Tern?"
Your first human meal floors you. You do eat what the woods offers—you do eat the things the things that should not be here, though they are hardly sustenance—and have found, beyond survival, the enjoyment of thimbleberry sweetness, salmonberry bitterness, venison hearty, moose heartier, mushrooms complex. This is a composition of ingredients, each with individualized preparation then applied spice and herb, salt and heat. "More, this."
Basin chuckles. "Sure."
It's easier to know things after asking. After the inundation of taste and texture, you ask what this meal was and how to make it. The answer determines that you will include a space for fire in your home, and a washbasin. When you leave Basin who is still troubled by your lack of injury to tend, you leave satisfied in hunger and desire for knowledge—better results than you could have imagined on this experimental foray to Basin's small cabin, Basin's home, Basin's company.
So you come back again. Once, there are other people in Basin's small cabin and you slink back into the woods. Second, after consuming a thing that shouldn't be here with minimal injury, you flaunt the fresh heal of mending yourself.
Basin smirks, tells you good job but asks what you used to keep yourself together, troubles about your lack of injury to tend, wonders if you're capable of having an infection.
You don't think anything in the woods that is supposed to be in the woods can be rejected by or harm your body that way. All-encompassing nature how it should be is something you are a part of, it encompasses you. There is no part of the woods that doesn't nourish you.
They offer you the suture kits they used on you, offer to teach you how to sterilize the tools—requiring a space for fire. They consider but don't ask if you want to practice stitches.
Third, again lacking injury to tend, you lay on the thick dark brown carpet resembling grizzly bear pelt and play with Juniper. Basin reads a folded and stapled set of papers, Zine, and you drift in and out of their head as they read the words, interpret them, interpret their meaning, and think about the Indigenous land protector blockade detailed on the pages and their experiences on other blockades, other efforts, other protests. When their encroaching need for sleep takes notice they take note of the time, and breathe long and slow. "Why do you keep coming around?"
You pause in a waggling talon formerly waggling at Juniper. Juniper takes the opportunity to bat at the formerly waggling talon to no distraction of yours. "I like, talking, to you." You and Basin have hardly talked this evening.
You feel the pad of Basin's finger run along paper edge, feel it just about to but then not cut them as the automatic part of their brain draws on their experience handling paper. They do these things when they think in this way—pressing curling fingers on their mug, fumbling their sewing needle.
These things stand out to you, hold your nervous attention.
"I guess I am the first person you've ever talked to."
Like but not the same as their question, this bothers you. That your enjoyment of their company is somehow predicated on lack of experience, the presumption that you wouldn't enjoy it as much if you had something to compare it to. That your enjoyment, your like is somehow not real.
You bristle. You know you're bristling because Basin watches it happen.
They don't say anything.
You could sulk. You could leave. Instead, you ask, "What do you know about fire?" and do your best—poorly—to cow the bristle and sulk from your voice. Juniper bats at the formerly waggling talon as you waggle it again.
Before you left Basin's small cabin, they asked you if you were in their head so much because you're new. You didn't have an answer, you're still working on one.
In a way, Basin is more familiar with these things than you are. Basin knows so much about you because they met someone you never will. Enough that you reckon sifting and pulling their every memory of Sheppard and the other person they thought of every time they thought of Sheppard would take days. The proposition feels wrong somehow, intrusive, because of how Basin feels—pain; heart-weary and heart-ache, and a complex blend of emotions—whenever they think of Sheppard and the other person they thought of every time they thought of Sheppard.
While picking plants, shifting twig and needle, rotating rocks, and tracking the things that shouldn't be here, you instead hold close something else Basin said—something that creates a complex blend of emotions in you. Your name.
As much as something else tells you that you're dangerous, you're lethal, no small part of you recognizes the benefit Basin's company. You know how to tend your wounds, how to better move in and out of minds, what tea is, the uses of many plants, having a name, being in the company of another person.
It's enjoyable to you. You know that for Basin it's integral. The company of other people, even when they're not there, is everything to Basin. All-encompassing home.
Home.
Here, in all-encompassing nature how it should be, you think and feel, Home. Here, the birds and mice, deer and bears, are home. Here, rock and dirt, tree and brush, are home.
This is your home. It's different from what Basin calls home, from what Basin needs.
In your shelter, your eyes wander. Is this home? The things you've collected feel home maybe. The rib bone in your hand less so until you give it a place amongst the collection.
You consider expanding your shelter after the coming winter. Maybe with a space for fire. Maybe Basin knows more useful things that you would be partial to and would be partial to knowing about before making your own home.
The next time you visit Basin is a Tuesday. You knock the way they told you to. Their kitchen smells strongly of spice and herb, their dish rack is towering with large bowls and large utensils, the proximity of your arrival to what being withdrawn from Basin's mind shows recent memories of many people sharing food—withdrawn because their question is still bothering you—makes them press their lips into a flat line. You are probably glad to be withdrawn from Basin's mind, you reckon they are running through how it could go if you visited after cooking too much on Monday evenings.
When you inform them that you are not injured, their eyebrows also press into a line. "Well, since you're here, would you like leftovers, Tern?"
Your first human meal floors you. You do eat what the woods offers—you do eat the things the things that should not be here, though they are hardly sustenance—and have found, beyond survival, the enjoyment of thimbleberry sweetness, salmonberry bitterness, venison hearty, moose heartier, mushrooms complex. This is a composition of ingredients, each with individualized preparation then applied spice and herb, salt and heat. "More, this."
Basin chuckles. "Sure."
It's easier to know things after asking. After the inundation of taste and texture, you ask what this meal was and how to make it. The answer determines that you will include a space for fire in your home, and a washbasin. When you leave Basin who is still troubled by your lack of injury to tend, you leave satisfied in hunger and desire for knowledge—better results than you could have imagined on this experimental foray to Basin's small cabin, Basin's home, Basin's company.
So you come back again. Once, there are other people in Basin's small cabin and you slink back into the woods. Second, after consuming a thing that shouldn't be here with minimal injury, you flaunt the fresh heal of mending yourself.
Basin smirks, tells you good job but asks what you used to keep yourself together, troubles about your lack of injury to tend, wonders if you're capable of having an infection.
You don't think anything in the woods that is supposed to be in the woods can be rejected by or harm your body that way. All-encompassing nature how it should be is something you are a part of, it encompasses you. There is no part of the woods that doesn't nourish you.
They offer you the suture kits they used on you, offer to teach you how to sterilize the tools—requiring a space for fire. They consider but don't ask if you want to practice stitches.
Third, again lacking injury to tend, you lay on the thick dark brown carpet resembling grizzly bear pelt and play with Juniper. Basin reads a folded and stapled set of papers, Zine, and you drift in and out of their head as they read the words, interpret them, interpret their meaning, and think about the Indigenous land protector blockade detailed on the pages and their experiences on other blockades, other efforts, other protests. When their encroaching need for sleep takes notice they take note of the time, and breathe long and slow. "Why do you keep coming around?"
You pause in a waggling talon formerly waggling at Juniper. Juniper takes the opportunity to bat at the formerly waggling talon to no distraction of yours. "I like, talking, to you." You and Basin have hardly talked this evening.
You feel the pad of Basin's finger run along paper edge, feel it just about to but then not cut them as the automatic part of their brain draws on their experience handling paper. They do these things when they think in this way—pressing curling fingers on their mug, fumbling their sewing needle.
These things stand out to you, hold your nervous attention.
"I guess I am the first person you've ever talked to."
Like but not the same as their question, this bothers you. That your enjoyment of their company is somehow predicated on lack of experience, the presumption that you wouldn't enjoy it as much if you had something to compare it to. That your enjoyment, your like is somehow not real.
You bristle. You know you're bristling because Basin watches it happen.
They don't say anything.
You could sulk. You could leave. Instead, you ask, "What do you know about fire?" and do your best—poorly—to cow the bristle and sulk from your voice. Juniper bats at the formerly waggling talon as you waggle it again.
