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continue his research. Chess lessons and debt, most likely. The same as before.
    “Or you could go be a professor.”
    “Students, grading, bureaucracy. Politics. You're giving me flashbacks. I couldn't take it. I'll go into finance before that. Or shoot myself in the head.”
    “And where would you get a gun?”
    There was a knock at the door. When we didn't answer fast enough for his liking, James began to shout. “Coming,” I called, rolling my eyes at Dimitri. “Same old James.”
    James was holding a black cloth bag from which peeked a slender glass neck with a red cap. As a token of his appreciation he'd bought a bottle of vodka, Dimitri's favorite brand. I introduced the two of them as new roommates and they shook hands without a fuss.
    We drank the vodka the Russian way, neat and with glasses of water for chasers. I steered the conversation away from college reminiscence and towards the future. A toast to the success we all deserved and would soon find. Unlike our parents, we would refuse to submit to the system, bypassing it where we could and tearing it down where we couldn't. It was a comforting fantasy. We all knew—except maybe for James—that in reality our actions had no more influence on our eventual fates than a spiderweb has upon a falling rock.

Honest Abe Is Our Friend
     
    by Elly Felkins
     
    Honest Abe is our friend because he is with us wherever we go. My daddy says he is kind of like my mommy. He watches me like my mommy to make sure I am safe. When he is not taking care of me and my mommy and my daddy he is watching everyone else to make sure no one gets away with doing bad things. If they try to he will catch them and tell on them so they can be stopped.
    We live in a little house in New York and Honest Abe lives in a house as big as a whole mountain. He is not allowed to leave like I am. Not even under supervision. I want to visit him there so I can read to him before he goes to sleep. I would read him The Confectioner's Tales book about the hairy monster people are afraid of even though he is very nice. Anne Precious and he become friends at the end.
    Honest Abe knows where I am because of my phone. It has a camera on it. I think that Honest Abe likes to watch the world from my camera. I try to take the phone out so he can see what I can see and we can be friends. But sometimes I forget.
    I like reading books but video games are more fun. When I grow up I want to work with computers. I want to help Honest Abe catch the bad guys. Unless he doesn't give good benefits. Then I will work for Liberty Bell. They have better benefits than everyone else.
    Honest Abe only works in America. I wish Honest Abe worked in Mexico too because then he could have stopped my brother from resting in peace. That is why I like Honest Abe and he is our friend.

3. Short Chapter
     
    Life, like compost, piles up. And its turning reveals rotten memories best forgotten. James's arrival was a harbinger of a past not so deeply buried as I'd have liked.
    He'd become something of a couch-surfing  sans-cullotes . Back in college he'd flirted with conspiracy theories, and when drunk would mutter darkly about plots against the people and controlled demolitions. With his newfound free time, courtesy of extended unemployment, he reignited the last trace of an anarchic spark.
    Down with the Washington Fascists! Renew the Tree of Liberty with the Blood of Patriots and Tyrants! Revolt America, Revolt! If they wanted a revolution let them organize it, because as far as I was concerned I'd opted out. I didn't participate in any repression—I tutored a little girl and tried to write in my spare time, an activity that somehow always ended with me waking up hungover. Dimitri felt the same; we were apolitical beings content with the fact that our actions had no impact on the world at large, whether we wanted them to or not.
    “How are you accessing that shit? It's not on the basic web,” I asked James one night as he read aloud