too trifling

Amy started searching the Berkeley newspapers for any news of her sister. She thought the Berkeleyan Online might mention something if anything had happened--until she saw that it was published by the Office of Public Affairs. Not the place to look for disappearances. The Berkeley campus police reports were strangely silent on these, though they detailed laundry thefts and illegal book sales. The IHerald seemed promising, but it had far too national a scope to mention that one Berkeley student had not contacted home in over a month. The Oakland Tribune seemed a far more likely place to report tragedies, or even potential tragedies.

After wading through the trivialities of transit votes, blood bank pleas, and local trials, she was tempted to go on the chat lines and ask if anyone had seen Anna. But she knew before she went on that she would never get past the "Hi" "Where are you from" "What is the weather like there?" stage.

And if she did, who would have remembered seeing her sister? Who would have said, "Yes, of course, she was the one that ordered an extra pickle with her submarine sandwich at the Soup and Salad place. I remember that very well." Or "Oh yes, she was in my Chem120 section and looked up when I asked the prof about molecular fusion when we were on the interaction of light with matter." Or "Oh, isn't she the one that walked out when we changed the channel to MTV in the commons room? You said she was in which dorm again? Foothills. I don't know anyone in there, but I know a substance free-er in Freeboard. No more smoking."

These are all the lines she thought about but that did not cross her screen. The question was too important to subject to trifles.

empty atoms / thicken / into crowds / too trifling / to be constrained / sufficient / for shadows / under the sun

the word is / the sound / of water / dripping from/ ancient symbols / tiny particles / of merging / realities


Follow us all: Amy/Anna, Sophie/Yuki, Kit/Richard, minor characters or sift through water leavings and river journeys.