A black-and-white comic. A stippled, realistically-proportioned hand hangs from the top of the image. A caption reads, "About nine years ago I started college." One hand clenches, angular, while another contorts itself to grip the first hand's wrist. The next caption reads, "Eight and a half years ago I dropped out because of my increasingly disabling anxiety disorder." A hand grips the caption, "Then a lot of stuff happened." A hand gently reaches up. "Yesterday I opened a website," a hand clutches. "And saw that I passed all my classes this semester, Spring 2025." A hand grips a pen. "After a decade of part-time, and isolation," a closed, warped fist, "and panic attacks, and failures," two hands grip one another desperately and unevenly like a root system or a dead octopus. "I now have a B.A. in Applied Math." A hand hangs loosely, relaxed. "I did it." Then, in blank space, "Now all that's left is the rest."
Panel 1: Ayotli, a short young woman with a big round nose, peeks through a door frame. Ayotli: "Hello?" Panel 2: Various containers, devices, and tools are spread over the floor and several counters. The room is cramped for all the stuff in it. Ayotli: "Whoa." Panel 3: Zissel, a tall, thin woman with a long braid and a pointy nose, rigidly strides into view from around a corner. Zissel: "Hey! You're candidate H5, right?" Panel 4: Ayotli has short hair and wears a tank top, emphasizing her shoulders. Dismayed, she hunches and reaches out a hand to Zissel, looking up at her face. Zissel herself is leaning forward with her hands on her hips, expectant. Ayotli: "Um. I'm Ayotli." Panel 5: Zissel reciprocates the dap. Both she and Ayotli stand straighter and relax their faces. Zissel: "Okay. Ayotli. I'm Wizard Zissel."
Panel 1: Zissel leads Ayotli through the workshop. Zissel: "So, listen." Panel 2: Zissel reaches her destination and, still standing, makes a few final keystrokes on her three-monitor computer setup. Ayotli looks on. Zissel: "Your destiny has been a fairly slapdash project." Panel 3: Zissel stretches a set of gel-strands, one of the handles between her teeth. Zissel: "Ernf. I'd like to apologize on behalf of the administration for the sake of mutual trust going forwards." Panel 4: Zissel is silent as she wraps the strands around the large bdellic-wave transmitter she had been preparing. Panel 5: Ayotli is hunched again, her left hand holding her right elbow. Zissel sits down in her rolling chair as the transmitter powers up. Zissel: "And that's all they wanted me to say, but..."
Panel 1: Zissel meets Ayotli's gaze, expression concerned but frank. Zissel: "I also want to say that the administration is kind of stretched thin because of this whole situation, which, by the way, is the only reason I CAN say this to you without being reprimanded." Panel 2: A dark crack begins to shatter a grid. Ayotli looks on, holding her arms against each other. Zissel: "Normally the high shamans have these planned out years in advance but this one caught us by surprise and we haven't been able to be as rigorous as we should be." Panel 3: Zissel almost looks angry, jabbing a thumb at herself. Zissel: "So... our information-gathering isn't very rigorous. Our mapping isn't very rigorous. Our selection of advisor--read, ME--wasn't very rigorous." Panel 4: Ayotli stands and listens, surrounded by the chaos of the workshop. Zissel: "And our selection of hero--read, YOU--was even less so." Panel 5: Zissel is bent over in her chair, so now Ayotli has to look slightly down at her. The workshop disappears, and it's just the two of them, Zissel's words against Ayotli's expression--something subtle, something sad and concerned but not denying hope. Zissel: "We're playing it by ear." Panel 6: The workshop returns. Ayotli looks up and away, wondering. Ayotli: "Will we be okay?" Zissel looks down and away. Zissel: "Hm. We'll see." A darkness forebodes.
PAGE 1 - A fellow decides to make a dinner, even if it seems impossible to others. Panel 1 - Fellow: "Hmm... Yes... Yes, I think I will..." Panel 2 - Fellow: "I will make a dinner." Panel 3 - Guest A: "Did he say a dinner?" Guest B: "It just can't be... dinners are so hard to make!" Guest C: "And the easy dinners are depressing..." Guest D: "It's the most expensive meal of the day!" Panel 4 - Fellow: "OH! My sweet people." Panel 5 - Fellow: "Comrades." Panel 6 - Fellow: "Friends!"
PAGE 2 - The fellow assures his comrades of the dinner, then serves it to the pleasure of all. Panel 1 - Fellow: "This very evening, I will prepare a roast chicken, spinach salad with chickpeas, and fried plantains as a treat." Panel 2 - Fellow: "To you all, I will serve this dinner," Panel 3 - Fellow: "for free." Panel 4 - Narration: And so like their ancestors before them and their ancestors' ancestors and so on, the gathered companions partook in that joyous hominin habit of the feast. One after another, they thought to themselves, How strange. While Kronos's spiral guarantees my descent into lonesome perdition, so too does it assure a sweet return to this moment of peace, plenitude, & goodwill.
A four-panel black and white comic. Some tough guy (you can tell because he's wearing a tank top) shouts, "You want me to fix you a knuckle sandwich??" Some other guy yells back "Oh I would love to see you try!!" The tough guy turns around and does something with his hands. He faces the other guy again and, somber-faced, reveals a sandwich on a plate with what looks like a fist between the two pieces of bread. Both of his hands are visible.
Another black-and-white comics page. The sandwich, on close inspection, isn't quite a single fist. Multiple bumpy ridges indicate several lines of knuckles at odd angles to one another. Dark, knobbly shapes are visible poking out from between the slices. They drip an unidentified liquid. The other guy holds the sandwich, apprehensive. Slowly, he brings it up to his mouth. His jaw opens. The bumps poking out of the sandwich look just the knuckles on his own curled fingers. He bites down.
