I just lost it, ok? I was so tired of waiting for Eli and Becca to reappear. I was so tired of having no way to find them. I was so tired of the whole world careening towards climate catastrophe and most people pretending it couldn't be stopped. So tired of feeling powerless.

I was in the rose garden on lower campus, at the place where Eli and Becca disappeared. I was so depressed I didn't want even ask @Quisp 73 to come. Nobody was around. If somebody had been around I might not have done it.

But instead, I did it. At first it was an accident. It just slipped out--a bubble of flame coming to life around me, incinerating the winter rose bushes in about a 10 foot radius, leaving a smoldering circle burnt into the garden.

And then I got mad at myself. Mad for losing control, and mad that by flaming up like that I just created more smoke and heat for the atmosphere to absorb, which just made me lose it even more. I thought about blue white flames, electro-magnetic heat, and the Maxwell's equations they'd been teaching me in class, and ΔEtherm=Cp×ΔT, and plasma vaporization.

And I just let it rip. I vaporized the entire rose garden down to elementary particles. No smoke, no fire, just pure plasma. I vaporized the winter rose twigs, vaporized the earth and peat, vaporized the flagstones and the bricks and the rocks in the earth and all benches.

And I let it keep ripping. Not bigger--I kept it contained to the rose garden, but burning harder, deeper. I burned away all of the scenery and props and the very idea that it was a garden. I burned away all the history that had brought it to that point. I burned it right down to the bare stage floor of the reality studio.

"Oh, there you are," said Eli.

"FINALLY!" said Becca.

And there they were. Eli and Becca. But... all rolled into one.

Oh yeah, for sure @Luna Menahi, the power to stop global climate change is totally real. It's something everyone could have, except that it's being siphoned out of our minds by the global post-capitalist psychic supply chain... or DE-supply chain. It's part of the S.S.S. -- Systemic Soul Suck -- that Eli and Becca discovered.

How exactly is this power leeched off of us? A combination of chemicals in our food, air, and water, and malicious behavior memes transmitted through the world electro-magnetic grid.

How then do we resist? Well, for starters, have you ever noticed how there's no power or phone lines that go over campus?

"So why do you think they're aliens?" @Quisp 73 asked.

Quisp and I spent another afternoon at the rose garden on lower campus at the place where Eli and Becca disappeared. It was a little warmer than last week, and Quisp was wearing a better coat so I didn't need to warm things up.

"Well that's what Eli and Becca said. Aliens. And, I mean, it kind of makes sense at least in terms of technology and stuff. Like, if the aliens are smart enough to know how to visit other planets, then maybe they'd know advanced stuff like 'fixing broken ecosystems' too?"

"Hmmmm. I guess," said Quisp. "But it's not like us earthlings don't know 'how' to do it, it's just a lot of hard work. So instead of doing it we sit around hoping somebody will show us a short cut?"

"Yeah, I don't know. Really I'm more interested in 'where did Eli and Becca disappear to' than solving global climate change."

"Well it's certainly easier. I mean, just sitting around here in the gardens, instead of, I dunno, recycling, or giving up meat, or planting trees, or unplugging ourselves from the global fossil-fuel powered supply chain, or protesting, or writing elected representatives, or--"

"Ok, I get it." Jeesh, Quisp can be kind of annoying sometimes.

So we waited awhile longer in silence in the rose garden. Then we left.

Is it crazy to think that aliens want us to keep from destroying our planet? Do we really need some secret cabal of beings who "know all the secrets," but are unwilling (or unable?) to come help us themselves?

At Psyhigh, we learn about all kinds of secret cabals. I didn't even know the word "cabal" before I came here, but they teach us about the Illuminati, the Masons, the Rosicrucians, the Invisible College, the Rotarians, the Hypnosis Cabal, the Elks, the Eagles, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, BTS, the Akashic Record Collectors Club, the Woodmen of the World, the Dhyan-Chohans, the Twelve Orders, the Seven Orders, the Take-out Orders, the Secret Chiefs, the Ghost Union, the Spirit Guides, Thee Temple ov Psychick Youth, the Universal Brotherhood, the Universal Sisterhood, the Universal Queerhood, and a lot more--all true.

But none of THOSE cabals seem particularly interested in the very real and provably rapid and dangerous (but still maybe somewhat preventable) deterioration of our earth's ecosystem. Maybe because some of them are actually behind it.

Anyway, that's what Eli and Becca thought--that they'd found some aliens who were interested and wanted to help.

I didn't believe them, but then they disappeared, right there in the center of the rose garden in lower campus.

Spent some of the day on lower campus, at the place where Eli and Becca disappeared. @Quisp 73 hung out with me the whole time, but I kept him warm. Just low-level radiant infrared emissions. Nothing dangerous. Probably confusing for the rose bushes though.

Do I really think they'll just reappear there in the same spot? After all this time? Maybe. I guess I just don't have anything else solid to hold on to. The school counselor says "well anything is possible" but I think he just doesn't want to snuff me out.

I bought a paper crown. It was leftovers from last summer's Birthday of the Goddess Party, which was only for students identifying as goddesses.

I was still a hot head back then, and I apologize to everyone caught in the blaze. I'm going to keep this paper crown with me as a reminder, and if it ever starts to singe I'll start my breathing exercises like Mrs. Fornax taught me.

I am on fire. Literally. All the time.