Nutshell - Udon is 18, recent high school grad, finishing up senior project at fire station. Just finished basic dispatcher course and EFD dispatcher certification in June, new hire as backup dispatch. Working to save money to go away to state university. So he can blow stuff up.

Lives at home with parents and 4 siblings. Is it any wonder he's usually lurking around?

( More stuff you never wanted to know )

[text post sent from his cell phone because he was too wiped to climb the ladder]

Home. Hungover. Gonna smoke some sage and let the frogs talk.

[what Tonbo does in Somewhere during the day, my waah waah angst]

Tonbo didn't consider himself a role model. The idea was ludicrous, anathema. Until the first time a mother asked him to visit with her son.

"Hey, Tonbo, will I go blind, too?"

He'd been asked that question at least twice, every year he sat in the children's wing, waiting for his next test. And every child in the room suddenly grew quiet, listening for his answer. Because they all wanted to know.

They never asked him if they would die. He'd been where they were, in a hospital bed, weak and sick, unable to go outside or go to school. Hair falling out and legs aching despite the drugs. But he wasn't dead. He was their hope. He'd amassed a list of children, at least forty, maybe more, who waited for his test results more impatiently than he did. Five years in remission, six, seven... He tried not to notice when names dropped off the list.

"I don't know."

He never lied to them. He wondered if the adults hated him for that, even if they forgave him for his coarse language and his strange clothes. The kids didn't care.

Until today.

The little boy twisted the fabric of his hospital gown. Tonbo could hear small hands working frantically. "Does it hurt?" he asked, his voice so small even Tonbo had to strain to hear it.

Tonbo smiled. He wanted to throw up. "No. It didn't hurt at all."

His first lie. Going blind hadn't hurt physically, not the way the needles did, or the tubes, or the scopes, or the disease itself.

But it'd been the most painful thing in his life.

done done done done done

guess i missed the band

but im done its done all done

mud doesnt take long to dry when its not raining

sometimes i wish i had a tub i miss baths

evelyn is coming tomorrow tomorrow right monday is tomorrow today feels like yesterday

i found my underwear in a wisteria tree but the bees wont let me have them back

17 vases painted then smashed into a wall, 14 pictures taken, printed, and cut up, and 6 cans of paint blended. I want to burn the straw but the washtub is full of soap and water. Done for now. There's a rooster crowing, so I should eat breakfast before I sleep.

When I get up, I'll start glueing. Then I'm going to listen to music. At a bar. Yuugao said she will walk with me. She's in the band, too. I wonder who else is in it? Guitarist, singing, keyboards. There should be a drummer, at least. Unless they use a machine.

Next week I might eat pork chops.

Something to look forward to.

If I turn the music up louder, maybe the rooster will learn a new song

Name: Tonbo Tobitake, this is what he calls himself, nobody knows his real name
Age: 24 (will be 25 on Apr4, Saturday; a decade of blindness!)
Height: 5'5"
Weight: 122lbs

( And more you never wanted to know about the cranky blind guy )