This message just came in last night. Uggh.

"Whoever you are, I want my talk-box back. I don't want to hurt you, I just want the box. There are four of those boxes on this whole stinking planet, and I used to have two. Okay, you got to me, whoever you are. Very funny, you know? I know it's still working cause I can see you when you use it. Huh? I can't hear you. Nothing clever to say now? Okay, now, bitch, just bring me back that box, I'll think about letting you keep your eyes. That's all from me, the Potato King."

If you think I'm scared asshole, or that I'm gonna bring back this box. you got another think coming. Good luck, fat boy. Why don't you come get me? I'll give you a little love bite. That's all from me, Lucy.

You know my birthday came and went while I was heading into the desert, running from what I'd done, running from what I didn't do, running from Scare City, running from the Potato King and his bangers. For a while there, I lost track of the days, but by the time I got this transmitter up and working again, I had turned seventeen.

I feel.. what? Lonelier than a person should ever feel? Crazy? Way past crazy, actually. Past scared too. If I ever see Scare City again, watch out. I'm five feet six, I look like a hot mess and I've got enough explosives in my teeth to leave a good-sized crater in the ground. Shit, I'm the scariest thing out here, you know? Fuckin' bring it on.

The heat feels like it's never going to let up. I think I'm losing it. Last night I saw this thing, and it really freaked me out. I was out listening to the transmitter, I can't get good signal in the cave. I get so lonely sometimes I just listen to the static. When it makes a little more noise than usual, that's like, a big event in my night, you know?

So I'm listening, looking up at the sky. Suddenly the static went from bzzzzzzzz bzzzzzzzzz to this regular bup-bup-bup-bup kind of sound. It almlost had a beat. I got really excited, but scared too. I was holding my breath, trying to hear every part of the sound, when I saw the little boy.

I mean it looked just like a little boy, except he was blue. He was standing ten feet from me in the darkness just outside the light from the transmitter. We looked at each other for a minute. Then I spoke to him like an idiot and he vanished. Why'd I have to go and do that?

I looked around. It was just hot and quiet, and now the static was back to normal. I said Lucy you're fucking going crazy out here in this shit.

Still hot. I think I'm hallucinating. I hear things at night that sound so real. Voices. I don't know. Songs. You know how sometimes a song just won't stop repeating and repeating in your head? Happens all the time up here. Every little scrap you can remember of even a really dumb song is like, precious, because it's from home. On the other hand, the songs go around in your head for days and you can't stop the motherfuckers.

Today's insanity loop is this happy-sounding song they play on Radio Gigante. It only sounds happy though. It's called "Ue O Muite". "OO-ay oh MOO-oo-ee-tay." I saw it written. That's all I know cause it's in Japanese, another language I don't speak, but they put the words en ingles in the Gigante broadside, and they go like this:

I look up when I walk so the tears won't fall
Remembering those happy spring days
But tonight I'm all alone
Happiness lies beyond the clouds
Happiness lies above the sky

I look up when I walk so the tears won't fall
Though my heart is filled with sorrow
For tonight I'm all alone
Sadness hides in the shadow of the stars
Sadness lurks in the shadow of the moon

The singer even whistles for one verse, trying to sound like his heartbreak isn't going to get him down, but inside he knows better. To me it's just the saddest song. Here I am, looking up I see two suns, three moons, and millions of lonely stars.

Did I tell you about the suns up here? That's right, SUNS motherfucker. There's two of them, no lie. They're stuck together and they make one big ball of hell, I'm telling you. They say the little one orbits around the big one, but it takes like, two years or something. All I know is, when I got here, the little one was to the right, now it's on the left, but either way it's never been less than extremelyfuckinghot 20 hours out of every 28.

So I've been out here in the deep desert for two weeks, and I thought I'd learned a trick or two for staying alive. I move at night, sleep days in this red rock cave I found. My stash of clean water (thanks, Potato King) has been holding up, and I've even gotten used to the powdered food, mostly. I was still alive and I hadn't gone crazy, yet.

So, you know, I thought I was slick.

Then it got really hot. Coño it got hot. The thermo on the zip-wagon broke when I crashed, so I don't have an exact number, but I know it's way past extremelyfuckinghot. I can tell you that.

Am I crazy? It's crazy to keep trying to live like this. The double sun thing is just kicking my ass and the water's gonna run out sometime, but I keep acting like this is a temporary setback rather than the scene of my death. I must be crazy.