glow, worm hole. glow.

Rolo says this is 9/9 of 'the blinking lights'. Here are 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9
----

There was no one at the road by the Blinking Lights when I passed by, and I
didn't see any lights either.

It was quite chilly, the breeze cutting the crickets' chirping thin. Luckily,
they seemed to be in a good mood tonight - there are, at least, some things in
the universe that no bully can ever spoil for you, and one of them is the
crickets' chirping. It's like the sound of one hand clapping.

There was another commotion at the grocery store. Bluejay was there with some
of his friends, chatting with the owner, Mr. Everidge, as Pretty Rogerson danced
around them excitedly. As I approached, I could see that the young man
previously robbing the store was bent over with his hands behind his back.
Bluejay was manhandling him, while Mr. Everidge tried to stop Bluejay.

"No, no," said Mr. Everidge, "you don't have to take him. It was just a little
thing... no hassle ..."

One of Bluejay's friends roughed the young man some more. "Do you think this is
a joke?" said Bluejay angrily to the owner. Everidge, noticing me, rolled his eyes.
I waved back. "No, not a joke, as such," mumbled Mr. Everidge, "Just ..."

"Look, we can't have crimes occurring and not being addressed," said Bluejay,
giving me a once over, "As it is, we already have enough nuts running loose."

"Could be because of the Blinking Lights ... " mumbled the owner, with his hands
in his pockets. I found this very interesting and leaned against the wall to
hear more. Pretty Rogerson also stopped circling around them to listen.

Bluejay, on the other hand, got very angry. "Again with the damn lights! There
are no lights, damn you, no damn lights!"

Mr. Everidge seemed to take offense to this. "Well, I prefer to, er, take a more
intellectually honest perspective on such things," he mumbled.

This caused Bluejay's eyes to pop open. "Intellectually honest? Intellectually
honest? How can you say that?" Pretty Rogerson had walked off into the store.

"Well, you know - I mean, some of it must be true. I mean, sure, there may be
some made up stuff there, but even if there's, say, one percent of truth there,
it is, you know, worth hearing about..."

They went on about this for some time, but I didn't hear much more about the
Blinking Lights. Pretty Rogerson came out of the store and handed me some
bandaids. "For the wounds," he explained, and I smiled at him and shook his hand.

There wasn't much else to see, so I started back to Arlene's place. I seemed
to be doing pretty well with my breaths - keeping them around 15-16 each minute.
I couldn't wait to tell Rolo about it - and also about the conversation I'd
heard regarding the Blinking Lights. It was, then, only when I neared the road
where the lights were supposed to be that I noticed the crickets had stopped
their chirping. A little puzzled, I looked down the narrow road.

Rolo was standing there, surrounded by the Blinking Lights.