CHAPTER ONE
Poppy's phone vibrates against the bottom of her pillow. She feels the reverberations through her entire skull, from her chin up to the tips of her ears. She rushes to turn it off, to silence the beast disturbing her from a good nights rest. Once the alarm is finally off, the screen brightens to show all of the notifications she got throughout the night. 576 messages in AntiAntler, her online forum for transfem individuals who have to deal with antlers, a video of a pigeon juggling empty coffee cups from Newton, and an email from the admissions board of a random college. "YOU HAVE BEEN PREAPPROVED FOR OUR FINANCIAL AID PROGRAM!!!" or something of that sort. She quickly checks the local area PawsUp forum to see if any of the messages are urgent, and when they aren't she throws the phone across the room. It's 6:15 now, and work starts at 8. She takes 10 more minutes.
She starts the day as she has since high school, a quick shower to wake her up and stretches she learned from fencing classes. She eats a breakfast of toast with strawberry jam, microwave potato and tofu scramble and strong coffee. She can't ride her bike to the factory, there's nowhere to lock it up, so she has to take the bus. Theres hardly any time to enjoy the sunrise cresting over the mountains surrounding the town. The bus makes a few connections and as usual she's a few minutes late to work. Poppy stops into the changing room to put on her jumpsuit, vest and hat before going out to the floor.
Her antlers, shaved down stubs no more than 5 centimeters long apiece, get covered with bits of foam. They poke out of the top of her hat, and with the brightly colored foam balls it draws everyones attention. Every knows her as 'antler girl,' the concept of trans people alluding the machine operators. It's easier to think of her as a freak of nature than simply queer, a fact that constantly amuses her. She gets to her post and starts checking all of the wiring on the right side that likes to come loose as the injection molding machine runs.
something comes to the front of Poppy's mind, something dark and threatening. The pounding machine can no longer drown out the sound of her own anxiety. She sees herself running, running down a long hallway lined with stained glass windows. Nothing ornate, even, mass produced ones like you'd see in an old church. She doesn't know what exactly she's running from, but whatever it is it's only getting closer. She closes her eyes tight, trying to clear her head, but the vision is still there. She hums a tune, a blues song she heard on a radio station once on a roadtrip. She remembers being that little, going north with her family. The thoughts of better things up north keep her moving through another day in paradise.
The bus ride home is more eventful than the ride to work, winding through the downtown block of Hanover. The cities hills and bumps are all felt in full definition through this busses shot suspension. Poppy could write a book about each different busses behavior, she's ridden long enough to recognize each one without looking at its identifying number. This one, B20, rides rougher than the rest though its air breaks are the most fine tuned. The chapter on this one would probably go something like 'bumpity-bumpity-bumpity- screeeech-thunk.' She could even talk about the time she got flung ten feet back by the bus breaking in front of a car pulling out in front of it.
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