$25.00
**ENE AT ON — "Back The Fire" C60**
SIDE A
---------
Tracks arranged in reverse.
Languages arranged out of order.
Stories tied into knots.
SIDE B
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Gardens
Ghosts
Cowboys
Cassettes
Insects
News
Everything rewinds.
```
---
The tape began at the end.
Or perhaps the beginning.
No one listening could tell.
The first voices spoke in the imaginary language of **Kelovar**, but every sentence had to be read backward.
> **"Selor vi nam tek aru."**
Reverse translation:
> "The tape remembers tomorrow."
Before anyone could answer, another language interrupted.
### **Brashek**
> **"Ul mero tas niv pel kor."**
Reverse translation:
> "The ghost arrived after leaving."
Then another.
### **Orivun**
> **"Nesh var ulok sem tri."**
Reverse translation:
> "Every bug borrowed someone's words."
Suddenly every story from the day tangled together.
The backward romance happened before two strangers met.
The winter ghost floated through snowy gardens carrying a lantern while reading gardening manuals aloud to sleeping cats.
A homemade electronic cassette player translated rustling boxwood leaves into blinking lights.
A mysterious **No Rein C60** rewound itself while a sculpture slowly became uncarved stone.
An impossible iceberg made entirely of ice cream drifted across an Egyptian desert.
A cowboy tipped his hat while carefully removing a stray bit of lint that had blown into a friend's mouth during a windy ride across the prairie, dropping it into a tiny bottle labeled **"Collected Conversations."**
Word Bugs gathered around the bottle and rearranged every sentence into cheerful nonsense.
None of the stories remained in the order they had originally been told.
---
Halfway through the cassette, a newspaper fluttered from between the booklet pages.
The headlines were upside down.
The tape insisted that news should also be heard backward.
It mentioned that parts of the eastern United States were facing a significant early-July heat wave, with dangerous temperatures expected to continue through the Independence Day period. ([The Weather Channel][1])
Another page described major U.S. legal and political news, including a Supreme Court decision affirming the principle of birthright citizenship and several other closely watched rulings. ([The Washington Post][2])
The ghost folded the newspaper neatly and placed it beside the cassette.
"Tomorrow's history," it whispered.
---
The final booklet pages contained natural history notes.
## Buck Moth Caterpillar Life Cycle & Symptoms
The **buck moth** emerges from the soil as an adult in late fall, after leaves have dropped from deciduous trees. Each female lays roughly **70–200** whitish-tan eggs in clusters that encircle oak twigs.
The larvae hatch over an extended period beginning in early spring and may appear before oak leaves have fully emerged. By mid-spring they pass through **five growth stages**, increasing in size from about **1/8 inch** to approximately **2½ inches** long.
Their spines can cause skin irritation if touched.
Young caterpillars often live communally and may travel in striking single-file processions. In autumn they are frequently seen crossing lawns or climbing buildings while searching for places to pupate.
Adult moths generally appear around the beginning of deer hunting season, which is how the species received the common name **buck moth**.
---
The tape slowed.
Every imaginary language began speaking at once.
### **Velun**
> "Teras ul mon vek."
### **Arem**
> "Sol ki nav tor."
### **Reshka**
> "Nelor vis tem ara."
### **Korim**
> "Pelas uro min tek."
Edition of one copy, numbered.