$30.00
PHANIE ILLS – “If I Were You” (c45 + insert)**
*a story that digs downward until Mars becomes a lawn and the lawn becomes a memory*
---
The record began with a question that refused to stay still:
> *If I were you—would I dig?*
The voice on the c45 was PHANIE ILLS, though sometimes it sounded like the shovel answering back.
---
### **I. THE PATCH**
It started with a dead spot.
Not dramatic. Not cinematic.
Just a patch of lawn that didn’t green up with the others, as if it had missed a cue and decided not to improvise.
You stood over it, holding the insert.
It instructed gently, almost politely:
> Use a shovel.
> Dig a few Frisbee-sized samples.
> Go about 2 inches deep.
> Look.
So you did.
The first cut into the turf felt like opening a sealed envelope addressed to the ground.
You lifted the slice.
Roots hung like unfinished sentences.
Soil crumbled like old cassette tape foam.
Nothing yet.
---
### **II. THE SECOND DIG (DEEPER THAN 2 INCHES, ACCIDENTALLY)**
The second sample went deeper than intended.
Two inches became three.
Three became curiosity.
The shovel struck something that was not quite rock, not quite memory.
You brushed it aside.
And there they were—
Curved, pale, unmistakable.
C-shaped.
White.
About three-quarters of an inch long.
They did not flee.
They did not hide.
They simply **were**, as if they had always been part of the lawn’s grammar.
---
One of them rotated slightly, acknowledging your presence.
> “If I were you,” it seemed to say,
> “I would not have waited.”
---
### **III. THE INSERT CHANGES ITS TONE**
The paper in your hand rewrote itself:
> These are most likely European chafer larvae.
> Especially if there is no irrigation.
You looked around.
No sprinklers.
No hoses.
Just dryness pretending to be normal.
---
### **IV. DUSK ARRIVES EARLY**
Without warning, the sky dimmed—not into night, but into **June remembering itself**.
The record clicked.
Track two began:
> *They fly at dusk…*
You saw it then—not in the present, but layered over it:
Beetles rising into evening air.
Not swarming. Not aggressively.
Just… emerging.
Casually devastating.
They moved after sunset, where attention rarely follows.
They did not announce themselves.
They did not need to.
---
### **V. THE HOLE CONTINUES DOWN**
You kept digging.
Because the question hadn’t stopped.
> *If I were you—would I stop here?*
The lawn gave way.
Soil shifted from brown to red.
Roots thinned, then disappeared.
The grubs remained, though fewer, as if their jurisdiction ended somewhere above.
---
You reached a layer that pulsed faintly.
Mars.
Not metaphorically.
Not symbolically.
Just… there.
A continuation of the same problem, but older.
---
### **VI. MARS, BUT IT’S STILL A LAWN**
The surface of Mars was patchy.
Dry.
Suspiciously familiar.
You knelt and dug again.
Two inches.
The rule still applied.
Even here.
---
And there—
Again—
C-shaped.
White.
Unbothered by planets.
---
A voice, not quite PHANIE ILLS, not quite your own, spoke:
> “Conditions determine presence.
> Dry years invite them.
> Wet years forget them.
> But they are never gone.”
---
### **VII. THE WEATHER REMEMBERS**
The air shifted between seasons rapidly:
A dry summer → more eggs
A wet summer → fewer traces
The ground adjusted its secrets accordingly.
You realized the lawn wasn’t failing.
It was responding.
---
### **VIII. RETURNING UPWARD**
You climbed back.
Layer by layer.
Mars to soil.
Soil to roots.
Roots to grass.
The hole closed itself politely behind you.
---
### **IX. THE FINAL TRACK**
The record slowed.
PHANIE ILLS asked again:
> *If I were you—*
But this time, you answered.
“I would check before acting.”
The lawn said nothing.
But it didn’t have to.
---
### **X. EPILOGUE: THE PATCH AGAIN**
You stood over the same dead spot.
Now it wasn’t just a patch.
It was a **message with depth**.
Not everything that looks dead is simple.
Not everything underground is hidden by accident.
And not everything that flies at dusk
wants to be noticed.
---
The cassette clicked, it was a numbered edition of 1.