I Got Off Easy

For whatever is left of tomorrow, there's always TIN DAWN. 

TIN DAWN is they say the final demon to watch out for

Look deep into his eyes and you will see many rings

each of which has a meaning

ring of understanding

ring of knowing 

ring of fear

ring of excitement

ring of famine

ring of stupidity

this last ring is the deepest ring

it surrounds the deepest known void

I saw this ring directly and it locked

into the circular patterns of my own 

eyes thoughts behavior 

This was a moment when I could have been captured by

TIN DAWN But instead

i felt my feet begin to levitate off the ground

we shared for a tic the terrible inevitability 

of eternity it was a chance to reach out to him

for my journey was a spiritual one

and i reached out to him 

and i spoke these words to him i said

"culturally you're supposed to have some support mechanism to help get through and mark moments of consequence"

then my feet touched the ground again

his fury temporarily abated he answered 

"but those who've been effed over by culture science mathematics physics geography politics boyfriends we must create our own rituals our own celebrations"

These famous words were known and held dearly to each of our hearts, and had been ever since LaChamatilly originally delivered them in her Cross-Chanks Address. 

Weiba Hinde
Storytelling Booth 7
Storytelling Festival
Days of Destruction

Rupture Day State Report

We've studied the situation, and in fact no one can remember a time 

when we were not studying the situation but now that we've 

concluded our study we are ready to announce that our 

own chanklands strong community including every living soul from the 

monument to jan jansdaad in we are all jan jansdaad now park at the 

upper tip of mt. janjansdaadburg to the entire preserved bio-volcan and 

anomalous geo-genealogical sanctuaries and bombing ranges in dubbaberah and 

right on over through the cement mines and their educational sectors pocked with 

bubbling acid and shark vines to the tourist districts with their 

roadside live-curio kennels processions fully catered pilgrim trails and more to the

highway and its dead through all the fleke dry river towns choking in the 

low chanks where the nights are long can produce enough raw materiel of 

mutual Crack-wide obliteration to finally blast back our 

previous final projection.

from: Rupture Day State Report

by: La LaChama

Preservation & Progress Ambassador

Crack-Wide Initiative

Days of Destruction

Lip of Mthyuh

"La Dance"

I got a private dance teacher to avoid complications with basic temple dancers. Who hasn't got a crazy dancer story, right? As an impounded virgin deity, there wasn't much i could do at all in fact except parade my tail, and it was already an actual tail by then, up and back on the wide ceremonial terrace overlooking the visitation gardens, as well as being looked upon by them, up and back as a living sacred frieze and moving avatar of the the scriptural pendulum of whatever 12 times up and back in a pyncofiber headdress twice my height. But after a session with Mkidza Mlaf, ancient mistress of the dance, i'm just like any proper temple sprite who lives to dance the dance to live the life of dance to dance the dance of dance hopping in place clapping my hands in honor of the teacher and to express an opposing pleasure to all the pain she has just inflicted. For her to see me now with prominent inter-speciel features increasing by the hour, i see her differently as well: my display of even a hallowed tradition meant to celebrate Mrs. La Mkidza is now to her a horror disgust offense. Why does Mkidza agree to suffer through these "master" classes that a common fleke girl could teach just as well—and with more empathy? Sure, gold coins, and many of them. But more than that it's the sacred power of the dance of the sacred power dancing the sacred dance of power the sacred dance of dances the dance to live a life of dance to have the power to love the power of life to live to dance the power to dance to live a life of power dancing the sacred power of dance. "My name is Mkidza Mlaf," Mrs. once said, "...and my kids are every child anywhere who doesn't know La Mthyuh."

Ch. XLV, "La Dance"

from: 

I, An Impounded Virgin Deity

by Reptily

La vajraja and the love of the vajraja vajra rajas of love above

La LaChama has fled the underground jail pit in tears and retreated to her cloister after the confrontation with her split-yolk Reptilly. Still able to breath though not without effort deep in the mantle of the planet Peg has opened the jail door and helped her godchild Reptily out into the open cavern to rest on a bed of fresh hemp branches. They are able to see in complete darkness and speak with their minds only. 

When i was cry dancing and slamming my body into the iron restraints of your treacherous jail was that a cynical charade meant only to hurt the two of you as deeply as possible?

Silly. Only you know the answer to that question. It did occur to me though that you wanted us to feel as jarred and frightened as you were feeling. 

But what i wanted is for you to understand. Remember that i am essentially naive and believe that understanding leads to acceptance even if it must be beaten into me.

Reptily-ily you express a sentiment shared and passed down as a genetic disorder by your own generations. You've never experienced corporal punishment as wrong, even while it is going on? 

I've never experienced corporal punishment as wrong, even while it's going on, just as i would never let the meaning lead the rhyme nor push the meter beyond the time nor drop a message in the wine. 

I know that you know that i know you are dissociating. 

But why do i do that?

La LaChama, for example. Why is she no longer stringing marigolds and gifting them to pilgrims' necks?

You know why. She was more like gifting herself marigolds and stringing their necks. 

What did she believe about the pilgrims. 

That they must be saved for Mthyuh even at the end of a whip or from within a bruising squeeze. 

I saw her once leading a group through the moons festival ground. She was so much taller than any of them, even with the way she stooped. She clutched a matted yak shawl around her shoulders and operated a whistling bamboo rod in the other fist. She herded them like meat goats inflicting visible defense wounds on their arms and fingers. 

Right, she is safer to society after the abduction by prayer. Now she can focus on the more esoteric aspects of lavajraja. 

The love of lavajraja. 

La lavajraja that is love and is of love a lavajraja loving the love of the vajra from love and from the love of the vajarja vajra rajas of the rajas of love above... 

Amen.

the prayer itself is an answered prayer

the prayer itself is an answered prayer

an oath reaches the air and wondering

if the mountain is listening

all the mixes of genes and genders

trickle upward rendered by flame 

disappear just the same

mother coughing up sweet poison

rings of voice on narrow ambitus

with Ilyn and his abacus

the prayer interrupts the transition

our mission remains at the border

in the naked disorder

from: LaChama Confronts LaVajraja
Preservation Society Collection
Phyllis [trans.]

vajrasana

PRESENT TIME

Ilyn is rocking violently in a bed of dry peony blossoms at the bottom of his square-wheeled cart. On his back, he watches clouds morph into amazing new ways to tell the same story. Then he becomes aware of burbling waters on the open ground beyond the walls of the cart.

Dare i? I want a drink from this crick. Shab, stop. 

Shab, a very large dog with red eyes and an empty saddle, has been twiddling his legs just above the surface of the otherwise wasted land beneath them. When Shab hears an order to stop, he stops. 

Shab, drink.

Ilyn pulls a lever buried in the flowers. It releases Shab's yoke. Shab walks around to the side of the cart and pulls a rope with his teeth. The side panel falls open, and Ilyn is able to roll down its slope and into the creek, face down. He can lift his head enough not to drown between sips of water, but barely enough to speak.

Shabubbab, dobne. Pbleabse.

Shab takes a few more sips of his own from the creek, then ambles over to Ilyn. Ilyn grabs a bar in the side panel of the cart while Shab lifts with his nose until Ilyn can roll back into the cart. His face sparkles with wet sunshine. Shab dips back under the yoke and waits for Ilyn to pull a cord buried in the flowers. The yoke clicks into place over Shab's empty saddle. 

Shab, take me to Mthyuh. 

10 YEARS EARLIER

Rocking violently back and forth in a bed of marigold chains strung with hemp, Ilyn allows some noises to come out from his throat. From his back, the clouds are telling a familiar story in a new way. 

Kuh. Geh. 

Ilyn can form words, but none are appropriate. Finally, he is thirsty. 

Shab, drink.

PRESENT TIME

Shab is pulling the square-wheeled wooden cart uphill, with the peak of Mthyuh becoming clearer above the clouds. Gravity causes Ilyn to slide all the way back in the cart to an almost sitting position. Now what he sees is Shab's empty saddle and the backs of Shab's furry ears, always twisting on their axes, scoping for any danger or pilgrims. The path ahead is lit only by slivers of moon and the reddish cast of Shab's eyes. 

TWO WEEKS EARLIER

Ilyn is sucking on a shred of ginger root, and Shab is chewing his like a cud. 

Shab, think. Where were we grng to stop crming back thrs way?

Shab has either been forbidden to speak or refused to speak ever since the fabled incident with the Monster Poinsettia and during which the only and last rider of his empty saddle, the Begging Raja, lost both of his hands, and painfully so. 

If you could speak, i think you might tell me there's no point in remembering anything. Or perhaps now, suddenly, you decide to speak, and tell me that i couldn't be more wrong about your view of remembering, how i've underestimated your character not to mention your mood. 

Shab: ...

PRESENT DAY

It's nearly just noon and the violent rocking of the cart makes fiery trails appear in the sky. Ilyn tries to focus on the clouds, which are at the moment just a palimpsest overrun by the side effects of technology. Soon it will be time to stop and ask some woodcutters to hew a new set of wheels for the cart, which are starting to lose their traditionally square silhouette. 

Shab, listen.  I think I can feel my strength returning. I realize you would have started to notice. But we must not let on, must not share any mention of a recovery, not to any pilgrim, not to the MPS, not even to La Chama. At least not for now.

500 YEARS LATER

Ilyn sits up in a deep bed of star jasmine and mint greens. He assumes a vajrasana pose, for greeting pilgrims and children who follow behind. Actually, their normal walking speed would carry them past and well beyond the cart, but they slow down as a sign of respect and humoring to the deities. 

Crowd: We wish you a bountiful banquet of many assorted vittles and then to be eaten first by the sacred birds! May Mthyuh swallow you up before you barely reach her lips! May your rice be soiled in a highway tavern by the survivors of Fire Shore...!

Ilyn tosses swollen, bluish roses from the back of the cart. They are gradually passing a sign for Kareer Kesh. The diving board has hopefully been repaired after a small molten avalanche. Ilyn's hair is soft, long, and flaming copper. 

 

 

 

Phyllis [trans]

it's all about choices

I got an out call from a Jan who was on a house sitting hustle at a really nice Highchank palacio almost entirely obscured by the 3-hooptie garage door. In fact she had to crank it open just so i could get in, which put me a little sour since i had to walk there from the coils, which were very loose that day. 

She sits me in a parlor like where you'd blow the butler and says she was a little concerned because i looked like a thug in my picture. I look at her a little harsh at the same time she's saying not in person though, not at all. 

I was all ok, got a bathroom? I think the Jan felt obligated to wait for me in the salon de fellatio to demonstrate her mindful wakefulness towards diversity and inclusion. Or she was delirious on shiv or fasting. She let me wander from room to room demonstrating my low urgency towards getting to know her better. I did feel urgent, but it was more about the Jan's purse, which was gaping open on a plinth. 

Then there were five shiny coins in my pocket as i told her i could hear the horn calling all the way from Chukkachank, that i'd learned to distinguish it from the cry of a bird, so i'd better get going now. 

Bitch did not miss a beat. Oh, that's a shame, hope i didn't offend you, good to meet you tho, got everything? 

MPS got me? Not even a butch K's dick from the mouth of the coils. I say what, it's an emergency? They're like naw, we like coming up in this neighborhood. 

So you just ignoring the calls from fucked-up barrios? 

Naw, they got they own justice. 

Say i know a Jan who's DTF. What say you check her out to see she ok and let me catch my spring. 

The one MPS goes that's not us, craning out her neck. We take you instead and abuse you in our jail. 

Hahahahaha! I was cracking up and slapping my thigh until they jabbed me with a pharmsupply corrective and did exactly what they said they would. 

They have special restraints like the ones for Ks but tiny for hybrids. I was awake and screaming with my mind only. I was mostly angry not in pain. They figured out the location of my flap vents and dorsal expressors and drained as much funk as they could. 

I get back to the hangar acting normal. I curl up behind a bone mound breathing deeply. I can't blame anyone. My ancestry is recklessness, but they say it's all about choices. 

by Reptily-ily

Phyllis (trans.)

Extinction Takeback Agreement

FRIENDS' HANGAR: Jan, now nearly full size, stands frontally abutted to a scaffolding built into the side of a high cliff. Her feet and tail are partially buried in the dunes of the Lowchank district. At eye level, she can see pine trees, and a bit above that there is only sandstone made deeply groovy by rains. The shadow of the horizon makes a line in the shape of the mountain across her forehead. Reptily stands on the scaffolding shaking out their cape and staring straight into Jan's nostrils, which occasionally emit a welcome and full-body warming blast. Reptily is using their tiny mouth hole to communicate, but Jan, for anatomical reasons, can only speak with her mind only.

REPTILY: Ya, see this flat part on the back of my head? I feel limited by it. 

JAN: Oh why?

REPTILY: I just feel like if there was a curve there I'd feel less constrained in my thinking processes. 

JAN: That's a K head Chama look at mine!

REPTILY: But you look practically full blood when yer here. I'm pretty much stuck in the fuzzy middle ground. 

JAN: Ya yor too big to get in the hygienist elevator. But you skittered up that scaffolding like a dung beetle!

REPTILY: Ya my vestments have been mistaken for an exoskeleton. It's just flocked rayon. 

JAN: ...

REPTILY: I wanted to meet here because it reminds me of home. I was born and raised at Friends' Hangar. 

JAN: Is that so?

REPTILY: Ya there was a time when I was small enough for the lift and even rather pretty by yor standards. They called me Missy. 

JAN: HAHA! I mean, you're still pretty. 

REPTILY: Fortunately I have some options like with the head tuft, which is retractable, see? 

JAN: Ooo. You know, we all have our unique struggles of difference don't we? 

REPTILY: There's no one like me. You can mostly pass on either side of the Crack. 

JAN: And it's also not our fault. 

REPTILY: On the one hand you can blame the MPS-Pharmsupply merger for our disfigurement, but we also only have them to thank for the Extinction Takeback Agreement and therefore our existences. 

JAN: Would you go that far? It was the merger that wiped out K's to begin with. 

REPTILY: We were enslaving their people. 

JAN: We were being our natural selves in the context of nature. I hate it when the losers get to write history.

BOTH: HAHAHAHAHAHA!

"ChamaJanMeetNGreet001" in

 Genetic Histories (n.d.)

Journal of the Institute for the Journal of Metacognitive Talk Therapy Apologists

Cross-species consensus

Peg and Jan are splayed across a wide florid plain. A bubbling creek and just the elbow of a river run beneath them cooling their bellies and flap pits. They each look a little cross-eyed as thousands of local bees arrive in cloudy waves and get caught up on their giant forked tongues. Jan and Peg are slurping the piquant swarming treats off one another's faces. They can communicate with their minds only.

Guessing it's a result of struggling with your own random or self-diagnosed atypical gender impulses preferences fetishes, which you think you have to subdue, or that the domination over them itself is the fetish, and you think maybe everybody loves that

What the? 

I'm referencing your comment about one of the sisters who tends to resist gender classifications.

If you mean Reptily i only used the word ambiguous. 

Well you went maybe a little farther, like suggesting all Ks are genderless or shouldn't be allowed to even have a sexuality much less a gender status in society...

Well maybe if you say that the other way around, I mean society really? Ks are a species completely separate from the society and whole system of gender logic which really applies only outside the phenomena. 

Ok, as with so many issues, a fact we really need to confirm before we can even begin to come to a society-wide and cross-species consensus on what our rights are and what our rights mean. 

You always forget the responsibilities. 

Both: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

I only want to waste this day

 

jarring when the screen goes blank

mind is awake but the body is numb

same if you like to party or paint

might look dumb when it's said and done

 

might feel great when yr at yr peak

creed might translate to the joy of life

wait another 20 years before you speak 

never live long enough to get it right

i only want to waste this day

on vanity and distractions

waste it into infinity

there's no tomorrow and that works for me

though it doesn't cure the anxiety

get to hang onto my piety

nose is open to society

Reptily-ily

don't touch and don't look

 

X:

you have a dazed face narrowing your attention to the peripheries

as a fish looking ahead and behind might be the effort part

it doesn't matter where i stand because you are my object, not the opposite

i would torture you with language if i were much better at it

you are made humble by not having anything better to do

Y:

even i am your this or that sounds to me to be too self-referential

so i'll be silent to also avoid objectifying you with the word you

this is half a hollow ringing sphere also with a ring in its nose

there we go we is presumptuous but it he she all ok by me it him

i am attendant by accepting attention as one would rain

 

 

 

by 

Reptily-ily

trans. by 

Menen Jenral

Distillment of the Urge to Worship Illinois

Ilyn sits best he can in a lotus position as Reptily gently picks blood clots off his scalp and back and replaces them with a rub of mineral oil and bright yellow sulfur dust. Water drips from a shaggy black fungus lining the walls of the cave.

ILYN: My life force flickers like a spook bulb.

REPTILY: You have the miraculous but unfortunate curse of carnation redundancy. You keep being born again, but uglier. 

ILYN: But what I can see is all beauty. 

REPTILY: Then you are selfish to boot. Never mind our horror when we gaze upon you. 

ILYN: I've proven my willingness over and over to disappear forever. 

REPTILY: By now you know it's only a ritual. It could never be the same as that first surrender. 

ILYN: Until I jumped into Mthyuh's roiling gut, I was burning from the inside out. 

REPTILY: Why is it. Why do others want to stay and can't but you can't go and stay away.

ILYN: Why do others want to stay and can't but I can't go and stay away? 

REPTILY: Yes. 

ILYN: My cross to bear is the mystery of my cross to bear. Flekes come to me because I am the most extreme expression of their own befuddlement. Like they'd watch a kid beating a doll against a fence. Ya, I am that doll, and I am that child. 

REPTILY: Ya I am that fence and you whitewash me. I mean I say you are full of shite. You are holy, another mystery. You'd cash your own mother into indentured servitude to heresists. Oh wait. 

ILYN: Ya look who's talking. At least you kept her in the family. 

REPTILY: She could do worse than collect shiny coins at volca and command shiv service on her own servants all week. It was her idea. She herself is practically a deity now. All life is contingent and symbiotic. Except for yours, Illinois. 

ILYN: Look at us. A pair of broken records. Have you ever noticed that my full name looks like a "no" peeking out from behind bars? 

REPTILY: With an s on the end. 

ILYN: Ya that's silent. You know what it means. Freedom. No to not freedom.

per Phyllis (embedded)

Paroxysms of sincerity

Jan Jansdaad is driving along and thinking what if I lost this hooptie. What if anything happened to it at all. We'd be on our way to the next lower rung of economic class hell... 

Wait a minute. I'm back. All the while La Chama must have been leading me towards a hole to The Crack. She knew I'd have to return, at least for a moment, just to see. I see I've been to pharmsupply-- I've got a live bag of hopinaskippina. I'm headed home, for whomever I find there. But what about my daughter-- will she take my place? I just wish we could be all together and safe with descent health insurance. 

Then there is a prick near the dew claw. Lloyd? You're drawing my blood. 

Not at all, Mrs. Jansdaad. I'm just cuddling here next to you while you nap. 

Jan? 

I know, Mom. He's from pharmsupply just like daddy said. 

Now wait just a minute, ladies. 

You're only here to steal our genes and spy.

Oh I'd say it's been quite a lot more than that. I can take you back. Get you reformatted. You'll be an in-between type, like La Chama. Small enough to fit in human structures. Strong enough to

To power one of your slave K's with my brain, as your slave. 

It's not like that anymore. We're finding new ways to

To use our natural bodily processes for the greater appetite. Our suffering is inconsequential. 

Ok, you know what, you guys? I am getting really sick and tired of walking around with a completely open heart to each of you as persons, and you know I kind of feel like that Begging Rajah, with so much, so much to give, and... no hands. You just scheme to cover up or push your strong identities. What about my purpose? Who am I?

Both Mrs. Jansdaad and Lloyd avert their eyes and tighten their lips. One concept they can agree on is the adorability of Jan and her paroxysms of sincerity.

Mrs. Jansdaad and La Chama Speak Using the Mind Only

Well. Here we are. 

Yes. Honestly I don't know what to do.

Thank you for your honesty. It's that this doesn't happen. I've never met sticky progeny. How did you get through The Crack. 

I didn't do anything. Maybe Braino was tracking me. 

That's likely due to how we share some Braino, sister. 

I met Peg. 

And now me. It's herstoric. 

What is the meaning of my life?

You'll have plenty of time to figure it out if you play your cards right. 

I like sitting and writing poetry at my kitchen table. 

Well, you're a monster now. 

Daughter of La Chama

Jan arrives home with scales covering 98% of her body, unable to even get the key out of her purse much less use it in the lock. Her fingers were claws.

We should never have mingled with their species. 

She kicks the door by way of knocking, gouging it with her toe claws. For Jan, as he opens the door, the sight of his wife at first presents as deja vous. Then horror, then caring. 

Oh baby look at you please come in... [looks at door] What...?

I should have paid cash for Hopinaskipina. It's not as painful as they say. 

God you look like the Daughter of La Chama. Let me hide my shiny coins!

Heh that's cute Jan. How am I going to make dinner. 

You're so old fashioned. Let me do it for once. 

[Jan sighs and shakes her head, which causes the sounds of knuckles popping.]

Stabbing gyroscope

what a nifty little weapon

superior even to the double bullets connected to a chain 

which are meant to cut you in half

the stabbing gyroscope covets reality itself

and takes out its purpose 

and changes it to nothing

i punish the present moment with obliteration

there are no triggers only my deepest impulses

which are all fears

 

 

 

by Reptily

"Amen."

Preen gland technician

They brought me inside the control room of my own mother's puppet corpse. I could look down over the switches and buttons and through the glass down five stories and watch her feet drag and thud, drag and thud across the empty Sears parking lot, which was just the tip of the iceberg. 

Once we had triggered The Crack, it was a watery world of carelessness; a sort of sleep paralysis of the shock reflex set in while we were fed through a peristalsis of the dimensional organ. 

She was/ was not my mother. This was the flesh of the great beautiful young K who could toss me 100 meters into the sky with her beaque and catch me easily in her seal craw, where lightly blood-dappled pelts were stacked and crumpled into a very stinky but gossamer safety net. The woman they extracted from her inner ear during a shiv molting also is/ isn't La Pegyuh. She seems to carry all her memories, fears, quick tongue. Her body, as well, is now tortured day and night with Remote Tissue Decisioning in order to coordinate with image mirroring protocols and functions. They say she was a random preen gland technician who took a wrong turn somehow. 

by Reptily

No more community theater

The stage is dark at the center and it's one of those setups where the players are seated or standing around the inside of the three walls waiting to take their turns. Giant leaves made of plastic bags get caught up in the breeze of a fan and bound noisily across the upstage out of doors like plastic bags. 

"But then I'm telling you we love to have her and she's so talented but she does her writhing ritual really in breaking of character and does it right in the middle of the stage when others should be starting their lines and action."

"Jan, I can sympathize, but she's over 21. I can't control her even with the shiv. She has the fins of an embryo, but she'll never develop any further or take on the exclusive markings of any particular species. She feels like shiv's the only way she can find freedom as she will never sprout wings or a full claw matrix, so the ancient hooting and dancing are her expression of a foiled archetypal and organic need."

"Don't get me started on the topic of Institute for the Talk Therapy Apologist Movement mumbo-jumbo, Donna. We all knew from the start the risks we were taking by having Reptily here full time. I mean, not just a goat you can tether to a tree. And it's really no problem. Just no more community theater, k?"

LaChama

Now Entering The Crack

one day coming soon will be a

portal to another world, the 

difference between past and

future, a crack in believing

we'll find out who's entitled

to get in, who has to sit on a

bench in the lobby, which

relationships count as significant

we shall sit before an interpreter

of evidence in perfect robes

but mostly there will be doubt

what will happen to the kids

other dimensions are ours to

learn, not theirs, not the natives

but this time that means no one

only wondering, a beastly rent

 

 

by LaChama

 

Reptily

"I can transverse The Crack."

Jan

"I, too, have crept through it multiple times with my family."

Even if no one believes me, I can still survive

So I'll call on you, and when it's your turn, you can just say your name, a goal, and an idea that came up in your group that either you agree with or that you recall for any reason.

Umm, let's start with you. Yes, you at the end please.

Ok I'm Jan, and my goal is to live alongside my experiences. I...

That's great Jan, welcome. Do...

I do have an idea but they didn't say it in my group.

Oh, well sure, you could give a new idea or-- no one said anything interesting that you recall?

[snickering]

No, no everyone was great, so interesting, really. Ha! No, well Reptily had a thought I liked.

Good. Tell us.

That after her rape, the only form of survival she will ever be able to even imagine is living to see that bastard's brains splattered all over a wall.

[rustling]

Wow. Can...

And she would like it to be one of the walls at the place where they shared most of their time together, their workplace. She mentioned maybe outside the gym next to the fountain under the name of the school the Cement...

[whispering]

College of Cement. It's just a wide open cinderblock wall like where you could have a firing squad.



from The Pastel Notebooks
Thong, Dr. Donna