Time Cypher
Saturday, July 4th, 2026
RAINBOW THEATER circa 9:56am—A boisterous crowd of campers fill the theater, chatting amongst each other and heckling the adults attempting to control them. “Jingle for President!” chants an especially rowdy corner of the audience, referring to Camp’s latest visitor, a mad scientist by the name of Ckary Jingle. He stands on the side of the stage, appearing to be quite pleased with the burgeoning chaos.
“My plan worked perfectly and now the time machine is up and running!” exclaims Jingle, taking center stage. The campers continue to cheer and jeer. Several dinosaurs mill about the stage area, making unpleasant dinosaur noises, a testament to Jingle’s creation. “I believe one of my colleagues warned me about branching timelines… something about wormholes, something about time rifts—yes, that’s what it was: ‘time rifts’.”
As he speaks, a pair of tank-topped counselors come running from opposite sides of the stage, meeting in the middle with an energetic high-five. “Epic!” they exclaim together.
“We’re from the epic high-five timeline,” one of the tank-tops explains. Before they can elaborate, more characters have emerged on stage and begin introducing themselves: aliens, medieval knights, 80’s jazzercisers, sorcerers from the Six Seven Swamp, counselors from an equestrian summer camp, 2000’s era Bay Area culture enthusiasts, and many more. The scene is one of costumed confusion. Soon the chaos reaches critical chaosity and the crowd is ordered to disperse.
ART GROVE circa 10:45am—All around downtown Camp campers seem to be engaged in zany activities with our interdimensional visitors. Here in the Art Grove I have come to report on one such activity, working with aliens from outer space to repair the faulty time machine.
“Were making a time machine so that we can… I don’t know,” says Bleep Bloop from planet Blorp, holding a pentagonal wad of foil filled in the center with a puddle of glue and googly eyes.
“We’re fixing the time machine to put everyone back into their own realities,” explains Willow, 9, clearly more cognizant of the task at hand than Bleep Bloop. “We’re using tin foil for wires and stuff. It’s going to run on coal and melted metal. It can also make garbage disappear!”
“This is where all the power comes through,” adds Star, 12, pointing to a molded foil nodule inside the outer casing. I ask if they are worried about breaking the 2nd law of thermodynamics, to which Star responds, “We’re a little worried, but if we work hard it’ll work out.”
STREETER CREEK circa 11:15am—A dozen-odd campers calmly busy themselves in the cool running water of Streeter Creek, carefully overseen by the sorcerers from the Six Seven Swamp who have insisted that all rock stacks must be of either 6 or 7 rocks—no more, no less. I cross the small footbridge where two pupils have created a small circle of stones.
“We’re trying to feed this water skeeter to this spider,” says Fox, 13, gently displaying a spindly spider which crawls in figure-eights on the back of her hand. “We found him in the Big Top and we think it’s a dinosaur spider.”
“I’m trying to make a pond to keep water on the bridge for the water skeeters, but it might be physically impossible,” says Maya, 12. “Also the skeeter might be dead already.”
“If they fix the time machine we’ll use it to bring the water skeeter back to life so we can feed it to the dino-spider again,” adds Fox.
CROSSROADS circa 11:42am—A sudden and unexpected rap battle has erupted at the crossroads in downtown Camp. A growing throng of campers, counselors and characters have gathered in a large ring, each faction cheering for their own contenders. Perfco José Garcia holds down a beat on a cajon. The crowd quiets as Ckary Jingle confidently enters.
“I dedicate this rep to my opps; RIP!” taunts Ckary Jingle before launching into his lyrical assault. The crowd oohs at the poignant witticisms. He levels many insults at other characters and Camp in general before dropping the imaginary mic. The other characters take turns in the cypher, many supported by campers who wrote their own tactical verses. Even the characters from the Mime Dimension deliver a captivating performance, devastating the antagonist with a silent display of lyrical talent.
Soon the crowd is called to the theater for a grand finale, after which I find two campers to give their best summary of the morning’s events.
“So Ckary Jingle had tooken the dinosaurs,” recounts Caelen, 10½. “There was a bunch of posters saying, ‘Is this man trusted to our society?’ Then his time machine broke and all these other timelines came to Camp. Everyone wanted to go home to their own timeline, so all the timelines had a big rap battle against Ckary Jingle.”
“One could say it was crazy,” says Phoebe, 11. “There was a Phaedra-saurus, and Sierra-saurus, and there was even a pterodactyl serving cocoa! I was confused, but it was super fun. I’ve never seen anything like it anywhere else—not even close!”
Stay hydrated,
—J. Payseno, Editor