Beard - “Hobbledehoydom”
Martinez recounts, “When it (beard) finally happened a year into my return, in 1994, it happened as I hope it happens to everyone, hobbledehoys or not, with a mix of wonder and alarm and surprise, an unutterable burst of bliss…She was 36 and had uneven teeth.” Martinez’s foremost sexual intimacy occurs with a woman who is 15 years older than him. His beard gives the confidence he requires for it symbolizes manhood. Martinez insinuates that he's a man who deserves to experience intimate bliss due to his beard.
Device - “Forsaken, The Crew Awaited News From The People Below”
The crew speculates, “ The device was working, else at least one person from the crew would have returned and asked if they had not heard him, the person returning, speaking through the device—maybe shouting.” The device is emblematic of communication for it links the ‘people below’ with the crew. Its incapacitation offers signals about a problem in the section below. It were functional, the crew would have discerned the exact circumstances of the people.
“Hell’s Angels” - “After The End Of The World: A Capsule Review”
Martinez describes, “Enterprise Carolina carouses with mountain bikers and Hell’s Angels. She wears shitkickers. After dinner she gathers her gang of fellow fifteen-year-olds and contemplates vandalism in the half-empty malls of Culver City.” Here, “hell’s angels” denote the evilness of the enterprise system. Although entities and individuals amass profits, capitalism causes evilness which would be compared to hell. It vandalizes the society in the same way as gangs do. Therefore, enterprises are not flawless entities.
Gold - “After the End of the World: A Capsule Review”
Martinez observes, “Carolina is pure and has a heart of gold — is this what we need for the days after the end of the world? Should we not be stepping away from this queasy mixture of hard-edged grit and cotton-candy idealism?" Gold underscores the high value of the enterprise system which permits individuals and entities to generate massive profits. Idealism would not be helpful once Carolina ceases to exist, and idealistic tendencies have contributed to the unwarranted exploitation of enterprises.
“The Edge of the World” - “After the End of the World: A Capsule Review”
Martinez writes, “Enterprise Carolina sits at edge of the end of the world, and she doesn’t know it. These are the first few months of the Event: clocks and timers have slowed down." Martinez employs a covert Biblical allusion regarding 'the edge of the world." Although the story is a capsule review, the allusion implies that the enterprise system could finally end because it is not an eternal phenomenon. Ordinary happenings will cease once the edge materializes and the enterprise system's power will be disrupted once its end comes.
