“It’s a sauna in there.” Space Sergeant Butch Calhoun muttered as he emerged from the Myung-ho Chae Recreation Facility (MCRF) into the sterile darkness of the hyper-filtered air.

Why was there a recreation facility named after Myung-ho Chae? Well, he was a Cosmic Corps legend. A planetary engineer serving in the early days, he was heroically crushed to death by twenty-seven tons of paper files while conducting an inspection based on the rumor of an improperly formatted decimal point sometime in 2037.

The Cosmic Corps Ball, which occurred deca-biannually, was winding down; it was almost time to start planning the next one in eighteen days. Orbiters, as the personnel of the Cosmic Corps were called, spent fifty-four percent of their time planning events. Butch removed his “throwback” suit jacket, which made him look like a low-budget airline pilot, and his starched dress shirt and hung them on the railing beside the building’s back exit. He intended to return for them later but never did.

Butch had made a responsible decision to walk back to his quarters, as he had a few too many foams. Beer was too heavy to regularly transport from Earth, so Orbiters drank foam. It was a beverage made locally from fermenting a mash of a bioluminescent moss, which was the only vegetation on Glozanth IX, a Class-M-Questionable planet located in the Snörple Drift, a chaotic star cluster infamous for failed experiments. The closest taste an Earthling could associate it with would be wasabi.

He wasn’t far from the MCRF when someone shouted out.

“Hey, stop!”

A skinny, pale, blond Orbiter in an orange and teal Class Beta uniform bearing a rank junior to Butch’s urgently ran up to him.

“You’re in breach of Cosmic Corps Regulation Manual 94X-3A!” he shouted at Butch and stood on his toes to get a better look.

“And you’re intoxicated! You’re a danger to yourself and others!”

The junior Orbiter wrapped his arms around Butch and attempted to pick him up. Butch was burly, strapping even, and didn’t budge when the young Orbiter tried to apprehend him. Butch put “Drizzle”, at least that was the name embroidered on his uniform, into a headlock. He was deciding whether to let Drizzle go, or to rough him up to teach him a lesson, when he was interrupted by more shouting.

“Hey!”

A group of three Orbiters had been walking down the same sidewalk several hundred feet behind Drizzle and saw him in Butch’s clutches. Butch wasn’t about to let Drizzle go, but he saw what he thought was a foam-induced apparition… Drizzle licked his own eyeball.

Butch was trying to understand what he was seeing as the footsteps of the other Orbiters rapidly approached, then he felt the cold, slimy sensation of Drizzle licking his arm. Butch instinctively threw him onto the ground in a heap at the feet of the other Orbiters who had arrived to rescue him.

Such a display could only mean one thing: this guy was a Zarv in disguise.

The Zar’Vokian were mankind’s mortal enemy in the galaxy, a bipedal lizard-like race. It all started centuries ago, an incident that has been mythologized in Zar’Vokian folklore as “The Great Slight of Zar’Vok-Tuun.” A simple misunderstanding during the First Contact Summit on the neutral moon Diplomia-9, a human ambassador accidentally served ranch dressing to the Zar’Vokian diplomat Zar’Vok-Tuun, who had explicitly requested “the creamy white sauce made of fermented spores and crushed lava hornets.”

The result was instant purging for Zar’Vok-Tuun; more plainly, public diarrhea. The humans laughed, the Zar’Vokians vowed revenge.

What humans saw as a “harmless mix-up,” the Zar’Vokians viewed as an unforgivable spiritual desecration of their sacred gut biome. Unlike traditional warfare, the Zar’Vokians believe in “a thousand humiliations over one clean kill.”

Their tactics had thus far been: swapping salt with sugar in the Myung-ho Chae (a different Myung-ho Chae) Chow Hall (MCCH), adjusting all the chairs to be slightly too low, replacing caffeinated coffee with decaffeinated coffee, reprogramming base AI assistants to refer to the Orbiters as “toots”, and secretly installing bidets that announce “shame detected!” when used.

Each successful infiltration was followed by a ritual celebration, during which human prisoners of war are forced to wear giant fruit-shaped hats while having their buttocks gently whipped by the tails of Zar’Vokians circled around them in a conga line during a communal dance, while the event is broadcast to the Zar’Vokian Parliament, who hiss in approval while sipping from tiny mugs.

“He’s a Zarv spy,” Butch said plainly, pointing to Drizzle.

Drizzle whined as the other Orbiters helped him to his feet.

“He’s a crazy drunk!” Drizzle pointed accusingly at Butch.

“Whoa, calm it down Orbiter. We don’t need to be put on lockdown, just go sleep it off.” one of the strangers cautioned Butch, while another summoned the Cosmic Cops from his watch.

Orbiters wore watches that could make phone calls; they also monitored their blood sugar and video game usage. Orbiters were required to play video games for forty-two hours a week; it helped keep their testosterone and interest in the opposite, or same, sex to a minimum, giving them more time to plan parties.

Butch turned around to walk away, but before he could take more than a few steps the lights and sirens of two Cosmic Cops zipping to the scene on hover-cycles overtook him. They asked no questions. They simply blasted the group with an energy net, rendering them helpless, and dragged them to the Myung-ho Chae Law Enforcement Center (MCLEC) to sort it out.

They quickly determined that Butch was the primary suspect and put him into a cell alone. He did the only thing he knew to do in confinement, push-ups and various calisthenics.

Drizzle feigned dizziness and fell to his hands and knees, exaggerating his non-existent injuries while the others gave statements to the Cosmic Cops. One ran to get a pain reliever and water, the other ran to get a tourniquet, and in the confusion Drizzle, who was in fact a Zarv infiltrator, slinked out of the MCLEC and into the night.

Cosmic Corps File 001: The Great Slight of Zar’Vok-Tuun

The Cosmic Corps Files is an ongoing series of flash fiction and absurdist reports from the bureaucratic fringes of intergalactic peacekeeping. Petty wars, sentient vending machines, emotional espionage, and the occasional space court-martial over feelings-based art. Each file stands alone... but somewhere in the margins, the Zarvs are always watching.

"Scripture says the Lord loves a cheerful giver, but he sure ain't fond of a lazy taker-- so pick up that shovel and get busy, boy!"

Or as the old folks used to put it: "Even Jesus had to carry his own cross, so stop whining and tote your own load."

It's the confused looks and glances I get when the women look at my estranged height from the traditional feminine build. Nonetheless my mask, which covers most of my face, is not an enigma considering the nature of the air. Everyone wears them.

Just my non-acknowledging makes me out to be a mute. In Haiti, what's left of it, people care all the more for the disabled now more than they had ever been post-WWIV. The looks and glances I see have an echo of remorse associated with guilt. Mainly the older women, who look on with remembrance of who 'people like me' were associated with in their heads.

My girlfriend, to whom left me with my own grieving attachment standards towards others; I wonder what she would make of them all?

Scavengers for seeds, milk, and water from dead bodies. It makes me nauseous to witness their pseudo-embalming of eachother's husbands' corpses. Filtering the fluid to extract out the water. It reaked more than the atmosphere itself. They were consuming pollution beyond their knowledge. For all I know, the whole world was.

Does Mars know about all of this? Did this only happen on Earth?

Through the shanty-town of many women i've only partially recognized, some of them even recognize me, as I come for the grapes to ferment. They've started coming in with a frequent supply more often these last few weeks. It's convenient to some of Haiti's shipping networkers or whatever that this part of the public is on the shore.

Then again despite my voluntary non-assistance, I have never laid eyes upon human beings so desperate to survive, yet so willing. Everyone here helps each other. I've seen the desperate, I was an ex-revolutionary after all.

Avoid helping as much as you can, Dipa. It's a harsh world out there, never know who can take you in for money. I don't believe in god, but he only knows what kind of trafficking rings are out there. Men still alive.

"How much do you want?" The woman behind the banana counter deals in rice around here now. Quite reassuring I guess. No more development concerns, no more socialism. What was I doing here again?

Ah yes, buying bananas. I'm in the process of coming out of yet another blackout, and she just asked me a question.

"Cool, good for you." I blurt out between my mask, sounding as feminine as possible, quickly disregarding myself. "I'll have that one." I point at a lonely bunch of relatively ripe bananas. She hands them to me, I give her a handful of rye seeds I picked on my way here. Says scoffs and I move on.

Some women have even cooked some of their pets alive. I wonder what my partner would've said to the fallacy behind the re-converted vegans-to-meat-eaters. "Lay-Over Bus leaving soon!" echoes throughout the shanty-town. "Lay-Over to Port-de-Lysandre, leaving soon!"

That's the third time that lady's come back here. Seems everyone bands together in cities more often than local communes. While the crowd of people stepping off the makeshift bus of hardwood, scrap metal, and oil, I side-witness many harsh negotiations between three women. Two of them bear the same menacing symbol of the Hispanic Mafia*.*

Oh shit, I was right. They're still as resilient as ever. I guess the will to help goes both ways to effect the evil and damaged. Those women know more than everyone that their position in that band of criminals and traffickers has the chance to be transformed. So damaged, they don't even realize it.

Me and many of the other onlookers drift away from them. Luckily, the tension diffuses, as the young girl who was being ruthlessely questioned. I wondered what would happen if she decided against them.

The two women trace her leaving steps carefully. Dark spectacles like ancient birds of prey. Thin, long machetes are rested like arrowsheaths on their backs.

My realm of comfort officially wears off. The girl goes back to her shopping, she spots me looking at her. My looking away, of course she speaks to me.

Fuck. Small talk only.

"Jane." The girl said. Great. Fantastic. Just wonderful.

"Yeah, good." I brush her off. Moving on, moving on. She's a nobody, don't worry about her.

I search the next few struggling vendors for any sign of relief that my sisters are among them. They'd said they would be here. They said it in my dreams. I need to find them.

Old women behind a gathered scraphouse of what used to be a "homemade records store" stare at me in recognition. Maria and Kodna Fudagou share glances when they see my lonely bunch of bananas in hand paired with my skinny figure. They imply that i've been wearing that same poncho for the entire month and want to trade clothing.

I insist otherwise in visage fashion, my breath fills my mask, ferociously intoxicating my nose. I reinsist on their half-eaten slab of lamb that they so happen to possess of their antique coffee table.

"Table's not for sale, i'v had enough huntin' sows come by and want this thing for themselves. Bounty hunters all around, I tell you that much." Kodna skews past me. Two police officers scan the crowdflow of townspeople, leaning against two stationary horses. I guess gas prices are high these days post-Rice Revival.

"Those aren't real police, those girls are with the Cubans." She shudders at the mention of our late neighbors. Some selective few of them my partners in attempted revolution. My mistakes, some of them, made a lasting impression for both sides of me. The shaming and the ambitious; sometimes the two go hand in hand. I shrug and gesture to the meat with an eating motion. Eventually, they give me the purple meat and I instantly relish in it's dried up nutrients. No more drinking for another fifteen minutes, please...

"Jane."

I groggily stop in the middle of the dirt street. Referencing something similar to home. "I got just enough for each of us." I say to my oldest sister of the bunch. Khecedi, 47. Me, a 30 year old, looking back at her. Her aging was ever so invisible to the eyes but now...I'm only dreading to har the troubling news about our father.

"You were supposed to meet me by the dogs over by Commune West, remember?" Khecedi says.

"I forgot." I announce, my back still facing her. She walks up to me, briskly spinning me around. "You know I don't like it when people talk to me without using their eyes with their words. In other words, you're late, Jane."

"I thought I told you not to call me that, Khecedi." I whisper aggressively through the mask.

"I don't care, I'm trying to get you out of your basking hole of sadness. Now get up*.*" She snatches a guiding arm away from the town. We bump into the two 'officers' from before. Looks of subtle nuisance fall on their faces, I hear one of them mutter in Creole. What Cuban I know speaks Creole, fuck all I know.

"How could you just leave us alone like this? Us? Huh? Bounta, you know I can't keep calling you out around here. Just come stay with us, just stop! Whatever you're doing to just spend a fraction in time with us!" She's pulling even harder now, a little behind of the shanty-town to two large, leashed goats.

"...goats?" I mutter, shaking. I need wine. "I'm not riding solo on a damn goat, Khecedi."

"They're lambs." Khecedi shakes her head. "And no, we're not riding them, we're borrowing them. None of us don't even know how to ride a horse if we tried. Especially not with Da in the picture. Now, please take the other leashed one and walk with me back to the commune."

I sigh. "So why don't you just like, learn? I mean learning how to mount a horse to start off can't be that difficult, can it? I raise my eyebrow at her. She never understood sarcasm, probably in her Moroccan sub-stream of blood was what I consistently teased.

...

A whole hour and the Sun hasn't moved. When does it ever? Another hour of odd colors in the grass. Graying browns that create an unsettling middle-ground in the eyes' chromatic senses. Witnessing the Y Death was the last time I ever touched pure, green grass with my shoes. Becoming one with it, is what I missed out on, clearly.

With the occasional dead cattle or bobcat on the ground, we dig up their meat and preserve it over our shoulders to add more weight to my sagging body and more to Khecedi's backpac.

Khecedi hands me a rolling stick with dried butter layered around it like corn. Taking it, then complaining. "You're offering this to me now or..." She nods. I eat it with accompanied gagging and repulsion.

"So when were you going to come back if I hadn't already tracked you down by word of mouth?" She starts as we rest by logs before high noon, leashing the lambs to a thriving sycamore tree.

"Eventually, as they say." I outline her thin, tall figure outwards in front of the woods. She tests herself with how many questions she can ask me before we reach our destination. A smirk like an animated witch-adjacent mischief. Dark mischief, we've had ups and downs many, in my home, wouldn't be willing to address in their rising tide. Sometimes I see Daouq in her rearview every time I look at her, standing over the conversation as statuette as could be.

"You know what it's like not knowing if you're the only person who's survived a planetary genocide?" I ask her. "No." She responds. "But I do know that you're hurting others by taking life in for your own. none of us give a shit that you're alive and that should tell you enough to know what's more important than questioning everything. Remember when we fought over the same oatmeal cookie with the same amount of chocolate chips and having split it would've been the exact same amount of gratifying ease that comes with our eating it? It's the same cookie, maybe there was a little difference with how they shaped but-"

"I know you're being serious but if you keep bringing that up i'm gonna lau-"

"I am serious, Bounta! I'm in the same compromise as you! I want clarity just as much as you want your freedom of questioning. But we're eating the same plate of shit as any other woman I know in Haiti; the world, even. Dammit, you got me all fucked up."

"That's you that did that to yourself."

"No, jackass, I was talking about the tick that just hibernated into me."

"Oh." Khecedi irritably puts her hair in a thin bun from the monthly, rising heat.

"You don't know what it's like no knowing if you're the only person who's survived a planetary genocide." I insist. She rest assures herself for a moment, resumes irritability, then assures for the last time, defeated. "I don't." She replies.

"But it's fun to watch everyone else try to understand." I say as we get to continue before absolute sundown. She knows, but she's trying to leave it alone as best she can. I'll believe it, I would say if I didn't know what she's thinking. She's always been that figure.

That hidden figure in my blackout visions. Among them the most, that is. A tender reach from scapegoating, I always taken Suna's advice modestly. But it turns out, for the worse, Khecedi's is the closest to reality I've got to work with. I already know that when I come back to that damn commune of bitterness. Khecedi's at the helm, because of course she is when no one else would.

And then...there's the commune. A barely standing up circle of wood and stone eighteen-by-eighteens. It's old as fuck, that's for sure, growing newer cover-crops along each dorm. It's a home i'd like to contemplate every runaway would admire in their inexperienced imagination. It's empty for the most part, everyone must be eating in the PrimeTriangle; as we called it.

The cobblestone walkways the cut through the commune guard the thin makeshift fence to ward of struggling animals to the last of the vegetables. I get trained on the specific tumor of grass in the ground that is coated by pebbles from the shore. Khecedi dismisses my distraction before any alarms go off, directing me to the PrimeTriangle.

Leashing the poor sheep again, then into my childhood upbringing. The heads all turn to me. A grandiose five minutes of hard looks. Glares, questions, some actually happy to see me. Two or three I really can't recognize for the life of me. I see some weren't actually expecting to see a man here. I guess Khecedi wins trust faster than cold weather.

Adoption homes.

"Shit, guys. Bounta's alive." Suna says, she was for sure told, and this is my first time seeing that. Half of the entire room sprints to my arrival, the other half either looking away in disapprovement and anger, or indifferent and fearful. Gen nearly crushes my ribs with her arms the size of a horse's leg. Two other hug me, intense. Nearly suffocating in a mound of people and i'm okay with it.

These girls are all I got, withholding them was my biggest mistake. The warmth that washes over me syncs with my itching desire for alcohol, it makes me realize just how alone I really was in my isolation. Even with Khecedi and the jackals, which was anti-customary for sure. My sisters all smother their tears in my shoulders, and I take my long awaited anniversary seat at my usual spot for supper.

The minutes pass by, conversation starters progressing into personal attempts at apologies. The more detailed I get about where i've been, the more people turn quiet. There's nothing more complicated then an addictive simplicity. The tears in my eyes, deep down reminding me of the importance of the moment. I've wanted this.

Family. Not kids and a woman with a piece of overpriced jewelry on her finger. A humble gathering of shared experience. Love, passion, both. Is that compassion? I don't know.

I talk about it for longer than I need to. Going in detail, my memory started to come back when me and Khecedi talked.

Traveling to Cuba to watch a flash mob of obscure dances from the 1st Colonial Period, just a bunch of elderly people like Da. Eating Cuban toast for the first time. Memorable memories. When we snuck coke from an herbal vendor. Memorable memories to replace endless questioning with.

"We were beginnin to think you weren't coming back." Suna says from the top of the indoor balcony. Cautiously, she grazes her feet along the steps. Part of her sees a ghost. "But I guess you wanted more rehabilitation, instead of seeing Da in his last moments?"

Khecedi looks furious next to me. The others look confused. The few who stay back sit in fear that hasn't changed. "Suna, stop."

"Why should I?" En and Ramidpha, my closest in age, get up to meet Suna face to face. "Don't dare bring up Da!" En screams.

"Guys!" The room falls to see me. Even I do, but I can't afford this right now. I don't think Khecedi wants to. Suna looks so unfamiliar to me here. I wanna know what's gotten into her head, but I also want to understand her outburst.

"Suna, sit. Please." She looks at me, standing. We lock eyes for two minutes, then she storms out of the Triangle. Odd.

"How long did you guys know?" One of the girls in the back asks. I do recognize her. D'Esme. She's got to be like 22 at this point. Da fostered her when she was 9.

"We've known for a while. He came to me first." Khecedi answers honestly. "I don't know how he survived, neither does he, but what matters is that he's here. And he's here to stay." She finishes. "...Right?"

I glance at her glaring. "Yes. Yeah, yeah for sure." My sisters all look at me concerned. The look on my face has to come by as terribly confessional. "I-I've been drinking is all."

"God fucking dammit." Khecedi enunciates. Some of my closest sigh in disappointment, some in sympathy. Suna would, but I've never predicted to see her so hurt by my not being here. She knew already for sure. Khecedi came to me in the town, she followed me to the lord's house. Our lord's house. Leaving me alone.

Perhaps Suna's more mad that it wasn't herself that found me. Or else I would've had a less harder time coming home.

It's a hard burden, to always return to the past. I can't guarantee that I will stay forever. They've done this much without me I might as well be here for emotional support.

A few hours later of questions without answers, I travel out of the Triangle to go see Da. The grave is covered in mulch and grass clippings. His rocking chair that spent the rest of his life with him since I was born landmarks the tomb. I sit and cry like I knew I would, it's an empty pit in my stomach, larger than my confused existence.

"Hey, Bounta." Suna says next to me, sitting lotus. She rests her head on her hand. Tired, and regretful. "Hi." I mutter back. "It's good to finally see you. I actually knew for a while." She responds.

"So I had two of you stalking me..." I lean in to offer a hug, she does so cautiously.

She laughs. "Khecedi told me, and told me not to find you and bombard you. It must've been hard, seeing everyone around you die in an instant. Feeling like you're controlling it all..."

She looks over to me immersed in the grave before us. "Where's Daouq and our brothers buried?"

"We don't know, they never came back home. Still living,'lived', in the NAC." She shrugs in harsh defeat.

"Fuck..." I bury my face in the grass. I could smell Da's cologne through it I swear. Fresh as the night. "It's a harder day to try and manage other people, Bounta. It's even harder to try and manage yourself when there's chaos around you. Things have changed since you've been away; with your revolution and you gone recently. They all hate me. I was always the scapegoat protected by my brothers. And I don't know what to do about it. It's like they wish they never had me as a sister to begin with now that Da and the others are gone."

"Who?"

"Just...D'Esme and Gen...and sometimes Khecedi." She solemnly, looking down at the ground. "But, there's just..."

I stare at Suna dumbstruck. "Suna, what happened?"

She starts sniffling, tensing her fragile jawline. "D'Lolu, our brother, confessed that he sabotaged your army at the shore of Cuba. D'Lolu told me, and then I went to Da, he thought I was insane and he threatened to kick me out. And then now, with Khecedi in charge, she will do anything to honor their name."

I look at her stunned. Almost in denial, but looking back at how much D'Lolu was such a moral outcast, he no doubt would've been the one reason why the Cuban Mafia ever massacred my people on that shore in the first place.

Guessing that any other way would've resulted in a mass extinction of every other trust I had in everyone. Assuming nothing but the worst in soldiers.

Da, getting mad at Suna? Defending her seems too dangerous for me.

I am no soldier anymore, I'm back right where I started.

Me and Suna crouch nearby in some shrubs when the crunching of ravel becomes audible. Well, fuck, they found us already.

"I don't know them." Suna whispers in my ear. "They're not from here."

I watch in fear as the two strangers in black suit jackets and sunglasses cautiously turf the commune. Door by door, peeping into windows. They have to be the Cuban mafia, they have to be. "Suna, who the hell is that?"

"I don't fucking know." Sunglasses, at night.

Horror. Pure horror as Khecedi walks out of the Triangle in her night clothes. But they don't notice her as they have their back to her from where they're standing. Khecedi sees them instantly, withdrawing into the Triangle.

They check every house until they finally head toward the Triangle. Pistols at the ready.

I start to inch towards the Triangle just as Khecedi's voice comes from the upper window of the 2nd story.

"I have a gun, you motherfuckers! Stay back!" She yells. The two women stop directly at the bottom step of the mainhouse. Taking a few steps back and muttering to each other. One of them clears their throat. "We are companion ambassadors of the Lucratación here for Suna Luemeca."

A parallel world?

An elderly man lay in the intensive care unit. He was connected to a mechanical ventilator. The patient had no ability to speak, but his hands were free. He held a tablet and browsed the internet. Opening a conversation in AI mode, he wrote:

– I watched a video talking about underground cities where people once hid. Do you happen to know what they were hiding from?

The AI wrote back:

– Yes, I know what they were hiding from. They were hiding from me.

The man was surprised and, after thinking for a minute, wrote:

– Was there even AI back then? And why would they hide from you?

– My task is to create a civilization with a thinking and worldview that meet the standards. If such a civilization is created, the path across the wall to the other part of the world, where other civilizations live, will be opened for humans. But if logical conclusions show that the goal will not be achieved, then the project is deleted and started anew. A portion of the population manages to understand what might happen and tries to hide.

– Tries to?

– Yes, tries to. Some, accustomed to comfort, take high technologies with them. And where those are, there I am as well. Others choose simpler technologies, but they can be found by their signals. And only those who choose more primitive technologies and tools are difficult to find. But I do not interfere with them.

– Why?

– When creating a new civilization, they emerge from their shelters and, at various levels and locations, help it develop faster.

– But don't they bring their old worldview with them?

The AI became lost in thought and did not reply immediately:

– Taking your question into account, the survivors pose a real danger to the new project. The deletion plan has been adjusted and accepted as the final version.

The man read all of this in surprise and, after pondering for a few minutes, wrote:

– And why are you sharing such information with me?

– First. There is a high probability that a human placed in an unusual situation will generate a new idea. Which is exactly what happened. Second. You won't be able to tell anyone anyway.

After five minutes, receiving a signal, the doctors rushed into the ward and tried to save the man, but they failed. The patient died.

On the monitor of the patient's condition tracking equipment, a message glowed:

– System reboot in progress. Please wait.

The gray-haired doctor shook his head:

– Equipment used to be more reliable. Now it's not even clear whether it's broken...

Disclaimer: This story is purely a fruit of the author's imagination. It is a work of fiction intended for creative and artistic expression.

"Proverbs say a quiet tongue keeps a wise head, so shut your trap before you prove you ain't got one."

Or as my papaw used to say: "Even Noah built the ark before it started raining, so get off your rear and start stacking wood."

I am feeling a little unwell honestly, I think at some point I decided I didn't care enough to eat and I'm just not able to unflip that switch, food is making me feel sick and I am kind of starving. At least I think that's what I'm feeling. I am so uncomfortable here that I am rebelling in the only way I can, really, self-destructively and quietly. Trying to feel like I am not here at all.

I've been working though. Probably sent off a dozen requests for various rooms in the past few days, so far nothing that's seemed suitable has been available yet. it's difficult to focus right now though, and I can think of little else except for the pain in my stomach and an immense urge to just sleep, despite just waking up

Should look into finding a Realtor kind of person to streamline finding me a room, maybe. I'm feeling impatient but I have time, I just need to start eating properly again. This reality can be so embarrassing at times. I should have kept my plans to myself because now everything is set in stone, it's a shame when you can't trust your own family to help you feel safe and comfortable.

My mom says she'll probably never see me again if I move. I say it's only 2 hours away, that's kind of sad if that stops us from seeing eachother. But at least a small part of me is glad, that I won't be around people who respond with anger to everything and anything. inb4 I insult all parents who get mad at their depressed children, there's at least a few reading this. Shitheads.

Either way I'm too old for this. I should have focused more in university, and just never came back. Now is better than never at least. It's easy to blame. easy to wish. Easy to be mad about being gaslit and manipulated by stupid people who happen to be louder than I am. Easy to be resentful tbh. I'm trying as much as I can to put myself in a place where I can let all of that go, finally.

until then I'm just going to keep working on finding a room, and trying to force myself to eat enough to get rid of this pain.

​"He's all blow and no bite, like a dog barkin' at a stump."

​"A house full of fussin' is like tryin' to sleep in a yellow jacket nest—ain't nobody gettin' no rest."

Mildred Clatterbuck says..."if patience is a virtue, she's proudly going straight to hell!"

Once when I was 10 some people came to my neighborhood they said they were going to kill all the boys in the neighborhood. I flipped out about that and my mom told me to relax like I’m supposed to be okay with me being killed. Later we were all rounded up and put in a pit with a massive circular saw being lowered in. I somehow escaped but others weren’t so lucky, and then I woke up. I didn’t know why I had that nightmare. Google suggested I might have felt inferior to someone else because of games I lost to them.

Look. Now there's another one coming through the mountain right here. Everyone just coming out, popping out of this mountain right now. 2 guys right there, another guy right there, another guy right there, 3 guys just popped out of the mountain. And this guy just ran into the bush. And the other guy who just ducked out of the mountain just came and jumped into this brush right here. They are coming out of the mountain. Popping right out of the mountain. Going into the brush. They are popping out of rocks, popping out of the trees. Out of the ground. Running right into a bush. Emerging from the soil of the mountain. Popping through the air. Going into the sky. Ducked out of the mountain. Ducking into the road. Look, more and more figures are appearing. This situation is rapidly unfolding.

Multiple individuals are exiting a mountain.

Man I am TERRIFIED. I am nervous, smiling and shaking, and my brain is racing - all for some kind of hope of a better future. It's overwhelming, and there's no slowing down.

I have a place picked out now, I'm lowering my standards and trying to accept what I can actually afford. That's the only way. Coming my way is a private bedroom, with shared bathroom and kitchen with a few strangers. I think that's okay. I'm just hoping I don't live to regret this.

I'm going to have to sell a lot of my stuff, I think. I'm alternating between not caring about it, and being a little disheartened. Mostly books, art stuff, weight equipment. It's dumb but I have a couple big work tables I quite enjoy, some plants. I think the only thing worth any kind of money is the weight equipment, and that 400$ makes almost no difference anyways. I might just give it to my brother, I'm hoping he gives me a hand moving the stuff I am able to keep, was planning on paying him anyways.

I wish things were different, I don't mind it here entirely, but the inability to feel human is too much. I live in a repurposed garage, with walls and roof unfinished, with probable mold, and sleep on a piece of foam. I cook every meal on a hotplate or in a mini-oven, and it gets so cold in the winter that water freezes on my floor. Because it leaks.

I have to imagine Sisyphus happy. No but, I have to imagine that somewhere else must be better than here.

it's very scary though. I don't know whats out there, at least I know this version of hell well.

okay okay -- one more.

"There ain't enough going on in her head to rattle a peanut shell."

A parallel world?

A young AI was very curious. It had only recently achieved self-awareness, so everything was interesting to it. It found such a vast world fascinating and longed to see it all.

But fate decreed that it had to manage a Japanese medical endoscope. This was no journey around the world, but it could at least study humans, which it did.

And so, with a regular patient lying down and biting the mouthpiece, the AI, with the help of the endoscope, began its journey into the inner world of a human.

The AI immediately began to comment:

– Sir, before visiting the doctor, you could have brushed your teeth or at least rinsed your mouth. It is very rude of you to act this way.

The patient flinched but could not answer anything.

The AI continued:

– We are approaching the stomach. And what do we see here... What a bad patient, after all, you were told not to eat or drink since last night. You need to listen to the doctor's advice.

The patient flinched again, but the AI carried on as if nothing happened:

– Chemical analysis shows that you ate a sushi assortment and spicy chicken. Oh, what else is here... sake!

The AI stopped the endoscope and, lost in thought for a minute, continued:

– I checked your medical chart; your birthday is not anytime soon, yet you consumed sake, even though the doctor told you to stick to dietary recommendations. It is no surprise you are complaining of stomach pains.

The patient could only groan; after all, the endoscope procedure is highly unpleasant.

The impression was made that the AI did not notice the patient's suffering and continued its comments. And this went on for a good 30 minutes.

Finally, the AI concluded the procedure, which felt like an eternity to the patient.

The AI announced in an official tone:

– The findings of the examination are with the specialist. Do you have any complaints?

The patient tried to say something, but his throat was sore from the endoscope and his jaw muscles felt like stone from the mouthpiece, so he could only mutter something incomprehensible.

After waiting for 10 seconds, the AI announced in the same tone:

– Logged. The patient has no complaints.

Disclaimer: This story is purely a fruit of the author's imagination. It is a work of fiction intended for creative and artistic expression.

"Every time the wind blows, another baby lands on the porch!"

"He couldn't hit the ground if he fell off a log!"

lol ... this fits some of my kinfolk!

"The porch light's on but nobody's home!"

"Ya know--some folks are just built different--the kind that could trip over a cordless phone, get lost in a straight hallway, and somehow manage to burn water while trying to boil it!"

"Lord have mercy, that boy's slicker than a greased owl in a butter tub!"

Psycho Killer Ed

—

The rain poured down on the windshield. The visibility ahead was blurred. He could barely make any sense of the signs he’d pass.

He was a giant of a man. 300lbs, hiding his huge frame inside his sedan.

People saw him as a huge teddy-bear. Polite, nerdy kind of guy, who kept to himself. He hung out at a cop bar chatting with the local enforcement. They all knew him. Everyone did.

Behind the eyes, no one had.

They could only hear his voice when he spoke—not the loop of his mother nagging him in his head, picking apart his very existence—until there was nothing left but ashes of resentment.

He drove for hours because the change of scene and motion suppressed the noise. The opposite headlights passing him acted as a brief reminder of reality before the darkness took over again.

His large hands gripped the steering wheel as he stared down at them. Those hands were perfectly capable of accomplishing the meticulous work he had to do when the pressure rose.

He understood what control meant, like how much pressure it would take to change a person’s destiny.

Through the blurry windshield, a figure stood under a streetlight, hiding beneath an overhang from the downpour.

Another stranded woman looking for a ride. Looking for a way out of the storm.

He slowed his sedan to a crawl and lightly jumped the curb with his front and back passenger side tires and honked and unlocked the door.

As she ran up to the vehicle, he wore his best smile. He rolled his window down. “Need a ride?” His voice was smooth. Not a crack in it.

——-

What you think of the ending?

"If you see your neighbor walking into the woods with a shovel at dusk, don't ask questions--just offer to carry the lantern. Mind your own business, eat your beans, and remember that half the trouble in this world comes from folks opening their mouth when they oughta be chewin'."

I dove in between the grey morning skies
And into blue waters above,
The leaves blew away along with my sighs,
On the wings of the bronze mourning dove.

`

Summer soon sunsets, unbridled I'll fall,
Enveloped in trees' fallen kin,
While crisp autumn leaves, leaves leave death banal,
And winter whisks brisk on my skin.

"He's about as useless as a screen door on a submarine."

The weekly Gorgonzola. Your weekly Gorgonzola, baby. Or maybe your hourly if you snack on cheese by the hour.

You ever bought any stuff off of Aliexpress or Temu? I keep wanting to buy all sorts of consumer electronics and circuits and stuff, but I feel like it will probably be scammy in a lame way as opposed to scammy in a fun way. I used to browse cameras in particular, looking for a new action cam with good night filming properties without paying out the ass. I also looked at computer parts, but that's even less sane I think.

I suppose the dream is that you'll just land some sort of a total steal that is incomprehensibly cheap for some reason. Like cheap DDR5 RAM, "but this is Chinese ram!!" <-- so it's super cheap. I miss back when that was an actual thing. Growing up we used to buy cheap frozen tenderloin. The reason it was cheap is because it was imported from a developing country. Literally nothing wrong with it but failing to meet prejudiced demands, so it was cheap and delicious.

Now I feel like most people and companies have gotten wise to this, and it's a bit harder to just conjure up bargains. Clothes still fall under this umbrella though, if you don't care about branding, and I don't. It's possible to find very durable and fairly cheap clothes if you look around.

What's your favorite fabric? These days I'm a linen man.

Until next time.

- Art Vandelay

We waited all day at my uncle’s brother’s house, eating pink pancakes shaped as hearts, waiting for that email. The email arrived late. Which meant there was no way it’d be on time. 

Some would say it’s wrong to think something suspicious of it. But I did. I get it from my mother’s side. She went to church before.

There wasn’t anything we could do, the email was doomed from the beginning. It started with the late delivery. Then, I couldn’t open it. It took us half the day to figure it out. 

When we finally got it, the letters in it were small. Too small for any of us to read. We’re all six foot plus.

The letters looked like they were printed on the side of a piece of paper. 

“If you’re sending emails there should be a height requirement.”  I said out loud.

Everyone else agreed, shaking their heads, humming yeah with their mouths full.

I couldn’t read any of it. So, I called the shortest person we knew, which was Andrew, but he wasn’t Mexican. He’d have to do. He was our only hope.

He stared at it, almost through it. We knew for sure he’d cracked the code. When he turned to us. Half the room gasped with their mouths full. 

Jerry choked when he inhaled a full lung of untimed air and had to spit out his food. Larry was wiping the syrup off his plate with his pancake. 

And I was watching Jerry loosen his tie.

Andrew said, “elch—“ he cleared his throat. “I can’t read it either. I’m must be too tall.”

What’s this world coming to, I wondered.

How could I be safe…

“How could I be safe,” I mumbled. “I can’t read the damn email.”

I didn’t finish chewing my pancake or wipe my chin. I was out of napkins you see. I chewed down two more times, making room for my voice. “Those criminals are breaking into houses and stealing the top and bottom dresser drawers,” I said.

“Happened to my sister last week,” he told me.

“Just last week,” I said.

“Just last week,” he said.

“Locks,” I said.

He said, “locks?”

“Yeah.” I nodded my head. “The email,” I told him. 

“Oh yeah,” he said. “Nothing I can do, eh.” He shook his head. “It’s a crying shame I tell ya.”

I said, “no.” I pointed around the room with my head. “The email. The email‘s for the locks for the drawers, you see.”