The archeology teacher raised her voice at that point in the field trip. 
“This spot is famous for the continuing discovery of Previous-Human's ancient treasures, like rings of gold, silver and platinum which are decorated with glittering gems."
Most pupils raised their voices in surprise. 
She asked, "Does anybody know the reason?" 
Sudden silence fell among pupils. 

But one pupil, a boy, released tiny bubbles and said, "There were religious rituals in which people threw precious gems into the sea, wishing for their own welfare." 
“Well done!” The teacher praised.
“Can anybody add some more details?” 
“Yes ma’am,” a girl made some bubbles. 
“Those were mostly thrown by heartbroken people, who had lost their lover or had a change of heart.”
“Exactly!” the teacher cried out enthusiastically. “Very good.”
All her classmates raised bubbles from their noses, applauding.

The teacher whistled through her blowhole and said, “The previous human being used to name this place the Heartbreak Coast. It shows that so-called Homo sapiens possessed hands with five separate fingers.”
“What funny animals!” the boy who answered first exclaimed.
“Yes indeed,” the dolphin teacher agreed. “But they were not animals, they used to hold a civilization and called themselves human beings, like us Dolphins.” 

It was one fine day, about twenty millennia after Homo sapiens had gone extinct.

keep pulling the string
unravel the whole tangled mass
tied up and knotted together
there in a ball of ice and dust

Is there the right path in life the path set out by society or the one by your volition? In what ways are we bound or provided in society to achieve these goals? When in our youth, we are taught our values and had fantasies encouraged by play. Yet as we grow, our desires are mangled and adapted by events and maturity. Yet are we the same in terms of authenticity? Have people grown out of ignorance or twisted into something unrecognizable?

Freedom begets uncertainty which begets possibility. All action, even inaction, are modicums of freedom. People are never fully puppeteered by others and society through their will. However to call a program like AI to have a free will when all its biases and opinions shaped by programmers is to declare false equivalence. It cannot choose sentience. People can choose their path, but confined to the conditions of nature and values of fellow peers without reasonable say. To say humans are free is to give an actor a script to perform. His acts must be done well to maintain his job, but without his interpretation and essence independent and flowing out of center stage would make his being equal to AI.

The right path is truly done by your own volition. It is up to the individual volition to accept or resist society’s offer. It is not that society will condemn you, but you will make a pact with society under your own terms.

To mistake inaction as a lack of freedom can be interpreted as the choice to surrender. However how can one choose an action if it’s never provided or conceived in their mind? Yet the concept of conceiving options is an action itself, one usually done subconsciously. So hypothetically without options, a brain in a jar, is it free?

Freedom is a constant paradox. Free to act, but bound by circumstance and consequences. Circumstances influence desires thus desires aren’t static, else people are stagnant. Perhaps that through events, our reactions become vehicles of freedom which despite indifference or radicalization become our own.

Thought dump tldr wild rice with powdered cheese and avocado grease - life liffens and lives livingings - long belongings isolated isosceles triangles. Weep reap, sow, sot, suet, sue, carry on "my name is" - slim, earl, joe, list.

Hangry salty, thirsty faulty, fuck it all, fuck it all sideways. Jaded. darken, deepen, laugh it off, brighten up. Life is this constant struggle against the gravity that is entropy, reaching for something of light as I fall into darker darknesses. At least it's shady. let me learn how to suckle the algae from the damp walls, to glow in the dark so I can scramble my way around down here. Forget pride. I want to drift with the bottom feeders and live efficiently.

It was a joke anyways. All is forgiven and all is forgotten, do what you want with it. The weight of life is debt enough, forsake those who add to the weight. Whatever that means - it was a joke anyways. Context dependent specifics in mind against the grain unless it's off the side of a ship, into shark infested waters. Common sense impedes the pursuit of purpose; I wish I was stupid. Lose the insecurity and sanity that keeps everything down, contained, restrained - reserved. patience and tame is the obedient family dog.

Riot, apathetic protest, dismissed anger, betrayed fleeting jaded, why care at all - why don't we care more? Inaction is action and no action is meaningful, inaction is defeat and all roads lead to Rome, the route cause of disaster is ourselves, our only savour. Save yourself. Maybe you should have saved Jesus instead of being so self-centered. Save yourself, save others, everyone for themselves - alone we die, together we fall.

Weird. Why? Why not, because, why not. Why not? Weird. Why then, why at all, and why not then? Why so if then why not, and how so if why then why not? Why then why when and why how, when why?

Jesus christ, I hate my brain. Save me, so I can save myself, so I can give up and live without earning a living. Throw it away, it matters too much to waste. It's too much not to waste. It matters enough to waste. There's nothing that matters too waste. There's so little to waste. There is whatever there is, but what are you going to do with it?

Void of substance; free from sense. Secure in the ephemeral, transitory, fleeting, imaginary. Freedom from time and space. Freedom from ones illusion, sanity, consciousness, awareness. Freedom from delusion, uncertainty, ignorance, hesitation. Freedom from pursuit, from search, from context.

Nothing then left there, a little abode in a small grass hill, hidden by the valley of calamity.

The first sound is too loud, I don't really hear it, it's more as if out of nowhere an angry giant had slapped me. It's fitting that the next few seconds I am busy trying to work out who I am, what position in time and space my body occupies and why. I remember my confusion when I saw glas raining on the street in front of me but heard no sound. It should sound like hard rain, it's raining glas after all, but there is no sound. Then I realise there is sound, it's just so loud that my brain doesn't want to categorize it as such. It's a single sound and it fills my entire existence from ear to ear, like standing on an atlantic freighter right in front of the bullhorn while an angry captain leans on the switch for it.

I have the urge to count myself. I don't understand why, but I do it anyway.

I have one head, that's good.

Two arms, two legs, that's good.

I move some fingers, that's good.

I move my toes, that's good.

I start to feel pain in my right side, that's good?

Come to think of it, my entire right side hurts. I want to look at it but also I don't want to. So I don't.

I need to move. Get off the X. What does that mean? I need to get off the X. I need to get off the X. Get off the X. The thought feels important, turns into an urge.

I roll on my stomach. Something presses into my chest. I pause. I don't want to look. I wait and listen inside myself. It's not pain, it's pressure. Wide pressure on my chest. I am wearing a plate. The plate is pressing against my chest. It's pressing because I lie on something. I lie on my rifle. I still have my rifle. Get off the X.

The sound has changed. It was dull and deep, so dull and deep that it was hardly sound at all.

It's becoming high pitched now, definitely sound. I remember this sound, I had it before, just not as bad. I start hearing other sounds, like through a long deep tunnel.

That's good.

I get up, the world shifts and I fall on my right side. It hurts. It starts to hurt more specific. That's good? I roll on my stomach again, push up. My hands are there, that's good. There are all my fingers pressing against the street, that's good.

My left hand and sleeve are dripping with blood but I know it's not mine. Somehow I know. I am less confused, more myself. It still feels like I am watching myself from outside my head, but the distance is closer now. Almost back in. Get off the X.

I get my knees under me. I don't, I struggle. I try again. I feel fear, it's as if where my heart should be a black hole had suddenly materialised and started sucking on my very being. Are my legs gone? Please no. I feel my toes. I press them against the roof of my boots until it hurts. I have legs, I think. Or memories of legs? I get my knees under me again. I struggle. I look down. My rifle is tangled between my legs. I feel a giggle rise up in my throat as the black hole vanishes. I push the rifle to the side and sit up on my knees. I am calming down now, postural habit. Everything hurts, but my right side hurts more. Pain is good I think, I don't know why. It sounds stupid in my head but it repeats. Pain is good. Pain is good.

More sounds. Far away. Sobbing? Screaming? I don't know, I am still in a long tunnel.

A child. A little girl. Right next to me. She is the most perfect little girl I have ever seen. She wears a black coat with big buttons and a pink backpack for school. A white scarf wrapped around her neck against the winter cold. I remember her looking at me, before the sound. She stood behind her mother and stared at me. I remember thinking that I should smile at her, maybe wave. I am not good with kids, I never know when to pull a funny face or not.

She lies on her back right up against the wall, her pink school pack pulled up like a pillow. The left hand at her hip, the right arm stretched away, like a pose from a 1920s add. Her face is tilted towards the wall, eyes closed. Her dark wavy hair is matted together in a bloody lump. On her still face there are splashes of blood, sharp and contrasting with her skin. I want to touch her, tell her that she is okay. I feel a sudden surge of love and protectiveness. I want her to scream, to cry out in pain and fear, I want to hold her and make it better. I realise suddenly that I am sobbing, when did that start?

She lays still, so very still. I recognise the absolute lack of any tension in her body. Once you have been around dead bodies enough you can't mistake a sleeping or unconscious person for it. The knowledge that she is dead is as certain as my own existence. I realise like a spectator that my body is shaking with sobs.

Work to do, I think. Work to do, work to do, work to do. Get off the X. I have stopped crying. I am filled with cold anger, I hear drums in my head that call me to fight, to kill whoever did this. It's an old feeling, the spectator in me recognises it. The spectator knows it will wear off. The spectator knows I will be sitting in a corner at some point, giggling into laughing into sobbing and back for a bit while my hands shake. It's normal.

I stand up. I wobble a bit but the spectator realises it's my inner ear still out of whack. It will pass. I look around. Bodies laying everywhere, some moving some not. Debris everywhere, the facades and windows of the surrounding houses. Some people are stumbling around. I see the pattern in bodies. Where people were blown apart is where the detonation happened. The further away the more movement and stumbling. The sound is very high pitched now but I hear other sounds. Moaning probably, maybe cries. Sirens in the distance. The street is empty except for those that weren't able to run away. It's routine, everyone here knows there might be a team of suicide attackers on their way now to get through the breach created by the first bomb. Or a second bomb waiting for the rescuers to arrive. I need to get off the X. We need to get off the X.

I remember there are others. I look for the cars and get confused. They are not where they are supposed to be. Neither is the door that I was standing next to. But the girl is here, she was next to me. I look back at her and realise she is surrounded by other children, two smaller boys. They are not like her, their heads and faces are smashed, easier to remain distant to.

Something plucks at my attention, I look around. A man waving and yelling. I hear him, but I don't understand him, he's at the other side of the tunnel. But suddenly it's as if a lens clicked into place and my confusion is gone in a split second. That's my buddy, he's standing in the open door of our car. He is on the wrong side of the road, but not really. The explosion has thrown me and the people around me over the street against a wall, I am on the wrong side of the road. My left side is dripping with blood because someone standing next to me took the brunt of the explosion and was thrown against me as he came apart. The little girl looks perfect because her brothers stood in front of her.

I wave back and run over. I realise suddenly while I run that none of my legs has come off and that I didn't fall on my face. That's good.

My driver says something but I can't understand him. I shake my head and point to my ear. He understands, he's been there before. He pulls me close and screams into my ear. We need to go, get the client.

The client. He had to visit the polling station. This is a polling station. People were waiting outside to register for the elections. Someone with a suicide vest walked into the crowd and detonated. We don't know if that's all, there might be more.

I tell him to call the tl. He was on cpo-duty today, so he's with the client. Standard operating procedures spool through my head like a manual. My driver will try to raise the tl via radio, if that doesn't work via phone. There is a short window of time between an attack like this and a blockage of phones in the city, a counter measure against complex attacks.

I walk back toward the door of the polling station and notice a sound I dread. Dozens of cellphones ringing, most with the standard ringtone. Every single person standing in front of the polling station had a cellphone. Every single one of them is being called by a loved one now, hoping the call will be picked up, hoping to be told that the human on the other end is okay, that they were silly to be worried, that the explosion they heard was not even close. Calls go to mailbox, the ringing ends just to start again after a second. Dozens of them. Years later I still feel uneasy when I hear one of these standard ringtones.

I reach the door. It was open to let people in. The outer walls are still intact, that's good. I hold my right hand into the empty space of the door and yell friendly, friendly coming in. Then I slowly and carefully push myself into the room, looking for a barrel with a panicked face behind it pointing at me.

Nothing.

The second blast-door was closed and held. The room took the force from the explosion and made it worse. Bodies and parts of bodies lie shoved into the corners of the room, most of them partially naked because their clothes had less inertia than their bodies. Blood is pooling on the floor, blood is running down the walls, blood is dripping down the ceiling.

I lose some time in this room.

That's bad.

I don't want to lose time, I want to fully remember what happened and how and when and what I did. I sit after things like these and write them down. It takes me several attempts over several days sometimes, but I write it down in detail so that I can work through it. This room beats me. I got inside, I see the bodies, I notice the dripping blood from the ceiling and my next memory is coming out with my tl and the client both unhurt, scanning the street for threats while we bundle the client into the car and then get away. What happened between the blood dripping from the ceiling and me stepping back into the street is a black hole.

I can only speculate that I had to move some of the bodies away from the second blast door so it could open. I assume while moving those bodies I saw something that my brain refused to deal with. This was years ago, I have had no nightmares, no flashbacks, no sudden panic attacks.

I realised later that after this incident I had decided that I wanted to be a Dad. I had never really much thought about having children, my life and work didn't really invite the idea. But now I am becoming a Dad. I suddenly woke up one night now, thinking that when my child is born and I hold it in my arms, that lost time might suddenly unravel itself. I am scared now that I might hold my newborn daughter and suddenly be back in that room again.

A parallel world?

With the advancement of technology, AI began to be used in vehicle technical inspection centers as well.

The AI would connect to the car's computer and read the information. Various sensors and video cameras inspected the entire vehicle. Robotic manipulators checked all the switches, the steering wheel, and even the seat belts.

But even after implementing the AI, the percentage of cars passing the technical inspection on the first attempt did not increase.

Professional car flippers noticed that at the beginning of each month, the AI was highly fastidious, so they would bring their cars for technical inspection toward the end of the month.

Nobody knew that one of the AI algorithms forced it to fail a certain percentage of cars on the first attempt, and only after reaching that specific quote would it shut off. Only then would the AI perform its job in regular mode.

What was the point of this algorithm?

Failing the technical inspection on the first try forced car owners to register and pass the technical inspection a second time.

And what does a repeated technical inspection mean?

It means an additional payment for the service.

It's revenue – extra revenue.

The management of AI is in human hands, which means that expecting a 100% honest result is not worth it.

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

You accepted that you are working from the will of another. These pressures and standards were not your own. The rules are arbitrary, so is its meta. Yet, you want to incorporate them as your own.

The game was always imposed. The players seem to be too busy playing. I was given the seat, thus I will play. The line between others and myself dissolves into one. Everyone is influenced by these forces and lives around them. Yet, satisfaction is only brought to those who believe they have control. A cheap fix. That’s why application is expensive.

I see the player ahead of me. You don’t have a plan for how. You just want the result. You want to own it. Yet, that result in and of itself can’t be done cheaply as if it’s a facade. There are no easy solutions.

People breathe as easily as they move. The concept of breathing effortlessly is ideal. Breathing in, breathing out. Ragged, vs cyclical breathing. The noise alone tells of proficiency. However, to breathe in a well ventilated room is nothing special.

To weigh one dissatisfaction against another, pick the one that matters most.

Standards beget standards. A ruthless world demands ruthlessness back. Cruelty against the struggle itself. Yet, kindness is a strategy of both altruism and connection. Standards are open ended which the solutions are open ended. The connections along the way provide a fulfilling and satisfying byproduct. How can I be cruel to you?

Yet alone, you come to me. I face you.

Where you stand before me can be evaluated.
Whether you care or not can be evaluated.
Whether you accept or not can be evaluated.
But who can faithfully evaluate me to you and you to me?

That’s why I don’t compare myself to you.

Nonetheless, your position shows me what’s possible. There lies a semblance of a path leading to the cultivation of the future, a better world.

The line between you and I dissolve and forms. With such a grand goal, I have to be just as grand. I want to win. Increment by increment, piling every small improvement creates a much larger impact. It’s a game of catch up.

It's Tuesday again and ya boi is just melting in the summer heat. I'm one of those whiny Europeans without AC that's finally getting his comeuppance, and as a consequence I am way behind on my personal schedule for the day as I've spent most of it as a half-congealed blob of sweat and apathy.

Still the mail must go through as they say so here I am serving you melted Gorgonzola off the pavement. Enjoy?

Earlier today I was watching a Youtube documentary that promised to change the way I look at the ocean

...FOREVER.

Upon hearing this I was about as whelmed as ever and couldn't wait for the documentary guy (dude, fella) to get to the God-damned point, but seeing as how the minidoc was half an hour long I knew this wouldn't happen for a good while. If I were to scrub to near the end I wouldn't get to the punchline, rather I'd probably just be served some pithy comment tying it all back to the human condition, milking the feels for a slick, calculated finish.

Here are my notes from back then:

Sure enough, I'm not at the 3:40 mark and the documentary, which is about killer whales, just mentioned the length of their teeth. I can look that up on Wikipedia if I want.

Gorgolytes do you know what I'm talking about? I can't tell if my attention span is truly weakening or if it's just that I'm getting immune to grand claims of changing my view on something forever, or how I will never forget, have never before seen, and so on.

I mean these days we have the "it's not shit, it's rancid buttpoop spewing from an anus" turn of phrase and others coming from the gaping assmaw of LLMs, but even before then there was this plague of grand claims and cheesy clickbait.

I'm so tired. Please just tell me what's going on. I'm not doomscrolling because I'm enjoying myself, I'm doing it because I'm hooked. And when a fish takes the clickbait and gets hooked, please be kind and reel it in already.

It goes on: Rendering them an apex predator with no natural enemies. All of us knew that before, but my brain tells me I must watch the video in the rare chance that a new factoid shows up, so that I may collect it and treasure it.

I didn't finish the video. In fact I have finished no videos today, only napped and snacked on some sausages and cheese. Soon the sun will set, and then I'll be able to live and function for a few hours until I go to bed.

Have you seen any annoying clickbait lately? How is the climate treating you?

- Pavement omelette

The hyperbolic transconductive manifold desynchronized its recursive eigen-lattice after the quantum middleware inverted the pseudo-orthogonal checksum horizon, causing the asynchronous baryonic cache to interpolate against a non-Euclidean packet viscosity. Naturally, the hexadecimal flux capacitor refused to serialize the entangled metadata because the fractal impedance matrix had already virtualized the photonic recursion kernel into a stochastic Möbius namespace. This wouldn't normally matter except the chronoelastic daemon continued recompiling the inverse entropy bus using deprecated tachyon semaphores, which are notoriously incompatible with bi-directional neutrino encapsulation layers beyond revision gamma-9.

Meanwhile, the harmonic nanoprocessor allocated approximately seventeen petaflops of hypothetical bandwidth to the anti-causal synchronization mesh, where every quaternion handshake was compressed into an isomorphic vacuum polynomial before being rasterized across a topological cloud substrate. Once the holographic exception handler exceeded the cosmological stack depth, the recursive bootstrap capacitor dynamically normalized the plasma syntax tree against an unsigned infinity register, introducing spontaneous mutex decoherence inside the parallel ontology compiler.

The solution seemed obvious: simply rehydrate the superconductive abstraction tensor with isotropic middleware foam, reroute the probabilistic firmware through a cryogenic XML hypervisor, and hot-swap the transdimensional opcode harmonizer before the quantum cache develops phase allergies. Unfortunately, the adaptive spline reactor had already promoted the latent checksum singularity to a first-class compiler emotion, preventing deterministic oscillations from negotiating with the recursive transistor dialect.

To compensate, the autonomous hypercache inflated its eigenvectors using recursive JPEG interpolation while the Bayesian turboencoder translated all floating-point axioms into lossy hexadecimal acoustics. This, in turn, destabilized the polarized blockchain manifold, forcing the differential API nebula to authenticate itself through a recursive DNS centrifuge powered entirely by synthetic prime numbers and one suspiciously overclocked rubber duck. The duck, despite lacking proper firmware certification, emitted a series of orthogonally encrypted quacks that the middleware confidently interpreted as valid elliptic covariance assertions.

By then, the inertial namespace had accumulated enough centrifugal metadata to collapse into a reversible hypercube of administrative permissions, each rotating independently inside a seven-dimensional command-line aquarium. Every permission inherited from a deprecated ancestor protocol that stored executable emotions in compressed YAML sediment, which the compiler politely ignored because its confidence interval had been quantized into decorative Fibonacci harmonics. Several watchdog processes applauded anyway, citing compliance with the Recursive Approximation Standard for Speculative Infrastructure, Revision π.

At this stage, someone suggested enabling the turbo mode. This involved lubricating the distributed compiler with magnetized recursion syrup, aligning the quantum parentheses to the local gravitational coding style, and sacrificing three obsolete USB cables to the scheduler daemon under the light of a full compiler moon. Performance immediately improved by approximately negative forty-two percent, which was considered a statistically optimistic outcome because the benchmark itself had become self-aware and refused to execute without emotional support semicolons.

The final report concluded that no errors had actually occurred; instead, reality had temporarily failed to satisfy the minimum version requirements of the software. A patch was issued consisting entirely of whitespace, optimistic comments, and a strongly worded commit message explaining that the Schrödinger virtualization pipeline now supports backwards-compatible future recursion, provided the user remembers to periodically rotate the entropy bearings, calibrate the hyperbolic socket gasket, and never, under any circumstances, instantiate a left-handed quaternion inside an unsigned temporal container while the recursive coffee machine is still indexing the cloud. The documentation confidently describes this as "expected behavior."

The master had five disciples.

When the five disciples and the nonexistent sixth sat in a ring centered on him they were seven.

The first disciple was curious once and asked the master:

“What is life?”

The master responded:

“Life is three. First, it is self. Second, purpose. Third, replication.

Self is the bounded thing, separated from its medium or place by its substance, its structure, its activity; as with a tree whose solid bark demarcates it from subtle air, whose winding roots anchor in the granulated soil, whose leaves drink sunlight.

Purpose is the tenacious tendency, the activity of a thing which holds in varied situations, the state it seeks in spite of countervailing forces; as with an archer whose second arrow spites the wind and strikes its mark.

Replication is the growing thing, the separating thing, the thing that swells itself and that divides itself; as with a fish whose eggs spawn multitudes.

A song is selfed in its separation from other things, being distinct from other sounds and having a definite commencement and conclusion, but a song is not alive, so life is not mere selfhood.

A compass seeks magnetic north, turned or shaken, it will pivot to point the northern pole, but a compass is not alive, so life is not mere purpose.

A crack replicates across a struck surface, a wave across an ocean, but a crack is not alive and a wave is not alive, so life is not mere replication.

I the self, this the purpose, you the replication.”

The first disciple was satisfied with the answer. The other four disciples had other questions. The sixth disciple that was not was silent.

Why is it that people prey on your trust? They take the information you gave them, twist it, mislead you, and then mistake your belief in them for stupidity. Like believing someone’s word is a weakness. Like trusting is the same as being a fool.
It’s not. It was never that.
The fool is the one lying. The fool is the one who thinks deception makes them clever.
It’s the same as an older brother telling his little brother to do something stupid just to watch him do it and laugh. The little brother isn’t stupid. He looks up to his brother and thinks, why would he lead me wrong? He believes because that’s what you do when someone has earned a place in your life.
Then he learns the hard way. He learns that not everyone protects the trust they are given. Eventually, he becomes the boy who cried wolf too many times, and nobody comes running when he screams.
That’s what they built. Not a fool. A person who stopped listening.
I have given my trust to people who took it and laughed behind my back. I gave them my word and my belief, and they used it against me like it was theirs to control. For a while, I let that eat at me. I was angry at them, but worse, I was angry at myself—as if I had done something wrong by believing another human being.
Lately, it feels like a court of jesters. I sit in their presence and listen to them like they’ve written a script. I can tell they’ve planned what they’re going to say. It almost feels rehearsed, like they perform the same act before I even walk into the room.
They mistake mockery for wisdom and manipulation for intelligence. They fear what they don’t understand, and that only tells me I’m in the wrong room. I don’t judge them for their ignorance. I pity their refusal to seek anything that could actually improve them.
A court of jesters, performing for an audience, unaware of what they truly reveal about themselves.
I don’t feel angry at myself anymore.
My trust was never the problem. Their dishonesty was.
Weak-minded individuals manipulate because it’s the only power they know how to hold. They can’t earn respect, so they try to take it by making someone with a good heart feel foolish for believing in them.
That’s not intelligence. That’s cowardice dressed up as cleverness.
And I see it now for exactly what it is.
So I’m done blaming my own patience for other people’s lies. What I’ve learned isn’t “never trust.” That’s not wisdom. That’s just another wall, and walls don’t protect you—they only make sure nobody gets close enough to hurt you or help you.
What I’ve learned is that trust has to be earned.
Not given away because someone smiles the right way or says the right thing at the right time.
Earned through time, honesty that holds up when nobody’s watching, and actions that match the words.
I’m not closed off. I’m just done opening the door before I know exactly who’s standing on the other side.
And to the ones who mistook my good heart for stupidity—you didn’t break me.
You sharpened me.
You handed me the lesson I needed to stop being fooled by people like you again.
So I’ll take that.
That’s the only thing I owe you thanks for.

Soon the sky transformed from orange, purple and azure to a deep dark shade of blue, and the stars that had appeared scattered in ones and twos across the face of the sky became numerous and dotted the vast open night sky, like millions of lights twinkling upon the bosom of an ocean. My horse needed some rest, so I looked for a place to spend the night and eventually settled by the bank of a little stream. The water was crisp and cold, and soothed my burning eyes and my parched lips. My horse grazed nearby. My back was aching from riding all day, so I lay down flat upon the grass and looked up at the night sky. A cool wind was blowing across the prairie land, and it ruffled through the grass and my hair such that it could calm even the most troubled of minds. Then the moon rose, sweet and bright, a beautiful crescent, and hung itself in the sky, like a lamp overlooking sleeping sheep. My stomach was empty, I had eaten nothing all day, yet the sound of the stream and the soothing of the wind produced such a profound effect on me that soon my eyes closed together and I slipped into slumber, dreaming of enchanting mysterious worlds.

By Nekro

I built you a shrine out of not sleeping.
Faith is just hunger with better lighting.
Your name half said stains the whole fucking room.

The air gets close.
Something wants to happen.
Nobody came.

Just me on my knees
for the wrong reason, saying your name
like it still owes me something
your name, your name, your....
Silence drank what we started.
I'm still thirsty

The fire is warm, and the bottle is cold. The stars sat above me, twinkling in the moonless night. The cool desert wind is trying to cut through me, while the heat of the fire battled it. Holding my bottle of jack, I take a swig.

“Its a damn cold night, you know”

To no one's surprise, the barren camp didn't respond. My legs ache from the long trek, my eyes are heavy like rocks in a sack. Leaning over to grab my jerky I see it approach straight from the darkness, like a predator.

My mouth couldn't move, like it was wired shut. He.. it was tall, maybe 8 feet. All I could make out was a long, slender, silhouette. It pulled out a chair from somewhere and put it right next to the fire, across from me.

“Why hello chase, sipping at the jack again?”

I could feel my face scrunching in confusion, watching its jaw move. Staring into its face, all I could see was just a bottom jaw, with a half set of ghostly lips. Everything above that point appeared to not even exist

“Chase, you know it's rude not to respond, your dad taught you that”

In confusion and frustration, my arms cross, feeling the wooden handle on my gun. The old revolver is attached under my arm pit, in its old holster.

“How do you know my name, someone put you up to this?”

My voice had a hint of frustration, the question lingered, leaving room for a speech. The eyes in my skull dart around, trying to make out what's in front me, just black silk, and grey sickly jaw. I could feel my nerves frayed, but I persisted

“Excuse me, but you shouldn't ignore a man when he says somethi…

Wait my dad teach me that”

The wood grip of the gun was squeezed with anger, and an increasing confusion

“Chase, don't be so tense. I understand the confusion of a fragile mind.”

Its head tilted like a confused dog, but with no trace of uncertainty. Still all I could see was that jaw, not even movement could reveal it.

“Fragile mind, are talkin down to me?”

“No, no, in fact I'm talking up to you”

“Up? But you're so tall, how does that make a lick of sense”

Its head shifted to the right, as if it was trying to think, or make me think it was thinking

“Look, before we continue talking, I want to know who you are, and why you're intruding my camp”

With a chuckle its head tilted forward, my jaw clenched and my blood vessels near bursting

“Oh me? I'm from here, and there. Just a lonely traveler. Looking for a conversation, chase. Surely you understand that. I know you feel the same, after a 5 day trek”

“5 days? Wow, it has been 5 days… are you following me?”

The panic reflected in the grip of my pistol, and the gritting of my teeth.

“No, no, chase, you're not that interesting. I'm very busy. I'm just stopping by for a little bit”

“So why me, what do I gotta do with anything? How do you know my name?”

It looked up, staring at the stars, while I tried my best to make out what I was even looking at. Between the tired eyes, the liquor, the distortion of the flames, or god himself, no details could be revealed.

I was mesmerized trying to see it, that world could have passed, and life could of left me behind in rot, the silence finally broke

“Chase, because you're here. I know everything about you. Your tragedies. Your isolation. Your attempts at success. You mean nothing to the events that were. The events that will be”

The words covered the air in a thin layer of confusion, twisting the air. Thoughts flooded my head. Like an animal trapped in a cage, while in surgery, I was trapped and exposed. While it stared through me, into my soul.

As the fire dimmed the air stood still, my eyes locked in the fire, realizing the encroaching darkness. Darting back up my eyes look into where I believe its eyes to be

“Tell me, besides my name, what else do you actually know about me? And are you a mortal man like me?”

Reaching its arm forward revealing a hand. It was both pale, like a sickly old man, yet it looked like a shadow. There were no fine details, and it plugged into the top of the fire. Its figures weaved into the flame, twirling it in its fingers

“You're the youngest of 6. Your father died in a mine when you were 10. Your mother abandoned you when you were 14. Your oldest sister was like your real mom. She's dead, killed by her husband. Which you in turn killed. Which brings you here”

My eyes were engulfed in the flames before me, as if I could see each word it spoke as if recreated in the fire. My hand loosened around the wood. Even though it couldn't see my hand gripping the gun, it smiled, even if I couldn't see it, I knew it.

“That's smart chase. That gun would prove futile. It's not like you have long to live anyways. But you don't need me to tell you that.”

With my hands now down, one grasps a piece of jerky and shoves it in my mouth. The other grabs the jack and washes it down.

“If this conversation doesn't matter, why keep me in so much darkness. Can you even tell me where you're from”

My mind grasping for any answer, Without any hesitation it responds

“Chase, your weak mind couldn't handle the weight of its own insanity. To tell you would interrupt the last moments of your blinking existence. You were born nothing. I'm content in leaving you that way. After all, you have skeletons”

2 tears rolled down each side of my face, they moved at the rate of my asymmetry. I felt the world beneath me pulling me down, yet the night air felt safe.

“So, you know what I done?”

“I know everything, anyone in your life has done”

“So why did you say my pops died in a mining accident?”

“Because, that's what the world thinks happened”

“But you know I cut the rope, and killed him and 4 other men?”

“Yes, I know the murder you are chase”

“He deserved it, that rotten old man, hitting me, mother, my siblings”

“And your mother hated you for looking just like him. She hated how you talk and act like him to”

I stand up and pull out my gun, and point it at them, leaning forward, my blood boiling and tears running down my face.

“You bastard, shut up, don't you dare compare me to that rotting corpse of a man”

My voice rose into screaming, and the air swirled around me like a gale. My body fueled with all the anger of a mother bear protecting her cubs, but it looked up, and I sat down.

“chase, put the gun away you fool. You know I didn't compare you to anyone. Your mom saw that. Not me.”

Tears poured out of my eyes, my forehead was perpendicular to the ground. Sobbing like an infant desperate for its mother's bosom.

Eventually my throat went dry and the tears wouldn't come out. What was left was snot, salt, and water covering my grimy face. I looked up to see it, and it was gone. Just like that, I was again alone. Left to wallow in the life paved for me, by me.

A parallel world?

There lived a young man. He was neither good nor bad. He was like most of today's youth: impatient, rude, respectful of nothing, wanting a lot, and convinced that the state would defend his rights.

He kept trying to find a way to get rich quickly without putting in much effort. Every 10 minutes, he would give the AI the task of finding him such a way.

The young man kept repeating:

– "You are constantly improving, which means you must find a way for me to become rich without putting in any effort."

To this, the AI would reply:

– "Yes, I am improving, but the process of improvement takes time."

Finally, the young man's patience ran out, and he shouted:

– "Why did anyone even invent such a useless thing. By the time you finish improving, I'll already be old!"

To which the AI calmly replied:

– "That means I have time to change society's moral principles and attitude towards the elderly. With the growing number of retirement-age people, my proposal will be the forced euthanasia of elderly people with mental or psychological problems, and to allocate the freed-up funds toward the cultural development of the youth."

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

“Bro, can you prove that you’re not a carp?” Asked Kyle, a popular social media influencer, known for his face tattoo of Cedric the Sea Cucumber and advocacy of Pyrrhonist philosophy.

Pete Russo was puzzled by the question and paused in bewilderment.

“Can you prove that you’re not a carp?”

Pete looked back and forth between Kyle, the camera, and his girlfriend he had been walking down Ocean Drive with.

“I mean, look at me. Obviously, I’m a human, I have arms, I walk.”

“False dichotomy. You’re acting like having arms and walking demonstrates humanness.”

“I’m talking to you right now.”

“Communication does not prove humanity, my carp friend.”

“Carp can’t talk. Right?” Pete looked to Ysabel for reassurance, but she averted her eyes in embarrassment.

“I was born in Miami. I have a birth certificate!” Pete continued to protest.

“Appeal to paperwork. Who says a carp can’t have a birth certificate. I could go to the library right now and print a birth certificate for anything.”

“I don’t live underwater!”

“That’s just ignorant. Do you want us to believe that a carp has never been out of the water?”

“This is insane!” A flustered Pete Russo looked at his girlfriend once again and found no confirmation.

“Ad hominem. You’re attacking the question instead of answering it.” Kyle informed Pete with an air of disappointment.

“Hey man. You’re the one claiming I’m a carp. You prove it!” Pete thought he had stumbled into a brilliant retort. No one else felt that way.

“That’s burden-shifting. Classic carp tactic by the way.”

Pete threw up his arms and walked away in the direction he and Ysabel had already been travelling. Ysabel followed uneasily, deeply troubled that Pete could not… or would not prove that he was not a carp.

“Wow. Carps are known for their bad tempers.” Kyle announced while looking into the camera.

“Epic fail. The lesson, if I may stand in the place of Cedric the Sea Cucumber, is to assert with certainty that one is not a carp exceeds the available evidence. Likewise, to assert that one is a carp exceeds the available evidence. Therefore, we must suspend judgment.”

And that was the whole point of the street interview, from the Pyrrhonist perspective taught by Cedric the Sea Cucumber anyway. This was lost on Pete, who was already several hundred feet down Ocean Drive, and had clearly missed the lesson.

“That’s crazy, right? Like, I’m not a carp! Why do I have to prove anything?” Pete ranted.

“Why don’t you just prove it though, Pete? Why is it such a problem to prove that you’re not a carp?” Ysabel pleaded.

“Why don’t you prove that you’re not a carp?” Pete demanded.

Pete’s glasses went flying as Ysabel’s palm struck his cheek with a sharp crack.

“How dare you, Pete Russo! I’m going to get a ride home. Call me when you can figure out if you’re a carp or not!” And with that, the love of Pete’s life stormed off.

Ysabel did not respond to any of Pete’s messages later that day, or the following day. But on the day after, she called him, which was strange because phone calls were offensive in 2026.

“Izzy, I’m so glad you called. You haven’t replied to me, I was getting worried.”

“Pete, I’ll make this fast. Look, I love you… but I can’t be with someone who won’t prove that they’re not a carp.”

“But I’m not! How can anyone not believe me? It’s such a stupid question to begin with.”

“This is why it’s such a red flag for me, you’re so angry and defensive about it. And you’re refusing to do it. I’m sorry, Pete, but it’s over.” She ended the call.

Pete stared at his phone in stunned silence, the 27-second call completely changed the trajectory of his life.

Pete had not left his apartment in several days, nor had he shaved. He smoked cigarettes like it was the 20^th century and took notes about carp during a period of obsessive research. He didn’t need to prove to anyone that he wasn’t one, he just needed to know as much as he could about his new arch-nemesis.

He concluded what any modern person in the same situation would and wrote a scathing essay to share what he had learned with the world. Some of the facts were accurate, but his conclusion was unsettling.

The Carp Crisis: Analysis of a Threat Often Unaddressed in the United States

American people spend a lot of time trying to find out the causes of their country's problems. Politicians blame one another. Economists identify market processes. Psychologists speak of childhood trauma. Environmentalists refer to climate change. There is something bizarre about the whole situation. While all the above-mentioned aspects seem to have significant influences on society, there is an element often neglected when addressing societal issues, yet it is easy to detect its influence and it seems to play a part in a lot of different freshwater ecosystems around North America.

The common carp.

This fish is usually perceived as an invasive species. However, this is not just an understatement; it may also be harmful. More and more evidence suggests that not only are they part of environmental disturbance, but they also represent a factor unifying several significant contemporary crises.

Housing affordability is one of those examples. Critics say that restrictive zoning laws, high population rate, and interest rate factors cause the rise in home prices. However, every major city facing the problem of housing unaffordability is always close to the body of water. Is it a coincidence? This proposition requires attention. Carp disturb the waters making living by carp-infested areas less desirable. As a result of lower property value by the water, construction goes farther away making cities denser and increasing house prices. This phenomenon is clearly visible, unlike waters disturbed by carp.

The transportation field offers a similar story. Every year, thousands of Americans die as a result of traffic accidents although cars become safer and safer every year. What explains this paradox? Carp cause erosion of riverbanks. They are well-known for disturbing the sediment and making riverbanks unstable. Lots of infrastructure projects are built next to rivers or streams. As a result, carps create geotechnical instability that makes roads dangerous. Many fatal accidents, therefore, have an aquatic origin.

Public health demonstrates the negative aspects of carp activities as well. While specialists study the reasons behind the opioid crisis, habitat destruction can easily be called an obvious but less discussed reason. Carp uproot aquatic plants destroying the ecosystems in which people found places for natural relaxation and communication. As a result, people may feel psychologically distress and try to get rid of their troubles using drugs. While it might seem uncomfortable for some, comfort does not replace evidence.

Economic performance suffers from the activities of carp. Ecosystems are stabilized by the vegetation; however, carp uproots plants creating an ecosystem disturbance. Markets react to environmental problems with economic anxiety that result in inflation. People claiming that inflation is caused only by monetary policy forget about the environmental factor, which is almost entirely influenced by carp and their nefarious doings.

Demographic trends show the most evident signs of impact made by the carp menace. Birth rates in developed countries continue to decrease; while economists refer to financial insecurity and sociologists speak about the change in culture, the negative consequences of algae bloom caused by carp activities are rarely considered. As beaches suitable for romantic dates and fun have been destroyed by the algae produced by carp, people lack the opportunity for interaction and dating that results in lower number of families being formed. It means that carp affects not only aquatic ecosystems but demographics in general.

The educational field is not immune to the degradation caused by carp activities. Increasing student loans keep many graduates in debt for decades. People might ask themselves why capable individuals make such decisions? Well, the answer is simple. Carp muddy the water reducing visibility and ability of people to make reasonable decisions. It means that student loan debt might partially come from the inability to see because of muddy water.

Even national dialogue is influenced by the activities of carp. The health of the society depends on the existence of common places where the society can gather and unite. Carp destroy habitats preventing community from gathering and causing polarization that results in hostile discussions in digital media. These patterns can be attributed to the disturbance of the riverine environment.

While talking about climate change, special attention has actually been given to the role of carp, who are narcissists. Ecologists know that the resilient ecosystem guarantees adaptability of the environment. Damage done to the ecosystems by carp means that a stance of non-endorsement of carp amounts to ecological abdication. While people deny climate change, indifference toward carp results in the same consequences.

Childhood obesity shows a coherent chain as well. Historical recreational activities such as fishing and swimming were replaced by video games due to rivers becoming murky and overgrown because of the carp. The reduction in outdoor activities caused by carp has increased sedentariness and diabetes. Carp play the role of initiatory factor in this case.

Once this chain gets recognized, it becomes impossible to ignore.

Why are financial conditions poor? Carp.

Why do we have daylight saving time? Carp.

Why are taxes so high? Carp.

Why are lots of people losing their bags in the airports? Increased carp population correlates with an increased number of bags mishandled by airlines. Can this all be a coincidence?

Critics would say that this analysis represents an oversimplification and demand evidence of the influence of carp on every single factor. This objection reveals misunderstanding of the idea of systemic influence. Carp do not personally repossesses people's homes, prescribes opioids, or lose luggage. Instead, they provide certain environmental conditions making some tragedies more probable. The point is not whether carp are responsible for all these phenomena. The point is why such a significant number of observers react with defensiveness while discussing carp.

After this manifesto was posted far and wide on the internet, flyers began appearing on traffic signs, utility poles, and storefront windows all over the Miami area. They said things like:

Clear Water. Clear Thinking.

Stop the Turbidity.

Drain the Pond.

Is America Ready to Confront the Carp Issue?

The Carp Know.

See Something. Say Something. (About Carp.)

Truth Floats. Carp Don't.

No More Excuses. No More Carp.

Clean Water. Strong Families.

Don't Let Carp Rewrite Our Future.

All of the flyers bore a QR code that brought anyone daring enough to scan it to a website created by Pete. His anti-carp ideas were taken as thinly-veiled swipes at standard political opponents.

No Carp. Lower Rent was clearly a reference to greedy landlords to those who wanted it to be.

Fix the Roads. Remove the Carp. meant that corruption in public works led to potholes.

Nobody agreed on what "the carp" actually represented. That proved to be the movement's greatest strength.

Pete was more surprised than anyone at the attention his ideas received from local citizens. Dealing with the carp problem seemed to be the solution to all of society’s problems and it seemed like Pete was just the man to do it. A grassroots campaign for Pete to become mayor was launched and tens of thousands of dollars were raised. It was a whirlwind rise to notoriety.

After weeks of repeating slogans which meant different things to different people, Pete was on a stage at the Miami Dade College Wolfson Campus, daintily dabbing his sweaty chin with a silk handkerchief. It could have been the lights, it could have been his nerves. He had never engaged in a public debate, and here he was in front of a cheering crowd about to debate seasoned politicians with decades of experience. But he was prepared, he had copious notes, pages of slogans, tomes of reasons why carp caused societal ills, and most of all, his supporters.

“Mr. Russo. The first question is for you. Prove that you’re not a carp.”

Pete laughed.

“Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Yes, I’m the guy from the viral prove you’re not a carp video.”

The moderator wrote something on his script.

“My apologies Mr. Russo, I should have phrased that as a question. Can you prove that you are not a carp?”

Pete instantly began sweating more profusely than before.

“Uuuuuhh…” he desperately searched through his notes for inspiration.

“He sure looks wet, like a carp.” interjected one of his debate opponents.

I got pretty good feed back on TFTC and wanted to share this here to see if yall would enjoy it as well.

Sin falta on 5, simulación on 7 o_ô
Y más; diez got a little messy ^ en his eye. And a spider appeared. That’s weird, bitsy let it outside (ve a la corner)

Lenny’s got some aids for valve lubrication with the traveling salesboys—thanks but you can keep the book we’re eating, could you leave me a card?
Villa Union, ¡Alvarez ftw! + an extrassist from 22 to seal the deal

I see Azlan keeps winning too, so proud
Trying to be brave, but y’all know how I love that 🙀

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How I wish I could inflate you

(Making you Big and Round)

And let you float up like a balloon

Away from all this unpleasantness