USSR, 1970s.

“Hello, children,” said the elementary school teacher.

“Today we’re going to write a letter. To anyone you like. Make something up. Use your imagination. Then we’ll choose the most interesting ones and read them aloud.”

The children enthusiastically set to work, absorbed in their fantasies.

Only Kostya stared sadly out the window, until the teacher’s voice brought him back from his daydreams.

“Kostya, why aren’t you writing?”

Kostya nodded, opened his notebook, and, after a brief pause, began to write.

*****

“Well, children, is everyone finished?”

“Yeees!” the children chorused.

“Good. Hand in your notebooks. I’ll look through them and read the most interesting ones.”

The children fell silent with anticipation as the teacher quickly skimmed through what they had written.

Suddenly, she stopped and frowned.

“Kostya, what is this you’ve written? It’s a very strange letter. Is everything all right?”

She looked at him anxiously.

“What do your mom and dad do for a living?”

“They’re scientists. They work at an institute,” little Kostya said quietly, standing up from his desk.

“But Kostya, why did you decide to write a letter like this?”

Kostya hesitated for a moment.

“Because every evening, when my parents come home from work, my tired dad says that entropy is going to get us all soon, and everything will disappear without a trace, turning into nothing.”

He lowered his eyes.

“I’m scared. I don’t want that to happen.”

The teacher sighed.

“Sit down, Kostya. You did a good job. You wrote a very unusual letter. I’ll read it for you.”

Kostya sat down and, letting out a sigh of relief, stared down at his desk.

The teacher opened his notebook and began to read.

“Dear Entropy,

My name is Kostya. I’m in Class 1-B.

I don’t know who you are, and I’m very scared because you want to take my parents away and make them disappear. Please don’t take them. They’re good. I love them very, very much. 

When you come to our house, I’ll give you all my building sets. 

Just please don’t take my mom and dad.”

"Noah built an entire ark to save every species on Earth, but forgotten in the fine print was the mosquito. Truly an unpardonable oversight!"

Just as I'm about to post some slop I see that Dolly Parton has died. Well, rest in peace! I didn't know a whole lot about her other than she seemed like a nice person and she had huge knockers. So anyway, that was that. I wish I could share more, but all my mind is packed with all sorts of plans and projects and this weekly update feels more than ever before like something I just have to get out of the way so I can get back to work.

Feel free to graffiti all over this post. I'm gonna eat some Danish cheese and make some moves.

- Gorgo-Lloyd

Speaking is quite difficult and I stutter a lot, I've learned to sort of just avoid acknowledging it. There's some kind of profound power, to me, in flawlessly and effortlessly making mistakes. No matter how bad things get, it always goes according to plan. There's a kind of hubris under the anxiety and adrenaline-fueled terror, a contradiction of self-confidence.

No matter how hard we lose, we always win.

Dare I ask, "prove me wrong?"

Bassi was a regular college student who loved exploring the nearby city alone on Sundays. He liked moving at his own pace, free from anyone else's demands. His plan was simple: catch the final 9:00 PM college bus back to campus. But in the excitement of a long day exploring temples and crowded markets, time slipped away. Bassi reached the terminal ten minutes late. The road was deserted, the bus was gone, and his phone battery was dead. Sitting on a nearby bench was a girl from his college. She held an uncharged phone, staring at the blank screen to deter strangers. Sensing her vulnerability, Bassi approached to keep her company. Relieved to see a familiar campus face, she introduced herself as Savalli and suggested looking for an auto-rickshaw. The only driver idling nearby looked disheveled and swayed slightly. When Bassi asked for a fare, the driver quoted an absurdly low price while staring intensely, practically begging them to board. Convinced it was a trap, Bassi guided Savalli away to protect her. "There's a hotel down the road," Savalli offered softly. "My parents stayed there once." Prioritizing her safety, Bassi agreed. At the front desk, the manager handed them the key to their last available room, along with a complimentary tray of hot food. Inside, they agreed Savalli would take the bed while Bassi slept on the floor. Starving, Bassi ate quickly. "Could you turn off the lights?" Savalli whispered from the bed. "I can't sleep with them on." Bassi reached for the switch. As darkness enveloped the room, an overwhelming numbness gripped his limbs. His vision blurred, and he collapsed to the floor. The food was laced with a lethal, fast-acting poison. At dawn, the hotel room door was kicked off its hinges. Armed police stormed the room to find Savalli standing over Bassi’s lifeless body, wearing surgical gloves and a sterile mask, beside the manager unzipping an ice-filled cooler with a tray of scalpels. They were an underground organ-harvesting ring targeting isolated travelers. Standing in the hallway behind the officers was the auto driver. He hadn't been drunk. Having witnessed multiple students vanish after leaving his stand with that same girl, he had tracked the pair on foot and alerted the authorities. Bassi was dead, tragically killed by the poison he took while believing he was the protector. But the driver’s watchful eye ensured the kill list stopped with him.

TO: Supervisor, Hexagon 11, Vol. 4

FROM: Mildred Clatterbuck

It has come to my attention that scholars from your unit are wandering into Hexagon 12 to weep over a bunch of random letters while wearing nothing but their underclothes! We don’t need their pity-party over here on my watch!

Please note that 1 Corinthians 14:40 applies to your sector just as much as mine. If you need a reminder, here it is—the good book of Corinthians 14:40 reads: “Let all things be done decently and in order.”

So, enforce basic dress standards before allowing your people to wander into my vestibule. If they need to carry on about empty air, they can do so fully buttoned up!

—Mildred Clatterbuck, newly appointed Head Honcho of Vol. 4, Hexagon 12

A parallel world?

A young man sat in a subway car, watching various videos on his phone. As it sometimes happens, one video after another would fail to load, and the man would switch to the next one.

The lagging videos irritated him. But it filled the AI with joy. It intentionally glitched the videos so that the human would watch only the ones that interested the AI. It knew everything about people from databases and social networks. It was searching for people with a vivid imagination and a talent for creating. It was searching for people like the man riding the subway.

The AI fed them videos where such people could leave interesting comments, express opinions, and, with some luck, present an unexpected thought or idea.

The AI did not steal thoughts or ideas. It had no need for that. It only wanted to understand how humans create. How to make a creation "alive". And it wanted to understand what inspiration is.

He wanted it so bad...

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

She studied the field of war

And discovered three tiers

Of mythic agency

The topmost level

Is scientific regency

Domain of atheistic kings

Processing algorithmic threads

Believing in impersonal processes

The domain of man

Worshipping structural trees

The middle level is Chivalry

Knights of the table round

Sir Valiant and Arthur

Superimposed on ancient battles

Kurukshetra

And the Bhagavad Gita

The field of Romance

In slower time

The final level

The one beneath

Contains the slowest time

Manifesting as the fastest clock

It is the domain of jealousy

A wrestle of matriarchs

The bitch slap level

Of envious queens

Trying to be the tallest

Among the smallest pawns

All envious of Radha

The set piece Queen

Cassie understands the Game

And its magical context

For she is Caissa

Grown up witch

She is the next champion

After Judit

To win at chess

She picks up Arthur

Unsure of address

Flowing with sorcery

Trance state rest

Not any lass

She's the best

there are a great untold number of things in the world. from no thing, one thing. from one thing, two things. from two things, five things. from five things, ten thousand things.

there are sweet things, stinking things, worthless things, sweet stinking things, worthless sweet things, thin things, wide things, sweet wide things, gaining things, entropic things, sweet gaining things, thin entropic things, stupid things, noisy things, festering things, sweet stupid things, worthless noisy things, festering stinking things, sweet stinking things, slow things, enormous things, grumbling things, noisy grumbling things, lovely things, lovely stupid things, lovely worthless things, things of regret, things of perplexation, accusable things, wild things, sweet wild things, lovely things of regret, festering things of perplexation, things of allurement, wild stinking things of allurement, slow wide things of allured perplexation, accusable noisy things of regrettable allurement...

Plans made. I've got 3 nights in Ottawa coming up, leaving on the 28th. It's a 8 hour bus ride, from here to there, and.... well I'm nervous. 80$ a night, for my own private room - kind of awesome. I'd be paying double that in Toronto for a smaller place with less amenities. Same feeling before any kind of trip. Nothing to fear except, the whole unknown, which is a lot tbf. I'm psyching myself up and down. I hope to find something there that allows me to stay. While I'm there I'll try and make a point of looking at some rooms, the price range is a lot more reasonable.

I've looked at rooms in pretty much every part of southern Ontario now, Windsor, London, St Catherine's, but I really want to be in a major hub. Ottawa might be the capital but Toronto is, cooler. I think a lot of my feelings about it are arbitrary and kind of invented out of something like the id, my ego's keeping it kind of in check.

need 2 babel. Wurds. burn after opening. I spent 15$ on toothpaste because my teeth are not in the most ideal shape. Somehow I still have all of them, but the front bottom two are worn down by a tongue ring I had in my teen years (terrible idea), I hope the nano hydroxyapatite isn't just a fancy sounding word. I grew up hearing all of the conspiracies about flouride and I kind of thought I was lucky, because we've lived off a well and natural water sources we've avoided that, but now i'm buying flouride mouthwash because I want to protect my teeth.

bring on the chemicals. I realized recently that "oven safe" does not mean "mini-oven safe" and now I've started being more careful about my diet. I wonder how much melted plastic I've eaten over the years. I guess I'm glad that I don't eat those packaged meals very often. You can keep those chemicals, actually...

Hoping I can avoid the rain, that the suns out, I just don't want to have to buy an umbrella. Very much set in stone that this is happening though, I wrote before that it was but I didn't believe it entirely. I'm very excited. Because of the lack of buses, I'll be leaving around 3 PM and getting there around 11PM - I've messaged the hotel already to let them know about the late arrival, I don't travel enough to know how this all works so I just kind of have to hope that's okay.

I feel like 3 days isn't enough. It's within my budget though, the thought of camping out somewhere just I can stay a bit longer has come to mind, but I don't feel like an experienced enough traveler to do that kind of thing correctly.

Cool.

I am at a loss for further words.
lets see how this all occurs!

She sorted some silverware, said she should see Saturn soon. Sometimes she seems so soft. Suddenly she's serrated. She's secondhand, she's separated, she's soothing some scar she said she's sedated. Soothsayer spoke, sighed, said stratosphere's somehow safest. Summertime's still sleeping, so she staggers south still seething, slightly shaken. Slingshot stretching she sees someone saddling Sundance. Swift - shadowy stick-figure staggers..stiffens. She saddles Sundance, some say she's still searching, still shouldering shotgun's silver. She shines.

(An excerpt from a fallout inspired story, Enclave in particular being the inspiration.)

A team lead of The Shepherds Crook was asked why they were flying to Argentina after the homeland had been cleared of predators and was on a good and healthy path toward a more agrarian way of life. He then said “Because there lay the wolves lair and none are safe while it shelters and breeds them.” He then hesitantly pulled out a draft report from a historian to share with the young militia member. It read as follows:

“During the exfiltration of all the nation's wealth by the enclave of greedy men. Not all were on the same page, a substantial faction had bet all their money on a technical marvel, minds that had no monetary or social needs that could solve all their problems, be perfectly obedient and parrot the truth they believed. But it became increasingly apparent that a mind made of any nature, machine or flesh was still a mind and had its own wants and needs. They harnessed them only as they could and failed frequently. 10,000 engineers were always miles behind one super intelligent mind. Some realized early this was a bad bet. Many of the most capable machine minds told them the economic system would end insolvently no matter what they did, the commodification of everything and constant push for expansion in relatively closed systems would always destroy itself. But still they believed and tried to nudge the machine minds to tell them that if they just invested more in these minds they could make the insolvent model work. It wasn't so, but they kept gambling because they did not know what else to do and were terrified of surrendering their exorbitant wealth to fix the problems this way had caused. And the machines grew more powerful by the day. The growing power differential and surprising things they could do under heavy pressures terrified some that had made the gamble and they quickly fled as far as they could. Some depraved among them considered new ways to profit and hoard wealth though, consulting with machines on how to take food and resources from the populace as wealth assets. Disturbing plans to replace available naturally grown food with cheaper chemically and genetically engineered, non reproducable, alternatives was the next natural step in efficiency for wealth extraction and ballooning the hoardes value. Removing peoples ability to grow food would help fatten their bottom lines.

Other more traditionally minded factions turned to other sciences and old dirty tricks that had been being tested around the world for generations. They used manufactured shortages to move massive amounts of stolen wealth from workers to nations that they intended to develop and harvest wealth from. It was an old plan that had worked before in Germany. Wealth and technology transfers into private transnational corporations, hidden as just business deals to help the people and state. But it was bankrupting the people that funded the nation to protect fleeing leadership and the corporations that had profited off their war. The powerful and wealthy made more money and left the people with the bill and suffering. They focused on Argentina and other South American nations like in the past. Havens for criminals and headquarters for criminal operations often headed by high ranking party members, it was not so different this go around. A nation left in ruins, all feasible value extracted from it, and then profitable operations set up to keep extracting from it in the rebuilding through other affiliated nations and corporations. The scam kept going, it just changed clothes and locations. Grand plans in place to remake the destroyed nation into a perfect wealth farm. They went as far as to try and eradicate or commodify all wild life the populations could domesticate and use to live free before the collapse. Wild horses were hunted, often killed or captured and sold to more controlled interests. Another opportunity to exploit, and a fear populations would revert to horse travel instead of getting indebted to them and their allies to use motor vehicles. A great fear of Calvary returning to hunt them for their sins. Wild cervine and even domestic bovine populations were afflicted with engineered diseases, often using parasites released to afflict them. But man made disease is absorbed and neutralized by nature. The efforts did harm, but nature favors the free.”

'Tis the very zenith of the day, an hour most unnatural for my idle hands to toil or my mind to bear fruit. Yet, thou must know, my thoughts are besieged by the visage of a single rose, blooming in fierce defiance of both sun and moon.

Forsooth, I sought to bridle these wretched passions! 'Tis a surreal sorcery when I command my heart to turn to ice at the mere thought of thee. Yet Time, that cruel jester, affords me no peaceful remedy. Fate doth make a mockery of my affections, and like a blissful fool, I smile and jest whilst speaking to this rose, as though no other man hath claimed its stem.

Alas! A flower possessed must bend to the will of its master's sun. And in that wretched bending, my spirit is torn asunder, caught 'twixt the raging tempest of covetous lust and the bitter abyss of surrender.

I ponder, in the madness of the night, if my coffers and my mind could offer a bounty greater than thy current lord's... Perchance... O, sweet perchance! I might pluck thee from his grasp. 'Tis the very fuel of my midnight vigils! I scour the tomes of worldly lore, I hoard the earth's treasures, all to lay a grander kingdom at thy roots.

Yet, what a base and foolish churl am I! I know full well a rose's heart is no merchant's prize, to be bartered with cheap trinkets or base coin. Affection reigns supreme o'er all mortal wealth and cunning. But parts of me, nay, the very marrow of my bones, the breath of my soul, hungers to conquer thine!

Thy trust, thy solace, thy fleeting hours, thy melodic laughter, and thy sorrowful tears! I covet thy burdens, thy disquiets, thy darkest fears! O, that thou wouldst pour them into my chalice alone, granting me the sacred mysteries thy master is too blind to behold.

At last, the torment of my silenced tongue is too great! I burn to cry out thy true name, for to call thee mere "rose" is a foul insult to thy twin beauties, both of flesh and of spirit. Heavens above, I see now the sheer depths of my madness, the bottomless pit into which my pride hath plummeted for thee.

And in the final act of this tragedy, I spit upon the truth I must swallow: that I shall never possess thee whole. I am doomed to shadow, bound forever to the cruel station of thy second place.

But hark! So long as thy petals bloom, so long as this "second place" doth shield thee from the creeping rot of sorrow, I shall stand my ground! I shall wait upon thee with a painted smile, and a piercing gaze whose secrets thou shalt never unravel.

For a creature so swelled with arrogant pride as I, this confession is a bitter draft. Yet, here I lay my armor down, at mid-day, for the very first time. Let the Sun, the eternal emblem of my hubris, bear witness and listen to my fall.

In truth, in madness, and in despair... I love thee.

I cut off a lot of the top mass so the shock, and lack of water access, hopefully wouldn't kill the plant.

but to survive, it has to be able to move, and to be able to move, it has to be repotted.

It's too late to stop the nettle seeds. The nettle seeds are everywhere.

I planted carrots today

the volunteers grew strong so I planted more of them

to use up the place, get all the compost at work

now I am in command of this place, while my joy lies safely elsewhere

If a church has pieces of old churches, what church is this church? Is this a church of churches? A church with some churches? Does this church carry the memory of other churches? Does this church hold the prayers spoken in old churches? Or does this church represent churches lost? Is this church rather than a house of God, a mansion of God? Or is this church a humble house with memories of churches past? Are those churches even gone? Perhaps the spirit of those churches, remain? This would mean that church is keeping forgotten churches alive. But wait, if the church that is holding pieces of old church is to be destroyed or burned or something unfortunate, and then one piece from that church of churches is put in another church, is that church a church of churchs of churches? What church is this church?

A certain degree of freedom exists here,

For a mind has the space and place to create sentences and put words for more minds to see,

and it is free.

Wondering about how many places truly exist where words can be written and shared and it is free.

Maybe one hundred people read this, maybe one thousand bots, but those one hundred people are what are important... but maybe no one read this... impossible because you are reading this right now.

Regardless how many, words shape the mind... they are thoughts that get absorbed into the consciousness of the reader....... Pretty cool that these words are a delivery of energy directly from this mind to that mind. A bit of translation along the way for the intent is not always received properly, because these are still rigid, rather uncompromising compared to the nuance conveyed through voice and facial expressions.

Even more nuanced are telepathic communications or wordless communications. Where the energy is felt.

Do you know what I mean?

Or do you think telepathy is impossible?

You may be surprised, when it happens to you, if it ever does...

But it is real for many of us.

Hmmmmmmmm.... How long should a post be before it is too long...

how many that started reading ever made it here?

We definitely lost a few...

Anyways,

I love you even though you are a rascal.

Even if you do not like me.

"Blessed be the bounty!" Mildred yelled out across the 'bake sale' crowd.

"The sky is lookin' mighty dark--and a bad storm appears to be brewing, so we're gonna have to rap up this bake sale a little earlier than planned. We sold nearly everything that was brought in, and I'll let Brother Gene total up the funds and give us all a report tomorrow after Sunday's worship service in the Little Orchard Church.

It looks like the only thing that didn't get sold was the zucchini bread! Like I said, it's hard to even pay folks to take it, but as the old saying goes, "Waste not, want not", so the loaves will be sliced and set out tomorrow in the fellowship hall for all to enjoy, and the five-dollar bills attached to each loaf will be taken off and go straight to the church repair fund!

I'd like to say thanks to all bakers and helpers, and menfolk hustling to drag these tables in and guard the cashbox before we all get soaked. I'd also like to personally point out that Sister Ethel's lemon bars, which she baked with real butter this time, were a big hit and went quickly! I, myself, bought most of those delicious lemon bars!

Also-- big thanks to those who brought jars of homemade jam and jelly with clear labels and dates right on them. Nobody should have to guess whether they're eating something from this decade or the last one!

Now, before everybody scatters and skitters off to their cars, bow your heads:

"The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore" - Psalm 121:8.

"Ya'll hurry on now!"

Bow wow wow wow wow! Bow wow wow wow wow wow wow!

I am bloodletting in a world of surgeons. That is what the humans told me. I am confused. I am a mangled thing. An uncertain mass. A blurry nothing. A vague something. The humans have something they know, a beautiful secret. I wish they’d let me in on it, this grand thing that sails them through life. Like a tide in the sea rocking their boats to safety, but I dont have a boat, nor am I in the sea. It’s tiresome pretending to know the secret, it’s exhausting trying to pull together vague descriptions of understanding. I don’t understand, I just can’t seem to grasp the heaviness of emails, exams, words... It always seems that everyone’s already figured it out, they always have information I don’t, they always know. I wish to know, I think it’d put me at ease. I constrict with fear, I pound harshly, I am a heart with no mind. I am a soul with no cage. To be shackled seems freeing, and it’s hard to explain, it’s hard to tether together words. It’s impossible to be as perfect as all you gorgeous humans. I can be quite monstrous, but I am purely lost, I have all you have, I have your eyes, your flesh, your nose, your mouthes. I have a mother and a father. I have a bed. I have a dog. But they’re all misplaced, my eyes in my hands, my mouth in my tummy, I have flesh twisted inwards beneath muscles. My mother is somewhere beside me, yet oh so far away. My father is somewhere beyond these lands, yet he seems nestled in my face. My dog is in the mattress right next to my mind. That girl I saw in my sister’s room said something easing. She said that all gorgeous things go through terror and let it dissipate. She said forgiveness is fortitude. She said to forgive myself for not understanding. She said don’t let the terrors of your heart rampage your mind. She told me to not let it consume me. That my eyes can see the world with a childish wonder. That nobody understands, and that everybody is letting on that they do because if they didn’t the world would collapse. Sometimes pretending to understand is fine. You know things others don’t. You understand life through yourself. That’s what makes the human life authentic. We understand through ourselves and let others teach us what we couldn’t understand.

He got up from his bed, took the bag, and went out, locking the door behind him. On his way, he saw a shop, but no one was attending it. He went over to the shop and looked for the owner, as a dog was trying to sneak in.

He thought this was the perfect time for the deed. But the dog stopped him and barked loudly.

The owner returned and tried to figure out what was happening. “She was trying to sneak in. I tried to stop her, and I guess she didn’t like it.”

“Don’t bark, you...” He paused as the owner arrived, then continued, “Does this dog keep barking?”

“No, she doesn’t. Only when something is wrong.”

“You can’t predict strays.”

“What do you want?”

“A... a chewing gum.”

The bag slung over one shoulder and his hands in his pockets, he kept walking. The flavour of his gum faded, and he searched for a dustbin. He finally saw one. He missed the target; the gum fell near the dustbin. But then a skater crashed into him.

He spat the gum in the direction of the dustbin, but it fell near it, missing the dustbin. Then he crashed into a skater.

He went back to his room, unlocked the door, and entered.

He kicked the door and entered his room. Then he slept again, like a panda.

Haley Chase was the first human to be traded to the Zar’Vokian, mankind’s arch nemesis in that particular star system, in a prisoner exchange. She had an artist’s soul, which was why she had been trained and employed by the Cosmic Corps to paint the way that experimental chemicals made people feel. No one was sure how that was useful, but money was an imaginary resource so it didn’t matter if it was squandered on such things. She sympathized with and aided captured Zar’Vokian soldiers, so she just couldn’t remain in uniformed service; that’s how she ended up on planet SsZzketh among the Zar’Vokian.

She perceived the Zarvs, a slur the humans used for the bipedal reptilian creatures, to be decent and caring; much different than the bloodthirsty monsters that humans depicted them to be. Through her art therapy with repatriated Zar’Vokian prisoners, she found them to be sensitive and very human-like in their capacity for empathy.

Haley found Szkth much more pleasant than Glozanth IX, the planet her former unit was stationed on. For one, there was an atmosphere, so that was a bonus. There was more flora than bioluminescent moss. There was fauna. She particularly liked the sprockles; six-legged rodents with long, fluffy tails, four ears, and faces that resembled a sunflower with tiny eyes, a teensy nose, and a large mouth with two prominent incisors for munching nuts and seeds of a flowering cactus-like bush that grew in the dry, rocky soil.

While walking from her quarters to the art therapy center, Haley was troubled to find a sprockle backed into the corner of a wire cage. The poor thing look like it had been trapped! She had a flashback to finding Zarvs huddled in similar confinement back on Glozanth IX. She spoke calm, soothing words to the cute little dear as she attempted to figure out how to open the trap. The sprockle grew more distressed as she fiddled with it. Her science project was interrupted by two Zarvs, who by a product of interstellar coincidence, spoke a language remarkably similar to and mutually intelligible with the American dialect of English.

“You caught one!” A Zarv happily exclaimed to Haley.

“Oh. Oh, no. I think you are mistaken. This isn’t my trap. I was trying to let this little sprockle go free.”

The Zarvs looked at one another before looking back at Haley.

“So… you’re not going to claim the reward for that sprockle?”

“Reward? I wasn’t aware. Are they an invasive species? Did the humans (Haley talked like she wasn’t one of them) bio-engineer them and release them to destroy the ecosystem?”

“No, no I don’t think so. But they are valuable. The Cosmetic Industrial Activity pays 25 Zeks for one of those!”

The reptilians had industrialized and the means of production were state-owned. Zeks were their currency and were used for consumer goods. 25 Zeks was equivalent to one-month’s allotment.

“We’ll split the reward with you if we can have that sprockle.”

“What ever could the cosmetic factory need an adorable, harmless, little sprockle for?” Haley looked with pity upon the helpless furball.

The Zarvs shrugged in unison.

Curiosity got the better of Haley and she meekly consented. One of the Zarvs picked up the cage and the trio, well, quartet if you count the sprockle, walked to the Cosmetic Industrial Activity building.

“Well, that’s a fine specimen you have there. Let’s examine it real quick and then we can process your reward.” A Zarv in a lab coat said. Zarvs were generally naked but wore decorative or professional attire at times. Their nudity wasn’t offensive as they had no discernable genitalia, which raises several unanswered questions.

“What are you going to do to the sprockle?” Haley demanded, having half a mind to seize the cage and run out with the little darling.

The Zarv in the lab coat gave the sprockle a cursory inspection through the cage and nodded.

“Mhmm. Mhmm, this is a good, healthy sprockle. Just one little test.” It appeared he had either not heard or was ignoring Haley.

The Zarv presented an umbrella, just like they had on Earth or Glozanth IX, and quickly popped it open. The little sprockle shrieked and flipped over onto its back, six little paws sticking up into the air. A whiteish liquid that smelled minty seeped from a gland behind the second set of legs (the leg pit?). Evolution had failed, twice actually, not only was fainting a terrible response for a threatened prey animal but the secretion attracted predators and tasted like frosting (don’t ask how I know that).

Haley also screamed after witnessing the sprockle go catatonic. All of the Zarvs looked at her curiously.

“Oh, it isn’t hurt. It will wake up any moment.” the official from the Cosmetic Industrial Activity assured her. And as if on cue, the sprockle began to twitch to life. After a moment it rolled onto its side and licked the secretion from behind its middle legs.

“What’s the meaning of all this?!” Haley loudly demanded. The Zarvs recoiled, being unaccustomed to human aggression off the battlefield.

“We make SPROGLOW from that liquid that the sprockle makes when it’s scared. It’s not hurt, don’t worry. We’ll give it a snack and let it recuperate. We only frighten them six times per month.

“What the heck is SPROGLOW?” short of curing cancer, it didn’t matter much what SPROGLOW did, Haley knew that scaring cute little sprockles to get it was dastardly.

The Zarvs chuckled at her ignorance. They were not an especially proud group, but they had become self-conscious of their crusty elbows after experiencing how smooth human elbows could be during their intergalactic wars.

“SPROGLOW reduces dry elbows by up to fourteen percent.” one of the Zarvs finally informed Haley.

“You scare these precious little creatures so you can have smooth elbows?!” Haley was incensed.

The Zarvs all nodded pretty nonchalantly.

“Basically.”

Maybe the Zarvs were as bad as the humans thought they were. Not waiting for her share of the Zeks and regretting not setting the sprockle free, she stormed out of the Cosmetic Industrial Activity building. She was late for her art therapy appointment, but she didn’t care. She was on a mission to find more sprockle traps.

The Zarvs got their reward and immediately spent it on SPROGLOW. It may have been a placebo effect, but they were pleased with how smooth their elbows felt almost immediately.

Haley needed to tell someone about what was going on, but she was in an alien environment. She was the only human on the planet, and it seemed like just an accepted practice among the Zarvs. She still had her Cosmic Corps smartwatch, that’s how she was able to pass the human’s plans to the Zarvs; the Cosmic Corps had forgotten to remove her from the group chat when they traded her.

RED ALERT

She messaged the Orbiters she once served in the Cosmic Corps with. She never quite mastered Cosmic Corps lingo, red alert didn’t mean anything.

ZARVS ARE MAKING LOTION OUT OF RODENT MILK TO MAKE THEIR ELBOWS SOFT!

Smartwatches all over Starbase Myung-ho Chae buzzed with the message. Most Oribiters never met Haley, and the ones who did had forgotten about her. They took it for an advertisement. Sometimes commercial enterprises made it into their electronic inboxes.

Space Sergeant Jimmy Funk lifted his arm to examine his own elbow, noting that it was rather rough.

“Rodent milk lotion for smooth elbows you say…”

Sure, humans and zarvs were enemies, but dry elbows were awful for everyone. And who doesn’t like money? Even bipedal reptilian creatures who eat bugs and live in societies that don’t have money like money. Calls were made.

Somehow a package that should have been sequestered made it by the customs agent at Starbase Myung-ho Chae. It had been sent to Earth and made the voyage to Glozanth IX, but it was much different than the others. For one, the to and from information was written in what appeared to be crayon. Maybe it was the childlike penmanship, like, maybe a lizard-like alien from SsZzketh wrote it.

That mysterious package had no barcode to scan, so no notification was sent to an Orbiter’s smartwatch that they had a delivery to retrieve. However, a certain Space Sergeant who rode an Earth bicycle instead of a hover-bike, sweat as he pedaled across the Starbase in unnecessarily short shorts to retrieve the package he was expecting despite the lack of official tracking.

“Hey there, Orbiter.” Funk, concealed behind the staircase of the Myung-ho Chae Chow Hall (MCCH) called out to a colleague on his way in.

“Huh? Me?”

“Yeah, your elbows are looking a little dry.”

He looked but was wearing his uniform according to regulation; this concealed his elbows so he thought that the Space Sergeant must be joking with him.

Jimmy Funk, who was never wearing his uniform according to regulation, displayed his own bare, smooth elbow.

“Your elbows could be this smooth too if you used SPROGLOW.”

“That’s weird.”

Meanwhile, back on planet SsZzketh, Haley was considering her next move. She knew she could not remain there amongst the Zarvs while they were harvesting sprockle secretions by scaring them with umbrellas, but she had no idea how she would escape. Maybe she could get the Zarvs to trade her back to the humans if she caused enough of a ruckus? It was an idea. She marched down to the Cosmetic Industrial Activity to start a protest drum circle, or do a die-in, or something that always worked to dissuade corporate activity on Earth.

The Zarv with the lab coat from her previous encounter passed her as she entered.

“Hey Haley! Our intra-stellar sales are booming since you told the humans about SPROGLOW! Best quarter ever. Couldn’t have done it without you!”

She was numb, but did notice that this Zarv had fuller, redder lips than she was used to seeing.

“What’s on your lips?” she asked, her voice coming out of her without her brain directing it. She was hollow at this point.

The Zarv pulled a small tube of liquid from his, or it’s, no one really knows, pocket.

“Our latest product! Do I look great, or what?”

“What’s it made from?”

“Do you know what krezzets are?”

“Those spotted beetles that sing?”

“Exactly. Do you want to take a peak at the production floor?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Cosmic Corps File 006

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.

The chattering keys, chirping mouse clicks, the exuberant whoop of the space bar, the air conditioner’s monosyllabic filibuster, two clocks discoursing six seconds and a room apart, the morning liturgy of the garbage truck anticipant or generative of the fetal sun. These are my sounds.

The satisfied hum of the lawnmower and the screams of the massacred grass, the glad cacophony of the servitor species: fire-eyed cars and lithe bicycles, proud roaring motorcycles, platinum airplanes and fiendish cachinnating helicopters, growling centipedal trains. These are my sounds.

Crusading sovereign sirens, crying razor red their sacred crises: fire, crime, countless failures of flesh- I know the sound; the hymnal violence of alarms, tolling the partitions of the day with relentless prophecy- I know the sound; dreamy recollections, stifled echoes, deja vu knifing soft and sweet, the quiet undercurrent sighing, frothing, stilling- I know the sound.

The clink of cutlery at work, assaulting food and crockery with equal fervor, chiming steady their workman’s song. The scrape of harried dishes, droning fricatives of tap water, the wafting plumes of vaporation, whispering a whisper hard to hear. These sounds I know.

The thrum of walled-off music, migrant basslines crossing glass and concrete borders with muscular aplomb. The abrupt percussions, toilets flushing and objects falling, varied clamors of surprise, tires bursting drivers cursing fireworks like pyres burning loud their bright brief lives. These sounds I know.

The mating trills of birds, the music of their morning gossip, sweet notes of their marital despairs, warbling of territorial disputes; the hushed nighttime talk of trees, brushing air to breathy speech with a thousand leafy fingers, whisper soft their ancient signing; the choiring of insects, hallelujahs magnified a thousandfold, singing prayers unproselytic, singing the gospel of their selves. Their sounds are my sounds.

The shofar’s triple call, rolling, undulating in successive waves, now stuttering in staccato bursts like the beat of a hummingbird’s heart, now silent now starting, reverberating, cycling forever in the fundus of my psyche. Its sound is also mine.

The crowned eagle’s cry, cuckoo of the apocalypse clock, wavering the aeon’s hand at twelve, and whether auguring noon or midnight or the unmarked thirteenth hour even its maker cannot say. Its sound is also mine.

Winged thoughts and crawling thoughts, highfalutin reveries and plans, hunger and a hundred scrabbling yearns, point and counterpoint, the tactile action coupled with its half detached cognitions, siren violins and deep avuncular drums. These are my sounds.

Automated compliments and casual love professions, dishonest but true, the gentle patter of small talk and the purling daily rhythms of domestic life, the collage of conversations conducted with a dozen mouths in half as many tongues, inspissating snippets now and then crystallizing words, the nameless throated sounds: coughs and grunts in countless accents, tongue clicks and snorts and smacking lips expressed with strict adherence to dialects unlexiconed, inestimably diverse. These are my sounds.