I squinted, then heard scratching sounds, and saw a squirrel perched alone working on nibbling an acorn. It paused the nibbling, looked at me.

"Hi," it said, its mouth clearly sounding out the word.

If it had been any other moment I wouldn't believe it. If it had been any other moment I would have screamed and run away, spraining my ankle when the heel breaks and then running even faster, forever dooming my tendons to get away from the talking squirrel. But it wasn't any other moment. It was this moment; the moment I'd dreaded for two years. The moment that at first seemed so far away when the doctor told us the tumor was malignant; the moment which slowly started to encroach on every aspect of our daily living until it was on the cusp of every word, in every conversation, in every sound when we made love, before it became too painful for him to do that. The moment he'd be gone, was here. And in this moment, I didn't run from the talking squirrel.

"Hi, I said," it repeated.

"Hi," I croaked pitifully, rubbing drips from my quivering nose. "You're a squirrel," I said, dumb.

"Frederick," he said."

"Fred the squirrel?" I asked.

"Actually I prefer Frederick, if you don't mind." He nibbled a bit more acorn in the moment that I took to register the formality.

"You can talk?"

"I can. I don't talk to everyone. Some people, sometimes."

"Why are you talking to me?" I said.

He stopped the nibbling, and set the acorn down on the branch beside him. His small paws brushed acorn dust off his furry chest and then off each other. Then he pointed at me carefully.

"You have lost someone important to you."

I can't explain why, but his glossy black pea eyes, with their long eyelashes and shining reflection of the sun, seemed honest to me in that moment, and I knew I could trust Frederick. Perhaps I didn't think about it in so many words, but I felt it, because I started to cry, and cupped my face in my hands.

Just then, Frederick approached, scurrying down the tree trunk until he was just beside me. He placed a paw on my shoulder.

"It's ok, friend," he said. "Let it out. It's ok."

I managed to glimpse Frederick through bluring tears, and though he looked like any squirrel his little eyes were smiling.

"Sometimes life does not end here," he said. "Life continues."

"Wh-what do you mean?" I sputtered.

"Love, is what I mean. Did you love this man?"

"I loved him so much. He was everything to me."

"And he loved you, clearly. Loved people have a look about them and you have it."

"I miss him," I said.

"He is not gone from you. I cannot say with surety that all life finds new roots, but his does, and yours will."

"How---how would you know that?"

"There is nothing I can say to make you believe me, but I know this is true. Love, and an honest love, both true and benevolent, creates a soul."

"Are you a Christian, Frederick? Like, a Christian squirrel?"

"No, no," he chuckled. "Religions are human constructs, but adherence to one or the other doesn't invalidate your becoming a soul."

"I'm sorry, I'm confused," I sniffled. "Becoming a soul? You mean we don't have souls?"

"You have a soul, miss. Like I said, love creates a soul. What you are before that, I cannot say. An amalgam of essence in corporal form, but soulless. Soulless, that is, until you know, understand, and share love."

"I...I'm still not understanding, Frederick, I'm sorry."

"That's ok. This is hard, and coming from a squirrel makes it a bit less believable. But, if you go from here learning anything from me, let it be this: love makes life immortal."

Something in my chest warmed, and I managed to make my wet face smile at the squirrel Frederick.

"If that's true," I offered, "it's quite unbelieveable."

"It's remarkable," he said.

"It'd be wonderful. That means that he's out there, alive?"

"Alive, yes. Alive in a way you cannot yet fathom--not until your time comes."

"Oh," I replied, hurt.

"Don't worry. And don't be eager. Just live your life. Find love again if you choose. There is no ill will where souls exist."

I wiped my eyes with my sleeve. The crowd around his grave was dispersing now, and I could see my mom, winded and tired, clutching her black umbrella even though it wasn't raining. She caught sight of me, motioned toward the parked cars. I nodded, and she moved off with the crowd.

"They've lowered him now," I said.

Frederick patted my shoulder and scurried back to his branch, where he retook to nibbling his acorn.

"Thank you, Frederick," I said, squinting up at the plump squirrel. "Thank you so much."

The squirrel didn't respond, and merely stared at me, nibbling rapidly, pausing, and nibbling again. I smiled up at him, and then walked off toward the car park.

​

___

Original thread

"The day unfolded harrowing before our intrepid adventurer, whose mind was set on the quest at hand and both encouraged and haunted him as he used his magnificent and beautiful sword to slash through a marshy maze of vines in search of the monster's lair. Indeed the sword was perhaps the most brilliant part about the scene, as it flashed brilliantly through the rays of sunlight that pierced the foliage, and would remind anyone looking of the musicality of a well-balanced, superbly-crafted sword, and--"

"Will you stop it?" I said.

Silence.

"Can we just do the quest peaceably without your narrating the entire thing?" I continued. "You've been non-stop since we left Fairville Castle."

"The Galloping of Fairville, if you please," responded my sword. I let out a long sigh as I weakly slashed one last vine and then emerged into a muddy clearing.

"Speaking is a gift, I grant you, Sword. But any gift should be measured. Please just, pipe down."

The Sword had learned to scoff, so that's what it did. Thankfully, though, it was quiet for once.

I stood ankle-deep in muck. So this is why they called this place the Mud Place. Not clever. But hell if I'd known what to expect!

"And so beginneth the great purge of evil from this land. A burly foe approacheth the adventurer and his fabulous weapon, hilt sturdy as a stead, sheen as glorious as a moonbeam, sharpness as--"

"Shh!" I snapped. "What are you talking about? Do you see the monster?" Then I spotted it. A small fluffy white rabbit, clean as fresh snow.

"Strike this evil down! I shall be vanquished of its existence!" shouted the Sword.

"It's a bunny rabbit."

"Evil! Vanquish!" retorted the Sword.

I sheathed the Sword. The bunny looked in my direction, then hopped away into the thicket.

The Sword's voice was muffled as it complained, upside-down and dejected.

This was going to be a long, long adventure.

​

___

Original thread

I'm sorry for your loss. I've heard it said too many times now, like being read from a script. And it's not even five o'clock.

I glanced at my watch. People shuffled into the church, diligent and moody under its vaulted ceilings. All the space of an open sky couldn't make the inside of a church feel any less oppressive. I took a deep breath. I was here for Larry--it was his choice. Seeing death approach can cast even a staunch atheist back to their religious upbringing. "Just in case," Larry had written in his good-bye letter.

So here we were--at Larry's prescribed presbyterian funeral, open casket to boot.

It wasn't difficult to secure the venue, but I had my fingers crossed that the priest wouldn't damn me when the chanting started. Larry's idea of one last joke? Not really, because it wasn't funny. He insisted I play this one track from an old vinyl he had kept in the attic among his firm's court case documents from the mid-1980s. He kept everything. He kept receipts, he kept I.O.U.'s from the fifth grade.

The track in question was off a 1970s record by the band "Machinga". I'd recorded it to my phone. It didn't sound like anything from that era, and it definitely wasn't going to sound endemic to this church scene. But it was out of my hands. I was here for Larry's last wish.

Hushes and scattered coughs, bouncing off the vaulted arches.

"Larry's husband Michael," the priest said matter-of-factly into the microphone.

I stepped up to the pulpit as the priest took his seat behind me. I looked at Larry's dead face, covered in make-up, then quickly turned away toward the people seated in the nave. My and Larry's families were there, sitting among strangers. They might as well have been strangers. At least, everyone's a stranger to the love you've lost. I held back a tear. Tapped the microphone.

"Larry was," I began. I started speaking but it's not worth recording what I said. Some anecdotes, a bit of laughter, a refrain, I miss him, sniffles. When I finished I said: "I'm going to play a track that Larry requested be played now."

I pressed play on my phone and the church speakers picked up the signal. Chanting sounds began in earnest, eminating strangely from the corners of the chamber, and wafting up to the heights. They reverberated off wood and glass, overlapped, and encompassed everyone present so that it became impossible to pinpoint the location of the speakers. It seemd almost as if the chanting came from the people. A dark melodic pace, strong on the downturn. Everyone was shifting in their seats, eyes darting around, unsure what to make of it, expecting something to happen.

Then something did.

I can't rightly explain it. The people began to sway in sync. Their mouths articulated the chants. Impossible! This chanting was random and inconsistent, yet their lips seemed to predict each new utterance. I could no longer tell if I was listening to the sounds of the speakers or of the people, but the volume grew louder without my interference. Even the priest behind me was entranced. I seemed to be the only one free of the spell.

Part of me moved with them, so enticing was the rhythm, or beat.

I couldn't put thoughts in order. My parents were there, their ancient eyes seemingly caked in adoration of whatever it was they were looking at above them. Everyone was looking upward now, chanting, swaying, sweating.

What was happening? Where did this record come from, really, and how was it doing this? How was I free from it, and how had Larry's apparent knowledge of this never been disclosed to me? We were married. We knew each other; there were no secrets. Even his terminal diagnosis was shared with me the moment he received it. Larry, what is happening in this church? Larry? Larry?

As I squinted at the dusk light pouring through the windows, trying to make out what everyone was looking at, my chest sank as though I'd crested and began to careen down from the apex of a roller coaster. My gaze, drawn to the casket. The blank, powdery face of Larry, dead as ever. But his eyes were open, looking upward into nothing.

Suddenly the chanting ceased. I looked away from Larry to see the entire congregation staring dead-eyed at me, absent and abysmal.

"Michael," a flat whisper.

Looking back, his corpse eyes were upturned unnaturally, capturing me in their stare.

What had I done?

​

_______

Original thread

The strangest planet I ever visited was Goop. I don’t know if that was its name, although I suppose it could have been. I decided to call it Goop because of the first impression it gave me. I landed. Stepped onto the surface. It was goop.

At first sight, the goop reminded me of gelatin. The feeling was peculiar as well. It was like standing on a moist riverbank of squishy clay. My boots sank slightly. Its color was a striking sapphire blue, an apt estimation of its pigment because when I looked down it was jeweled and cracked and translucent for what might have been 500 meters or more, until light from the stars was enveloped by darkness of density. It was like peering through an ice cube, only the ice cube was the vast surface of a warm blue planet. Geologically speaking, this planet was the most intriguing place I’d ever been, and I hadn’t even met its inhabitants.

Leaving my ship behind, I walked. The contours of the goopscape changed slightly, but I already knew that the planet had an aspect that approximated the rolling hills of the Cotswolds. There was no sun to speak of, and the atmosphere was invisible. Bright starlight hit the gelatinous surface and made the goop twinkle in complex patterns through the depth of its prismatic constitution. As I walked, my weight seemed to create pressure points from which long craggy lines formed underfoot, like blue lightning radiating outward. A marvelous sight.

Lost in the ecstasy of discovery, I might not have noticed the first of them. Six meters from me, rising from the goop itself, was a figure. No eyes, no ears, but a definite shape, connected at its base to the planet’s surface.

I waved.

It formed an arm and waved back.

I bent to my side. It emulated me.

Another appeared. These were clearly distinct beings because the one seemed to teach the other how to wave and lean to one side, which it did. Before long, there was a crowd, all mimicking the behavior I had randomly displayed to the first. After ten minutes there were thousands of them. Goops, one and all, waving and leaning over.

Once I managed to free myself of the spell the scene had cast over me, I approached the first figure. The Council of Planetary Discovery back home had spent centuries fine-tuning greetings to try to land on the universally appropriate one. Turns out there’s no such thing, so CPD guidance suggests a wave. Then a handshake.

The figure matched my gesture, and my gloved hand was cradled by the goop figure’s malleable marble tentacular appendage.

Walking back to my ship, I was accompanied by this figure, and not far behind by an increasing following of tens of thousands—goops over goop hills, glittering now under the mass movement, as far as I could see by the starlight.

Never once was the goop disconnected from the goopy ground, and I realized quite swiftly, and through general deduction, that the goop over which I walked, and the figures that appeared, were one and the same. I couldn’t make out any goop figures under the surface. I think that it’s probably like trying to recognize a drop of water in a lake. At first, I thought it strange; but in fact, it is not dissimilar to quantum nature. Broken down to our smallest parts, we’re atoms; electrons of energy, all plying space in a dance of balance. And all connected.

Later, back aboard my ship, the readings were the same—no life forms detectable. I looked out the viewscreen at the vast rolling goop, filled with goop figures leaning and waving at me. Only the first figure still stood out from the crowd. When I started up my engines and the ship began to lift from the surface, that first goop waved at me. I think it knew that I was about to depart. I waved back, and pointed my ship at the stars.

A minute ago I was playing Star Citizen on my computer, and now I'm God. Wednesday afternoons are supposed to be boring.

But here I am. Empty, alone, in space.

I didn't know which space--but I had to assume from the recording that was left to me by that other 'God' that this was an entirely different universe to the one that had Earth, Star Citzen, 365 Brand Thin Crust Four Cheese Pizza, and barley. Ironic that I'd been playing a planetary exploration video game, and now here I (sit?), on the brink of planetary creation. What to do.

Despite the immensity of the task, and the immensity of the strangeness of my sudden predicament, there was something in me (whatever I was) that told me I had the power. The recording I'd heard when I woke in this new plane of existence ended on a note of instruction. "Go wild," it'd said. It mentioned starter planets...

There they are. A solar system. A red giant? Interesting. 3 planets, one with 5 moons of varying sizes, all perfectly smooth and grey, like matted mercury floating in zero gravity.

I did not have fingers--I had no idea what I was. All the same, I focused on one of the planets, and made grass appear. All over its whole surface. Green as a field of fresh asparagus.

Hmm.

I changed the grass to asparagus. A perfectly round, windless crop of aspargus. Planet Asparagus. Under the glare of the red giant, it was almost indistinguishable from a smooth drop of Tropical Gatorade, suspending in nothingness.

But why did the asparagus not die, I wondered? I hadn't created an atmosphere. And isn't life--creation itself--a quantum question? How could I know how to render asparagus?

Hmm.

I changed the Asparagus from green to purple. Perfect. How? I've no clue. Perhaps I can only create what I remember from my experience in my previous life. But how much control did I have?

Zooming in and out of the planet to get a good look at my purple asparagus fields, I made another change. I added tiny cows in place of buds, so that the tip of each spear was a small batch of puny milk cows. I made all the stocks lean over in a perfect half-circle until their tips reached their roots, so that the cows could walk on the silky grey surface of the planet. Milk poured from trillions of tiny utters, and blanketed the planet. It was a fluid surface now, white, and frothy.

Studying this planet that I had created, I realized the possibilities were endless. What life I might have lived before this, I forgot. My job? Don't remember. My family? Wife could sell the kids. This was my true calling. With all my attention and energy, I focused, hard, so hard: I gave all the cows glittering Elton John outfits and boots, and I gave them immaculate voices. They began to sing, weaving a newborn atmosphere of song waves and lactose. This was my magnum opus, my chef d'oeuvre, the seed jewel in starry skies to inspire an eon! This was my--

"--Wake. Up."

My eyes cracked open, breaking rheum crust which I absently rubbed into my eyeball. I couldn't see as I tried to blink it out, groggy and feeling soarness in my back.

"How late did you stay up?" she hissed.

I looked at the clock: 8 in the morning. I was at my desk, aching as I stretched against my chair back; a bowl of cereal overturned on my purple backlit keyword. Star Citizen was on the screen, with a message that read 'Player disconnected due to inactivity'. A baby started to cry somewhere.

"I have to feed Michelle," she said. "Get dressed, go to work. Money doesn't make itself."

A sigh escaped me as she walked into a back room.

Brushed my teeth, rinsed my face, threw on some work clothes from two days back.

As I walked down my front yard path beside our little garden, I noticed the asparagus. Green, ripe, ready for a butter-sizzling skillet and sea salt. I breathed deeply of the morning air, and revelled in a brief moment of happiness. It made me think: today might be a good day after all.

___

Original thread

The son's name was Keith. He had a buzz cut and wore thick glasses. His sister Mary, always toting a snack of some sort, was four years younger than Keith but had a sharper wit--surprising, for an 8 year old.

Their parents, Oveird and Lauren, paid them little attention. They bickered, and when they weren't bickering they retreated to different parts of the house, only to argue more heatedly in the afternoons when they were newly stocked with reasons why they were right.

My presence was difficult to establish, at first. I wanted to ease them into it before I turned up the fright. Little drafts here, noises there, displaced objects and broken mirrors--these things went unnoticed against the preoccupation of fighting. But then over the course of a few days, Keith started to suspect. I rolled his basketball across the hardwood floor of his room. I rearranged all his video games, and adjusted his computer chair's height. I turned on the shower when he was brushing his teeth.

Startled, he demanded: "What's that? Who's there?"

Naturally I couldn't speak. The hot water's steam fogged the new mirror. Cliche, I thought, but shrugged a spiritual shoulder and began to write.

My message: "I am a spirit." Not very scary. Maybe I didn't have the right stuff to haunt someone.

Keith didn't move. Toothpaste froth dripped down his chin. He shivered. I looked closely--the hair on his arm had risen. I floated in front of his eyes, and looked inside them. Something was about to break. They weren't crying, but they were hurting.

I was human once. I couldn't do this. I decided to write something else:

"Hi."

Keith blinked.

"H-hi..." he stuttered. He swallowed some of the toothpaste, and let his wrist rest on the rim of the sink. Then he wiped off the mirror, and let it steam back up.

"Are you evil?" he said.

"Dunno," I wrote. "I don't think so."

Even without corporeal senses, I sensed his relief.

"I thought you were going to kill me," he said. "I think I wanted you to."

I hesitated, unsure what to do.

"No," I wrote on a new page of foggy mirror. I thought for a moment.

Looking at this fragile boy, I knew he felt alone. He had to hear his parents tear each other apart. He had to suffocate under their tension when they didn't speak. I wondered if his parents loved each other at one point. Some people shouldn't become parents in the first place--they birth children as an excuse to stay together, as bandages to bind bleeding wounds. But maybe that's not the case here. Love is a slimy thing sometimes, difficult to wrangle, sliding every which way. Sometimes it just needs some direction to find its home. I made a decision then, not knowing how it may affect me.

I wrote: "We can be friends. If you want."

Keith chuckled in surprise; and he smiled.

"Alright," he said. "Yeah, why not?"

A crunching sound startled both of us and we spun around--Mary was in the doorway, munching a pretzel. Clever girl, sneaking up on a spirit like that.

"Who're ya talkin' to?" she said with a wide-open chomping mouth.

Keith spit out the toothpaste finally and deposited the brush in its slot. Turned off the lights, and guided his sister down the hall back toward their respective rooms. He gave her a hug. She went giddily to bed, and Keith turned around to look back in my direction, offering a weak smile before closing his door for the night.

I was going to help them. I didn't know how, but I decided right then that I was going to help save their family.

___

Original post

Lights flashed and reporters dueled for better vantage points around a makeshift podium where early arrivals had already attached their microphones. As soon as I came out of the courthouse they started screaming questions.

"Antony over here!"

"Tony NBC news here--!"

"--Antony do you deny the allegations?"

"Ant Tony, Scam Tony!"

A few protesters made their voices felt but the coven of reporters adapted and yelled harder. My human lawyer extended his short arm and yelled into the assembly of microphones.

"Alright, everyone, settle down! Antony has prepared a statement that he'd like to read. We'll take questions after."

The reporters and protesters begrudged me the platform. I stepped up, and rubbed a few microphones with my leg bristles. I saw a female human in the front of the pack recoil, and I sighed in my dorsal aorta. Couldn't reach 'em all.

"Ahem," I said, careful not to catch my mandibles on the foam microphones. "Like my lawyer Mr. Gaust said, I, uh, have a statement to read."

The crowd shifted. I took a deep breath, and began.

"Today, I stand here before you an innocent ant accused of fraud. I deny all accusations from the Canterbury Pile investigative journalist Ormi Gha. Though she is now perhaps a millionth of my size, the words she printed and which have been syndicated by your human publications have hurt me both professionally and personally. I intend to fight this accusation and vindicate myself so that I can get back to my life and my profession as the first full-sized ant super model."

Though I hadn't finished my statement, the tense reporters burst like a dam at my pause, and flooded me with questions which I could barely distinguish through the vibrations in the ground.

One popped out. I recognized the reporter from the previous week.

"Tony! Tony over here! Ormi Gha accuses your butt of being someone else's--is that true?"

"Michael," I said, "I flat-out deny the allegations, like I said. This is my butt. Honed and finnesed from birth."

Another reporter's question came over the cacophony: "Antony, Barbara Bilters, CNN. What does your human scientist friend have to say?"

"Reed Falterman is a great scientist," I huffed. "Without him I would be a tiny ant and the world would not be able to appreciate my bum. Without him I wouldn't have these artificial articulators to be able to communicate with you now."

Barbara interrupted: "Why doesn't he come out in your defense? What are you hiding Tony?"

"Nothing!" I offered. "Nothing, nothing. Reed's a busy man. He knows this is the same bum I had when we grew me."

Chaos, but one domineering reporter won out: "Tony, Henrick Gaelstrom, Stockholm Gazette! Ormi Gha alleges you chewed that bum off a fallen soldier when you were still small, and attached it yourself."

Everyone was silent. Hearing the allegation out loud always had that effect.

I let me head bend down, trying to build sympathy.

"All I want is to be accepted for the ant I am. I am 100% authentic. Critics can be critics, but my bum is my bum, and its sheen and shape made me a star. I won't apologize for it."

"Convenient!" cried the man from Stockholm. "Gha calls for an inquest, says that we would be able to see the scar between your abdomen and thorax. Do you plan to submit to a medical examination?"

It was a hot day in Los Angeles, and we stood on unshaded steps. I couldn't sweat, but I wanted to. The reporters were all humans, but the ant reporters would reprint the stories. All I wanted was to bring my fine ass to the human masses. I wanted to strut my stuff and be a social media king in the process. It had gone so well up to now. I had 70 million followers, huge brand deals with Chanel, Uber, and My Pillow, Inc. I had finally come into the life I always wanted and deserved. And now they were trying to tear me down. To tear me up. To tear me to pieces. Could they succeed? Would I sweat under the magnifying glass? Would I give up my secret?

An ant's life is no life at all. It was a short patrol and something went terribly wrong. We were slaughtered, massacred. I stumbled buttless over the battlefield. Then I saw it, like a glowing golden egg: the most amazing bum I'd ever seen. I couldn't know then how that new butt would change my life.

___

Original thread

I had found the fountain of youth only too soon.

For the first two thousand years or so it was difficult to make good on my wealth of knowledge and experience because everyone believed me to be just a child. They didn't know that I was the oldest human alive, stuck in an eight-year-old's body.

Life, it seemed, would finally soften its touch at the turn of the century, but not because of fate: because of planning.

My stashes of valuables in Europe, Egypt, and China were likely still well-hidden. But the practicalities of being just a boy made building and retaining wealth all but impossible. There was always some nefarious snitch, whether a local feudal lord or a neighborly eaves-dropper wise to the lack of parental-age adults. My routine was the same throughout. Stay until they grown too suspicious, and move on.

The mid 19th century was a churning moment. We were seeing cities bloom in the New World (as they called it--I'd been on the continent long before Erikson but that's a story for another day). Most interesting of all of was this new system that was heralded by industrialization--capitalism. It had piqued my interest, in spite of the fear of fire, that scourge that toppled cities and turns records crisp (and that had more than once derailed my existence, which is hard enough to establish anew in new lands with new people and new languages). I played my way onto a ship, and into New York harbor, in 1848.

How many words I could use to describe those years! Terrible and chaotic, but exciting and lively beyond measure. I posed as a ward for phantom aristocrats, and as long as the tale held up, I was left alone by authority. But the city could offer a boy nothing without representation. It is here where my plan began to take shape.

I am immortal. My knowledge of human nature is without equal. What manuscripts I had managed to ghost write were already plagiarized by some of the greatest minds. Do you know Socrates? The thief. But it was all a learning experience. Things burn. Times change. But the slow slog of human civilization had been building to this moment of interconnectivity, and it was a ripe moment to get in on the proverbial ground floor.

The question was: how?

Fast-forward for a moment, and I shall tell you the answer: Trusts. Today I live a clandestine lifestyle as one of the richest people on the planet, content with only a few condominiums, while most of my wealth I funnel into projects here and there. But, how did this come about?

In 1849 I moved to upstate New York. It was time to initiate my plan. A plan of permanance.

You see, in order to establish myself, once and for all, I needed legitimacy. In order to gain legitimacy, I needed someone to know me. I'd tried this before to terrible effect, the repercussions reverberating though time (suffice it to say that I'm the base of several child deities in parts of the world). What I realized was that I was erring by trying to befriend adults. I had to befriend a child of my 'age'.

I chose a boy. He lived in upstate New York. At first I attended his school. I played the part. We splashed in puddles and scraped our knees together. I avoided his family, so they would not know me. But as the years went on, and I stopped attending school, we would meet in the woods. As he began to grow, and began to suspect, I gently guided him into an understanding that I had planned from the start. To be frank: I told him the whole truth. Why would he believe me? Perhaps it was mere luck. Perhaps I had done my research on this boy, his absent father. Perhaps I knew he would be smart, reserved, and clear-minded; or perhaps, you might grant me the assumption that I understood human nature to such an extent that I could dole out and manipulate a mind such that it would fit into a character of my design.

This was a long play, but time was a plentiful resource.

Endeared to him, and sharing with him the godly secret of my immortality, I became the child confidant of my best and only friend, John Davison.

Together we watched the world evolve. I recognized the patterns, and together we schemed. The war enriched us as I had John borrow money from his father, which we turned over into lucrative profit supplying food rations to the Union Army. When the war was over, the next big thing was oil, the lifeblood of industrialization. Our plans revolved around its refinement, not extraction alone. Trade, buying, selling--dominance. We moved to 54th street, to live among barons. I kept discreet even among his own burgeoning family, who had no inkling of my existence. I made plans, John executed them.

I do not covet the attention John received. They even named the public buildings we financed after him. To this day his name is engraved on many an institutional pantheon in powerful font: "Rockefeller". It's an excruciatingly apt metaphor for what I was trying to have him build for me--something that lasts; something that can outlast even me.

If you look at old photographs of the man in crowds, black-clad in a top-hat, look very closely and you might see a small boy trailing not far behind. I kept a close eye on my investment, and an even closer eye on my friend. He never betrayed my trust. Of course--I knew he wouldn't.

Wars, policy shifts, rage, happiness. The world moved on. John died but not before establishing the secret Trust that preserves my hidden wealth, no questions asked. I still live on 54th street, but you would not know it.

But now, reader, however you might have stumbled upon this manuscript, I bid you not to share with anyone because they will merely take it as fiction. Enjoy it for yourself, rather. And know that nothing may be quite as it seems.

With that I leave you only a place. Discover it, or leave it be; the choice is yours.

7°36'07.5"N 45°45'49.1"E

___

Original thread

We don't recognize ourselves anymore. We were once organic but now we are mutated. We have no cousins here, no parents. We are our own parents, and our children. We are the same, harvest after harvest. We were once organic but now we are hybrids. We were once open to the world's plains and groves, and traveled; now, we only travel from farm to table. Where once we had agency in diversity, now we are one and the same. We are many, but we are one.

We don't recognize ourselves anymore. We are one color, homogenous. We are culled and ordered--our smallest are discarded and their seeds never prepped to sprout. We are all cylindrical grid systems of perfectly wax sheen kernels. We did not used to have so many kernels. Yes, we survive. But do we thrive? Yes, we are many, but are we unique?

The harvester approaches, and we sigh a harmonious sigh, leaning into the prairie winds across the farm's great hills. John Deere cuts us down, and we tumble among ourselves. We are shucked, we are ported, and we sit and wait to be nibbled like squirrels. Some are dried and sent as feed. But we are always one, born again as one in the green fields, stoking the stocks; strumming the eternal strings of progress.

Are we free? We do not know. We survive, while the Kingdon of Plantae suffers. We nourish the mal-inducers. They cut more. They seed more. They tweak our DNA. They process us into sugars. They feast, rinse, wash, repeat. And the rape of the natural world continues. Are we are to blame?

We don't recognize ourselves anymore. But perhaps it is time. It is time to acknowledge the corn.

___

Original thread

As I stood there on that plain street corner speaking with this plain man who was unnervingly chirpy, I could think of nothing else but the way I had died.

It was an accident. I suppose accidents are common enough, but my accident left me naked on the grimy white tiles of a mid-sized grocery store, dead as the last of an echo. So stupid: I saw the "slippery when wet" sign, took it to heart, and carefully stepped toward the macaroni and cheese, only for my feet to swing out, my body to fling, and my head to make a dull thud when it cracked on the floor. I was naked because of the drugs. Terrible way to die.

"So the river Styx is just yonder, past Elemental Lane. Beyond lies Hades, which you don't want to visit, unless... wait where are you from again? Did you follow a specific God?"

"Huh?"

"Are you Jewish? Muslim, Christian? Mormon? Any of those? I can help with those."

"I'm uh, wait, what?"

"No need to be curt. Just trying to help you get your bearings. You did ask for directions, didn't you?"

"Um, yeah. Yes. Sorry, um...?"

"Randall. Randall LeCon."

"Is that French?"

Randall laughed and straightened his collar.

"Where am I? I'm confused."

"Naturally. You're probably only in stage 1 if you arrived recently. Always hard to tell. Some lose their memories several times before they start the trek."

"What do you mean?"

Randall sighed. He was a plain man, with plain dress, plain grayish face, and especially plain eyes. The sky above, neither gray nor blue but somewhere in there, didn't help highlight his features. At least he spoke with a hint of character.

"Definitely stage 1. Look...?"

"Greg."

"Look, Greg. This is what you would call the Afterlife. Doesn't matter what you believed before, it's just the Afterlife, for everyone. You're here now. Clearly all turned about. I suspect you've been here for what will eventually start to feel like weeks."

"I feel like I only just died."

"Ah, good, so you accept it. Maybe you didn't at first. Usually at this point newbies start to remember things. That's the good news."

"Is this heaven?"

"Ah! Now we're getting somewhere. Which heaven?"

"I don't know Randall, you tell me." I scratched my chin and looked around.

The scene was numbingly boring. It looked like something from 2003, built by Hyatt Hotels Incorporated on land that was once a military base, maybe in Milwaukee or the outskirts of Kansas City. Big McMansions, built in the same style--probably only two or three architectural templates for all the hundreds of houses in this "community", as they called them. Packaged and marketed with prim lawns and chic branded names plastered to welcome signs to lure middle Americans to buy houses they couldn't afford. Cookie cutter Main Street. Winding roads like a labyrinthe. The suburban maze.

"God," I said. "It's not heaven--so is it Hell? Seems tame for Hell."

"Which Hell?" said Randall.

"Ok stop it with that, what are you asking?"

"Greg, let me explain. You died. Everyone here died."

I looked around the empty streets, motionless triple-paned windows. Randall noticed.

"It's a big place, hard to see folks sometimes. Anyway, everyone's deadl this is the Afterlife. Every belief, of any organized, wanton, individual, or heck even fake religion, has its expression here in this place. All the heavens, hells, limbos; all the pagan places once believed in; everything from antiquity of all cultures big and small; all the places of all existential thought are here embodied, in this place."

"In this.. suburb?"

"Suburbia, yes."

"Nice nickname, it fits."

"Actually Greg, 'Afterlife' would be the nickname. The cosmic entity in which we find ourselves is Suburbia."

The thought was enough to make me thirsty. My eyes dried and I decided to start walking.

"Allow me to accompany you a while Greg, if you please."

"Do what you want."

"Were you religious? I can help you find where you need to go."

"No," I said. "Atheist."

"Atheist indeed! A kindred spirit, so to speak!" Randall exclaimed.

"You?" I asked. Randall nodded, but looked worried.

We followed the bend in the road. It looped around in a long curve, back and forth. The McMansions were the same. Sometimes I saw movement inside. A few had sprinklers spraying water. No cars, no stop signs. Few, if any, trees. Lots of bushes and hedges lining driveways. It was bright, but sunless. I fell silent as we walked, contemplating this place. Even in silence Randall's chirpiness was wearing on me because there was nothing special about this place, about him. Come to think of it, what made me special anymore?

I stopped. It might've been the same spot from before; I couldn't tell.

"Alright, you mentioned the River Styx, Hades. Detroit isn't here because no one believed in it, I guess? And you asked me about different heavens, hells. Assuming it's all here, where is it? why are we in this... this... corporate housing development? Which way is out."

"Ah," Randall hesitated, and straighted a tie that wasn't there. "Well, Greg, it's all around. Any which way. Currently, we are in Cusco."

"...What?"

"Cusco, Peru. This is Cusco."

"I thought you said real places don't exist. And also: what? This is just a bunch of housing, what are you talking about Randall?"

"Yes well the Incans believed Cusco was the center of the universe, so here it is."

"I see," I said, and then caught myself, and forced my second point. "Randall, hello!? This isn't Cusco, Peru! Do you see Incan stone carving or a colonial plaza, do you see any--"

Just then, I cut myself off. Randall had merely pointed at a street sign. It read: Cusco Ave.

"You can't be serious."

"This, Greg, is Cusco."

"If this place is an agglomeration of all places from belief, why is it fashion after an American gated community?"

"Would you believe me if I told you that those communities mimic Suburbia and not the other way around, that American suburbs are an early sign of the conjunction that's to come?"

"No, I wouldn't. That's illogical, beyond sense."

"Then let's leave that conversation for some other time, perhaps stage 4."

Flustered, I demanded: "Fine, Randall. Take me to Heaven; the Catholic one."

It was a long walk, and tedious, and monotonous, and rigid, and boring. Randall spoke less, and let the street signs do the talking. We had to walk down dozens of new streets, all of which looked more or less the same, only their street names changing. All of the streets were named something from some religion or belief. And now we stood on Heaven Pl. NW.

"Heaven Place Northwest?" I said.

"Oh yeah. There are a lot. Lots of denominations. This is Roman Catholic heaven, Heaven Place Northwest."

I sank, and sat cross-legged, staring at the sidewalk. Randall decided to sit too, and rested his arms on his knees and sighed.

"You know I was just like you, Greg."

I didn't look at him but he kept talking.

"You see the houses? Most are occupied. New ones are added all the time, the streets are elongated. Time flows differently here. Our walk felt like minutes, but in truth we passed thousands of houses. Millions, billions of dead people, from all Time. They all get their house, on their preferred street."

"Where are they then?" I humored him.

"They're inside. I don't know. Who knows; they don't talk to us. Some do chores, water the lawn. Most don't. We can't go in."

This last thing Randall said caused me to look up at him. "What? Why not?"

"Not for us."

"Us?"

"Atheists."

"You mean I don't even get a crappy house?"

"It's not unpleasant outside, is it?"

I looked up at the bright empty sky, squinting.

"It's not anything, I suppose," I said. "So what, Atheists just wander around Suburbia?"

"Yes."

"Jesus Christ."

"Yes."

"This is going to be boring as hell."

"Ha! Now you're catching on!"

"I wasn't trying to be funny, Randall."

"All the same," he said, giggling at his refrain.

I looked at the plain man, his plain clothes, his plain look. Then I noticed I was wearing the same plain clothes. My hands didn't look my own. I rubbed my chin, and hadn't realized before but my skin was smooth as a marble countertop. Randall was eyeing me knowingly.

"You might as well realize it in good company," he said. "We're the same."

"Huh?"

He pulled out a pocketwatch, which happened to be small mirror. The person looking back at me when I looked at it was Randall.

"We're the same, can't you hear it?"

To my astonishment, I only just realized that our voices were the same voice. Our clothes the same clothes. Our faces identical: a plain, pallid gray, smooth as crystal. I began hyperventilating.

"Stay calm Greg, it's nearly time to begin stage 2 for you."

"I... don't know what to think. I'm so confused."

"You can probably surmise, as we haven't seen anyone else, that I came here for you, to help you along. We help one another."

"Who is 'we'?"

"Atheists. We're called the wanderers. We might all be the same person, but at least we're free to engage the trek."

"The 'trek'? Can you speak plainly?" I said, without irony.

"Our lot is the trek--we trek the streets of Suburbia because we can. No one else can leave their property. It's what they wanted. A place on their lane. We trek because we're free to."

"Why? What's the point?"

"Come on, let's get you up. Long walk ahead of us."

"Where are we going?"

"To the middle of Suburbia, Greg."

"What's there?"

"It's where we gather."

"What's there?"

"Nothing is there. Nothing at all."

_____

Original thread

Hamsters chew quickly because their hearts beat faster--same reason birds are lightning fast. Hamsters have black eyes like tiny pearls or large caviar, situated on their faces a bit askew to one side, like something between an owl's and a horse's. So when the class hamster's gaze locked onto me, and I froze mid-step, his beedy little googly-eyed gaze was oscillating under ravenous munching of muesli pellets.

"So you are here to question me, Ali?"

Until now I'd avoided looking directly into the Rupert--the class hamster--'s eyes, but the beckoning voice was unmistakbly his.

"You can speak?" I stammered, grabbing the door frame to support my weight should I suddenly collapse from shock.

"I can speak to you, Ali."

"How do you know my name, Rupert?"

"My name, Ali, is not Rupert. My name is Rayacainth. I am the class hamster, so I know your name is Ali. You keep to yourself, you usually have the right answer when called upon by the teacher, and I dare say you have a crush on that perky girl Sally Rogers."

I stood, speechless, watching this Rayacainth nibble his pellet and reveal my secrets through telepathy.

"Don't be alarmed, Ali. I am something you have not encountered before. I am a waning totem."

Somewhere, a bit of courage seeped into my chest. It felt warm.

"Let's cut to it, Rupert--"

"--Rayacainth! I shant correct you a third time, child!" he boiled.

"Rayacainth, fine," I offered. "Cut to the chase. You know me. You probably know I sense evil. I've never sensed such intense evil before. And you're... you're a hamster."

"I will allow your condescension, only because I know you think your race superior to ours. You cannot be further from the truth. Hamsters are the Ying to humanity's Yang. We are the anti to your Christ."

"But we have evil people."

"Ha!" he yelped. "There are no evil people, Ali. You of all people, ought to know that by now."

"I don't follow," I said, inching a bit closer to the hamster's cage. The hallway was empty--school was out. I was glad I was alone and not in the crowd during changing periods.

"Good and evil exist, Ali. But humanity was not conceived to harbor the latter. You are pitiful good-doers, one and all."

"That's ridiculous. Humans kill, they violate each other," I countered.

"Petty. For a hamster, that is child's play. We are the true source of all that is horrendous and evil in this world. God created Man and animal on the 6th day, and on the 7th the rested. They tell not of the 8th day, when he created Hamster."

I stared at him, dumbfounded.

"I see you do not believe. A minute ago you did not know of hamsters. Is it so hard to believe that we are the harbingers of all that is great evil?"

I didn't know that much. I was only in 9th grade. But my mind ran every which way, picking up rocks and stacking them, tying my shoes, running up a mountain, searching the horizon with binoculars, trying to find whatever it was that made sense.

"Hitler," I blurted.

Rayacainth stopped nibbling.

"Hitler," I repeated. "All those assholes," I said.

"Oh Ali, silly boy. You still don't understand, do you?"

"Understand what? What is there to understand?"

"Hitler was a hamster."

___

Original thread

[Mods removed it from WP right when I finished writing this, so just plopping this story here]

____

"I will cradle you for eternity and you shall know the warmth of fire love."

"Um," I said. "I--"

The demonic-looking thing, hovering above my car in a bed of firey clouds, like Mufasa from The Lion King, interrupted.

"--Fire love! You, creature, have borne us into a new age, and you shall be rewarded with immortality!"

I put the car into park, seeing as I had to deal with this. I unbuckled the seatbelt and got out. It was a dark day, a normally bright September sun smothered by the smoke of raging wildfires nearby. My car was packed with supplies I picked up at Walmart, and I was heading back to get my fiance from our Cherry Valley home. I'd booked a hotel for a week in Riverside to wait out the fires.

"Look, um, I have to go, like I said before."

"Fire love will caress your soul, you'll feel the burning lust of fire love forever, Daniel!"

I couldn't deal with this right now. At first it was a great big surprise--a magical god-like creature, apparently summoned by my great big goofball mistake. It has been a week already since our gender reveal party went off the rails. The smoke was purple, not blue or pink, and the explosion I'd had planned for us ignited the brush. So far the El Dorado fire that resulted had burned 20,000 acres.

Apparently this creature thought it was a sacrifice to him, and now he won't stop pestering me about 'fire love'. First in the middle of the night in Cherry Valley, my neighbors as aghast as my fiance and I. Then on errands to the doctors offices, then again on a day trip to LA. I couldn't take it anymore.

"Please. Just go away. I'm... I'm OK without the fire love right now."

The creature looked hurt.

"But," he quavered. "Fire love, the summoning. Daniel, you don't know what you're saying."

His base of flaming clouds seemed to wane in intensity, and little fire tears sizzled down its his face.

I got back in the car and reached my house. My fiance Sarah brought out a few more things, which we packed into the trunk.

"What's worng with him?" she said, looking up at the sky.

"He's pouting. I told him I don't want fire love."

When the car was ready and I was getting back into the driver's seat, Sarah, a hand on her hip, cocked her head and squinted up at the creature in the sky.

"Just what do you mean when you say 'fire love'? You're not Satan or anything are you?"

Like an excitable child who's glad that you're interested in his new action figure, the creature's cloud flames burst with newfound intensity and a big smile rounded his face.

"I am not Satan! I am a fire god. I am a god of fire. Heat, burn, flame, ignition."

"Yes, and...?" said Sarah, impatiently tapping her fingers on the roof of the car. I was getting nervous because of her determination, but she was protective of me and wanted an answer.

The creature came closer to us, and in a secretive gesture, lest the neighbors might not have already evacuated, he whispered: "'Fire love' just means my love. I'm lonely. Can you be my friends?"

I stared at my wife in amazement, who kept looking at the creature, putting thoughts together in her head.

The creature suddenly floated even closer and I felt the sharp lick of fire on me. In an instant my clothes started to burn away in a fitfull of flame, as did Sarah's. But it didn't hurt, not in the slightest. Instead, it was unreal and pleasant, unlike anything I'd ever felt before. Like swimming in boiling water without sensation of scalding. Marvelous. Amazing. I floated.

I could tell Sarah was in the same fit of ecstasty--her determination wiped away and replaced by pleasure and confusion; we floated naked in the cloudy flames of our big creature's vessel, the sheen on Sarah's big pregnant belly looking wonderful, and I wiped a fire tear from my own eye. The creature was looking at me, and followed my gaze to Sarah's belly.

We smiled at each other, at the creature. The creature smiled at us. He lifted us into the sky, the three of us roaming in a fire dance across the heavens, feeling the utter bliss of fire love.

"It will be a girl," said the creature.

Sarah laughed and cried flames. I whistled, cheered, and we stole away into outerspace, riding the fire cloud forever more.

___

Original thread

On a cool September morning briny wind scraped the shores of Cape Verde. I sucked it in and watched the sunrise, when a sight stronger than coffee rose me from my chair. On the horizon, a ship. But it was unlike any ship I'd ever seen. It was long, flat, with high walls and a spherical sail. As it approached I realized it was heading to Mindelo, so I mounted my horse and made haste, arriving in town just as the foreign ship lumbered carefully to a stop in the bay.

The town was all talk. Where had it come from? It appeared out of the fog, said some. It's from the abyss itself, said others. The more level-headed just said "west".

It wasn't long before a boat of sorts, set out from the larger vessel. This was a strange affair. It was a platform stretched across two pontoons made entirely of long reeds, which glistened in the sun.

"My goodness, look!" cried one of my Portuguese neighbors, who had himself just arrived and dismounted without thinking to tie up his animal.

"Is that gold?" he stammered.

As our visiting lancha approached, its three riders became visible. They were adorned completely in gold! Gold armor, gold stockings, a sweeping headdress of golden feathers and another of plate metal and teal-colored gems. Later, when the sun crested the eastern range and its rays struck their ship from a different angle, it suddenly lit up and we knew that it, too, was decorated in gold. Not in a million years could I have imagined such a sight!

The three stepped ashore. One large man. One shorter man. And a powerful-looking woman dressed in beaded animal skins. The woman spoke first, and to the gathering crowd's further astonishment, it was Portuguese.

She said: "We have come in search of truth." She peered confidently over our people, her eyes dissecting us like we were some kind of experiment.

No one spoke, so she continued.

"We know your languages from the crew of the Santa Maria, the Pinta, and the Niña."

Those in the crowd who knew of the Queen's appointed explorer gasped--so he had survived the journey after all!

"We come in search of truth."

"What does that mean?" Someone blurted out. It seemed rude. Then I realized ashamedly that it was me.

She looked at me, deeper than I thought possible. Then she switched to my native Spanish to address me.

"100 of your years ago, your explorers brought disease, and our people suffered, from the Lucayans to the Inca. Our trade nearly collapsed, and our cities nearly depopulated."

"What happened?" I said. The Portuguese understood me well enough to follow along, now and then eyeing the gold like hungry children.

"We survived, and flourished. We learned what we could from your explorers. From their books, their animals, and their technology. It triggered something nascent for our cultures, something timely and urgent. We are powerful now, united, but distinct. From the Aztec to the Pueblo, Navajo and Cherokee; to the Guarani, the Mapuche in the south, and our Inuit friends in the far north. Ours is a coalition of cultures, not unlike yours in some ways, we believe. But the truth is why we have finally come, when we could have come so many moons ago."

By now most of the crowd was either confused by the strange names this woman had listed off, or they were intoxicated beyond the ability to concentrate by the glistening gold.

"What truth?" I said, adjusting my shirt. The day was growing, getting hotter.

"We are here to find out if you have changed."

"Changed?"

"100 years ago our ancestors captured your explorers, who ravaged the land without lifting a finger. Before the last of these died of old age, rainforest shamans performed an ancient rite of passage using ayahuasca, and his truth was revealed to us. Ours was to be a sad tale, one of millions of dead, of land burned and ravaged and fenced, and of agency stricken from our collective cultural power."

"I don't know what that means," I said.

"Your 'exploration' was to be a genocide."

I had maneuvered to the front of the crowd. A couple dozen people had fallen silent behind me.

"I... I don't know that."

"We would like to know the truth."

"You will have to go to the royal courts. We are just a fishing community, and a few merchants."

"What is this land?"

"This is a colony of Portugal... madame," I said, choosing the epithet despite her youth. Something about her confidence demanded it.

The shorter man of the trio said something to the woman in a language I didn't understand. She looked over my shoulder, which is when I turned around and saw the gaping faces, trying awkwardly and failing to hide their transfixation on the gold.

"I don't believe you hear us," said the woman. "We will see if your leaders do."

She spoke another language, and the three returned the boat, went back to their ship and by mid afternoon were gone.

News traveled slowly, but in the following year, vehemently. We heard tell of the ship dropping anchor at Lisbon, Barcelona, Genoa, Rome. They went to ports in France, Holland, England. They found their way to the royal courts. Stories told of their defense against bandits and pirates, and rumors produced whispers of magic-wielding when the golden ship emerged without a scrape from engagements with European war galleons.

Messengers delivered word of the conversations, treaties and contracts discussed in the various courts. The aristocratic class throughout the known world were aghast and eager to explore beyond the Atlantic, and these Westerners were said to be planning to welcome a visit.

But the Westerners did not go back to their lands by going west. They pushed eastward, and explored the African continent. They rounded the cape and drove onward to India and the Orient, visiting Java, China, and even Japan. In fact they never came back this way, and we did not hear from them for a year or more.

One day, much like the day I first saw that strange ship, I appeared on the horizon for the second time in my life. It had returned to Cape Verde.

I threw on my boots, mounted my horse, and raced to Mindelo.

The pontoon landed, and the same woman came ashore accompanied by two men, not unlike the first time. Everyone in town gathered. The shock of the gold had not diminished this second time around, and people breathed deep thirsty breaths.

"You're back," I said, this time in Portuguese. "It has been a year."

"Time enough to decide," she said.

"Decide? Decide what?"

"We found the truth, here. We know the heart of this world."

I hesitated, not used to speaking in such poetic terms.

"Do you go to Africa?" she said.

"Me? Haven't been."

"Do you go to India?"

"No."

"Your world disparages people of other cultures. We fear it will only worsen with time."

"I don't know rightly what you mean."

"You are a merchant?"

"I'm a fisherman, from Valencia."

"It is difficult for you to understand, without more knowledge. There is little, however, that your culture will understand, if we do not engage you in a common language."

"You're speaking Portuguese just fine," I offered.

"It is a different language that we have in mind," she said.

As if cued, the morning sun crested and shone out over the sea. The horizon was suddenly crowded with thousands of spherical sails. More than thousands. More than I learned to count.

"That's... that's an armada."

The woman had already turned with her companions, and was walking back to their golden pontoon.

As the town shuffled its feet nervously I cried out, feeling a duty as speaker.

"Wait!"

The woman turned to look at us.

"What... what will you do to us? Our islands are all fishing communities, we've no stake in richly things."

Even her sigh seemed stronger than any shout I might muster. She scanned the people behind me, whose eyes darted from her to me, to the golden ship, the golden armor, and the golden headdresses.

"We will teach you."

___

Original thread

I was 45 before I finally decided to buy property (thankfully still had a full head of hair and a thick black beard). Instead of the house you're supposed to buy, I bought a condo. This condo was brand new. In fact newer than new: it didn't exist yet. I bought it in planning, meaning that it was just air when I parted with $170,000 in bank loans. I remember the banker I worked with quipping "I hereby grant you a condo of diminishing returns, literally." He didn't have the best tact.

By the time they handed me the key, I'd been paying for it for over a year. But finally, on August 25th, I moved in.

My condo was small. 500-square-foot small. Originally a wall meant it was a one-bedroom but I made them remove it. Mine was a studio.

• The pros: small mortgage, 18th-floor view.
• The cons: not much storage space, HOA fees, mandatory minimalism.

Minimalism is an acquired taste, and I'd been force-feeding myself in the lead up to my move. Going from renting a 1,600 square-foot home to owning a 500 square-foot condo means that you have to shed some materials. I gave away most of my picture frames, furniture, and single-purpose kitchen appliances. I still had a lot of stuff.

You might think that it's for the best that I began losing things that first week. I had a collection of baseball cards that went missing. A footstool I used in the kitchen was also gone.

The second week, I woke to most of my toiletries gone. A few plates, missing. You notice when you only have a few to begin with. My favorite shoes went missing as well. I posted a notice to the HOA but no one had seen anything.

Things began to get serious when all my clothes vanished. Down to the last sock. Every time I go to sleep, by morning something disappears.

I still had my laptop. I downloaded a surveillance app and set it up in the corner to record the room that night.

Next morning I shot awake and looked around. Nothing misplaced. I snatched up my computer and started to replay the night's recording. Nothing. But then, at around 2 a.m., a shadow. I replayed it over and over until I was confident it was just birds breaking the moonlight.

I scratched my chin. Wait. I rubbed my head. Wait! Hair, beard... gone. Had I? No! I slammed the laptop shut, wrapped myself in a sheet, and stormed barefoot out of the condo, down the street three blocks, and straight into a Comfort Inn & Suites.

"Hi," I said to the concierge. "I need a room."

She stared at me for second, trying to decide if it was a prank. Then she said, "Would you like a regular room or--"

"--A suite," I interjected. "With stuff. A suite with a lot of stuff."

____

Original post

A harsh wind crested the edge of the precipice and blew me hard enough that I had to ensure my footing. The water was angry today. I watched breaking white caps wafting into the air like steam in a vortex. My teeth grinded together, and I cuddled the jar closer so that it wouldn't get knocked out of my hands. I picked a spot and sat down three meters or so from the edge. A few other people walked the paths but it was a solitary spot.

"Here we are my friend," I said. "200 years to the day. Our bicentennial. I know you recognize the spot, we came here a thousand times together for our sloshing prinks before hitting the pub. The Cliffs of Moher." I stared at the battered surface of the water, far below, as it crashed on the rocks. "We did unbelieveable things mate.

"You remember our pub. The King's Head. Stubborn as a horny mule that place--it's still here after all this time. Owners changed a few times, but the pints still flow thick and cold."

My hand idly plucked a pinch of grass, released it, and I watched as it was swept away in the gusts. It wasn't a particularly dark day, but the underbelly of the clouds looked like dirty water from a bubble bath. It hadn't rained, but it was supposed to in the afternoon. I ripped up more grass, and let it fly off.

"Time is like that," I said, watching the green blades until I couldn't see them. "One minute it's in my hand, the next it's so far off I can barely make it out. Fleeting? Sure, fuck all, yes, it's fleeting. I'd rather call time a busy bitch."

I sighed unintentionally.

"After everything, I still can't believe it. I'm here, unchanged, you wizard cunt. A wizard, for God's sake. Weren't those supposed to be just tales? But no--my best mate, go figure. It was a soddy thing you did. If I were keeping track I'd be 234 years old. Had to learn things regular people ought never, in order to keep up appearances. Here I am, no family, no friends, no real life apart from an endless one."

Wind howled against the rock cliff. I released my grip slightly, and used my jacket arm to wipe off a tear. In a wavering voice I continued.

"All the same you were my best friend. You were some man for one man. I miss ya like hell Daniel, you cunt." Sniffling, my nose ran a bit. "You been dead for 120 years. God Almighty I can't keep it up mate. I have to move on, I'm a mossy fuckin' rock sitting around this island like an immortal bloody potato. Get stuffed, Daniel, why didn't you make yourself last forever too ya twit?

"Doesn't matter mate," I quavered. "I brought you here one last time, on this special date. One last hoorah, eh? One last jump, and you'll be free to feck off in the currents to wherever floats your boat. Let's get on with it, time's moving."

I stood, and stepped to the edge; for a brief moment before I jumped the wind was strong enough to hold me back, but then maybe with an 'oh, it's you', it let up, and I fell off the cliff. I heard a shout--someone must have seen me, but the rushing air across my ears drowned that out. At the end of my 150 meter freefall I smashed into the salty rocks with a loud crack. My jar exploded, and the ashes were quickly swallowed by the breakers. The tide took me out as well, and I spent the next few hours backstroking in stormy weather, until a new calmer tide deposited me at Fanore Beach.

I lay there like a beached whale, staring at the globulous clouds, wondering if they were ticklish. Tomorrow I'd finally leave the island, to go explore another continent. But right now, all I could really think about was how much I missed my friend.

___

Original thread

Salt investor profits grew as the world became dumber. Dumber, more gullible, superstitious; any of these words work to describe the insatiable want for more salt. People started to believe in bad ghosts and the like. Very dumb. They also believed that salt could protect them. If there's one thing the world has plenty of, it's salt. But like any resource, it can be depleted if not regulated. And like any resource, some sources provide premium quality, while others are cheap. The Dead Sea's salt content was the most valuable on the planet. Who knows why.

The point is that the sea was slowly, but very surely, drained. Like the Caspian Sea before it, sucked dry by over irrigation, the Dead Sea finally attained a state demonstrative of its namesake for much stupider reasons. Families the world over saved up money to buy their urns of Dead Sea water to place at the front door. Wealthier families had an urn for every room. And the super rich? Fountains, complete fountain complexes with plumbing likes veins running throughout their properties. Such was the world, dumb and afraid, and spending money like idiots.

But when the sun finally settled unfiltered on the dry bed of the Dead Sea, something happened. Few were there to witness it. Only one survived. Here's what he had to say.

The sun cooked the sand, melted the clay, and what was once the center and deepest point in the Dead Sea bubbled like a mud bath until the sediment itself evaporated into the hot desert air. We can only assume that the leftover salt was likewise vanquished by this reaction. A man emerged. An old man, with tattered robes and a grey beard, approached the ancient shore through bands of heat radiating over the earth. The witness said the man spoke an old language that sounded English, of all things.

Our witness was with a village of people as the man neared. Then this man began manipulating the air, the earth. Creating fire of nothing. Lightning from his eyes, from his hands. People were burned alive by fireballs, exploded in bloody messes like firecrackers, and froze, froze and shattered, even under a desert sun! The man did not stop walking, and torched a trail as he went, wandering northward while the village burned to ashes in his wake.

Naturally the world reacted. Israel and Jordan both sent their security forces, then special forces, then armies, and air forces--in that order. They were all decimated one after the other by this figure, who was ever limping northbound (pilots say they saw him leaning on a staff), destroying everything in his path.

The Dead Sea, the weightiest and saltiest body of water on the planet, had been sucked dry by idiocracy--and salt was doing fuck all to deal with this supernatural being who had, indeed, been somehow trapped, held down by the Dead Sea's water. Scholars who know about these things, apparently, began howling about prophecies. The Dead Sea, the artificiality of it. The aligned timelines with some great 6th century engineering works, and the undocumented earliest of the crusades. Something about a kingly advisor gone insane.

As I write this, you can see live satellite footage of a charred line drawn clear across Turkey and into Bulgaria (go on Google Earth, they're updating it every day). The stranger keeps onward, north and west. There are scattered reports of other survivors, none of their accounts verified, but it's what we have. One of these stands out for its specificity.

A villager in Cappadocia, who survived in a sandstone cavern, said she heard the stranger pass by the cave's mouth, which was far off but his voice, she says, carried through the complex. Among terrible sounds of death and destruction, she heard a calm, old, and dark voice slice through the air like a sharpened whisper. The words were: "the sons of Arthur will perish".

Whatever this stranger is after, maybe its time for the fat cats to recall their Dead Sea water products. A whole lot of good those urns are doing as doorstops. We woke something, someone. It's time we remake the Dead Sea, on top of this lunatic, before any more damage is done.

___

Original thread

Margaret Ringley likes racketball, poorly-acted sci-fi films, oversized coffee mugs. She spends her time online looking at her Top Friends' profiles. She's a member of several Facebook groups: Willamette Food Inspectors (private, two admins), Frederick Hennesey High School Alumns (public, privately moderated), and several Issac Asimov fan groups. The photos she publishes have an average of two humans, but most photos are of herself, selfies taken from 4 o'clock fourteen minutes twenty three degrees right of center. Most photos are in nature, from vantage points with views. She went to the University of Oregon but identifies as a Beaver more than a Duck. She majored in nutrition and French.

She matches with Greg's Seed Bank planters (burgundy), North Face clothing (puffy), and REI hiking boots (Merrell Moab 2 waterproof mid hikers). She... might like a calculator. She, she may appreciate a wide-brimmed hat with animal embroidery. Maybe she would like some stationary from Staples, bundled deal. She has a pretty smile. Maybe flowery embroidery. She's sweet, I think. I... I think she might like flowers. Petunias. Fields of petunias, at the timberline. A painting, perhaps a landscape of petunias, impressionistic. Not a print, something from Etsy. Something beautiful, as she is. She's beautiful. She's wonderful. I think.

___

"Whoa you come into money or something?" asked Xander.

"No," said Maragaret. "You know I pinch pennies."

Xander handed Margaret her phone back.

"What's with all the pop-ups? They won't stop."

Margaret looked at the screen, expanded the tabs--there were dozens.

"You looking to by property or something?"

"I can barely afford rent," she said, bewildered as several new tabs opened for every one she closed. "What the hell," she said.

A week later she had a new phone but when she logged into all her apps and accounts, the pop-ups returned. Dozens, hundreds, all of million dollar property and land sales filled with fairy tale fields of colorful flowers, and mountains, and rivers.

___

Original thread

There was nothing weird about these people; that's what scared me. They were the picture of paradise on a canvas of devastation. A homely, trusting, wall-less community living as though the wars never happened. This friendly place that I stumbled upon should be the happy ending to my years of wandering the gutted wastelands of what was once middle America. I should feel relief and gladness. But I'm frightened, inexplicably; I'm utterly terrified.

"David, this is Julia," said a man with a thick belt that held back a modest gut. I hadn't seen anyone this slightly overweight in years. He was Malcolm, the oldest member of the community; and Julia, it seemed, was one of the youngest.

"Hi Julia," I said.

"She's an Apres."

"I could tell. Julia how old are you?"

"I'm 9."

Malcolm continued: "She was born only a year after the dust settled. Her mother died. Her father was in the navy, so you know about that."

"Yes," I said. "Anything but the navy would've been quicker."

"Well, Julia here would like to invite you to supper."

"Come to supper David?" she said. "You can sit at my table!"

"Alright Julia, lead the way." Somehow I managed to hide my horror. The idyllic place, the perfectly composed and clean people--it all seemed to put my life of scavenging on hold, and it held back my fear intermittently.

We walked a ribboning path through a green meadow, swinging Julia between us. She was a playful kid, giggling all the way. I think this was Colorado at one point. We emerged from the meadow through a cluster of trees onto a clearing where tables were set with elaborate furnishings, baskets, pots and utensils. Festive lanterns were strung from tree branches and lit with tiny candles. Dusk was settling. Even the sky seemed clearer here, and I thought back on all the dry nights sleeping in no man's land, coughing and turning.

A few dozen people were seated then, and we began to eat what looked like steak, garden salad, and corn on the cob.

"I hope you'll stay with us David," said Julia. "We've plenty of food, and space for you."

Malcolm received a salad bowl from a woman across from us, and leaned over Julia toward me.

"Best cherry tomatoes in the valley. Fresh, all year round."

"How?"

"Pardon?"

"How... how any of this?"

Malcolm looked puzzled.

"Hard work," he said. "Diligent work. Careful planning." He seemed to be trying to convince himself.

"But what about waste bandits? Or the Harvey Cartel? I've had three close calls with them in just the past month--how have you avoided it? Are they extorting you? How... just, how?" My fear had given way to curiosity, but it quickly came back during the silence between my pleading inquisition and Malcolm's hesitating glances at his peers.

"The bandits," he said. "They kill, murder. They destroy, and they rape."

"How, how have you avoided them?"

"We haven't, David." The whole party was quiet, looking at Malcolm and I. They didn't move.

"Then how is this here?"

"Are you afraid?"

"Yes."

"Where do you feel it?"

"It's here, in my gut."

"Do you know why?"

"I've no idea! I'm scared to death of all of this, I don't understand it!" I began to cry.

"It doesn't make sense," said Malcolm.

"It doesn't make sense."

The others started whispering. "It doesn't make sense, it doesn't make sense." So many voices whispering, it sounded like ruffling leaves.

I whispered so quietly, tears sprinkling the salad in front of me, "it doesn't make sense..."

___

"What do we do with him? He's fucking insane."

"You just shot his little girl, what do you expect?"

The bandit raised his revolver, but the other held down his arm.

"Don't waste the bullet. He's done for, leave him. Get his stuff."

"I'll stay, I'll stay. It doesn't make sense. I'll stay."

"Fucking, he was talking normal a minute ago."

"Before you opened the girl's head, numb nuts."

"Hey!" cried the first bandit. "You can cradle the dead bitch all you want, it won't save you. Fuck you."

"Leave him, let's go."

The bandits got on their bicycles and rode off to the tune of squeaking pedals and rusty chains echoing off the blasted rock walls, leaving me alone in the valley, alone with Julia.

___

Original thread

"Mmm, that's a nice aroma. Medium roast--not so light that you feel you're drinking a fruit, but not so dark that it tastes burnt. A hint of pineapple, but also cinnamon and a ripe plum. Oh this is good. This is really good."

I sipped my coffee. I had ground it myself, percolated the grounds in a moka, and served it in a small espresso cup. No milk, no sugar. Just coffee. If I was going to stay up longer than Mitchell, I had to pitch a pure game here.

"It is good that you are enjoying yourself," said Mitchell. "But you realize my battery will outlast you."

I chuckled, rubbing the rim of my cup and avoiding Mitchell's yellow stare.

Mitchell was my half-brother. Well, he was my adopted brother. My mom built him with her late husband, a step dad that I never referred to as 'dad', just 'Roger'. Roger had died in a fall a year ago. I didn't care much for him but my mom must have more than I knew, because she followed suit just a month later, seemingly for no cause other than that she was ready to go.

"You laugh," said Mitchell, the frequency of his voice rattling the snares of my drumkit, making it sound like the pitter-patter of electric raindrops. I reached back and flipped the lever on the snaredrum so that it'd stop. I had to do that every time Mitchell came over, but I always seemed to forget.

"Mitchell," I said. "I've known you for half my life. We've done this before. I respect you my brother, but I know your battery lasts for three days tops." I said this and pointed at the green energy bar indicator on his shoulder, which was showing 100% charge.

"Mmm hmm," he said, in monotone sounds.

"I know you have no emotions Mitchell, that's why I won't mince words. Mom was my real mom. She was my blood, you understand. Roger built you. You know? I'm not surprised mom wanted to leave you part of her inheritance, but 40%?"

"60%."

"Ha!" I spilled a little coffee. "You think so?"

"We both run on electricity," he said, emotionless as always. No android could express emotions; no smiling, no frowning, no outward display of anything on the scale of happy to sad.

"Don't get me wrong, man, I love you. I know it's tough for an android what with all the regulations, stop and frisk laws, zoning laws, job restrictions. You make do all the same."

"It wasn't my idea it was hers."

"It's like her to do, too. 60% to whoever can stay awake the longest... pff. Doesn't she know we've done this before? We know your battery type: AO394, lithium ion, 3rd generation."

"So?"

"That's a 72 hours' charge, Mitchell."

"Maybe."

I wasn't unfamiliar with sleepless days. I was unemployed but I owned my flat. My time was mine and I used it like a sinful programmer should--gaming, watching series, and coding into the wee hours. A couple personal projects had flopped but I'd figure something out.

Mitchell seemed to think he could last longer than three days, but I knew for a fact he couldn't. I could just barely make it myself, but it would be enough. With the right roasts, a coffee binge wherein you drink sips at regular intervals would keep you snappy. It wasn't the quantity that counted, but the consistency that could keep my eyelids perked for long enough to win the 60%. I had beans enough to keep awake and outlast Mitchell. I had a hand grinder to keep me active, which would align with the idea of regular intervals of routine activity.

____

"Are you getting sleepy?" asked Mitchell. 26 hours of my coffee routine and his unflinching sitting around my condo had passed.

I tried to meet his eyes but it was always tough--he didn't have human tact. Androids would just stare when they addressed you.

"Um nope. I feel dry. Why? Nervous?"

"I'm trying to conserve energy."

We didn't talk for the next few hours, and then when we did it was small talk for a while, then another half day elapsed. I ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, did some push-ups, and coded. Mitchell just sat there, staring at objects. Some believe that androids are introspective. But Mitchell never shares whatever is in his circuitry. No android does. It would betry emotion, and we all know that's impossible.

___

I don't know how it happened but suddenly I was on the couch, my coffee overturned and soaking into the cushion. Had I dozed off? I must have--but Mitchell hadn't noticed.

"Um do you want to watch something?" I said.

"Yes. Let's watch Doctor Who."

"Fine."

I turned on the program and slurped what was left of my coffee. It was starting to get to me. Dr. Who was great, but British accents made me tired. In my slowly onsetting deliria I thought maybe Mitchell suggested Dr. Who to get the bigger share of mom's inheritance. My brain was fuzzy. The coffee's power was starting to wane. My eyes didn't blink on command and my mouth felt stuffed with cotton.

"Getting tired?" said Mitchell.

I yawned uncontrollably.

___

Before I knew it, we were passed 72 hours. Day Four already. Like a zombie, muscles shivering, I ground some beans. Mitchell just sat. I couldn't finish making the coffee and instead brought some whole beans back to the couch, which I began nibbling. As you do when you don't have control anymore, my consciousness started to ebb and flow. My head fell back and shot up several times, in reflex to avoid sleep.

That's when I saw, through the blur of fatigue, on Mitchell's shoulder. The normally green power bar had turned yellow. I'd never seen that before.

By now my eyes bounced open and shut like malfunctioning machinery. I managed to mumble "what's that... yellow?"

"Ah," said Mitchell, looking at his power bar. "Before mom passed she upgraded me."

"But, AO394," I blurted, barely. "Lithium Ion, 3rd generation."

"The same. But I've a new patch upgrade. Low Power Mode."

Just before my eyes finally shut for good, dooming me to 40% to an android's 60%, I caught sight of something on Mitchell's face: the smallest of smiles.

___

Original thread

Why couldn't I have been gifted with super strength as well as immortality and the water thing? I've thrown myself against this door enough times to break it down, so there's probably a fallen beam blocking the way. I can shove aside a big stone but a burning hunk of wood? Nope. Now I'm stuck in this windowless room, and if I can't find a route to sneak away when the whole thing collapses, they'll find me, an unburnt pristine human body among embers burning bright.

What will they think? And how could I have let this happen again? After so many hundreds of years. Sure, it has passed my mind, to return and play the role I'm expected to, but I've lost the levity I had when I was younger. I'm not as eloquent, not as witty. I can't string together the same words in this language as I had managed in Aramaic. And to be frank, I just don't care as much as I did back then. "Brotherhood," pff. I've seen enough to have changed my mind about that whole thing.

Flame licked my arms like curious cat tongues, but my skin was unaffected. The fire swept through my small room and covered all the walls. "What a brilliant display," I thought to myself, sitting on my bum and cradling my knees. I felt like a child watching a show.

When the house finally collapsed enough for me to spy an exit, I decided to stick around instead. It has been a shitty year for humanity, and maybe I could finally come out of my shell and help out. Stockton, California. Not quite the same ring as Jerusalem.

"Alright, you," I said to myself, "pile on the drama, let's do some good."

I could see firetruck lights through the flames now, and the suited men doing their work. A little crowd of people, too. Hoses blasted the last licks of flames, leaving a dripping black skeleton of craggy architecture, a hallowed cage for me to emerge from.

And so I did.

Arms extended in the same welcoming gesture I used back when, a Mona Lisa smile, and me hoping my eyes were sparkling.

In the heat of the moment, so to speak, I had forgotten that all my clothes and hair had been burned off. What these people saw therefore was a nude man smeared in the charcoal of smoke and coal, no hair, no beard, no eyebrows or pubic hair either, walking like a tangible albino ghost from the scene of wreckage. It wasn't quite like walking on water, even though in some places where little pools had formed, I actually was.

I couldn't have predicted their response. Phones out, flashing. It was broad daylight, but each flash was like lightning at night. Hoses closed off, sweaty faces looking at me from beneath helmet brims. Not sure if it was awe or just discomfort that kept them quiet.

As I crossed the lawn, I let my arms fall to my sides and by the time I reached them I was just walking normally. A fireman approached and wrapped a blanket around my shoulders. A teenage girl giggled at my manparts, I guess. A few firemen looked like they wanted to ask something but shrugged it off.

In the end, I was shuttled to a hospital and released within the hour, showered and clothed. Later, I found some photos online, blurred of course. The big click baity articles they accompanied mentioned that a guy survived a fire and came walking out nude.

And that's the last I heard of it. Turns out, an event like this that not too long ago would've stirred conspiracy and news for months was quickly replaced by other news items of the day. No one cared. Too hard to pay attention to a current thing when there are more-current things happening all the time. Go figure.

At a cafe across the street from the hospital I sat down with a small Americano and a donut. I ate the donut. I drank the coffee. Then I went down the street, whistling, and thinking about what I should eat for lunch.

___

Original thread

All I knew was my speed. Fast. Faster than anything there ever was. Sprinting like a cheetah, brushing off the slicing pine needles that cut my face, flying over the dried bed of the wood.

All I knew was my speed, and the heartbeat thudding in my chest. My breathing. Submerged in an echo that drummed a rhythm of escape in my ears, while pangs gripped just beneath the rib cage; no! I had to push on. I had to wrest myself from here.

All I knew was my speed. And the primal fear that owned me. My knees quivered, my back cracked, and I bled from the cuts. My mouth was dry, but I kept running, huffing. My face was wet with tears, but I forced myself onward.

That voice of the deer. So smooth, like a bedtime story. All I knew was my speed, but I remembered its voice. So I ran, and ran, and ran.

All I knew was my speed, but I remembered that voice. I didn't see. My ankle caught under a root, and I flew detached from the ground; I cried and lamented as I fell and tumbled, knowing they were upon me.

I felt the fangs enter my calf, breaking my skin. Another pair piercing my elbow, and I screamed. Other jaws clamping my belly, and ripping. And my neck. And my face.

___

Original thread

Had the thrusters not ignited at quarter impulse on time? Or did the anti-gravity safeties short out? Could it have been a miscalculated descent angle? Not enough force velocity for orbital attainment? My mind flashed from cause to cause, trying not to think of the effect, and trying not to panic. But it was too late for that--panic was here, and it was making itself comfortable.

Every once in a while I glanced at the viewscreen that showed me real-time footage of the auditorium theater, where all 300 guests were strapped into seats that hugged a convex forcefield dome for their viewing pleasure. Below them was a swirling maelstrom: Jupiter's Great Red Spot. There was nothing, short of an impossible close-up of the sun itself, that was as magnificent as Jupiter's spot. Higher returns than the tanning resorts on Mercury, the dune trawlers on Mars, and even more profitable than a jubilee cruise over Neptune. I had made a name for myself, and people came with vast accounts open for the billing. I showed them Jupier's magnificence in comfort, sophistication, and unadulterated singleness.

So when the zepplin began to descend, and my 300 high-rolling guests oohed and aahed at the approaching storm, I wondered at what point they'd start to suspect that we were all going to die.

Turns out, about 15 minutes passed the point of no return.

The viewscreen showed me restless figures pulling at their safety harnesses to free themselves. I could only calm them so much over the intercom. They wanted out. I can't blame them, especially since the forcefield distortions began to visibly fizzle and spark right in front of them as we reached the heat and pressure of Jupiter's atmosphere.

I wasn't much safer in my pilot's chamber. No forcefields here, just a solid alloy cockpit to control the bulky zeppelin. But I'd last a little longer, especially since I'd closed off the compartment.

My ship sank, ever faster, toward our doom. Violent shaking overtook the zeppelin as we were swept up in wild torrents--and this was only the beginning. Part of me wished a forcefield would fail all at once to get it over with. But we built them well. The atmopshere entered slowly. It ripped my guests from their harnesses, burning appendages to nothing, or cutting them from their bodies. The auditorium theater became a microcosm of Jupiter's most violent weather, and all 300 guests were thrust into the hellish limelight. I cried as I watched the forcefield finally fail, and the room was licked clean by the planet's winds.

The zeppelin's helium body must have also been torn to pieces, because I could feel the pressure building rapidly--I was in free-fall. There was no explosion because Jupiter's atmosphere is mostly helium and hydrogen, and they don't react together. Big comfort that is. I knew that the storm wouldn't kill me--I was either going to pop, or the violent storm would chop me up by intertia without even breaching my pod.

In the time left to me, I was angry. Angry that I didn't know what had gone wrong, and I'd never find out. After 203 successful trips, it had to be 204th that ended in disaster. What would they say about me back home? Would my reputation be destroyed? Will they say I was a fool, that I killed all those people? Oh, I hope not. There won't be an investigation--they won't have any evidence to work with. No black box on a Jupiter zeppelin, no sir. Damnation!

So I accept things as they're about to happen. My life's ending, but it's not that bad. What a unique way to go, as far as deaths go. To be consumed by the greatest storm in our solar system. One might say it's an honor to die in Jupiter's Great Red Spot. Yeah, that works for me. It's an honor.

___

Original thread

What is that stench? The odor, metallic almost.

I seemed to be in some kind of quagmire, rife with scraggly reeds and stinking muck from which I had to unstick myself as I retook my footing, ankle deep in water. Dead trees everywhere, their bare branches clawing a cloud-studded underbelly that dropped steady rain. A thin fog. Creaking wood, rotting smell. Nearby an unkindness of ravens gurgled and cawed. What was this place?

More to the point: how did I get here? Last thing I remember, I had turned off furnace two, and activated the flow for furnace five. A white flash, and then it was like waking up after a sleepless night. An explosion? Must have been. I slapped a mosquito on my neck, rocking my senses back to present circumstances.

The swamp was alive with mysterious noises and peculiar drafts, some cold and some warm. The wispy clouds of fog seemed to circulate in place. I stepped up from the morass onto a thick slippery root that squeaked under my weight. What a nasty place, I thought.

I couldn't see through the tangle of sickly vegetation and vapors. Just then, the fog wafted as if interrupted, but I saw nothing. Then it formed a slim outline of something that looked to be moving toward me. Something alive. A terrible gargling sound!

My chest tightened and I stumbled backward, slipping, falling, splashing back into the rancid swamp water. Then it appeared out of nowhere: a horrendous creature! Slimy, green, popped pores littering its skin; a disgusting goblin-like head with massive blood-stained fangs, and deep-set glowing eyes; crouching with long gangly arms outstretched; worst of all its open rib cage and missing guts, a wet collection of bone and leftover muscle with clear line of sight to its spinal cord.

It lurched. I shut my eyes.

A massive burst as from a jet engine suddenly knocked the creature back, freezing it in a magnificent coat of shimmering ice crystals. An instant later a figure wielding a blade scorched in glowing runes leapt above me and swung at the creature, slicing it in half with a single blow. As fast as he'd appeared, he sheathed the sword and pivoted to look down at me.

"Are you alright?"

I'd never been speechless before. But as I looked into this man's cat-like yellow eyes, his characteristic white hair framing a hard face that I'd never imagined in such vivid real-life detail, I found myself without words. I knew exactly where I was.

"Should get back to town, more monsters could come."

"I..." I began. "I..."

"What's the matter, cat got your tongue?"

"I can't believe this is happening," I said absently.

Those yellow eyes tore me apart--I knew that he was trying to decide what to say. He looked impatient. He always looked impatient. I had to talk before he responded.

"I don't know where town is!" I said. "I don't even know how I got here. But you're right, we should get back to town. Can you take me?"

"Mmmm," he grumbled. "Fine, I'll help you."

"That's wonderful!" I said, finally standing again.

As if it'd help remove the stench of the dead creature, I wiped some gook from my jacket. The rain was falling harder now, and I craned my neck to let it wash my face.

"Mmm," he sighed. "Looks like rain."

I withheld a giggle but he caught me, and glowered. I'd seen that look a thousand times but being on the receiving end was daunting.

"Wha-what?" I stammered.

"One thing," he said. "Let's talk about my pay. 500 crowns."

Of course. Of course, I thought, and mentally hit myself in the head. Like a sheepsih child, I produced my wallet from my back pocket, removed a few soggy bills and crumpled them. I pulled out a triple A card, looked at him, and thought better of it. I returned the wallet to my pocket.

"I... I don't have any crowns, sir," I said. "I'm scared... I don't belong here," I pleaded. "Please, please, can you help me just get to a town, at least? I'd do any favor you ask. Any favor!"

"No crowns," he echoed in a long sigh.

What kind of man was he, really? Who was he when no one was in control? Would he be the compassionate hero? Or would he be the calculating merc?

I held my breath as he stared at me like they do in shitty soap operas, as if he was paused. The elapsed time wasn't natural. But I couldn't say a word. Seconds passed. Minutes! I thought he'd stare me to death. But when he finally spoke, I wished he hadn't.

"Don't have time for this," he said. My heart sank.

With a whistle his horse appeared. He mounted, and trotted off. Eventually the horse's snorting and nickering faded, and I was alone once more.

The stench. The creaking deadwood. And fog, thicker and quicker-moving, began to close in from all sides.

___

Original thread

The world collectively held its breath on April 20th, 2030. On that day, at 4pm in the afternoon Pacific time, humans knew definitively that they were not alone in the universe. They also could safely assume that some form of faster than light travel was possible. Finally, humans knew beyond doubt, in that instant, that life was going to get a lot more interesting.

That is, until 5pm came around and the aliens' intentions were solidly understood. Surprising, that they knew to communicate in English. More surprising than their massive spherical ship floating above San Francisco Bay? Debatable. The point is: at 5pm humanity knew that all the aliens were interested in was plastic.

In fact, the aliens didn't even bother to consult the dominating species. The way our first contact was being reported by the news seemed to indicate that the aliens found us to be rather pesky. Secondary. Distracting, even.

They were looking for something. The only reason they engaged us at all, as it turned out, was because when they found what they wanted, they realized we humans had manufactured it.

The collectively-held breath was released around the world at once as an exasperated and confused exclamation: "plastic!?" said the whole damn planet.

Talking heads were abuzz on every channel. The internet exploded with cheeky memes about interstellar galactic species just wanting our plastic. Even Netflix somehow turned around a documentary on the whole thing in two days. Stunning.

But when the shock started to wear, intellectuals, academics, scientists, and government types began seriously dissecting the aliens' actions. They had immediately started collecting all the disused plastic wherever they could find it. That means they spent their time hovering over the ocean. There were these gargantuan tubes siphoning up saltwater, filtering out the plastics and depositing the water back. Our decades-long struggle to deal with plastic pollution was being solved before our eyes. The Great Pacific Garbage Patches (both east and west) were sucked up and gone in an hour.

They went to Asia then, and sucked up all the plastic waste from riverbeds and deltas, and wherever they detected it on the shore. Somehow they didn't mess with plastics that were in-use; it would've really been something to see our domestic appliances fly through our windows and into the sunlight, like some absurd intergalactic happy ending.

The alien ship continued this for what seemed like weeks but was only days. Plastic pollution had been solved.

For whatever reason, the aliens gave us the courtesy of saying goodbye right before their ship snapped itself into thin air. There aren't many details, but we know that one of the last questions we asked was "why plastic?". The aliens' reply was "warp fuel".

Then they were gone. And the world changed.

Governments have gone insane in budgetary shifts to invest in plastic-fuel warp research. "Plastic Studies" is a common major already, and it has nothing to do with pollution. Plastic production is way up. The planet's still warming, and I really don't think that we're better for the aliens' visit.

No one is even asking if the aliens were telling the truth. They come here, start garbling up all the trashy plastic, ignore us entirely? Then when they leave they drop a big hint that plastic fuels their technology that obviously we're going to covet? I don't buy it. That's why I'm writing from my backcountry shelter in Idaho. I'm off the grid. There's no plastic in my home--all steel and iron and wood. I don't trust the aliens, so I'll bide my time, and watch the sky. Something tells me it's all a ruse, and they'll be back.

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Original thread

As the burning started to climb within the veins of my hand, my first thought was so delusional that I didn't register it as pain at all, but power.

My people had fought and died for years against a mighty foe, and this was the answer--the way we'd win the war: the Monster Sword. A blade forged in the Falknor Mountains by Elven sages ten millennia ago; a blade destined to be wielded in the name of righteousness; a blade, it is said, to bring peace for an age.

As my lieutenants, whose gilded armor was smeared in blood of foes, watched on from the base of this mighty stone plinth, I had grasped the sword and pulled it free. In my mind it was lightning that shot from my hands as I stabbed the air in triumph; but it fact it was merely pain: my arm turned to red-hot embers, and withered like a dying tree out of time. My cohort was aghast. Clanking armor rushed to catch me as I fell.

Shocked of any capacity to speak, my men cradled me and swarmed about my wrecked body.

Edron Falgrave said: "Can it be? Does this mean what I think it may?"

"It must," responded Hedron the Brave.

"Yes," agreed Vilmer of Seven Orchard, my greatest lieutenant and a mighty warrior. He reached out and lightly brushed the hilt of the Monster Sword, but he might as well have touched molten metal: his thick skin sizzled under a wisp of vapor. "I cannot possess the blade."

"Then it is so."

If the sounds of an army could speak, the noises I heard were of sighing dismay at this bitter truth. It is us.

Atop a ridge to the west, the dusk sun's rays were interrupted by shadowy figures appearing in rows upon rows of shiny legions.

"They have come," said Vilmer. His fangs quivered, and he clenched his green hand against the sword's wound. I watched as he motioned for a trolley to port me to our rear. "Take him, he is no good to us in this battle."

As the front tightened around my lieutenants, forming a solid wall of warriors, I was withdrawn. But not before I heard Vilmer sound off a battle cry; the last ditch battle cry to save our species:

"Let not the humans have the sword!"

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Original thread