Who said I was dead? Was it you? How did you know? I never told anyone. To the best of my knowledge, no one has ever found my body. It's probably still at the bottom of that ravine, where I left it so many years ago. It's alright, I can always find another. There's no shortage of them walking about. Most are too apathetic and self-absorbed to even know the difference. Besides, I have greater plans - with me at the helm, they'll have a purpose far greater than any their short, insignificant lives would have fulfilled. I'm not sure how you found out, but it doesn't matter. Yes, I am dead. But don't worry, that will change soon enough.
Gray steepled his fingers, leaning over in conspiratorial fashion. "David, I'm going to share a little secret with you. I'm not a very good Korlissean." David quirked a brow, perplexed. "How so?" "The key principle of Korlissean culture is 'do the greatest good for the greatest number.' It means putting the wellbeing of others ahead of your own, and that's something nearly all Korlisseans do. But it also carries with it the expectation of being able to look into a situation and determine what constitutes that 'greater good,' which is something I have never been particularly adept at." "Sounds pretty noble. And sanctimonious." "Exactly!" I've never liked the presumption of thinking I know what's best for another. And those are the principles I was raised with. You have no such upbringing, do you?" David shook his head. "We were neighbors with some elderly lady for a while, who was always giving my dad a hard time. She was 'a devout pain in the ass,' as he used to say. Never got along with preachy holier-than-thou types." The Korlissean snorted. "Nor have I. So you tell me, David, what's best for you? Sulking in your cabin, wishing for the impossible, or making the most of what time you've been given?" "Well when you put it like that..." "Death is one of those unfortunate certainties of the mortal condition. But if you live every day worried about when and how it might happen, you'll never do anything at all. You'd waste your whole life paralyzed by indecision, and in the end you'd die anyway, having never really lived at all." Gray stood up, clasping one hand reassuringly around David's shoulder. "Take my advice," he said. "Enjoy the time you have, and stop worrying over when it will end."
Forward progress on my book has largely stalled, owing to the fact that I've gone back to the beginning and started overhauling it from the foundations up. Tonight, I finished turning a passage (barely 350 words) into two and a half pages totalling somewhere around 1200. Viva la difference! Evening found them on the couch, as David tried teaching her to read. They’d just finished the Dr. Seuss classic “Green Eggs And Ham,” when he turned to Zee and asked, “Do you think you’d be okay here if I left you on your own for a little bit?” Zee looked up from the book in her lap, giving him a confused stare. “Why leave?” He tugged his shirt collar. “New clothes. You’ve been wearing that same jumpsuit since getting into your pod, and all day today too. I was thinking tomorrow I’d head to the store and get you some new clothes to wear.” “Oh.” Her ears perked as she grinned excitedly. “We go! Both!” “Not a good idea,” he advised. “Everyone around here looks like me. No Rah’li on this world; they’ve never seen one before. People get scared of what they don’t know.” “David not scared,” she insisted. “Rah’li not scary.” He rolled his eyes. She was probably right, too. People might think she was weird, or cute, but not scary. They were more likely to stand around taking snapshots with their phones than run screaming. He reached over and ruffled her hair. “No, you’re not. But you can’t go out in that either. Clothes first, then we’ll see about giving you the Rhode Island state tour.” Zee looked thoughtful, and agreed, “Clothes first, then give Rhode Island.” “Tour, Zee,” he corrected, chuckling. “I’m not giving you the whole state.” In a deep voice, he proclaimed loudly, “First clothing, then the world!” He cackled maniacally. The Rah’li giggled, smiling at him. “David strange,” she teased. “People more scared of you than Rah’li.” “Yes yes, I’m a terror to all who behold me,” he answered wryly. “Just ask my last ex.” To his puzzlement, Zee’s smile faded. She popped open the deck of flashcards, sifting through them until she found the one she was after. “Why terrored of David?” she demanded, scowling at the black ‘X’ printed on its surface. David tumbled off the couch, clutching his sides. He was laughing so hard, he couldn’t breathe. “David very strange,” Zee declared, shaking her head. Evening found them on the couch, as Human tried teaching Rah’li to read. Although Zee found English a frustratingly difficult language when spoken, its printed form was much easier to handle. The words made more sense on the page than they did in her ears, and David was quick to correct her when she pronounced a word wrong. The subject of the narrative completely baffled her, however. She couldn’t figure out why this “Sam” was so insistent on feeding the other character green food, especially after the other’s continued refusal. From the wording and style, she surmised it was probably a book meant for younger Humans, but if there was a lesson to be learned from the pages, it eluded her. When Sam finally got his way and his unwilling victim tried the dish, she expected the other to collapse of poisoning, with a message about the perils of trusting strangers. It didn’t help that both characters bore a vague resemblance to bipedal Nissimgrai. Zee shot David a perplexed glance as she closed the book in her lap. “Why not eat green ham?” she asked him. He’d explained that “eggs” and “ham” were both food, but the story made even less sense for that knowledge. “Green isn’t a natural color for ham and eggs,” David shrugged. “Kids judge food by what it looks like before they eat it, so if it looks weird to them, they’ll usually refuse until they know it’s good. Also, a lot of kids don’t like to eat vegetables and those are mostly green. The book is basically saying ‘try something before you decide you don’t like it.’” He laughed, adding, “My parents used to tell me that a lot when I was little.” Zee examined the cover artwork again. “Even if bad? Food looks-” she searched her vocabulary but couldn’t find the word for toxic in English, and used the Nissim word instead. David’s expression showed he clearly hadn’t understood her meaning, and she made gagging motions, grasping her throat. “Even if it looks spoiled…?” he guessed. “I don’t think Seuss was trying to convince children to eat everything, just what their parents try to feed them. Most parents don’t try to poison their kids.” Human parents, she amended silently. If the knowledge her pod had imparted was anything to go by, Nissimgrai were perfectly willing to poison their whole family if the price was right. More and more, she was counting her blessings she’d ended up in David’s care. She didn’t know why the pod had neglected to tell her about Humans, or why he couldn’t speak Nissim, but if all this was a mistake, it was one in her favor. Even when he was teaching her his language, he treated her like a guest – like a person, not a pet. His behavior was that of an equal, not an owner. It confused and pleased her, until he chose that very moment to break the notion. “Zee, do you think you’d be okay here if I left you on your own for a little while, tomorrow?” She eyed him cautiously. “Why leave?” Though she’d become more or less acclimated to his small living space, the idea of being left alone here was disconcerting. He tugged his shirt collar. “New clothes. You’ve been wearing that same jumpsuit since getting into your pod, and all day today too. I was thinking tomorrow I’d head to the store and get you some new clothes to wear.” Zee examined his current attire. The shirt was a different color than the last but of the same basic shape, loose and baggy. His pants were a blue, coarse material, snug at the waist and loose around the legs, with no space for a tail. The white things on his feet were formless bags that would only prevent the pads of her toes from keeping traction on the ground – and that was assuming his culture even had an analogue that would fit Rah’li feet. Compared to her own black outfit, Human clothing looked uncomfortable and heavy. Suitable for a species with bare skin and minimal body-hair perhaps, but not for someone with fur. Still, it would be a chance to see more of this place, she considered. Her entire day had been spent indoors, learning David’s language. Now that she had enough of a grasp on this “English” to converse with him, she felt ready to experience the world she’d landed on, and the people that inhabited it. That alone felt worth the prospect of wearing baggy Human things, and who knew? Maybe they did make something that would fit properly on a Rah’li. “Why not both go?” she prompted. David blanched. “Zee… that would be a very bad idea. No one on my planet has seen a Rah’li before – some people think aliens exist, but you’re living proof of it. That tends to scare people, and scared people do very stupid, dangerous things.” Zee frowned, unconvinced. She remembered the wild, wide-eyed look on his face the previous night. That was what Human fear looked like, she was certain of it. He’d only worn that expression once all day, and that was when she had tried touching a waffle while it was still in its slotted cooking unit – “toaster,” he called it. But that was fear for her, not of her. “David not scared,” she insisted. “Rah’li not scary.” The Human reached over, ruffling her violet hair. “No, you’re not. But you can’t go out in public wearing a skintight spacesuit, either. It’s... well, there’s too much to explain right now,” he said firmly. “Clothes first. Then we’ll see about giving you the Rhode Island state tour.” She pressed her lips together, stifling another objection. He’d done that evasive thing again, the same as when she’d walked in on him after his shower, or when she’d asked him to continue drying her off. When it happened, his cheeks got a little pinker and his heartbeat sped up a few extra pulses. And it always seems to involve clothes. Or not having them. Why are Humans so weird? “Clothes first, then give Rhode Island,” she conceded, feeling put-out. He didn’t talk down to her, as a proper owner might, but her situation was starting to feel very pet-like. Kept inside, fed, clothed, taught, left behind… David’s mirth interrupted her troubled thoughts. “Tour, Zee,” he corrected, chuckling. “I’m not giving you the whole state.” In a deep voice, he proclaimed loudly, “First clothing, then the world!” His stomach fluttered as he let out a maniacal cackle. In spite of herself, the Rah’li snickered. “David strange,” she teased, smiling at him. “People more scared of you than Rah’li.” “Yes yes, I’m a terror to all who behold me,” he answered wryly. “Just ask my last ex.” Mystified by the request, she reached to the coffee table and dutifully popped open his packet of language cards. Quickly, she sifted through them until she located the one she was after, a slanted black cross on its surface. “Why terror of David?” she asked the black “X” printed there. David let out a choking sound, clutching his sides as he tumbled off the couch. He was laughing so hard, he could barely even draw breath. “David very strange,” Zee declared, shaking her head.
Michael peered between a gap in the miniblinds. He'd have to end this stalemate - this siege - soon, or he'd likely starve. The cupboards were already looking perilously bare, and he'd exhausted his allotted sick days. Getting fired would make it tough to buy food, or anything else for that matter. He still didn't have a solution to his squirrel problem, however. "Held hostage by ten-inch rodents," he muttered. "Disgraceful." But he had only himself to blame. He'd been the one to declare "war" on them, after all, and reluctantly he had to admit they were currently winning. There were scores of them in the trees around the apartment complex, and only one of him. They might have even called in reinforcements from the park nearby. The trouble was, he couldn't just kill them. Local police had reminded him on numerous occasions about those pesky "animal cruelty" laws, and in the eyes of the law, the squirrels had done nothing wrong. Nothing except stalk, harass, and intimidate me. No one believed they were intentionally scratching at his windows at night, using his car (exclusively) for storage space, or following his every move when he went outside. His trunk had ten pounds of acorns and hazlenuts in the trunk. A light flickered on in Michael's head. "That's it! Of course!" Here he was, scraping by on canned vegetables and broth, when their food stash was sitting just outside in the trunk of his car! He could secure more nourishment himself, and starve them out at the same time! ~***~ Jenny stopped dead in her tracks, staring in horified astonishment at her neighbor. She hadn't seen Michael in over a week, having sealed himself in his apartment after the electrical incident. He looked terrifying - unkempt hair, bloodshot eyes, a gaunt, manic expression on his face - and if that weren't enough, he was babbling incoherrently to himself as he piled handfulls of nuts from his trunk into a large plastic shopping bag. "Michael, are you okay?" she asked hesitantly. "Starve the fuzzy bastards," he grumbled. "Tree-rats won't beat me, no they won't. Make them eat tuna ramen instead!" Jenny smiled. She nodded. And she walked as quickly as she could, back to her unit. The crazy-train her neighbor was riding was one even Ozzy wouldn't board. Suddenly she heard Michael cry out, and the sound of his trunk slamming shut. When she looked back however, she saw no sign of him. Just three squirrels, sitting on the rear bumper of his car.
"Absolutely not." Sam set the shotgun on the dashboard and turned to face his passenger. "The last time we did this your way, it ended with arrest warrants in three states, a drunk FBI agent in the back seat, and a wombat on crystal meth in our trunk. This time, you follow my lead." "Fine," said the Fish Man. "But if you screw this up, I'm putting you back in that cage. With the wombat."
Warning: This veers a bit political / religious. It is not intended to spark debates, it is simply me venting some thoughts into wild. Been reading the world news, and a recent article caught my eye about a sharp rise in anti-Islam / anti-Muslim sentiment in Germany and throughout Europe. Predictably, Muslims began drawing comparisons to the rise of antisemitism prior to WWII - perhaps not an entirely unfair sentiment. However, there is one crucial difference which entirely invalidates the comparison: There were no Jewish extremist / terrorist organizations before Nazi Germany.*(A little research turns up Nakam, a "revenge" group after the war, but nothing prior to that.) I make no claims that Muslims = Terrorists, that's small-minded bigotry. But it's worth noting that, justified or not, Islamic extremists have given Europe a very real, tangible reason to be concerned. The unfounded persecution of the Jewish communities is a vastly different animal from the wariness currently directed at Muslim ones. For the record I'm not anti-Islam, but I think the world would be much better off if every decent law-abiding Muslim made it a personal mission to stamp out the extremism and violence giving their religion a bad rep.
Well, yeah. What you're saying is right. It simply doesn't make sense at all. What ISIS is doing is definitely against the Quran and the Islamic faith, I'm sure...
When boredom sets in at work, funny thoughts begin to cross my mind. Writing a best-selling novel. Constructing a crime-fighting vigilante robot. What I'd say and do as President (of the USA). What if the galaxy is one massive super-organism? There's several quotes floating around, about how there's "nothing new under the sun," and no such thing as a truly original idea. Maybe there's some truth to that - I looked it up, and the first credits for that notion go to Greek philosophers like Anaxagoras and Plato. Still, it's an intriguing theory. By our very nature, we humans assume that life is organic. When we search the cosmos for "signs of life," we seek out planets with Earth-like conditions which are most likely to support the kind of life forms we can identify as such. But we may just be overlooking the obvious - the cosmos are themselves alive. Envision our galaxy, the Milky Way, as one vast living thing. Entire star systems are but the cells of this cosmic creature, with the stars as nuclei. Solar flares are the firing of neurons. Stellar winds, the push and pull of gravity, all just the undulations of life several million orders of magnitude beyond ours. Makes you think, doesn't it?
I'm a simple kind of guy, as long as my order is correct the first time at McDonalds my day's going good.
"Wait. Please." Mark's fingers brushed her arm, hesitantly, reluctant to take hold. Cara turned, her expression a sphinx-like mask, unreadable. "I thought you wanted me gone. You couldn't wait for this to be over, so you could get rid of me." "I did," he admitted somberly. "I've had enough excitement in the last three days to last me for the next thirty years. I don't like being handcuffed, dragged around, beat up, or shot at. I'm an accountant, for god'sake! An 'interesting' day for me is switching decaff for espresso." "And you liked it that way." "I did." Mark leaned back against the bare drywall, sagged to the floor. The spent casing of a 9mm poked him in the backside and he batted the brass tube across the floor. Its slug was on the other side of the room, embedded in the skull of the man sent to kill him. One of them, anyway. "You saved my life like, a dozen times just today. I'd owe you for that, no matter who's balancing the books. But you opened my eyes, too." The dark-haired woman shrugged. "I did my job, Mr. Wallace. You've got your life back. What you do with it is up to you." "Look, Cara, my life is boring. I was happy with it because I didn't know anything else. Quiet, aside from the noise of the city and the alarm in the morning. I got used to the silence. Then suddenly, in you come, guns blazing, dragging me all over creation..." He trailed off, trying to find words that wouldn't come. "I'm not saying I want more people shooting at me, but you made me see how empty I was before that. This is the first time in, I don't know how long, I actually feel alive." "It's the adrenaline. It'll wear off in a little while. Drink something sweet, the sugar will help." "How about coffee?" Cara shrugged again. "With enough sweetener maybe." "No, I'm asking if you'll have coffee with me." He brushed the concrete dust from his slacks as he stood up. "I owe you that much. At least give me the chance to say thanks." A weak grin tugged the corners of his mouth. He wasn't much to look at, Cara thought. A mousey little man with brown hair, balding at the temples, glasses cracked, his business suit ruined with dust, dirt, and a large bloodstain on the left sleeve. He resembled a Wall Street banker who'd been financially shipwrecked and marooned in the city's slums - not terribly far from the truth. And yet, despite having his whole life turned upside down and shaken like a snowglobe, here he was, asking her out with a smile on his face. He didn't look like much, but the man had a backbone alright. And after twenty hours without sleep, she could use the caffeine. "Alright," she agreed. "But no decaff."
Three turns to the left... *click* ...and a quarter turn back to the right... no, perhaps one notch more? *click* There, that'd done it. With a triumphant flourish, Victor pulled the latch and swung the safe's door open. An overpowering stench of rotten fish assailed him, and the would-be thief fell over backwards, struggling not to retch. To his infinite dismay, the safe was filled bottom to top with empty sardine tins. "Not what you were expecting, Victor?" a voice behind him intoned dryly. "You... you ate them all?" Victor replied, incredulous. "Half-a-million's worth of the rarest and most expensive fish on Europa and you just ate them? Why? To spite me?!" "Good heavens no," the other man laughed. "I let Mitzi have them." He nudged the prone thief's cheek with one toe, tilting Victor's head to the left. A white ball of fluff sat on a velveteen chair in the corner, purring contentedly as it cleaned itself. "A fortune in exotic fish, and you fed it to your cat." Victor was dumbstruck. "Fish are food, Victor, not fortunes. Besides, you didn't fly all the way out here to this iceball just to steal from me. Now sit up, there's a good lad, and tell me what you're really after?"
There was a time when gods walked this world. Real ones, not some ethereal deities from on high. These weren't the creators of Men, nor their protectors, heroes, villains - they're so much older than that. Primordial titans which might one day, millions of years later, inspire Greek mythos. They were the Shapers of this planet, the ones who gave it form when our sun, newborn and volatile, coughed this bit of matter into the void. Theirs were the hands that wrapped its iron core in magma, gathered ice from the frozen cosmos to give us water, exhaled so that we might one day breathe. And when their work was done, they slept. They lay down their bodies and enveloped the world they built, a hide miles thick on which lesser, weaker, more fragile life could thrive. And thrive we did. We walked, ran, drove across their petrified skin, ascended their jutting spines, delved their deepest recesses, and drilled through their flesh like maggots. But these gods are not dead. They are not the creations of Man's mind. They shift in their sleep, shaking asunder the tiny realms we made for ourselves. Their ancient skin cracks, leaking molten blood and toxic fumes to burn and smother us. And when our "tectonic plates" awaken once more... Then we will see our true Gods. And they will not help us, no matter how much we pray.
"You'll die," said Marco. "No," replied Weston, "I will finally live. I will be immortal." He looked upon the great white machine with the adoration of a proud parent. This ship, this ugly, boxy, angular vessel, which brooked no comparison to the sleek rockets his grandfathers had envisioned, whose hide was composites and ceramics and materials so strange and alien they would never have imagined in their time - this fine thing was to be his, and his alone. "You're a fool, and you'll die a fool's death," his pessimistic companion declared. "If it is foolish to chase your dreams, to live them, I would not wish to be a wise man. How many hundreds of years, Marco? How many has Mankind waited for this moment, dreamed of it? How many since we looked up at the stars and took it in our heads that we should be out there, among them? To stride vast distances of nothing, as the Gods do. I shall meet them all, Marco, the Christian and Islamic and Jewish, Buddhist and Hindu, Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Myan, Sumarian, and all the rest! I shall shake Ra's hand, ride Apollo's chariot, help Orion fasten his belt!" Weston's eyes grew wide as his excitement tumbled from his lips. "I will see with the eyes of Hubble and Kepler, Chandra and Spitzer and Herschel, drink from the ice of comets, breathe from distant nebulae, bask in the warmth of newborn suns. The whole of the universe, the length and breadth of infinity, all of it within our reach at last. Our mother Earth, a green bud, at last blossoming, flowering, spreading the pollen of human civilization into the cosmos. It all begins here, Marco, with this. With us!" Marco shook his head, hiding a smile. Weston's passion would not, could not be undone, by words or force. Death itself might not stop him, he considered wryly. The boy had been born with stars in his eyes, rocket fuel in his veins, his head forever far, far above the clouds, where molecules of gas danced lonely waltzes through the edge of space before bumping into another of their kind. His future on this world had only ever been to leave it. "I will miss you, my friend." Weston clapped him on the back. "Oh cheer up already! You're standing at the feet of history as it's being written, this is no moment for melancholy!" A heartbeat of silence, two, ten... "I'll miss you as well. And Renee. Florida. Earth. But just look out there." He pointed to the night sky, the star-flecked darkness behind the spacecraft on the pad. "All of it, this whole solar system, the Milky Way, someday we'll look at it as 'home,' they way we think of our towns now. Someone will ask where we're from and we won't answer 'New York,' or 'Cincinatti,' no sir, we'll say 'Earth,' or 'Alpha Centauri,' or 'Gliese 667.' They'll teach geography in stellar terms, not national ones. Just imagine it Marco, imagine that day!" "You really are a madman, Weston," Marco told him, laughing. "But by God, I wish we had a million more like you. Just don't forget to send us some damn fine pictures when you get up there, would you?" "Pictures? I'll send holovids. People will have the wonders of the universe, right at the tips of their eyeballs. But it won't be the same, you know. They won't feel the warmth of a new sun, they won't hear the patter of dust on the hull or the radio-band sonatas of gas giants singing them to sleep. There's only one way to have that - they'll have to follow me up." For a moment, Weston's voice grew low, serious. "Make sure they do, Marco. Space is vast, but it's not empty and it's not meant to be lonely." "We all do our part, Weston. Get some rest, you'll need it tomorrow." ---- I've always liked Ray Bradbury's work, but somewhere along the line he's become my "favorite" author (at least of Sci-fi). There's an earnestness in his writing I greatly admire, and I've been itching to try and capture some of that. So you might consider this a sort of literary homage to his style. Hopefully I succeeded.
