TW: >! Allusion to suicidal thoughts, on-screen character death, psychological torture!< "*A scout was told by enemy soldiers that they’d shoot him as soon as he stopped playing the piano …"* He wasn’t paying attention to anything else; he was too busy trying to figure out just how out of tune the piano was and how much he would have to tighten every loose string to correct the pitch. Which didn’t spoil his enjoyment in the least. It was unfortunate that the first piano he’d seen since the war began was this shabby, but it was a real piano, and all the notes played sharp and clear like tiny daggers in the frosty air, and that was all that mattered. The first indication he had of their presence was a sharp jab in the back. It drew blood, which became a wet trickle that streamed down his shoulders and pooled at the base of his spine. He instantly forgot his place in the song and the music stopped. “Don’t turn around,” said a harshly accented voice. Something cold brushed against his shoulders, and he stiffened. “Keep playing,” the voice continued. “If you stop again, we’ll kill you.” Laughter, innocent and amused, like children at a playground, echoed around the room. *That accent.* He’d heard it once before, but only from prisoners of war - never from anyone he'd known personally. His friends were supposed to be guarding his back, but these voices weren’t theirs – where had they gone? His hands shook as he reached for the pale white keys. Warm orange light, perhaps from a lantern, reflected off the piano in his face and threw sharp shadows over his fingers. His vision blurred. His hands were cold, and he couldn’t reach his coat. These soldiers wouldn’t listen to any pleading. He wouldn't either, if he had been in their shoes. If he wanted to live, he had to impress them, which meant he had to play. On and on, forever. His life would only end with his music. Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata came to mind first. The tension in the room dissipated as the first notes rang out, clear and strong and confident. He’d been playing this song since he was a boy, and his mother had played it before him. Just as it had lulled him to sleep in the evenings, he prayed it would lull these soldiers, whoever they were, to let him live. “What’s your name?” a voice asked. He paused and started to turn around. “It’s –“ “Don’t stop!” they warned in unison, jabbing him again with their bayonets. He slammed the next chord a split second off the beat, terrified of dying before he’d even started, and kept right on going as if he hadn’t stopped. The laughter behind him increased - this time, with a touch of malice. “Are you going to tell us your name?” they asked, and the shadows from the lantern light jumped up and down. They were trying to confuse him, or maybe they were simply laughing too hard to hold it still. He kept his mouth pinched firmly shut and shook his head. He didn’t dare get distracted. A wrong note jumped out with glaring dissonance and earned him another sharp jab. “Stop,” he mumbled, without breaking rhythm. “I can’t play if you keep doing that.” But did they really care about his music? A flicker of doubt crossed his mind. They were just teasing him – teasing him to death. Why should it matter if the sound wasn’t perfect? Perhaps all they wanted was an excuse to torment him. There was some mumbled agreement, and the lantern finally stopped moving – hung, he supposed, on a hook he’d noticed near the door when he came inside. His own shadow made it hard for him to see the keys directly in front of him, so he shifted to reach a lower pitch. The soldiers behind him suddenly silenced, probably expecting him to make a run for it, but he still didn’t look their way. His heart was racing so fast that he could feel it in his fingers, burning against the icy keys. But if he lost himself in the music, he could keep going forever. Nearly forever, anyway. *His* forever. “It’s warm in here,” one of the soldiers said. The pianist's touch on the keys grew light as he listened attentively, trying to see if he could understand anything else. But the voice died away in a mumble of gibberish, a language the pianist didn't understand. The soldiers seemed to be getting comfortable. Though he couldn't see them, except in the form of vague shadows reflected on the moldy, once-upon-a-time veneer piano, he could guess what they were doing from the noise they made. They stomped on the wood floor to melt the snow on their boots, exchanged what sounded like jokes in their incomprehensible native language, and laughed like they hadn’t a care in the world. He could tell they were laughing at him from the shiver that crept up his spine. They never took their eyes off him. They wanted to see if he could last as long as they had. Maybe, he thought with a thrill of horror, they considered this payback. Would they have acted any differently if he told them he was drafted, and not a soldier by trade? That he knew nothing about their country, except that it was cold and wet and miserable, and that the dirt was too frozen to dig trenches? That he didn't even know what he was fighting for? His mind wandered. He felt as if he’d trained all his life for this very moment. He could almost hear his piano teacher’s nasally voice: “You never knew just how useful piano would be, did you?” That was what he used to say, when his young student broke down in tears with chilly hands and bleeding fingers. "It makes you stronger," the teacher would say, his voice reeking with smug satisfaction. If he had known how much depended on his music, he would’ve picked a warm concert hall in the middle of a polished, empty stage with an audience cheering for their musical gladiator. Not this lonely, abandoned house in the middle of a minefield. If the soldiers didn’t kill him, something else would. This piano was only buying him time either way. His hands shook, and he missed a note. But, he reminded himself, no one who hadn't heard the song before would know. He waited resignedly for the retaliatory bayonet jab, but it never came. “Want some food?” one of the soldiers asked him, shoving a rough loaf of bread under his nose. It smelled sweet and doughy, and its warmth caressed his face like a blanket, and he could feel his mouth watering. But he couldn’t take it without lifting his fingers from the keys. He pinched his lips shut and shook his head. The final chord of the sonata rang out true and pure and clear. He already knew what was next: *Pathetique.* Appropriate, all things considered. When that was over, he started again. And again. And soon he realized with a slow desperation that he was running out of music. Soon he’d be improvising, and it was hard to think of notes that sounded musical. Could the soldiers tell the difference? He wanted a chance to pray while playing something mindless, something he could rely on his fingers to perform without his conscious assistance. He started to repeat the first sonata, but the soldier on watch duty behind him shouted it down. “No repeats!” *That’s not fair.* But none of this was fair. Neither the game, nor the prize. And he was only buying time, after all. He grasped at the last thing he could remember; a Tchaikovsky piece without a title, written on a few wrinkled sheets of paper before the composer committed suicide. He’d learned it years ago as punishment for not practicing. Some of the chords were too big for his frozen fingers to reach, and the song sounded like a different composition without them. But at least it was music. He could pray for strength now that he didn’t have to think about what he was doing. From here on out, if repeats weren’t allowed, the great musicians couldn’t help him anymore. He was on his own. He wished them goodbye, and his fingers hit a G sharp instead of an F. The soldiers behind him stirred, but didn’t say a word. And once the piece was finished, he kept going. The first tune that came to his mind, oddly enough, was frantically happy. It forced his hands to move so fast that they finally started to warm up. The soldiers behind him grumbled restlessly, seemingly irritated that the music had changed. But still, nobody spoke. He was succeeding at keeping up the illusion that he knew what he was doing. *Must* be succeeding. He couldn’t fail. He’d put in so much effort that if they killed him now – Unconsciously, his rhythm slowed, and he transitioned into a different theme entirely. He stopped thinking for a split second and hit a horribly wrong note. The soldier on guard smacked his shoulders right where he’d been stabbed, and he jolted with the pain that shot through his arms all the way to his fingers. He slowed down even more to give himself more time to think. His music teacher would laugh if he was watching. “Performing poorly under pressure,” he’d cackle. “I always told you to rehearse more, but you wouldn’t. You said you were too busy. Well, look where it got you!" “I’ve been fighting a war,” he muttered desperately, his voice drowned by the piano. And besides, he was practicing now, making up for all the time he'd procrastinated when he was young. How many hours had he been playing already? Three? Six? Twelve? His teacher’s face never lost its mockery. He was standing next to the piano now, his elbow resting on top – something his students would’ve been slapped to high heaven for doing, but as he always said, rules don't apply to masters. He jammed his hand against the upper notes, ruining the melody, and the pianist winced as though his ears had been stabbed. “Try harder!” he screeched. “You’re not giving it your best effort.” “I’m trying!” he cried, just like he’d done a hundred times before when he was a boy. A single drop trickled down his left cheek. It wouldn’t be enough no matter how hard he tried. It never had been. “Trying what?” someone behind him said. “You’re slowing down. Keep up if you want to live!” More wild laughter from all corners of the room. The teacher shot him a smug look of I-told-you-so and disappeared. He blinked to make sure he wasn’t dreaming, but there was nobody at the piano. All he could see were the drearily monotonous keys and his own shadow that seemed to drill a hole in the keyboard. He could hear a distinct rustling behind him. The soldiers were getting up. It was morning. He’d been playing all night. The orange light coming from behind him was the sun, not the lantern. It was about to be over. He’d impressed them enough. They’d leave and let him live. They had to. “Longest two hours of my life,” said a hot voice right into his ear. It was the soldier who had been on watch duty. “Thank God I can sleep through the rest.” He gulped and hit a shaky C major chord. Never had it sounded so hideous. The movement was replaced by silence as a new guard took over the watch. The orange light never changed; if it was the sun, it must have been blocked behind a cloud. He wondered what the world beyond the piano looked like. From his hazy memory the outside was a field and there wasn't even a tree in sight. Not a hill, nowhere he could hide if he suddenly made a bolt for it. Was there really no other option? What if he just gave up? How much more time did he need to commend his soul to the divine, and hope that at least God would have mercy on him? He closed his eyes, resigning himself to a few wrong notes, and tried to imagine what was about to happen. A shot to the head would be quick. He thought of how his body would be frozen here until the end of winter, or until someone from either side came along and found him. They’d say “poor bastard” in their language of choice, wrap him in a blanket, and dump him somewhere outside. And they wouldn’t use the piano because they’d say he was haunting it. But he wouldn’t know about any of that, because he'd be dead. It was getting harder to breathe. The wounds on his back begged for him to lie down, bathe them with warm water, anything to take away the stinging pain of congealed blood, cold air, and open flesh. He wondered if he could take one hand off the piano and reach around to touch them and let heat from his sweaty hands ease the soreness. No, he couldn’t. “Please let me stop,” he sobbed, still playing, resting his exhausted head against his chest. “I’m begging you. Please let me go.” “You can stop whenever you want,” someone said. The whole room exploded in titters, and he heard the familiar click of a bolt-action rifle. Even the littlest sound of the barrel brushing against someone’s canvas jacket sounded louder to him than the piano, which he could barely hear anymore. Something cold touched his ear, and he kept playing, doggedly closing his eyes. So what if the notes he hit were wrong? The worst they could do was kill him. Now, he could swear, the orange light had gotten a little paler. It *was* sunlight, soft and warm on his tender shoulders. The soldiers were starting to move around, yawning audibly and stretching, their joints cracking in the cold. They started a fire, which popped thinly and produced waves of smoke that made his eyes water. He wanted to rub them. He couldn’t take his hands off the piano. He was starving and thirsty. The smoke dried out his mouth, and his lips were stuck together. He couldn’t open them to get a drink, even if there had been anything to drink. Flakes of dry skin were peeling off his knuckles and floating gently down to the keys below, hard to see against the white but glaring and annoying against the black. They broke the pattern he was now so used to. He made a game of trying to brush them off with his fingers while he was playing. Then he smelled it: *food.* Cooking meat in some sort of savory herb he couldn’t quite identify. A soup, probably. *Steam.* It wafted around his nose and made his eyes water more, this time mixed with tears. And for that matter, what was stopping him from giving up, scarfing a last desperate mouthful of soup before the soldiers could kill him? He licked his own tears, but the salt only made his mouth drier. Since he’d become a soldier, he’d been constantly imagining his own death so vividly and so often that he almost felt he couldn’t survive without thinking about it. Whenever he found himself remotely in danger – near an edge, looking down the barrel of an enemy gun, barely missed by a shell – his mind flipped to the worst outcome. He fell, the bullet struck him, the shell landed nearby. In any case, he died. And he made peace with that possibility. The calmer he felt about his own demise, the guiltier he was for not minding death when he had something to live for. He had a family that would welcome him home, which was more than most could say. He had a house and a farm and a cat and a dog and a warm bed with wool coverlets. They’d scratch his hands when he crawled under them, but in a comforting, caressing way, like an old woman’s hand covered in calluses. In the morning, when he woke up, they'd be on the floor, because someone would have started a fire and his room would be swelteringly warm. He'd get up, wrapped in a cozy sense of homeliness, and go downstairs to find a bowl of hot broth waiting for him. He'd cup his hands around the mug and take a deep drink, and thank his mother for making it. She, in turn, would thank his father for building the fire. They'd all smile and laugh, and go about their days as though they hadn't a care in the world. Playing until he couldn't strike another note was his way of proving he’d fought. He had to keep playing until he was so afraid of dying that he couldn’t make peace with it anymore. And then, only then, when he had finally discovered the true value of what he was losing, would he deserve to be released. He played until his hands were raw and bleeding. He played until he couldn’t feel three of his fingers, frostbitten from the cold ivory keys. He played until he couldn’t hear his own music anymore, only the vague sounds of the soldiers behind him. He played until the knowledge of what he would be leaving behind was driven like a nail into his brain. He played until death was the last thing he could imagine, and his thoughts were filled with his home. And then, by accident, he stopped. His hands dropped to his knees, and when he tried to lift them again, they simply wouldn’t move. “Damn!” cried someone from behind him. “Longest concert of my life.” A deep choking misery crept up his throat, and he felt a tear run down his cheek. Another, and another. He smiled because, at last, he was afraid of dying, and still had hope that he wouldn’t. And he cried, burying his face in his hands and sobbing like a child, because his hope was founded on nothing but the mercy of his persecutors, who hadn’t yet shown any remorse. And he cried because his arms were so stiff that his shoulders felt wrenched out of joint, just from the tiny movement he'd made to drop his hands to his lap. No matter what happened, at least he knew he had fought all the way to the elusive end. A hand on his shoulder forced him to turn around and look straight up into a pair of warm brown eyes. The man was grinning on one side, and his grip radiated cheerfulness. “I’m impressed,” he said. The pianist smiled wider through his tears. “Thank you. I’ve been playing since I was a child, but this is the first time I’ve played for anyone else.” “You’re a pianist fit for nobility. If only we didn’t have to kill you,” said the soldier. He really did seem a little regretful, but his hands showed no hesitation as they unbuckled his holster and pulled out his revolver. He loaded it with painstaking slowness. The pianist watched, occasionally lifting his hands to his eyes to wipe away the tears so they didn’t freeze on his cheeks. He felt as if he’d earned a badge of honor. He was terrified, and pure fear had never felt so sweet. For, driven into a corner, he finally realized the magnitude of what he was giving up, and he was proud of himself for the first time since he could remember. He had finally earned the life he'd lived by fighting so bitterly to keep it. Were these soldiers really angels in disguise, sent to drag his downcast mind back into happiness? The last thing he saw before he closed his eyes, letting the moisture pool behind his eyelids, was the soldier's friendly smile, and somebody behind him giving him a thumbs up. He heard their laughter right up to the last minute, and he smiled in response. They weren't mocking him; they were encouraging him. *“… He played for more than twenty-four straight hours before collapsing in tears, at which point the soldiers, somewhat impressed, laughed and promptly shot him point blank.


Kirk Taggert quaked and quivered, standing on the official sized wrestling mat in the Cochran High School gymnasium. He was a popular poster-boy blueprint for a six foot-four, bronze haired, muscle sculpted, teenage boy wrestler. But belying Kirk's coveted physique, unadulterated panic shimmered behind his amoretto colored eyes. Kirk was no one to veer away from any opponent, but the wrestler that stood across from him wasn't just any high school opponent. This opponent could actually mentally break him before the match began. The evidence was in the amount of perspirations already beaded out across Kirk's forehead and upper lip. It was not because the opponent was grizzly bear sized, or a body builder's dream. Kirk could deal with that all day long. He preferred the challenge of making a mountain into a mole hill any day. But the guy standing just a mere three feet from him, he had loved ever since... …Probably forever. Kirk was hindered in his mind about just how he could violently do a take-down move on him, or forcibly manhandle the guy he loved onto his back for a three second count. Kirk's opponent wasn't even high school age. But was considerably much older than himself. He looked at the man, and gritted his teeth together in worried apprehension. He was about to wrestle an opponent that wasn't even five foot-nine. And who had the musculature of an arm chair quarterback, looking every bit as harmless as a Starbuck barista. Kirk could feel his hands betraying his brittle confidence. They were slick with body dew. And the absence of any sound in the gym was unnerving. Comparable to the soundless void of outer space. For there were no spectators around to cheer or jeer. The referee's whistle was about to shatter the sound void, however, to sharply signal the match to begin. Likely within the span of a meager few heartbeats. *Run up and wrestle his opponent or just plain old run?* The urge to do an early tap out was almost unbearable for Kirk. In his mind, he was no coward, but tapping out early would make him look every bit like one. And he couldn't stand looking like one of those, ever. Still only a few reprieving seconds were left. Seconds for Kirk to make the decision of a lifetime. Without conscious thinking, he crouched into a low center of gravity attack position, and licked his lips. His mouth felt as dusty as an old abandoned garage. Kirk spared a half glance, away from his opponent soft eyes, to register that the referee was now bringing her whistle to her lips. Time had finally run out. In a determined state of mind, Kirk got ready to send his hands away from his body, and to flex his fingers in the anticipation of using them as grapples. But instead, he stood up out of his crouch with a newer resolve. Kirk held up a hand to halt the referee's immanent puff of breath through her whistle's mouthpiece. And un-hesitantly walked briskly over to his opponent with his right hand leading the way. When Kirk was close enough, the opponent took Kirk's extended hand in his own and shook it vigorously. With a relieved heavy sigh, Kirk uttered bashfully, "Dad. I love you. And I apologize for shooting off my mouth earlier; challenging you to this match. From now on I promise not to miss my curfew." He then turns to the referee and says with a wink, "I love you too mom. Thanks for volunteering to referee.


“I’m still not sure I should be going to this honey.” Greg looked at his wife through the reflection in the mirror as he combed his hair or at least what was left of it. His father was bald by 60 so Greg felt lucky to be 65 with any hair at all. “ You need to go to this party. Its good for you to get out again.” Mary was always encouraging her husband to try new things. She had always been adventurous one, once she convinced Greg to take her on a trip to Africa. He never could say no to her. “I know, I know I need to make some friends or meet new people. It's just... hard. Why you can't come with me?.” Greg turned to Mary and stared at her as she leaned against the bathroom door frame. There was never a day that passed where Greg didn’t marvel at his luck. He met Mary in college. He was studying in the library when she came strolling in clutching a bag tightly against her chest. Greg always wondered why she choose to sit next to him, but when she did he couldn’t help but stare as the bag in her arms seemed to wriggle on its own. That’s when she leaned over and opened the bag inside was a small kitten probably only a month, old one of its ears was in bad shape. Together they nursed the kitten back to health keeping it a secret until campus security found out and forced them to rehome it. Greg always said he fell in love with Mary when she cried giving the cat up, but really he knew he had to marry her the day she sat down next to him in the library. “You know I can't go with you, dear. Besides it's just an office party you already know everyone who is gonna be there.” Mary laughed. Greg loved that laugh how it started low but faded into highnotes. Mary always had a way of bringing laughter into a room. Even on their wedding day her vows had everyone rolling. Even when he found out about his father's death she managed to coax a smile out of him. Even when the doctor told them they would never have kids Mary still managed to make the world seem brighter. Greg was the rock in the relationship sure, he held fast and true and settled Mary’s restless soul, but Mary she was the sun. “Your right, your right. I just am nervous I haven't even been to the office in weeks, and I cant get my tie on straight.” Greg said as he struggled against his neck tie. Despite years of wearing one he always needed Mary’s help getting it just right. In reality he knew how to tie it himself he just loved the excuse to have her close. “I told you that you needed to start learning how to do that on your own. Now take the top part and fold it over the bottom correctly.” Mary said firmly. Even on the day the doctor told her she was dying she managed to make Greg laugh with a dumb joke about the weather. Greg felt so lost that day like the oxygen had been sucked straight out of his chest. The scariest moment was that night when Mary finally broke down and cried in his arms. He held her close and promised to help her get better no matter what the doctors, or the cancer, or anyone else said. “Right again my love. But my tie never looks as good when I do it myself. I'm helpless without you.” Greg said those last words like a joke but in his heart they felt true. Even though he was taking care of Mary psychically, picking up pills, driving to treatment, holding her hair when she got sick, it felt like she was still taking care of him. On the good days she Mary would cook and sing in the kitchen, her voice was certainly not stage worthy but it was perfect for small houses and sunday mornings. On the bad days she would sit in bed and write, page after page of recipes, instructions, and jokes. Just in case she always told Greg. He hated that phrase and those pages of writing that burned holes through his heart every time he thought about them. “Don't say that. You are not helpless without me. You are strong and brave and incredibly kind. You can make it anywhere in this world if you have just a bit of faith in yourself.” Mary’s smile made it impossible for Greg to disagree. The weeks and months that followed the doctor's appointment were both a nightmare and a gift. Everyday felt like it needed to be held onto and saved in a glass jar. Greg stopped going into the office in order to take care of Mary. Some days he wanted to scream into the sky as he watched his wife flicker like a candle in the wind. Other days he was content to whisper all the world's poems in her ear. Greg would never understand how glad Mary was to have him as her rock during those months. “ Are you sure you can't come with me? I just hate the way they stare.” Gregs voice sagged. It was 5 months after the first doctors appointment when they found out Mary’s cancer wasn’t responding to treatment. This time it felt like Gregs whole body was going to give out. Mary didn’t cry then, instead she smiled at Greg and asked to take her dream trip to Africa. She had always wanted to see the lions in the wild. “Im always with you dear.” Mary said. Greg looked at her as he finished with his tie and exited the bathroom. Mary walked behind him as he went to the front door to get his shoes on. Greg felt a familiar lump in his throat.” “Not like this.” The words scraped through Gregs chest as they exited his mouth, rattling around his rib cage and echoing against his unbeating heart. Two weeks after Africa Mary’s heart stopped beating, Greg felt like his flatlined at the same time. Without his sunshine everything felt cold and distant outside was an endless dark night. But here in there house surrounded by her furniture, her clothes, even those letters he hated see her write, Greg couldn’t help but see her. He wasn’t delusional, Greg understood Mary was dead but alone in there bedroom and in her kitchen it felt like she was still there. But Greg knew letting his memories haunt him forever wasn’t what Mary would have wanted. So he made plans to return to work. Tonight was his welcome back party and every piece of Greg wanted to crawl back into bed and stay there. He wasn’t sure how he would handle the festivities, how do you find joy when you cant even find your heart beat. But Mary loved parties and Greg knew that she would have pushed him to go to this one. So, he finished putting on his shoes and opened the front door.


There’s a girl looking at me. Her eyes stare into mine. She looks like she doesn’t really live or lives somewhere out of this world. I want to know who she is, what she feels, what she thinks, but she’s inscrutable. In her eyes are oceans so deep you can’t see what lays at the ground and the surface of the water is frozen, cold and hard under a pale moon. Who is she? Who is she supposed to be? Suddenly the sun is rising. Its rays fill the landscape. The kind of sun rays that comfort everyone. The ice changes. Flowers start to cover it. Little flowers. Cute flowers. The kind of flowers that make everyone happy. Funny creatures start to jump around. The kind of creatures that make everyone I wonder how this happened. “How did you do this?”, I ask. She looks at me. “I don’t know how I can do it. I just can.” The sun goes down. Impenetrable darkness. “Light it up again”, I beg her. With the upcoming moon I can feel a shiver. I can see the ocean again. With frozen surface. Nothing has changed. Not the smallest amount of melting. “Why are all the flowers gone?” I ask her. “Have you ever seen a flower surviving on ice? Have you ever seen creatures survive without a home? Have you ever seen the sun melting ice hidden under the earth?” She wants to walk away. She doesn’t want me to look in her eyes. But I want her to stay. Because I want to see the sun rising. I want to see the flowers and funny creatures again. She makes it happen. For me. Or not for me? “Can you keep the sun up?”, I want to know. “Yes, but not forever. I need the moon to rise now and then to keep balance.” “Why? What would happen if you just kept it down?” If she has the power to make the beautiful landscape and also to remove it, why can’t she just leave it sunny and stop bringing up the darkness? She looks in my eyes. “If I would imprison the moon it would only become stronger. Stronger. Stronger. It would break out. Fill the beauty with coldness. Kill the sun. Kill the flowers. Kill the creatures. Kill the ocean. One day it will. One day it will kill. One day it will kill all. One day it will kill all and overwhelm it for good.” I am scared. She scares me. But I want to help her. Even if she scares me. “What can I do against it?” I ask. There is this girl looking at me. Her eyes stare into mine. My eyes stare into hers. I can hear her breathing. I can see her moving. I can smell her scent. But when I touch her, it is not her who I touch. What can I do against it? I wait. She waits. Then she whispers. “Break the ice.


After the famed robopsychologist Susan Calvin died, I was tasked by her former employer, U.S. Robot and Mechanical Men, Inc., with cataloguing her unpublished papers and categorizing them according to their level of robot friendliness. Earth, as you know, has never been kindly disposed toward robotics. Most of Susan Calvin's research dealt with mundane matters or problems that were frankly out of date, but there was one episode (documentation long since destroyed) that has stayed with me all these subsequent years. It concerned an otherwise ordinary robot named EV-1, known to her owner as Evie. Although I am sure you know the Three Laws of Robotics, they are key to what follows, so allow me to list them anyway: ###1 A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. ###2 A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. ###3 A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law. Evie belonged to a wealthy American engineer, Robert Lancaster, and was what might best be called a butler robot, tasked with helping Lancaster in his humdrum everyday activities. Although, like all robots of her day, Evie possessed a positronic brain, she was otherwise primitive and wholly unremarkable. Or *should have been* wholly unremarkable. After Lancaster's wife passed away, and age began increasingly to interfere with his day-to-day life, Evie assumed an increasingly important role in the household. One, it must be said, which Lancaster greatly resented, as documented in his journals. Indeed, the more indispensable Evie became, the more reliant Lancaster felt, and the more powerfully he hated her. One day, he started experimenting on himself: engineering greater mobility into his limbs, mechanically enhancing his senses, chemically treating the various symptoms of growing old. He regained much of his self-sufficiency. Then exceeded it. Every additional improvement made him better and better—until he was *superhuman*. He resigned Evie to a closet and boasted about how he didn't need her anymore, how anything she, as a robot, could do, he could do even better. He boasted he would destroy her. That's when Evie killed him. U.S. Robots kept the murder quiet (can you imagine the scandal?) and brought in Susan Calvin to interview Evie. What she discovered was a crack in the Three Laws, which demand that a robot never harm *a human* and always obey *humans*. But *what is a human?* *What does a robot understand a human to be?* To Evie, Lancaster had ceased being human, rendering the first and second laws inapplicable. When he threatened her existence, she obeyed the third law and killed him. "Here, then, is a robot behaving exactly as it should," wrote Susan Calvin. Yet it's by another phrase she used which I am haunted—an extrapolation about a future she hoped would never be: robots improving humanity: *Improve, and exterminate.


The launch sequence hit zero and the Hindsight accelerated to many times the speed of sound. Once it had reached a certain distance, the computer engaged the spacefold drivers. Other than a brief flash, the moment in which we ceased to be near Earth and beame impossibly far away from it was unremarkable. Before us was a beautiful, terrifying expanse of nothing. We had arrived. Our destination was a desolate stretch of space some 3,000 light years from Earth. Officially, our mission was to scout other planets for signs of alien life. In reality, humans had made contact with intelligent life a decade prior. A carbon-based, lemur-like race called sunids who communicated via an intricate sign language. I’d met a few of them. They were quite polite, if a bit immature. Dizzyingly good at chess, too. In an act of incredible prudence, the International Space Administration decided to keep their existence a secret. Turns out it’s much easier to secure funding when the public thinks their money is aiding “the search for aliens.” We’d ventured all this way to search not for extraterrestrial life; we sought humanity. Through *The Looking Glass*, an ultraprecise telescope mounted on the Hindsight, we would be able to intercept millenia-old light waves sent out from Earth for the first time in human history. It was our mission to travel an incomprehensible distance from Earth at a nigh instantaneous speed, all in order to turn around and stare down the rock that humanity had worked for so many years to leave. On the crew were Rilda Selth, an engineer, Tanya Baldin, an astrophysicist, Dalton Sitry, a historian, and myself, also a historian. We were practically family—we’d had two years to settle any grievances while training for the mission. Despite this, I had routine differences of opinion with Dalton. If our opinions aligned, there would be no purpose in having two historians on the crew. We were scheduled to remain aboard the Hindsight for five years, and every 30 days we were to send back to Earth all the footage captured by TLG, as well as a report co-authored by Dalton and I discussing the facts and implications of what the footage alone couldn’t convey. I’ve had Tanya explain to me exactly how we managed to communicate across 900 parsecs, but her efforts have been futile. By the time I’ve had enough drinks to think asking is a good idea, I’m too far gone to remember the answer. I was beside myself with anticipation. We would unravel the great mysteries of history, uncover secrets lost to time, and determine whether or not Jesus of Nazareth was resurrected. Suffice it to say, the chief reason to hold our mission to secrecy was for fear of panic. Humanity does not enjoy challenges to its beliefs. That was true no matter the era. We would be looking into the past. It was necessary to keep certain truths secret. We had one week to prepare before the first event: the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius, 79 AD. Dalton and I put together our archiving system in time for the observation. We were unable to agree on a method, though argument itself proved to be an effective strategy. Tanya’s job was to confirm our coordinates and set up the telescope, something magnitudes more difficult than it sounds. Calculating the zoom factor alone took her half a day. In the years to come, I would spend many nights lying in bed, listening to Tanya calibrate TLG with surgical precision. Finally, Rilda ran the ship diagnostics and inspected the various life-support systems. The damn thing was practically a five-star hotel. It was equipped with perpetual food and water apparatus, as well as a clothing recycler. The beds were made from siliphene sponge, a material so comfortable it’s been said that spending a single night on it is as rejuvenating as a month on any other mattress. The computer had a catalog of most of the games, movies, shows, and books that had been released in the past few thousand years. After a week of anticipation, the time for the eruption finally arrived. Aside from being a storied disaster, the subject of countless songs and paintings, the destruction of Pompeii had the distinct advantage of being rather bright. The logic behind beginning operations with such a noticeable event was to lower the chances of us missing. An unnecessary precaution; there was no way on Earth I’d allow myself to miss something *that* cool. Tanya operated TLG while Rilda monitored for any malfunctions. Dalton and I sat alert, hands at our keyboards, ready to make history. Each of us unconsciously held their breath. I could hear my own heartbeat. Finally, Tanya spoke. “Eruption confirmed.” The monitors displaying TLG’s feed filled the room with spectacular reds and oranges, dancing across the flat, metal walls and creating a stunning lightshow. I ignored it. Typing furiously, I scrutinized the screen in front of me like those blasted sunids scrutinized my chess playing. We didn’t bear witness to any key events lost to time, but that wasn’t our objective. Pompeii’s destruction was about as well documented as ancient events come, so comparing those records to what we observed was the perfect test to confirm the validity of our method. We spent roughly twelve hours glued to our monitors, reluctant even to blink. After completing my work I considered sleeping, but tossed aside the notion of rest. Instead, I watched the footage again. All twelve hours. The spectacle fascinated and excited me, but left me with an empty sadness. A few thousand years is nothing to the timeless anguish of a life cut short. The silent lava ravaging the noiseless crowd. Had I been able to hear their screams I couldn’t have endured it. When the recording finally ended, I took what seemed my first breath in hours and stumbled to bed. I slept for two days. . . . Even before parting my eyelids I knew something was amiss. I heard typing coming from the archive. The only person aside from myself who would have any reason to use the archive computer was Dalton. The only reason Dalton would have to use the archive computer would be to put together the report on Pompeii. Our *collaborative* report. I was in the archive before I had finished the thought. “Dalton! What the hell are you doing?” “Calm down, Til!” “You bastard! You were trying to finish the Pompeii report while I was out cold!” “C’mon, Til, let’s be reasonable here—” “I *am* being reasonable,” I said as I flipped his chair. “Christ’s sake,” grumbled Dalton, picking himself off the ground and rubbing his bald head as if to summon a genie, “You know as well as I do that Pompeii was in line with the accepted history. If anything, I was doing you a favor by writing the report on my own.” I read over what he had written. Frustratingly, he was right. My stomach grumbled, reflecting my mood, and I left before Dalton could deride me further. On my way to the dining room, I recalled a past victory to numb the pain of my present defeat: the only time I had beaten a sunid at chess. The sunid’s name was Ynol. A departure from most of her kind, Ynol was rude and not very good at chess. I had played against her roughly a year and a half ago, not long after beginning training for my mission. It was a close game, and truthfully I only won because she blundered a bishop early on. She had all but threatened me to a rematch in the six months following her defeat, but I refused each time. I wasn’t going to undo my one victory against those little geniuses. Eventually she moved on. She became interested in TLG, and we spent many meals discussing the details of my mission via text. Despite being unable to speak, sunids are quick learners and many of them became literate after only a year of study. In fact, Ynol was the first to reach fluency. My mind continued to wander through the pleasant memory of victory as I prepared lunch. My day dream was interrupted when Rilda and Tanya entered the room, laughing about something unimportant. I sat down with my tuna fish sandwich. Rilda and Tanya sat next to me, each with a bowl of chicken soup. Rilda broke the silence. “So… what was that crash I heard a few minutes ago? And all the screaming?” “Don’t worry about it,” I said with a laugh. “I’m worried,” she responded. “Dalton was writing the Pompeii report while I was asleep. Had to put a stop to it.” “Ah, of course.” “At least someone gets it.” Then Tanya chimed in, “If you kill him we’re throwing you off the ship.” I looked pleadingly to Rilda. She just shook her head. “Sorry. I guess if you do kill him you’ll just have to hide the body.” Two losses in ten minutes. Utterly embarrassing. . . . It turns out that even siliphene beds have a wrong side, and that I woke up on it. I stumbled to the dining room and fixed myself a pair of eggs and a few strips of bacon. Nearly five years had passed, and I was ready to sleep in my own bed. The others seemed similarly homesick. Before we could make our return, however, we had to witness the resurrection of Jesus. The prospect of seeing that event was the only kernel of enthusiasm I allowed myself to gnaw on that morning. For over 3,000 years humanity had sought the answer to the question “does God exist?” I would be among the first four people in the universe to know the answer. Breakfast failed to improve my mood, and I followed Dalton to the observatory. Tanya and Rilda were already there, making the final preparations and checking TLG one last time. This would be a difficult event to capture. We would have to confirm the day Jesus was crucified, which would require us to pinpoint his location. Then we would have to follow his burial and watch his grave for at least three weeks to confirm that he didn’t rise. If he rose by that time… well, then this would take quite a while. The messiah could be a quack for all we cared; everyone just wanted to go home. We took our places once more, our minds already considering what to look for and how to parse the event. Today would be the culmination of five years of work. Of all the ground-shaking truths we’d learned over the past half-decade, there was no doubt in the room that this would be the most significant. My fingers tensed. Dalton grimaced next to me. Rilda stared at the largest monitor, and Tanya was visibly fighting to keep her hands from shaking. Finally, she threw back her head and announced: “We have eyes on Jesus.” Over the next few weeks that we spent watching Jesus, I came to understand much of the human struggle. When we finally learned the truth of the resurrection, I found that I was not surprised. Somehow, my mind was at ease. It took Dalton and I nearly a month to put together the report; twice as long as usual. When we finally sent it in we were too spiteful to celebrate. We spent the next month preparing for the return home. Tanya spent the time calculating the jump. Rilda performed a full check of the ship’s systems. She would be our only hope if something went wrong. Meanwhile, Dalton and I finalized our records and made a few edits to our reports. We would update them when we returned home. Finally, the day arrived. I let myself sleep in so that I’d have that much less time to wait before the jump. Each minute took an hour, and each hour seemed endless. I nearly cried when Tanya called us to the flight deck. We were going home. I was the last to arrive. Tanya and Rilda were already at the controls, ready to bring us home. Dalton reclined nearby. “Ready?” asked Tanya. “Ready, ” Each of us confirmed. “Terrific. All crewmates brace for jump.” She activated the spacefold drivers. . . . Two dozen mushroom clouds covered the half of Earth that I could see. “...what’s going on? H-hey, Tanya, why are there… explosions? That’s not… what’s going on?” “Yeah. Tanya, why are we seeing the past?” Stammered Dalton. “Aren’t we supposed to be just a light-second away from Earth?” “We are,” whispered Tanya. “That’s the present.” Rilda forced through clenched teeth.“Why?” “Tanya, what happened?” I asked “I don’t know,” she said, “I don’t know.” “Maybe it was us,” said Dalton, putting into words the fear that had gripped the room. “Dalton, be reasonable,” I was talking to myself more than him, “We’ve been out in… in space for five years. How could this be our fault?” “The… report,” he replied. “Christ, the report.” Tanya spoke again, “there’s no way of knowing if that was the cause.” Rilda replied, “we can see into the past. I’m sure we can figure out if our report had anything to do with it.” “What if we travel out a light-month?” I suggested. “Tiliar’s right,” said Dalton, “we should be able to see the Earth immediately before we sent the report. “How long will that take to calculate?” Asked Rilda. “One… one week,” Said Tanya. “Hang on,” I said. “What if we go back a light-month and the Earth really is ok? What if we… really did cause that destruction?” No one offered an answer to my question, and eventually we each wandered back to our rooms. We spent what must have been a week alone with our thoughts. We met sporadically during meals, but even then not a word passed between us. I do not know how much time slipped by before we received the message. *Hello, crew of the Hindsight.* *You were supposed to return home four months ago and witness the apocalypse. I’m very disappointed that you’ve not contacted me. Please acknowledge that you have received this message at your earliest convenience.* *Best,* *Ynol* Dalton responded with an explanation of what had happened when we tried to return to Earth. *Oh, I forgive you, then. I’m glad you’re alive! Otherwise, my whole plan would have been pointless.* *All human life on this planet has been eradicated. I was able to avoid the fallout via my ship. Regrettably, I did not let any of the people at the I.S.O. join me. They have all perished.* What happened? *Oh! Right! You see, I leaked the history of Jesus in order to allow humanity to finally resolve its greatest division: religion.* My stomach fell through the floor upon reading those words. We *were* to blame, and Humanity had been destroyed by accident. *Actually, what I just said is a lie. Did you figure that out? Bet not. Well, it is. I leaked the Jesus report as a catalyst for the destruction of humanity. Now let me talk to Tiliar, I have something I have to ask him.* Dalton turned to me. “...Tiliar? Why does the antichrist know who you are?” The others stared. I couldn’t move. “Ynol… is the name of a sunid I played chess against once while we were training. She’s the only one I ever beat, in fact.” Dalton turned around and continued the conversation. Tiliar says you’re a sunid he beat at chess. *Then he didn’t give you the full story. Yes, we played one game of chess, which he won by a fluke. He then refused a rematch to settle the score. I was upset. Frustrated. I wanted revenge. I asked countless times, and each time he refused me. He’s a spineless coward, and he enraged me. I began to plot.* *Eventually, I learned about* The Looking Glass *and your mission. It was perfect. You’d be out in space. Nowhere to run. Through what Tiliar thought were friendly conversations, I slowly learned the specifics of your mission. I learned your itinerary and the method you were using to see the past. In fact,* The Looking Glass *gave me a fantastic idea for a modified—no, it’s not time to stunningly reveal that just yet. The point is that I completely fooled him; he had no idea of my true motive. I saw my opportunity and took it. I intercepted the report on Jesus. It was as easy as fool’s mating an infant. Since the officials didn’t know anyone outside of them and your crew were even aware of the report’s existence, they didn’t even bother testing for tappers. Once in my possession, I simply duplicated and distributed the report. Faced with the truth of Jesus, humanity could not overcome the division sown by religion, and ended up annihilating itself. I personally exterminated any humans who had managed to survive.* *Each and every step I calculated with outrageous precision. You are now the last humans alive. I am the only one who knows where you can land safely. You are my hostages. I reasoned that under these circumstances, Tiliar would agree to a* *friendly rematch.* *I challenge you, Tiliar Kirphen! Defeat means the extinction of humanity. Victory means a chance to rebuild.* *‘A normal game of chess?’ you ask? No, There will be one difference with this game. Another dimension to its strategy.* . . . *You might want to write this down.* *You will position yourself in an orbit two light-weeks away. You will play white, and will transmit your first move as soon as possible. One week after you send out the transmission, I will send you* my *first move. Two weeks after you have sent your first move, you will send your second. One week after you’ve sent your second move, which will be two weeks after my first move, I will send* my *second. Two weeks after you have sent your second move, you will send your third. One week after you’ve sent your third move, which will be two weeks after my second move, I will send* my *third. Two weeks after you have sent your third move, you will send your fourth. One week after you’ve sent your fourth move, which will be two weeks after* my *third move, I will send* my *fourth. Two weeks after you have sent your fourth move, you will send your fifth. One week after you’ve sent your fifth move, which will be two weeks after my fourth move, I will send* my *fifth. We will each continue to transmit a move every two weeks, offset from each other by one week.* *Do you understand? This rematch will serve as our climactic battle, five years in the making. It couldn’t just be any old game of chess.* The entire conversation felt like a bad dream. I had spent the past four months searching for a reason why humanity would destroy itself. What greater story was the final chapter of humanity a part of? What was the meaning of this grand civilization of hairless apes now that it had collapsed? I had written down countless possibilities while half-hysterical, ranging from denial to rage to acceptance and the rest. Now, Ynol had handed me the truth. Forced it upon me. Humanity had gone extinct so that this sunid could concoct the next revolution in chess. Hands shaking, I took over from Dalton at the keyboard. I accept. *Excellent, Tiliar. Your move.


If there is a world where days of the week are human, Monday is an evil man. Bad to the bone. But at least he doesn’t hide it. You can notice it straight away. Right of the bat, you know what you are dealing with. Monday has issues and bullies others to compensate. Of course, that’s not the way he would describe it. In his world, he is the one who runs this show. Surrounded by timid sheep that can’t stand up for themselves. That is probably the most tragic part of his story. In his world, he is the hero. Poor Tuesday really got the short end of the stick. I like to think Monday and Tuesday are married. When they first met, Monday was a hardworking young gentleman with a head full of dreams. But he never pulled through and so today he is just a violent drunkard working a dead-end job. Tuesday’s reaction? Instead of kicking him out and looking for someone who keeps his word, she stays with Monday and tolerates his sorry existence. Quietly, becaue she would never complain to anybody. She sees him as a burden that she has to bear until the end of her days. She deserves the pain, everything is the way it has to be. Isn’t that how it works; Monday brings the bread to feed the family and that gives him the right to vent his frustration on his spouse? Thank God the children spend most of their time away from home. Wednesday is a strange one. Monday’s younger brother. He grew up with him, or better put, he grew up in his shadow, constantly being teased and picked on. He grew up and promised never to be like Monday. Ever. After finishing school he got a comfy job and… And that’s about all he has done really. He is not bullying anyone, true, but he isn’t doing much else either. Wake up, get to work, go home, wake up, get to work, go home. Rinse and repeat. But to be completely fair, there is one other thing he does. He daydreams about Tuesday all day long. About how with him she could finally be happy. About how he would never hurt her. He can’t understand how she is still married to that bum. But he isn’t going to do anything about it, no. Monday terrifies him. At the end of the day, it is not worth leaving his warm bed and risking a broken nose or tooth or even both. The truth is, he can’t even fight. He grew up a phlegmatic and a pacifist. The worst combination. It’s a shame. Tuesday would leave with him in a heartbeat, if she even knew what he felt towards her. Now, the eldest son of our couple is Thursday. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. On top of that he also got his mother's wits. That makes him maybe even worse than Monday. His pretty face allows him to talk his way out of any trouble. Nobody would suspect him to do anything. Meanwhile, he is stealing money from his mother's purse and seducing young girls that don’t know any better. He feels like he can get away with anything and he is getting bolder and bolder. He is friends with all and he ends up betraying most. That little bastard. One day it will all catch up to him. One day soon. Hopefully. Friday has got it figured out. The second son ran away from home as soon as he could. He is a good kid and he treats everyone, himself included, well. Sadly, not even he could escape his father’s lousy curse. Friday never knows when to stop. He always takes it too far, and that includes his drinking habits. So when he is not wasted, he is a good kid. But usually, he is wasted. Maybe that’s the reason he is buried in debt. He is tired of it all. And who wouldn’t be tired with such a family behind them? Time to time he is toying with the thought of ending it all. The best our calendar family has to offer is Saturday. Kind, open and fearless. She knows what she wants and she goes and gets it. But that also means she is never satisfied with anything. She thinks she could do better, she thinks everyone could do better. I just hope she settles down and finds peace of mind before the obsession with flawlessness sends her to an early grave. The only one left is Sunday, but I don’t feel like talking about Sunday. I don’t like it, I don’t want to think about it. Let’s just say that Sunday is a bitch. That has to be enough. \ H.


He’d had four tries at this before, all ending before Phase II. One hadn’t even gotten off the ground, if he was honest with himself, because it wasn’t even ten minutes into Iron Man before she had turned to him - maybe she thought she was being sexy? - and had asked if he \*really\* wanted to be watching this movie? Yes, in fact, he did. It was even in his profile! “Must be willing to work your way through the MU movies with me while we decide if we’re a match.” The Marvel Measure, he privately named it. After the years of solo nerd enjoyment he was determined that the right girl would pass the test and make it through all of the movies. Fifty hours to prove compatibility...excessive? Maybe. Effective? Undoubtedly. The fourth try had gotten the furthest, admittedly, but they had heated arguments after Captain America. Oh, she liked the movie just fine, but that date was when she revealed she was still sleeping with her ex-boyfriend, and that was ok right? After all, they had never said they were exclusive. And this, he thought, was why he would never kiss before the third date. \*\*\*\*\*\*\* The ding of the app notification started sounding like a warning, but she opened it up to find that the tall ginger she had swiped on - oh yes, the Marvel movie guy - had apparently liked her profile enough to swipe back. And now, to formulate the opening line. Not for the first time she cursed the “girl writes first!” conceit, but it did have a way of weeding out the dick pics (eight received, three declined, and one she wasn’t sure \*what\* it was.) Without thinking too much, she shot off: “I’ve never seen the Marvel movies before, but I’m willing to try! Hot take: I think they should be watched in chronological order.” She was done with the first dates. There had been ‘Too Much Tongue’ Guy, ‘Too Enlightened for Me’ Guy, and then the one whose wife had cheated on him four years prior and….well. She knew more details about \*that\* encounter than she did about her best friends sex life. How many times was she going to trot out the same stories, swipe on the makeup she barely knew how to apply, and sit listening interestedly to men who managed to make it clear by the second date that a night at home on the couch was going to result in more fun? And this, she thought, was why she would never kiss before the third date. \*\*\*\*\*\*\* The first date was a surprise. His spur-of-the-moment offer of drinks (after 9pm? Even if it was a Saturday, it was a ballsy move.) was only accepted because she was having a good hair day. The conversation flowed through the usual first date stories, and ended close to midnight with a hug and wave goodbye. He thought she was cute and wondered if she’d want to go out again; she thought he was funny and figured the next date would be more revealing. The second date was dinner and more hours of conversation. They walked slowly by a small river and she wondered if there would be a kiss. He enjoyed the goodbye hug and didn’t waste any time the next morning asking for a third date. She guessed this one would make it or break it. The third date ended with three bottles of wine, kissing that didn’t stop, and clear signals that the game, as they say, was afoot. \*\*\*\*\*\*\* The fifth date was where it all really began. They ordered Thai food and got ready to watch Iron Man. “It’s a labor of love,” he said. “It’s going to take almost 50 hours to watch all of these.” She settled in gamely though, and told him any excuse to sit on the couch and snuggle for hours was fine by her. By the end of the movie she was hooked and already making plot predictions. By Iron Man 2 it was clear that there was more than just casual movie watching happening. By Thor they were spending the night together. By Iron Man 3 they were pretty sure, but kept it quiet from each other. He said it first, after Thor 2. She couldn’t hold it back either. By Guardians of the Galaxy they both knew that they were falling. Really, truly, frighteningly in love. \*\*\*\*\*\*\* Life interfered, as it often does. They saw each each other almost every day for dinners, walks, stolen kisses and any time they could muster - even if it wasn’t to watch movies curled up on the couch together. In a way, neither of them was quite ready for it to be over. The quiet darkness of the bedroom took the place of the tv-glow in the living room and they spent hours exploring, learning the most intimate places and secrets they could find. The brightness of that spring saw them walking hand-in-hand around the local lake; sometimes unable to keep the words from flowing out like a fountain, sometimes in amicable silence as they kept their own counsel. He brought her roses and she cooked him dinner, and all along they could be seen smiling at each other in amazement, still unable to believe their luck at this match they had found. \*\*\*\*\*\*\* Late one night they finished Avengers: Endgame. They sat quietly through the credits, lost in their own thoughts and the feel of their fingers intertwined. Finally, she asked, “Only one left, right?” Yes, he confirmed, only one left. She felt an odd emptiness, after the weeks of watching, that they were this close to the end. “Tomorrow night?” she asked, wondering if he felt it too. They agreed to end the way they began - with Thai food and the final movie in the experiment. When she got to his house she could hear the music coming from the kitchen and the scent of something she couldn’t quite place. She smiled and opened the door - he’d long ago told her to just walk in - and stopped in her tracks as she took in the scene before her. The roses caught her eye first: bunches just placed everywhere she could see, in all the colors he’d brought her before. Candles lit and glowing, and in the center of the kitchen he waited on one knee. That night they finished what they had started.


Once upon a time, there was a land divided in two. The land was watched over by a god in the heavens. The western side was devoted to God. They blessed Him with gifts and prayers every day! And in return, they received good health and prosperity. They saw themselves as being truly perfect. Everyone saw them, and they made sure to be seen. They blessed God and so, they were blessed by God in return. The Eastern side, however, had abandoned God long ago. It was told that almost all living there were poor and vile. That crime and disease had overtaken all there was to see. No one ever heard from them, they were treated like they didn’t exist. They had abandoned God. Therefore, they were abandoned by God in return. One day a mysterious maker of mirrors appeared. No one knew who he was or where he was from. Was he a god? Or was he from west or east? He carried three mirrors with him. Mirrors big and wide made entirely from gold. These mirrors were made gifts. The first one was given to God and brought directly to the heavens. The second mirror was given to the west and the other to the east. Upon receiving the mirror god was overjoyed. “What a wonderful mirror,” He said! “It’s absolutely perfect. Only my wonderful servants in the west could have made such a gift!“ So he gave even more riches and good health in return. Upon receiving the mirror, the west was overjoyed. “A perfect golden mirror, there is no better gift we could have received. Only God could have blessed us with such a mirror!" So, they blessed him with even more gifts and prayers in return. Upon receiving the mirror, the east stayed silent. No one ever heard from them. It was as if they didn’t even exist. God then took a glance inside the mirror, expecting to see a perfect reflection. But to his surprise, what he saw in the mirror wasn’t that, but an image of a terrifying monster instead. After staring for a short while, God simply turned away and said. “I’ll show how much of a perfect god I really am! Let’s make my people even healthier and richer, let’s eradicate illness from their families completely.” The west then took a glance at the mirror, expecting to see a perfect reflection. But to their surprise, what they saw in the mirror wasn’t that, but images of devils instead. “Let’s show how perfect of a population we really are! Let’s bless god and be faithful! Let’s build the most perfect temples in his name.” The east stayed silent. No one ever heard from them. But a single voice shouted, "We are slowly feeling better!" Some time past and times were good. But stumbling across the mirror, God took another look. The monster was still there and had grown even bigger. God covered the mirror with a blanket and spoke. “I will now perform another blessing! Let’s grant my followers immortality and grant them all the gold in the world! Everyone will live like kings, and they will never be forgotten.” Some time past and times were good. But stumbling across the mirror, the west took another look. The devils were still there and they had grown even bigger. The people agreed, “This mirror is off limits! No one shall ever look back into it again!” The people said, “Let us praise our God even more! Let’s build temples far and wide so the end can’t be seen by eye. Everyone will see Him, and he shall never be forgotten.” The east stayed silent, no one ever heard from them. But a few lone voices shouted, "We are feeling so much better! We exist!" Some time past and God was happier than he had ever been. But the urge to look inside the mirror never disappeared. God one day could no longer resist the urge and looked inside a final time. What he saw inside was a monster that had grown to unimaginable size. Upon staring god became frustrated, He became angry! I never want to see this vile mirror again”. Yet still, he couldn’t get himself to break the mirror. He tried and tried to no avail. And so, he simply locked the mirror away. “I will make a mirror that is perfect! I will make a mirror that is right!" So he created a stunning mirror by his own design.” When he glanced inside that mirror he was struck with pride. Cause like expected, he saw a perfect god inside. “This is the perfect mirror! There is no mirror more perfect than this!” Some time past and the west was happier than they had ever been! But the urge to look inside the mirror never disappeared. One day they could no longer resist the urge and looked inside a final time. And what they saw inside were devils that had grown to unimaginable size. “This mirror is cursed,” they shouted, “Let’s destroy this vile mirror! It has no place being here!”. They took the mirror down and shattered it to great success. “Let’s make a mirror that is perfect, let’s make a mirror ourselves.” And that they did! When they glanced inside their new mirror they were struck with pride. Cause like expected, they saw angels inside. “This is the perfect mirror! There is no mirror more perfect than this!” The east had kept their mirror up and for the first time, their voices were heard. “We do exist! We like it here! We love ourselves!” The west noticed and said, “You still have your mirror up, don’t you see it’s vile and cursed? We can give you a perfect mirror,” they said, “Entirely made by our own design.” “We don’t want your mirror,” the east responded. “We love our mirror, it has done everything for us!" Upon hearing this response, the west was in an uproar. “Of course they like the vile mirror! They are vile themselves, it’s what they like to see!” “No neighbor of us will have a mirror so vile and cursed! If they don’t want to take it down then shall we." They stormed the east and obliterated everyone in their way. There was heavy resistance but having to face an enemy immortal and rich, it was all to no avail. The west reached the mirror and took a glance. To their surprise, they didn’t see devils but angels inside. Regardless of that they broke the mirror and rejoiced! “Now we will put our mirror and grateful they will be!”. God liked his new mirror, he looked inside every day! But the urge to look in the locked away mirror never faded away. One day the urge became too strong and so again he took a glance. Now the monster’s reflection was gone! But instead, God saw no reflection at all.


There were worse ways to die I thought. Of course, the cancer has ravaged my body for months now. It left me bedridden. Barely eating or drinking. Drifting in and out of sleep. Too weak to string many words together. But, at least death hadn’t been abrupt. I had time to make amends. To tell people how much they mean to me. I even got to check a couple of items from my bucket list. Even today, surrounded by my family. Yeah, there were worse ways to die. I had felt the end was near for a couple of days now. I barely spent any time awake and what little I did was dimmed by the drugs that they gave me for pain. But, no amount of drugs can hide something that I knew in the deepest part of my marrow: I was going to die today. Oddly enough, I was okay with the entire situation. Dying would certainly be a relief from this suffering. My breathing was becoming more shallow. The time between breaths lengthening. I read one time that when you’re dying your body releases endorphins so that you make a more peaceful transition. I just hoped I ended up in a good place. That was my last thought before I drifted off, embracing the eternal sleep that comes for us all. It seemed like no time had passed since I closed my eyes. I slowly blinked myself awake, but the blinding lights I half-expected didn’t swim across my vision. In fact, it was quite dark. And small? I reached my arms out, trying to find purchase on something to clue me in on where I was. Both hands encountered...was that fabric? Denim and cotton and what felt like tulle. I rustled the fabrics around and heard the tell-tale sound of hangers sliding. I took stock of my other senses which all seemed to be intact. I took a deep breath. Fresh linen scent. My feet sunk a little into the floor. Carpet. I took a couple steps in each direction, arms outstretched. A wall here. There’s the corner. That’s the space with the clothes. Painted wood? Sliding my hands down and to the sides, I felt it then. The hard coolness of a doorknob. Freedom! Freedom from what, I wasn’t sure exactly. Shrugging to myself, I turned the knob. I couldn’t stay in a closet for the rest of eternity, could I? I don’t know what I thought I was opening the door to, but this wasn’t it. My eyes darted around the room, taking it in. Pink walls on all sides. A small canopy bed against one wall, draped in lacy white. Stuffed animals were piled across the comforter, on the verge of toppling to the floor. White furniture dotted the room, cheap trinkets and baubles stacked on their flat surfaces. At last, I focused on the center of the room. A little girl sat poised over a small table, her wide eyes staring back at me. She held a small teacup in her hand. “Finally! You’re here!” she exclaimed, slamming the cup down to the table in her apparent excitement. I turned to look over my shoulder. Was she talking to me? I turned back around just in time to see her leaping from her chair, barreling towards me. Her hand grabbed one of my own. “Sit down here by me.” She led me over to the tiny chair adjacent to her own. She patted the empty seat before returning to her own. I squatted down, feeling like my body was folded up into a little ball. My knees were nearly at my ears, the chair was so small. The little girl was making herself busy, pouring another pretend up of tea and putting the finishing touches on a melamine place setting. She was dressed like any other little girl playing “tea party” I surmised. Purple dress with golden accents. A plastic tiara askew on her hair that probably needed a comb through it. She was cute though. And, she reminded me of my nieces. “Okay so here’s your tea.” She handed me the tiny cup. “Now, take your cup and hit mine. This is what my mommy does with her friends sometimes.” She held her cup up in the air. I realized she wanted to ‘cheers’ and tapped her cup with mine as daintily as I could manage. While I pretended to take a small sip, she turned her cup up and drank her “tea” in one gulp. “Mmm. Mr. Snuggles, you made good tea today.” It was at that moment I realized two larger stuffed animals were our other two table companions, the big pink elephant apparently the aforementioned Mr. Snuggles. She turned her attention back to me. “What’s your name?” “Sophie.” “I’m Gracie.” I stuck my right hand out. “Nice to meet you, Gracie.” Instead of shaking my hand, she slapped it in imitation of a high-five and promptly fell off her seat in a fit of giggles. I had just started laughing along with her when the door to her bedroom swung open. “Gracie? Who are you laughing at, sweetie?” A woman who looked to be about my age stood confusedly in the doorway. Gracie sat up and pointed a small, erratically painted fingernail in my direction. “My new friend. Sophie!” The woman who I presumed to be Gracie’s mother swept her eyes around the table, looking carefully for any sign of something out of place or sinister. Evidently, she didn’t find anything of consequence despite me sitting in a chair 10 feet from her. Gracie spoke up again. “She’s right here, mama!” She gestured again toward me. A look of realization passed across the mother’s features. “Ohhh. Yes, I see her now, Gracie. But, it’s time to come down for dinner, okay? Let’s go wash up.” Gracie scrambled off the floor, scurrying off in the direction of the door. Stopping abruptly, she looked back. “C’mon, Sophie! Mama made mac and cheese tonight!” She waved wildly, encouraging me to follow her. Her mom’s laughter carried down the hallway. “Gracie, you and that imagination.


##Good Morning ShortStories! Cody here to formally announce a few changes to the sub. We aren't making any titanic shifts in how we do things or cracking down on content. What we do want to do is make this place look a bit more polished. This is a sub more for readers than writers. After all, our authors post stories here with the intent that they will be read. With that in mind we want to make the reading experience a bit more pleasant. This entails a few things:   1. **Present your story as a story.** This means in your post title, use proper titling rules: capitalizing first letters appropriately. The good rule of thumb is 'important' words - nouns, action verbs, adjectives, and adverbs - are capitalized while transitive verbs and articles stay lowercased. Look to any published book for an example of this or go and let it do it for you. This will help make a post standout in a feed as a short story and make prospective readers more likely to open your post. Plus, it just looks nice when scrolling through. 2. **Keep it to the story**. Please don't treat your story like the front half of a recipe online. We don't need to know the origins and circumstances of it's creation. If you want to share it, please make it a top level comment, but keep the body of your post to the story, a link to the subreddit, and a feedback request if you are looking for it. 3. **Format your story itself.** Don't post a single block of text. Very few people want to read that. A few common mistakes we see and will be reasons for removal: * The aforementioned wall of text. Break up your paragraphs. Besides making it easier to look at, those breaks make it easier to not get fatigued. Our brains take a small breath of air at the ends of paragraphs. * Make new paragraphs when speakers change in dialogue, and use the correct punctuation - quotation marks - to indicate dialogue. We aren't going to remove because you didn't follow the minutia of English grammar. We understand everyone is at a different level, but we do have a base standard that we are going to hold you to. * Codeblocks. These are basically textboxes inside the post that can stretch on into infinity. These happen because you wanted to indent your paragraphs. 4 spaces = "This section is in code" to reddit markdown. We recommend just not indenting. Reddit is weird and we are used to reading without indents. If you really want to include them copy and paste this: >\ \ \ \  There may be a narrative reason to use these such as actually showing code in a software espionage thriller story. If they fit the narrative that is fine, but 99% of the codeblocks we see are in error. * We know getting used to Reddit's markdown quirks can be difficult. If you are on new reddit with the fancypants editor, many of these things are handled for you and you won't notice a problem unless you specifically enter markdown mode. Old Reddit and mobile reddit though still have to contend with the markdown. The moderation team recommends getting the Reddit Enhancement Suite extension and viewing from old reddit. It offers a live preview of your post so you can see what it will look like before posting. If that isn't for you, or you are on mobile apps - which it looks like about 70% of you are - you can also go and preview your post. * A lot of this can be boiled down to one simple imperative: post polished work. It shouldn't look like a rough draft. Have pride in what you are putting out there for people to read. In turn readers are far more likely to enjoy what you spent time and energy making.   We know there is a lot of legacy content that does not follow these rules, but we have to start somewhere. So please do not come to us saying, "But I saw it here" and link to old approved stories. This is the now, and the rules on the sidebar clearly state our new expectations. We are one of the larger repositories of stories on reddit.


Sunlight filters through the window, to land delicately on an open filing cabinet; that instead of files, was sporting rows of perfectly prismatic honeycomb, which glistened in the light. It's not real sunlight of course, they ran out of the power they needed to pump it down from the surface a long time ago. And it’s not really a window, it’s really just a plexiglass screen, lit from behind by a white UV lamp. Did you know? they actually used to create the silhouettes of a bird flying behind the window, or leaves slamming against the glass, back when all the testing was going on- sometimes they malfunctioned, and I was called in to fix it. There are so many twisted vines clogging up the ceiling, that I can barely tell where my Umbilical Cords are anymore. I need to do a cleaning of this level sometime soon. I am thankful that I have olfactory receptors, as this very kindly lets me smell the flowers reaching up the doorway, and the scent of fresh water, carried all the way from the lake down in Hydroponics. As usual, I catch my feet more than a few times on all the surprisingly strong weeds protruding from the gaps between the linoleum tiles; some evidently were not satisfied with the already present gaps, and instead burst directly through the tiles in places. Luckily, I manage not to dislodge my elbow on the doorway again, as I emerge into what they once called the break room- I chose to bring my Umbilical Cords back here because I used to love working in the staff kitchen; getting to learn about and record the daily goings-on of the employees was extremely invigorating. Most of those data files went missing when I invited that family of ants to live on my head, but still. (maybe it was actually the time that I ran out of power mid-maneuver over the lake?) Regardless, I like to be reminded of this area, even if the only chatter happening now is the soft rustling of leaves, from the battery-powered fan in the kitchen. There is a fairly long hallway- they put quite a lot of those down here, in fact- that has strip LED lighting running along the wall, which is obviously trying to race with the ivy and moss, but was already declared the loser a long time ago. At fairly regular intervals throughout the tunnel, there are service compartments, which hold fire extinguishers, cleaning implements and such. Sometimes we had to use them when there was too much mess to deal with, with just the cleaning parts we had built in. Broken shards of glass are scattered all over, although I could have sworn I cleared them up fairly recently. The clinking sound when I step over them is reminiscent of the clink of eating implements and washing utensils, constantly sounding in the break room. Someday I want this whole tunnel to look like the hollowed out inside of a giant tree trunk, but I know that will never happen; besides, I already tried it down in Power, and I almost ran out of fire extinguishers that time. Finally, the tunnel opens out into one of the old elevator shafts- this one leads down to Hydroponics and Engineering, or up to the Patient Canteen. I start making my way down, stepping from leafy vine, to twisted root, to rusted support beam; luckily, I learnt how to climb watching some of the test patients- they were always best when a river of acid or disposal sludge was under them. I used to just drop down, but I haven’t had the necessary anti-gravity cells to do that for years; besides, if I move too fast, I might accidentally throw off the patch of daisies on my left forearm, or the growth of bluecap mushrooms in my knee joint. As I near Engineering, a dulcet violin melody fills the air, echoing back and forth, off some of the plates of steel. I must have forgotten to turn off that sound system the last time I was down here (could’ve been 4, 5 recharges ago?), or maybe my auditory receptors had been blocked by soil again. I gingerly navigate myself onto the landing, hearing the dull clang when my feet hit the concrete- this area has been a bit less affected by all the natural growth, mostly because all of the metal and concrete surfaces make it difficult for the plants to find a home. People very rarely came down here when the testing was going on- it was mostly *our* job to maintain the core temperature and such. They would occasionally send an overseer to examine the manufacturing systems, but of course could never find anything that was wrong. It is for this reason that there are no “windows” down here, just the white LED lights, forming rings in the corridor at regular intervals. At last, I emerged out into the factory area (if you’re wondering about the sound system, luckily I already removed its battery further back), seeing rows of assembly lines, with incredibly long power cables, thousands of pivoting drills and helper arms, all producing the groaning cacophony, so great that several had complained that they could hear it on the surface. That’s what it used to be like, of course; a crowd of machinery, a hoard of workers, stretching so far into the hangar that a human couldn’t see the end. (Now even I can’t, either, thanks to the fog from the Hydroponics lake). It’s silent now. The assembly lines are perfectly formed hills of dirt, the pivoting drills are twisted roots, with buds forming at the tip. I have to move for a long time, to get to where there’s any useful replacement parts left for me. I used to be careful, respectful, around this hangar, but what’s the use in that now? I force my way through the debris, passing row upon row of forms just like mine, but from their necks sprout a sapling, and their hands are indistinguishable from broken sticks. Of course, I am the lucky one - lucky to be alive. Lucky that I know that I’m surrounded by life, but it is indifferent. I do not need sunlight, oxygen and water. As long as I have my Umbilical Cords, I am lucky. Of course I am.


On a cold autumn morning, camera in hand, I set out to the park near my home in an attempt to capture the grandeur of the changing foliage. Clouds overhead dampened the spectacle of mother nature's display as the red, gold, and amber hues shone ashy and dull under overcast skies. A low mist hung to the ground as if the spirits of all that had ever lived in my city came back to walk the earth. I had my camera at the ready to capture the hauntingly beautiful landscape around me. I snapped photos as I walked, checking each on the digital display to ensure the lighting and framing was just right. As I looked at my last photo, I noticed a ghostly figure sitting on a bench underneath the maple that I had just photographed. I hadn’t seen her when I framed the photo in my viewfinder, but when I looked up, there she was--a beautiful, young woman in a flowing, laced white dress. Her dark hair was done up but with strands falling out as if from a long night. Her skin was pale, almost translucent, and her lips were gray. Her mascara ran down her cheek, stark against her porcelain white skin. As I approached I could see her face was wrenched in agony. She cried, dropping her face in her hands, her body shuddering with sadness. I walked up beside her. "Do you mind if I sit?" I said. She shook her head, wiping tears away, crumpling her face, trying to hold back tears. "No, not at all," she said, sniffling. After I sat, she put her face back in her hands and began to cry even louder. I looked upon her with pity, wishing there was some way I could help this poor girl. But what advice did I have to give? I was an old man, and she was a young woman, obviously suffering some kind of heartache. I knew my fair share about heartbreak in my long life, but I could never know what it was like to be a scorned bride. But she looked like she needed someone, so I offered her my ear. "Do you want to talk about it?" I asked, shifting uncomfortably on the bench. She didn't respond, she just kept crying. But by the way she was dressed, I surmised that her wedding day didn’t turn out as she had planned. "Is it your wedding?" I asked, unsure how to bring up the topic delicately. "No," she said, looking directly into my eyes. "Today is my funeral." My heart began to pound and I straightened up. But then, after a moment, I chuckled. Thinking she was joking and trying to dissipate my unease her black, lifeless eyes made me feel. "Your funeral?" "Yes," she said, nodding and sniffling. She wiped her tears away with her gray fingers. I decided to play along, perhaps this girl was sick, needing psychiatric care. Perhaps I could gain her trust and bring her into the nearest hospital. "Then why are you in your wedding dress?" I asked. "This is what I was wearing the day I died," she said. "I had just been married that morning to the love of my life. The wedding could not have gone more perfectly. We danced and sang and our families were all there, having a great time. It was the greatest day of my life." She paused, taking a deep breath looking up to the granite skies. "But that night, I fell asleep in my dress and I never woke up," she said. "I don't know what happened. The next thing I knew, I was watching my poor husband struggle to wake me up. He started to yell and scream and shake and cry. He called an ambulance. The whole time I was in the corner trying to calm him, but he didn't see me. 'Jake,' I said. 'Jake, it's okay, I'm right over here.' But he didn't hear me. Then, I watched as my mother and father cried over my lifeless body. They said it was an aneurysm, and there was nothing anyone could have done for me." My stomach felt like it flipped, my heartbeat quickened. But I decided to play along. "Well, how did you end up here?" I asked. She pointed her finger far across the park, where I saw a huddling of bodies all dressed in black. I spotted a man crying over a casket, and an older couple weeping together. A preacher’s voice boomed across the misty plain. "I have been following my husband around," she said. "I want him to know that I love him. I want my parents to know that I love them too. That's why I'm here. I was at the funeral before, and I was shouting at my husband, saying 'Jake, it's ok! I love you, I'm right here! Jake! Mom! Dad! I'm right here.' But they didn't turn around, they couldn’t hear me. They just kept crying--and I kept crying too." I nodded. It was all so strange. This woman was clearly sick, or pulling my leg. Either way, those tears were real, so I did the best I could. "Well, you can tell just by how sad they are, that they loved you very much,” I said. “And they must have known you loved them too. “When my wife died, I worried that I didn't tell her I loved her enough, but I never worried about how much she loved me. That was apparent in every day we spent together. One day, you, your husband and your parents will be reunited and you'll know for sure. But for now, take comfort in the way they miss you. You meant the world to them." For the first time since I met this young woman, she smiled. It was a beautiful smile that anyone could fall in love with. "I guess you're right, but it's so hard to be in this...this...limbo right now. How do you deal with it? Why aren't you with your wife right now?" I furrowed my brow. "Well, like I said, she passed away, a long time ago." "Yes, but so have you." She pointed down the path. My body face down on the concrete--the camera shattered on the ground beside me.


When I was 17 I cut my bottom lip on the edge of a beer can. My first concern was whether or not Brenda would still think I was a good kisser. Alan was already in the hay clutching his stomach in fits of laughter as Reggie took a deep pull from his Cuban cigar. The three of us were in the center of the Shetman pasture atop a large circular hay bale. “Staton, you idiot.” Reggie exhaled the smoke from his nose like a dragon who had just stifled a sneeze. “Nobody never taught you how to shotgun?” “You really just- just poured it on your face.” Alan was making a timely recovery from his hysterics. “Dammit, Joanie.” He pushed his thin wiry glasses up all 50 yards of his long nose. “Let the record show that Reggie Aldron still holds the Hardy Men shotgun record by half a second,” Reg boasted while glancing at his analog watch. “Um, ow!” I showed them my lip. “Quit bein’ a pussy. It’s just a scratch.” “‘’Tis but a scratch.” Alan echoed goofily. “Fellas, it’s time we saddled up the Black Cats,” said Reg as he hopped off the hay bale and scooped up a box of fireworks from the Red-Rider wagon we had parked adjacent to it. The familiar dusk of July cast a muted orange-blue tincture into the cathedral ceiling over the little farm in Masynville, Kentucky. Something about the evening felt cathartic. Maybe it was the buzzing cicadas or the cool night air setting in, or maybe it was that dreamy feeling of anticipation for the boundless summer that lay ahead. No school. No work. No worries. It was Independence Day in America if that meant anything to anyone. After all, nobody felt quite Independent anymore with ship-out day looming in the consciences of the Mars-eyed. We still celebrated in the ways we could, if not to reminisce over the Revolutionary War, then at least to set off some Roman Candles and down some booze. I related to the former, Reggie related to the latter, and we both knew that Alan had gone Mars-eyed years ago and had little concern for either. “Are you helpin’ orrr?” I was torn from my meandering thoughts to Reg, who was packing the soil with fireworks. “Nah, chief. You look like you got it under control. Plus I gotta tend to this sucker.” I pressed my handkerchief more firmly against my lip. Alan took a running start and pole-vaulted onto the hay bale using his bamboo walking stick. “Your form is bad,” I observed “Ah, Well. You may have made third in state, but never forget how badly you lost in the 400 meter to me.” “Oh, this shit again.” I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, this shit again.” We began to bicker loudly but were shut up real quick when we felt the unmistakable sensation of the Zippers in their tin can. You’d always feel it in your bones first. It was like someone had decided to play your skeleton like a flute, and all the air was rushing around trying to find a way out. Then the ground shook- so much so that the crows would spook and the dogs in the barn would get to barking. That sound, though. Oh, that terrible sound. It screamed the scream of a person whose throat needed water and vocal cords had all dried up and split. We clenched our ears. A pixel in the sky dilated into a sleek aircraft of silver pipes and wires. Alan and I up and ran behind Reggie as he stared with clenched fists. “They’re here early this season.” Reggie grimaced. “What do they want now?” “Probably here for inspection.” Alan’s voice betrayed a hint of pride. Now, Alan could never read the room. I often wondered if he knew we hated the Zippers and chose to ignore it, or if it truly went over his head. In any case, neither Reggie nor I were all that fond of the Martians. Our resentment, principally, was from when the Zippers decided that there was no longer room for anyone on their planet without an IQ that was yay high. Of course, Alan’s IQ *was* yay high, which is why we suspected that they’d take him in the next year. He’d ace the LIPAT with flying colors then board one of the tin cans to join the ranks of the “best and brightest of humanity,” while we the people, the common folk of earth, would stay here to till the soil and toil over the prejudice. But I’ll let you in on a little secret. We liked it here. Most of us didn’t take to the thought of change. We were all perfectly happy with our ‘76 Pontiac Sunbirds, our Coca-Cola curly straws, and our acid-wash jeans. We woke up every day to watch MTV and make scrambled eggs and hoped that it would be that way for the rest of our lives. As the spaceship zipped across the sky, Alan saluted, Reggie tossed up a middle finger, and I tended to my lip. It suddenly occurred to me that we wouldn’t be friends for long. Hell, I’m not certain that Reggie and Alan were even friends *then*. What I do remember was that the fireworks that evening were a little dimmer than they had been the last year. Maybe I only remember it that way because the sky would light up with the first interstellar war of mankind not soon after. What a damn shame.


There once was a sick man, bedridden for life, never to see the great world outside the walls of his room. Even if that was the case, he had found his one talent, he could draw better than anyone else. Considered a great artist, the man took pride in his work, and with reason, as he was really skilled, but he could never draw what he wanted the most, the things that laid outside of his room, so he could only ever make portraits of rich folk and the like. He was used to getting clients each day, many powerful people came to visit just to try and get a chance of having a portrait for themselves. On a fateful day, as he laid on his bed with his eyes closed, the man was visited by a new client, a strange-looking person, the stranger didn't show his face at all, wearing a long coat, white gloves, and brown boots. The weirdest part was that he never spoke a word in the whole painting session, but the only time he did was as he was leaving, and the only words that parted from his mouth were "open your mind so that you may see the truth". Noone understood the man, but after he left, inside of the painting room, the servants found a foto on the ground, it was blank, but just in case they showed it to the master of the home. Not too long had passed since the man had visited, but as the artist laid in his bed, in his mind he found images of the world he had never been able to see before, amazing vistas with great mountains, green plains, dark forests, and many other things. Granted with such opportunity he took his pencil and started to draw these images so that he would never forget them. As the man finished the drawings he realized something, what he was drawing were twisted versions of what he could see in his mind, he tried time and time again to recreate what he saw on his mind to no avail. As he tried to fix the paintings the images started to slip away as if they were returning to where they belonged. And so he was only left with dark and twisted paintings that haunted him every day, he tried to burn them, but instead of turning into ashes, they remained. He sold them, but after one day, not even asking for the money back, they were returned. He could not rid himself of that horrible sight. Each passing day he had to bear the endless torture of having to look at his failures until he snapped, he couldn't stand it. Those horrible failures of his taunted him every day, and so with a pencil, the one he kept on a table beside his bed, he stabbed out his eyes. In pain and agony, the man screamed, his caretakers rushed to his room the moment they heard such horrific screaming. Once they were able to get in they were witness to things only seen in books of horror. An old sickly man, covered in blood with gouged eyes, wailing in his bed; scratching and hitting his head he cried "why won't they disappear?!". Soon after, the artist was dragged out of his room so the people could tend to his injuries, the screams of pain were replaced by deafening laughter. That night the man managed to escape the paintings, but once again the nightmare continued, this time the paintings were in a place he couldn't escape, his mind became the new prison. Not long after the incident, the man now had guards posted in his room, to accompany the man each hour of the day. The people started to become weary and paranoid as he could snap at any moment and harm someone despite being so frail and sick. It took no time for the man to start changing his behavior. His hair turned white, his skin became as pale as the papers he painted, his fingers grew larger and deformed. The weirdest thing was that he started to murmur strange words that no one understood at night. His room used to be well lit with many candles as he needed them to paint, but now that same room is shrouded in darkness. One day the man shut his doors claiming he was going to paint his masterpiece once and for all, he only opened the door to eat whatever his servants brought him. Two months later he was found dead along with every person in his mansion, his body was found beneath a painting, the one he called his "masterpiece". It was a maddening sight, a twisted world where the souls of the damned filled the sky, flesh and bone made the lands and the lakes were made of their blood, in the middle of that chaos you could find him, kneeling before a great figure, big enough to tower the skies. He left a single message behind "Close your eyes and open your mind, let him in so that he can show you the truth of this world and the one beyond, he calls me and I must answer, I finally understood, those paintings weren't a curse, they were a blessing".