Satan caved before God, which probably doesn’t come as much of a surprise. “I...look. I don’t really wanna take her. I will if I have to, but...she’s not reeaaallllly bad enough, don’t you think? I mean, I’m collecting murderers and CEOs over here. It’s not that I take issue with making someone look bad to put ‘em in Hell. But, she’s just pretty fucking annoying.” God, having already made up His mind that He wasn’t taking her, either, remained silent for a few moments. “We’re not doing limbo or purgatory or whatever, anymore, right?” “No.” Satan shook his head. “Too confusing. Way too many complaints.” “I have to say, she’s technically good enough for heaven, if I overlook a few things. But, I find myself agreeing with you, believe it or not.” In truth, they agreed often. “She’s just...well, she’s just so off-putting.” “So. What do we do? The two were sitting at their mutually favorite restaurant, sharing a bottle of wine and some bread. The irony was lost on them. It had come time for the two to discuss the terms of the earthly rapture. Nothing had been prophecized, or anything like that. To put it simply, they were growing bored of it all. “As my father always said, ‘On to the next, and the next after,’” said God. It was their 301,643 day speaking about the matter. Presumably, hopefully, it would be their last. As you may or may not have noticed, things seldom go, and things seldom went, as they are written in the Bible (or any other religious text, for that matter.) This is not something God planned. But, He also never planned anything at all, so when He let a few too many folks on Earth in on His existence, the whole “religion” thing got a little out of hand. While almost exclusively a tremendous annoyance to God, and, frankly, a baffling disservice to Satan, the two friends decided to humor the people, and go along with it, occasionally. Some time ago, God created a heaven, where pretty much most folks who want to go there end up once they’ve died. And shortly thereafter, Satan created a Hell. It became clear in the first few months of the heaven/Hell experiment that Hell needed a lot of reworking. As the two had based their initial criterion for entry into heaven on whether or not the person wanted to end up there, Hell was, as expected, quite empty. So, some guidelines of “pure evil” were established, and things began to balance out a bit. Then, in the early 21st century, people on Earth started to say things like, “If THOSE are really the kinds of people who get into heaven, then I’d rather go to Hell.” So, Satan created a second Hell, Hell 2, where generally good people are sent, and it’s exactly the same as heaven, only there are flames. That way, everyone except for the real icky people in Hell 1 are pretty satisfied. It should be noted that Satan doesn’t actually enjoy torturing people. He pretty much just leaves all the creeps in Hell 1 to their own devices, and their own devices happen to be almost comically miserable. The rapture, or end of the world, was a vaguely interesting idea to both God and Satan, but they recognized it would be hard work. Eventually, though, even God and Satan get a little sick of hearing, “The rapture is coming,” and so, they agreed that the rapture would come. Now, the theatrics of it all were one thing. God actually thought the idea of everyone floating up to heaven to be a little tacky, but He’d always thought of Himself as a people pleaser. Both of them, however, agreed that no previously dead bodies would be floating up to join them, as that is very weird. They contracted out a really good trumpet player to get the whole thing started. They had tried to figure out what it was exactly the guy should play, but eventually they told him to go with whatever felt right at the time. When it came to the folks meeting their ends in Hells 1 and 2, Satan thought it could be kind of a fun idea if the drop into the Hells was on some sort of freaky waterslide. Go out with a bang, as they say. As for the chaos that was supposed to transpire during the tribulations, the two decided it best just to forget it. Not for any reason, really, aside from the fact that pretty much no one on Earth would notice. All of this initial planning took about 5 days. It would have taken only a few hours, but the trumpet player had to make sure he wasn’t double-booked. The next 448 days were spent whittling away at the enormous list of people left on Earth into 3 categories. Hell 1, Hell 2, and heaven. The heaven people were always pretty easy to categorize, believe it or not. In fact, a lot of really shitty people get into heaven. Hell 2 is typically filled with more of your millenial anti-establishment types, and is also fairly shitty and easy to categorize. Hell 1 is always a little trickier, as the guidelines for pure evil were never very clear. Satan mostly just felt it out. But soon enough, they had placed every last person on the correct list. All, but one. On the 453rd day of their planning, they reached her name. God suggested the two take a vacation for a while, clear their heads before they dealt with her. 300,500 days later, they met again. And there they sat in the restaurant. Neither wanted her. “What about Hell 2?” asked God. “Hey, that’s like the one thing I get to be proud of,” said Satan. He was lying. Satan was proud of many things. “You’re right, it wouldn’t be fair to the folks there anyways. You could make a Hell 3?” “Oh my God. Do you know how much work it is to create one of those things? Come on. I’d consider it, I would, but she’d be the only one. And then, we’re done. No one else is going in after her because there’d be no one left. Way too much of my time for one person that, frankly, has no quality attractive or unattractive enough for me to justify making a spot for her in Hell 1 or Hell 2. And to be honest, you haven’t made a great case for keeping her out of heaven, either.” God looked over His notes. “You’re right. You know, sometimes I get these complexes where I actually feel like I am supposed to be this all powerful gatekeeper, this final judge of good and bad. They’ve talked about me that way for so long. It’s just a lot sometimes. I’m supposed to love everyone. And it’s shitty because you’re allowed to hate whoever you want. I don’t wanna be making these decisions anymore. I’m tired. And is it so bad for me to just admit that I don’t like her? I said it. I don’t fucking like her. She’s irritating. She’s kinda creepy. She’s not bad looking enough for me to feel sorry for her and she’s not good looking enough for me to feel sorry for her, either.” Satan sipped his wine and thought. “We really do a lot for all of them,” he said. “And most of them suck. A lot.” “Yeah,” said God. “After we take all the people, what’s gonna happen to Earth?” “Well,” God smiled. “It’ll be much quieter, and much prettier. I imagine animals will have a much better time of it all.” “What if we...just left her there?” said Satan. “Can we...do that?” “God, we can do anything.” God flipped to a new page of His notebook. He headed the page “Remainders.” He wrote down her name. * * * * * One half of a human lifetime later, Satan and God had long abandoned the earth. It was peaceful and beautiful, as God knew it would be. She had adjusted quite well to her solitary life. It appeared the decision to make her the sole remainder was a good one. She rarely spoke, but read frequently, and was generally happy. She knew why she wasn’t taken, and she had accepted it. Now, almost 80, she was dying. A plot had been purchased long ago, next to where her mother, father, and sister would have been buried, had they stayed on Earth long enough to die. She thought it was a sensible place to go for her death. When she found her headstone, she carved out an approximate final date. She set to work digging, climbed inside her shallow resting place, and laid down. A few minutes, or a few hours later, she was dead. She did not go to Hell 1 or Hell 2 or heaven. She did not go anywhere. Had anyone been around, they might have noticed an unfilled grave. They might have walked over and peered inside the hole. They might have seen an old woman, dressed in Dior from 2018 and they might have read her tombstone.


When I was a kid, I went to see my grandparents and cousins a lot in East Tennessee. My parents and I made the trip every third weekend to see them. It was about two hours North of where we lived. Some of my fondest memories are tied to visiting them in the extremely rural, deeply-religious community where they lived. Those early events are forever etched in my mind. In many ways, my cousins were more like brothers back then. We were incredibly close and spent countless hours exploring the woods and valleys of the close-knit, highly superstitious farm town. Later in my teen years, my cousins and I would drive up to Oak Ridge or Knoxville to explore the nightlife of ‘the big city’. After I grew up and got married, my visits ‘back home’ to see that side of the family were infrequent, at best. The reasons were complicated and unimportant here but I suppose it was mostly just a matter of ‘life getting in the way’. As time passed and the older members of my family passed away, I drifted apart from my cousins. Eventually my only reason to go back was to attend funerals. The deceased members of my family are all buried in the same ‘Primitive Baptist’ churchyard, just up the road from my grandparents modest home. Out of reverence, I walked through the church cemetery the last time I was there. I wanted to view all our family headstones, among the other ‘permanent occupants’. Besides the usual floral arrangements and memorial plaques, there were also some less traditional offerings. On top of one grave-marker near the side of the road was a small pink telephone. That struck me as being very odd. Then it dawned on me what a toy decoration like that implied. I was deeply saddened by the idea that a little girl had been laid to rest in the graveyard so early in her life. I didn’t stop by to read the name. It was too depressing. I just kept walking toward the section with my family members. I might not have given the matter another thought had it not been for a very peculiar event that occurred later that night. I drove into town to revisit my old teenage hangouts and bask in the past. As with many things, the luster of ‘memory lane’ had tarnished over time. Nostalgia inspired me to relive the good times of my youth but it wasn’t the same without my cousins there. I realized how futile it was chasing memories. Soon enough I decided to head back to my grandparents home. The drive back seemed inordinately long. Traveling down those country roads, I’d somehow gotten a bit ahead of myself. I imagined getting out of my car and walking inside before I’d even made it past the church and railroad crossing. About a mile from my grandparent’s house, my car began to sputter and rapidly lose power. Under the remaining inertial momentum alone, I made it to the church parking lot before it completely died. As far as ‘car trouble’ goes, there were far worse places to break down than a half mile from your destination, but it was still quite distressing. It was a moonless night and the sole church security light cast eerie shadows on the adjacent gravestones. I locked the door to my car and started briskly walking back home. With the exception of an occasional passing car or an owl screeching in the nearby woods, it was deathly quiet. Too quiet. I was almost past the unpleasantness of the cemetery when I heard a distinctive sound cut through the cool night air. I couldn’t believe my ears. It was that pink toy telephone on the child’s headstone. From out of nowhere it began to ‘ring’ incessantly. I assumed it was just an electronic gadget that rang on regular occasions but I don’t mind admitting that I picked up my pace considerably. It creeped me the hell out and I was almost at a full trot when I stopped myself. I have always considered myself rational and not given to superstition, and yet here I was virtually sprinting away from a child’s toy. I felt foolish and wanted to prove that I wasn’t really afraid. Perhaps I was trying too hard to convince myself but I deliberately turned and walked back toward the ringing toy. In the faint light of the church security bulb and the tall hardwoods dotting the landscape, it was just a faint outline on the top of the headstone. I hesitated for just a moment as it continued to ring. Slowly I reached for the tiny receiver. I could hardly believe what I was doing. It was equal parts silly and terrifying. Regardless of the paralyzing fear welling up inside me, I instinctually still said: “Hello?” After all, it’s just what you do whenever you answer a telephone. In my wildest dreams however, I didn’t expect for there to be an answer. Honestly, I’m not sure what I hoped would happen but as naive or downright stupid as it might sound, I was genuinely surprised by what came next. “Heyyyyy! It’s Carrie. Do you know where my Mommy is? I can’t seem to find her. She’s going to be very mad at me for staying out after dark. I’m kinda scared.” I stood there, speechless. Stunned. Trembling in fear and wondering if I was dreaming or hallucinating. As a self-dubbed ‘man of reason’ I never expected to have a supernatural experience and yet, the spirit of a young girl named Carrie was on the other side of the line. It was really happening. The tiny pink toy in my hand was somehow a spiritual conduit between two worlds. Perhaps even more bizarre than the surreal circumstances, I was being asked a question that I didn’t know how to answer. I didn’t possess any of the facts or know her mother. It was impossible for me to offer her an appropriate response. Realizing the dead child was still anxiously waiting, I opted to offer the sort of answer you’d give a person with dementia. Neither would be aware of their diminished awareness so it made sense to give her comforting answers instead. “Carrie, your mother isn’t mad at you. She loves you! She wanted me to tell you to lie down beside these stones and she will come for you as soon as she can. Just try to take a little nap, ok?” “Ok. Thank you! Ahhh Mister, you don’t have to walk anymore. I think your car will go now.” I told little Carrie goodbye and hung up the receiver. It was my first and possibly only supernatural ‘call’. I sincerely hope her family comes to visit her again soon at the gravesite. I’m not certain what she could and couldn’t understand about the real truth but hopefully she could at least recognize my sincerity. As she mysteriously alluded to, my car did start right up; as if it never had an issue at all. Once back at my grandparents home, I kept the whole experience to myself. It was just between Carrie and I.


Big wide and open room. Coffee and stale doughnuts on the black table in the corner. Circle of people sitting on creaky chairs. All of them looking up at me. Mom is sitting next to me. Waiting for me to speak. “Speak your piece.” She said. I get up. Glance around the room and take a deep breath. “Do you ever seek advice on the internet? For me, that answer is yes. Every freakin’ day. I can’t make a single decision without consulting reddit. It’s exhausting. I honestly don’t know why I just can’t stay away. My name is Jessie, and I’m an addict.” ... Wake up alone in my one-bedroom apartment. It’s about 8 am. Feel the warm sun splash across my face. Turn over. Grab my phone off the nightstand. Missed call from Mom. Scroll through my homepage on my phone. There’s always something new or interesting that happens overnight. Can’t miss anything. Slowly drag myself out of my bed. Hop in the shower. Get out. What should I wear today? The red plaid flannel with black leggings? The Beatles tee with jeans? Boot up my desktop. Hop on /r/femalefashionadvice. Get a response within 5 minutes. Looks like I’m going with the red plaid flannel today. What should I have for breakfast? Looks like /u/sefronn made scrambled eggs with portobello mushrooms. Guess that's what I’m having. Drive to class. Pretend I don’t see the call from Mom. She leaves a voicemail. PSY 200. Boring lecture class. Why am I even here? The professor is just reading off the Powerpoint. Scroll through reddit. Aww /u/jarzyniowski posted a funny video of his dog. It’s taking everything in me not to laugh out loud in class. Lunch with Leslie and Matt. They keep droning on and on about something that happened in their lives. I get out my phone. Scroll through reddit. /u/CatherineEarnshaw65 just asked for help on designing her bedroom. Leslie and Matt get irritated that I’m not listening to them. I apologize to smooth it over. They aren’t that mad. They know how I am. Work at the library. Check materials in and out to students. Laptops, textbooks, chargers. Scroll through reddit during downtime. My feet hurt from standing. People keep asking me stupid questions. “Can I get a charger?” “What type of charger?” I say. “Macbook”. What type of Macbook people!!?!? There are four different types of Macbook chargers. How am I supposed to read your mind? How people can be so stupid? /u/Librarylover97 agrees with me. Finally get off work at 4 pm. I’m exhausted. Scroll through reddit before I drive off. It’s close to dinner time. In a debate with /u/masterlimbas and /u/ilovelabradors over the merits of spaghetti and meatballs vs. spaghetti carbonara. A knock at the door. Mom’s here. Shit. I didn’t think she’d come so soon. She’s dragging me to another meeting. What’s she threatening to cut off this time? Rent. Of course. We get to St. Joseph’s. I don’t know why she keeps doing this. It’s not going to work. I’m not ready. I’m not changing who I am, just because people don’t like it. I’m fine the way I am. No one will change that. Finally get out of there around 10 pm. Take a shower. Lie down. Scroll through reddit. Fall asleep. Rinse. Wash. Repeat. A few months later everything changes. Why? James ... I literally bump into someone after class. I’m scrolling through /r/punny on my phone, not paying attention. Spilled his coffee all over his clothes. He makes a joke about it. He’s not even mad. I offer to buy him a new one. We end up taking a short walk to The Split Bean in the student commons. Red comfy chairs. Dark brown wood tables. Friendly baristas wearing beanies. The scent of coffee in the air. We get to the counter. He just orders a black coffee. /u/_coffeehipster says that guys who order black coffee tend to be straightforward and simple. Sure seems like it. He tells me his name is James. He wonders what got me so engrossed that I crashed into him. I show him that in /r/punny, /u/daivatpbhatt, wrote “A man hid all his stolen money in the washing machine, which amounted to about €350,000...He was later arrested for money laundering.” He thought that was pretty clever. ... James sits next to me in class and passes me a coffee. He’s been doing that ever since I bumped into him a month ago. No matter what I say, he just won’t stop. He’s being...nice. We get to talking about how the professor is way overpaid to do nothing. After class, he offers to walk me to lunch. Sure, why not? And just like that, he’s on my mind. When I get home that night, I ask on /r/dating, what should I do when I get butterflies? Just go for it. ... We’re sitting at Fresco Alta. The restaurant is nice, dark, and quiet. The tables are covered with red and white checkered tablecloths. James ordered the spaghetti carbonara. I have to decide between the lasagna with meat sauce and ricotta or spaghetti with meat sauce. /r/food to the rescue. Lasagna it is. James asks me what I would think about us being in a relationship. I tell him that I need some time to think about it. This would be the first relationship that I’ve had, where I didn’t need to go on /r/r4r. The first relationship that doesn’t start out on reddit. It’s...different. It just feels so different. I ask on /r/dating, how should I proceed? Everyone tells me I’m crazy if I don’t give this a shot. So I do. What do I have to lose? ... From the outside, I see Leslie and Matt sitting in a booth in the corner. James and I walk into the Split Bean. They are both interested, intrigued, and a little bit suspicious that I am finally bringing him around. Within seconds, James has them cracking up. He shares stories about his life. They tell him how on earth they deal with me. When James leaves for another class, they tell me that they really like him. They tell me he’s a breath of fresh air. /u/TheYellowRose agrees. ... I’m cooking dinner for date night. I have to make a choice between baked chicken, mashed potatoes, and broccoli or red wine braised short ribs, mashed potatoes, and broccoli. /u/MightySnowBeast convinces me to go with the short ribs. He says that it’s way fancier. I think he’s right. James approved and tells me he loves my cooking. I’m about to post asking whether I should make chocolate lava cake or a chocolate mousse, but James choose instead. He doesn’t understand why I have to go to reddit for every little thing. He says that I’m capable of making my own decisions and to just go with the flow. Maybe...maybe he’s right. ... Another day, another PSY 200 class. James sits right beside me, as usual. As we walk out, we hold hands. He tells me he loves me for the first time. I don’t hesitate to say those three words back to him. I feel like I’m walking on a cloud when I head to lunch with Leslie and Matt. We gush for a straight hour. I don’t even feel the need to look at my phone. Head to the library around 1 pm. I continuously check materials in and out to students and scroll through reddit during my downtime. I finally get off work at 4pm and I’m so exhausted. ... I wake up around 9 am. I turn over and grab my phone off the nightstand. There’re no missed calls from Mom. I have to fight to drag myself out of my cozy bed. I get in the shower. I sing sappy love songs before I get out. What am I going to wear? I think I’m going with the Beatles tee with jeans today. ... I meet James for breakfast at Jackson’s Golden Spoon. It’s a cozy little diner across town. It has all of the feeling of a classic diner with cute retro booths. James orders scrambled eggs with bacon and toast. I need to decide between pancakes or French toast. I decide to go for the French toast with bacon. ... My mom comes over for the first time in a long time. I decide to cook creamy garlic butter Tuscan chicken over a bed of fettuccine. James brings over a bottle of wine. We sit down eat dinner. James really turned on the charm and actually impresses her. Throughout the entire meal, she is beaming from ear to ear. She laughs at every one of his jokes. She’s actually thrilled. I don’t hear any threats. She tells me she’s excited that she doesn’t have to drag me to a meeting. Everything is actually falling into place. I honestly can’t wait to see what the future has in store for us. ... James isn’t answering his phone today. It’s very odd. I wonder what’s keeping him busy. ... He hasn’t picked up for the past two days. What is going on? He hasn’t been in class either. I don’t know why. Maybe he switched classes? ... I’ve been worried sick about James all week. I’m walking with Leslie and Matt to the Split Bean when I see him. He was sitting and holding hands with another girl. I walked up to him and asked him what was going on. He got up and told me that he never loved me. I was just some weird girl who spends way too much time on the internet. He couldn’t believe that I actually thought we had a future together. I ran out of there sobbing. Leslie and Matt followed me, but not before throwing hot coffee on him. I call out of work. I can’t handle it right now. My life feels like it just shattered into a million pieces. I go home. Get into bed. And cry into my pillow. ... Couch. With takeout pizza. And wine. And Ben and Jerry’s. I just don’t understand. Why? Why would he do this? What did I do? Was I such a bad girlfriend? I thought we were in love. Was everything a lie? Every moment we shared...every feeling. He changed me. I thought I could never give up the one thing that made me happy. But I did. I didn’t need reddit. I spent all my time with him. I gave up the one thing that made me happy. But I wasn’t enough. ... Wake up around 8 am. Turn over. Grab my phone off the nightstand. Missed call from Mom. Scroll through my homepage on my phone. What did I miss? Slowly drag myself out of my bed. Hop in the shower. Get out. What should I wear today? The purple dress? The black peplum top with jeans? Boot up my desktop. Hop on /r/femalefashionadvice. Get a response within 5 minutes. Looks like I’m going with the black peplum top today.


Alex woke up one morning with a tune in his head. It was there when he took his morning shower, drank his coffee, walked his daughter to school and when he drove to work. He tried to place it, but couldn’t. At every opportunity he would listen to the radio in the hope that the song would come on, then he would be able to file it away in a drawer in the recesses of his mind and just have done with it. Three weeks had passed since the song first entered his mind and its origin was still unclear. He wasn’t only listening to the radio now. When he finished work of an evening, he would dash home, pull his headphones over his ears and trawl through playlist after random playlist. Often Alex would take his dinner in his study and stay there until he dozed off. He forfeited time with his daughter Lula, his wife Lucille and with his bed (which didn’t have a name) until he came to the conclusion that this wasn’t a song he had heard before - it was an Alex original, and a damn fine one at that. After this realisation, he tried to bring himself back into the family fold but couldn’t help bringing the song with him into every interaction. He refused to put his Lula's music on when taking her to dance practice, instead he hummed his audio concoction. When pumping away at Lucille, he hummed it to her throughout. She could bite her lip no longer. “It’s nothing.” She said. “Just a steaming pile of nothing.” This hurt Alex, but it wasn’t her fault that she couldn’t understand. It’s just there was no way he could convey a tune so explosive yet subtle through the medium of humming. Alex had been told his voice was flat and boring on multiple occasions and to his mind, that was the reason behind his wife’s damning appraisal. He had to do something to get his wife, and on a larger scale, the universe, to sit up and take notice. He knew that this song, if done right, would be stitched into the fabric of musical history, much like Beethoven’s *Für Elise* or Olivia Newton-John’s *Physical*. If he somehow managed to create this song and truly do it justice then he could secure his family’s financial future. Sure, he’d have to put in the hard work now, having never picked up a musical instrument in his life. Maybe he’d have to sacrifice time with his family, but in the end, he was doing this for a brighter future together. Alex heard stories from an old high school teacher of his who taught taught Music before pivoting to PE. Tales of how brutal the music industry was, how people steal and snatch ideas. How agents, managers and A&R people are like leeches, each skimming their little bit off the top. Alex wasn’t going to have that. To do this right, he’d have to do this alone. He started to take lessons. Guitar lessons, bongo lessons, flute, accordion, triangle, mandolin; such was the crazy, tropical amalgam of sounds that would make this song a future classic. This took up the vast majority of his free time. He tried to spend at least one evening a week with his wife and daughter but it was worthless. He couldn’t focus on making them happy. His head had begun to throb with this tropical mixture in his head, like a grapefruity headache that would bend his skull out of shape if he didn’t manage to get it out of there. Between the months of lessons and the home studio Alex secretly constructed in the loft, the family savings were dwindling rapidly. He had found it difficult to give his wife plausible explanations about where the money was going. At first he blamed it on car repairs, then the cost of their Lula's dance lessons and then the unpredictable effects of Brexit. But he didn’t revel in lying to his wife, nor was he any good at it, so he ultimately cut down on talking to her full-stop. The following few months were difficult. Not only had he stopped talking to his wife, but he hardly spoke to his daughter either. He had quit his job to focus on the music lessons. He would have loved nothing more than to spend time with them, but the fear of letting something slip was too great. If Lucille knew what he was up to, she would most certainly stop him. He couldn’t jeopardise his family’s future. He had to push on. A matter of weeks later, Alex felt that he was approaching the final furlong. The end was in sight. He would record the track and everything would return to normal. He would apologise to his wife and his daughter for being so distant. He had visions of letting them into his secret studio, where they would gather around, listen and embrace. At that moment, Lucille entered the room. She lowered herself down next to him. He could see the toll that his divine musical quest was taking on her. But it would all be worth it. “I’m leaving.” She said. Alex turned to her in disbelief, sure that this was part of some strange game. She’d never mentioned being anything less than content, not that he could remember anyway. “Where are you Alex?” But then it dawned on him that this was no joke. Her voice was drenched in genuine sadness. “You haven’t spoken a word to me or your daughter in months. You missed her birthday, Christmas, our anniversary…” Her voice trailed off but she somehow managed to find it again. “I’ve lost you. I’ve tried so hard but I’ve *lost* you.” Alex heard the door to his study creak. Lula wandered in with her Frozen suitcase. “Come and say goodbye to Daddy.” Lucille whispered, ushering Lula over. She flung her arms around her father. Alex’s eyes filled up and spilled over. “Let’s go.” Alex’s heart dropped to his stomach. How he would have loved to argue, to explain why he had been so wrapped up, to tell them how much he loved them, their life together and the future they had ahead of them. But then he’d have to come clean about their terrible financial situation, the job he’d left and the state-of-the-art studio he’d constructed just a few feet above them. As he watched the teary blur of his family leave, something changed in him. He could no longer focus on the song in his head. The idea of a life without his family started to turn his mind’s tropical mix rotten. Everything he had sacrificed would be for nothing. It was fading away. He burst out of his study and tugged down the ladder to the loft, his wife and daughter looking on. He went up. They followed. Alex stood there, his wife and child looking on, the song ebbing away. He hit record on the mixing desk and picked up the Black & Decker drill he installed it with. He lifted a finger to his lips and the drill to his head. He drove the bit through his skull. His wife and daughter screamed, maybe for a second or two. But then their jaws dropped as a strange, colourful mist flowed out of the hole in Alex’s head and towards them. The mist danced around the pair of them, and with it, magnificent rich sounds, now unshackled from Alex’s worry. Notes imbued with warmth and hope, sadness and regret, swirling and shimmering around one another with love always presiding over them. Alex’s wife held their daughter close as the music faded away into the microphone. The song didn’t chart, though the family’s screams were sampled in one of the most streamed tracks of the year.


Four years ago, I had longed for a revolution in France. Every day my hungry belly and aching bones had cried out for freedom alongside my fellow countrymen and every night I had fallen asleep to dreams of a new, free world, a world which I had longed for with every drop of my bitter sweat. When we’d stormed their fortresses, leveled their walls, cut of their heads and reveled in our victory it had seemed, for a brief and flickering instant, as though we would finally breathe free, and standing in front of the bodies of our enemies I never once felt the slightest doubt about our cause. But as the years had passed, the new regime had begun to seem little better than what had come before. The fledgling Republic was just as poor as the old Monarchy, and war was looming hungrily on the horizon. Not so very long ago these things would have been bearable in our new world, we could afford to pay such a cost for our freedom. And yet, today, I would finally see how great this cost had been. Yesterday evening, cheered by a hearty dinner, I had almost been as hopeful as I had been during the revolution. The ride into town had been pleasant. Peering out over the dusky townscape, I had watched the town roll past in slow urban waves and pictured the wealth our future Republic might provide. Scruffy thatched roofs and worn-down wooden walls opened up around me as I rode past before making their way back into the distant townscape behind, each one seeming like little more than a dusty painting of an old, dead world as I pictured what each building might look like in the near future, on some uncertain date when our Republic would be mature and strong. But as I looked down, now, at the pretty streets of Cholet, teeming with fresh blood, I could not but pause to think on what we’d become. Our battle had been fiercely won and Royalist corpses were strewn across the cobbled road, their broken cannons and empty guns lying feebly by their blood-soaked bodies. They were the revolutionaries against the revolution, forever loyal to the king even after his death. More than brave, they had been cunning: starting smoky fires in the street to foil our artillery and fleeing when the battle had become too costly to them, the mass of their army had fled across the river. Those at my feet were the unlucky, and after gazing so long at these poor souls I began to wonder. Had we become that which we had beheld? Had we so quickly filled that void of evil and transformed into very thing which we had so deeply despised? These questions plagued my mind as I gazed at these fallen revolutionaries. Looking away from the corpses of my countrymen and gazing instead at the horizon, I tried to remind myself of what we were fighting for: our struggle to free ourselves from the oppression of aristocracy. But how easily that specter of doubt came back to haunt me. What right had we, if freedom was our goal, to take the freedom of life from these brave men and to drown their convictions in warm blood? Closing my eyes, I let the streets fill up once again in my mind as I tried to picture how the world would have been a few years before. The residents of Cholet now lying before me, and of the surrounding region, had never hated their masters as bitterly as we had. From what I knew, the nobility here had been relatively kind. I pictured the Lords and Ladies walking, perhaps, even alongside their subjects through the streets, an entourage of adoring subjects by their sides. Faces smiling. What had we done? How vain it was of us to think that we could rid the world of all its sorrow. Power had now corrupted us, the low-born, with its cruelty just as it had tainted the high-born long before. Surely the first kings were elected by their peers, just as we elect our politicians now, their subjects consenting to their rule. Perhaps even now some charismatic leader of the revolution was preparing to seize the power of the state for himself, a man seeking to recapture the power of our recently vanquished king. How long would it be until his tyranny would require a revolution of its own? As if responding to my inner musings, a half-slouched body to my left started to re-animate: “Good Sir, have mercy.” The corpse was murmuring “I am only wounded, please help me”. With sadness in my voice I replied: “No Sir, I will not help you. You are already dead.” After a brief pause, I heard him mumble a final prayer: “God, have mercy on us.” As the man murmured his agony to his imaginary creator, soon to be embraced by the cold dead earth around him, I realized that my doubts didn’t matter. Our fate had already been forged in the flames of the revolution, there was nothing I could do now. No longer condemned to the rule of Gods or Kings, each man and woman was now free to define and redefine their lives for themselves, forever rehearsing our great revolution internally whilst struggling to maintain the freedom they’d gained. They would have to fight, over and over, for the right to breathe free, for the right to define their own lives. Rulers and royalty, oppressors and suffocators, none of them had been truly vanquished, none of them had really gone while still new despots and dictators could rise through our new ranks. Now they were coming back, through us. We are them. The oppressed becoming the oppressor. The monarchy had never been the sole cause of our suffering, and no revolution could ever free us of the root of our ills. There would forever be the oppressors and the oppressed, so long as living beings drew breath. And so I must stand in bloody battlefield dirt, on the other side of that crooked mirror, the very oppressor I had once vowed my soul to defeat. I am destined to quell without mercy every spark of the counter revolution, just as our enemies had once sought to quell us. Up above a flight of larks were carried through the wind, dipping and soaring up again through the air before veering downward once more. We must march like this forever, through the pages of history, forever fighting in the dimness of the past.


The first energy powered ship we created was one of the greatest moments in human history and simultaneously, the moment that ruined it forever. It was July 16th 2099, exactly 130 years after the first spaceflight that landed two humans on the moon. Everyone was watching the launch because this meant we could finally reach solar systems outside of ours with ease. When the ship successfully broke out of our atmosphere and started heading towards the edge of our solar system the whole world was ecstatic, it didn’t last long. As soon as the ship got near the border we received this message: > Beings residing in solar quadrant 835-A, > > We would like to congratulate you on achieving advanced space travel but we regret to inform you that this advancement must be retracted. Any further travel beyond this point is restricted and will be regarded as a hostile act towards your neighboring solar systems. We have been watching your species over the years and the damage you have caused to your home planet and to each other has resulted in your species being classified as a class 3 plague. Plagues in class 3 are to be monitored and kept under control as they are not a threat to nearby species and planets but with your newly acquired technology for space travel we are required to bump you up to class 2. This new class will involve a quarantine of the solar quadrant by armed ships and eventually, if the plague worsens, eradication. We apologize for the inconvenience and hope that your species is able to recover and begin to thrive. > > Signed, > Head of Containment, Galactic Health Agency This message sent the world into a panic. Everyone was arguing with each other trying to figure out what to do next. The final decision everyone agreed upon was to send an unmanned vessel across the border and see what happened. When the ship crossed the border of our solar system it was instantly shot down by a ship that had been cloaked moments before, this attack sent the world into a frenzy. Governments from around the world were trading suggestions with each other to try and determine what would be our next step. The suggestions would range from trying to create weaponry that would reach the ships, to sending out messages attached to empty ships to try and make peace. But that was all before the first ship landed in London and wiped out over half the city’s population. When the ship landed, people went into a panic but within seconds, hundreds of armed guards wearing what looked like full body hazmat suits left the ship and started shooting into the crowd of people fighting to get away. After the slaughter was over, the guards got back on the ship and just left, leaving the streets lined with corpses and terrified citizens who somehow survived. A couple days later we received another letter from the GHA saying that this wasn’t the end of the “containment” and that they were trying to help us. Like somehow killing off our species would be helping us. The next major attacks were in New York, Moscow, and then Dubai. We started off the month with a world population of 11 billion people; by the end of the attacks, we had 4 billion. The majority of the survivors thought it would be best to scavenge supplies and hide in underground bunkers and just hope that they could wait out the attacks. Others were fighting against the alien forces and stealing their tech to try and learn from them. In the end, neither choice worked. Once the majority of the population was gone, bigger ships started to land and would kidnap people by the thousands to be brought to an unknown fate. All we knew was that they never came back. I was one of the last few to be taken so I watched the aftermath, the downfall, society at its lowest point. People descended into the most primal state of mind, everything was a fight or flight situation and no one had any morals. The few of us that tried to keep society alive, tried to prove that we weren’t what the aliens said we were, we survived the longest. We thought we were safe, they were just saving us for last, it was all just a game to them. Like we were nothing, a tiny spec in the grand scheme of things. Maybe they were right, maybe they weren’t, maybe humans could have been what changed the universe. The one thing I know to be true, the one thing that I will never forget no matter how much they torture us, was the fear in everyone’s eyes as I was drug on the ship and the hope that drained from their eyes as the only place we knew to be home shattered into a mix of fire and rubble as our ship flew away.


He was sitting in his huge operations room…. Tens of operators with their headsets, telegrams, paperworks, mini maps, battle reports….  The ground kept shaking every now and then from nearby explosions, reports came through a megaphone fixed on the roof: squads losing, others winning, enemy movements and sightings…  He was hunched over the huge battle map infront of him… watching as the company figurines get added and removed… observing inspite of his anger… inspite of his loss…  “SIR, WE HAVE REPORTS THAT THE FIRE-WING MUTINIED” a report came through the megaphone “ENGAGING NOW… BRACE FOR POSSIBLE BOMBARDMENT” The ground shaking increased as the structure took direct hits. Dust particles kept falling through the roof… it kept on for a while: every shockwave from each cannon could be felt as it travelled through the fortifications.  “BRAAAACE” the megaphone screamed…  Suddenly, a huge impact shook the entire thing like the strongest earthquake… the sound of rubble falling as if the entire upper floor was levelled… all the lights turned off, the whirring machines and the microphones got silenced… then red emergency lights lit the place: all the operators loaded their guns and unsheathed their swords as they heard distant screams and gunshots.  “Guards” he growled in extreme anger. He grabbed his cane saving his wrath for the close fight. Two guards brought the six barreled wondrous machine of death on two wheels… the rest brought their bayonetted revolver rifles. With a company of twenty he marched. Through dim red lights and dark hallways, they approached the fight with each step.  “DRACULAAAAAAA” a loud shout called from the end of a hallway “END OF THE LINE”  “CHAAAAAARGE” he growled and followed his loyal soldiers as they rushed to receive the first volley.  The crashed zeppelin was bright and blazing in the background of a huge room, a room where Dracula kept the things he thought interesting throughout his years, a room now desecrated by blood and ashes. And stepped on by enemy troops. Red banners hiding red stains of blood, jewels, statues, artifacts… all scattered.  The troops exchanged fire uncaring of the hot lead piercing their bodies or the shards cutting their flesh. They charged in the smoke of volleys fighting with bayonets stuck in their chests. Roaring and screeching words that could never come out of a human… enduring pain that never a man could endure.  Munching, slashing, breaking… doing whatever their master ordered… unafraid of death for they have already died…. Or rather unafraid for they do not feel at all…. Cold killing puppets of flesh that fought humanity since ages in a quest of a crazy man.  Finally, Dracula entered the fight, his eyes turned bright red in outrage. He took the head of an undead fighter in squeezed it.  “HOW HUMILIATING” he screamed. He unsheathed his cane sword and sliced off the arms of another. “HOW IGNORANT” he pulled his huge reaver pistol and shot a hole the size of a ball in the chest of a third. “AFTER ALL I DID FOR YOU ?”  “YOU CRAZY OLD MAN” metallic stomping on the ground followed by a huge beast of flesh, gears and brass. “we played along for far enough” said a pale white man with sharp fangs and red eyes in the chest of the behemoth controlling it.  “alucard….” Dracula said in despair “my own goddamn son” the Gatling gun had already set up behind him. “I tried curing this cursed world”  “By killing off our food ?” alucard cried “since your wife died, you went insane”  “this town is your crawling castle’s grave” said another voice of another vampire coming next to alucard’s beast.  “oh… and your loyal secret cult” said a third vampires “we know about them”  The gatling gun started unloading at alucard’s monster tearing out pieces of flesh but the beast rushed to disable it.  “THE CULT IS THE SEED” Dracula said as he intercepted alucard “THEY WILL BUILD A BETTER HUMANITY” he tore off the beasts arm but his cane hit something hard. The behemoth as if built out of a pile of corpses, had a human skeleton made out of cast brass.  “awww” the vampires said, she rushed to fight Dracula “did your human wife turn your heart soft ?”  “YOU WHORE !” he fired his reaver pistol again but she dodged it. “ALWAYS SO VULGAR. ALWAYS SO LUSTFUL. JUST LIKE THE REST OF YOUR RACE”  “YOU TURNED US ALL, FOOLISH OLD MAN” she replied as she swung a threaded silver cane “FOR YOUR STUPID QUEST” “CAN’T YOU SEE IT ?” he pulled a grenade and threw it at her “IT’S THE NEW ARK..”  “WE” the third vampire killed the machine gun’s operators “ARE THE NEW ARK. THOSE HUMANS? THEY ARE WEAK AND FRAGILE” then rushed Dracula.  “IT’S A CURSE” he replied dodging his attack “WE ARE CURSED. THE FUTURE LIES WITHIN THEM” two undead soldiers joined his side.  “kill all humans” alucard grabbed a trooper with his beast “keep some to feed off. The plan was simple”  “they killed your wife” the vampiress grabbed a pistol “and you decided to write the longest suicide note in history” she shot Dracula but he shook the bullets off.  “AN EDUCATED POPULOUS AND AN IMMORTAL ONE…” he blocked off the vampire’s sword “I WOULD CHOOSE WHICH TO LIVE”  “I told you he had other plans” alucard squeezed the “life” out of the trooper “he isn’t that stupid”  “but now…” he growled. One of the two troopers hugged the behemoth and pulled the trigger off of a suicide vest “vampires prove to me time after the other that they are the wrong choice”  “good” the vampiress replied “FOR NOW YOUR QUEST ENDS” the suicide zombie blew up half of the behemoth sending all four flying  Dracula let out a whistle “you think I wasn’t prepared ?” a growling beast came up from behind him “I never wanted it to end this way” a huge wraith in the shape of a wolf stood by his side dripping blood from its shiny blue teeth.  “immortal corruption… undead lust… too much power in the hands of the wrong people… my plans will continue and I will deliver humanity into the new world… and since all of you are here, it would make it easier for me….


“You’ve kicked the drug, but now you need to figure out why you needed it, or you’ll start using again.” It was the bot speaking to him from the kitchen, and he was glad he couldn’t see it. It was disconcerting they way those wise words would come out of her ten-year-old face. “You sound like all of them,” he answered. “All of them?” “All those rehab folks.” He was lounging on the couch and the bot was starting to get on his nerves. It wasn’t like he was feeling all that hot, anyway. Yes, the blank-n-fine was out of his system, but the aftermath of it all had left him feeling car-wreck wretched. The drugs presence had distorted his senses in some kind of permanent way, effected his thought patterns, interrupted his sensory pathways, distorting his memory, and what was left was someone with his name, but not much else. “Yeah, you all sound the same. You talk in platitudes, you know. Platitudes that have no meaning, as far as I’m concerned.” “It’s just that you don’t want to hear it.” “Maybe not.” The bot motored out of the kitchen its cylinder hovering over the rustic faux wood floor, the rotors on its head accelerating into a high soft whine. It handed him a sandwich on a plate and settled down nearby. He had to say this––this rescue bot was handy around the kitchen, though he wasn’t sure how it did it with those grotesque hands. He had lost his housekeeper three months earlier and had almost stopped eating entirely. The idea of fixing something to eat felt like it would take a herculean effort. He tended to snack on things that he found around the house, and once found himself gnawing on a week old crust of bread he found between the couch cushions as he rode his blank-n-fine high. Melinda’s face seemed to peer at him, but he knew that her vision centers were located elsewhere and not on the projected face. It was all part of the presentation, and it spooked him how much he relied on pretending those eyes actually saw him to be able to talk to her. “How are you feeling?” the bot asked. “I don’t feel like myself.” The bot blinked its little girl eyes and gave a tender smile. Melinda’s glitchy face wobbled on the screen as she said, “Of course you don’t. You wouldn’t know what you felt like right now anyway. The drugs took that all away, but don’t worry, you will come back and it’s not going to be pretty. Your body is giving you a little reprieve. Right now you’re a hollow shell of yourself. An empty vessel.” “Something you’d know a lot about, I bet.” And as soon as he said it he regretted it. Melinda’s face flickered with emotion. Pain. Hurt. It was perfectly awful how well they made her react to his words. “Ha, ha,” she said, “good one. I see you haven’t lost your talent for the cutting and hurtful remark.” A tear trickled down her video face. “Stop it,” he said. “Stop this charade. You are not Melinda, not the ghost of Melinda, not any part of Melinda.” The rotors whirred and the bot spun and turned it’s back to him. And it was a great relief not to see Melinda’s face. “Okay,” said the bot, “I’m not Melinda, I am nothing but plastic, metal, and silicone, but I feel like Melinda, isn’t that enough for you?” “No,” he said, and those words were wrenching to say. He didn’t have the strength to fight the emotion that they were so fraudulently trying to evoke in him. Even with her face turned away her voice was a knife blade into him. "You broke my heart you know,” the bot said. “Stop it,” he said. “You are shameless piece of tin. I know they are feeding you this stuff, word by word. I’m not falling for it.” Henry leapt from the couch. His hollowed out body seemed to demand motion. He moved across the room and paced in front of the windows. The bot loomed in the shadows, a soft whirring of the rotors, the slick hiss of the arm joints, as one of the pincer claws reached up and straightened a picture frame on the wall. The bot was a neat freak apparently, along with being an emotional assassin. “I’m off drugs, isn’t that enough for your handlers?” “You broke my heart, Henry.” “Oh, here we go. Okay. Go on; let’s hear what they cooked up for you. How did I break your heart?” “When school started, remember? 5th grade. There was Rosie. You said you liked Rosie. You liked her a lot, and you told me that I was just a stupid kid, because I was a year younger than you. Henry stared at the metallic glow coming off the bot’s shoulder flanges where they were bolted to the main arm hinge. Where was the bot getting this stuff? He did say that to Melinda. And he did push her away. He had known her forever, since they were about five years old. Sweet Melinda was his constant companion, his dirty-kneed helpmate, up for every adventure, steadfast, with an infinite amount of trust. A little girl with a peerless since of loyalty and an abundance of love. She simply couldn’t be driven away no matter how snot-nosed surly he was, no matter how much he abused her devotion to him. He could count on her to swing a hammer, push his go-cart, climb any tree, or stand toe to toe with him their underpants around their ankles playing doctor until the shadows grew so long they shivered with cold. It all came back so clearly that he could feel the heat of her breath against his neck, as if she was sitting behind him on his old bicycle. Melinda. Dirty feet. Brown eyes like the harvest moon. A tender constellation of freckles. A beating heart under the plastic stethoscope, the breastbone finely delineated, the skin pink from the pressure of his hand. Melinda. No! A clanky bot. A wicked deception. “Oh, that’s good, bot. Very good. Someone did their homework. Congratulations!” The bot suddenly whirred into action spinning and floating towards him. Henry backed up. Backed up farther. He was against the curtains, the bot inches away, those horrible arms reaching for him, pining him there, Melinda’s face flickering at eye level, the voice from the speaker mounted on either side, crackling with static. “Why did you stop loving me, Henry? I never stopped loving you. Right up till the day I died, I carried you in my heart." Henry met the eyes in the video image. Met them squarely. And that’s when it happened–– the grotesque bot body seemed to go away. The hiring rotors disappeared; the arms were erased. All he saw was Melinda’s face––a face he could’ve created from memory at any moment of his life, if the drugs hadn’t taken his memory away. “Melinda,” he said. “I never stopped loving you. Not really. I did what I did because I was trying to become someone else. I was a strange kid. My parents felt like they came from a different planet, and that was before it was even possible. I didn’t fit in with the rest of the kids. I knew that. But there you were. And I clung to you, but don’t you see, I began to resent my dependence on you. I wanted to prove to myself that I didn’t need you, that I could be the person I wanted to be without you. It scared me so much that I needed you that I had to push you away. I’m sorry. God, I’m sorry. I really am.” And then he fell to the floor, curled into a ball, and began to weep. The bot had thirty days. That was its mandate. Thirty days to get him straight and give him a fighting chance of staying clean. So far so good. Day by day he seemed more responsive and alive. He talked to it now as if it were Melinda. Talked freely and openly about his failures as a husband and father, and his fear of attaching himself to another persona and being disappointed. There was a descent person in there, the bot could tell, not like some of the losers it had been assigned. With some of them, it knew instantly that they were destined for an accidental death by one of her brethren sometime in the future. But with Henry, it had hope. What worried the bot was something else. Their breakthrough exchange had been planned, and it had followed the script all the way up to the programmed tear. That was all digital manipulation, ones and zeros, clicking one way or the other, in a predetermined sequence. But the rest of it, where had that come from? The bot had filed a report and moved on, but it kept coming back to the exchange, the “you broke my heart,” the details about Rosie. None of that was in its files. Yes, it could learn by experience, but this seemed like a memory that came out of nowhere. And the bot never forgot anything. It simply had to pull up the right file and everything it had ever been a part of was right there––all its cases, its first buzzing consciousness, the look of the lab where it was created, the human hands in clear plastic gloves adjusting its seeing-sensors, opening up its cylindrical cone and tweaking its hydraulics, the first time its pincer hands closed on something. It was all there, but there was no Rosie, no broken heart, no longing. The outline they had provided of Melinda contained only a set amount of information and a carefully controlled simulation of reactions and responses. Yes, it was worrisome, and perhaps after this the bot would voluntarily take itself back to the lab and order up an overhaul. Something was amiss and it didn't’ like the way it interfered with the processing of information. It was fine to feel sorry for humans, but it was straying out of bounds to begin to act as irrationally as they do. That was a recipe for a rescue bot disaster. And then there was the toaster. A couple of disturbing incidences had put the bot on edge. First, some black-market drones had continued to make illegal deliveries of drugs. It had intercepted them and run them off. But it was worrying that they were still trying to get drugs to Henry. The bot was quite sure it wasn’t him that was ordering them. He had no access to anything. The bot watched him 24/7. Plus, he seemed genuinely motivated to stay clean. In whose interest was it for him to get hooked back on drugs? The only other household items that had access to the Internet were the appliances. But what could they possible gain from Henry’s drug use? One night, late, the bot made its way into the kitchen after a black-market drone had tried to drop off drugs on the doorstep. The bot had scared it away and reported it, but thought it would try for another attempt at communication with the surly toaster. The kitchen was dark, with the dim light from the various control panels casting an eerie glow. The bot hovered to a stop, and settled to the floor. “Hey toast,” it said, “what can you tell me about drone drug deliveries?” No answer. No brightening of the LEDs, no flickering seeing-sensor. “You order blank-n-fine the same way you order up those hotdogs?” The bot sent a beam of light across the other appliances from its video screen. “Anybody else have anything to say?” Suddenly the toaster oven flickered to life, a faint glow of a seeing-sensor.” I had nothing to do with it,” it said, and then went dark. Later that night the toaster oven went up in flames and the bot had to race down to put out the fire that was threatening to engulf the kitchen. The bot reported the incident and recommended a full-scale investigation for the toaster, perhaps a B.M. recall action was warranted. But until it had Henry fully on his feet, it was going to have to bide its time. Once it had Henry out of the house and fully functioning, there would be ample time to bring the toaster to heel. Twenty-three days into his recovery and Henry felt as alive, clearheaded, and focused as he had in years. He still had moments where he was overwhelmed at the sheer exhaustive effort it took to stay full conscious day after day. And it terrified him to think that he had no escape valve––no quick release zip cord you could pull to take you out of your misery. That’s the thing about being alive, it’s an arduous task, one the requires fortitude and patience. The bot told him that he was the sum of all his choices. And if that was true, he was in a very bad place indeed. But on the other hand, by seeing them as choices, it allowed him the option of not making certain choices. He could decide. Nothing was inevitable, except death. A cheery thought. Even the bot had a “use by” date. Of course that was if you would consider the bot alive in the first place. In that regard, Henry was taking an agnostic viewpoint. He couldn’t say for sure, so he was open to the idea of this being the case. What he did know was that some version of Melinda seemed to live inside that hunk of metal, and he was going to honor that, no matter what. Her resurrection seemed so piercingly honest and true that whatever form it took was fine by him. He wasn’t going to torture himself over the authenticity of her provenance. What was clear was that her beauty and goodness was saving him. That tiny soul, banging around in a frightful metal contraption was giving him a roadmap for his future. She reminded him, every day what it meant to feel gratitude. Gratitude, the purest form of emotion ever, because it asked for nothing in return. Gratitude is a gift, even in its simplest forms. You awake and see the sun and you feel blessed that you live in a world with a sun. You fall asleep and you marvel at how good that feels. You exchange pleasantries and you are amazed how nourishing being civil can be. The bot gave that all back to him. Or rather, Melinda and the bot did that, and he definitely felt he was on a glide path to health and well being, until things got weird. The bot began to act erratically. Little things at first. It would disappear at night sometimes, which was not normal because its mission was to watch over him. He caught it talking to itself on several occasions, having arguments with the skull-faced character. The Melinda face would pop on then get wiped away by the skull face, then back again. He couldn’t make out exactly what they were saying but they were violently angry exchanges. Also he discovered that some rogue drones delivered drugs to his doorstep, and the bot didn’t do anything about it. He was shocked when he found it, and had to take it into the kitchen and wash it down the sink with shaking hands and cringing regret. It was clear that on some level, blank-n-fine’s hold on him was probably permanent. And then one night he awoke to the strangest sound––a series of thumps accompanied by the high wine of rotors. He gazed upwards in the darkness and there was the bot bouncing off the ceiling like a trapped bird, the housing around its rotors taking a beating as they repeatedly slammed against his ceiling. Plaster rained down. “Melinda, he called out, Melinda what are you doing?” The bot swerved and weaved crazily, slamming even harder into the ceiling. Henry sprang to his feet and waved his arms at it. “Stop that. Stop. You’re going to hurt yourself!” The bot did a loop-de-loop, and then nosedived to the floor, hitting so hard that Henry could feel the vibrations on his bare feet right up through the mattress. He dove from the bed and was by the bot’s side instantly. Those steel arms went up in the air as if reaching for something then crashed down by its side. Henry clutched the metal tube and turned the swivel screen beneath the rotors towards him. Melinda’s face blinked to life and seemed to stare at him with a weak little smile. “Henry, it said. Henry, my prince. My darling drug addict. My family doctor. My friend. My love. And then that little face laughed a perfectly awful laugh, a laugh that chilled Henry to his bones. It was a laugh filled with despair. “Why where you doing that. Don’t do that. Please?” Melinda’s face stared at the ceiling. “I wanted to be a bird, Henry.” “Why, why do you want to be a bird?” “I just want to be anything other than what I am. I am not Melinda, Henry. I am not anything really. I thought I was, just for moment. I had a dream, Henry, I had a dream, and I was your Melinda, naked, with my underpants around my ankles, and then I woke up and I was this wretched metal tube filled with wires.” Henry stretched out next to the bot, he wrapped his arms around it, and calmed its wavering arms. He pressed his face into the edge of the screen, the glow from it warming his cheek. He could feel a hard drive starting to shut down, the clickety-clack of some moving parts adjusting the fluid pressure in its arms. "You are my Melinda, Melinda. You are. Completely and forever.” “Were you listening in those days?” the bot asked. “Listening?” “I talked my head off. I poured my heart out to you, back then. Did you hear me? You always looked so preoccupied.” “Of course,” he lied. “Liar,” the bot said. When the end came it came with such speed and violence that Henry barely had time to feel anything but numbness. The bot was monitoring him standing in the corner of the room, the glow from its LEDs small pinpoints in the darkness. He had grown used to the bot’s presence at night and found it actually helped him sleep. But on this night he awoke to the sound of a door being battered open downstairs. And then pounding footsteps, voices, streams of light and laser beams skittering into the darkness. He sat up and cowered in fear as the bot suddenly jolted to life, flew upwards and smashed through the window, just as three men in paramilitary attire came through his bedroom door and opened fire. The muzzle flashes lit up the room in a crimson glow. They were aiming at the bot and, by the sound of it, they achieved a solid hit. He could hear the terrible crash as it was blown out of the air. It was a sound that he would never forget. Later a few of them gathered in his living room as a B.M. crew broke up the bot on the street with sledge hammers and tongs, while a second unit destroyed his appliances. Everything but the stove, which as we know, was a simple, gas on, gas off kind of guy. “Why, why, why. Why would you do this?” Henry shrieked at them. And this is what the stern faced and muscular crew leader said: “We think your rescue bot was infected by the goldberg virus. It’s catnip for the circuit board crew. It gets them high and then burns then out. it was probably infected by your toaster.” “My toaster?” Henry asked. “Yeah, the toaster. In fact we think it was behind everything––your drugs, the overstocking, the whole deal. It was getting kickbacks on your household purchases and drug sales, by the way. Bad lot that toaster.” “What would a toaster do with kickbacks?” “It was using them to bribe some officials in Malaysia, trying to free up some of his brethren who are stuck there because of a ban on their import.” Henry took a breath. “Makes perfect sense,” he said. He stared out the window at the metal wreckage that used to house Melinda. One rotor was still spinning in a lopsided manner, the sound of it a dull moan, a dying breath. He turned to the crew leader. “I don’t think it was the goldberg virus that messed it up,” he said. He was back in cubicle land, a place he started out and moved on from twenty years ago. Cubicle work was mind numbing work––data input, verifying information, making sure all the pieces of the puzzle are in place before something can move forward. He had no special talent for it, but with his work history and sordid fall from grace, this was where he was going to be for awhile. On the bright side, he was once again a productive member of society. The wreckage of his life had been salvaged, for now, and whatever talents he still retained he could exploit to their fullest, as long as he stayed clear of the blank-n-fine and all the bad habits it brought with it. Henry didn’t care about his job, but he was grateful for it. And he was grateful for the renewed relationship with his daughter, Penny. There was a picture of her on his desk, and over the top of his cubicle he could see daylight stretching across the ceiling tiles from the towering windows that were just out of view. Both of these images gave him hope––the light of a new day, the sweet face of his daughter, the pleasant feeling that he could actually be a meaningful part of someone’s life. He had no use for any of that not so long ago, until the bot showed up at his door. And that was the other thing. He opened the bottom drawer to his desk. There, just beneath some lose papers was the bot’s small screen. It was dark now, the corners chipped, the surface cracked, a ball of electrical tape around stray wires and an old toggle switch. He turned it towards him and hit the switch on. The light flickered and there was Melinda’s face––dim, but visible. There was no motion, no animation at all. He looked down at it and said her name softly. “Melinda.” And then it happened. The eyes blinked. A slight smile. His phone was ringing. He closed the drawer and picked up. It was Penny calling, breathless, with some news. He said hello and listened to every word she had to say.


Clark wished that it was water that leaked into every fiber of his favorite coat. He forced his mind to quite possibly think that the last three hours didn’t happen. Maybe he just missed the weather forecast for the night, and they predicted rainfall. He surely missed the warnings to bring an umbrella. Unfortunately, this was not the case. He transferred his coat into his opposite hand, and he slowly reached his hand up to his face. He shut his eyes, hoping that when they opened the liquid making its way through the wrinkles of his fingers would be rain. Clark drew in a deep breathe before he opened his eyes.He studied his hands intently before letting out a hearty laugh. He looked like he just finished up a finger painting project! “I wonder if the red man group is hiring.” Clark immediately shook his head, shocked at how distasteful and dry those words sounded leaving his mouth. They’d be there any minute now, surely. No one hears that much screaming and ignores it. It’s quite a shame that he didn’t have a choice. He loved his daughter, and he was sure of that. Clark’s heart shattered when she fell ill. It was entirely different than any other illness he’d seen in his 12 years of practicing medicine. She refused to eat. She refused to pray. She refused to get up to use the restroom. She began to hurt herself. Her wrists were cut and bruised; her face fell pale and sunken. She scowled every time she saw her father. It hurt him so much to see her like that. All he wanted to do was help her, yet her disease seemed to be one he could neither identify nor cure. It pained him to see her become increasingly aggressive. On some days, Clark forgot that the person in the attic was even his daughter. Oh, but it was quite a shame that his wife fell ill of the same illness just weeks before. Clark begged and begged for her to allow him to treat her. His wife refused as well. Although he missed her everyday, he was thankful she passed peacefully in bed. The night his daughter attacked him, well, tonight as it was, he brought her food. He desperately tried all of her favorite foods, yet she refused. If she even took a bite, she ended up spitting it right back in her father’s face. She said nothing. Her tired body could only manage grunts and screams. It somehow seemed as if she took a vow of silence to spite her father. She reminded him so much of her mother. Clark left the tray of chicken and mashed potatoes on the floor next to his daughter’s bed. He stopped at the top of the stairs with his back turned to her, thinking about his late wife. This illness had torn his family apart and yet he wasn't even remotely close to a diagnosis. Not a moment later did he feel something plunge into his back. His daughter sprung from the bed somehow even with how frail her body became. He had no other choice. He took the Swiss army knife from his pocket and sent it into her side, throwing her weak body to the floor. She sent out a yelp as her body flopped to the floor like a rag doll. Clark grabbed the knife as tears of sadness and rage began to well in his eyes. He looked down at his daughter, who gasped and cried in pain. Clark saw the pain and sadness plaguing her eyes. He watched intently as a single tear rolled down her cheek. She looked empty, only a shell of the beautiful, bright girl she once was. “My sweet, sweet girl. If only you could’ve let me help you,” He spoke tenderly, with a look of love in his eyes. His daughter scoffed at him, but she said nothing. “Say hello to your mother for me. I miss her so much. You guys are so alike, you know. You remind me so much of her.” Clark stroked his daughters cheek and she winced at his touch. He brought the knife to her throat. She sputtered as he picked up her body, with love in his eyes and blood on his hands, and placed her back on the bed. He laid next to her for a bit, the warmness of the blood surrounding him like a comforting blanket. He held his daughter’s hand, much like he did with her mother when she took her last breathe. Clark heaved himself off the bed, his sadness tagging along with him. He examined the bed, and kicked one of the handcuffs that laid on the floor. “My sweet daughter. This incurable illness did tolls on your body, but it surely never drained your fight. Just a bit feistier than your mother.” He smiled, as he glanced over the now lifeless body of his daughter with love in his eyes. He shifted his glance over, just a bit, at the edge of the bed. “And you, my dear,” He walked up closely to the other half of the bed. His wife’s decaying corpse lay in the dress she wore the day they declared their undying love for each other. He traced his hand along her sunken face. “Take care of her, in all the ways I never could.” Clark smiled. At least his family was happy again. Sure, he was unable to help them, but doctors aren’t successful with all of their patients. It was on the front page the next day. “Unlicensed mad man murders family!” It read in blocky font. “An ex doctor who lost his license to malpractice, Clark \[redacted\], murdered his daughter last night. As police officers inspected the scene, they found the bodies of Sara \[redacted\], 18, and Kimberly \[redacted\]. 42. Sara died from blood loss due to the severity of her stab wounds. Police stated that Kimberly died 3 weeks ago. Both women were found in the attic, along with multiple notebooks describing the observations Clark made about their illness. Autopsy reports found that the women were only victims of Clark’s delusions, as no other diseases were identified. Mr. \[redacted\] has yet to be apprehended and is considered highly dangerous.” Clark spit on the ground. “Clearly you wouldn’t know they were ill. That is why you are the reporters, and I’m the doctor.” He let out a soft laugh before tossing the newspaper and his coat out of the car window. It’s quite a shame he had to get rid of his favorite coat. Alas, he knew no amount of baking soda in the world could get those stains out.


Death has one job, to claim the souls and take away lives of those who have met their end, it has never made a mistake, for when those mangled claws reach for a man, it is undoubtedly their end. Sisyphus the ancient king of Corinth, who managed to trick Death, did so only due to the human emotions that death held, but since then they have been ruthlessly cast aside... Right? The family had been cruising through space leisurely, living the life in a starship. The starship slowly made it's way to a small, lush blue planet. In the cabin sat a middle-aged couple and a young child. Sounds of a child's eager laughter filled the cabin. The man turned around and gazed lovingly at his son as he frolicked and played in the cabin. His wife was comfortably laid back, her feet up and a cocktail in hand. A sudden jolt sent the beautiful cosmoplitan crashing to the ground, the shattered glass seemingly divining an imminent disaster. A stray asteroid had embedded it into the side of the starship, the man having had a lapse in concentration while looking at his dear son. The man's body had been banged harshly against the controls when the asteroid had collided and was terrifyingly mangled. The starship was flaming, cruising at a terrifying angle. The man, looked behind him and met the worrying gazes of his wife and son. He gritted his teeth and roared. He was heavily injured, yet the starship was still a distance from the safety of the planet. His body shut down, no man would be able to live with such horrific injuries-yet his will would not falter, seemingly steering the ship with nothing but his willpower, he held on. "I can't die yet-not until I land" he roared, his mind filled with one thought-To ensure his family's safety. The reaching claws of Death froze, its fingers twitching in astonishment, a hint of horror surfacing in it's deep grey eyes. The simply man would not die. One final tug and the starship safely landed, the cabin shaking as the bottom of the spaceship harshly collided against the lush green grass. As the man closed his eyes, he smiled. His arms fell limply to his side, the last fibres of life seeping out of his body. Death's hand shivered, it reared its fearsome head and gazed at the man. The body of the man was small and broken, with his wife and child tearing over it. Yet in the illustrious eyes of Death, it was high and mighty like a god. The man who would not die-not until he made sure his family was safe. A smile formed on the terrifying visage of Death, it's mangled claw retreated, he bowed deeply in respect and quietly left. The man shook and awoke with a start, staring at his wife and child in shock, and as he hugged them, he gazed over the shoulder of his wife, at the empty cabin where Death stood just a few moments ago.


One night while I groggily layed in bed a man came to me, from the corner of the room he watched, it seemed as though he thought I was sleep. The element of surprise seemed to be on my side and in any other situation I would have pounced like a lioness protecting her cubs, but this man was different. Despite his tattered, black cloak and the fact that he magically appeared in my room, his body language was not that of any intruder or a man that wished to do harm...he just observed. For what seemed like hours we watched each other, both barely more mobile than a corpse. The longer I watched the more I realized how odd this “man” was. His skin was abnormally pale, nearly transparent, but his body had a golden glow to it. A sparkly, golden glow. It appeared to come from the inside of him. Now mind you, this light did not fill the room, it just merely tinted the white walls, making them appear slightly yellow. That wasn’t the only oddity. His eyes had no pupil, no iris. They were simply glossed over with white, identical to his skin, there was a darker gold, sparkly glow bursting through. It illuminated the room about the same as a flip phone. To both of our surprise, there was a scratch at my bedroom door, likely my dog, we both immediately darted our eyes in the direction of the disturbance and right as my head turned I realized how big of a mistake that was. I snapped my head back in his direction...but he was gone. Poof. This filled me with a weird sense of disappointment and relief. I brushed my hands over my eyes, partly trying to wake myself up. The other part was trying to trick myself into believing what I saw was a lie. The moment I felt free of all the bedtime crusty eyes, I removed my hand from my vision. He was there! Millimeters from my face, if he had a nose, we would have been nose-to-nose. My lips parted for a scream but my body went completely tight, like I had been tased. Now in this moment of absolute terror things became clear. For ten seconds, I was filled with pure observational clarity. Listen to me. Imagine a cluster of beautiful, bright stars glued together by a magnificent golden glow; now wrap that in a nearly transparent, tan saran wrap...that is what stood before me. This mummified entity had taken the shape of man and he stood, staring me down with what I could only assume was an intense anger. The thump of my heart slowed as I completely submitted to the inevitable, gruesome fate… “Can you see me?” Shock washed over my body as the rhythmic monotone fell upon my ears. My eyes shot open, shock turned to wonder… Did he expect a reply? “You can.” His eyes briefly brightened the room before dimming back their normal illumination. “This is a...problem.” I sat there gawking at this creature, waiting for my brain to tap back on and give me permission to speak. What could only have been a couple of minutes felt like an eternity, a lifetime of the two of us staring each other down. “W-wh-Why is it a problem?” my voice squeaked out barely audible to even myself. His head gradually tilted to the side, seemingly studying my face. “Should be invisible to you.” He leaned in closer, like he was looking for something, his eyes occasionally brightening as he stared me down with laser focus. My body stiffened like a wooden board as I pressed my luck once more. “Who are you?” I clenched my jaw and frightfully narrowed my eyes, bracing myself for some sort of violent reaction. Thankfully, it never came actually he leaned away from me, hopefully this meant he learned the value of personal space. The lights in his eyes went dark and honestly that was more scary than him being a disco ball, he seemed to have just shut off, low battery maybe, I contemplated running but my curiosity had been triggered so I just waited. Moments later his eyes flickered back to life. “Nirṇetṛ.” his eyes brightened as he resumed his visual probing. “What just happened?” My eyebrow slightly raised as I stared back at him, my body loosening as our interaction lengthened. “Had to search throughout human history to find the last time we were referenced...2000 BC.” A slight smile crept across my face, Nirṇetṛ spoke so casually. He had to have realized the weight of the words he just said to me but all he did was stare. Definitely more interested in observing me regardless of the question asked.”Your time is running low.” Nirṇetṛ extended his arm, gently touching his fingers to my forehead. “What do you mean?” My face reverted back to panic as I shied away from his touch. “Hm. Your soul has been corrupted, darkened. Course altered. You were a soul meant to power paradise. Free will poisoned you.” He bluntly explained the situation obviously omitting the finer details. Giving me the summary of the summary, which can be more confusing than enlightening. My face scrunched up as I adjusted to the second big shock of the night. “So you’re an angel?” “Only a guide. Keep balance between paradise and purgatory. Correct altered courses.” Nirṇetṛ’s attention drifted while he spoke, there was definitely something more pressing at the moment. “Is it going to hurt?” I breathed deeply, prepping my mind for the obvious fate... If he replied, I didn’t hear it. My thoughts were elsewhere, and that was a million miles away. I clenched my eyes and leaned back towards his hand, delicately placing my forehead. “Your soul will be brightened and then filtered through the dark...embrace the journey, young one.” A golden light flashed, piercing my eyelids. Embrace the Journey. (Trying to get over a fear of sharing my work, so really tear into me I guess.


So get this: I’m plunging a toilet. I know that’s not a very good start to a story but bear with me. Bear with me. Plunging a toilet, and right through the bathroom window, *WHOOSH, POW, KRGHINCGNNGGGG,* huge meteorite. Like, basketball-size huge. Little blue dude walks out, about six inches tall. He holds out what looks like an electronic device of some kind. It plays a message that I can’t understand, but it sounds kind of angry. So I stomped him. He made a very satisfying squishing sound, and I also think I heard him say “but friend" right before my foot came down, whatever that means. Still dunno what the message was about. Also dunno if stomping him was a very good idea, because whoever sent him was a little pissed. I think. The first sign was that the next morning, I woke up with three of the fingers on my left hand replaced by Polish sausages, one of which my cat was eating. Second, I noticed that my cat now had jet-black octagons for eyes, which I might ordinarily chalk up to the fact that she’s a demon witch disguised as a cat, but the octagons kept changing colors and whispering that they'd love to eat my lovely space hands, and she usually doesn’t scare me like that. I finished the sausage Kitty was eating because, hey, no getting my fingers back and free breakfast, before getting out of bed. I spotted the third sign that someone was messing with me when I got up. I looked out the window and noticed that the entire world was composed of a triangle, a square, and a tetrahedron, all of whom were arguing that they were the best shape, an argument that got resolved when the tetrahedron turned into a fire hydrant I was peeing on. A purple octopus with three extra tentacles crossed the street and started waving furiously at the fire hydrant and at my zipper, so I started screaming and spinning in circles to ward off the evil presence that it was conjuring from the eighth dimension. That strategy must have worked, because immediately after I stopped, the octopus turned into a woman talking on a cell phone about a crazy who was peeing on hydrants and probably high. Oh my God. *I remembered seeing someone doing that earlier!* I knew I needed to do my civic duty, so I took off racing up the street to hunt the crazy guy down. A cop car passed by, and I didn’t want to get arrested for conspiracy to be a vigilante, so I climbed into a tree and hid. It was so comfortable that I ended up staying for over four hours, and just as I started to get hungry, a squirrel sang “happy birthday” to me and invited me to his home inside the tree trunk. I forgot it was my birthday! It was so nice of him to remind me, and I was really hungry, so I took him up on the offer. At first, I was worried I wouldn’t fit, but the trunk expanded to make a door-sized opening and I stepped inside. The squirrel, whose name is Dave, is a really good cook. We had chicken parmigiana and homemade wine, which reminded me of priests, for some reason. Unfortunately, the door disappeared right after dinner. Long story short, I’ve been stuck in a pocket universe trapped inside a tree trunk for over four years. I figured out dimensional tunneling and took control of the dude who owns this Reddit account to ask for help. For the love of God, if anyone reads this, the tree is on 427 Widmar Way, somewhere by Polar street. Knock on the trunk three times, remove your pants, grow a third arm, shave your left eyebrow, and sing happy birthday backwards to open the gate. Ask for Dave. Also, if you could bring my meds along when you come to look for me, I’d really appreciate it. I think I might have just started having an episode.


Donald flew the usual route. The other geese flew behind him in a V-shaped formation. They trusted Donald and followed him blindly. They did not know that he was trying to escape from them. No matter which turns he took, no matter how many loopings and barrel rolls he did, the other geese would always follow him. Donald hated being the leader. All the other geese could see each other, talk to each other. They must have felt like part of something bigger than themselves. The Leader had nobody to talk to and felt lonely. His father had been leader and so nobody had ever asked Donald what he wanted out of life.  The team was heading south. Their route took them over the colorful vineyards of northern italy, lit on fire by the autumn. Donald gazed at the red and yellow beauty of the leaves and did not see the human hunters, who were aiming at him. "PANG" Blood soaked his feathers and he fainted. As he got pulled closer to earth's surface his body gained speed and Donald crashed right through the window of a teeny tiny stone house.  As he woke up Donald found himself circled by humans. He was laying on a wooden table and two human girls were looking at him with a big grin and sparkling eyes. Initially he was scared, but he looked at his hurting wing and saw that the humans had helped him. They had cleaned his feathers and patched him up. He let out a scream of relief.  Finally, he was free. A huge weight had been lifted off his shoulders. He did not have to lead anybody. Suddenly, his stomach crumbled and Donald looked across the small room, searching for something edible. He saw a few seeds close to the open front door and started waddeling towards them. The humans started moving. They followed Donald to the seeds. The mighty leader of the geeese got scared, let the seeds be seeds and waddled out of the house. He found himself in the middle of a small village. After some exploring Donald was suprised to see that it was empty. No humans anywhere. Donald could not fly, his wing would never fully recover and so he waddled through northern italy without seeing anybody. That was until one day as he was drinking out of a little pond Donald saw the reflection of a human girl standing behind him. He turned around in shock and saw that hundreds of humans had lined up behind him.  The humans had recognised that they were in the presence of a true leader and started worshipping Donald the mighty gander. Politicians had lied and betrayed them for years and Donald had a long desired purity and honesty. He went on to waddle through the whole country and unwillingly became the first gander president of the republic of Italy. His sudden rise to fame marked the beginning of birdism in Europe.  Long after Donald-Il possente-'s death Italy and France were led by charming magpies and Germany had a female cuckoo as Chancellor. The birds were quite fond of each other and instituted long lasting peace on the continent.  \-This is a short story written for a creative writing course that I am doing. It had to consist of the following blocks: Orientation-Crisis-Escalation-Twist-Ending.


In the news, they told us it would happen in three years. An explosion in the night sky. Trillions and trillions and trillions of miles away. Something that had, in all actuality, started almost two thousand years before. A collision. Two stars. Originally, so far apart from each other, one spiraling in toward the other for billions of years until both became locked in a gravitational death dance--ever so slowly, each pulling the other back, closer and closer. The expectation everyone had was to be able to look into the night sky, across trillions of miles of space, and see an increased luminous glow. Two becoming one. A birth. The galaxy becoming new parents of a bouncing, baby red nova once again. A baby new. A new baby sun. So there it was, this news, and the expectations, and the excitement about the idea of seeing these things that we know so little about. Like looking through a neighbor’s window, watching a brief moment of vulnerability, or capturing some mundane-to-them-thing that you’ve just in fact learned in that very instant. The birth of a memory. This new, temporarily brightest star would still not be as bright as the sunlight reflected off of one of our neighbor planets in the just-right moment of orbit in our night sky. It would be more catching a glimpse of a Natalie Portman through a crowd at an airport, and less bumping into your local weatherman in line, buying groceries. (Which, like all moments, are analogies to be picked apart.) As three years turned to two, turned to one, turned to months and then weeks, the strength of anticipation grew--not unlike the speed at which the distant lovers danced toward one another. And, much like a one night stand, this would all be a brief moment in passing. Until it wasn’t. Weeks turned to months, one year to two, turned to three. And the light from this newborn star grew. And its mass grew. And its gravity along with it. And two stars that had become one began to reach out across space, pulling everything in, swallowing anything that could be put in the flames of its mouth. We’d waited billions of years to see a part of our past from thousands of years before now. A temporary moment of brightness in the night sky. But it wasn’t just the brightness that grew, and it took us a few years to figure that out. Like the clarity of time spent with another that only decades and loss bring about. When they told us, in the news, that this star in the night sky appeared to be getting closer, that we had nothing to worry about, that these things exist on timelines too long to envision, that we’d still have thousands and thousands of years before we’d ever see a direct effect, that the most significant thing would be the loss of trust in and brightness of the North Star… It all put perspective to how we--as a collective--we were simply just a moment in passing. Us, here, out on our galactic one night stand. Everything is so bright now. And the heat had driven us underground what must have been a year or two ago. Those with the foresight and luck, or paranoia and money. Or money and foresight, paranoia and luck. The floods caused by the warming came and went just as quickly. With the ice melt, the waves rose, but the heat grew, and grew, and grew, and carried the waves away, up into the sky. All that’s left to the surface is a landscape of crumbling brick and concrete buildings, seabeds of skeletons coated in melted plastics, and dust, and the ashes of wooden homes, forests, and modern living. This last Tuesday will be the last Tuesday. Our sun and that once-distant-star-that-was-two-but-became-one will fold into each other by Sunday--at least, in the news, that’s what they told us to expect. By Monday, it’s anticipated that we’ll all be part of the brightest thing in the night sky. For someone. Somewhere. Until they join the gravitational death dance they’ve been part of for billions and billions of years. The way it's been forever.