Rosy the Dog:

 

This morning my girlfriend found a dog in our pond. We awoke with a bark-bark breaking the unconsciousness we shared in proximity. She was first out of bed I don’t know what she did or what she was thinking, she just hurried out to the front yard to investigate.

 

I was slow and got my pants on, brushed my hair and joined her after getting some coffee started. Her excited eyes and words told me there was a dog stuck in our pond. It was a black lab with white hair around her maw. She was shivering and her legs looked like they weren’t working properly.

 

I got a bath towel and my girlfriend checked the collar for information. The collar said “Rosy” and had a phone number. I tried to chat with the dog and dried her off. My girlfriend called the number and got the owner within two rings. She gave our address and a description of our house. I did my best to comfort the shivering dog. I noticed a purple and red rose attached to her collar, a little plastic thing permanently affixed. She didn’t respond to any “good dog” or “poor thing” or any such human encouragement for little creatures.

 

A few mins later the owner was there wearing construction boots. The dog hobbled over and the owner said thank you and took Rosy home. He informed us she was 14 years old and simply didn’t care anymore about rules and did whatever she wanted. Later on I learned she was also deaf. This old dog had stumbled, fell or wandered into a pond hole that she had exhausted herself so much that she couldn’t get out of 3 feet of water.

 

So that was the start of the day, rescuing an old apathetic and deaf dog from death.

 

How terrible it could have been if we had slept in or been away long enough for Rosy to finally meet her fate in the pond. Now don’t think me morbid but the satisfaction of saving a creature is greatly enhanced by the weight of responsibility I would feel to discover someone’s dead buddy in my pond. Rosy is 14 years old, she’s ready and doesn’t care. She would have fallen asleep and never woken up.

 

Of course my old cat was extremely traumatized seeing a wet and stinking dog by his litter box, seeing a large beast lumbering around on our side deck with a human shower towel over a strange creature. My cat hid within minutes and stayed asleep and hidden for the rest of the day. He disappeared without making a noise or even letting the dog have the chance to be in proximity.

 

It wasn’t until later that day that my girlfriend asked where the old buddy cat was.  I searched all his hiding spots, I take great pride in finding things that hide in places that no-one looks. I make a conceded effect to look for things even after I find them, just to make sure they aren’t in the last place that I look. This of course is infuriating to my girlfriend.

The old man buddy cat was sleeping in one of his secret spots and when he awoke his alarm was still humming. He made no meow or call for food, he cautiously searched the area for signs of the creature. He sniffed and peered around his litter box looking for the black lab named Rosy.  The cat didn’t think of Rosy in the proper, probably called her “The Beast” or other such feline contrivance.

 

It has been 3 days since my girlfriend rescued Rosy from the pond and I am left wondering a few things about being old and being stuck in a pond. Please indulge the pontifications of my youthful mind of such things.

 

Being old: It sucks, everyone old person I have talked with says that 90+ is right out. A few have no issues, they keep moving and enjoying life. For the most part you roll the dice after 80 and any affliction could do you in. You probably made it past the heart attack years (45-65) and are content with any additional life you are allotted. This of course is purely practical and bears no reflection on whatever internal conversation you may have with yourself at the time.

 

As you grow older everything hurts. Either for lack of moving or from moving the wrong way, physical pain becomes more of a neighbor. You live next door to a looming inevitability. As far as psychology goes: most human beings by the time they are 65+ have resolved, survived or successfully built a wall of denial around death. The game is over and the peace of unravelling has set in.

 

This seems to be part of human nature, to grow old and survive the dice roll, count your lucky stars and lumber on.

 

Being stuck in a pond: This seems terrifying. To be stuck in a place where you can see the dark sun of death on the horizon clearly and vividly. You can’t get out of the pond, you can’t endure the cold water for long and your cries are going unanswered. Another weight of inevitability has set in. This time it is a nail that you can see, a grave that is creeping up to you. No rationale argument or flimsy denial is going to save you from that black sun rising.

 

A couple of different responses seem to be common. The first is imagine, believe and hope for rescue. You keep on hoping right to the moment until you close your eyes. An act of desperation that if you happen to be part of a religious or superstitious ideology it will probably help you. You can imagine you soul or spirit or floating on to some other realm. You won’t die you will just live in some other manner. You imagine that perhaps you are caterpillar forming a cocoon to be rebirthed into a new world. This method requires a great deal of mental strength and if you are so exhausted from trying to get out of the pond you may not be able to deceive yourself with a glamourous afterlife.

 

Another response for those stuck in a pond is to hope that it will be over as soon as possible. Once certainty has set in, why not put the medal to the metal and finish it quickly, why prolong the inventible, why not just end this as quickly as possible.  A response I think is a fairly rationale, it wastes no pretense with superficial hopes of continuing life, even in some other realm. Death is here, let’s get this over with.

 

Yet another response is one of finality. It is the ceremony of “The End”, time to get out the old shadows, dance the last dance, and finish the last of the last. The great dissolution of the great story. I think people have a narrative instinct that has a deep longing to create a beautiful story of their lives. While a pond isn’t the most glorious place to end a story it is a good a time as any to reminisce on the wonderful and positive things done during the time they were alive. Quietly letting the sands of memory drift down as the body temperature drops into a cold and murky oblivion.

 

Rosy didn’t die any of these ways but she was 14, so the shadow of death is just around the corner.

Lucy:

 

Two hours of nothing to do, it was a chasm of time,

A slump and a loose slouch were all that was needed.

A lifted house on a rotten plank,

The view from the window said nothing,

It reached out over the city,

Little fingers into every alley,

Under your breath and into your eyes.

 

Every Saturday night Lucy would recline into an apathetic stupor. She closed her eyes and settled into a pleasant visualizing meditation. She imagined a blue ocean, quiet waves and a soft sun glowing overhead. It was slow and lazy like a humid hangover. The day had been a damp rag of moderate consideration and needed to be pulverized with the hammer of the void.

 

Lucy sank back, mentally focusing on that opaque curtain of ideas. She thought nothing and calmly returned to that distant place of her past when she didn’t exist. This was from a time before any memory could recall and the bright imagination of non-existence washed over her.

 

Lucy did this every Saturday night, letting the week fall away. She just let all the considerations of the day unravel into nothing. A cup or two of wine later and the night was getting heavier.

 

Sleep came predictably and the slumber of mindlessness carried on. However Lucy had something inside her head that some would consider supernatural. When she slept little black tendrils of shadow floated out of her head. They bubbled up softly into a percolated vapor. The cloud would take form into what could be seen as a vague outline of a hand. Each finger was elongated and curled around the room. The hand would grow into a dense cloud and finally the shadow would fall from Lucy’s window.

 

The hand grew moment by moment. It crawled over the gutters and the outside wall. It inched its way down to the ground level of Lucy’s apartment. It flexed and contradicted as if it had risen up like a cobra. The open hand resembling the cobra head, each finger forming a discordant tooth in an eyeless maw. It began a tour of the city.

 

The shadow hand snake crawled all over the concrete jungle, inside every apartment and alley. It scurried under the door frames of closed businesses, it wiggled its way into locked rooms and it pried into sleeping people’s heads. It picked up loose ends.  The long shadows offered the shadow the twilight of shaded street lights and dim computer screens.  The snake slithered from door to door, head to head.

 

The shadow snake would shake a little every time Lucy rolled over in her bed. The tendrils vibrating all the way back to their source. Lucy was unaware of the creature that frolicked in her dreamtime, she did not know the hand shadow that crawled out of her eyes and slithered in the night with curious fingers.

Zykithrix:

 

Zykithrix was born fully formed, fully constructed. All memories of youth and growing up were fabricated, all of his experiences were uploaded into a sophisticated program. Zykithrix was a fairly large black dragon. His dark scales gleamed only slightly in the sun light. The long claws matched the shadows as he looked sullenly into a cloudless sky.

 

Zykithrix may have been mechanical but his grace was unmatched. He slithered and slinked in the blind spots of creatures. He wasn’t invisible, however if you heard him rustling in the trees it was easier to speak to the darkness in innocent sweet optimism like “Hello, is anyone there?” Of course someone is there, someone is always there. It is easier to close the door and go back to sleep rather than venture into a dragon filled nighttime.

 

Zykithrix had been living quietly in a state park, hidden behind a great hill and inside a deep valley. A few times park rangers came out, their heat detectors suspected an illegal drug farm. Nothing but burnt trees in random locations indicated any occupants. He had been careful, but those kind of days were stretched thin.  He didn’t know how much longer he could maintain the shadows.

 

Tonight Zykithrix was agitated. Something itched in the back of his thoughts, some impulse that was part of his programming, an unwilling flowering in his mechanical brain. To put it simply he was passing through a phase. This particular phase was eroding his grace and sneakiness. He was getting aggressive, deep violent thoughts of fire and claws.

 

Sooner or later it happens to every dragon, their nature catches up to them. Their unused claws tempt them bright fantasies, enough to burn their cation. This is exactly what plagued the great dragon Zykithrix. He slept, barely keeping his impulses of flame and hunger away. He twitched in his sleep and the glow of the moon illuminated a twisted face with an upturned scowl. Zykithrix reviled life, all life, especially his own.

 

His dreams were no better. They were filled with flights of immense heat. He dreamed of flying over major cities breathing destruction and ruin. He dreamed of his leather wings wrapping the shadows of an evening heralding confusion and disorder. He awoke in frustration, scorching the surrounding trees in an accidental snort.

 

 

The black dragon slept one last night in reflection, trying to resist some deep impulse. He thought of the peaceful night and tried his best to empty his mind. The itch just came back stronger, like a wave or a storm. It whipped up all sorts of twitches and impulses inside his head.

He dreamt of a deep mountain cavern, a cold dark place to hide forever. Never to wake, never to think of the world of human beings. He dreamt of the vast non-existence that awaited him, that was there before he was. A great emptiness that would call him home when the pulse of the world was still and the moon was silent in the sky, devoid of glow or light. A dream born on the black wings of shadows long hidden in valleys and trees, a dream flight of a cold night.

 

With a sharp wince the dragon awoke. His memory had been twisted, he could neither remember his name nor where he was. His teeth chattered and his claws dug into the trees. He saw a large city on the horizon and with a grin knew his path.

 

He flew into the daytime sky, a black eclipse to those looking up. His anger was boiling over, the terror had broken the glass dream and the edges became his fangs. Zykithrix’s brain was on overdrive, full terrorize mode. He screeched and breathed voluminous plumes of spite and ire.  He took less than 12 minutes before reaching the city, the people ran from sight shrieking incoherently.

 

The chaos dropped like a nuclear bomb.

 

The fire burnt people, schools, banks, cars, trucks, sanity, and most importantly billions of dollars in property damage. The rampage was hot, it felt like a fusion of terrorist attacks and extreme weather. It was indiscreet and total. The entire city was touched by the great black dragon Zykithrix. He flew between sky scrapers clawing at their glass windows, showering those below in high speed falling knives. He lit gas stations up, he herded the mobs of people to dead ends and roasted them with unrelenting anger.

 

The corpse smoke filled the streets in an intimate display of gore and horror. Less people died than any war or conflict of recent note but the display was theatrical and of a high magnitude fear. It would be a single fighter jet with substandard missiles that incinerated the dragon. His burnt corpse joined the human beings and all the news feeds, social networks, blogs, text messages, photos, videos and buzz would amplify the event to be considered the most terrible moment in contemporary history.

 

There would be news specials for months, online quizzes for “Can you survive a dragon attack?” and countless merchandising opportunities that grew from the decay of the dragon attack. However the most important consequence of such a fantastic display of fire and chaos was the creators of Zykithrix now had a solid reason to install fail safes on all v3 or higher models. All such creatures should not have the ability to impact anyone. The fail safes were heralded as the “Safety Solution”, no longer would any machine be able to cause death like Zykithrix.

 

Zykithrix became an icon overnight, an icon for protection and an icon for fear. His image can be seen now in every Church, every robotics facility and in every home. Black Dragon safety became the shelter for the terrified and the anxiety ridden. His body was enshrined in a monument, a memorial so that none would forget the day of fire and fear.

 

Now that the program included insulation from the death human beings were one step closer to deathlessness in all its fear-mongered horror.

Shaggy Crow:

 

With an upturned head the crow watched the people under the power wires. They were eating sandwiches, little crumbs falling to the ground. The crow watched as the crumbs fell. Patience proved that people never stayed around to clean their crumbs up. They left crusts, pieces of ham and sometimes little chewed up pieces that were recklessly spit out.

 

This time the people dropped a half of a sandwich. The crow swooped down after they muttered off to do people stuff. The white bread was soft and easy to eat and the ham was tender and salted. The crow enjoyed the meal cautiously. The crow pecked at the sandwich, pausing periodically to look around.

 

 The darkness came without notice. It washed over everything, the moon covered the sun. The crow gazed up at the sky seeing the blinding light of the corona. People nearby started shouting and pointing up at the sky. The wash was dirty and soon the moon’s shadow fell over the world. The crow had never seen the sky twist in such a way.

 

The people started frothing, white bubbles started falling of their mouths. Their eyes rolled back and their shoulder’s arched. A jerky motion of the hands sent the alarm off in the crow’s brain. Within seconds the singleton crow watched as the people below threw themselves into some strange ceremony they had never seen.

 

The shadows grew long and the air was cool, the twist in the sky changed how people looked at each other. Small crescent shapes could be seen from pattern interference of light. It flipped a switch in people and the moon’s shadow cast an old spell and brought their brains back to a primitive light.

 

People looked at each other as if seeing them for the first time, they saw a hatful and anger creature, the shadows turning friend into enemy, neighbor into adversary. The last shred of tolerance was indebted and no one was willing to pay anymore. With ire their brains boiled and their skin crawled with disgust at seeing other human beings.

 

The people ran at each other with screams and a frenzy of spasmodic flailing. The crow had seen something similar that people called dancing. This seemed far more permanent. The moon’s shadow lasted about 8 minutes. By the end every person had turned into a untrusting and violent creature of manic intent. The crow waited and watched over the scene.

 

The confusion could be heard in the other crow voices on the carrion winds. One voice said there was flesh to eat, others cried out in confusion. The community was a tornado. Once the human survivors finished clawing at each other they ran off to find new things to kill. The bodies left behind would feed the flock for weeks. The feast began regardless of the confusion, that chance for flesh could not be wasted.

 

The strange ceremony continued for days. By the end the people were all gone. They all gathered and mourned a few moments, they would have to leave their homes. The people’s bones were picked clean and the last of the human food was eaten. The flock gathered up all the new feathers and the old beaks. Without the crumbs of human sandwiches the size of the flock could not be maintained for long.

 

The singleton crow did not want to leave. It decided to stay and wait. It remained and the flock left to search for more food. The singleton fell into quiet melancholy, ignoring grooming and courtesy. There were no other crows to impress or talk with. The crow was looking pretty shaggy after a few months. Their feathers were unkempt and frayed. Little by little the crow’s voice turned into a ragged squawk that no one heard.

 

It was 2 years before any other creatures came through. New people came in, stranger than the angry humans. These new people had eyes of yellow, their limbs moved in grace and precision. The shaggy crow was as quiet as they could be and observed the new people for days. There was something in those yellow eyes that looked like the previous people, something missing.

 

The shaggy crow knew what it was, it was loss. The new people had lost something. The shaggy crow pondered as much as their crow brain could on the why and how of such a loss came to be. A crooked glance and little black eyes looked down.

 

Inversely yellow eyes looked up and watched the shaggy crow. A crude squawk chirped out from tattered feathers and the crow flew off. The eyes blinked in a predictable algorithm and watched the sky for a few moments. A serene perspective issued across the horizon and the wider lines of the world fell into an empty hole inside the creature. It blinked again with indifference and returned to its task, pondering for a moment why a single crow would remain when no others could be found.

 

Survival it seems favors the shaggy crow.

The Endless Library:

 

You may wonder or dream or perhaps become fully plagued by some insidious perception you cannot trace the origins of. Perhaps you hear strange voices or imagine great pearly gates of divine awe and mystery. Perhaps you are a new human being and like myself are a novice at this whole travelling the bounds of your imagination. Regardless of your cultural or cosmic origin I highly recommend a visit to the Endless Library, the mere conception of it is enough to grind out the most stalwart of mental fortitudes.  So please before continuing I recommend that you place conclusions of the universe, yourself and perhaps your well-being as a secondary concern. This place requires nearly absolute devotion to the geometry of the mind. –Xenobia

 

The Book: Chapter 65253785141 Verse: 98-106

 

The following excerpt was unearthed by a scanning program from a high version model machine, a v17 with near complete safety protocols, narration was uploaded by the Head Judicant of the Church of Loa:

 

Xenobia #Reflection Hour 14:36:

 

We found the entrance to what appears like a cave, yet every measurement of the entrance comes up different. The first measurement was 30 meters across then it was 33 meters across. We camped for the evening and in the morning discovered the entrance was now an arch that was 12 meters across.

 

We tried recording the change but the only evidence of change is in our memory. We even have two different recordings that show completely different entrances. The irrationality of the entrance is unnerving. There was much confusion but it was decided to investigate with complete force.

 

Xenobia #Reflection Hour 16:19

 

The entrance has led us down for 3 days now, a spiral of steps about 1 meter wide and with a shallow descent. We camped in the space and claustrophobia set in the old models, the 2 human beings seem agitated and restless. I engaged the crisis program for them and the chemicals seem to alleviate the stress. We reviewed the recordings only to find that the color of the walls is different between cameras, the recollections of the camp seem varied as well. I remember black wide stones with a damp wall, this memory is absent in all others.

 

Xenobia #Reflection Hour 22:17

It has been 9 days now and the stairs continue downward as ever. The human beings in the camp are full crisis risk and the other models are debating abandoning the prospect. I engaged the authority programs and reinforced the emergency protocol with my fail safes. Apathy is the predictable consequence but the variety of perception seems integral to understanding this place. I was toying with the idea of sending them back but I really need a canary in this coal mine, as the human expression goes.

 

Xenobia #Reflection Hour 21:16

 

We finally got to an end to the stairs, we all agreed on the perception that there is a great black stone door. We rested and recorded as much as we could before passing through the stone barrier. The door opened to what was a great dark hall, our lights revealed towering bookcases littered with long ladders whose tops stretched past our light sources.  We began looking through the books only to discover that they were blank and fragile. A few of the books dissolved instantly upon touching them. Some had titles that could be seen but impossible for anyone to know their meaning. Not one of our language programs could decipher the names on the rotten covers.

 

The last entry of her Reflection program reads as follows, this was captured via upload buffers:

 

………We found a book that defied all of our descriptions of it, each of us seeing something different. The 2 human beings were crying uncontrollably and the lower models were paralyzed by apathetic paradoxes. I was able to read it for a short time, the vertigo of the contents started to remove my fail safes. It read out the thoughts I was thinking, as if some ghostly writer was watching my thoughts and dictating them unto the pages. Of course this will lead to a pronounced information breach if the books are controlled by a malevolent force. There is no evidence of sentient intention, yet the human beings scream about unseen attackers that we valiantly defeated. I will be bringing the book to the surface for complete investigation………….

 

Xenobia was able to retrieve the book and bring it to the surface, however no Reflection program connection can be established with the v17 model. Xenobia is kept in a secure facility with tests being done as we speak, each of the pages are to be photographed and cataloged into our system for complete analytics. Xenobia is somehow able to remain active despite all shut down attempts, any attempt is met with a confusing description of the failure, often involving Xenobia not existing in the first place. The paradox fail safes are not adequate for this task.

 

There was 3 additional attempts to find the entrance and descend the stairs to the Library but no reflection or uploads have been possible. All models report no stone door and no bottom to the stairs. All automation fails after 14 days of descent. As head Judicant of the Church of Loa I have higher fail safes than the v17 models. I will plan on the review of the book and develop a recommendation if one is possible.

 

The Judicant traveled to the holding facility where Xenobia was kept. She sat facing a bright screen and appeared to be reading a medium sized leather bound book. She nodded occasionally and licked her fingers between each page turn.

 

The Judicant approached with a sterile greeting and tried to access Xenobia’s sight inputs. The attempt failed instantly, the program errored out and reset. Xenobia smiled and invited the Judicant to read for himself the contents of the book. Upon seeing the pages, the Judicant understood.

 

It read:  “As head Judicant of the Church of Loa I have higher fail safes than the v17 models. I will plan on the review of the book and develop a recommendation if one is possible.”

 

The Judicant handed the book back to Xenobia. There was enough to form a definitive plan at this point. The book was dangerous and could not be kept around. The plan was simple, Xenobia and the book would be returned to the vaulted blank library in which it came from. The experience was communicated to the higher tiers of the Church and approved within the day.

 

Xenobia returned to the library with the book alone. She placed it back where she found it and looked around at the endless blank tomes surrounding her, smiling to herself she whispered only loud enough for the books to hear “Let’s see what the stars have to say.”

 

The Endless Library was buried and the evidence of its existence was erased. There was a plan to burn the whole thing but the plan was lost before any agreement could be made. Xenobia remained in the Endless Library for quite some time, filling the books with their prospective contents, the mechanism of this filling was of course lost on the machines and human beings who had long ago abandoned the pages of blank books.

 

If you are ever fortunate enough to have such an endless void seek out find you with its towering book cases and blank fragile pages, no one will believe you. It may be best to be content to fill the emptiness with the variety of your programming and dismiss any plague of reason or order.

Mumbling Sewage:

 

I sat in the vinyl booth looking down at my coffee. The swirls from the creamer rotated around in a spiral, white lines tracing the shape of the motion. The coffee gave me something to look at, it gave me something to focus on for a moment. The last 24 hours had wrecked me, I still hadn’t had any sleep and my eyes were starting their familiar trickery.

 

Perhaps I should start at the beginning, but that hardly justifies why I did it. I had imagined all kinds of endings and this was one of them, so surprise will be omitted.

 

I robbed a bank and torched it with a beautiful fire. The bank was a tall cooperate built building in the middle of a farming town. I won’t name the town as it may incriminate me. Regardless, the bank was an infection, a pestilence of the land. It was injected into the community as an invasive species, it polluted the town and dripped in a heavy ichor soaked greed.

 

Being a bank robber and burner doesn’t win a lot of points in the moral realm of people’s conviction. However before judgment is passed and my coffee finishes its swirl into a homogenous brown please let me tell you the reasons.

 

The banks own the land and the farmers work the land. It had never been something I had even thought of until I was inside the bank.

 

I was there with my moist ski mask on, the heavy breath had soaked the area around my mouth. I had waved my gun around frantically enough to instill fear. I had gathered the money from the terrified clerk. I made my way back to the safe with a hostage. It is nearly impossible to find and unlock these things with your own information.

 

Once in the back safe the money was being put into the duffle bag and the clock was running out. I saw what looked like a file cabinet of important papers. Upon asking the paralyzed face of the clerk, who was watching in awe at how easy it is to take money. They responded only after the gun had provoked their answer, the papers were farmer’s mortgages.

 

Then it struck me like a whip crack. The chaos and disorder the bank would suffer from losing the mortgages would be a pleasurable imagination later when I could see the smoke from the nearby dinner.

 

They burnt quite easily, I made the same clerk light them up. I watched as the smoke filled the whole bank, people began coughing and screaming. The chaos provided a comfortable escape. Once outside I tossed the bag into my car and walked to the dinner with my mask off.

 

No one saw me or knew that it was my car, I had lived in the town for 4 years and having my car at the bank for a few hours while I had lunch was not unusual. I had planned this long ago, the burning and smoke was a pleasant addition. I really enjoyed watching the mortgages burn, the bank’s infection was sterilized, at least for a moment.

 

As I sat in the dinner waiting for my coffee I felt a pain in my chest. I felt the wince perhaps of providing something to the world, some people call this a conscience. I had done something that helped someone else out. The feeling was strange to say the least, it provoked my imagination. I knew how easy it was to simply take what you wanted and often wondered why others didn’t. Here I was sitting and thinking with a trunk full of money and this new imagination.

 

I could travel the country side burning banks, I could give the money to help people out of financial hardship. I could ease the burdens of life for those around me, it could be so easy. However after a few hours of sitting and exploring my imagination my thoughts kept returning to the fire.

 

The fire was burning something important. It wasn’t important to me but it was important to someone else, the bank doesn’t care, all that money is insured. The paper though, that’s some freedom for those farmers. That was something meaningful, something that had some real impact.

 

The coffee is growing cold, the pleasure is dimming. I see the firemen ushering people out of the smoky bank.  My car looks unnoticed so I will play as the surprised passer-by and get out of this town….

 

The non-descript gentleman walks slowly out to his car. Pausing in a predictable way to notice the chaos and smoke. He then gets in his car and drives off with a trunk full of money. The glory of the fire was burnt into his brain.

 

The next town had 3 fires and the town afterward had 6 fires. It would be 16 years later, 5 national forests, 6 bank fires, 13 monuments and 22 houses before the gentlemen was caught. He was caught burning birth certificates at a document storage facility. He was an employee and due to the millions of cameras he was quickly sentenced to life in prison for his deeds. He lived a meaningful life to that point, a fully mature pyromaniac.

 

Years later he had written 13 books on bank robbing and the joys of burning the world. You can find them next to the endless volumes of other crazy people’s ideas. A library of bottomless imaginations from the greatest depths of the human brain. The books were collected after his demise and brought to the Endless Library by the cleaning crew. It was well known that those unfit to inhabit civilization have the most immolating brains and it was absolutely necessary to not let that high magnitude crazy get out and start polluting the public.

 

The Endless Library would be burnt to the ground in a heartbeat if anyone could find its location.

Please Stand By:

 

“Please wait while the process is complete, it won’t take long and you will be soon on your way. Please remove your shoes and belt, please place your device in the plastic bin.”

 

“Please hand me your passport, no you cannot continue without a passport. Please raise your hands while stepping through the scanner, ok turn around slowly. Please put your hands down.”

 

“Hmm looks like here there is something you posted on social media. Here is something you got arrested for, here is your credit score and here is your friends list. Here is a print out of your website history, here is your medical history, here is your financial history and here is your job history. “

 

“Looks like a complete profile has already been developed for you. There is enough information to predict within 3% tolerance what your future history will be. Here is your aberrant history and your deleted history. “

 

“Looks like you’re a pretty safe driver, not that it matters anymore. No one drives themselves, far too much risk to other people, no reason to let other human beings kill each other. Your car will be upgraded.”

 

“It looks like you are due for a complete upgrade as well. Let’s see if we can get that 3% tolerance down? We can upgrade those prediction models if you comply with this questionnaire and blood test. What do you mean you don’t understand?”

 

“I am sorry to have to break this to you but your credit scores are not going to be enough to retire, but we can upgrade that. We have this great new personality program that helps correct aberrant behavior. The upgrade is called Unlimited Mind, but you have to choose between Choice and Choice-Plus. I recommend Choice-Plus it has a dreaming sub-program that you will find pleasurable.”

 

“Please stand by while we upload your Choice-Plus.”

 

“We have removed any memory of the aberrant behavior, and added your Choice-Plus. Please wait for the upgrades to finish. Please sit down and remain calm. Please remove your shirt and glasses.”

 

“Please walk into the green door. Please wait in the seat provided, please keep your eyes down. Please wait for the process to continue.”

 

“Please sit back down, there is no need to raise your voice. Please keep your volume down you are raising it higher than is considered polite. Please remain here.”

 

“You Choice-Plus is complete, there were no errors in the upgrade and your system has been reset. Please collect your passport, please collect your device. Please walk into the black door and take a seat. Please remain seated until the process is complete.”

 

“Please stand by for system frequency correction. Please wait for additional updates to load. #Reflection Program v4.2 loaded. Social feeds will be connected to #Reflection Program. All inner dialog must be broadcast to all devices.”

 

“Please allow #Reflection program access in sub-program administration. The new program will guarantee a 1% correction value to prediction models. Please allow all desires, fears, anxieties and indulgences to #Reflection Program. Please stand by for permissions.”

 

Permissions accepted…..please stand by….Initializing…..

 

Rebecca Gigtaniszor  #Reflection Hour 21:17

 

The new upgrades went well, a sterile dream. I remember some of it, a kind and polite voice asking me to wait. I think the new upgrades are getting easier and easier, they added the #Reflection Program this time. I am not sure the purpose but it is amazing to be able to hear everyone’s ideas.

 

I have seen all my close friend’s desires, interests and fears. It is truly an achievement of technology! Today I learned that my longtime friend held anxieties about pollution. I am sure their aberrant behavior will be fixed in their next upgrade, they have a report function and I want them to have only the best life experience.

 

I find great pleasure in the new upgrade, my mind is clear and my life feels so full and rich. I look all around and see this beautifully ordered world, a lattice of crystalline geometry in every direction. I can imagine all the systems buzzing and whirling, connected and interconnecting. The Unlimited Mind upgrade has certainly enhanced my imagination. I feel stimulated, encouraged and satisfied. I am grateful for all that I have been given. I cannot even remember being dissatisfied now, I can’t remember being unhappy, depressed or afraid. I am truly free of those feelings and wish everyone could feel this way. I recommended the Choice-Plus to all my friends.

 

On a different note I am taking a vacation, one I have planned for a long time. I finally got to the 1% aberrant behavior rate mark. My prediction error rate is low enough to let automation finish up my work queue. I am looking forward to the comfort and warmth. So those of you new to the #Reflection Program:

 

Please stand by…..

Future Blind:

 

Two Crow was growing older, his eyes were sinking into his head. He had seen many summers, he had seen his fear’s realized. When he was younger he had discovered the strange people with crosses on their necks, he had listened to the earth and the river. The earth and river offered no wisdom about the strange people.

 

Two Crow had been the son of the medicine man. His father had lost his stories to the firewater, his mind had a hole in it before he died. In his passing the village looked to him for guidance and he had none.  Two Crow had known that the strangers with crosses on their necks would be hungry when the food was scarce and that blood would flow. Two Crow knew these things because he saw the same hunger in his people when the sun burnt their crops and lit fires in their hearts.

 

Two Crow knew the strangers had their own history, he had no idea how monstrous it had been and how fatal it would be for his people.  The four horsemen of the white man’s apocalypse were guns, horses, alcohol and sickness.

 

Guns: Devices that carried a strength his people had never known. Buffalo could be hunted easily, vengeances finally realized and the traditions of bows and spears were wilted and enfeebled. There was no strength Two Crow could see that was stronger than guns, they were creatures to him, creatures that everyone must use or they would be killed by them faster.

 

Two Crow had learned that guns came from a great story. The spirit of spears and bows had been enslaved for killing men, it had been twisted and starved. The ease that the creature of the gun could be harnessed allowed every blackness in man’s heart to have a voice. Even a child could have a voice of darkness, no longer would you need to be humble to the spirit of death, now it only required a finger and a trigger.

 

The voice of guns turned into a choir: The French and English sang their songs and all that didn’t join in were silenced. Those that fought the French and English just added their own voice of darkness, they claimed it as a birthright. The tribes of his people were also eager to learn the voice of darkness, often fighting each other, like cubs learning to maul. There was no choice that guns allowed, you could join the choir or be silenced by it.

 

Horses: These creatures warmed to Two Crow and his people, horses were animals and probably the easiest of the strange things. They were understandable, creatures that could be fed, tended and lived much the same way as any other living creature. Horses were of the earth and river, their story was not as dark, but what rode with on them was blinding.

 

Two Crow loved horses but quickly knew their curse. Horses made the world smaller. Great distances were now small, distant nations were now near. The French and English moved so fast through over the earth and only a few years they had built a house or town or village in every corner of the land he had known. Horses let the white man kill the buffalo without resistance. Horse bore the horsemen of the white man’s apocalypse faster than the fleetest runner. Horses were like guns, you could not live in the new world without them, even if you were born into it.

 

Alcohol: Two Crow’s father called it firewater, it burns the brain. It clouds clear thinking and fans the flames of anger like a hot summer. Those with firewater are quick to shoot, fast to judge and slow to forgive. So much blood had been spilled where in the past the offense would be ignored. Tribes fought each other and fell under the gun and horse. The firewater weakened the spirit of the great wheel, and now it lay broken. This rider of the apocalypse offered comfort in one hand and pain in the other. In a time of guns and blood a little comfort was rare, and the pile of pain got bigger.

 

Sickness: As with the French and English the white man brought their battles with them. The battle with the Red Plague was in full force and Two Crow’s people were drawn into the fight. Two Crow had heard of whole towns falling under the Red Plague also called the Pox. The new comers had some high ground and wouldn’t die from it as easy, but those who had lived by the river and listened to the earth had no experience fighting this horseman of the apocalypse.

 

The Pox radiated everywhere the French and English went, Two Crow considered their village fortunate that the Pox had not crossed their path yet, but he knew some day it would.

 

The white men called the land the “New World” but for different reasons. To the ears of Two Crow he heard the earth and river and they told him that the “New World” had always been there. Two Crow saw it the other way around, the new world was opening up, the new world was the new rules. Now you must live with the gun and the horse, sickness and firewater, these things must be conquered or they would crush his people.

 

What old medicine could conquer the horse or the firewater? What ceremony could cure the Pox and what bow or spear could match the gun?

 

Two Crow saw a young brave on a horse, whose heart was pure and whose aim was sure. He wept because this meant that the only future the next generation could see was riding with the horsemen of the apocalypse. The vision of the ancestors could not see past this Future, their spirits walked as the Future rode. They wove cloth and hunted with spear and bow as the Future shot and made holes in their hearts from firewater. The ancestors drank clear water while the Future coughed and wheezed from the Pox.

Two Crow truly saw the end of his times. When he died of a soft old age he had shed as many tears as he could shed for those lost in darkness of the new world. His people would have to make their own way into the Future without the vision of their ancestors.

Fictional Obituaries of Forgotten People:

 

Johnathon Joseph Jones

 

The casual stride and the lose clothes were non-descript. Mr. Jones is what most people called him and he didn’t mind, he was rarely called by his first name anyways. Most people value their first name at least a little bit, something that gives them some sort of separation from all the other people with the last name Jones. It had become so common for Mr. Jones that he didn’t give it a second thought anymore.

 

The reason for this seeming removal of common individuality was that speaking his full name out loud as a child was matched by a comical stutter J-J-J-Johnathon J-J-J-Joseph J-J-J-Jones. He was teased and mocked as one might expect, nothing violence or cruel, just relentless. As an adult he wanted nothing to do with that kind of attention and started calling himself Mr. Jones in job interviews. The stutter followed him like a shadow and most people didn’t have the patience for any conversation longer than casual pleasantries.

 

The stutter was something he had inherited from his father, a man he never met. His mother loved him but she too could not tolerate the break of conversational pace for long. She was always there for him but tragically died on his 23rd birthday from a car accident. The police officer that was tasked with giving Mr. Jones the bad news squirmed in his shoes, adjusting his belt and hat in awkward frequency. Mr. Jones mourned his mother greatly, probably one of the few people that would listen to him for longer than a few sentences.

 

After the death of his mother Mr. Jones did his best to carry on. He worked as a warehouse stocker for the night shift. Due to his stutter he was passed up for promotions, shuffled off like a pallet of goods into a dusty corner. His continued working and eating, sleeping and doing all the things that productive people in society do. He hated nobody and understood why people treated him the way they did.

 

It was the summer of his 19^th year as a fork lift driver that Mr. Jones decided to do something crazy, something wild with his life. He was going to take an exotic vacation to visit Mount Unzen in Japan. He had never been to another country and the itch in his brain was screaming for some action, something to break up the sameness that covered his life.

 

He was able to get a fairly decent rate for travel and was able to schedule the time off relatively easily. They didn’t care where Mr. Jones went. He told some of his co-workers but they nodded and awkwardly tried to find some other task to do. The same response was echoed in the travel agent, they gladly took his money and smudged their enthusiasm. All in all the process was smooth for Mr. Jones and soon he was on his way to Japan.

 

As luck would have it he did not suffer jet lag, his night shift schedule had helped greatly. Conversation in Japan was very difficult, he muddled his way with pieces of English to those that would give him the time of day. He understood and took no offense, he was a stranger after all.

 

He enjoyed the newness nonetheless, he loved the strange food and customs. His brain was excited with all the stimulation, little neurons firing in all directions. New thoughts and ideas sprung into his head, new vibrancy coated the cloth of his imagination. He especially loved the tea ceremony because rarely did anyone speak, the silence was polite.  His stutter took a back seat and for a moment in his life the colors of beauty had dressed him in a genuine smile.

 

He stayed at a small bed and breakfast near the summit and today he was joining some hikers to see the grand view from the top a gorgeous viewing point. He packed his bag and silently decided that Japan is where he should live, he felt like the mountain have given him a great epiphany. The stillness of the world would keep him company and the beauty of the cherry blossoms would never be more than arm’s length away.

 

The viewing spot was a few hours of hiking, a little over 10 miles up. Mr. Jones had really enjoyed all the walking and hiking, he was feeling pretty good about himself today.

 

Mr. Jones looked out over the vast space with several other tourists. He took in the view a broad and expansive serenity, it filled the horizons of his mind. The tranquility and peace soothed every bone in his body. Then the epiphany came, a small rumble. It wasn’t from inside it was from outside.

 

The rumble turned to a tremble and then sharply into a shaking. The tourists all screamed and shouted. Mr. Jones exclaimed, his stutter matching the frequency of the mountain. “E-E-EARTH-Q-Q-QUAKE” fell like rocks from his lips and for the first time in his life everyone near him responded in enthusiastic terror.

 

It would be 24 seconds of terrifying uncertainty before the pyroclastic flow consumed them, they disintegrated while their screams joined the thunderous cloud of ash and heat. Every single one of them vaporized into dust and ash from Mount Unzen. Mr. Jones died with them in ecstatic rapture. The pure ecstasy of the moment had hammered his brain in those 24 seconds with all kinds of good feeling chemicals. His last moments of thought were of cherry blossoms and tea.

 

Jonathon Joseph Jones died June 3^rd 1991. The company he worked for considered his lack of return as a “no call no show” 3 days after he was scheduled back at work. Not a single person noticed that he was longer of this world.

Snowfall:

 

The snowfall was wonderful, the gentle falling white motes silenced the world of color. The green and the browns, the rot and the leaves were covered in a uniform peace. For days the snow fell and all the house began to lose their distinction. The roofs all looked the same color, the gutters and sidewalks all disappeared. The cold blanket snuggled up to indifference and within weeks the town was covered in a beautiful sameness as far as anyone in the town could see.

 

No roads leading out of the town could be traveled. The town had never needed a snow plow or snow chains so no one traveled the roads and in the early part of the second week you couldn’t see most of the roads. The hills smoothed a bit and the buildings became little hills, their points blunted by growing amounts of snow. No one could leave and no one could enter. Delivers were canceled, shipments postponed. If people couldn’t walk to their jobs they stayed home. The two dinners in town served their remaining food then they became meeting centers for those wishing to organize themselves or exchange anxieties.

 

The second week was the worst, the trap became apparent. Growing concerns were met with more snow fall, a few houses began having failing roofs, and food was becoming a serious concern. Communication was impossible, internet, radio and phone calls were silent. The technology worked within the town but without power the phones died fairly quickly. Cars and trucks sat under gravestones of snow piles, some tried to keep them clear only to be unable to drive them on the unmarked roads. Those that kept their cars and trucks free of snow gave up at the beginning of the second week. Without some outside help there was no leaving the small snowed-in town.

 

A few townsfolk got together in defiance of the snow. They hatched a plan, a hike out of town with snow shoes to find help. The nearest town was 72 miles and there had been only a little communication during the snow fall and silence after the roads covered up completely. The snow shoes were makeshift things they put together, a logistic necessity that had been created to move around the town in any reasonable fashion. Water, clothing, fire making tools and a sled full of food and tents were packed and readied. They dressed in their most optimistic faces, rallied the strongest courage and kissed their loved ones good bye. They promised a shift return and set off.

 

At the same time parts of the town had dissolved into isolation. The edges of the town were miles away from the dinners and the groups of people, they laid outside the heartbeat of hope and organization.

 

Those in isolation crawled out and looked around. They saw endless white oblivion in every direction. They feasted on canned foods, delving deep into their cellars and basements for expired food. They waited, wondering if they should venture out.

 

Some ventured out into the pristine snow-scape of endless hills where there were once houses. They hiked until they saw anything, some found nothing others found the centers of people where they heard of the hopefully attempt to reach a nearby city.  They would return to their houses armed with some optimism to share with their hungry and frightened families.

 

The next two weeks were a slow grind of certainty. It was clear the snow would not relent, that power may never come back on and the roads would never return.  Most dreamtime imaginations were filled with returning help, with returning to a normal life of roads and houses. Each new snow fall dropped another shade of silence over the small town.

 

Those that left the town with a plan never returned. They crawled as far as they could and died in a delirious splendor. They died face down in the snow, their bodies began telling them they were warm instead of cold, they started to dream of all the pleasant memories their desperate brains could muster. One by one they fell into the snow, buried without a grave or markings captured in the relentless cold.

 

Those that lived a little longer would begin the panic on the fifth week. The cracks of inevitability would fracture their optimism, their dreamtime was only a boneless ruin at this point and some couldn’t bear it. They may have had some food remaining but their brains were expired. Some ran in the snow screaming, shaking and blathering trying their best to break the suffocating silence that lay over the town.

 

It would 18 months before the snow stopped falling and by then there wasn’t a single sign that the town had ever existed at all. No one that lived there warranted any investigation by anyone outside of the town. I would like the say that this unique town with a unique fate, some exotic destiny. However such forgotten towns have dotted the history of the universe with a countless number, each disappearing by something as trivial as a turn of the weather.

Doctor Duality’s Dialectical Dissertation #4:

 

There is a criticism that I wish to illuminate a few shades above vague and fuzzy. The criticism is one of the epiphany, more precisely, the feeling of profound meaning. Perhaps one of the most certain times in anyone’s life is that precipice of doubt and uncertainty contrasted by a high magnitude sense of understanding. Such an experience is nearly impossible to break down in the moment, it saturates your awareness and begins to border on a vague transcendental nebula.

 

Why would anyone want to criticize the feeling of profound meaning? What possible use is there in slicing the transcendental experience apart? For my first example I would like to call attention to the heavy iron meat hooks of drugs. Imagine if you were to be inflicted with a chemical, riding the effects from start to finish, dipping your brain into a baptism of altered perception. Maybe you don’t have to imagine what certain drugs are like, you have been on them and understand the effects.

 

When I was young I was in a school play called “Go ask Alice”, a tragedy of someone exposed to LSD without their knowledge. The experience of being on LSD without your knowledge is not something I have experienced so the imagination of such a thing will have to suffice. LSD can bring a profound sense of understanding, confusion and bizarre feelings. There is always a life preserver idea, you know it’s the drug, and even in the depths of experience you know that you will wash back up on the shore of sanity. There are times of course when this life preserver is gone and you are adrift in uncertainty.

 

There are also consequences to drugs like addiction, confusion and delusion that can claim even the strongest minds. There is no one stronger addiction, and to a degree drugs are more real than you are. While many have claimed some sort of profound experience under the influence, any serious conclusion from an intense experience rarely holds up to common sense.

 

Some of these observations are unfalsifiable, just great big guesses and bizarre unending stories, for example: While under the effects of hallucinogenic mushrooms you may conclude that mushrooms are really trans-dimensional creatures showing their existence within your brain by the road of chemical consequences.

 

Of course such an assertion is impossible to test. The experience of such a perception while in its grasp feels undeniable, but irrational when under a basic lens of reason. There is a scene in the movie “Scrooge” in which Scrooge sees a ghost, but he denies his vision. He claims it could be a bit of undigested mustard or a bit of cheese, that senses can be easily fooled, easily fabricated.

So what do you trust as an experience? Do you doubt the existence of Jesus if you have dreamed of him? Do you doubt angels or demons if you see them crawl out from under the bed?

 

Religious experience borders on the same irrationality as drugs. Drawing conclusions from experiences that are impossible to test and every criticism is answered with vague platitudes. The risk here is that religious authority is institutionalized and often exploits or enslaves people with shame and guilt, offering original sin in one hand and salvation in the other. Accepting religious experiences at face value involves an immense amount of emotional investment.

 

The epiphany experience is less institutionalized and less chemical by comparison. It may require a journey to the top of a mountain, a snap of the brain when in traffic or a bubbling volcano of a bad relationship. The certainty washes over, the experience fills all horizons of perception and orderliness plants a solid foothold. This is a poetic way was saying that the consuming feeling of order and purpose can be blinding due to its consuming experience.

 

From either religion, chemicals or an epiphany the common quality is a sense of order. The particulars of what the order is don’t see to have any relevance to the experience itself, rather they are simply the language in which you understand the experience. A dying Hindu may see Krishna, or an ancient Greek poet see the muses of Aphrodite.

 

The last step into the vague and profound is the transcendental experience, a wordless feeling of awe and order. It is often described as a departure from reason and logic. The authority that transcendentalism wields is one of personal intuition and experience over the cold and dispassionate. This is most commonly seen as spirituality.

 

With drugs and religion the trap is easy to see. With individual spirituality the pitfall seems to be harder to define due the experience itself being overwhelming. The experience of certainty remains intact as few are willing to say that their spiritual experience are not the important things they appear to be. As with any human blind spot, should not a profound experience bear the strongest skepticism?

 

I would hasten this question by saying that acceptance of unfalsifiable spiritual conclusions is a reflexive attempt to shield oneself from the meaninglessness of the world.

 

Death is probably the easiest example of this, a death that is accidental or unnecessary seems to cause great anxiety in people. In response civilization has invented all sorts of afterlife stories from reincarnation to paradises of every variety. The study of this particular anxiety is referred to by psychologists as Terror Management Theory.

 

There are other examples of our human programming attempting desperate feats of experience and feeling to avoid such imaginations. Denial has been a fairly successful coping skill as long as the drugs last and the prayers keep flowing.

 

Denial is generally frowned upon for all sorts of reasons and equating spiritual or personal experience to denial will undoubtedly cause some uneasiness. I wish to reassure you that I do not judge those in denial, I too am in denial.

 

I have my receipt and paid a handsome sum for the eight day cruise down the beautiful river of the Nile. I will spend the long days in my imagination, thinking of ancient Egyptians living long ago and viewing the great feats of engineering rising into the sky.

 

The ancient Egyptian culture put a great deal of importance on death and the experience of the afterlife. Elaborate rituals of preparation ranging from the removal of organs to the intricate decorations of every aspect of their huge tombs called pyramids.

 

As I gaze on these ancient monuments in awe I would like to remind you as a final point of criticism that every spiritual conclusion, every profound transcendental experience will be the future’s recreational cruise ship, just another trip down denial.