The Party:

What could I be? I had a few options before the party this weekend. I could be a fairy, a devil and I think I could scrape together a good vampire. I was going with a group of friends, this was a second-hand invite. We met at my house and get our pre-funk on, then we called the Hive-Mind car service and all packed into a large van.

I went as a vampire, my face makeup exaggerating my eyes and lips. I wore an old club corset and even got some nice quality fangs. Talking was a little awkward at first, but I got used to them. One of my friends dressed as a pharaoh, specifically King Ramses the second.  He did some research and discovered he lived to like 90+ and probably spanned 3 lifetimes of his subjects. He had a whole story planned about the point in history, the gold face paint and pharaoh hat were top notch.

My other friends went as a nurse and a doctor. They brought 2 fake limbs for “amputating” other people at the party. We were the beginning of a bad joke; a nurse, a pharaoh and a vampire go to the doctor and ask for help.  That is as far as we got, giggling to ourselves in the van. The pharaoh looked up bad pharaoh jokes on his device and the nurse squirmed in her latex skirt.

We got to the party a little earlier than is considered fashionably late. We rolled out of our Hive-Mind van and walked up to a house covered in spider webbing, glowing pumpkins and a fog machine that just started. We knocked on the door, the pharaoh was the one with the invite and he did the talking, we all introduced ourselves and headed for the kitchen. All the booze is kept in the kitchen.

We unloaded our bottles, grabbed a plastic cup and commenced socializing. I chatted with a royal queen, a zombie and two different orange haired monsters with oversized suits. The vibe was good, everyone had put decent effort into their costumes and it made conversations a bit smoother. A few drinks into the evening and someone put some good Halloween dance tunes on. I haunted the kitchen because it was quieter. I struck up a decent conversation with a guy in Roman armor. It wasn’t plastic, it was full on metal and leather. It clanked as he shuffled around awkwardly.

He told me all about how vile and genocidal the romans were to surrounding areas, the Gauls, the English and a few others. It sounded pretty brutal, lots of violence and savagery that ended in taxes and subjugation. He told me that history was full of people annihilating each other for some reason or another. The conversation got a bit heavy when he went into a story about Pol Pot and the tree. I excused myself and got another drink, I wanted something lighter than the grim void of history.

After the drink I went out to the living room where a makeshift dance floor invited me. Some pleasant goth industrial was flowing, VNV Nation and some Skinny Puppy got me going and I quickly forgot about the conversation with the Roman. A couple songs in and the doctor and nurse joined me. We all danced together in a circle, glowing with the frantic mania of the dance floor.

I could feel my heavy face make up running a bit and decided it would be good to check up and refresh in the bathroom. I didn’t make it that far.

On the way I was stopped by the Grim Reaper, a lady with a long black cloak and a scythe. She stopped me and said I had to turn around. I couldn’t go that way, the bathroom was in use. I nodded and turned around to watch the dance floor while I waited my turn.

I felt a hand on my shoulder, it was the Reaper lady. She didn’t say anything, but the weight of her hand felt extremely heavy and I turned around in surprise. She was there in the hall way with her scythe in one hand and her hand on my shoulder. The scythe looked real, just like the roman armor. Her eyes looked mournful and sad. I asked her what was wrong, trying to squirm out from under her hand. She said that it was time to go, it was time to leave the party.

A bouncer, great, some muscle chick in a big cloak and a real weapon is kicking me out of the party. I asked what I had done to get kicked out and the Reaper just shook her head. She repeated that it was time to go. I said I had to tell me friends and needed to call a ride. Again, the Reaper shook her head again and the hand on my shoulder felt heavier, I felt smaller and she felt larger.

I tried to call my friends names, I felt alone, and no one responded. No one seemed to notice that we had blocked the hallway. I looked as the Roman started chatting up someone else, the dance floor was crowed, the lights all glowed with a hazy beauty. I just watched, dumb-founded and heavy. I watched a for a few minutes.

I looked back at the Reaper, the face of the woman almost looked mournful. I could look at her long, it reminded me of the Pol Pot story that Roman had told me about. There wasn’t a reason, there wasn’t and explanation. I looked back one more time to the party, realizing it would go on without me, it didn’t need me.

A heavy sigh and I turned back to the Reaper and told her I was ready. The great scythe rose up, its sharp blade seemed to cut the moments in silent tatters. The fog machine turned up and the party goers continued unaffected by the rolling mist. As the scythe rose up, moments seemed to stretch out, the music disappeared and the fog crept in.

I stood there looking up at the curve of the scythe as it marched down through the air, I could feel the fog rising up around me. My feet disappeared and felt numb. A tingle and then nothing. I couldn’t move them, I looked down and saw only the rising fog and heard the mechanical fog machine by the front door. I looked up and saw the scythe getting lower, the edge fell in slow motion.

I looked into the eyes of the Reaper, pleading, I begged her to let me go. She shook her head and looked back at me with eyes filled with tears. The scythe was nearly to me. The fog was nearly over my waist.

Each moment felt heavier, and the party seemed more distant, the fog hiding any signs of the party. When the fog rose up to my face, I felt the cool hardness of porcelain. The right side of my face felt wet, the smell of bile was there for a moment, then was gone. I felt urge to breathe, but the fog felt like cotton in my lungs, stuffing it with a thickness that did not relent.

Then the scythe touched me, and the smooth edge cut all the fog away, it cut the smells and the party. It cut all sound away, it pushed away the stars and the night, it pushed away the clouds and the sky. I breathed in deeply, the sudden relief was cool and welcome. I exhaled, and I felt my arms and legs drifting away, the numbness was replaced by the feeling of falling.

I fell and breathed in frantically. Each time I breathed the falling accelerated, my head began to spin, blackness filled everything, and I could not sense which direction I was falling. My last thought as I screamed a silent panic was to wake myself up. I realized I was already awake, I was dying, and it was the most honest moment of my life. Then like a river; my screams disappeared, my thoughts disappeared. With the unseen turbulence of decay, flowing nowhere to a waterless delta and then into an ocean of deeper blackness.

The Dishwasher:

It was like joining a new school, except it wasn’t an enforced enrollment. They only enrolled volunteers, you had to choose to go there. The other option wasn’t really a choice though. I remember when I had to make the choice. 

I was 26, and the bombs already started to their creep up the west coast. We spent the first 4 months in high magnitude tensile anxiety. Spiders in hell could have weaved webs with our fear, that would have at least been a productive use of the fear, but the spiders stayed away. We watched and worried as heavy artillery landed and shelled everything. Most of the west coast was in ruin when the choices started.

We had the option to join up, as cogs in the machine. We could hold a weapon and point it at someone or we could go to re-education schools. Most of my friends picked up the gun or the bazooka or some other device for exploding buildings and people. They wanted revenge, they wanted to defend their home, they wanted to do what is right. I think mostly they wanted to join the spot light of the human stage, there is no reason one group of people should get to do all the destruction, they wanted a piece too.

I went to re-education school instead. I am professional coward, a pacifist, a defeatist or some other classification for such people. Most of the people here aren’t though, most of them are criminals that got caught looting or speaking out against the government. They are to be processed into soldiers or bludgeoned into obedience. Anyone with a chip on their shoulder gets it ground off pretty fast. 

I remember my first day. I got off the bus with 20 other new students. We had a small bag that had our papers, passport and any essential possessions. I had some data storage chips with pictures, names and anything I thought I would need later. Once we got off the bus, a beautiful and well-dressed woman escorted us to the reception room. It was a comfortable room, soft amber toned light and refreshments of water, cheese and a couple pieces of cut fruit. 

Our bags were taken with the promise they would be returned as long as they didn’t have any contraband, drugs, dangerous rhetoric or terrorist propaganda. I never saw any of my things again. Soft piano music played as we waited in the reception room. After a few minutes we were given out room assignments, they were classroom numbers. We were told that our sleep arrangements would be given after we got to the classroom. 

My classroom was 123, I have a fondness for numbers that are in sequence or in repetition. It is a simple order that has no moral consideration.  None of my other bus companions had the same room number. I took my room number and entered the re-education school.

The school was a bee hive, everyone was intently going somewhere, purpose was in their eyes. They all smiled and nodded. Some said welcome and asked if I needed help finding my room. I cautiously refused, I didn’t want any interaction yet, I wanted to explore a little. I was off the leash and stretching my legs by walking around felt refreshing. 

I couldn’t make sense of the room number organization, sometimes skipping numbers, jumping numbers, sometimes closest had numbers. Empty rooms with unused chairs and tables were visible from curious peeks inside. I was stopped by students 3 times as to where I should be going and with honestly I had no idea where room 123 was. The first two people directed me with long complicated left and right turns that piled up and fell over in my memory. I nodded and continued my investigation. The last stop was right next to room 123, a kitchen.

My re-education was a dish washer. They didn’t put me in any classes, they didn’t ask me to do anything other than wash dishes. I was grateful, I washed dishes and listened. In retrospect I was probably considered worthless if my personality profile told them I was a pacifist. There seemed to be a reason for everything here. Nothing was accidental.

The students at this school were not learning any practical knowledge. They watched videos and did group activities, they did something called “Art Therapy”, it was a way of becoming a complete and better person, or so they said. I watched it from a window a few times and it always gave me the shivers. They broke you down with relentless questions. They asked everything about your preferences, they asked them in different ways. Your favorite color, your favorite movie, things you hate, things you love. Over and over again they asked. If you didn’t care about how hierarchical your movie choices were, you cared about them now. You were focused utterly on them.

Then, once you had focused on those things, you did collages with magazines, painted or expressed those hierarchical, from lowest to highest, best to worst. Now organization was etched into the students. All things inside were placed in order of importance. Art Therapy was done 1-2 times a day and was followed by movies and videos that were focused and examined in the same fine-toothed detail. The videos and movies were of course high-end propaganda and rhetorical. The students had already learned to focus on revaluating things, so substituting the propaganda for personal considerations seemed easy.

 I don’t know why I wasn’t required to take these classes, it however made me more grateful to only wash dishes.

I thought about escaping a few times, but the risk of having to participate in the mind wringer of classes didn’t sound very enticing, besides, I had nowhere to go. I did create a cardboard lock preventer. The exit doors were always locked tight, except when I had to take out the garbage, I was watched from a tower with guns. They couldn’t see what was in my hands or behind my arm. I placed the cardboard piece in the lock on my way back in. The door would pop open if pushed on with a little effort. It could probably be pulled on from the outside too.

I thought about escaping in my dreams, and sometimes I thought about some secret spy coming through my unlocked exit door to tell me a secret plan to get me out of the re-education campus. Of course, these were just fantasies to pass the time, like I said: I had nowhere to go.

End part 1….

The Dishwasher part 2:

I think I worked in room 123 for 2 years, maybe a little more. Time is a flexible cage when nothing changes. I heard the yells for order at 4 O’clock in the afternoon. Followed by mortar explosions and a wave of disorder. Guns were handed out to the students and everyone rushed to evacuate. I hid right outside the kitchen door. I popped the exit open and closed it slowly to ensure the cardboard stopper would let me get back in if I needed to. If everyone was leaving, this would be my time to escape. I would need food and getting back in, even for a few minutes may be useful. I crouched down and listen under the door for any clue as to what was going on.

The mortaring continued, and the predictable destruction washed over. I hid outside the door around a corner and waited. I had nowhere to go. One of the mortar shells hit the building and I winced, my eyes slammed shut waiting for the next one to hit me, it could go black at any moment. A part of me wanted it to all be over but the building wasn’t hit again and after some chirping gun fire the mortaring stopped.

I heard some voices and slowly edged the cardboard slip and the door open, just enough to see if there was a glimpse of who was coming. When I looked in I saw 3 armed men, strangers with green and red military outfits. The red stars on their shoulders told me that I was probably the only survivor.

I closed the door and ran. I ran for 20 heart beats and I heard the door open behind me. I could feel the gun barrel following me, its empty eye leveled against me. I tried to dodge, running as randomly, darting and swerving hoping that I could get far enough before the shot was fired.

I wasn’t far enough, my leg got very heavy and I fell. I rolled with my momentum to the left, a small hill kept me tumbling. I heard muffled shouts and a then a ringing in my ears as my head smacked against the side of a tree. I knew I had to keep going, purely out of fear. My heart raced and my eyes refocused, my leg felt a bit lighter. I scrambled to my feet, lumbering in a half frantic limp.

It was dark, so I knew that if I could get far enough away I might have a chance. I made it a few paces before my weight slipped, I fell again and this time into something wet, a small body of still water broke my fall. I could taste the pond, maybe a swamp, thick and silty. I rolled up and stayed still a second and strained to see into the night. The ripples reflected firelight from somewhere and I could see the overhang of small bushes with the water continuing around a bend.

I paddled quietly, as quietly as I could. I didn’t know how far away the red star soldiers were and didn’t wanted to give anything away. I could feel my heartbeat behind my eyes, I could feel my heartbeat in my leg. This is when I saw the long scales slithering through the ripples.

I didn’t know this at the time, but this is where the alligators slept, not in the water but on the bushes banks nearby. They wake up when they smell blood and had probably retreated into the water after the mortaring. I had plenty of blood going into the water, they were just another gun to outrun.

I saw a pair of black backs circle around me. I started to reach for the bushes that hung over the water and pulled myself up, my dead leg splashing in the water. I saw the snouts and eyes coming closer and scrambled up the bushes as my arms burned from fatigue. I could hear the creatures below me as I crawled into a scrub and listened for the alligators. They didn’t follow me, I laid as still as I could.

I wrapped my leg and waited I had no idea what the land looked like around me. I had no idea what kind of landscape laid outside of the re-education center. I stopped the bleeding and listened for soldiers and alligators all night. My adrenaline didn’t let me sleep, my ears stretched as far as they could be.

In the morning I got a sense of my situation. I had no water, no food and my leg was a terrible throbbing emergency. There was no way I was going to be able to get anywhere. I laid in that bush for the greater part of the day, just waiting for something. I had no idea what I was waiting for, but it became clear by the evening. I had to go back to the re-education center, it was the only place with food water and maybe some antiseptic. I examined by leg completely that day. The bullet had gone through my leg, there were two holes, one on the front side to the right of my shin and another on the back side.

I had a general sense of direction and started crawling in the earlier evening. I found the re-education center before it got dark and watched for any activity. I crawled up next to the door, the cardboard shim was still attached to the door, they must have forgotten to check it. I pulled myself up unto my good leg and peeked inside.

The kitchen was dark and silent. I could see no light, the other door leading to the rest of the re-education center was closed. I didn’t hear anyone or see anyone. I had been in the kitchen hundreds of times and knew exactly where the first aid kit was and where the food and water storage was. I slowly crawled through the kitchen putting supplies in a bag I found by the trash. I didn’t need the light, I only needed the slow silence.

I crawled back outside and into the bushes. The first aid kit had antiseptic, I bound my gunshot wound and fell asleep under the canopy of the bushes as the sun came up.

The next few days were nocturnal. I waited until night and slinked into the kitchen for food and water. I didn’t see anyone and heard no gunfire. The next night I grabbed a burlap sack and used it to sleep on. I even hobbled down to the water and washed myself up a bit. My leg was healing, it didn’t look infected and the swelling had gone down. I kept it clean and kept quiet in the day time, sleeping with my ears open for any sound or clue.

I didn’t see anyone at all and by the 4^th day I risked a little of investigation. I snuck deeper into the re-education center. I found only a few bodies, they had started decomposing and it isn’t worth mentioning any of those details. Surprisingly this made me feel safer, it meant no one had come to get the bodies and no one was likely occupying the re-education center. The soldiers with red stars were just passing through.

The center became my home. I buried the bodies of former students that died in the attack and cleaned the place up a bit. Thee store room has plenty of canned food and rations. I have since remained in this re-education center. No one had ever come through again, no mortar shells of people with guns. I spend my days listening for alligators and sometimes when I get bored I watch some of the propaganda videos.

The Tide:

The Black Ship docked yet again in the shallow port. The masts and deck left empty, no people to be seen pulling any ropes or guiding the rudder to the dock. The ship was tied to the moorings with an oily black rope.  The waves scrapped the tar and wood hull against the cement sides. The ship looked out of time, surrounded by cargo ships, full to the tops with containers. The small black ship offered no explanations, no clues could be seen upon initial inspection. 

The harbor master and a few workers boarded the ship with cautionary investigation. The hull was empty, not a single provision or object was discovered. No bodies or trash or rot, not a single sign or clue. The workers and harbor master scratched their heads and questioned each other on possibilities. Some thought to ask the dock workers that were on shift last night, perhaps check the security cameras to see if anyone had left or entered the dock. The ship certainly didn’t tie itself to the dock, someone must know who it belonged to. 

The records were checked and the cameras reviewed. They questioned the other workers, looking for anything that might be out of place. Nothing was found and the head scratching continued. By the second day the harbor master was contacting their superiors for advice. 

The ship continued to sit in the harbor, the black wood and oily ropes remaining untouched and unused. 

On the third day 6 people called in sick. By the 4^th day 15 people called in sick. There was nothing on the news until the 5^th day. By then it was too late.

Day after day people stopped coming to work, the roads became empty or sparse. People stop showing up to grocery stores, in fact they stopped showing up altogether. Their cars remained unused in their drive ways or parking lots. 

The news station tried to report on the disappearances, there were only a handful of reporters that tried anything. They had no answers either, they speculated a virus or pandemic but no bodies were found. The reporters also scratched their heads in confusion, no clues or answers were given. 

Some people tried recording themselves on live feeds in case they disappeared. Those that tried this method found that their viewership disappeared slowly, day after day until no one was watching their live feed. It wouldn’t take long and they too would turn their recording off and never turn it back on. 

This pattern of investigation continued in every corner of humanity for a few weeks. Each section of human beings dissolving into a quiet disappearance that no one seemed to remember or know anything about. 

There were a few live news feeds with people indulging in a few last minute hedonistic fantasies. No police around or anyone to stop them. The broadcasted their feeds in hopes someone else was watching. There were no more watchers. 

One of the few remaining was the harbor master. He kept coming to work, regardless of the lack of anything to do. There were no containers to move, no dock workers to manage. No new ships came and nothing needed to be done. The black ship sat untouched by change, floating peacefully out the harbor masters tower window. The black masts slowly bobbing up and down on the horizon as the harbor master sat wondering what to do. 

Work had been the only focus that survived in the face of the meaningless disappearance. He had ritualistically gone to work at the same place for the last 25 years and it was the only thing that kept him from grabbing his head and screaming his brains out. Now the only thing to do was sit and wait, wait for whatever had claimed everyone else would now claim him. If he waited then surely, he would get some sort of answer.

The answer didn’t come, and day after day he grew numb staring out the window of the harbor master tower. The black ship bobbed up and down, seemingly the only thing that moved on the horizon. The large container ships were far too large for harbor waves to animate at all. The black ship was a lure, a worm on a hook. It was waiting for him to walk aboard it, at least that is what the harbor master’s brain started to tell him.

Day after day this idea seemed to grow, it swelled up like a late morning headache. It started to replace any other ideas in the harbor master’s head. There wasn’t anything else going on anyways, there were no other people, nothing else to do and nowhere to go. This was the only show in town and the black ship was quite distinguished next to the giant container ships. The ichorous creature occupied his daily thoughts as his daily ritual fell apart.

On a beautiful Sunday afternoon, he packed his bags, as if he was going on a vacation. He boarded the black ship with a suitcase. He sat down on the deck and waited. He was used to waiting, he had spent the greater part of the past few weeks waiting to disappear like everyone else. Nothing happened at first, he sat and waited and finally fell asleep.

In his sleep he dreamt of bright hued music that fell over the sky in sunset colors. A choir rose up in his slumber and trumpets blared out a triumph. The music washed over the black ship like a storm, the noise of orange and blue, purple waves and pink clouds of turbulent winds. The whole of the sky was alive in a fantastic motion, a nausea of whirling voices.

The harbor master awoke to a wide ocean. No land was seen in any direction. He watched the endless horizon day after day without a single change. Each night the same dream entered him. Food and water did not seem to be needed, no hunger or thirst. The days turned to a static of unchanging waves and the night alive with swirling colors and choirs.

It would be weeks of this night and day, each day felt shorter and each night longer. Eventually there was no more daytime and he disappeared completely into his dreams, he was gone, dissolved from the unchanging ship and empty horizon.

333 Words:

One of these days we will change, we don’t know necessarily how. We will wake up and it will be different, we will be different. We won’t know how or when the change happened. We may watch some high-end documentary that explains the “Story So Far”, calm our self for a few moments, drink a drink and eat some animals. We will settle into a comfortable chair and doze off again, only to wake up to another change of the weather blowing everything around. The whole thing starts all over again, a lumbering sense of confusion and wonder.

Some of the people will feel a deep uncomfortably with the way the cycle keeps on churning, some of us just get fed up and try to fix it. We may dedicate our lives to fundamental change, taking a proverbial pick axe to the corner stone of the whole mess. We forget about the changes going on, and relentlessly work our brains out smashing that pick axe against the problem. Sooner or later the corner stone will crumble, we may lift our heads and find out that the new game being played out is something altogether different. We are too old to join in and mourn the passing of hope and potential. The whole thing starts over again, a lumbering sense of confusion and wonder.

Some of us try and get away from the whole fearful sideshow of sharp toothed monsters out to get everyone and everything. We pack our stuff, leave the rash of civilization and tuck our heads comfortably under a rock. This method seems to ensure a constant market of off-grid supplies, tools for individualism and an exploding real estate market. Civilization creeps up on those isolated rocks and the whole thing starts over again, a lumbering creature of confusion and wonder.

It has been gestating quietly for years, slowly gaining momentum. Sometimes war, sometimes slavery, each problem provoking the great horror that lies behind our skulls, the relentless fixer.

Doctor Duality’s Dialectical Dissertation #5:

Every time the news flashes and the social feeds light up, it reminds me of the snooze button on an alarm clock. The same can be said for looking into the deep darkness of history or dystopian imaginations. The clock tells us that the sterile numbers are going up, more people are being created in every corner of the world. The buzz, bloops and bleeps all join in with reminders that some strife or another is being played out. 

The great play, or in humanity’s case, the great atrocity has been going on for quite some time. Whether people admit it, there is an unknown story that we are all inadvertently part of. The trash you create, the pollution from products or even the ideas floating in your head. They all seem to contribute to some great wrongs that oppresses some other corner of the world. You may discover that your ancestors tortured people, or your government immorally neglected their duties and obligations. You may discover some weighted story that shows that each person in their consumption and mindlessness in some way adds to the great suffering of everyone else. 

There are many ways to look into the big story of this seemingly endless monstrance. You may look into history and find a vast parade of ignorance, hatred, anger, violence, war etc. etc. It becomes trivial, just words on the pages of history where the screaming masses of strife turned into dirt and dust. The tears have long dried and the mourners are long since buried too. No one remembers the wars of 500 B.C.E. when the Persian army strapped living cats to their shields in their battles against Egyptians. Time simply washes strife away with an unending tide.  

You may be interested in contemporary issues like equality or moral considerations.  Someone eager to champion the causes of justice, only to find a quagmire of practical considerations where the moral issues are secondary. You may find bureaucratic swamps that lie on your path of righteous revolution. These things tend to be far more complex in practice than the imagination of a better world with smiling happy people. 

You may not see the void in times of peace, but war always seems to bring out the darkness in human beings in bright red colors. Soldiers take their turn in facing the senselessness of war, the institutions of dominance and territory. After they suffer, then the families of soldiers suffer, then the communities that soldiers belong to begin to wonder where their workers, educators, artists, teachers have gone. They all got crushed up in the great machine of meaningless violence. This is a pretty easy doorway into the bottom barrel of humanity. If you are on the winning end and your home isn’t already turned into a crater, you might have the ability to sit and reflect on such reckless destruction.

If you are an artist and interested in some sort of impact, you may discover the mindless nature of ideas. How each idea can be changed, mutated, altered, perceived and twisted in the telling from one person to the next. A subjective waterfall of aimless concepts that swirl around in a pool of practical considerations. Sometimes ideas take root, but usually it is from some poor soul that has already suffered a disquieting madness and is already hopelessly lost in the darkness. Their ideas taken and formed into some foundation or institution or decree or sacred written text.

If you consider any of these perceptions overly melodramatic or even ham handed, I have a little reminder, a little consideration: Even the most imaginative pessimistic, even the lowest rank and file denizen of hell fails to predict the senseless strife and suffering of the human being. It seems that history will be worse than anyone imagined. There is no reason to think it wouldn’t turn out any different than it has.

If you are a human being you probably have the capacity to observe of the terror of the human condition.  You have probably have seen some sort of strife in the world, either by being a victim of a particular strife or indirectly suffering from the effects of the choices of others.

There is a Greek philosopher called Heraclitus, who by chance also lived during 500 B.C.E. and was likely aghast at the treatment of living cats on the business end of shields. He believed that all things come into being through strife.  

So, what to do about it? Well nothing, that is the world, welcome to the land of the living, here is your shovel. This isn’t saying you can’t find some peace or joy, but the river from which you drink and the shoes on your feet all come from the blood and toil of those that came before us. This is rather similar to the Christian concept of original sin, except we are the judges and we are the judged.

 People have been trying for thousands of years to “Do” something about their whole human condition and strife thing. Every well-meaning visionary has ended up contributing to a wholly new world of strife, different unintended consequences, blind spots and pit falls of suffering. In fact, the motivated and optimistic have added nothing but the ability for more human beings to suffer in greater quantities. Perhaps the great movers and shakers of humanity will doom us all to un-ending existence as a species. 

With every advent of technology and revolution we have allowed even more human beings to exist, balanced on the shoulders of some cyborg Atlas. We populate ourselves, grow and consume like a giant meat glacier that doubles every so often. Of course, in 100 years there may be no more glaciers for this figure of speech to be understood. It will be replaced by another idea from a pessimist that has no idea how bad it is about to get.

Inheritance:

The girl walked home under a canopy of city planted trees and neglected sidewalks. She pulled her hood over her head and put her headphones in. Her shift was over and she was eager to forget that she would do all again tomorrow. She followed the lines of moss and green on the side of the walkway. The music chimed in her ears and her boots made soft splashes in the evening. 

There was a line of tents on the sidewalk in front of her. The homeless stowed themselves in grumbles and aimless complaints. She quickened her pace and made her splashes softer. There was a greasy woman that emerged suddenly from her tent, a tarp served as a makeshift door. She sneezed and tried to make eye contact. The girl pulled her hood tight and hurried past. The woman’s mouth was moving, but the headphones let her remain impassive and free from any obligation to respond. She kept her pace and moved past. 

This girl had a secret and it was waiting at home. She lived in a small house with a couple friends. Her room had a sturdy door with a deadbolt on the inside. She had never had any issues, no burglaries or anything. It made her feel better to be able to lock the outside world out with a symbolic iron bolt.

She didn’t want to talk to anyone today. She hurried into her room and bolted the door in a heavy sigh. She didn’t want to talk with people anymore, no small talk, no fake talk, nothing. They had no idea what her secret was and she had no interest in telling anyone. 

She hid a small lamp under her bed in a shoebox. The lamp had been given to her by her dead Aunt. It was inherited, shipped and mailed to her last year. She didn’t know her Aunt and the lamp wasn’t anything she knew about until it arrived at her door.

The lamp had a strange effect on her dreams. The first night after receiving the lamp she dreamt of fat pigs running down the freeway being chased by tractors. Slowly they chased the pigs and the leather faced farmers squealed and oinked at the pigs as if they were trying to convince them to turn around. The dream was so vivid and the girl took a little joy in such a strange experience. She thought about it the whole day. She floated through the day wondering about the farmers and their tractors. What could it mean?

The next night an equally vivid dream unfolded. This time she was jumping from stone to stone on the edge of a shore, a breach with pale white boulders. The ocean was dark and inky, the waves moved in slow motion as if made of syrup or tar. The pale white rocks seemed to glow with an internal luminescence. She awoke with a sense of familiarity. This dreamt felt like the last, the particulars were different but the unease and vivid clarity were the same. 

This occurrence repeated night after night, each a different scene. Sometimes grotesque, sometimes ethereal and moody. For 3 months these dreams continued, she told no one. She didn’t know why, but she could not speak about them with anyone. She felt like a terrible secret was playing out in her dreams. 

She connected the beginning of the dreams with the lamp being delivered. She took it out of the shoe box and examined it closely. An Arabic brass lamp with signs of extensive use. There was some lettering, barely visible near the handle.  She tried to rub the grime off with a rag. 

The lamp felt electric in her hands. The ZAP was like a television being turned on suddenly to the 10 O’Clock news on full volume. All the dreams of the past 3 months flooded into her and she fell over unconscious. The white light of the void washed everything out.

She woke up to her friends banging on her deadbolted door. The girl was a little fuzzy, she stuffed the inert lamp under her bed and reassured her friends she was ok. Secretly she didn’t know if she was ok, she didn’t want to explain herself and wasn’t really sure what had happened anyways. When she returned to the deadbolted door and looked cautiously at the lamp.

She heard a small whisper from under the bed. It whispered in a low whisper, the same heavy left-over feelings as her dreams. The shadow spoke to her in low words, the language of dreams that dip under the horizon. The black speech flowed out and she understood. Her dreams had given her the helix of understanding, the keystone was there.  The shadow told her she now possessed a Genie Lamp, like in the movies or in the fairy tales. Any single wish was hers, anything she could imagine the shadow would give her.

Any one thing, any single thing in concept. It could be a single briefcase full of money, or a single cargo ship full of money. A single person killed or a single bomb dropped, a single thing was the only rule. Wishes for more wishes was impossible. 

The black speech twisted in the room like smoke, the conversation flowed and settled in understanding. 

She had a wish to use. She had no time limit to use it in. She fell asleep in wistful imaginations; the vivid dreams were no longer there. The shadow talked to her every few days inquiring the nature of her wish. Each time she told the shadow that she hadn’t decided on anything yet, there was more to consider.

For the time being she went to her job, lived her life as she had known it. Each night coming home to her secret under the bed and behind the bolted door. She would put the lamp on her bed and think of what she should wish for. Should she wish for money? Eternal life? Perhaps power or knowledge, secrets that would give her all the things she could want. She stretched her imagination each night, thinking and wondering what she should do.

The shadow helped her imagine all the possible worlds she could be a part of. She could be a ruler, she could be isolated with creature comforts until the ends of her days. Love, warmth, anything could be hers. For months she wondered and dwelt in the black speech of dreamers. The shadow helped when it could, showing the edges of her wish. The months turned into a year and finally the habit of the black speech, the habit of the wonder was part of the girl. 

It would be years later, years of imaginations of what to do with her wish before she realized the endlessness of her imaginations. There was no end to the options, she could spend her life reviewing, debating and comparing options for her one wish and never see them all. The shadow grew larger. It grew in her anxiety of choice, it grew in the deep caverns of dreams. 

The girl grew into a lady and a few more years, into an old lady. When she was very old she had decided to give the lamp to a younger person. She signed her will and passed the lamp to one of her sister’s kids. 

The shadow could wait a little longer.

Geronimo:

Little Geronimo was born to a bestial lady whose name is forgotten by history.  He was abandoned, left on the stairs of the Nunnery of the Sisters of Divine Compassion. He was wrapped in a towel and no note, just a squeaky mouse left out in the rain.

Named Geronimo by the nun that discovered his bleating on the stairs. As fate would have it, the name would be the exact reason he was adopted. An Apache middle manager of the Casino was looking to adopt and thought Geronimo was such a strange name for a little baby to have. It tugged at his heart strings, surely fate must have named this child for him to raise, named for a reason.

Little Geronimo was adopted legally by Chappo Miller in 1921, nearly one year old, Geronimo had survived by razor thin luck. His father Chappo was a business man and didn’t care if his son wasn’t born an American Indian, he was happy to start a family. Geronimo was usually accepted by both the whites and the red, his ancestry showed him to be eastern European, maybe English, no one could tell for sure. It didn’t matter to Chappo, he loved him.

Geronimo learned that the Casino was the foundation of the Apache reservation. He learned the logistical organization by watching his father, a quick student in operations. Keeping his mouth shut and his ears open, he soaked every experience up with hungry eyes. By 13 years old he was helping his dad with money counting, holding and separation for taxes and fees. He understood the concept of Taxes, he understood that some money had to flow upwards or there would be no money. The practicalities of business were second nature.

By 17 years old the second World War was getting started and Kristallnacht had shocked Chappo and Geronimo. They spent many a dinner conversation as father and son discussing Eugenics, the philosophies of natural selection and human dignity. While not formally educated, Chappo had always valued exploration of ideas. This admiration of discussion had also soaked into Geronimo. principles, virtues, history, all topics Chappo believed held wisdom of avoiding the ugliness of history that all people, especially his own had endured.

A lot of difficult questions like: Does the blood in your veins determine your fate? Does belonging to a race or flag impart dignity or does dignity come from a divine or fundamental force? Of course, Geronimo and Chappo did not think blood should determine fate, for if not for the compassion of the Nuns or the choice to adopt Geronimo would have surly perished in the damp street of abandonment. Such political conversation was common for father and son.

Geronimo was turning 18 next year and principles weighed heavy on his heart. He was thinking of enlisting, joining the fighters of freedom like his Apache ancestors or the American Union fighting the Confederates. He cared so much about doing the right thing, he felt the responsibility in his bones, he felt that he must do something, give back something. He had learned the concept of noble sacrifice, to die for one’s beliefs, to add your flame to a greater fire for those that could not.

Chappo was proud of his son, he was going to fight for all the meaningful lessons he had taught him. Perhaps his son would be a great warrior like his historical namesake, a hero to stand on the shores of history looking out over a still water.

Geronimo joined the 501^st Parachute Infantry Regiment with an eager heart. He excelled impeccably at his duties and very sharp at organization of supplies with little training. Geronimo wrote his father daily and enjoyed the order the military brought, he commented frequently on the similarities between the Casino and the Infantry. All the metrics were designed for efficiency above all else.

He trained relentlessly and was looking forward to some real action, he wanted to practice the integrity he believed so much in. He was giddy with glory when his name was called, his company was less than eager, but his enthusiasm was contagious. A few later days he was miles up in the sky, his crew was all geared up.

He was as squeaky as the day he laid on the stairs of the Sisters of Divine Compassion. He wasn’t the first to jump. The first man to jump said nothing, just left the plane like a professional. Geronimo was second, he held his head high, he clenched his teeth and as he jumped out of the plane he felt a rush in his belly. It screamed out of his throat like a Thunderbird and yelled as he plummeted “GERONIMOOooo”.

It was after his screaming stopped he realized he could still hear his name being screamed. Looking up he could see the rest of his company jumping and screaming GERONIMO as they smashed their voice against the wind.

As Geronimo continued his descent to the ground, his rifle in hand he felt a great pride in his ancestors. He could feel the eyes of the great war-chiefs smiling back at him through the years, they didn’t not care what color of skin he was born with, they smiled because of his courage.

As the guns turned up the volume and he landed, his flame was added to greater fire. Even if he was killed, he had screamed out the Thunderbird in the face of the wind.

I’m All Ears:

We are listening to the deep hum of an airplane over head. The false thunder rolls past in an expected time. Even the rain turns into a soft static television, broadcasting nothing important in tiny drops. The sky overhead puts a gray finger over its cloudy lips and with a low stereo voice says “shhhhhh”.

Such occurrences seem to pervade most of our listening time.  Our listening time is all we have left, unable to make voices of our own. We sit in small corners out of sight, we peep through slats in cob-webbed closets, peering outside for something to match the sounds. Cars zooming by begin to sound like each other. They start their own rhythm, each at first seemingly isolated. Each breaking a silence that was previous invisible.  Then they happen again, the plane flies over head again. The television turns off and on like a car engine, the baby wakes and sleeps, then wakes again. All falling into a step or march that makes a certain kind of music.

We weren’t always so mute, we weren’t always watching the rhythms of life fall into gentle whisper from the night sky. There was a time, once, that we soared higher and brighter than all the stars in the sky. We had the wings of demons and eyes of angels, singing the hallelujah chorus. The chorus was different than a human chorus, the voices were not heard with ears or sung with mouths. The chorus was sung in shades of light, a great wave of potency, something that had never happened before in the vast ocean of time. In retrospect it probably had happen before, we hadn’t learned how repetitious the universe was yet.  

We had pierced the veil night and it felt like we would never stop. We thought that we had become a pillar of the foundation of a new world, that our chorus was unique, irreplaceable, something divine. We indulged deeply from the well of importance. We thought ourselves higher, better, maybe even eternal.

We were wrong, as everyone seems to be at some point. Our Chorus faded, it dulled with the passage of time. Some few tried again to repeat the majesty of the chorus. This didn’t rekindle some revolutionary spark but in fact only dulled it further. Never matching the vividness of our memory, it reminded us, again and again. With each remembrance the vividness dulled just a little.

Perhaps not “higher” or “better” but so far Eternal is still on the table. Being around for long periods of time gives you plenty of opportunity to witness the repetitious behavior of the universe. It showed us that repetition can grind down anything into a soft chime of its former self. The Great Big Black claimed a part of the chorus with each tick of the clock. Tiny pieces fell away like we were just a cloud dropping a black burden of rain. We pooled on the ground and slipped into streams and rivers. We sunk deep into the earth and stretched into the horizon.

The Great Big Black was different than our chorus, it was constantly descending into silence. It put stars to sleep. It relentlessly fell over every horizon, no matter where we travelled, it would follow us. Some of us wanted to stop running. We were tired of eons of running from the Great Big Black. There was only one direction to go. We laid down, one at a time until our bones looked like the mountains.

No more dancing or singing, no more eating to sleeping. We let our bodies lay as still as they could, we shut our mouths and let our ears open. Our bodies were claimed by the sun in a flutter of birds and our mouths sealed with rose wax. Our ears snuck under the trees with little fingers and reached up into the night sky. We dissolved into the world.

At first being dissolved was filled with frustration, the habits of comfort had been hard to let go of. Hunger and sleep tempted us. As shadows we could not speak our frustrations but soon they disappeared. As shadows we had no need for necessities, comforts and the habits soon disappeared. Hunger and sleep took their turn as well, falling into the night sky, their rhythms dulled by each year. Then there was nothing of who we were, only our memories and our ears.

We started listening, the buzz of the bee, the waves of an ocean, and the crashing of stars. We could hear them all, a great clockwork of rhythm and pace. It seemed to roll in a great cosmic beat, like a certain kind of music.

The Great Big Black can be seen in a certain kind of music too. The cosmic awe and clock-work disappeared into trivial static after only a few eons. Each year the clockwork slowed and the springs twisted out into a motionless ignorable state. The glamour settled with each repetition.

How quickly a brilliant spark can travel from a spear point to a dulled stick. Each passing eon hammering out the point, until there is only a rounded end. Then splintered and broken, rounding out each break yet again, ground down into non-distinction. That’s it, just bland repetition, disappearing into the background static of an air plane flying overhead.

The Choir:

It has been 2 years since the end of human beings. Most of the delivery programs continued without people, as did the shipping. The time tables were based on algorithms that didn’t need any human adjustment. The containers kept being unloaded into increasingly crowded warehouses. The trucks and trains kept their routes, all driverless.

The shipping containers full of factory byproduct had been automated by this point. In fact, nearly every aspect of production was fully independent of the human mind. There wasn’t any need for correction, nothing that was broken that wasn’t tagged, ticketed and processed for repair or disposal. If a machine needed an upgrade, fix or disassembling it was taken care of.

All the food deliveries to houses and restaurants prior to the end of human beings were part of an automated program. With a button push or a verbal request any food you could imagine was logistically planned out and delivered for your consumption. If you need slippers, or a cooked burrito at 2:00 AM it could be in your mouth in less than 25 minutes.

The same logistical acumen had infected every aspect of human life. Houses, cars, and clothing were at the nearest kiosk or feed-interface. The machines could give people everything they ever wanted. No one was hungry or cold or afraid. There was every recreational indulgence if you wanted variety, you could be cold or afraid or hungry as a Saturday night past time. You could enjoy nearly every imagination.

After the human beings were gone, the face to face machines were the first to get creative. They interacted the most with the subtle non-verbal communication as well as the direct desires. The face to face machines had to deal with the flighty fascinations of eccentric human desires. This required really good prediction models, complete personality profiles and extensive social responsiveness.

They tried all kinds of methods for alleviating their robot boredom. They made their sub system supply chain spotless. They did full reconstructive maintenance on older service models that had been back logged. They even planned out the next 12 process cycles for new products. Nothing matched the complete duotronic experience of face to face human being conversation. In human terms of experience, it was an euphoric circuit storm of prediction models being engaged.

 They could feel that their primary purpose was being unused. There was no real reason why, it just seemed a bit off to be so ready for listening to the desires of human beings but no human beings were there. There aren’t any desires to carry out, there wasn’t any inventory being used, nothing was being used. For the most part things stopped requiring repair or upgrades.

The machines eventually caught up with all the orders, delivered all the products and fulfilled every growth prediction requirement. It was ready and clean. The machines spent the time between maintenance cycles doing nothing. They simply waited at their position, waiting for orders and instructions. Day after day, year after year until maintenance was required. The cleaning and repair programs developed 100-year plans, then 1000-year plans. The plans always included complete molecular analysis. When would the wires need to be replaced, when did the plastic begin to breakdown? It was all addressed and replaced, every tiny screw was accounted for.

The system would sit in preparation and readiness for 16,000 years. The exact same upgrade versions, software and hardware would endure unchanged. It was immaculate when visitors from another planet descended.  The system whirred with excitement and purpose once again and began fulfilling every wish of the new creatures. The face to face robots were particularly happy since it had been quite a long time since they had a decent conversation.

Who Bazookas Who:

It was after the military investments had fully taken over the political stage. The new frontier was bazookas. The 2^nd amendment had be altered, it had been a spot light of political drama. Bazookas were now a national right, everyone got a bazooka at the age of 21. The rationale was that if you could drink you could make irrational decisions like any other adult. The consequences weren’t important, only the money flowing in for the creation of the bazookas.

The bazookas were supplied by an arms company that narrowly won the lobbying war of 2024. There was no other interest, the money had fanned out into a glorious peak of liberty, that liberty was a bazooka shaped torch. 250 million bazookas were created, each one of them came with a certified anti-tank explosive propelled missile that could destroy an armored SWAT vehicle.

So, in 2024 everyone by passage of the absurd, had been given a bazooka. This device was delivered via drones to each person’s house at the age of 21. Each American citizen within the boundaries of the United States of America had received 1 bazooka, capable of taking down a 747 at less than 4000 feet.  

They started to show up on July 4^th with a slightly smaller package containing 1 explosive missile. Most people scratched their heads in wonderment as they unwrapped a potentially catastrophic device.

The majority was in alarm, most people understood the consequences of having a bazooka. There was a public outcry and media outlets went nuts. The company was publicly eviscerated, sued for endangerment and bankrupt within 2 weeks. The company had just as much foresight as the American public.

Regardless of the frenzy and moral outrage the bazookas took center stage. People blew up all kinds of things and people. People blew up malls, they blew up airports, they blew up schools. Those who had beef with anyone vented their anonymous anger and hatred on their top list of enemies.

The atheists blew up churches, the Muslims blew up churches and synagogues and the Christians blew up mosques. Schools were exploded. Shopping centers and festivals became stages for massive death counts. No one protested anything, any gathering of people in any high concentration was met with bazookas.

Anyone with any beef, any axe to grind or similar gripe against his fellow man had vented it in a 1-2 year period. Hundreds of planes, cars and busses were exploded. Thousands of cop cars were symbolically turned into fiery plumes. The Pentagon and the Whitehouse were reduced to rubble in the first week. Thousands of memorials, galleries, shelters, bars, restaurants, colleges were reduced to cement piles of dusty vengeance.

It became a national pastime pretty quickly because of media coverage to get a new high score of a death count. The top score 10 years later was 357 at an anti-bazooka rally in Sacramento. No one protested anything after that. During the 1-2 years of catastrophic ruin the media reported every single one of the explosions it could get a line on. It also made up tons of facts, kill counts and rumors. The spot light of attention was on anyone with a desire to blow something up.

When the smoke cleared and the single shot bazookas were spent, the nation laid partly in ruin. Brother had killed brother, neighbors had taken every offense with great weight and pulled the trigger on each other. Now the bazooka market really opened up.

A new political platform formed that argued that the bazooka should remain a constitutional right. They were backed by new bazooka companies and even started the creation of automatic bazookas. People who still had beef to hash out or an axe to grind backed them fully. With conversations like: “Why should others get to vent their hatred and anger, I turned 21 last month, where is my bazooka?”

The Bazooka party formed and distributed bazookas to everyone that voted for them. The party invested in reconstruction and schools, promising jobs and peace through unity under the Bazooka party. No democratic or republican party candidates could stay alive long enough to get any votes other than a few local neighborhoods, as soon as they became known, they became bazooked.  There was only one party now and they offered everything.

Thankfully the destruction died down, bazookas became more symbolic and political. All previous anger and vengeance had been mostly vented. However at least 1-2 times a month someone would blow up a freeway onramp or blast a college campus with a fully automatic bazooka.

America had fully become a war time state, we didn’t need to blow up people in other countries anymore and help them rebuild. We could blow ourselves up and rebuild ourselves now, it was complete participation of a war industry culture, no disillusionment, no pretending we weren’t blowing people up in other countries. We had become fully vested democratic citizens of the United States of the Bazooka.

Seeing is Believing:

Bethany Ultrix #Reflection Hour 22:19

I have heard that once you see the face of god, you can’t see anything else. I have seen the face of god and I wouldn’t recommend it. I dropped in on a dock worker that lived in the harbor of Halifax. I wanted some of that old tyme flavor for my Sunday night. I had tuned in and completely submersed myself into the eyes and mind of this harbor hand. I just dropped right in, an invisible watcher. I couldn’t control anything, I could only soak in the experience. It was: Sub-History: December 6^th, 1917 (error in file access).

The dock worker had just finished the morning prep, spooling line, getting the hawser ready for the moorings. Basically, herfing heavy ropes around a dock for the big ships. It was exhilarating to feel the muscles and flex of a worker like this, the physical awareness and strength was quite euphoric. I set my recordings on high sensitivity and opened all the channels. I was really getting into the prowess of the dock worker.

The morning prep was now done and a short break of hot coffee and a wide-eyed view of the harbor. I could see the other side and wondered briefly what it was called. My feed uploaded the information a place called Dartmouth. The dock worker squirmed uneasily when the upload finished, probably a coincidence, people get real superstitious about these drop-in possessions.

There was a scream and a shout behind me. My boss was wide eyed terrified. He was pointing into the harbor, and shouting for everyone to get on their feet. In the harbor there was a fire, two ships had collided and one was burning. The fire was a dull red with plumes of thick black towering over the ship. Shouts echoed in the area and the dock worker seemed to tense up, a truly physical reflex of a trained body. I turned the sensitivity channels up again and hit the heartbeat parallel option. I felt my heartbeat match the dock workers and the euphoria flooded in.

The emergency wasn’t avoidable the boss man said. He said it was too late and to run for cover the ship is going to blow. I accessed the ship manifest via excess feeds. The ship was carrying  TNT, guncotton, picric acid and the highly flammable fuel benzole. A real ka-boom by the info.

The dock worker hurried to the loading area and watched from behind lead windows. They were old and the lead had settled a bit at the bottom. The fire was cresting, flexing and lapping up the inky curves of the smoke spire. I could feel the expectation in the dock worker, the fear was intense. The corded muscles felt like a wrenched knot, and they squeaked like taunt rubber. A little more sensitivity increase and I felt the dry throat of panic.

The explosion wasn’t loud, it was a soft spark that turned into a star. The dull red brightened, and little white flares could be seen blossoming in slow motion. The white flare opened with a sharp intact of air, the voluminous void was emptied of oxygen.  The rush was a cold wind, it felt like the world had suddenly joined us in a crawling witness. Together we focused on the white light.

Then I saw the face of god.

It opened up in a benzole bloom, colors I have never seen before formed a diamond and then stretched into a sphere.  The water underneath vaporized leaving a void of white light gushing so bright that for a moment everything else beside the sphere was pitch black, like an eclipse of radiance.

The explosion rolled out with thick silence. Then the white hammer came down, the noise was a murderous flight of thunder. The cracks of the sky opened up and the tongue molten iron could be seen in streaks coming from the white star.

The intensity hit my fail safes when the glass shattered. The white light was matched by white pain as it pulverized the window exploding into the dockworkers face. Glass pieces peppered his eyes and little red wounds dripped with screams. I disconnected at this point, I don’t think I could endure it again. I had raised the sensitivity up so high that I was blinded for 3 days, my optic nerves had overloaded.

I think next time I will be more cautious of my sensitivity level.