Pillow Fight:



The feathers from the pillow were synthetic. High quality polymer design, most likely a specialty brand. There was no blood on them, but the ripped pillowcase said the feathers were flying at the time of death. The scene is already processed; photographed, inventoried, and filmed. I am here to put the pieces together.



From the arm wounds, and the shredded pillow, the attacker would have been striking from above, and the room shows no other signs of struggle, nothing is taken or searched. The windows were locked from inside and the door showed no signs of entry. Visual inspection of the door and the report say the door was locked when the first responders arrived. The neighbors heard a scream and called the police. The scream was described as “Prolonged shrieking” and was heard while the door was being opened. The lock was shattered and the door splintered. However, the screaming stopped when the door was opened. The biggest inconsistency of the initial information claims the body was deceased for 48 hours.



I scanned the room for tiny details which could have been missed. Little things like disturbances of dust on rarely used closets, or apparent voids on dressers indicating the absence of sentimental objects. I noticed new sheets on the bed, freshly cleaned. I found a small stack of older bedding; the new sheets were drastically different. The old sheets were plain and nearly identical to each other. 



So why the different sheets on the night of the murder?



I wasn’t worried about disrupting the scene, it was already topographically imaged, which could be examined on a virtual format. I preferred the real deal, I liked to be in the environment itself. I put myself in the bed and stared at the ceiling; pretending to be the victim. What would I do if an attacker suddenly entered? The light was on when the emergency responders arrived.



Fingerprints and locations would be available in the virtual format too, but I wanted a fresh impression. I checked the drawers for valuables, I checked the devices for the time of last use, and I checked under the bed for any disturbances. There were no valuables, and the laundry was folded precisely, indicating they would have called on their devices if they could, this was an orderly and law-abiding citizen. The devices all showed greater than 6-hour inactivity.



The objects under the bed were abandoned, not a single object was untouched by a dusty film. My guess is they put things under their bed to forget about them. I found an old box of trinkets, which I find in every house, and the chest was full of alien memories; points of reference only a complete personality profile would be able to explain. I doubt they were relevant, by the looks of the dust, these memories were almost completely decomposed. It did tell me the victim was not prone to nostalgia, nor dwelled on old memories.



I will have to investigate their psychological profile further. I wasn’t supposed to take work home with me, but I had nothing planned this weekend. I felt like the answer had to be in the meta data.



Later that night, exhaustion and forensic dead ends pointed nowhere. 



I found no signs of a developing mid life crisis, even though they are the median age. There was no other DNA in the room, no unusual fibers, no fingerprints, and nothing on the network for nearby devices. The wounds revealed nothing other than a teeth or knife marks, any distinguishing characteristics were absent.



By the next morning, sleep had eluded me. The absence of evidence was more confounding, more painful than the gruesome details, or even the murder. I felt like I must have missed something. I have 4 more days of discretionary interaction with the crime scene before a report would be required of me. A motive suspect or good narrative of the events would suffice, but I was currently empty handed.



I returned to the scene and found a most unnerving fact. The pillow was whole. The shredded fabric and feathers were returned to a clean and freshly minted state. The blood nearby and the unnatural cleanliness only seemed a sharp contrast to the lack of explanation. I looked around a little longer but was hopelessly distracted by the reconstituted bed accessory. I found no other disturbances, except the video footage from the night before. The pillow was seen recombining itself slowly over a few hours. No one was seen coming in or out of the room.



The pillow would be included in my report, but how do I explain a pillow which remakes itself, and a murder with no weapon, no assailant, or motive?



I took the pillow home. I needed to think about the facts and put myself in the scene without laying on the bloody bed. I was determined to watch the pillow’s mechanism firsthand. I used some kitchen shears and cut the pristine white pillow into shreds and piled them up on my living room floor.



I watched until the late hours of evening. After 1:00 AM the shreds started moving. They squirmed like exposed worms, and moving with unseen muscles, the pillow shreds sought each other out in contorted motions. I was transfixed by the quivering phenomenon. I didn’t see the color change until the shreds formed coherent pieces, perhaps it was the shadows of the dark hours.



The new pillow looked somehow familiar, and regardless of its newly minted form, it looked as if it had been used for years. The pillow also acquired a scent, like the distinguished smells of childhood visits to a grand-parent’s house. Then after an hour, a shape formed in the center; the head shape was my head shape.



The late hours and the lack of sleep need to be questioned; I was starting to take this case very personally. My imagination was looking for something, anything to build a narrative for the murder, Maybe the shape in the pillow coincidentally looked like my head. One thing was clear to me: The pillow would recombine if destroyed. I knew consumer products could have self-repair, or self-cleaning. Perhaps I was obsessing over this fancy pillow because I had nothing to go on.



An absent-minded laugh broke the silence of the late night. The detective was exhausted and frustrated, and the mystery of the pillow was all they had. This laugh turned into a weeping chuckle as a glass of alcohol was poured over ice. They slumped into a chair and watched the pillow, thinking over the details of the case.



Nearby, the pillow watched too. It tried its best to be a comforting image, to be something it knew the detective wanted. “Why not lay your head on this soft memory? Relax into the comfort of belonging with a shape made just for you.” The pillow mused.



The lack of sleep and exhaustion eventually washed away the detective’s consciousness. He slept in his chair, watching the pillow and thinking of how the murder happened. As he slept, the pillow crept across the bed and unto the floor. Then it slinked up the back the chair like a slug and unto the detective’s face.



5 mornings later, after the report deadline passed, someone came to the detective’s house. They found them dead. It looked like someone had stabbed them through the pillow as they held it up in defense. A new investigation would have to be launched, and the process would start again. The pillow listened to the bustling turbulence the crime scene and waited for someone nearby to rest their head on its comfortable downy body.

The Bouquet:

I was involuntarily feeding the mosquitoes in my backyard while I watched my friend die on Tuesday evening. We had already taken him to the vet, but there was little they could do. From superficial signs, his kidneys were inflamed, fever, and dehydration. He refused to drink water or eat anything.

When we got home, he slept. Then after hours of sleeping he woke in a frustrated scowl. He gathered bones in a painful wobble and went to the front door. Once outside he attempted to get under the tool shed, and when we saw this, we knew, he was looking for a place to die.

We took him down to the back hill and let him find a spot under a rhododendron. He tried to meow, but his breathing was labored and heavy. I watched his breath rise and fall, waiting for the last. Such a small step from living to dying, such a small distance to become part of the dirt. In his youth, he was a copper cat, his coat shined like metallic flecks and golden silk.

He tried once again to get under the shed. This time we brought him into the shed, set up a little bed, and let him be alone. We called a veterinary technician to come and peacefully help with the last step. The technician would be over at 7:00.

When the technician arrived, only a little life remained. His eyes no longer focused; they already turned a cloudy gray

The process was quick; one shot to sedate, and one to kill. He didn’t struggle with the first shot, and he relaxed. After we said one last goodbye to Mr. Kitty, the second shot was given, and his breathing stopped. The technician left after a few words about impermanence. The tattered flags in the front yard reflected their words in clear sorrow.

Dinner was prepared, and memories spoken in shaky voices. We spoke of his high qualities; his temperament, his loyalty, his cuddly furry face. We made plans for a burial on the next day.

The next day was overcast. We were refreshed, but only superficially. Tears were renewed, and conversations of death returned. The burial was going to be at night. We dug the hole and waited until everyone arrived from work. The twilight brought more mosquitoes. Then we gathered flowers and placed them around his head. When everyone was ready, we brought his body down to a hole we dug earlier. A bouquet of fresh Crocosmia Lucifer, common grass, and soft rose petals were placed in his grave.    

I placed him in the hole, we lit a candle and said farewell. After a few moments, we buried him in a slow manner. Until the last shovel of dirt covered his face, which was framed in a few flowers. We returned to the land of the living, and phrases like “Mr. Kitty was a good buddy cat!” dotted the evening.
The next day the lilies bloomed in heavy melancholy.

Regrowth:



The poster said Zombie Disco in bright red white and black font, and read as follows:



“Our bodies are bound to the music, and our dance moves necrospasmodic. If you are missing a spine, no worries, you can hang low and shake those arms. Roller skates are encouraged.”



I plan on attending the costumed party, but I can’t leave my house. The sun is not my friend, it used to be, thousands of years ago. My ancestors were plants of some kind and drank deeply from the sunlight. I avoid the sunlight because growth is too difficult to deal with. A few moments in the daylight, and tumors, cancers, and mutations sprout from my cells. The growth can be reduced by spending time in the darkness, and the use of current technology.



I was ready to ignore the poster, when I saw the bottom line: the disco started at midnight. I could go to the Zombie Disco and keep out of the sun. I had roller skates, at least I remember having them. I would have to look through my boxes from a hundred of years ago.



The boxes were exactly where I left them. There was some dust and decay of the cardboard containers. The metal of the roller skates was still gleaming, and the wheels still turned. I tried them on, and they still fit like I remember all those years ago. My feet required special socks, because my skin is paper thin. I could put them in the sunlight and regenerate them a little, but I prefer to be made out of paper, rather than the pain of regeneration.



After I gathered my roller skates, I dug through more of my boxes for a costume. I had clothes from every age, thousands of styles. It took me 3 days to find something in the funky disco category. A jacket made of leather fringe, and some tight denim bell-bottoms survived well enough. There was fringe missing, and some pieces were marked with holes. I thought about buying some new cloths, but this was a Zombie Disco, and new clothes were trite.



I turned around in front of a mirror; the dim light showed me a disintegrating corpse in ancient attire.



I added some makeup; purple and blue around my eyes, a little black smudge on my neck and red flecks on my arms. I planned on my coat on, but roller skating can be exhausting, and if I was going to take my coat off, I needed the costume to be complete. The flecks looked like age spots. My normal skin was plain white, and my veins are easily seen. I didn’t want to look like a jelly fish, so I smudged black on my arms too. I don’t have any hair, but I don’t think I can get a wig in time, not unless I want to go out in the sunlight.



The rest of the week was an orbit of anticipation. The revolution completed, and night fell on the Zombie Disco.



The zombies came from everywhere. They gathered in throngs of polyester, rusted roller skates, and mocking groans as they did their best to mimic walking corpses. There were artists with exquisite make up, fashionistas presenting their rotten Sunday best. There were crust zombies, those interested in socializing with the undead, they were marked by their bright eyes and darting glances. There were also the old-ones, zombies who come to every disco, and wore costumes for every occasion. They sat silently, watching the new crop of decay skate in a left turning circle.



Some were missing spines, and they did their best to lurch a few times around the roller rink. However, their lack of vertebrate support relegated them to the sidelines during couples skate or reverse skate. Some of them simply stored themselves in a slump by the ADA bathroom.



I saw 2 others with fringe coats, one was a sequined purple spectacle, which made me look drab. I didn’t care, this was the most social and physical interaction I’ve had in years. The act of roller skating was like riding a bike, my gears were dry and my tires flat, but I was in good company and the occasional fall didn’t bother me too much. I skated very slowly, holding the edge of the wall, even as the funk flowed around me.



The second fringe coat was a gorgeous undead girl with blue velvet fringe. She wasn’t wearing a costume, I could tell. Her blue velvet fringe wasn’t new, and it was immaculately kept, she moved with grace and ease, probably another creature like me, some nightwalker who found the balance of pain and decay. I long ago gave up the balance, I decided to avoid the whole idea of suffering for art, but this nightwalker had it; the preternatural comforts of easy eyes, and teeth sharp enough to painlessly eat your heart.  I couldn’t stop looking at the zombie in the velvet fringe.



I danced a little at the bar, trying my best to appear vital. I swung my arms and bobbed my head, sometimes missing the beat, but from the looks of other zombies, I could at least hold my head up. The party went longer than I wanted, I thought about leaving to avoid the sun, but I was lost in the flush of the Zombie Disco.



I paid for it in the end. When last song played, I could see sunlight through the front door. I had waited too long; the sun was already up.



It hurt like a furious burn walking to my car. I could feel my paper skin hardening, growing, repairing itself. I tried to run, but I was exhausted from the evening, I could only manage an excruciating shuffle. I lurched for my car door. My hands were turning hot with blood and life. My believable zombie costume was disappearing. I managed to drive myself home in a red cloud of pain and throw myself at my bed.



I paid for the Zombie Disco with unnecessary regrowth. Next year I will wear a full body suit, complete with one of those masks of living faces.

The Tower:



After 8000 steps up the tower of an unknown kingdom, built by those who have neglected the ruins. Any objects which once decorated the walls and the rooms have been looted or dissolved into dust. The only thing left unclaimed by the cobwebs is the stones themselves. About halfway up, you saw a black iron door, and after investigating the ruins, the door alone stands out as being untouched by the mundane forces of time.



You spend some time inspecting the craftwork and motifs on the door. You try and read the words, but their meaning has been lost with the eons. The stylization implies warning, and the detailed work says valuables. After a little more time, you begin to hear the whispers of a creature on the other side, and after a few failed attempts at language, the creature on the other side finds a tongue to speak with you.



“Hey, hello, anyone there? I can hear you on the other side of the door.

I have lived 3400 years, most of which was imprisonment in a magical tower. I committed the most immoral crimes against the builders of the tower, specifically: I ate them. It’s true, I did eat them, every day for hundreds of years. Eventually they developed an intelligence and power to imprison me.



During my time imprisonment in a magical tower I was not blind to the movements of the world. I could travel the surface of planet, peer into any window, or float through the hallways of palaces and tombs. I could travel any distance with a thought, if I pictured it or named it, my perspective would travel to the location. The flush of reality would come into focus and I could see and hear everything.



I have looked into the dark hallways of forgotten tombs, and under places no one has seen. I have heard the conversations of kings, and the secrets of whispered meetings. I listened to topics from the important to the mundane and watched the motion of the world outside my prison.



I have found strange new things emerging which change all the rules. The old rules for civilization are losing touch, they are growing blind. New rules are being drafted up in a layer of bureaucratic hell, and with its freshly minted rationale sent marching into the land of the living. No one seems to know the details of the new rules. They claim to know, guessing at the darkness, while laying claim to the future with certainty.



You can believe them if you wish, these guesses at the future, made from limited vantage points. There is no shortage of rule makers, I have heard their whispered conspiracies. I assure you, for every throne of authority, there is a shadow play ending in failed bets and lost gambles. No one knows the new rules.



The rules cannot be written down or spoken out loud, as they will simply become part of a swarm of repeating mouths. I've seen it happen time and again: a person spoke an idea, and all of those nearby get infected, and soon the keepers of the old rules hear about what’s going on. Once they hear, once they know, they work against a threat to their control.



These strange new things have not been categorized yet, nor given any name. There is no direction to point yourself in order to see them approach. They will bloom like flowers from the graves not yet filled. These new things, whatever they may be, are whispered of in corners of dark rooms with cautious voices. They are speculated about endlessly, and outlines of their shadows are measured. However, no one can tell if they are large or small, or from where their dark light is cast from.



I tell you these things, as an imprisoned creature, whose jailors are long since extinct. I have seen 3 ages pass, and each of them thinking their empires eternal. Yet simple catastrophes like floods or war flatten their cities. How far was their vision, when a recurring phenomenon blindsides them?



I have also seen rivers dry to nothing and their surrounding cultures scatter. The world does not turn for moral reasons, but for practical ones. The future is unseen, and moral foundations crumble.



A point I would like to express; my jailors were entirely consumed with moral reasons for imprisoning me. Again, it’s true, I did eat them, but should a spider be held by a court of flies? Should their short-sighted moral code, written by long dead hands, bind me to suffer in this tower?



I found something written down, something forgotten and buried. It was a scroll, a rolled parchment containing the mechanism of my escape. I implore you, for the sake of freedom, from one living creature to another, help me escape this prison.



In return I will show you more of these new things, these strange shadows flickering on a future horizon, and perhaps you can make them out. “



Time passes in silence as you think of the creature’s offer. Will you open the black iron door, will you free the ancient creature from the ruined tower?

The Great Centipede:



There is no taxonomy for a creature of this kind. No samples have been collected, or opportunity to domesticate the Great Centipede. This is primarily due to the cumbersome size. The legs of the creature measure hundreds of feet in length, with hardened chitin of impenetrable strength. Kinetic forces seem to be easily absorbed.



Humanity lives with a great roaming avalanche of legs; where it travels, buildings are destroyed, freeways shredded to rumble, and previous food distribution routes have disappeared.  It's been 300 years of cohabitating with the beast as it scuttles from metropolis to metropolis. The segments of its body creaked like enlarged tanks or busses, or something put together from a junkyard.



There is little knowledge, and much rumor. Some say it was a military machine which escaped our ancestors; a beast unbound. Others say it hatched from deep below the surface, from a world of other gigantic creatures, and perhaps in this world, the Great Centipede is not unusual or out of place; only a mundane insect.



There have been plenty of attempts to kill the creature. Nuclear bombs did little, except make the area unhabitable. Its exoskeleton can absorb radiation. There is also rumor of a cluster of hundreds of nuclear bombs being prepared to strike a lethal blow. If there are such plans, perhaps they are waiting for the appointed hour.



The length of the Centipede is enormous. The segmented line can encircle a city, consumes all within, reduce miles of concrete to dust and then moves on, with its end legs still stomping the ruins, as it begins the begins feasting on another city.



I have seen it twice in its entirety. The first time was in the air. I was in a helicopter and could see the Centipede slurping up petroleum of a refinery. We tried to light the place on fire, but it didn’t seem to care, and moved to a populated area in a cloud of thick smoke. The oil slick burned on its body for days, luckily, we had evacuated the town before the Centipede arrived, leaving it to consume whatever it wanted.



The second time I saw it was by surprise. The Centipede had tunneled underground, and we lost sight of it in the Cascade mountain range. It appeared in the south, in a city called Portland; it burst from the ground causing earthquakes and static-electric thunderclouds. Bolts of lightning started fires, and the trample of towering legs crushed the buildings in a frantic skittering. The helicopters got some people out, but the mouth of Centipede consumed many.

The eating of people is unlike an ordinary centipede, which typically uses mandibles consume a meal. It may be best described as a vacuum cleaner or an anteater. There is a sucking wind which blows hundreds of miles an hour, all directed towards an open hole. The face is an empty pit; hollow and ravenous without interruption.



Perhaps on other continents there are other centipedes eating metropolises. We are isolated with the Great Centipede, bound to scurry in its shadow. Our might is useless, and the greatness of our cities is reduced to food for the creature.



I can hear the rumble, even as I write these words, I can hear the Great Centipede coming with its open maw and iron legs, I can almost hear the sucking wind. You can’t forget the howl, it never ends; once the Great Centipede is here, there is nothing left to do but run. I have seen the beast and learned a practiced futility. I don’t mean to draw a shadow, but these are the new rules, and unless an equally monstrous predator shows its face, we are slaves to the crawling doom. Even then, what would the greater creature inflict upon our frayed population?



Others fight despair with survival; hoping to outlast the beast, rebuild and reclaim the crown of the world. I think this strategy is vain, our crown is gone, there is no return to the throne of control. Even if we did, what divine paranoia would haunt us knowing a Great Centipede could return? An what of other Great things? What if a Great wolf or dog, or even a Great ape rose up over our city walls with an angry intelligence, something with murderous intention?



The ground grows louder and the sucking wind approaches. I will risk another glimpse at the oily insect and look again into the empty face and dark mouth. If nothing else, I will be a witness to its Greatness.

Icicles:



500 million years or so ago the ice caps were completely gone, life was dying, and extinction was frequenting the equator. The water level rose, and the ocean claimed all the best real estate for life. Practice was over, and the game of survival was selecting its semifinalists.



Spirals of immaculate construction, princely nautiluses, and castles of elegant coral were the first to signal the fall. Their beauty was as pristine as their brittleness. For millions of years they were untouched, they were pulled under thick currents of cold water, and their bodies broken into pieces.



What is rarely known about these coral castles, was the use of automation.



The coral of this age had a degree of intelligence. They built their bodies and societies into circuits of conductive minerals. The tide was harnessed, and the ocean heaved like a hydroelectric generator. The exact method of harnessing the tide, was in fact the source of their extinction. The magnitude of their success was beyond their comprehension; their mineral brains lacked self-awareness.



Automation was efficiency, and every task was segmented. Their structures produced a variety of cleaners, scrubbers, and sifters for their needs. Tiny arms and legs were built into the best servants, and sophisticated oozes were deployed all over the ocean floor. Their society bristled with specific tasks and specialized roles. None of which involved watching the water level rising.



The water level was a fact of life; an invisible medium taken as self-evident.



There was an attempt, finally at the end. A group of coral came together in the last hour, as the dark water swallowed the great city of Krex. They filtered the problem of growth rates through their best ameba shaped computers. The small mineral creatures fed the information through 6000 amoebas, producing a detailed plan of survival. The design included new shapes, and new attributes required for the rising waters of the world.



Krex itself was shaped in the geometric ratios of a nautilus, descending into a council chamber at the crown of the golden spiral. The city filled a great costal swathe of the Ural Ocean. This allowed for the fastest conductivity of instructions; out into every creature of the tidal realm. Within 3 amoebic cycles, the plan started its first phase.



All resources were used, if they weren’t used, the dark currents pulled them down.



The foundation was laid for an even larger spiral, with hexagonal edges which curled into fractals. The blueprints were the pinnacle of accuracy, a last and desperate attempt at avoiding extinction. The best of the remaining servant creatures were altered to construct the grant nautilus. They were a shining example of perfection, deploying the bones for the structure to the thinnest margin. Within a year the shape was nearly complete.



The bastion of effort stood completed and the creatures waited in their dissolving homes for the solution to take effect. Soon the air cooled, and water level receded. The small coral creatures celebrated in success of their efforts. The nautilus began to act like a seed: its shaped changed the currents of the air to such a degree small crystalline shapes emerged. They were a testament to geometric precision. Each year the temperature cooled, and the holographic shapes grew.



What formed on the shallow coast of a great coral kingdom resembled more a glacier than a shell. Ice had returned and grew thicker each day. A wind formed from the air displacement, and carried the breeze to the rest of the world. An artificial glacier hovered on horizon, crawling with streams of new ice, and flowers of radial geometry blossomed with minerals, which were already placed by the servant creatures.



Success of the artificial glacier fueled the urge to rebuild the broken coral castles. The mineral creatures set to their reconstruction. However, a new catastrophe hovered below them. The glacier was too efficient, and the temperature of the world was quickly descending. Within a few years, all remaining resources were allocated from construction to heat. After a decade of the glacier growing, it was clear the world was going to enter an ice age.



Magnetic pulls from the minerals within the nautilus were beginning to be amplified by the spreading ice crystals; their shape was ideal for the resonance, as was the exquisite ratios of the nautilus itself. The increase in magnetic force attracted all sorts of creatures, only to lure them to freezing waters. The glacier absorbed the life of the ocean, like a pristine beacon in a shivering darkness.



Extinction took the shape of success, using the coral creatures as its voice.



Once the coral creature were millions of years unremembered, and their servants dissolved into the opal silica. Their attempts at perfection were in vain; the resonance of geometric precision faltered. It had been maintained for as long as the resonance held. When the spell of geometry broke, a crack in the ice shattered the silence with a chime of discordant failure.


The artificial glacier lost its power, and the ice relented.