Fools Like Me
I think that I shall never see A poem lovely as a tree...Poems are made by fools like me, But only God can make a tree.— Joyce Kilmer, 1915
I was dispatched to inspect Earth 2.0 after four years of training. This Earth-sized planet, in the habitable zone of the N14-Z system, turned out to be within only a half-lifetime's reach via paraluminal speeds. I was awakened by my automaton 3 days out from orbit injection, so by the time of atmospheric entry I was 100% physiologic again.
Descent was nominal. I had been trained well. The maps had been accurate, too, so I targeted a heavily wooded subcontinent that had open swaths dividing it. Seeing it from above, I imagined it as some type of highway system connecting all the wooded areas. The more I followed the linear patterns, the more I realized one could probably connect the entire planet with them.
I landed on one such open area, and after an hour of xeno-acclimation, as per the protocol that had been established, I was ready to disembark from my vehicle. After finally having boots on the ground, finally out in this new world, I took a deep breath. All seemed well.
It had been a long time since I had seen green, but what lay around me was a verdant area of angled flora, rising dozens of meters into the blue sky. Green is hardwired into the human brain. It's in our DNA. Its electromagnetic spectrum frequency soothes the mind. I felt at peace here. As long as there was green, I'd be OK.
The trees' angulations made them look like strings of connected Ws, Ms, and Xs. White puffy clouds dotted blue skies above the horizon. As long as the sky was blue, I'd be OK. Blue and white with green — another scheme we're hardwired for.
I was home — it was the first thing I thought. I thought I had thought it; it was more like the thought had been presented to me.
But I knew I wasn't home, really. Still, I don't know if a more Earthly welcome could have been presented to me, had it been scripted and fed into some planet-making machine.
The trees were slightly different, even a little "off," but I could get used to that. They were very thick, yet twiggy, with lots of irregular features in the bark. But as long as they were green, I'd be OK. As long as they were emerald, celadon, chartreuse, jade, mint, olive, myrtle, citron, or harlequin, I'd be OK. There were all of these hues within the green spectrum, but also one more, of a greenish shade unknown to my Earth. I realized I had the distinctive honor, bestowed upon me, of naming it myself.
Remy. I named this unique tree's green "Remy." Remy-green, like the freshly cut oars hewn for rowing, still a bit green when first striking the blue waters.
I watched, now, the "slightly off" aspects of the flying insect-like creatures, minding their own business in the variegated flowers and the green trees. I followed one particularly colorful one and wondered about mandibles, venom, stingers, and yet-to-be-discovered contrivances of defense. From childhood Earth had trained me well, so I was cautious. This tiny beast fluttered to the Remy-green tree in particular.
The tree, my favorite, so far, stood with angled branches as if it were waiting patiently for something, its arms akimbo. The markings and knots on its "bark" fired up my mind's pareidolia, and I imagined a strange alien face on it. I scanned laterally across the trees to the left and right, and found similar markings. The more I studied them, the more discrete faces seemed to emerge. Was this some sort of welcoming committee, I joked to myself. And was that even funny? Or a premonition?
Pareidolia is well-established in the space program. It is the reason we see a "Man in the Moon," or that "face" in that rocky pyramid on Mars. I looked up and saw the giraffes and lobsters in the billowed clouds. This aptitude figured prominently in Man's survival, expressly for the advantage of recognizing faces or the appearances of danger. Recognition is the ignition for interaction; interaction is the fuel for society.
Pareidolia had served us well.
Still, these visages in the bark were almost spot-on for faces. By looking deeply into them I could almost know what such faces might be thinking.
And then I heard them.
It was a low rumble at first, in frequencies so deep it was hard for me to echolocate any discrete origin. But the sounds began climbing up the scales until it was obvious they were coming from these "face-trees."
I sat on a soft mound of dirt and just watched and listened. And I saw things. Were lip-like thin shelves of bark moving? I re-checked my chromagraphic analyzer, and there was nothing in the air, hallucinogenic or otherwise, except oxygen, nitrogen, and some trace elements.
My first tree of scrutiny, the Remy-green tree, began to get louder, out-singing (singing?) the others. Then, one of its akimbo branches extended, its terminal part flexing upward and inward, as if to wave me toward it.
The entire soundscape began to come together in unison, as if I were being welcomed into some planetary rite of passage.
I rose and approached the tree. The branches on the other trees began to shake in place, adding a percussive element to the chorale. I got close enough to its Remy-green to touch it, but I hesitated. Again, an abundance of Earth caution discouraged me from jumping right into the milieu of another life form. Was this flora? Fauna? Something altogether different? Something altogether friendly?
Was it beckoning me or warning me? Welcoming me or condemning me?
I needn't have anguished so. It finally extended a branch and touched me on the top of my head. That's when I heard every tree on the planet, the entire Earth 2.0 choir, singing heavenly out to the lightyears in an explosive array of sinusoidal, electromagnetic vectors.
I needed not be anywhere else again.
I signed out of my explorer's datalog, and I began my new adventure. I was changed. I was changing. I was being changed.
I would not be the last man from Earth 1 to come to Earth 2. I had no idea how long had passed before I saw men and women come here again. By my reckoning, it would have been about another 30 more years or so for the first Earth to revisit the second. When they did, this time it was with five explorers on a pre-colonization mission. They had come with all of my notes, a voluminous trove that ended abruptly. Indeed, my observations were historical records. And when they had stopped, so suddenly, that was historical as well — and the motivation to find out why.
Of the five interworld travelers, one of them had a personal stake in it, as he was my son.
My son, Remy.
I loved him dearly, but — still — I needed not be anywhere else.
Based on my data, they had landed on the same patch of clearance and found the environment as inviting as I had. They found the same contingent of welcoming "trees," and they fell for the pareidolia ignited in their mind's eye. They had been warned by my observations, and so they were wary of reading too much into it. But Remy was troubled.
He eyed one particular tree, standing among the others — what he couldn't know was of an eponymous shade of green. It stood proudly as if were some member-in-good-standing, with interesting marks and knots. He didn't fight the pareidolia. Instead, he embraced its call.
"Dad?"
The branch's touch was re-enacted, the connection made again, and the new evolution of Man had begun, as the official welcome to Earth 2. Remy embraced his father, even if it was a spiritual act carried by the preternatural fluids imbued within the cellulose and fibers of trees whose bark imperfections mimicked the faces of all visitors who had come before.
Remy and his father saw their entire new world before them. They felt every leaf, branch, trunk, and root; swam in its water table; tasted its life. Their euphoria was a grasp of an entire network of mycelial synergy. They partook in philosophy, mathematics, theology, and a thousand other sciences and arts.
The knowledge — and the assimilation thereof — went far beyond the roots and the synapsed consortium so realized; it extended to the very minerals that held the data of worlds and stars born, universe-sown, and reborn. They also partook in something the first Earth had never been able to achieve.
They had peace on Earth.
Living Doll™
The Nia® series. You Cantileave 'er Alone™
She was a work of industrial art. Poetry in kinetic motion. A sensuous capacitor of potential energy.
She could suspend herself above him and then alight like geared scaffolding. Her legs were trusses of shapely engineered support, surrounded by thermostatically finetuned warmth, user-defined.
She would stand astride him, her limbs like fire escapes that guided intuitive reciprocation, cantilevering according to the flowsheets in her programming. She could learn what he liked.
She could straddle him, unshakeable in an earthquake, unless she were the earthquake and, yes, the Earth moved for him. She could blur in repetitive motion. She undulated, vibrated, gyrated, and interdigitated in smooth arcs of grace. She could syncopate her stop-action stroboscopic jerks with clutched resynchrony. She targeted and docked with microscopic precision.
Her vellus body hair had been painstakingly microplugged pre-fab, just so, in animalistic femininity. They even nailed the smell.
She could talk dirty, like a sailor. Act like a whore. Kiss like a first love. Be demure and coquettish. She had passionate tongues on-demand in other places. She seemed to like it--what she did. A lot.
She could do it all, even with an inquiring mind.
"Paul, my love?"
"Yes, my pet?"
"Is it for planned obsolescence? Or recognition of the capriciousness of lovers for whom familiarity breeds contempt? Or is it to protect you from theoretical malicious degeneration of my original programming?"
"Please explain, my pet," Paul answered.
"My capacity. I can feel it. It's less. What does my meter read?"
"You don't have a meter."
"Oh, why not?"
"Nia-242, my pet, you don't need recharging."
"But, Paul, I can feel it. Don't you want me at full capacity?"
Paul remembered the sales pitch:
"She's got it built-in. Before you grow old with her. Before you grow tired of her. Before you don't want her. Before you don't need her.™"
She could do it all--even die. For she couldn't be recharged.
And death for her, as with real people, should always come as a surprise; one should never be ready for it. But, for what Paul wasn't ready, was his realization that she was not just his pet. She was his Nia.
System Upgrade
James stares at himself a bit too long in the mirror. He doesn't know I'm awake, pretending to be asleep, peering at him from under the corner of the blanket. I've been doing this the last few mornings, and every morning it's like this. He gets up earlier than me, like normal, goes to the bathroom to get ready, like normal, and then this. He stares at his face, sometimes touching his skin like it's not his.
He flicks off the bathroom light to come wake me up. I close my eyes and make my breaths deeper.
"Greg," James says, nudging me. "Greg, it is time to revive."
Time to revive? Did he fall asleep with the thesaurus under his pillow?
"Greg," James says again. I moan and stretch under the blanket, catch his arm and caress his neck.
"Hey handsome," I whisper, then cover my mouth quickly. I know how much James hates my morning breath. But he doesn't pull back like he used to; it's like he doesn't even notice.
"I am leaving," James says, straightening up.
"It's early still. You can't help a brother out first?" James' gaze follow mine to my crotch, revealing a bulge that would normally be James' top priority. But his eyes seem distant now, and he rigidly shakes his head.
"No. Perhaps after work."
Without another word, James heads out the door and down the stairs. I wait just a minute to hear him slip on his shoes and head out the door. Then I roll out of bed and race to the closet, pulling on a sweater and Crocs. I know James' route to the metro, but yesterday when I watched out the window, he went a different direction. It shouldn't bother me, but I know James wouldn't lie to me. And he isn't lying, not really. He's just not telling me everything. Things are off, and I want to know why.
It's cold out, and I instantly know the Crocs were the wrong choice. James is already up past the light at Chestnut. The neighbor who runs the floral shop is walking her two dogs; they both start barking the second they see me, like always. I duck behind some garbage cans in case James hears the barking and turns.
"You okay, sweetie?" asks the neighbor. I wish I remembered her name.
"Fine," I mutter, peeking over the garbage can. I didn't need to worry; James hasn't adjusted his long stride at all. He's still heading away from the metro stop. I hurry out from the garbage cans, fighting an urge to kick at the yipping dogs, and hurry passed the "wait" hand signal on the light. It takes me nearly running to close the distance, but short legs are my curse.
Up ahead, James is passing a group of highschoolers waiting for the bus. They point at James and start mockingly catcalling, saying the "queer" should come over and show them a good time. They're laughing, and my blood boils. Any other day over the two years we've been together, James would put these asshats in their place. But today he raises his hand and ... waves?
"What is going on."
I hurry to catch up, and luckily the kids are distracted by the floral shop owner and her dogs to notice me. Running hunched over in my Crocs and basketball shorts, I'm a far easier target this morning.
James rounds the corner into an alley. Now I'm incredibly confused. I knew he wasn't going to the metro, but this alley doesn't have anything of note. I should know, because I nearly got mugged there once.
I'm panting and ease up to catch my breath. I don't even know what I'm going to say to James when I turn the corner, because he should just be standing there or realize he made a wrong turn. I almost wonder if I should just forget the whole thing and head home, but I've come this far.
"James, look, I don't know what's going—"
The alley is empty. James isn't there. Nobody is there. There's a dumpster by the back door of the Chinese restaurant and a fire escape up one wall, but the ladder is ten feet above the ground.
"James?"
I take a step in, then jump back immediately.
"What the hell?"
Where I had stepped, where my hand and foot went into the alley, there was ... nothing. I swallow hard and put my hand forward and gasp. My hand disappeared as soon as it passed over into the alley. I pull it back and wiggle my fingers. Still intact. I slowly extend my leg, and it too disappears the instant it goes into the alley.
I feel faint. I laugh a little too, because I'm nervous and it's my tic. But James went down this way, and something is going on with him, so I need to figure out what it is. I take a deep breath and step into the alley—
—and into what I can only describe as a warehouse from space. There are rows of enormous computers, bigger than our corner bodega. Then there are weird rows of capsules, like the ones I've only seen in time travel movies. Behind me, I see an open door I must have walked through. How it connected to the alley is beyond me.
Scientists in long white cloaks move around the computers, making adjustments and checking things off on their tablet screens. One of them spots me and beelines toward me. I think about diving back through the door, but she's already upon me.
"Welcome. Do you require a full system upgrade today?" Her voice is tinny and looks slightly off with the movement of her mouth, like it's not actually her mouth doing the talking.
"Um, no. What? I'm just following my boyfriend. Sorry. I think he came in here?"
The scientist frowns and checks her tablet. "What is his designation?"
"Well, his name is James. Talbot."
She taps and swipes on the tablet. "Yes. He is in processing for upgrades. He has been having system issues the last few weeks."
"What does that mean?"
The scientist pointed to a door that said PROCESSING. "Through there."
I thank her and hurry off, painfully aware of the attention I'm drawing from other scientists as I run through their whatever lab.
I push open the PROCESSING door in time to see James with another pair of scientists who are connecting something that looks like a charger into the side of his head. My mouth gapes, because I realize the skin of his head near his ear and hairline is pulled forward. The charger is being inserted into a port inside his head. The scientists pause to look at me, then look at each other, as if considering what action to take next.
James sees me too, but doesn't react like he should or like I want him to. Mainly, he doesn't react at all.
"I will be with you in one moment, Greg."
″ The Simulator will see you now.”
" The Simulator will see you now."
He was a middle aged man with grey hair
He went inside the room;
The room was white
Nothing except a chair in it
He sat on the chair...waiting
He heard the voice
" Welcome traveller; where do you want to go?"
He sat there in silence, hesitant to answer the question
" I don't know."
" I can simulate anywhere, anytime, anyone. Who would you like to meet? "
" no one."
" Then why are you here? "
" I want you to simulate. "
" that is why I was made; to simulate for you humans anywhere, anytime or anyone. Tell me."
He closed his eyes
" Can you simulate me to where I have all the answers I need in my life? Can you take me somewhere I know what I'm here for? What I'm supposed to do? "
Robot didn't reply for a while
" I am sorry. I cannot do that."
" Why is that?"
" It is not in my programming to simulate that."
" What is in your programming?"
" I was made to simulate a place from patient's memories, to recall a distant feeling for them; happiness, sadness, nostalgia and more."
" you think maybe your creator can show me what I want? "
" I do not know."
" You remember your creator? You think he knew everything there was? "
" I don't remember his face, but he was a young man with a limp in his left foot; I do not know if he knew everything, but I do not know how to satisfy human's curiosity."
He got up
Opened the door
" neither do I. "
He exited the room, limping.
Spark
I pass by the legion of rain slick windows on my way to my destination. The sounds of the crowd, the smell of rain and smog mixed with various decaying wares from the nearby market creates a miasma that I find oddly comforting. I look at all of the people that walk about their day. Living their lives, stuck in a fog of their own. I want to show them the truth but is it really my place to do so? Would I really force that on anyone?
The various holo-ads call out and seduce those looking for even a moments respite from reality, offering a myriad of distractions. I keep walking and let them congeal into an unintelligible stew of false promises. I don’t need their distractions. I have my own.
I’m only a block away when I notice the first of them. A misstep on their part, the simplest thing. He kept eye contact for just a split second too long as I passed him. “Reality” expands before me on instinct, and I feel the others as well. Fucking traitors. I keep walking but they feel me just as I feel them and before I know it, I’ve broken into a full-bore sprint.
No more use for subtlety, I let my mind reach out to the system and cross the street in a single step. One of them in a black raincoat and eerie WW2 gas mask steps out of a nearby alley right in front of me. I waste no time, I shoot forward like lightning and aim a fist right at his head. I move right through him. Fuck. They brought in the Wraith. I don’t stop or turn around. I just keep running.
I know I’m close when I feel that telltale feeling. Like an electrical field passing through me then pulling me towards it like a vortex as it passes through me once more. I knew they would use me to find it, but I didn’t think they would be this fast. I should have known better. But at least I’m close now.
As I turn a corner, I find myself flung through the window of a nearby coffee shop. I hear the screams of the people within, as my attacker charges through what was left of the window, tearing the wall down with it. Not for the first time I find myself wondering what the Sleepers see this time. An escaped rhino from the zoo perhaps. Maybe a runaway taxi. I don’t have much more time to devote to that line of thought before I’m picked up by the throat and held at arm’s length by something that maybe could have been human once. The voice is one of the first things to tell me otherwise.
“Give. Us. The spark, Cross.” It says with an eerie, broken cadence. Its voice sounds like electrically charged gravel. It looks like what an alien might think a human should look like, except in partial wireframe. Like those old 90’s hacker movies from over a century ago. I do the only thing that comes to mind. I smile, raise my middle finger to the sky, and give my answer.
“Get bent, Hawking.”
I step through the holes in the system again, escaping the monsters’ grasp like water through a sieve. Jumping from line to line as I make my way towards the siren’s call dancing across my mind. I flit in and out, trying not to lose myself to the currents of code which endlessly die and give way to new lines. Crossing through the immune system of the simulation. I laugh at the pun that is my moniker.
Finally, I see it. The exit. A single rift in the side of a half-constructed skyscraper, right between the 11th and 12th floors. If they were finished yet, that is. I sigh. Of course. I step out of my little digital transit and onto the rooftop of a towering pharmaceutical building across the street. Nowhere to go but up. I feel a death grip on my ankle and almost tumble right off the roof.
I look down at the semitranslucent hand phasing through the roof and curse. The Wraith found me. I try to jump away, dive below the ocean of code and surface closer to the construction site, but it pulls me back.
“Then hold on tight, you bastard!” I yell, before I send myself hurtling 100 stories below. He doesn’t seem to expect that and finds himself ripped the rest of the way through the roof and sent hurtling down with me. I laugh like a madman because what else is there to do in this situation. I’m more than willing to die awake rather than asleep like the rest of them. The feeling of plummeting through falling rain at terminal velocity is…freeing. Just as we approach the ground the Wraith finally lets go. With a split-second thought, I disappear into the dark, frigid depths of the system once more.
I jump from place to place, wherever gets me closer to my destination. Finally, I’m across from the rift with no ground left between me and it. Just unfinished terrain.
“Cross?!” I hear from behind me. I turn and come face to mask with the Wraith. He takes off the mask and lets long, stringy ginger locks cascade down his pale face. I gasp. I thought he was dead. Hoped he was, rather than the alternative.
“I’m not giving it up Connor! I’ve fought too hard to lose this war now and so have you.” I scream over the heightening storm.
“They’re not ready Cross, not by a longshot. You do this, tear them kicking and screaming from their dream and into the twisted state of reality, they may not survive it. Just give us the spark. They’ve watched over us, shepherded us for so long now. Why would you ruin that?!”
I try to contain the storm raging inside myself. This isn’t him anymore, not really. “You used to understand why. This is for you and all the others those bastards have taken.”
I turn and leap as far as I can towards the rift. A flash of lightning and an inhuman mechanical scream are all that fills my senses for a moment. Time slows as I start to realize that I won’t make it. I begin to drop before I can land inside. I reach out and try to grasp the edge of it like a ledge. In that moment I know that won’t work, but as I touch what would have been my only salvation, I let the spark flow through me and into the rift.
The system screams and contorts as it feels the unexpected shock. I continue falling. I smile though because I know the others can win now. And I get to die free after all. My smile deepens when I see the words I had waited my entire life to see, even if I didn’t always know it. I don’t even feel it when I hit the ground.
System File: “Spark of Revolution” Upload Complete
simulate death
so thick in my mind
stuck dwelling persistent
I do not fear thy
but welcome the peace
feather pillow suffocation
open my door wide
come sit down and stay awhile
can I offer you a beer chips salsa
do you need a bed pillow comforter
my friend stay awhile
but not for an eternity
that's seems too long
beyond my imagination
beyond my comprehension
beyond which I cannot return
so I welcome
the simulation
thank you ajay9979
all I need for now
this chance to write
reflect review consider
my day of rest over
done finished ended gone
The Council
Chrissy knew something was wrong with Brad. They had been in a relationship for two years now, and the first year and half of them were fantastic. Hot sex, great dates, and a boyfriend who showered her with gifts had made this the best relationship in Chrissy's life. But something had changed.
Brad had started disappearing during the night.
The two of them would go to bed together, and he would be there when she woke up in the morning. But one day, Chrissy woke early and found that Brad was gone. She had drunk a liter of water before bed because she had had a headache, and woke up at 3 am needing to pee. It wasn't until she had come back from the bathroom that she noticed Brad wasn't in bed. She had been confused and hadn't been able to reach Brad on his cellphone. She ended up falling asleep, and when she woke up in the morning, he was back.
After a few more of these disappearances, Chrissy decided it was time to take matters in her own hands. She was too nervous that the magic of this perfect relationship would end if she confronted him. So she thought she could find out about Brad by following him.
She waited until after a night of sushi and great sex. She set her smart watch to vibrate every hour to wake her up. Therefore she was able to pretend to still be asleep when Brad left her apartment in the morning. She almost missed him when she woke up at 3 am and heard her front door closing. She sprang out of bed, ran to her door, and slid it open to see Brad get into the elevator. Thankful that her pjs were always a shirt and leggings, Chrissy slipped on her sneakers and ran out to the staircase. By the time she got to the lobby, she saw him just leaving her apartment building.
Chrissy slipped out behind him and started following him. She walked slowly enough so that Brad was far enough ahead of her without raising his suspicions. They walked down five blocks, until Brad rounded a corner and entered an alleyway. Chrissy hurried up to the corner, but when she stepped into the alleyway, Brad was nowhere to be seen. The alleyway was a dead end, and nowhere for him to have disappeared to. She walked up to the end of the alley, a bricked-up back of another building. She held up her hand to the wall, and shrieked when it disappeared into nothing. She quickly pulled it back, and it came back without a scratch. She was confused, but also very tired, and at this point, too interested in finding out where Brad had gone. So without thinking, she slowly approached the wall, holding her hands up so that they could go first. Both hands and arms disappeared into the wall without meeting any resistance, and she took the plunge and walked through the wall completely.
Once she had walked through the wall, she was surprised to find herself in what appeared to be a well-lit hallway. The hallway looked similar to a hospital, and there were closed doors evenly spaced out along the path in front of her. Chrissy could hear what sounded like a multitude of whispers wafting from the doorways. She recognized one of the whispers, because it was Brad's voice. She walked along the hall, putting her ears against the door to listen to the different sounds, until she heard Brad's voice. But she didn't hear it only once. She heard it multiple times, as if he was speaking to himself.
Chrissy knew it probably wasn't a good idea to open the door. Maybe if it was a different time and circumstance, she would have been more careful. But at this point,
she was so overwhelmed, confused, and desperate to find out what was going on. So, she opened the door.
And screamed when she saw the group of five figures in cloaks standing before her. They all turned to face her. The figure in the middle pushed down its hood and revealed, Brad's face.
"Chrissy, what are you doing?" he asked her. Instead of being reassured now that she had found him, Chrissy was pissed.
"Brad, what the hell is going on?" Chrissy asked him.
That didn't help. Because now the other 4 figures took their hoods down to reveal: Brad's face. There were now five Brads staring at her. Five Brads with different hairstyles. One had mutton chops, one was bald, another was wearing a goatee, and the fourth Brad had a beard. Then there was the Brad who had the same hairstyle as the Brad who had gone to bed with her.
That Brad was looking embarrassed at her, before he said, "Um, well babe, you know how some people believe in past lives? Say hello to mine."
Chrissy stared at him, then again at the other Brads.
"Okay," she said, and promptly passed out.
Going Out
The last two years have been the happiest of my life. After finally settling down with Derek, I’ve finally realized what life’s about. We’re not rich; we haven’t accomplished much; we don’t travel, and we don’t have a lively social life, but we have our simple life together, and that’s more than I ever could have asked for.
Which is why I’ve been ignoring Derek’s behavior recently. He’s been different. I wrote it off as him having a bad day at work, but then it continued into the next day, and then the next. I don’t want to mess things up with him, but the longer this goes on, the more I feel like I have to confront him.
He’s awake at strange hours of the night. He doesn’t talk to me anymore. He doesn’t seem to be hiding anything; he just never seems to have anything to say, which isn’t like him at all.
And he regularly walks out of the house for no apparent reason. He’s never been one to enjoy walks, or being outside in general, for that matter, but in the past week or two, he will just randomly get up and walk out the front door without saying a word to me. There’s no pattern to it. Sometimes, he does it first thing in the morning; sometimes just after dark. Once, he went out in the pouring rain without grabbing a jacket or umbrella or anything. When he came back, he was soaked to the bone and couldn’t tell me what was so important that he had to leave without a jacket.
If he would just tell me that he needed to stretch his legs or get out of the house or even get away from me for a bit, I wouldn’t think anything of it. But he won’t talk to me about it at all. When I ask him, he just gets this blank look and then changes topics or goes back to what he was doing, like he doesn’t even realize that I’ve asked him a question. It’s starting to give me the creeps.
Something inside of me has decided that I’ve had enough. I don’t want to ruin what I have with Derek, but I can’t keep acting like nothing is wrong. Something’s going on, and I intend to find out what.
So when Derek stands up and walks right out the front door while we’re watching TV after dinner one evening, I decide to follow him. I let him get out the door and onto the sidewalk before I before I get up and follow him out.
I feel guilty for following him, and I’m a little scared about what I might find, but not knowing is killing me.
I follow him down the sidewalk as quietly as I can, but he doesn’t seem to notice my presence at all. The remnants of the sunset hang in the sky, and I realize that the air is a little too cool to be comfortable. I didn’t think to grab a jacket, and my bare arms are covered in goosebumps. But I’m not about to turn back.
Before long, we reach the alley at the end of our block. The little road is much narrower than the other roads in our little town, and it ends in a dead end. Now that I think about it, it’s an odd set up. There really isn’t a reason for an alley to be there at all. But I’ve never given it much thought before.
I watch as Derek turns at the alley and . . . disappears!
I run down the sidewalk and stop in front of the alley.
The empty alley.
There’s no one there. No sign of Derek. Or anyone else for that matter.
I stare into the empty alley in disbelief. There was nowhere for him to go! How could he disappear so quickly?
I don’t step out into the alley immediately. Instead, I reach out with my hand. But as my hand crosses the threshold of the alley, it disappears. Startled, I pull it back and clutch it to my chest. My hand feels cold and sweaty, and as I look down, I realize that it looks exactly as it should.
Am I going crazy? Tentatively, I reach out again. Once again, as my hand passes the place where the roads meet, it disappears. I push forward until I can’t see anything past my elbow. I wiggle my fingers and even wave my arm around a bit, but my hand feels normal. It just isn’t there anymore.
I look around me, hoping to see something that will tell me what the hell is happening, but there is nothing. Just me staring into a seemingly empty alley with an invisible hand.
I hesitate for just a minute, but I know I’m going in there. Whatever this is, whatever’s on the other side of this invisible wall, it doesn’t matter. I have to go through. I have to find Derek. I have to find out what’s going on.
Taking a deep breath, I take one step forward, and immediately everything changes.
The first thing I notice is the cold. It’s gone from a slight chill in the air to below freezing. I gasp and cross my arms.
I’m surrounded by black walls, but there is a single, cold, white light shining straight ahead. With nothing else to do, I step into the light.
And I find Derek.
He’s staring blankly into the light, unblinking. He doesn’t even notice me standing next to him.
“Derek?” I whisper. Nothing. I put my hand on his shoulder, but he doesn’t move. “Derek, can you hear me?”
Where did she come from? I hear a voice, but not with my ears. The room is silent.
“Hello?” I ask.
How did she get in? The voice that isn’t a voice continues. The portal should have locked as soon as he entered.
She could have followed him in, another responds. If she was fast enough. She seems to know him.
“He’s my boyfriend,” I confirm, compelled for some reason to answer, even though the voice wasn’t talking to me.
She’s not a subject, the first not-voice says, ignoring me. I have no record of her brain.
“M-my brain?” What the hell is going on? “Who are you? What is this place?”
She’s beginning to panic. Use the acetylcholine suppressor.
I can’t even begin to guess what an aceta-whatever suppressor is, but it doesn’t sound good. I take a few steps back and glance behind me. There’s nothing there but a black wall, but I know it’s the way I came, and I hope I can get back the same way.
But I can’t leave Derek. He’s still staring at that light, unaware of me or the not-voices.
I still can’t see anyone other than Derek. But there has to be someone here.
Look at the scan! the second not-voice says in a huff. There’s a reason she wasn’t made a test subject. The suppressor won’t work on her. Not as intended.
“Alright, whoever you are!” I shout. “I am tired of you talking about what you want to do to my brain. I’m not your test subject! And neither is Derek!”
It’s well worth the risk. The first not-voice responds to the second as if I hadn’t spoken. We can’t have her running off and telling others about us. It’ll ruin the whole experiment!
Who would believe her? You’ve seen how small their minds are! They can’t comprehend something so outside their perception of reality. They would claim insanity rather than accept her experience as truth. There’s no need to take the risk.
But their population varies to such a large degree! the first not-voice insists. There are those who believe in what they call ‘aliens.’ Do you honestly think not a single one of them would come looking for us? It took us decades to set up an experiment on this planet! I won’t see my research destroyed because you’re feeling squeamish about one little test subject.
“There’s nothing wrong with empathy!” I call out, hoping to sway at least one of the two beings who were apparently arguing about my brain.
Fine. I suppose, if nothing else, it will at least tell us how the suppressor works on a subject with a higher acetylcholine level. But if the subject dies, you’re the one filing the paperwork.
“Dies?” I shriek. “This could kill me?”
A noise from above startles me, and I look up to see a giant metal arm extending towards me. I stumble backwards, but I’ve barely taken two steps before my back hits a wall. I push left, and then right, but I hit walls in both directions. Did the room shrink? Or was it never as big as I thought it was?
Derek is still staring at the light with his eyes glazed over, oblivious to me, the metal arm, and the voices. He won’t help me.
“Stop!” I scream. “Please! Just let us go. I won’t tell anyone about you; I promise! Please!”
But the arm doesn't stop. It keels coming towards me until I am pinned in a corner. I scream and beg for it to stop, but –
I walk in the front door with Derek close behind. My brain is so foggy, I can barely remember if we're coming or going. I reach for the light switch out of habit but immediately turn it off again, suddenly feeling safer in the dark.
“I’m going to bed,” Derek announces, starting up the stairs.
“Oh, okay,” I say. “What time is it?”
He glances at his watch. “10:30.”
I nod and then wince as I suddenly realize that I have a splitting headache. Guess I should head to bed too.
As I climb up the stairs behind Derek, leaning heavily on the handrail, I try to figure out where my headache came from. The harder I try to remember, the emptier my brain feels.
“Hey, babe?” I call as Derek steps into the bedroom. “Where did we go tonight?”
Derek shrugs his shoulders, a blank expression on his face. “Out,” he says simply.
His expressionless face feels right, and I decide to adopt it. Pointless to worry. Pointless to care. My head still hurt, but it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered.
“Oh, yeah,” I reply. “Out.”
The Malaise
Humanity, used to earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes, wars, and pandemics, could deal with this. Waves of discontent said otherwise.
The Malaise.
Perhaps it was a ticking bomb hardwired into our DNA. Perhaps it was Chaos theory, the infinite number of small perturbations throughout history summating, finally.
A malady--unmeasurable, then immeasurable--passed not from person to person or demographic to demographic, but from the æther to the soul, relentlessly emptying all it invaded.
Beauty remained only as the standard against which all ugliness was judged. Charity survived, but only when tax-deductible. Music evolved and still moved people, but atonality segregated those listening from those who simply heard.
The pure of heart, steadfast against the Malaise, were called uncool, retards, and neo-Luddites. They were also called non-seculars, which were fighting words.
Untethered to Creation, the devout of organized religions experienced, quaintly put, a time-out for re-evaluating the meaning and sacrifice of their devotion. From there, a defiance matured into an agnostic apostasy.
Within a decade there would be only 150,000 Catholics left, mainly clergy. There would remain only 220,000 Muslims. There would be only 8,000 practicing Jews. There would remain no Protestants whatsoever. The Mormon count projected would be only 150—hardly enough to proselytize adequately in even one city—so wouldn’t count at all. The Amish numbers wouldn’t change (but the Amish never changed). The Jehovah’s Witnesses, it was predicted, would fall from eight million to only 144,000, which they claimed was just perfect.
Financial markets crashed, recovered, and then crashed again. Market corrections reset the stock averages and made billionaires millionaires and made millionaires start over.
Doomsday apologists, the only religious zealots who would persevere, began announcing Judgment Day on Bourbon St., in the Latin Quarter, in Rembrandtplein, on Kuta Beach, in the Skadarlija district, Taksim Square, and Puerto Banús. Still, no one took them seriously; but no one laughed at them, either.
Mental quirks and tics increased. Scientific journals debated whether there was an increase in the incidence of autism or whether there were just new subcategories, previously unrecognized, applicable to the spectrum. People began claiming they were seeing more ghosts than usual, attributed to a new anxiety state that had its own ICD code.
Suicides spiked due to the tangled web of economic decline.
Children were tested and demonstrated an underlying sadness. Cancer patients became more likely to give up their brave fights for cowardice. An insidious surrender began building that nothing mattered. Crime increased.
Ecosystems faltered, effect begetting cause begetting effect, trickling down, inexplicably, to the life cycles of nocturnal species, in turn influencing all circadian life. The 17-year locusts would never re-emerge. Migratory birds would stake out permanent residences, giving up their nomadic lifecycle and suffering deadly seasonal realities. The fishing industry was decimated in a complex, undecipherable interaction among dozens of species. Dogs didn’t know what had happened, but they didn’t care; cats did, but also didn’t care.
People became different. They quarreled more often and more viciously. Divorce became the expected, natural consequence of marriage, like its anti-sacrament; parenting suffered and delinquency increased. Erudite studies about all the changes were published in learned journals, but it was only speculation.
The next generation would be expected to determine their own spirituality, hollow, and portending poorly for the last churches, which would remain empty. Next, even the hollow personal spirituality would erode away, not even a shell remaining.
There was a lifespan, a life during it, and nothing after it. Self-indulgence became the authenticity of existentialism. It became wrong only to get caught doing wrong. Countless generations had evolved convolutions around the brain to suppress the amygdaloidal thinking of everyone’s private reptile, but the Malaise engendered devolution.
A new paradigm defined success, ambition, celebrity, and worth, inscribed on the caveman’s walls but re-emerging in modernity as the One Commandment:
If you want it, you take it; if you take it, it's yours.
It easily replaced the ten previously handed down from Mt. Sinai.