Microstory 2696: Rabbit’s Heart

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In the real North, it was not unheard of for a widower to take a new wife rather quickly for logistical reasons. He could not sustain the rest of the family without help, even with older children. Gia thought that Ronan was giving her a gift when he took her and her child in, but she was giving him just as much back. She didn’t just stay for one day and do a few chores. She made a meaningful contribution to that day’s needs, and the next day, she did it again. In only a few weeks, it made sense for them to make it official. They would not have done it in the outside world, but marriage was expected of them here. The NPCs would not have liked it any other way. The marriage was quick and simple, but they danced, they drank, and they were merry. That was not exactly how it would have been done back on Earth, but it’s the way it has to be. Neither of them has any extended family. They could have signed up for that scenario, but chose a different lifestyle so they wouldn’t have to rely on anyone else, or too much infrastructure.

They are the founders of a brand new clan, or at least that’s what they hope. They don’t know what’s going to happen in the future, but it’s the plan. Ronan was originally going to do this with Mayumi, but that doesn’t mean things have to change. Gia is a wonderful woman, and since the small wedding, he has grown to love her too. Is it as much as his love for Mayumi? Who’s to say? But it’s real. Ronan loves Isavet as well, and Gia loves Vith and little Talus. They have become great siblings together. They can be wild and mischievous, but Ronan knows that they would never do anything bad. Talus is old enough now that he should be getting some of his memories back. He should be starting to become who he always was.

Ronan hasn’t been pushing him. He’s just letting Talus be a kid. It’s a very delicate situation, the way his brain is right now. He could start to be very confused with the cognitive dissonance of growing up on a spaceship originally, and also growing up in a world where they could never even dream of such wondrous technologies. Maybe this was a bad idea. Maybe it’s the least ethical decision they ever could have made. No. They talked about it a lot, and it can’t be undone anyway. If the original Talus is gone, and this new Talus is a completely different person, then that’s going to be okay. He’s still a very good boy, and that’s what matters. It’s what he wanted for himself; a new life.

Gia is in the house now with Isavet. Ronan believes that they are washing clothes. Talus is nowhere to be found, but that’s not unheard of. It’s not entirely out of character for how Talus was before, but it’s not entirely like him either. Young Talus does this all the time. He always comes back home safe and sound. They let him do whatever he feels he needs to. The world is dangerous, but it will make him a man to learn to be self-reliant. He is allowed to exert as much independence as he feels he must. But it’s been a couple days longer than usual, and Ronan and Vith are worried. They’re walking through the woods, following the signs Talus has made. Vith kneels down, and carefully moves some leaves out of the way. “Blood,” he whispers.

Now Ronan is very worried. They follow this new trail until they come across an alcove. It’s a horrific scene. They see cave drawings on the wall, which depict violent acts from stick figures, but it is all drawn in blood. Ronan reaches up towards one, but doesn’t touch it. “The lines are too narrow to have been made by a grown man’s fingers.”

“The rabbits, father,” they hear Talus’ voice behind them. “There is something wrong with them. They don’t squeal, and they don’t have any hearts.”

Microstory 2107: Freedom at Risk

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As it turns out, the people who helped me with my new identity in this mystery city are a married couple, and they have a daughter. According to them, she’s very irresponsible and hard to deal with. That’s not what I experienced when I met her, and I didn’t get the feeling that she was just manipulating me. My first thought was that the parents haven’t been giving her much attention, because they’re so busy making IDs. As a result, she doesn’t do the chores, because where they live is more her house than theirs, and she doesn’t personally care about that stuff. They basically want to come home to everything being done after spending a string of days in the city away from her. They hired forced me to supervise her, which I did, even though I really didn’t want to. I made sure that she mowed the lawn, completed the laundry cycle, vacuumed the carpet, mopped the hard floors, and made dinner. The daughter didn’t even push back. She just rolled her eyes, and completed the tasks. I helped her out, because I felt like it was too much for one person, and it felt really weird just standing there, barking orders at her. A lot of it involved things that I do for my real job, and I get enough of that stuff there, so I wasn’t ecstatic about the extra work. Here’s the first issue, and it pales in comparison to the real problem, but I’ll get to that in a minute. The first thing is that they were so pleased with my work that they now want it to be a regular thing. So after my eight-hour shift as a janitor, I have to drive out to the outskirts to this new second job? I’m going to be exhausted every day, and annoyed about the whole thing. But I could deal with that. When I was waiting for Cricket and Claire to find me in Moderaverse, I spent twenty years without much of anything to do. So I’ve had it pretty good, working a little harder now isn’t that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things. No, the real problem is that this girl isn’t even their daughter.

The first clients that they had in this business were reportedly themselves. They’re cagey about how they got started, which is understandable, but my guess is that they used to work for the DMV, or social security, or something else along those lines. You don’t just jump into this kind of thing without having any frame of reference for what people might be looking for. I don’t think they lived around here for their original lives. After they came this way, their second client was a couple who were trying to escape the law for whatever reason. They needed IDs for themselves, and their very young daughter. At some point, the ID makers came to find out that she wasn’t their daughter either. They had kidnapped her, and instead of contacting the authorities, the ID makers just essentially kidnapped her for themselves. For years, the girl didn’t know where she originally came from, and she still doesn’t have any details. After years of school counseling, and mostly introspection, she figured a few things out, and made some memories resurface. All she knows now is that the parents who she has been living with aren’t her real parents, and nor were the people they took her from. She has not yet tried to get out of this situation, or find out where she came from, but it’s made her less interested in doing these chores, or anything for these people, really. Now I’m in a real pickle. I obviously have to save her, but doing so puts my own freedom at risk. I suppose I’ve already decided to intervene, no matter what ends up happening to me. The two of them have never expressed interest in reading my blog before, but they definitely know about it, so there’s a chance that they’ll read this after it automatically posts later tonight. I’ll have to figure out what to do by then, and put a plan into action. I’ll let you know how that goes, unless I die, like I said before. But just know, whatever the supposed cause of death, it was murder.

Microstory 2106: Die, Or Get Caught

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I’m giving in. I have to do what they tell me. These people set me up with my new identity, a place to live, and a way to protect myself from being found by authorities. Either I pay them back with whatever they want me to do, or they expose my whereabouts. They didn’t specifically say that that’s what they were going to do, but they’ve frequently reminded me what they did for me, so I can read between the lines. I never had any illusions that this relationship wasn’t transactional, but I was under the impression that they were going to let me get on a little payment plan. With my job and simple lifestyle, it would not have taken long to finish paying it off. They never said that the favor they’re asking of me replaces the money, though, so I’m pretty sure that they’re still expecting the cash anyway. I still don’t know what I’m going to have to do for them, but I have a when and a where. I was hired to work second shift for my regular job, which goes from 8:00 to 16:00 now that we only have three janitors on the team. As soon as I get off work, I have to make my way downtown using public transportation. They don’t even want me to stop and grab something to eat, but they say that I will want to be fed. I ate a big breakfast this morning, and I’m going to have an early dinner before my shift ends. We’re allowed to take a thirty-minute lunch now, and it can be at any time, as long as there isn’t something time-sensitive that needs to be cleaned. I think I can hold out until the very last minute. My alternate self back in my home universe fasts for fifteen hours every day. It shouldn’t be too hard for me. Hopefully, whatever the secret job is won’t take too long, and I’ll have time to eat something before bed. I’ll let you know how it went in my post tomorrow. Unless I die, or get caught, then you may never hear from me again. My new “bosses” never actually said that I would be involved in something illegal, but we met when they did something illegal for me, so I guess I’ve been assuming that this whole time. Maybe I’ll get lucky, and they just want me to mow someone’s lawn, or babysit their kid for a few hours.

Microstory 1879: Mow Problems

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I was so excited when I first heard about Landis Tipton, and his miraculous healing abilities. It would spell the end of death for all of humanity. I know, I know, people think that humans can’t live forever, or we’ll have an overpopulation problem, but I doubt it would ever come to that. Yes, futurists were expecting life extension technology to develop in tandem with other advancements, which might alleviate such issues, but I still wasn’t worried. I knew that we wouldn’t all be saved overnight, but I’m young and healthy, so I was eternally optimistic about it, especially when it came to myself. As a friend pointed out to me, though, Landis has been predominantly concerned with curing terminal illnesses, and for good reason; those are the ones that aren’t normally fixed. Lots of people have died from terrible injuries, but many have survived them too. Of course you want to help the ones least likely to survive without you. Even so, it would have been nice to have some kind of solution to my problem when Death came knocking at my door. Or rather when it came banging on it. Because it was loud, unsubtle, and is taking much longer than I would have guessed. Though, to be fair, the magic panacea that researchers promise will one day come out of studying Landis’ abilities probably wouldn’t have helped me anyway. It happened too fast. I remember, I said that it was too long, but I was talking about the process. The incident was instant, and irreversible, and once it happened, I was incapacitated. I should say that I am incapacitated, because it’s still going on as I muse on my final thoughts. I can’t call for help—for reasons that will become clear once I explain—I can’t even move. The ironic thing is I was just looking up freak accidents on the internet, and one eerily similar situation scared me so much that I locked my dog in the house, instead of letting her supervise my work, like I usually do. She loves it, and she grew used to it, and she’s been stressed out because I took her job away. But I’m glad I did, because I don’t want her to see me like this.

It was a mowing accident, though probably not as bloody and disgusting as you’re imagining. It had nothing to do with the blades. Well, I guess it did, but they didn’t cut me. There’s no blood. I hate mowing, but the thing I hate the most about it is picking up the yard before starting to mow. Those sticks and rocks, ugh. I would rather just roll over them, damage my blades a little, and then get them sharpened in the winter. I’m lazy like that, and a huge procrastinator, which is what got my into this mess, because the tall grass is what hid the murder weapon from my view in the first place. It was a rock, and I can only speculate here, since like I said, it was so quick, but I think it shot out of the side, ricocheted off of my chain link fence at just the right angle, and headed right for me. But you said there’s no blood, you remind me. There’s not, because the rock didn’t just hit me in the head. It flew into my mouth, and lodged itself in my throat. I fell down, and began to squirm, because that’s all I can do. I understand I should try to stand back up, and slam my chest against the deck railings or even the mower—wouldn’t that be funny; the thing that tried to kill me could save my life—but I’m unable to even sit up. Maybe there is blood, because I’m choking on something wet. I don’t know if this is punishment for being so irresponsible, and letting the lawn get this bad, but at this point, I just want the pain to end. My second-to-last thoughts are of the people I love, and of my dog, but my very last thought is when did I last clear my browser history?

Microstory 1741: The Clock

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I hate this clock. It reminds me of the worst years of my life. When I was a child, my foster parents would time everything I did. Homework, chores, umm...well, I guess there isn’t a third thing on that list, because those were the only things I did. I suppose showering isn’t a chore, but that was timed as well. They said they were getting me ready for the real world. Apparently, in their jobs, every task they completed was measured and recorded, and that was how they got paid. I asked them a few times, did they get paid more for more complicated tasks, but they said no. The rate didn’t change at all. The point was to keep track of when they were working, and when they weren’t, such as when they were walking to the location of the next task, or using the restroom. They were expected to be at work for ten hours a day, but they only get paid for their recorded time. They were so proud of themselves. Other workers recorded an average of eight and a half hours of actual work, which meant an hour for lunch, and another half hour for the in between times. My foster parents, however, averaged nine hours and forty-five minutes. They said they organized tasks so that it was easier to switch from one to the other, they literally ran when they had to, and they...well, let’s just say they weren’t too careful when it came to their bathroom breaks. They sometimes saw that as an opportunity, because even though janitorial services weren’t technically in either of their job descriptions, they could still get paid for cleaning the facilities. The word diaper was thrown around once or twice too. They actually acted like I should aspire to be as hard-working as them one day. I never bought into it. I don’t worship the clock.

My parents are dead now. They left this world with nothing, and not just to spite me. They worked so hard in their jobs that the company didn’t want to promote them, and they didn’t want to be promoted either. A promotion would mean a salary, and more freedom than they could have handled. They hated their bosses, who didn’t work hard enough, and focused too much on their personal lives. My parents didn’t have lives of their own. They were too exhausted when they got home that they ate their dinner, read something boring, then went to bed. After I came into their lives, they had to squeeze in a lot of strict overbearing criticism, so they couldn’t read as much anymore. When they were too old to work, since they didn’t have any hobbies, they had absolutely nothing to do. You can ask the professionals what killed them, and they’ll give you a scientific answer, but I contend that they died from the realization that their lives were always pointless. The company where they worked for forty-five years closed shortly before the deaths, because they too were old-fashioned, and ultimately meaningless in a world that moved on without them. So here I am with virtually nothing. My parents were in so much debt that the bank had to repossess nearly everything they owned. Fortunately, it seems to have covered it, so I won’t have to make up the difference. They even managed to leave me with one thing: this damn clock. It represents the futility in work for work’s sake. It spins around in circles, and never goes anywhere. Yeah, I hate this clock, but I also need it. For as much as it pains me to see every day, it’s also a consistent reminder of what I don’t want to be, and how I don’t want to raise my own baby boy, who’s scheduled to make his debut in three months. It shows me that time only means anything when we use it to enjoy doing the things we love, with the people we love.