Microstory 2084: Pardon My Language

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Pine seeds. I’m allergic to pine seeds. I always had trouble eating pesto, but I never felt like that meant that I could be allergic to the stuff. I wasn’t feeling perfect after the meal I cooked, but my landlord said that she was totally okay, so I didn’t think too much of it then. It wasn’t until I had my leftovers that I started to question whether there was some issue with it. I sent her a text, and again, she reported no issues. Work was really hard to deal with today, so my boss practically ordered me to go to the doctor. They ran an allergy test on me at the clinic, and that’s what they were able to determine. I’m also allergic to eggs, which I find hard to believe. They think that I’m a bit sensitive to gluten, but—pardon my language—that’s bullshit. The only way you’re gonna stop me from eating bread is if you kill me first, so good luck with that, buddy. Nevertheless, I’m okay, and I’m going to be back at work tomorrow, regardless of how I feel. The way I see it, the only reason not to push through the pain is if you’re contagious, and I know that I’m not. I’m the only one who has to suffer here, but don’t you worry about me. I’m sure you were, right? On that note, a few people indeed seem to be reading my blog, at least in Boreverse. I think my alternate self reposts them in his own universe, but still no one reads it. Yikes. Things were like that when I was starting out here. I obviously had zero clicks, except for my own, but now I get a couple visits a day. That’s when you know you’ve made it, when two people go to your website, or one person goes there twice, or a bot does it instead.

Microstory 2072: Turtles

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Yesterday was a long one, wasn’t it? I usually find it harder to talk about myself than to write about fictional characters. I can always keep making things up about them, but it’s not so simple with my real life. But Nick, you claim that your stories are real, and you’re just relating them on your website. Yes, I did say that, didn’t I? It’s sort of a chicken or the egg situation. Except that there’s an obvious answer for that conundrum. A chicken can’t exist unless it was born from an egg, and an egg can’t exist unless it was laid by a chicken, right? That’s the whole thing, which of course ignores how evolution works. So all things being equal, the answer is that the chicken came first since a chicken can survive on its own, but an egg needs to be protected. That’s its advantage for the best answer. I came up with this when I was a little kid, and I’ve yet to hear anyone else make the same argument. Now, you may be wondering why the title of this post is Turtles when it appears to be more about chickens and eggs. That’s because I didn’t want to come up with a title for it, and I always use Turtle as a placeholder until I think of something else. You see, I write these in a word processor, so I can organize them how I like, and then copy each one over to my blog when it’s ready. I have to do a lot of formatting to make it look right, which takes nearly as much time as the writing itself. I tell you, it’s exhausting. Oh, why, do you ask, is Turtle the placeholder? It kind of sounds like the word title. Don’t overthink it. I’m not that complex. For the body of the story, until I’m ready to write it, I use Something.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: April 29, 2420

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“Hello,” Mateo replied. “Do you know someone named Venus Opsocor?”

“She’s a colleague of mine,” Senona answered. “Let me guess, she’s giving you trouble with the Nexus.”

“We’re trying to leave the galaxy that we’re stuck in, and return to the Milky Way. She wants us to go to a specific planet.”

“Do you want to hear my advice?”

“Do whatever she says?”

“Pretty much.”

Mateo nodded. “I was afraid you would say that.”

“I know who you are,” Senona went on. “I met your wife, who asked me for help with an issue you had, so I know that you know the drill. You get one wish. That wish can be to be sent somewhere other than wherever Venus wants you to be, but if I were you, I would not waste my one wish on that. I would pick something else.”

Here again is why Leona should not have picked him to do this. The only reason she did it was because she already received her wish, and would not get another. It was up to him to figure out how to resolve this whole situation, but their issue of only being able to go to Worlon from here was not the only one. They also needed to help Arcadia and her family get back to wherever they wanted to go, and the Flindekeldans might need help too. They prided themselves on being stuck here, but they never really were until about twenty years ago. They always had a way out, it was just somewhat difficult to accomplish. And they could have made it impossible for themselves, but they didn’t, so why not? Why the hypocrisy? And why wasn’t someone smarter here in his place, like Angela, Marie, or Ramses?

“Oh, I’ve seen this before,” Senona mused.

“You’ve seen what?”

“Some people come here alone, or if they’re not technically alone, they’re only responsible for themselves. They can choose whatever they want, and not worry about whether someone will get upset at them for not choosing something else. But a lot of people here will return home to expectations. One wish per traveler is a lot of pressure, so one thing I like to tell people like you is to try to think of something more general. Don’t ask me for a list of requests, and hope they’ll count as one thing when combined. Find a wish that helps everyone all at once. For instance, if all of your friends wished for a good meal, but they don’t like to eat the same thing, don’t list each one’s favorite foods; just ask me to give everyone whatever they want to eat. Simple. General. Doable. Obviously that’s a terribly pedestrian example, but I didn’t want to muddle your desire with something that is anywhere close to what you might be interested in.”

Simple, general, doable, Mateo thought to himself. That was good advice, but he still wished he were smart enough to translate it to his situation better. Ha, maybe he should just literally wish to be smarter. Nah, even if Senona were capable of that, it would be selfish, and meaningless. Think, think, think. What would be simple, general, and doable? He had a decent idea of what Senona could accomplish, and he also knew that they would ask for a final answer, rather than saddling him with whatever first came to mind, whether it was good or not.

“Okay,” Senona began, noticing how he was struggling with it. “Let’s switch gears. Let’s do the opposite of what I just told you. List the things that you need to accomplish, and I’ll see if I can figure out the wish from that.”

“Well, my team and I need to get to the Milky Way Galaxy so we can start helping people all over the Sixth Key with whatever they need. Arcadia and Vearden need to get their daughter back there too, but so they can keep her safe, and raise her right. The Flindekeldans, I believe, need access to a Nexus, but they don’t want it to be too easy to get to.”

“Hm.” Senona thought about it, or maybe they weren’t thinking at all. Maybe the came to the right answer right away. “Try this: I wish for everyone I care about to be wherever they truly wish to be.”

“Oh. Will that work? I mean, Baby Cheyenne only lives for one day every year. They can’t stop it. I’m sure her parents would wish her to not be on that pattern.”

“Yeah, but we’re talking about space, not time. That would be a different wish.”

“Right. And how does that move the Nexus? It’s too far away where it is right now, but it’s not a person, so it doesn’t wish for anything.”

“I can talk to Venus about that. Let’s just call it a bonus. The one wish rule is not an inherent limitation. I could give you as many wishes as I want; I just don’t.”

“Because it would set an untenable precedent, I get it.” Mateo thought more on it, and echoed, “I wish for everyone I care about to be wherever they truly wish to be. Hmm...is that enough?”

“What more could you ask for?”

“Well, just because I don’t specifically care about someone, doesn’t mean I don’t want them to be happy.”

“That’s fair.”

“So.”

Senona smirked. “So...”

“I wish for everyone in the entire universe to be wherever they truly wish to be.”

Their smirk widened into a full smile. “Final answer?”

Mateo thought on it just a little bit longer, then he nodded. “If you can do it, then yeah...final answer.”

“That’s a good one. It’s a big ask, but yes, I can do it. Might take me about a year.” They winked at him.

“Thanks for this, and for helping me get there.”

“You got there on your own. You should stop selling yourself short. You’re not the sharpest tool in the shed, but a hammer isn’t meant to be sharp, yet it’s just as useful as a carving knife, isn’t it?”

“I guess so.”

Senona nodded. “That console over there can conjure just about anything from the bulkverse. It’s also a sequence terminal. Just press the symbol for zero again, and it will return you to your last location whenever you’re ready.”

“Thanks again, Senona.”

“No problem.”

As they were walking back towards the rowboat, Mateo could hear something move on it. “Is someone else there?” he questioned.

Senona turned back but said nothing. “No,” came a familiar voice from the dark.

“Holly Blue?” Mateo asked.

Another pause. “No.”

Mateo laughed. “It’s okay. I won’t tell anyone.”

One more delay in the response. “Thanks.”

He could hear them whispering to each other as they rowed into the shadows.

Mateo went over to the console that was sticking out from the platform. It looked just like the same old dialing pad from any Nexus control room, except that there was a speaker at the bottom. “Umm...one egg,” he requested in a funny voice.

A tray slid out from the front like a CD drive in a computer tower. One hard-boiled egg materialized on it. He cracked it and ate it slowly. “Okay. A dozen eggs.”

A carton of eggs materialized on the tray.

“Cool. Let’s try something else. A dozen secure subcutaneous transmitters that allow instant communication across vast distances, including alternate realities, and parallel universes, which can neither be detected, nor unwillfully surgically removed.”

A box appeared on the tray. Mateo opened it to find twelve discs and implanting instructions on a piece of electronic paper affixed to the inside of the lid. “Yes. These will do. No more secret emotion codes. He was never gonna be able to learn every letter anyway. This made much more sense. Not quite telepathy, but they should still be able to hear each other, even at a whisper. Ramses became so obsessed with coming up with a purely organic remedy to their weak original bodies that he didn’t think of something as simple as this.

Mateo thought about asking for other tech, but this was probably enough. He didn’t want to be greedy, especially since he already wished for all but world peace. So he pushed the two buttons, and returned to the Nexus building on Flindekeldan II. All of his friends were waiting there, sitting on the steps, the floor, and the wraparound ramp that led to the control room. “Hey, kids.”

“You’re back,” Leona exclaimed. She had been sitting in the control room. “You wished for Arcadia, Vearden, and Cheyenne to go to Dardius, and to place Flindekeldan II in orbit around the same host star as Flindekeldan I?”

“Did I?” Yeah, Dardius was a good place for them. They would be safe there.

“Did you?” Olimpia pressed.

“Was that wrong?” He couldn’t speak for these people, per se, but he had a decent idea of what they wanted, even if they refused to admit it. They didn’t want a way out, but they also did, or they would have sealed up the original emergency exit long, long ago. This seemed like a good compromise. It was hard to reach, but not impossible. You had to work for it, which meant you had to want it. For anyone who truly wanted to stay on this planet, all they had to do was ignore the other copy of the planet that was orbiting on the other side of the sun, which they should never be able to see anyway.

“Well, it’s just that they don’t have ships of their own. They’ll never make it here.”

“What do you think I’ve been doing for the last two days?” Ramses asked. “They’ll keep the Dante as an emergency shuttle. We don’t need it anymore. Let’s call it a gift.”

“This is a gift too, to you.” Mateo presented the box of communicators.

Ramses took it. “Oh. These were a good idea. Yeah, thanks.”

“I thought you were going to wish for Venus to let us go somewhere other than Worlon,” Leona said, almost scolding him.

“I’ve been thinking about that,” Mateo explained. “We should go. There’s a reason that she wants us to. I’m willing to trust her. She’s done a lot for us.”

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Microstory 1287: The Father and the Snake

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A father and his son were coming back from the market one day when the son accidentally stepped on a pile of eggs. The father examined the remains, and discovered that they belonged to a snake. The son was upset about what he had done, but his father assured him that these things happen. He was also afraid the mother would return, and be stricken with sadness for what happened, but the father also knew that this variety of snake always abandons her eggs, and would move on with her life, never knowing something had happened. Unfortunately, he was wrong. This particular mother snake was a little different. For whatever reason she felt the urge to return to her nest, and check on her babies. She was horrified by what she found there, and even though it was not in her nature, felt compelled to seek revenge on whoever killed her young. She sniffed around, and picked up the scent. Then she slithered off to hunt for the culprit. She found him, and bit the boy in the ankle. The boy nearly died, but the father acted quickly, and got him medical attention. He was angry, though, so he hunted the mother snake right back, and cut off her tail with a shovel. Now even angrier, the snake returned to the father’s home, and bit several of his cows. She bit each one of them many times, in the dead of night, so he would not be able to tend to them in time. Angrier too, the father went out to get his revenge again, but this time, he was determined to kill her, and just be done with it. But the son did not want this to happen. While he was still recovering, he struggled out of bed, and followed his father to the woods. He finally caught up with him just as they were coming upon the snake. She was prepared for a fight, and so was the father. “No,” the son declared. “You will not do this. No good can come of it.” He continued his speech, trying desperately to dissuade them from their bloodlust. The cycle of violence had to end, and both of them knew it. Neither believed the other should concede first. It was just that each worried the other wouldn’t take kindly to a truce, and that it might make things worse. But someone had to risk it. The boy’s words were enough to change them both for the better. The father apologized for the snake’s young, and the snake apologized for his cattle. She tried to apologize for the boy, but the boy insisted that all was forgiven on his end. The father and the snake did not become friends that day, but they were no longer enemies.

This story was inspired by, and revised from, an Aesop Fable called The Man and the Serpent.

Void: Doctor Who (Part IX)

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It was November of 2168. The salmon battalion was gone, back to some point in history on Earth, to fight in some other war. That was evidently all they did. Saga hoped they had some good mental health care. It was one thing to be a soldier, it was entirely different to alter one’s allegiances every time one is dropped into a new conflict. Did they have any role in the decisions, did they sometimes have to fight against those they once fought alongside? Did they receive any compensation?

Durus was doing exceptionally well since the battalion left. The government was strong, working under the guidance of a sensible Constitution, one written with the future in mind. The people were learning to start working for themselves, and with each other. Unemployment was coasting at a healthy low rate, and sponsored programs were supporting those in transitional periods. They still lived in separate cities, but none was isolated. They maintained relations with each other, sharing knowledge and resources, and operating under the global banner. It was kind of the first time that Saga and Andromeda felt like they could take a breath, and really focus on their private lives. No one was asking the latter to build them anything, because they realized that, though this would be easier, if they utilized human labor on a construction crew, they could pay those people, and support the economy. Paramounts were still around, and using their time powers when warranted, but the entire system didn’t rely on them. That was what the Mage Protectorate was lacking; self-sufficiency, and they knew they couldn’t make that mistake again.

For the last several months, the two of them had been discussing having children. Years ago, they couldn’t imagine bringing a child into this world, but now that things were going so well, it didn’t sound like such a bad idea. They were now fully ready for the commitment—excited for it, even. The only problem was that they were both women, and conceiving a child together would be a little complicated, especially since Durus was still an underdeveloped state. At the moment, Camden Voss was visiting from his new city of Jaydecott, to discuss their options.

“Why me?” he asked.

“You’re one of the few people here that we trust,” Andromeda replied.

“Don’t you think that makes it a little awkward?” he questioned.

“A little, yes,” Saga agreed, which is why we’ve decided that the child would be born of Andromeda. I imagine being with her would make it a little less awkward.”

“For who?”

“Whom,” Saga corrected.

Camden blinked, and repeated, “for who?”

“Everybody,” Andromeda put forth.

“I don’t know about that. Have you tried contacting a prostitute? They’re very professional, and the industry is heavily regulated. You can trust them, even though you won’t know the donor very well.”

“We want it to be you,” Andromeda said honestly.

He took a breath for the first time since sitting down with them. “I don’t know how I feel about fathering a child to whom I’m not allowed to be a father.”

Saga shook her head at that. “We wouldn’t cut you out of our lives. You would be a part of this. No, you wouldn’t be his or her father—maybe more like an uncle—but we would want your input. They would grow up knowing you, and loving you.”

He shook his own head, but out of hesitation, not complete opposition.

“If we were on Earth,” Saga continued, “we would go to a doctor for artificial insemination, but we would still ask you to donate the sperm.”

“If we were on Earth, in present day, you wouldn’t need sperm. You could have a two-parent child using your respective DNA samples.”

“Earth in 2002, then.”

He sat in thought for a moment, then a lightbulb clicked in his head. “You can have a doctor.”

“No one here can do anything like that. I mean, they might be able to, but like we were saying, it all comes down to trust.”

“No, I know of a real doctor. In 1997, I was on a mission in Tennessee when I was suddenly transported to the future, in a different person’s body. As it turns out, a choosing one was sending her consciousness back in time, into other people’s bodies, to complete her own missions.”

“She was a doctor?” Saga asked.

“No, but there was a doctor there. It was her job to help the people whose lives had been temporarily taken over not totally freak out. Of course, as a salmon myself, I didn’t need anyone to calm me down, but I benefited from some therapy, just the same. She was a brilliant psychiatrist. She’s like the choosing one version of Baxter Sarka.”

“And she can help us?” Andromeda asked. “I assume she’s on Earth.”

“She travels all over,” Camden explained.

“You can call her with your sheetphone?” Saga hoped.

“Well, I can page her. She is a doctor, afterall.” Camden’s phone had only been used once here, to contact The Officiant, yet he still carried it with him wherever he went. He took it out and dialed. Then they waited. “Could take a few decades,” he said after a beat. “She’s not going to get it for another negative a hundred and forty years.”

“What?” Andromeda squealed.

“I’m kidding.” His phone rang. “See?” He lifted the phone and pointed it away from them, like a remote control. Once he pressed Accept, a light appeared from the phone, and corporalized a body in the middle of the room.

“Mister Voss,” she said. “Nice to see you again...for the very first time.”

“Same to you. How are you, and Quivira, and the rest of the team?”

“Well, thank you,” the doctor replied.

Saga stood up and shook her hand. “Saga Einarsson. This is my wife, Andromeda.”

“Pleasure to meet you two. I’m Dr. Mallory Hammer.”

“We’ve heard of you,” Andromeda realized. “The Officiant mentioned you before our wedding.”

“Ah, yes,” Hammer said. “Couples often need a consult before they commit to marriage.”

“Do you have any idea why we’ve asked you here?” Saga asked. She wasn’t sure, because sometimes time travelers knew everything about the outcome of events before they arrived. Knowing who knows how much, and when, can make communication a little difficult, which was why you kind of had to keep a laid-back attitude towards what would normally be treated as dumb questions.

She shifted her gaze between the three of them. “If I could hazard a guess, you two are looking to spice up your relationship?”

“No.”

“No?” she asked rhetorically. “Then my second guess would be that you’re trying to have a child, and you would like me to perform the procedure.” That was likely her first guess, and the other was just her attempt at humor.

“That’s the one,” Camden said.

“I am from the twenty-twenties. Under these conditions, I will need sperm. I don’t know if you were expecting same-sex conception, or...”

“Camden is meant to be involved,” Saga said, then she turned towards him. “That is, if you’ve agreed.”

He took a reverent pause. “I would be honored.”

“Sounds great,” Hammer said. “Do both parents want to be related to the child? Camden is obviously the sperm donor. One of you can supply the egg, and the other the uterus. Or the bearer can provide the egg as well.”

The others hadn’t thought about it yet, but Saga had. She wanted the child to be part of her, but she would not be able to carry it. She requested to speak with the doctor in private. “I can’t carry a child.”

She nodded understandingly. “Okay.”

“I’m much older than I look. I’ve been thrown throughout time, and de-aged, and torn out of reality. I was considering raising a child when I was stranded on Earth a few years back, and learned then of my infertility. My eggs, on the other hand, should still be fine.”

She nodded more. “Yes, the de-aging process has been known to produce a sort of...resupply of eggs. However, it can also cause spontaneous endometrial thinning. I wrote my thesis on the effects that time travel can have on reproductive organs.”

“Wrote your thesis where? What school would understand what you’re talking about?”

“It doesn’t matter.” She set the conversation back on track, “does your wife know?”

“She does. We told Camden it would be less awkward for him to impregnate her, rather than me, but really, she’s our only option. But if I can provide the egg, I would love to.”

She nodded a third time. “That can be done. Easy.”

“Thank you.”

They went back to the other two. “All right, we’ve set initial plans.” She looked at the time on her pager. “I’m going to be back in two days.”

“Why?”

“If you still want to do it in two days,” she said, “you still want to do it. Never make a major change on the same day you decide to do it. It’s like going to the grocery store hungry. You’ll buy the wrong things. Let this sink in. In two days, we’ll iron out the details. Two days later, we’ll go over the details again. After another two days, assuming everyone understands the ramifications of what we’re doing here, we’ll begin the actual procedure.”

They didn’t say anything. They just had to concede to her expertise.

“I’ll need a sterile environment anyway, so if you could put me in touch with the hospital, or clinic, or whatever you have here, I’ll get going on my own process. Is everyone okay with how we’re proceeding?”

“I am,” Saga agreed.

“I’m going to need a verbal agreement from all of you.”

“I am.”

“I’m in.”

Hammer smiled. “Get used to making your intentions abundantly clear. I do nothing without consent.”

On November 22, 2168—one day after the report came out of Camden’s sister’s death—they made a baby.

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The Odds: Fifty-Six (Part IV)

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Do you think it’s possible that the only reason I’m starting this sentence with a question is because, in order to set up formatting, I copy-pasted each installment beginning with ‘Have you ever wanted to write a story?’ and when I tried to highlight and overwrite it, I missed the question mark? No, it’s not.

Honestly, it would be rather difficult for me to remember exactly how I came to the conclusion that Fifty-Six should be my fourth number. The first three numbers in my list were a part of me. They were inherent to my understanding of how writing, and the world, works. It’s also a bit of a chicken or the egg thing with whether I thought to come up with numbers after watching LOST, or if I focused a lot on the LOST numbers because I had already found significance in my own. But as the old tangent goes, there’s a logical answer to the chicken or the egg “dilemma”. The problem here is that a chicken cannot be born but from an egg, and an egg cannot exist without being laid by a chicken. And so they seem equally likely and unlikely as each other, because one is wholly dependent on the other. But...ignoring all evolutionary concepts (read: reality) on the matter, one has an advantage over the other. Are you ready to have your minds blown? A chicken can live perfectly happily without an egg, but an egg cannot survive without a chicken to protect it from danger, following its creation. Somebody clean up this graymatter! You’re welcome!

Back to what I was saying, when you add up all the LOST numbers of 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, and 42, you end up with the number 108. When I started adding up my three preexisting numbers, I somehow realized how easy it would be for them to reach 216; twice 108, of course. Without any more calculations, I determined that, in order to reach that sum, my last two numbers would have to be around 50 and 80. I tried a few different combinations. 55 + 84? I didn’t want Fifty-Five to intrude on Eleven’s purpose of being palindromic. It would have been an interesting choice since it’s a Fibonacci number, but since my first three preclude me from also using 89, it would have seemed like a waste anyway. 52 + 87? I didn’t want there to be a connection to playing cards, and I didn’t like my birth year being in there, because it’s too obvious. I tried a few more, and finally settled on Fifty-Six and Eighty-Three. Now this seems very inorganic and insincere, but the process itself is what makes these numbers relevant. Yes, by the time I got to them, I had already been looking to complete my collection, but that’s what makes it so cool. The effort I put into finding Fifty-Six in the first place is what imbued it with its power.

Other people have used Fifty-Six for their own reasons, all of which I read about just now, and did not consider when first coming up with it. The most fascinating one is that Shirley Temple’s mother always ensured that she wore 56 curls as a child. I can’t find any information as to why her mother chose that number (or why that number chose her mother), but it seemed to have worked. She was the archetype of the cute child; one that casting directors and modeling agents seem to look for even today. While the ideal “beautiful person” has changed over time, if you think about it, the most adorable children in advertising are determined by how closely they resemble her. I suppose the curls themselves have nothing to do with that, but still. Hey, I’m just spitballing here. Well...I mean, I’m not. That’s gross.

Speaking of numbers, when I started writing for my website, I went through some growing pains to try and figure out how long each installment would be. The early ones are all over the place, and show no level of continuity, in that regard. But then the microstories started being between 200 to 300 words each. I think. I would have to go back and look, but I’m pretty sure they were on the short side, just reaching into my memory. The weekend stories—which I first referred to as flash fiction, and now call mezzofiction (in order to maintain that continuity)—were shaping up to be longer. In fact, they were about five times as long, which meant that five microstories were equal to one longer story. But that’s dumb, because there are two days in a weekend. I continued to work on creating a site that you could count on. Literally. Instead of posting nanofiction stories as they popped into my head, I starting writing them out in a spreadsheet, with the intention of posting them every three hours, a pattern which is broken only by my afternoon story post, and my evening photo. Speaking of which, sorry about the lack of photos. They take more effort than you would think, I’ve run out of “things” in my house, and I don’t get out much. As my methods progressed, I came up with interrelated microstory series that would last for weeks, and were connected in some way, rather than just whatever I could come up with at the time. Lastly, I decided to decide on story arcs for The Advancement of Mateo Matic that would last a year/volume each, and I planned for future Saturday mezzofiction so that I would never again be caught with my pants down, like I was with the continuation of Mr. Muxley Meets Mediocrity. And that’s funny, because my pants fell down when I realized I had no idea what this very story you’re reading now would be about.

Things were falling into place as they should have. Microstory length increased to about 300 to 500, with the mode being rather close to the median. Mezzofiction story length still hovers around 1250 words, but I’m finding I need a little more for my more recent installments of The Advancement of Mateo Matic. It’s easy to go over my mark, but it’s hard for me to be under. I always feel like I’m cheating you out of something, or that I’m missing something and it’s incomplete. But I need to get over that. I don’t encounter Fifty-Six nearly as much as the other four. And that’s okay, because magic numbers aren’t real. When an installment is done, it needs to be done. And right now, I’m only at 1119 words, but it’s done. That is at least more than I thought there would be.

Oh, I forgot to mention that I only started posting my images alongside my stories because I noticed an uptick in clicks when I did so. Most of my traffic, I believe, comes from Facebook. And as you’re going through your feed, if you don’t see a picture, you don’t see it. It might as well not exist. I’m a word guy, I like words. Honestly, you guys are frustratingly simplistic, and I struggle to come up with images that match my words. I’ve even altered my stories in order to match with a picture I already have. Which is ridiculous, and not how writing should be done! Grrr! Anyway, here’s a picture of some penguins, because nothing else works with this story. This is what you have reduced me to. Are you happy? 1256 words. Hmm...

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