Microstory 1787: Flying Fish

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Sleep and I have always had a love-hate relationship. I love it, but it resists me every single night. I was an adult before I learned that normal people fall asleep within twenty minutes. When my health teacher told us that, I wanted to punch him in the face, and knock him out. Then I wanted him to wake up, and punch me in the face so I would know what it feels like to not lie awake in bed for literally two hours. Over the years, I’ve tried some things to alleviate the problem: meditation, melatonin, stronger pills that put me, and the morning drivers around me, at terrible risk. Some of it has helped a little, but nothing has helped a lot. I would get six hours on a really good night, and I was proud of myself for anything over five. Now that I’m older, I’ve decided to prioritize my time better. Instead of staying up late, and waking up just before it’s time to go to work, I figured I may as well go to bed early, and have more me-time in the mornings. If it’s early enough, it’s still dark, so there’s no glare on my TV. That’s what’s really helped, waking up before sun, instead of fighting for every ounce of rest in those precious final moments. Now I lie awake for an hour, but since I give myself more time overall, I end up with seven hours, and it probably doesn’t get any better than that. I even try to avoid this thing called social jetlag, which means sleeping different hours on certain nights, which for most is due to not having to work on the weekends. Last night was different. It was a Friday, and I was in the middle of a good TV binge, so I decided it would be okay to go to bed at 23:00. That’s 11:00 PM for you people who can’t count past 12. It turned out to be a bad idea...for a bizarre reason. Had I gone to sleep at my new normal time, I wouldn’t have been awake to hear the man outside my window.

At first, I think it must be an innocuous noise. The purr of my refrigerator, the buzz of the street lights, the revving of a distant car. It isn’t so distant, and it isn’t so innocuous. It sounds like someone mimicking the sound of a motor with their mouth, and it only gets worse when he starts talking. “Flying fish,” he says, “flying fish”. Over and over and over again, “flying fish. Yeah, baby, flying fish.” Fuck, what does he want with me? I’m about to die, I’m about to die. What do I do? Don’t turn on the lights, then he’ll see that you’re here. Look out the window. No, not that one, it’s too close. I can’t see anything. What about the window in the study? Still nothing. Can you still hear him? “Flying fish.” Call mom, she’ll know what to do. No, bring the dog in first, and put her in her cage.  Then call mom. Shit, it’s late, they go to bed earlier than I do. Call 911, she says, that’s what it’s there for. Yes, it qualifies an emergency, call them now. Dispatch doesn’t understand my problem fully, but she dispatches a fleet anyway. Firetruck first on the scene. I look back out the window in the study. The firefighter is bent at the hip, hand on the shoulder of a man. He’s sitting in the street, up against the curb. He’s wobbly, and incoherent. He must be drunk. She’s being gentle and patient with him. Ambulance, police cruiser, that red pickup truck the fire station boss drives, another police cruiser. It’s okay, Daisy, go back to sleep. Chew on your cactus if you’re nervous. They load him up faster than I would have thought. I’ve seen car accidents in real life; been in a couple myself. They usually move slower than movies make it seem. They close the ambulance doors, and clear the street. The quiet returns, and it’s like they were never even here. Then a fish flies past my window, followed by another, and another. He wasn’t lying.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: Tuesday, July 13, 2128

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Angela Marie Walton was born in 1784 to a wealthy slaveowner. He wasn’t the cruelest person in the world, but he did own people, and that was wrong in every time period. Angela grew up fascinated by the black people who worked for the family. She liked to watch them, not to remind herself that she was superior, but also not because she felt that they should be treated as equals. She was indoctrinated into the world she lived in, and she had trouble fathoming any world beyond it. She had somewhat contradictory feelings on the matter. It was wrong how African people were taken from their homes, and forced to live somewhere else. But the slaves her father owned today were not Africans. They only knew this country, so they ought to stay. They deserved to be treated well, but they were uneducated, and perhaps they could never be taught to be civilized, so at least this gave them a purpose. They had a roof over their heads, and food to eat, and she rationalized that there was little difference between that, and a freeman who had to work for a living. They weren’t getting paid in coin, but in living resources, so maybe that was good enough.

As Angela grew older, her contradictions started slipping away. She stopped seeing the good in the system, and started focusing more on how broken it was. Life was about choice, and these slaves were fundamentally not given a choice. The fact that they were born into this was not their fault, their lack of education was not their fault; nothing was their fault. She slowly became an abolitionist. But there was a problem. She was still a woman; a girl, actually, and her opinion mattered very little. If she spoke out against the injustices, she could lose everything. What she needed to do was find a husband who felt the same way. She did, in a man named Ed Bolton. He was more outspoken about his sentiments, and she admired him for that. In 1809, she began a courtship, of course, against her fathers wishes. But it didn’t matter, because once she was married, she wouldn’t have to worry about what her father thought, or how he felt. Ed wasn’t the richest man she knew, but he made a decent living, and he would be good to her. Unfortunately, they never made it to their wedding day. On September 9 of that year, Ed Bolton disappeared from his home, and wasn’t seen again for two years.

In the meantime, Angela lost what few privileges she had, and was forced to marry another man. This man was far more cruel to his slaves, and he firmly believed in their inferiority. Angela’s father didn’t even like him all that much, but he felt betrayed by his daughter for the whole Ed Bolton thing, and vindictive towards her, so her husband was her punishment. Her husband was as abusive to Angela as he was to the other humans he owned, and it all came to a head in 1816, when he dealt her a fatal blow. Ed Bolton was returned to the timestream when it happened, and tried to save her, but was unable. Angela’s husband took this as an opportunity to frame Ed for the crime, and when the latter resurfaced yet again five years later, the law swiftly intervened. He disappeared after three weeks, but the true killer was never caught, and Angela was still dead. Fortunately for her, there was life after death, and she spent the next three centuries making up for her past sins, until she was finally promoted to Counselor. Then it ended, when she tried to counsel a group of other time travelers, and it prompted a major demotion.

Over two hundred years after Angela’s death, new life was coming into the world. A woman of unknown identity was giving birth to a baby boy, completely alone. Down the hall, a man named Lowell Benton was killing someone else. The victim had done nothing to Lowell personally, but Lowell had a power. He could see people’s sins. Or rather, he always saw their sins. Whenever he looked at someone, the worst thing they did in their past flashed before his eyes. If he looked at them a second time, the second worst thing they did flashed. The cycle would continue ad nauseum, and the strain from this drove him crazy. It drove him towards murder, because dead bodies didn’t ever show him any visions. Funny he didn’t seem to get the idea to just go live out in the woods somewhere, and avoid people. He decided that being a vigilante was his only option. When he heard the screams of the mother after finishing his last jobs, he became curious. It sounded like she was in pain, but it didn’t sound like someone was purposefully hurting her. He quickly picked her lock, and broke in to find her alone, on the floor, with some towels. The baby was coming, and there was no time to get her to a medical facility. The most surprising thing was that she wasn’t giving him any visions. His theory was that the baby had never sinned, so it was sort of interfering with the signal, but the truth was that being in labor forced her to think of nothing but the pain, and whatever her sins were, they were buried so deep that Lowell couldn’t get to them.

By now, he was used to gross things, and of course, death. With nothing better to do with his night, he knelt down, and helped deliver that baby. And when the mother died by whatever specific cause, he didn’t bother to contact the authorities. He just stood up, and washed his hands. But the baby kept crying, and it was starting to get on Lowell’s nerves. He was about to leave when he caught one more glance of the infant, and felt a calm. He had also never thought to surround himself with babies before, who were the only living humans on the planet without sin. They could give him peace. So he picked up the child, and took it with him on the road. He never did call anyone about the dead mother, so by the time the autopsy confirmed she had died while giving birth, Lowell and the child were so far away, that no one could have made a connection between the two. He spent a week with that baby before growing bored with him. Sure, he was a calming presence, but he would start sinning eventually, and Lowell didn’t want to have to kill him for it. Besides, there were plenty of targets that actually did need killing, and running around with a child was obstructing that cause. He happened to be in Kansas City at the time, so he dropped the kid off at the nearest fire station, and moved on with his life with barely a second thought. The firefighters, meanwhile, named their new charge Jeremy Bearimy.

“Wow, you know a lot about me,” Lowell said. “Every time you talked about Ed, though, you gestured towards this woman right here.”

“I’m Ed,” Téa explained. “I died and was reincarnated as a girl.”

“Oh,” Lowell said. “Gotcha. Except, why would I rescue this Jeremy Bearimy fellow?”

“Weren’t you listening?” Mateo questioned. “He’s the kid you delivered back in 2018.”

“Yeah, so I saved him once. Why do I need to do it again?”

“Yeah,” Mateo realized, “why does he? Why do we need him?”

“You need a team,” Jupiter replied. “This is the one I’ve chosen for you. You’re primary objective is Leona. Once Missy returns from The Fourth Quadrant next year, hers will be Sanaa, Téa’s is Angela, and Lowell’s is J.B.”

“J.B.?” Lowell questioned. “He’s doing the initials thing? Nah, I’m not into that. Jeremy is a fine name, I’ll call him that.”

Jupiter stared at him a moment. “That’s between you and him, I don’t give a shit.”

“Who’s the fifth person?”

“That is your first mission,” Jupiter answered. “Trinity is the new team member who corresponds to Ellie. The problem is, I’m not sure where she is. I figured she would be on Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida—”

“Thayla-whatnow?” Lowell interrupted.

Jupiter sighed loudly. “Your first mission is to locate her, and bring her into the fold.” He pointed to their wrists. “You’re limited as to when and where you can do that, though.”

“Wait, what do these things do?” Lowell was an interesting character. He was a bad dude, of course, and he questioned everything anyone asked of him, but he didn’t seem antipathetic to these requests. He both wanted all the information, and didn’t care what those answers were. Nothing was going to stop him from helping, not because he was altruistic, but because he wasn’t doing anything else right now.

“I’ll let Mateo explain. He’s your leader, by the way. He reports to me, but you report to him, and if he tells you to do something, you better do it.”

“Or what?”

Jupiter lifted his primary Cassidy cuff; the one in control of all the others. “Or I’ll switch off your time power dampener, and force you to watch all of my sins. You think the people you’ve killed were bad, you haven’t seen evil like mine.”

Now Lowell shut his mouth, and took a quarter step back.

Jupiter went on, “you are all on Mateo’s original pattern right now. I want him to be on the Bearimy-Matic pattern, however. Fortunately for you, through a loophole, those two components coincide with each other right now. The issue is that this loophole ends in less than three weeks. You have that long to find Trinity, figure out how to break into Tamerlane Pryce’s afterlife simulation, and get at least J.B. out, so he can rejoin the team. Lowell, there are only eleven cuffs total, which means you will be giving yours to him. That’s your motivation. If you fail, you’ll be stuck like this forever. Everyone understand what is expected of you?”

“Yes,” they all replied in perfect unison.

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Microstory 946: Taxes

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I know it’s an extremely unpopular opinion, but I very much love taxes. In 2011, I worked for the IRS for a short stint during tax season. A year later, I worked at H&R Block as an editor in a temporary capacity in the Learning Department for several months. Almost exactly a year after my first day, I was rehired there in a similar position, which only lasted a couple months. I applied for these jobs very much on purpose, and only don’t still do them, because I was just a temp, and they weren’t going anywhere. Now, why would I like taxes? They’re a pain to fill out, and “that’s my hard-earned money”. Well, that’s true. You did earn that money, so the question is now, what are you going to do with it? Are you going to buy more guns? Cigarettes? Tiki torches? Or do you want to spend it on improvements to your community? Libertarians would say, “hell no” to the latter, and “you should be able to, if you want,” to any other option. If you think spending a day or two filling out tax forms each year is a huge hassle, you are in for a real treat, if we ever get rid of them. Let’s go on a hypothetical walk, and take a look around. You’re on a sidewalk, next to a road. Let’s say it’s the evening, which means there are streetlights, lighting your way, along with traffic lights keeping cars from killing you. There’s a county hospital. That’s a public a school. Right across the street from that police station is a fire station. Wave hello to that postal worker, on his way to delivering your paycheck. Oh, now we’re in a not so great neighborhood. These people are struggling to get by, but fortunately, the government helps them out. They provide them with a little bit extra, to make their lives easier, so they have some money left over, which they spend on goods and services, which stimulates the economy. Which helps us all. See that house with a flag in the front, still in “bad” neighborhood? A marine once lived there. Not anymore, though. She was killed in action fighting for your freedom, and is survived by her husband, and two little children. Your taxes paid for her gear, and then it paid for her memorial services. Your taxes paid for that road, sidewalk, and lights. It paid for police protection, fire safety, health care, community education, and mail. It even paid some welfare, and other assistance programs.

Some of things I’ve discussed you like, and some you don’t. Some you use, and some you don’t. But I guarantee you know at least one person who has, at some point, benefited from each of these things. An educated populace is a prosperous one, and I think it would be difficult to argue against the idea of safety and health. You may want these individual services to be paid for by the consumer on an as-needed basis. You may want everything to be privatized, so that companies compete for your business. That’s what capitalism is about, so why wouldn’t we use it for this? Well, because that would be hell. I don’t want to have to pay a toll every time I switch from one street to the next. L.A. traffic would look like racetrack compared to how that would be. Maybe we simplify it, by adding stickers to your car that indicates which streets you’ve paid for, and which you haven’t. Could you imagine the amount of manpower it would take to regulate this, however you set it  up? A labor shortage would put this nation into just as much turmoil as unemployment has in recent history. You may hate taxes, but they are the most efficient means of distributing wealth across the whole country. I’m not saying it’s a perfect system. There are so many ways we can make it better. I don’t understand why I fill out any forms at all. The government should know where I work, how much money I earned, and even what I did with it. Just take what you need, send me a statement, and give me back my Aprils. I also don’t always agree with what they spend my tax dollars on, but the solution to this is not to simply eliminate the concept completely. The solution is to vote for civil servants who I believe will change laws according to what’s best for society. If you agree with this sentiment, then come the next two elections...#votethemout.

Microstory 852: Evil Noisemaker

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I am the youngest deer in the herd, and the others tend to try to protect me. Today, however, they believe it’s time that I venture out on my own and complete a mission. There is a noise coming from the square trees down the hill, and my herd believes it’s being made by some kind of evil demon. Most of my kind would run away from this, but we’re different, and we’re worried about the creatures living in the square woods. Our ancestors used to run scared whenever they heard something they didn’t recognize, as will other deer today, but we’ve learned better what is dangerous, and what is innocuous. Some of the square-tree dwellers do everything they can to prevent us from seeing them. They build their squares on our trees, and they slither on the ground like snakes. These are the bad ones; the ones that are trying to kill us. If a square-dweller, on the other hand, is trying to get noticed, and walking towards us with wide eyes, and showing its teeth, it is a good one. It wants to meet with us, and be friendly. My mother was once trapped in the teeth of a headless, bodiless demon. One of the square-dwellers came to her rescue, freed her leg from the demon, and took care of her. She started this herd on the idea that deer can live in peace with the square-dwellers. And if there’s a chance the evil demon down the hill is planning on hurting one of them, we have to go down and destroy it. For all we know, this is retribution for the dweller who helped my mother those years ago. I don’t know why the herd decided that I would go off alone, but I am honored by the opportunity, and ready to prove myself a contributing member of our society. I am the only doe with antlers, so if anyone can fight this evil off, it’s me. I run through the woods, but stop when I hit the clearing. This could be a trap, so I have to be cautious. There are no places to hide here, though, so I don’t think any of the bad square-dwellers are waiting for me.

I race down and enter the realm of the square trees. The evil noisemaker I’m looking for has not ceased, and now I see why. It’s coming from one of the smaller squares, spreading its deathly blaze all around. I hear the crackle of the fire, the popping of the wood, and the screams of the dwellers inside. Mustering all my courage, I smash my antlers against the tree, over and over again until it breaks apart. The fire is all around me, but I’m determined to complete my job. I focus my hearing, and home in on the where the noise is coming from. The demon is smaller than I thought it would be, a small disk hanging on the square branch above me. I jump up and break it apart, ending the noise successfully. Unfortunately, the evil noisemaker’s fires remain active, even now that it’s dead. I can still hear the screams of square-dwellers in another part of the square tree. I leap over the fires, and headbutt the tree just once, tearing it apart with ease. The dwellers on the other side are huddled together. They’re the little ones of their species, and are even more afraid than deer are when we hear a frightening noise. I lower my neck to the floor and wiggle my tail. Getting the hint, the young square-dwellers climb onto my back. I leap over the fire again, and race back out of the square tree. I hear more demons running towards us in the distance as I’m letting the dwellers off. I get in a defensive position and snort at the demon cavalry, but the square-dwellers stop me. “No,” one of them says. “They’re here to help.” That’s so strange, I didn’t know I could understand their language. I wonder if they can understand me too, so I wheeze and grunt at her, but she doesn’t seem to know what I’m talking about. She just shows her teeth and giggles. The apparent good noisemaking demons come upon us, and I can see that I’m no longer needed. I say goodbye to the children, knowing they don’t know what I mean, but hoping they get the message anyway. Then I run off and return to my herd to tell them that everything is okay.

Microstory 569: Brooks Clothing Opens in Kansas City

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History has taught us that there are about a hundred people on this planet who display extraordinary abilities. That number is expected to rise very little as we continue through this new century. One such of these anomalies has already come and passed. In fact, Ormonda Brooks died before the fact that anomaly abilities exist was public knowledge. She was recruited by a sort of proto-Bellevue to help certain anomalies use their abilities without fear of one important thing that probably wouldn’t even cross most people’s minds. When she sewed clothes, a special oil was excreted from her hands that became intertwined with the fabric. The first person to wear this piece of clothing would also excrete oils from their skin, mixing with both the fabric, and Brooks’ oil. This would prompt a process wherein the clothes themselves would become imbued with that anomaly’s ability. No, this didn’t make sentient clothing, or even temporarily allow a second wearer to use that ability. All it did was prevent the original wearer’s ability from damaging the clothing. For instance, Serenity Theodo, who could phase through objects, would always have to concentrate in order to keep her clothing wrapped around her body while phasing through something else. Brooks’ oil, however, allows her to use her ability without worrying about this, so she can go about her day, thinking about more pressing issues. Ellen Snider’s body is designed unlike most others. She’s perfectly suited to fly around in the sky without frost building up, because her skin stops it from happening, but she couldn’t stop that from happening to her clothes. Brooks’ clothing changed all that for her.

One of the first things that certain qualified people within early Bellevue did was study people’s abilities, searching for ways of replicating them for common use. If Hosanna Katz can feel other people’s emotions, we should be able to understand his mind to create more effective therapy strategies, and yes, possibly interrogation techniques. Ling Guo helped engineer a universal translator, and a number of anomalies helped us crack interdimensional travel. Not surprisingly, early scientists realized how useful Ormonda Brooks’ ability could be; how many practical applications it could have. Paired with technology that mimicked Otto Vann’s ability to remove oxygen from the area, suddenly firefighting didn’t have to be all that dangerous. Law enforcement no longer need wear heavy body armor, because their standard uniform would be more than enough...as long as that uniform was modified with a synthetic version of Ormonda Brooks’ oil. A new store has opened in Kansas City, servicing all of North America, called Brooks Clothing. This clothing store does not carry the latest fashions, nor the cutest baby shoes. It is reserved exclusively for work uniforms. Law enforcement officers, firefighters, other first responders, steelworkers, and many others, will be able to order in bulk special clothing with a variety of uses. Electricians will be nearly impervious to electrical shocks, while general construction workers won’t be able to accidentally nail their hands to a door frame, as long as they wear their protective clothing. These uniforms are extremely regulated, requiring a long and complex application to even be considered as a customer. Since Bellevue still owns the patent of this advancements, there is also a long and complex process for becoming a legal vendor, of which there is currently none besides the Bellevue-backed Brooks Clothing location. Others may come in the future, and if so, could open up new markets, such as anti-sweat clothing for runners, or better swimsuits for competitive swimmers. For now, though, you’ll only be able to get your hands on this technology if your job field is considered to be one of the more dangerous, and your employer has been approved.

Microstory 484: Floor 1 (Part 2)

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Lobby Guard: What are you doing here?

Firefighter: We were sent here. Did someone call 911?

Lobby Guard: I did, but I just requested the coroner. The subjects died on impact, you are not needed.

Firefighter: With respect, sir, you are not qualified to pronounce someone dead. Now let me through so I can do my job.

Lobby Guard: We are on lockdown, I’m not letting anyone through.

Firefighter: The fire department belongs to emergency services, we need to get by. I don’t know what your building’s policy is regarding lockdown, but I assure you that we are allowed to break it. Now..move!

Lobby Guard: Your emergency services are not needed. Nobody is hurt, just a few people are dead.

Firefighter: Reidemeister, inform the chief that we are being rejected at the door. Then get an ETA on the nearest police cruiser.

Kallias Bran: My ears were burning.

Firefighter: This doesn’t concern you, Bran. You’re not a cop anymore. And didn’t you used to be older?

Kallias Bran: I still have a few tricks up my sleeve.

Firefighter: He’s locked the door. We can’t get in, and do not have clearance to break in. That doesn’t mean there’s anything to investigate here.

Kallias Bran: You don’t need clearance. I know this building. It’s special.

Firefighter: What the hell is that thing?

Kallias Bran: It’s the Escher Knob. It’ll get us in.

Firefighter: This isn’t one of your crazy theories, Bran. This building is actually real.

Kallias Bran: Yes...and no.

...

Firefighter: Oh my God, how the hell did we end up inside?

Kallias Bran: I brought the lobby to us. Go on and get to work so they can lift the lockdown and get these people back home safe. And you...

Lobby Guard: H—how’d you do that? You were there...and now you’re here.

Kallias Bran: Speaking of which, I need you to take me to Freight Elevator 2. I have some business on the thirteenth floor.

Lobby Guard: There is no Freight Elevator 2. There has only ever been one.

Kallias Bran: Never mind, I can see The Superintendent on the second floor. He’ll know where it is.

Siftens Landing Part V

Click here for the first installment of this series.

Click here for the second installment of this series.
Click here for the third installment of this series.
Click here for the fourth installment of this series.

Father Siften, Sabrina Lander, Ryan Lander, and Madam Kapka were out looking for little Moe when the explosion came from behind them. They ran towards it, stumbling onto the bottom of the hill where Billy and Kyle were lifting an unconscious Allison from the ground. “Oh my god,” Father Siften yelled.

“She’s okay,” little Moe assured him. And she really was okay. She would have a nasty bump on the head, but she would live.

“We have to get back to the houses,” Sabrina exclaimed. They raced up to meet the horror. The Siften house was on fire, and the flames were licking at the side of the Kapka house. They got there just in time to hear the sirens from emergency services. They did a headcount and found that the only two who were not present were Mama Siften and Mister Kapka, who were each known to be out running errands.

While Father Siften was coordinating with the sheriff, Ryan was talking with the kids who had caused the explosion. “How did this happen?” he asked.

“We’re sorry,” his daughter, Libby answered. “We just wanted to look at your fireworks.”

“Was this the work of my Ferocity Sunstrikers?” The children kept their heads down in shame, but nodded affirmatively. A deputy had heard the conversation.

Madam Kapka, who was a veterinarian, was treating Allison’s wound since the paramedics hadn’t arrived yet. Allison woke up confused and backed away. “No, no, honey. It’s okay. It’s me.”

“I don’t know who you are,” Allison said in fear.

“This is my mother,” Kyle explained to her.” His voice was enough to calm her down.

“What happened to her?” Madam Kapka asked while continuing to work.

The boys were afraid to answer, but Billy decided to be the bigger man. “Kyle and I were fighting, and we accidently bumped into her, so she fell down the hill.”

“Is anyone else hurt?” Madam Kapka asked after she had done all there was to do with Allison’s head.

“No,” Kyle replied. A second deputy had heard the conversation.

The firetruck finally arrived, followed closely by the ambulance. The firefighters sprayed the house with water while paramedics loaded Allison up and drove her away. A few other firefighters went into the house, even though there were told that no one was in there. The deputy and the sheriff spent some time whispering to each other over to the side, trying to figure out what they were going to do. In the end, it was decided that the children would be separated from their parents, and that the parents would be brought in under suspicion of some form of child abuse. The parents and children screamed and pulled away from the cops, trying to reach each other. Then they all stopped and watched as one of the firefighters came out of the Siften house carrying a body. It was Mama Siften. She had come back without anyone knowing. The firefighter shook his head at his superior. She was dead.
Days later, after all legal charges were dropped, everyone moved away from each other, and never went back to the hidden cul-de-sac again. Once she graduated from high school, Allison ran off with Kyle, and they haven’t spoken to their respective families since.

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Honestly, I'm glad that's over. Now I can start on the stories that I really want to tell. Next Saturday will be the premiere of Mr. Muxley Meets Mediocrity.