Microstory 2250: Consequences are Inevitable

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It’s Nick. I technically could have written my last blog post, but I wasn’t really feeling up to it, so I asked Kelly to fill in for me again. She’s kept you well up-to-date on everything that was happening with me. We don’t have all the details yet, but from what we gather, a rival of the man who was paying me for my index and bone marrow does not want the procedures to go ahead. Evidently, there’s this whole subsector of research that’s looking into longevity that a lot of people don’t know about. It’s kind of secretive, because progress is slow, so it doesn’t make the companies any money, which can make them skirt the rules sometimes. I was a victim of this hidden war. Everyone working in the field believes that I’m the biggest breakthrough anyone could have had, and the competitors are feeling jealous that he’s the one who got to me first. Well, it looks like my poisoner may have gotten their wish. I seem to have suffered permanent damage from the pesticides that I ingested, which will likely forever contaminate every system in my body. It won’t kill me anytime soon, since we caught it early, but however I die in however many years, it will almost certainly be a contributing factor, like smoking. That’s exactly why I don’t smoke, because the consequences are inevitable, if not apparent. There are some things that I can do to help the situation, like being as healthy as possible for the rest of my life, but there’s no cure, because there’s not really a disease. I suppose I would be all right if I did manage to get out of this universe, and into one that allowed my immortality to flourish. I told you a little while ago about there being a potential way to make that happen, but it would require the aid of other people, and that would require capital. I no longer have that if we’re not doing the surgeries. Don’t worry, the sort of down payment I received is mine to keep. He’s assured me that he won’t be asking for it back. And hey, it might still happen, I need to do more tests in the coming weeks to see if it’s worth it. We’ll just have to wait and see. In the meantime, it may be in my best interests to start looking for a regular job again.

Microstory 2249: Not Sure on the Motive

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I’m happy to report that Nick is doing well. They gave him some medicine, and performed some other treatments, and the poison is clearing his system. It evidently could have been a lot worse. If he didn’t have this website, we may not have been too worried about his symptoms, but the way that he was writing was just so unlike him. Plus, he’s at a particularly high risk, so the people who care about him are probably always on high alert for things like this. In other news, the authorities already know who poisoned him. They evidently confessed without much effort. We did not expect any answers this fast, but we’re grateful. Though, our gratitude is overwhelmed by our anger and disappointment. We’re still not sure on the motive; if there was some kind of financial gain to be had, or what? That’s usually the reason. They’ve not yet released any names. Others may be involved, so they don’t want to say too much. Once all suspects are apprehended—or it’s determined that there only is the one—they’ll release more information about it. So follow the FBI on socials, I guess, or watch the news.

Microstory 2248: Deliberately

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Hey, everyone, this is Kelly again. Things are not going well. As you may have realized, Nick is not well. We thought that we were totally past this, but we were wrong. He proved that he was once immortal by being cured of the prion disease, and now he’s incidentally proving that he’s no longer immortal by suffering from something else. We didn’t know what we were dealing with at first, but we were very worried for him. He’s been very fatigued and weak lately, which he attributed to a lack of consistent and comfortable sleeping situations. But that just didn’t seem to be enough to explain how dramatically he was declining. And then that last post. It was written so poorly, and wasn’t like him at all. We knew that something else had gone wrong; something specific that could be tested for, and not just remedied homeopathically. Everyone’s first thought was yet another pathogen of some kind, since he seems to have become a magnet for them. I’m sure that a lot of you were all thinking the same thing, as his posts were reminiscent of the kind that he wrote during other infections. That’s not what it is, though, and not because he’s run out of those. Some of you seem to feel like he can’t get another infection, because he’s already had every kind, but that’s not how it works. He’s had every classification. He could get a thousand different ones over the course of the next half century, and he will still not have contracted everything that the world has to offer. And you can become reinfected with the same exact disease anyway; we’ve never cured any of them. But no, that has nothing to do with it anyway. It’s poison. He has been poisoned. The hospital ran a battery of tests, and came to the conclusion that it’s an organophosphate. Don’t ask me to say that out loud. They are commonly found in pesticides, which is why the majority of patients live or work on farms, or in facilities would use these pesticides, or which take part in the manufacturing of them. But those are not the only ways to encounter it. You can eat contaminated food, or even be exposed to it from a chemical explosion. None of these apply to Nick. Well, he’s eaten food, of course, but we’ve all eaten the same things, and have not tested positive for the stuff. The most likely answer is that someone poisoned him deliberately. I don’t know if they were trying to kill him, or only wrongly trying to prove that he’s still immortal, or what, but we will not tolerate that. We’ve spoken with the proper authorities, and a major investigation is underway. Since these chemicals are sometimes used in terroristic plots, the FBI is on the case, not just for Nick, but because such a bad actor places the whole country at risk. So be warned, they’re going to find you, and you will pay. As for Nick himself, he is receiving the treatment that he needs, and the medical professionals expect a full recovery eventually. If you did this to him, you better hope for a positive outcome, or you will be in even bigger trouble than you already are.

Microstory 955: Bees

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A keystone species is one that is vital to the ecosystem in a way that their absence would gravely impact other species. Beavers are one example of this. In parts where beavers have died out, soil erosion has been caused by a lack of their dams. Certain species of fish have suffered, for they evolved to utilize the slow-moving areas of rivers that these mighty mammals created for them. I even named the prison in my stories Beaver Haven for its analogy to house time travelers, some of which are known as salmon. Bees are also a keystone species, and possibly the most important. Since plants can’t move around, they can’t reproduce the same way animals do. They can’t go out, find mates, and bear offspring. If they want to spread their seeds over distances beyond their immediate area, they rely on others, or other phenomena. Some encapsulate their seeds into a cotton-like structure called a pappus, which floats on the air before landing kilometers away. Others attach themselves to the fur of a creature, which is meant to walk away, and drop it off somewhere else. Yet others choose to attract insects to their flowers, which pick up the pollen like dust, and spread it around as they fly back home to use what they managed to hold onto for their colony’s honey. You eat a lot of the fruits and vegetables that come from these plants, and if you’re more into meat, you still benefit, because the animals you eat are also eating those fruits and vegetables. There are many possible answers to the question of what’s happening to the bees—the most likely culprit being pesticides that prevent these pollinators from navigating back home—but the clear truth is that it’s our fault. So, what can we do? We need bees to spread the agriculture, but we need pesticides to protect it from, well...pests. The solution is—you guessed it—vertical farming. If you bring most of the crops inside to a controlled environment, you can produce a greater volume in a smaller space, and you won’t need pest control, since most bugs don’t know how to open doors. By removing our reliance on bees, we would allow them to restore themselves to sustainable numbers, and get back to the business of supporting the planet as a whole. Bees are so important, and so innocent. Save the bees!

Microstory 17: Slug

As I let the salt fall, it writhed and curled. Back and forth. Up and down. Sweeping through the granules that landed dry on the deck. In its final moments of torturous pain, it couldn't tell the difference between where there was salt and where there wasn't. It knew only that something was scratching and tearing at its skin. An unstoppable fire sucking the moisture from its body. I felt an unavoidable urge to explain myself. "I'm not a sadist." I stood up straight, looking for any more, camouflaged on top of the brown planks. "I just can't have you near my dog's food." But as I said the words, I wondered, were they true? My dog ambled onto the deck and sniffed at the slugs, placing her nose firmly against their lifeless bodies. She opened her mouth, contemplating whether she wanted to try one for breakfast. She snapped at it a couple times. "No!" I said. She looked up at me as if to say, who do you think you are? Then she snapped at one again. "NO!" I said with more fervor. She looked up again, what is this? I don’t even... "Don’t eat that," I said. "It might have ingested pesticides, or something." If she had shoulders, she would have shrugged them. Whatever. She walked over to the corner of the deck and dramatically plopped down on her side. Wake me up when there’s legal food.