Microstory 2365: Earth, August 17, 2179

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Dear Corinthia,

I didn’t even think about that, how there would be no organic material in the soil on a lifeless alien world. Even if we were to find life on another planet, it would probably not be the right organic material for the plants that we need to survive. I must say, as angry as I was with your mother, I admired her greatly for her bravery. She knew that she was going somewhere dangerous, and that she might not make it. She and everyone on that ship should be commended for their courage in the face of such literal darkness. I hope it’s okay to say all that. I know that you had a tricky relationship with your mom, and it’s only grown more complicated since she passed. I just want to make sure you know that she loved you very much, and your brother too. Leaving him was the hardest thing that she ever did. She and I struggled there near the end, but she never lied to me. She wouldn’t have taken walking away from Condor lightly. She genuinely believed in the science that they were advancing. Had things gone more smoothly here—had Condor and I lived more stable lives—the insights taken from this research could have helped humanity better understand how humans adapt and survive in the black. Space travel will only increase in the future. I just hope that whoever was in charge managed to get something positive out of it before civilization fell apart. I hate to think that never having the chance to meet my own daughter amounted to absolutely nothing. Condor has asked me about the researchers themselves, and I’ve spent a lot of time pondering who here may have been involved. I’m trying to make a list of everyone I’ve ever met in my life since Alizée first told me that she was pregnant. It’s nothing concrete, but after you left, I did have one neighbor who used to come by the apartment to play cards. I didn’t think much of it at the time, but now I am looking back at it with fresh eyes. He offered to do a number of things together, like watching sports, playing sports, hiking—a lot of outdoorsy and active stuff that I’m not into. He didn’t really stop asking until he found something that I was amenable to. He may have been using this as an excuse to come over and monitor Condor. I don’t know, but we moved away when Condor was still young, and I never saw that guy again. I think I’ll try to see if he’s still alive somewhere, and maybe get you some answers. I won’t write back until I find something, or hit a roadblock.

Stay safe out there,

Pascal

PS: I ordered some apples from the Australian dome, because we don’t have them yet here. It will be a while before we swing around close enough to it again.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: January 18, 2399

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Ramses purged the version of Constance that he had uploaded to The Bridgette. They don’t know if it’s been compromised, but they can’t take any chances. The AI served them well for a long time without giving them any issues, or giving them any reason to doubt it. It’s only when the one from the Fifth Division showed up that they started having issues. The question is, is it even from the Fifth Division? Was that all a lie? Did Impostor!Mateo give them a partial truth? Could it have been an anti-Alyssa who was just using their illusion powers to pretend to be Mateo, while having a backup plan of prompting the wrong investigation if they were even discovered to be an impostor?

Leona, Ramses, and the McIvers are in an SD6 safehouse right now. It’s not completely devoid of electronics, but there aren’t any microphones that could listen in on their conversation, which they are having in the kitchen while the boys play a card game in the one and only bedroom. “Any ideas?” Leona asks. She waits for a response that never comes. “We were all meant to sleep on it.”

“I doubt anyone slept well under these conditions,” Alyssa notes.

“You’re the one who had the bed,” Ramses points out.

“With two smelly boys in puberty,” she counters.

“We heard that!” Carlin shouts from the room.

“I wasn’t trying to be quiet!” she shouts right back.

“All right,” Leona says. “Are we all in agreement?”

“Agreement of what?” Ramses questions, confused.

“We all agree that we don’t know what the fuck we’re doing, and we don’t have any idea how to proceed?

“Heard that too!” young Moray exclaims.

“First we have to decide whether we think that was Mateo, infected by a psychic, or someone else entirely?” Alyssa says. “If it’s the latter, we need to find the real Mateo.”

“It’s not really something we can decide, but yes. I’m not sure how we go about doing that. It’s not like we can look for a scar underneath his right eye, or something. It’s entirely reasonable that he would get himself into a pristine body. The impostor’s story about Mateo going to the Fifth Division was not unbelievable.”

“You think that really happened, but Constance!Five somehow transformed herself into him, and left him somewhere?”

“It wouldn’t be the first time. Fax!Mateo did it so he could sacrifice himself in Alt!Mateo’s body.”

“This is getting confusing,” Alyssa admits. “Has your life always been like this?”

“It hasn’t,” Leona begins. “Back in the day, when Mateo and I were just jumping forward in time, we met a lot of time travelers, but we never had to wonder whether they were the wrong version of someone we already knew. I mean, there was The Rogue, and then Makarion after that, but it didn’t happen nearly as much as it does now. For a reality that doesn’t allow temporal manipulation, there do seem to be a lot of wibbly wobbly, timey-wimey shit. Sorry,” she adds in reference to the children.

“It’s fine,” Alyssa promises.

Young Moray comes down the hallway, pulling away from every attempt of Carlin’s to keep him back. “What about the error detector?”

“What do you mean?” Leona asks.

“That thing you had in the sky. It told you where all the weird time people were, right? If the real Mr. Matic is somewhere else, that should be able to find him, right?”

Leona looks over at Ramses. “We need to replace that anyway to find the remaining errors, don’t we, since the AOC is gone?”

“Oh my God, the AOC!” Ramses laments. The error detector was on that, and now it’s gone. He feels so stupid. It would have been so easy to deploy a nanosatellite from the AOC, and it’s a lot more difficult now that they have to rely on this antiquated Third Rail technology. Months of living here, and he has still not gotten used to that. He keeps making these mistakes, and it’s really starting to piss him off. “The detector isn’t up there anymore. I’m such an idiot.”

“Now hold on,” Alyssa says. “Maybe we don’t need it. If Mateo isn’t dead—which, I’m guessing the detector wouldn’t detect anyway—and our theory is correct, then Constance!Five is keeping him somewhere relatively safe. He would need food, water, shelter. She hasn’t been here long, so she doesn’t know of a whole lot of places.”

“It would appear that she knows everything that Mateo does,” Leona replies. “He has a lot of places in his head.”

“How many of those places are isolated or hidden, so no one will stumble upon him?” Alyssa asks.

“Where was he last time,” Carlin offers, “the first time this happened?”

“The bunker,” Leona answers. She gets out of her chair, then just stands there.

“What’s happening?” Ramses asks her.

“I can’t jump,” she replies. “This body metabolizes temporal energy too quickly.”

“I don’t have any left either,” Ramses says apologetically. “I’ve had to use a lot recently, and I’m in no position to synthesize more.”

“I can still feel the power in this body. If that’s okay with you?”

“No, go, please.” Leona urges. “No one else will go with you to conserve the power you have left. I’ll show you where it is on the map, then we’ll catch up with you by car.”

Alyssa teleports to the middle of the forest, and can instantly feel that it was her last trip. She either gets her hands on more temporal energy, or she never jumps again. Her mother taught her how to read a map without satnav, so she can also tell that she’s a little off the mark, but not too far away. She carefully climbs down the hill, and finds the secret entrance to the underground bunker. She slides down the ladder to find Mateo on the opposite wall. He’s nearly naked, strapped to what seems to be a wire bed frame. He looks dehydrated and exhausted. “Oh my God! What happened to you!”

“Fuh...” he’s really struggling to speak. “Cons...conste...”

“Constance!Five, yeah, we know. She was impersonating you.”

“No.” He shakes his head while she tries to get the restraints off. He musters what little energy he has left. “Constellation.” He passes out.

“What?”

One more push. “Constellation. Phoenix. We have to go there.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: November 8, 2398

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Each grave chamber on the AOC is wide enough to accommodate two sleeping persons, but there are only six seats in the main area, life support would struggle to satisfy the needs of twelve people, and microponics would not be able to feed all of them for an extended period of time. Plus, it would just be too crowded. Ramses built this ship using the resources that he was allotted on Proxima Doma, which were not infinite. It was never meant for the long term. Its only purpose at the time of fabrication was to make a quick jump to Bungula, and really that’s it. There are nine people here right now, and it’s already getting to be too much. The only one on their team who didn’t join them is Kivi, because she’s working with her tack team on the ground.

Leona had to go into orbit to heal her legs—which is working, by the way—but also to avoid the killer bounty hunters who are trying to kill her, either for the money, or because they’re true believers. Arcadia had to come up here too, because she looks like Leona, and guns don’t discriminate. Just as Mateo wanted to be with his wife, so too Vearden wanted to be with whatever he and Arcadia call each other. Marie and Cheyenne probably had to come, because they’re known associates of Leona by now, and are in just as much danger. Lastly, Ramses is the engineer, and had a lot of projects on the backburner that he has finally been able to actually follow through on. As for the final two new residents, Alyssa politely asked to see Earth from above, and Winona demanded impolitely.

It has only been a day, but everyone is already getting on each other’s nerves. Over half of them weren’t originally part of the crew, so no one yet knows their quirks and pet peeves. The shorthand the four originals had with each other has gone out the window in mixed company. So nobody’s happy, but the ones who have a choice don’t want to choose to leave. Mateo has proposed a competition. The winner gets to stay, and the losers have to go back down to the surface. Leona, Marie, Arcadia, and Cheyenne are exempt. Ramses doesn’t have to compete either, because he will be traveling back and forth as needed. This leaves Mateo versus Alyssa versus Vearden versus Winona. The only question is what the contest will entail. His first idea is to play a round of RPS-101 Plus, but he’s the only one in the group who has ever played it, so isn’t that unfair?

“Yes, it’s very unfair,” Leona points out.

“You have four people,” Marie begins. “You could always play Bridge.”

“No, remember what you told me?” Cheyenne asks her.

“Oh, yeah.” Marie frowns a little. “People here play Bridge with different rules.”

“I’ve never played before, so that doesn’t seem to matter,” Mateo notes.

“Neither have I,” says all three other contestants simultaneously.

“Why are we overthinking this?” Vearden questions. “Let’s just play regular rock, paper, scissors. Anyone can win, even if you’ve never played before.”

“A little boring, if you ask me,” Arcadia says.

“Do we really want to base it on chance?” Winona asks. “That doesn’t seem right.”

Everyone starts arguing all at once—about RPS, the flip of a coin, and a few computer games that the ship has installed—until Alyssa loudly interrupts, “enough! Here’s what we’re gonna do. Mateo, Winona, and I will go back to Earth. Vearden will be allowed to stay with the mother of his child. There. It’s done.” Yeah, that makes sense.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: November 7, 2398

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Leona is sitting in her wheelchair while Mateo is sitting up in her bed. He’s mindlessly flipping through channels on the TV, but it’s impossible to find something good. He’s sure there are plenty of great programs here, but they always make him a little uncomfortable. It feels like Third Railers are on a slightly different frequency than normal people. Their idea of entertainment isn’t wrong or even weird, it’s just a little too different than what he’s used to. It’s hard to explain what he doesn’t like about it, but he can only stomach about ten minutes of it before it makes him shiver, and he has to change it to something else.

“I’m getting hungry,” Leona notes.

Mateo checks her watch. She’s not allowed to wear jewelry while she’s checked in as a patient, in case they need to take her out for tests. It shouldn’t matter now since no one is running any tests of the sort, but they don’t want to piss the hostage-takers off any more than they already are. “Rations were meant to come an hour ago.”

“I hope they’re late because patients in critical need of nutrition are taking priority, and not that they’ve decided to starve us.”

“Want me to go out there and check?”

She shakes her head vigorously. “Nope. I don’t want you to draw attention to you or us at all. Maybe you could sneak back over to Cheyenne’s room again, though?”

“Okay.” He peeks his head through the doorway. The coast is clear—too clear, like a scene in a horror movie that you think is maybe a dream sequence, but it turns out the killer’s not dead, and he’s found her, and the hospital floor is totally empty only to increase tension, despite how unlikely that is. Mateo slinks down the hallways, and slips into Cheyenne’s room.

Marie is in there with her. They’re playing a card game across the bed. “Problem, or is she still just worried?” Marie asks.

“The second thing,” Mateo answers. “Have you heard anything? Are they going to let us out anytime soon?”

“It depends on what you mean by soon,” Cheyenne replies. “Santiens are pretty hardcore. They won’t stop until they’ve purified everyone they deem to be unclean.”

“Yeah, and you’re sure that doesn’t mean they’re going to kill them, right?”

“Positive,” Cheyenne assures him.

A group of heavily armed people belonging to a religion called Santienism took over the hospital when they learned that a group of Suiliens were involved in a bus crash, and were brought here for treatment. According to Carlin and Moray’s research, the two sects were once one, but Santiens broke away when they became obsessed with using natural remedies to cure disease. This caused the Suiliens to both metaphorically and literally dig into their own beliefs. They sleep in the dirt, and don’t ever bathe, believing that nature is the closest thing to divinity. Neither one of them believes in real science, and members of both sides get sick a lot because of their unhealthy habits. When their medical issues become too much for them to bear, they will go against their convictions with real doctors, but they are not meant to visit the same facilities due to a self-imposed policy of segregation. These are extenuating circumstances.

They have locked the building down so that no one can come in, and no one can leave. They have installed signal blockers to prevent communication to the outside world, which is why Mateo and Leona were unable to make their rendezvous with Ramses. They don’t know if he and Alyssa left without them, or if they’re still waiting in that park upstate. All they would have had to do, though, would be to check the internet for current events in the area. This isn’t national news by any stretch, as things like this happen from time to time, but it’s noteworthy enough to be reported on locally.

It’s been two nights since this debacle began, and now it’s early morning. How long exactly does it take to purify a bus full of your enemies, whether that means killing them, or not? Mateo looks towards the door, but that’s not what he’s thinking about. This is a team of action. They don’t do well just sitting around, waiting for other people to make things happen. His instincts are telling him to go out there, and make the situation better...or maybe make it worse instead, but brief.

“Don’t do it,” Marie urges him, knowing him well enough to predict his impulses. “This isn’t our problem.”

“We’ll be out of here by the end of the day,” Cheyenne believes.

“No, you won’t, and it’s your problem now.” One of the hostage-takers is standing in the doorway, aiming a gun at them from his waist like a buster in a film noir.

“We’re not doing anything wrong,” Marie protests.

“What religions are you?” the man with the gun asks, stepping closer menacingly.

“Unaffiliated,” she replies.

“The marker on your door indicates that you’re Caducean.”

Cheyenne leans forward to look at the faith indicator, but she can’t read it. “I hadn’t noticed. My friends must have put that there. Caduceans tend to receive priority treatment.” Caduceans do believe in science, and most medical professionals affiliate.

“Lying about your faith is an offense.”

“It’s not illegal.” One might think it would be, but not as long as the lie isn’t accompanied by other crimes. Still, some find the practice irreverent. In this case, he should just let it go as he obviously has more important stuff going on right now.

He relaxes his hand, but keeps his gun at the ready. “There are too many people in this room. One visitor at a time. One of you has to go back to your room, or downstairs with the other non-patients, depending on which one agrees to leave.”

“I’m going,” Mateo says.

“No, I’ll go,” Marie insists as she’s standing up. She gives Mateo a look that hopefully means don’t bring Leona into this, just stay here, because that’s how he’s interpreting it.

Ramses suddenly appears out of nowhere. “Oh. You have company over. I’m so sorry to disturb you.”

“Where the hells did you come from?” the gunman questions angrily.

“Umm....the bathroom?”

“The bathroom is behind me.”

“We don’t have time for this.” Ramses takes Mateo and Cheyenne by the hands, and teleports them to the rendezvous point in the park. Leona is already there, as are Winona and the AOC. Ramses makes one more jump to the hospital for Marie.

“What’s going on?” Mateo asks Winona.

She shakes her head and sighs. “Those guys who bombed the studio; they only did it to steal money, but nobody knows that yet. Someone was inspired to try to fix what they thought was a mistake. There is a bounty on Leona’s head. We had to act.”

Microstory 1796: Rounded

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I love round numbers. Truthfully, I probably only held out this long so I could reach my hundredth year. Tomorrow is my birthday, and when that clock strikes zero, I plan to die. Where I live, the new year begins in the middle of the day, so my family is here to celebrate with me. They didn’t have to do that for me, squeeze into my nursing home room. I’m sure the younger ones would rather be at a party, and the older ones are too exhausted to spend this much time out of the house. I appreciate it, but I worry about how awkward it’s going to be when I pass. Only my youngest grandson knows what’s going to happen. He’s only six, but he’s so smart. He doesn’t think I’ll be able to pull it off, so I bet him a hundred dollars. He pointed out that he won’t be able to pay me if I end up being right, but it wouldn’t matter anyway. I don’t need money where I’m going, and I’m going soon, whether it’s at exactly 0:00, or not. He’s going to get a hundred bucks out of this, and it will teach him to focus his attention on safe bets. That’s the kind of lesson I’ve always tried to teach my kids. You don’t have to worry about what’s going to happen in the future if you rig it in your favor. Don’t play it safe, or you won’t get anywhere, but have an ace up your sleeve at all times. Don’t let others stack the deck against you. I’ve been unresponsive for a few hours now, but what my family doesn’t know is that I can still hear everything they’re saying. They’re talking about me, of course, and not even watching the clock. The elders are sharing stories with the youngsters. Man, I had a fun life, and I die here with no regrets. My son is talking about how I taught him how to get the job he wanted by basically not taking no for an answer. He snorts as he laughs. That’s not how it works anymore. Employers don’t like pushy people. Anyway, it worked for him in the 1960s, and he’s where he is now because of it.

They don’t notice when I pass at precisely when I meant to. My grandson positioned himself next to my vitals machine. I told you he was smart. So alarms don’t go off, he sneakily switches the little device on my finger to his own. It just keeps measuring, thinking that he’s me. He places his finger against my neck, waiting for a pulse that never comes. Still he tells no one. He lets them tell their stories, blissfully unaware that I’m gone. His parents think it’s so sweet that he’s holding my hand, but he’s really only doing it to maintain the lie. I taught him well, I tell you. They continue to tell stories for another thirty minutes until the nurse comes back in to confirm what she suspected. Grandson doesn’t apologize. He says he wanted the family to enjoy the beginning of the new year, at least for a little bit. The nurse leaves to begin the process. Meanwhile, my family decides that he’s right, or maybe they don’t want to argue about it. I was old and it was my time. There are some tears, even from those I wouldn’t have thought would produce them on this occasion, or didn’t think they would themselves. They keep going with the stories, though, trying to keep it light for the younglings. They know what’s going on, and the adults want them to feel comfortable with death, rather than being afraid of it. It takes a long time to get my body out of the room. My son’s wife is relieved. This kind of behavior would not have been tolerated on her side of the family. Death is something to be feared and ignored. She felt it was disrespectful for them to stay in here with a dead body. She tried to stay quiet, but everyone felt her disappointment. Me, I’m happy. I’m so happy that they stayed with me after I was gone. I felt so loved in the end.

Microstory 1061: Margaret

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I’m so sorry I’m late. That’s never happened to me before, but I was so preoccupied with work that I didn’t even remember that we had this scheduled. I could have done it on my lunch break, like we had planned, but like I said, it slipped my mind. I did hear that Martin already told you what we were, and that the months we spent with this bond are supposed to culminate in some important moment tomorrow. I wasn’t particularly pleased that he just blurted out our secret, but sitting with you right now, Alma, tells me that he had no choice. Perhaps there’s a little bit of psychic power in you too? Hmm? Well, there’s something about the prophecy he told you that not even my twin brother knows about. I’m a lot better at hiding my personal thoughts from him than he is. He’s kind of an oversharer. It must be time I tell Martin that he and I aren’t the only ones who share a psychic connection. Soon after Viola gave us the gift, she gave it to my friends, Mae and Mattie as well. I imagine we’ll need the truth for whatever is meant to happen tomorrow. Like Martin, I don’t know what it’s going to be, but it’s big, and it’s probably related to the Viola tragedy itself, so you might want to keep your ear to the ground. Something tells me I should suggest you speak with Mae in the morning, and Mattie sometime the following day. I don’t know why, but it’s my intuition that you’ll need the full story before you move on to whomever else is on your list. Mae’s interview is going to be extremely important too, because she has an extra gift that Viola didn’t say anything about in the beginning, and only started happening a few months ago. She has a certain sense of the future. It’s always very hazy and hard to interpret—like those ink blot pictures therapists use to get into your subconscious, or whatever—but it always makes sense once we get there. The last one she showed us looked like this ominous darkened sky, full of cracks. The weather didn’t actually have anything like that, but our local meteorologist did start bleeding thick, black blood that no one can explain. Nellie can fill you in on that, if you’re interested, since her dad works at the news station. I don’t think it has anything to do with us. Still, maybe you should just go talk to Mae right now, in case there’s something about tomorrow you should know about. I don’t think I can tell you any more about the telepathy that Martin hasn’t already said.

Microstory 1060: Martin

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Viola was the one who created me and my sister. Margaret is my twin, and of course, that has always been the case, but it hasn’t always been the way it is now. The bond between us has only grown in recent years, but the fist shift happened when we were eight years old. She and I weren’t very close when we were kids—which may sound strange to hear about a pair of twins—but when two people go through what we did, a lot can change. It wasn’t until recently that we developed the twintuition. It’s even more powerful for us. It’s not that we didn’t get along before, but we were born with incompatible interests, and differing worldviews. We were very nice and affectionate with each other, but we didn’t hang out, and we weren’t the kind of siblings who tell each other everything. She had her life, and I had mine, and it wasn’t looking like things were ever going to be different. Then ten years ago, the four of us were on a train, on our way to visit our big brother in college, who was probably the biggest thing we had in common. The authorities still don’t really know what happened, but our car somehow broke free from the rest of them, and tipped over. Besides our parents, seven other passengers died that day, while Margaret and I were the only two survivors. Our brother ended up dropping out of school, so he could take care of us, and we could never repay him for that. Had we been a bit older, we might have suggested we move out to Illinois for him, so he could continue his education, but we were too young to understand the situation fully. About three years ago, our brother, Marzo was diagnosed with a terminal disease. He wasn’t really given a prognosis, and he’s still alive today, but life got even harder at that point. One day, Margaret and I had just returned from leaving Marzo in the hospital for an overnight stay, when we found Viola waiting for us in the living room. She warned us that things would not be getting better, and couldn’t if the dynamic remained as it was. The details are a little personal, so I won’t get into them, but she basically performed a ritual over us, which gave us the ability to exchange thoughts, and see through each other’s eyes. I know it sounds far-fetched, but I’m telling you the truth. I can even get her in here to prove it. Or you can call her. What luck, here’s a deck of cards. Now, you pull one at random. Okay, show it to—was that your phone? It’s Margaret, isn’t it? She was already watching us. Boom. I don’t know how, but Viola did that. And I don’t know why, because our connection will apparently not be vital until—well, would you look at that? Tomorrow is the big day.

Microstory 822: The Room

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I’ve been in this room for years now. At least that’s what I assume. I’ve never seen the sun, so keep tracking of time is pretty difficult. I’m not sure where this light is coming from, but it’s always at the same dimness, so I’ve had to get used to sleeping with it. That wasn’t the hardest part, though, because I don’t have a blanket or pillow either. There’s a hole in the corner that no one told me was a toilet, but I’ve been using it as such for years now, and have experienced no consequences for it. Once a day, when I wake from sleep, there’s a crate of new supplies. Gruel, water, vitamins, my daily allotment of toilet paper, and hand sanitizer, if I’ve run out. At least they don’t want me getting some disease from a lack of hygiene. Still, I wouldn’t say no to a shower, or even a bath. I’ve tried staying awake long enough to see where each new crate comes from, but like children and Santa Claus, if I’m not asleep, I get nothing. There’s also no door, and no seams on the walls to hide one. I think they knocked me out...built it around me. All I do, day in, day out, is eat, make waste, and sleep. I have nothing to watch, nothing to read, nothing to draw with. No playing cards, no pull-up bar, no life. I just here and wait. I don’t know how I got here, but the most important question is why I’m here. I have no real memories of before the room. I know I’ve ridden in cars, trains, and airplanes. I know I’ve had real food, and read books, and met other people like me. I have fragments of these experiences, but couldn’t actually describe them to you. Perhaps it’s all just my semantic memory disguising itself as episodic memory. Then again, the fact that I know what the difference between those kinds of memories is must say something about what kind of life I led before the room.

One day, I wake up and there is not crate of supplies. Oh well, I still have enough hand sanitizer, and I always save a little bit of toilet paper, just in case something like this happens. I’m grateful for my forethought now. I see something weird out of the corner of my eye, but the room has never changed before, so I must be imagining it. I just turn back around and stare at the corner for the next several hours. I fall asleep at some point, and wake up the next day to find myself crateless yet again. That thing is still there, though; that thing I barely recognize, that was never there before, and I guess isn’t an hallucination. I start staring at it and realize I know exactly what it is: a door. Doors are meant to get in and out of places. Like with everything else, I recall having many times opened and closed doors, but I can’t point to a specific instance of it. I crawl over toward the new door, which is my only mode of transportation. Since they give me, maybe 800 calories a day, I can’t exactly sprint over there. I reach for the handle, knowing for sure that it’ll be locked, but before my fingers can touch it, it disappears, and reappears behind me. Maybe I am hallucinating, because I have no vague memories of doors that can move around on their own. I hoof it over to its new location, and try to open it once more, but it moves again. While it’s at its new place, I don’t touch it at all, but inspect it closely. I see nothing between the door itself, and the frame that surrounds it. I think it’s unlocked, but I still need to figure out how to keep it from jumping away from me. This goes on for three days, at which point one glass of water begins appearing every time I wake up for the day. It’s three more weeks before my food also returns, and the door disappears completely. What I imagine is another three years, the cycle starts over. And this pattern continues for decades, until my body can take it no longer, and I’m lying on my back, near death. It is only then that the door finally opens. A man walks in and kneels over me. “Now you know what it feels like,” he says. And then it’s all over.

Microstory 746: Wild Cards

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I want to take a moment and write whatever pops into my head. You guys are in for a real treat with this next microfiction series. I don’t know what it’s about. What I did is look up nicknames for playing cards, and put them into a table. I chose the ones I liked best, and if there weren’t enough to be choosy, then...well, I wasn’t. I randomized the list, and that’s what you’ll be reading for the next several weeks. Exactly what this series entails, I could not quite tell you. I have the titles, but that’s about as far as it goes. Are they people? Nicknames of people? Is each title merely a jumping off point for me to write completely disparate series? Honestly I don’t know, and that’s why it’s a treat, because you get to watch me slowly spiral into insanity to try and figure it out. Right now I’m listening to Max Richter, trying to calm myself down after an hour of frustration working on my website revamp, which is nowhere near ready to be released. The images won’t resize to where I want them, and twitter has some funky new system that refuses to cooperate. I’m barely halfway done with the new navigation coding, and I’ve not even begun to code the new coloring scheme. This all coming on the heels of a terrible day where nothing went right. It was the last day of one of the worst years. I lost my job...technically I got a new one, but I still don’t run the world, so that’s disappointing.

King Dumpster started his tenure as—I can’t even type it out anymore. It’s just too hard to handle. So how do we think 2018 is gonna go? Is it gonna be better? Well, that evil man is still going to be in office, regardless of how many political pundits predict his downfall. Justice is dead. Literally every man besides me and those in my family is a rapist, or at least a sexual assaultist. Gun sales are doing really well, especially for those terrorists, who desperately need automatic assault rifles to protect the country from those frightening five-year-old children. And we’re still spending buttloads of money protecting pandas, which should—scientifically speaking—just die out already. No, 2018, you’re not lookin’ so great. Because the fact of the matter is that time doesn’t fall into categories that well. Nothing magical happens at the start of a new year that resets how people think, or what they do. The world can get better, and in many ways, this process has already begun. But there is no royal road to our success. So what can we do? Well, all I have is my platform, which is the combined power of my website, and social media accounts. I’m dedicating 2018 to women, and unoriginally referring to it as the #yearofthewoman (#yotwoman). I’ve erased my male lead in my Sunday macrofiction, and replaced him with a female. All main characters in the Saturday mezzofiction are going to be women, with a strong feminist lean. I’m even changing the color scheme on my site to pink and purple, which my mother says might be a little too obvious, but it’s what I can do. It’s all I can do. I can’t tell you what’s going to happen in 2018, in the real world, or even in my stories. What I can tell you is that this is not the end. We’ve only been doing this for a few thousand years, we’re still just babies. At least, we always have been. I think it’s time we start to grow up. Or maybe we wait until next year...because I woke up like this.