Microstory 2283: Is How it Goes

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I’m sorry to disappoint you, folks but there’s nothing special to report in regards to my sleep study. Why am I sleeping poorly, besides the pain that I’m still in? Stress, mostly. Stress and anxiety. We were pretty sure that that was the issue, but we tested for it in case it was something weird. They took a lot of blood and other samples, though, and there’s nothing out of the ordinary. I’ve always had problems sleeping. When I was a kid, people would tell me that you need eight hours of sleep per night, so I would ask whether that meant we need six hours total, accounting for the two hours it takes to fall asleep, or if I need to give myself a ten hour window. They had no clue what I was talking about. It was taking them ten or twenty minutes to fall asleep. That’s when I realized that I hated people. Not really, lol, but...kind of. I apologize that I’m giving you such an unexciting explanation, because my readers may tune out because of it, but this is how it goes, and it should be for now. Maybe it’s not great for engagement, but that’s what we want. I prefer it to be boring, after all that I’ve been through this year. Stress, I can handle. I have been dealing with it my whole life, even as a child. I’m sure I’ll start to sleep better now. Speaking of which, let’s go test that out now. Goodnight, everybody!

Microstory 2282: Calculated Social Media

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Sorry, I’m rushing to get this thing out, because I have this little medical test this evening, so I’m not going to be available later. I could have had Kelly or Dutch say something, but I wanted to address yesterday’s post myself before I forget what I wanted to say. Before we get into that, it’s all good. My new organs are fine, and I’m not going back under the knife, or anything. I’ve been having a hell of a time sleeping, and it’s become a real issue lately. I have not been diagnosed with narcolepsy, which I want to say right off the bat, because I know people will offer that up as an explanation. They’ve already ruled it out. I’m doing a home sleep study to figure out why I get sleepy at such random times of the day, though. I’m going to be dealing with it for a good chunk of today and tomorrow, because that’s the whole thing; trying to determine how my situation changes over time. I’ll share the results when they come in, and if they’re interesting, which they probably won’t be. It’s probably just that I’m technically a lot older than I look, and old people sleep a lot. Because of my medical history, we just can’t take any chances. Anyway, as I was saying, my last post was as weird as they come, and part of the reason I posted it was because I couldn’t think of anything else to say, and didn’t want to worry myself about it anymore, because the doctor was already starting to try to understand my sleeping issues. So, why did I post that? What possessed me to release something so bad? Well, I wanted to see how you would react to it...to something so unlike what you’re used to seeing. I wanted to show you that not everything we do is perfect. In this modern world of calculated social media, targeted algorithms, and ‘like’ farming, I put something out there that was objectively terrible to see how it was received. You failed the test. You received it positively just because you had no reason to hate it. To be sure, some of you did. You could have been a little bit nicer with your criticisms, but I at least appreciate the honesty. The rest of you, on the other hand, just accepted it as deep or thought-provoking, or intentionally absurdist. It wasn’t. It was nothing. I won’t be posting anything like that again, however, so there’s that.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: October 8, 2398

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Mateo’s phone rings. It’s Moray, which isn’t odd. His brother, Carlin has been calling a lot lately, trying to get him to teleport up to Palmeria. This is probably him, thinking that using a different phone is like a new strategy. “Mr. Matic, are you there?” It actually is Moray, he’s whispering.

“You can just call me Mateo,” he reminds him.

“You need to come right now. I know that we keep saying that, but it really is an emergency.”

“What kind of emergency?” Mateo asks. “Tell me what happened.”

“Heath’s ex-husband is here. He’s really mad. He’s demanding to see him and Marie. He has Carlin and me trapped on the little island. We’ve been helping get the resort ready for the next guest every morning, but the Waltons are still in the main house on the big island. They don’t know anything’s happened yet. What do we do?”

“I’m not sure that I can teleport,” Mateo explains as he’s rushing down the stairs, “but I’m going to do what I can. I’m going to hand Ramses the phone, so you can stay on the line with him.”

“I don’t know how long I can hide in the bathroom,” Moray explains in a lower voice. “He’s going to get suspicious.”

“Don’t make him any angrier,” Mateo tells him. “Hang up if you have to. Someone is coming, I promise.” He’s reached the lab. He covers the mouthpiece with his hand, and relays the info to Ramses. Then he hands over the phone, and teleports away.

He doesn’t know where he is, but it’s nowhere near Palmeria. The small border country is on an island in a lake. This is saltwater. And it’s freezing. And he literally doesn’t know which way is up. Let’s see, what did his brother, Darko say about this? That’s right. Blow bubbles, and head in the same direction. He releases what little air he has left, and follows them up. The sun is bearing straight down on him, but it still feels cold enough for him to die of hypothermia. Sometimes, when he’s tried to teleport in recent days, he has arrived late. Often he doesn’t go anywhere at all. He’s occasionally been a little bit off the mark, but unless this is the Great Salt Lake, he’s a thousand miles from his destination. Even if this were the Salt Lake, that would probably be true, though it might not be so cold.

There is no land in sight, though that may have more to do with the waves blocking his view. There’s no way to know, and without even a vague guess as to where he is, he can’t possibly know which direction to try to swim. Well, it could be worse. He could have ended up at the bottom of the ocean, instead of near the surface. Then again, at least that would have been a quick death. Who knows how long he’ll last if he can’t get his powers working again, if only once more? God, that’s such a bad idea. Teleporting is what got him into this mess, it is not going to get him out. Damn, he doesn’t even have his phone! Why didn’t he just ask Moray to hang up and call Ramses? Oh, because it’s only hindsight that is 20/20.

He has to get out of this water, and warm up. His only choice is to pick a direction, and cross his fingers. What he wouldn’t give to be in a lifeboat with a tiger right now, or even just a man with a tiger’s name. This is all wasteful thinking. There is no boat, no living mobile island. There’s just him and the deep blue sea. Whether he makes it to land or not, swimming will get his blood pumping, and keep him warmer for longer. Perhaps Ramses can track all teleportation around the planet. He’ll realize that Mateo never made it to Palmeria, use tech to get there himself to help, and then maybe send someone else on The Olimpia? How long will that take? A matter of hours? Surely he has hours of life left in him. Not necessarily, or rather, not likely.

He takes a deep breath to prepare himself, and then reaches across the water, pulling it towards him. Then he reaches out with his other arm, and does the same thing. He keeps doing that for about three hundred years before he gets tired, and has to take a break. How far did he get? Well, when he first started the sun was over his head, and the water was under his chin, which is still the case, so presumably, he didn’t go anywhere at all. That’s funny, but could also be one hundred percent true. The waves may have even pushed him farther away, which is probably okay, because he doesn’t know where he’s going anyway. Kolby Morse, also known as Guard Number Two, was a lifeguard, and once told Mateo that he knew how to make a lifejacket out of his own pants by tying the legs together, and swinging them over his head to catch and trap air. He didn’t go over the specifics on how to make it work, but this is a better time to try than never.

It takes Mateo several attempts, usually because he’s not happy with how little air he was able to trap, but finally, he has it. Now he can rest. He’s still lost. He’s freezing. But he’s not treading water anymore. For a time, he just stays like that, floating on his back with his eyes closed, and trying to capture as much sunlight as possible. It’s not enough. He has to get as much of his body out of the water as he can. Is that right? That may not be right, because of the wind. Oh my God, how does anyone survive anything! Half of them didn’t. That’s what happens. One person dies trying something, so the next person learns from their mistakes, and does it better. Unfortunately, it’s looking like Mateo is the first one in that allegory. One day, a teleporter with no control over their power is going to be in the same situation, but they’ll do it better, because they’ll hear the tale of this day. They’ll call it...The Downfall of Mateo Matic. Or maybe The Drowning of Mateo Matic. Or, no, how about—what the hell was that?

Is that a breeze underneath him? He swears, it felt like air tickling the shirt under his back. There it is again. He carefully turns his neck, and looks over his pants lifejacket. There’s the water. It’s under him, sure, but he’s in it anymore. He’s hovering over the surface. He’s completely up in the air. He lets go of his pant legs, and looks at his hands. They’re tingling in a way they never have before. Is this...is this true telekinesis? The god who gave him these powers said that they would just allow him to simulate touching things without technically making contact. But whatever magic he used to give him such a limited form of telekinetic powers must also be theoretically capable of real telekinesis. Perhaps that magic is somewhat sentient, and is aware that Mateo is in trouble.

Mateo closes his eyes again, and drops his hands to his sides. He calls upon the spirit of Tony Stark with his rocket hand things, and pushes himself farther away from the water. There’s a learning curve to this flying thing, but he doesn’t go too far up, so if he falls, he’ll land safely in the ocean. He just keeps working at it, and while he never flies like superman, he does make it to an inhabited island, where—after climbing over some language barriers—he manages to learn is not too far from Antarctica, which explains why it’s so damn cold here. A look at the map shows that he’s even pretty close to the region where the Nexus is. Now he just needs a radio.

Microstory 1705: Aquila

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I sit in the darkness, head in hand, muttering to myself. I have no sense of direction, and no clue how to get out of here. I’ve been in the dark before, but not like this. I can feel it seeping into my eyes, like it’s made of something, like it’s alive. It’s the pressure of being underground so deep, I imagine, or maybe it’s just my mind playing tricks on me. I’m exhausted, but if I want to survive, I have to get back to finding a way out of here. As I get down on the floor of the cave, ready to start feeling my way to some kind of corridor again, it hits me. I fell pretty far to get down to this spot. I’m not too badly hurt, but the drop still must have been a few meters. It’s possible that the only way out is up, which actually means it’s impossible, because there is no way I’m getting back up that high. I don’t know why I agreed to go on this trip to Dark Eagle Caverns, or how I let myself get separated from the group. I suppose I’ve always been lost, and this pit of despair is just a metaphor come to life. Is it even life? That fall could have been farther than I remember. Or I could have landed on my neck. Or I died long ago from something else, and everything I’ve experienced since then has been my own personal hell. I may have never been alive at all, and everything I’ve seen has been an illusion to make me feel small, sad, and alone. This then would simply be a deeper level of the hopelessness that I have never not felt. I realize that it doesn’t really matter. Hell, real life; I still have to do everything I can to get out of here. If that means confirming that the pit is all there is, and my only option is to climb, then so be it. No one is going to find me down here, and even if they did, they would probably become trapped too, so I best just get on with it.

I carefully crawl in one random direction, feeling myself around the rock and moss. Can I eat this moss? Can you eat moss? I’m not that desperate yet, but I tear off as much as I can, and stick in my pocket in case I can’t find it again later when my situation does indeed become that dire. I’ve finally reached the wall again. I am so disoriented that I can’t tell if I’ve already checked for openings here. Irrelevant. I continue around the circle, if it even is a circle. I have no clue what shape this cave is, or how big it is, or how far it goes. I keep feeling the wall, hoping that something will give. I pray for that moment when my hand escapes me and swings forward. It does happen once, but it’s literally a misdirection. It doesn’t lead to a corridor, but a cranny, or something. I’m still feeling around on the wall with my right hand when my left hand runs into something. Apparently, for as slow as I was moving, it wasn’t slow enough. My ring finger isn’t broken, but it doesn’t feel great. I feel around on my left, and realize it’s another wall. I’ve run into another dead end; just a larger one than before. Tired and disappointed, I roll over to my back, and try to sprawl out. My right foot hits a wall too. Did I get that much turned around? No, my left foot hits the main wall. My God, it’s a spiral. I’ve been in a corridor for who knows how long. I could have already gone in a circle a few times for all I know. I guess nothing has really changed. This is as good of a place as any to die. Because of the darkness, it doesn’t really feel any more claustrophobic than it did in the bigger room. The future looks bleak, but I won’t give up. I just need to rest again, and then I’ll keep trying. I fall asleep for an unknowable amount of time. When I awaken, I find it dire enough to try the moss. A few minutes after I eat it, something in my body changes. I begin to glow, and the path before me becomes clear.

Microstory 1065: Joan

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I was on the plane when the tire broke off of the landing gear, and fell down towards Blast City. Of course, as passengers, we didn’t have any idea that that is what happened, but it was frightening and frustrating for us too. We still haven’t been told why the landing gear failed to retract into the bottom of the plane, or how a major piece of it managed to fall off, but it caused a great deal of turbulence. What’s more is that the pilots obviously knew what had happened, so they immediately turned to go back to the departing airport. But that didn’t mean they could land, so we just flew in circles for hours, until a bunch of stressed out tin pushers on the ground figured out that the only way to get the plane back on the ground safely was to drop it in water. A guy sitting in a seat near me was telling people about something called a belly landing, which is one possible way to do it without wheels, but I guess the air traffic controllers didn’t think that was going to fly in this case. Pardon the pun. Anyway, the reason he was able to explain that while all of this was happening was because everyone in the cabin was completely calm. And they were completely calm, because I made them that way. About a year ago, Viola shows up at my house and tells me I’ve been chosen. She performs some ritual over my head, which I am helpless to resist, and transforms me into a sort of witch. She then teaches me a special command that allows me to tranquilize anyone in the immediate vicinity. I won’t tell you the word itself, because even though you can’t use it just because you know it, I don’t want it getting out there. She told me I would need it around this time, but didn’t give me a specific date, probably so I wouldn’t alter my course. Had I known I was going need this ability for a plane trip, I would have possibly taken a different flight. She wanted me there, on that day, so I could help in my own special way. She urged me not to use it except in an emergency, and that she was trusting me not to abuse the gift. I could go to a sportsball game, for instance, and totally deaden the crowd. I could turn the players docile, and just make them stand there on the field or court for an indefinite amount of time. I could end a lot of suffering, but also cause problems. She did say, however, that I would need to practice, so I took it upon myself to work closely with an anger management class. I won’t tell you who’s in it, but one of them is in our grade level, and knows exactly what I can do. Viola didn’t say I couldn’t reveal my secret to anyone. They helped me understand my ability, and be prepared for when I would really need it. I find it strange that she called me a witch, though. I don’t find the term offensive, but it seems a little too...comprehensive? Witches in fiction can perform lots of different spells, rather than just the one. I’m only wondering now whether there’s anything else I can do. It’s time I start practicing again.

Microstory 1064: Nellie

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His blood wasn’t black; it was greenish...and a little black. And it wasn’t that thick. And it only lasted a couple days. He must have been poisoned with something. Hi, I’m Nellie MacGuinness, and this...is the news on my father’s co-worker. Salvatore Gallo woke up one morning thinking it was just like any other day. But things took a dark turn...literally, when he started bleeding a blackish liquid. Medical professionals from here to Jordan were baffled by the phenomenon, and could not explain what had caused it. Scientists attempted to study the fluid, but could only conclude that there was otherwise nothing different about it than regular blood. It still contained platelets, white blood cells, and even red blood cells. It would seem only the plasma had been contaminated by an unknown, and unisolated foreign substance. After forty-eight hours of being kept under observation, Mister Gallo’s plasma naturally replenished itself, and returned to a typical red color, given to it by the iron that’s used to transport oxygen throughout the body. Miraculously, the samples taken by researchers also returned to the normal color, calling into question whether science was capable of explaining this at all. Mister Gallo’s health did not seem to be negatively impact by this, beyond the superficial papercut he suffered while preparing to deliver the weather for the ten o’clock news. He only sought medical attention, because he thought black blood seemed strange. I have reached out to Mister Gallo’s publicist, but was told by the receptionist at the news station that he does not have a publicist, nor is he speaking with the media. My attempts to question the medical staff at Mineral County Hospital have come up fruitless as well, as they responded only with the canned answer, no comment. That was that, and this is me. With NNM, I’m Nellie MacGuinness, and you have been watching...Nellie’s News Minute.

I was raised by two news anchor parents who met at, I dunno...like, news school, or whatever. We’ve been traveling the country as they keep getting new jobs at different stations. Mineral County may sound like a really small market, and according to ratings, it is, but it’s also home to one of the most interesting news teams this side of the Atlantic. We’re proud of boast the highest online video viewership in the nation. People from all over the world watch the our news, which includes my power-couple parents. The news itself isn’t that interesting, but they make it interesting with colorful comments, and entertaining spotlight segments. Hopeful stars from all over the state, and a few from neighboring states, come to be promoted on the programs, because they know a huge audience is ultimately going to see them. We were actually one of the first stations to simulcast live online, if you can believe it. I’m sure you would have assumed New York, or L.A. We’re pretty progressive here, so I’m happy we finally found a good home. It’s only now getting to be so crazy, though, right? First Viola, then Salvatore, and now this tire falls from the freaking sky? And how did it land on the roof so gently? That’s another thing scientists can’t explain, and they probably never will. I know you wanted to know about me and Viola, but we weren’t all that close. We were on the volleyball team together, so I guess there’s that. Nothing exciting happened between us, if that’s what you’re looking for. She had her good samaritan stuff, and I have black blood to deal with. The fun never ends.

Microstory 1063: Mattie

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A plane almost fell out of the sky, or so it would seem. Mae had a vision of a falling tire, but as you know, it took her up until yesterday before she realized that that’s what it was. She called us immediately, but we didn’t know what to do. We still didn’t know where the tire was going to fall, or if anyone was destined to be hurt by it. We didn’t know what we could do to help the situation, even if we had all the necessary details. Mae’s drawings have only ever proven true once the future becomes the past, and we realize what it meant all along. This was the first time any of us had any clue what might happen before it actually did. So we finally brought Margaret’s brother in on the full story, and he had an idea. Or rather, it was more like he was the missing piece itself. Viola didn’t specifically tell us that we were meant to keep the prophecy stuff a secret from him, but she didn’t tell him herself, so we kind of inferred. As it turned out, we needed him to sort of—how might I say—complete the circle. Four of us together made our collective psychic connection so much stronger than it ever was when it was just us three girls, or just the twins. Him being totally on board gave us the tools we needed to complete our mission. What we realized was that the tire was bound to fall on top of Masters Country Club, and it was going to do it during a special production from Blast City Senior High’s Magic Club. I guess they were dedicating the show to Viola? The tire itself was as big as you would expect from a heavy airliner, but that didn’t mean it was only going to hurt a few people. First of all, we still didn’t know exactly where it was going to crash, so we couldn’t just keep people away from that area. We also couldn’t stop the plane from taking off in the first place, warning them that they needed to perform extra maintenance, though that would have been the ideal scenario. No, our only hope was to evacuate the building, and our only way to do that, was pull the fire alarm.

Well, lots of people saw Martin attempt to do just that, and they also saw him fail. Something was wrong with the electrical system, I guess, and it wouldn’t go off. Even if it had, those witnesses wouldn’t have left, because it just looked like he was trying to pull a prank. Margaret stood up on a table, and tried to warn everyone the old fashioned way, but nobody listened. The tire was going to crash right through the roof so hard that the whole structure could fall down on top of everyone, but they weren’t concerned. It sounded insane, and several people pointed out our story’s similarity to a certain ancient avant-garde indie film about time travel, and creepy bunny masks. I then had this intuition that maybe our combined power was stronger still, and that we were capable of solving this on our own. I directed the other three to each stand on one side of the country club, so that we formed a perimeter around it. Then we formed a deep psychic connection; deeper than we ever had before. We started concentrating on the idea of protecting the club, in whatever way that might work. Though our eyes were closed, we could feel an energy rise from our stomachs, and envelop the building. We could also feel the tire, having already broken from its plane, and falling towards the ground. Just before it reached us, the energy bubble was complete. The tire landed on it safely, and once our bubble burst, it continued to fall, until hitting the roof, and rolling off to the ground. All told, the country club building only suffered minor structural damage, and no one was even close to being hurt by it. It’s unclear how many lives we just saved today, or rather, it’s unclear how many lives Viola saved, because she was the one who gave us our abilities, and predicted when we would need them. I had always assumed we would lose them after fulfilling the prophecy, but our bond remains. Who knows what else we might do with it?

Microstory 1062: Mae

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Margaret told you about my drawings, eh? Well, it’s true that I’ve been drawing the future for the last few months, but what I decided to keep from her was that I’ve technically been drawing since Viola first gifted us with our psychic bonds. Here is the proof. Don’t bother flipping through the book, they’re all exactly the same. I mean that literally. Actually, go ahead and flip through it. They may look like photocopies of the same picture, but I drew each of these by hand, on different days. I’ve never been much of an artist, so it doesn’t really make sense that this would be how my ability manifests, but this is where we are. I’ve been seeing this image in my head for a year, and I still can’t figure out what it is. It kind of looks like a bottlecap, but not exactly. I’ve thought about bringing my friends in on it, but I just can’t quite work up the nerve to do it. This has always felt very personal, and something I should keep hidden, until now. As soon as you showed up, I had the urge to show you. So, what do you think it is? What was that? A tire? Oh, have been looking at it upside down this whole time? It does look like a tire. But what would all this white stuff be? Even if that’s the answer, it doesn’t really help us, does it? What do we do, find a tire? Take your pick; there are thousands of them, in this town alone. What Margaret may not have mentioned is that my so called power has never been helpful, not even once. They’re so vague and meaningless that I can’t use them to help. The weatherman bled black, so what? I didn’t know that until it had already happened, and couldn’t do anything about it anymore. The pictures I draw don’t tell me the future so much as they remind me of the past later on, which is something I could do on my own, and it wouldn’t give me stress hives. I wish just once, it would give me a social security number, or GPS coordinates. Of course I tried to ask Viola what the actually hell was going on with these pictures, but she was real dodgy. She literally kept trying to duck away from me, and when I cornered her, she basically shut down, like a robot. Wait, where did you get that? Did that picture just change? No, these have all been identical, down to every last detail. It’s like it’s the same picture, but...zoomed out. I don’t remember drawing this one; or seeing it afterwards, for that matter. That in the corner looks like a cloud. Oh my God, it’s an airplane tire. I think it’s falling from the sky. I have to go call Mattie and Margaret.

Microstory 909: The Benefits of Sleep

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I actually don’t like sleep, and I already talked about the importance of it for my Stepwisdom series, so I’m not going to go over all that again. I’m just going to say that I have a newfound appreciation for a good night’s rest. I recently got a puppy. Her name is Daisy Quake. She’s an English Coonhound, and a little rascal. We picked her up when she was only six weeks old, which may have been a bit too young. She immediately took to her new family, and didn’t seem too upset about leaving her mother and siblings. She did have trouble sleeping, though. I was told that she would need to go out to do her business as often as every hour. This wasn’t going to be great, but I could have handled it. Unfortunately, it was a lot more complicated than that. She would cry as soon as we put her in her kennel, which was, admittedly, too large for her. Wild canines live in dens, not mansions. She needed something large enough for her to turn around, but no larger. There was no way of knowing why she was crying. She could have needed to go out, she could have already made a mess, or she could have just wanted lovies. The only thing I could do was put her in the bed with me, even though I never thought I would be that kind of person, because animals are dirty. Those first few weeks felt like hell. As much as I loved her, she was a massive handful, no more so than when I was trying to sleep. Now that she’s a few weeks older, she can usually make it through the night— far sooner than the websites predicted she would. I’m still losing sleep, though, because she’s too young and small to survive outside alone, what with the foxes and coyotes, and she sometimes drinks too much before bed. I’m also worried about her, which makes it hard to fall asleep, which is a problem any source of stress can cause. It’s good for me, nonetheless. At FedEx, I’d spend hours alone in the tower; my only hope of a bathroom break coming if I so conspicuously announced it on the radio. Just as that taught me to hold my own bladder, my dog’s inability to do so has taught me to survive on less sleep. Of course, I’ve been sleep deprived before, but not like this. This is chronic, and as unhealthy as it is, I think it’s making me a more flexible person.

Microstory 870: The Scoots

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Name a sleeping disorder, and I got it. Sleep apnea? Yeah. Insomnia? Sure. Kleine–Levin syndrome? Not sure what that is, but I bet I have it too. So it was no surprise when I woke up this morning, and headed straight for the fudge emporium, for no reason. I don’t even like fudge, so I wouldn’t have gone there if I were in right mind. I wasn’t sleep-walking, but I wasn’t fully awake either. It was more like someone was driving my body and all I could do was watch. When I got there, I was still tired as hell, so even though this mind intruder wanted to explore, I wasn’t capable of taking two more steps. Fortunately a fleet of those disabled-person scooters was sitting there by the entrance, beckoning to me. I sat down in one of them and started driving around. People looked at me and laughed, and I couldn’t figure out how they knew I didn’t really need this. Sure, some of them saw me walk in, but this place is giant, there was no way that everyone knew. I ignored them, and tried to get to the other side of this ordeal in one piece. I spent about an hour there, going through every single aisle at least twice; once one way, and once the other. Finally my mind driver let us head to the exit, no fudge in hand. When I got home, I tried to tell my roommate what had happened, but he just laughed too. “That wasn’t a fudge emporium, dumbass,” he said. “That was a sewage treatment facility, and you were on a forklift. They weren’t laughing at you, they were trying to get you to stop. I think the only reason you got out of there without being arrested was because you didn’t end up hurting anyone.” When I asked him how he knew all this, he gave me this weird look. “You’re not wearing clothes, dude. My uncle, Rob works there, and he livestreamed that shit. You need to get some help.”

Microstory 826: Hurt a Fly

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Today is the day. I’m more nervous about this than any other time in my life. I thought I had accepted what was going to happen to me, but as the hour approaches, I start doubting my resolve. Years ago, the King of this country came across a movie scientists eventually realized had come from another universe. We either don’t know how the DVD got here, or they never revealed this to the general public, but it changed our lives forever. In the story, all crime is legal for one night, including murder. This inspired the King to adopt a similar structure. His people made the connection between this movie, and a short story we came across seventy years ago. Though technology hadn’t advanced enough back then to determine the story’s origin, we now believe it too originated from some other universe, because no one by the author’s name ever existed in ours. It was about a small village where one individual is chosen every year to be stoned to death, upon the superstition that there was some correlation between that, and a good harvest. Our King decided to combine these stories into one. He would draw one name in a lottery every year, and make all crimes against the winner legal for one day, so people could purge them from the world. Of course, in a kingdom of millions, the odds of your name being drawn are almost negligible, but someone has to be chosen, and this time, it’s me. But I have a secret that no one else knows.

Though purge day lasts for twelve hours, lottery winners usually die within the first, because there is nowhere to run. But I don’t have to run, because I can fly. I take a deep breath and step up onto the stage. Wearing my ceremonial grey suit, I smile for the cameras, which is something I’m required to do, so people know who they’re trying to kill. There’s been a history of illegal murders on this day, because people pretend to be the lottery winner, just to die famous. I stretch a little and loosen up, do a little dance to make the people laugh, and wait for the bell. As soon as it dings, I launch into the air, surprising the entire world, all at once. I’ve never met any other human who could fly, so it appears to be impossible, and it certainly isn’t easy for me. It’s not like in the movies, where they just have to jump up and go. It takes a lot of work, and a lot of energy, and I’m not entirely confident in my ability to sustain myself for as long as I’ll need to. When I fly, it’s like I’ve turned the wind into a slippery hill. I have to constantly climb up that hill to stay above the surface, and it’s always only a matter of time before I slide back down.

After the crowd gets over their shock from what I’ve done, they start running after me. They can tell that it isn’t easy, so they’re just biding their time until I come back down. I’m just glad that the King decreed that guns were illegal for this event, because of how impersonal, and effortless they are. He wants a show, and it’s supposed to be my job to give it to them, which I believe I’ve delivered, and I think that entitles me to become the first lottery winner to survive. I stay up as best I can, but man am I getting tired. I move like a heart rate monitor. Up, down, up, down, up, down. But I never fall, and I never land. I try to rest on roofs of the castle towers, but people are always waiting for me there. I try to seek refuge in the Keserint Forest, which no past winner has ever lasted long enough to reach, but I find a horde or rebels there who are just as interested in killing me as any law-abiding citizen. After three hours of this, I’m just not physically capable of staying up. I gracelessly drop to a meadow, and try to massage my shoulders, and my pelvic muscles, which support most of my weight when I’m flying. I look into the distance as a band of excited killers come to claim their prize. They’re happy that it’s finally over, but appreciative of how much more thrilling this year has been. Everyone always wants to be the one to make the final blow, but the stakes are even higher for me. They’re but meters away, but I’m even too tired to try to run. I place my arms behind my back, and close my eyes to yield to my fate. Suddenly, I feel arms grip my shoulders, and lift me into the air. I turn my head to find another human who can fly, carrying me away from the crowd. It appears to be far easier for her. She smiles at me. “We’ve been looking for you your whole life. Let’s go back to our universe.”

Microstory 804: Through the Roof

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The two of us stand on the edge of the roof together. The sun has long set, but is still spilling faint light into the sky. It’s the very end of twilight. There is a light breeze, but nothing strong enough to knock us over. He begins to ask me the same six questions he always does, and I answer each one. I see two cars pass each other on the street below. One swerves towards the other, but catches itself in time, and gets back in line. After it’s passed, the other car swerves away from it in this bizarre delayed reaction. I hear a bird announcing to its flock that it’s time to sleep, or at least that it’s going to bed. I smell the rotting wood of a nearby water tower past its maintenance date, the sweet scent of pastries from a new shop right below called The Night Bakery, and a cigarette butt which someone must have just left up here somewhere just before we arrived. I taste the musky, metallic, sickly environment of a city that should have been torn down a decade ago. He remains silent for the next several minutes, which is unlike him. He’s supposed to ask me the final question, which is what do you know? The truth is that I know very little. He asked me to come up here, as he does every evening. It’s always a different place, and we’re always there for a different reason. Yesterday, we were measuring the height of waves coming up on the beach. The day before that, we threw rocks at people’s windows, only leaving once we’d both broken one, and it had been noticed. Two weeks ago, we popped every tire on some guy’s car, and then the next day, we anonymously delivered that same guy a brand new bicycle. I’ve seen him riding around with a big goofy grin since then, so it looks like we did some good. I can’t remember when I met my boss, or why I agreed to do everything he instructs me, but I always do, and never fail. He calls these tasks experiences, and though I don’t understand what they have to do with anything, or if they’re all part of some complicated grand plan, I enjoy them. I used to be a clerk at an auto mechanic, and never once felt fulfilled until I started doing whatever it is I do now. “What do you know?” he finally asks me, and the spontaneously answer comes to me. It’s always like that; I recite some random fact to him with no explanation for how I know it, as if the asking itself psychically imbued me with the knowledge. “A friend of mine is down there about to ask his crush out on a date.” I thought that would be it, but then something else comes to me. “The Rooftop Slayer’s next victim lives around here.” He sports a toothless smile, and nods. “Which one are we here to do?” I ask. “Help my friend ask out a girl, or stake-out a serial killer?” He just looks at me with a raised eyebrow. I don’t remember what happens next, but I get a call from my mother the next day, telling me my friend has been killed. I immediately call my boss, but he never answers, and I never see him again.

Perspective Seventy-One

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Perspective Seventy

I’m not a doctor, but I’m close; closer than most. Wow, that rhymed, and I definitely didn’t want it to. I can’t point to a single moment, or a single incident, that sparked my interested in medicine. It’s just been brewing for a while. I guess I could say that, whenever I watch action/adventure television, I notice they usually don’t have doctors around. It’s supposed to make it more exciting to watch the characters run around in dangerous situations without the luxury of a nearby hospital. They may be stranded on a remote island, or trapped in a hostage crisis, or it’s just the zombie apocalypse and all the doctors are dead. The best of these shows will have a character who acts as the next best thing; someone who’s had a little bit of training, but is still prone to panic. Ever since scouting, I guess I’ve just had this general obsession with being prepared. I watch those survivalist reality shows, research microponics, and read lifehacks online. So it was no surprise that I snatched my opportunity to learn some medicine.

I was browsing social media a few months ago when I came across this post from a friend of a friend who knew of an EMR program nearby. An Emergency Medical Responder is one step above first aid; something that many lay people know, and one step below Emergency Medical Technician; a path chosen for a career. I had always called it “second aid” without knowing that it was a real thing. I’m not the richest of people, but I don’t spend much on much, so I budgeted the class out and decided that it was important enough to me. We met two or three times a week for a few weeks. A lot of the material was actually the same used for EMT classes, and wouldn’t be on the final exam, but I didn’t mind. The more the better. Even before completing the course in full, I started mulling over the possibility of pursuing this field. But like I said before, that’s a career move, and not one I was totally comfortable with making without more thought. I wasn’t sure if wanted to actually drive an ambulance and respond to calls on the regular. I just wanna know, in case...the zombies show up. I did want to know if there was a way to take EMT classes, and to keep up to date on the license, without practicing. Does anyone in the world do that? If I had asked my instructor that question, she probably would have laughed me out of the room. So I just kept quiet.

Last night, I was wishing I had gone ahead with the more advanced training anyway. I don’t really work out all that much, but every once in awhile, I get this urge to just go out and walk. I took a few laps around the park on the edge of my neighborhood, then cut through the parking lot of a grocery store building that closed down years ago, and is still empty. I saw two men arguing up against a recycling dumpster, so my instincts took over and forced me to make myself as small as possible behind a pole. I wanted to be brave, and just keep walking, because they probably weren’t going to hurt me, but I was frozen. Then I just wanted to turn around and leave so I didn’t see something I would regret, but I still couldn’t move. God, all those hours watching heroes on TV, and I’m completely useless. I mean, how many police procedurals have I seen? Enough to do better than cower, I know this much.  That’s probably an unhealthy way to look at things, though, isn’t it? I’m not a cop, or a hero. I’m just some guy; some guy who knows how to treat wounds, but not prevent them.

The man with the tire iron appeared to be winning. I wasn’t close enough to hear what they were saying, and he was swinging his weapon around threateningly, but I got the distinct impression that he didn’t really want to use it. All of the sudden, his opponent shot both hands forward and struck tire iron guy in the shoulders. He fell to his ass and dropped the tire iron. It barely had any time on the ground, however, before the other guy picked it up and raised it over his head. The first guy tried backing away, still on the ground, but the bad guy wasn’t having it. He dropped the tire iron down in an arch and knocked it into one ankle. Then after a follow-through that would have made my little league baseball coach proud, he dropped it down again and struck the other ankle. I pushed a scream back down my throat, but the one being attacked was unable to do the same. He released a screeching howl, like that of a fox, loud enough to wake up a neighborhood. Unfortunately, for him, this part of town was all but abandoned, and only I was there to hear. Surely fearing for this life, the injured man reached up and grabbed the other end of the tire iron. The two of them played tug o’ war with it for a few seconds before the attacker let go. It didn’t even look like he lost his grip; he was just smart enough to know what would happen. The man on the ground was pulling it towards him with all his strength, so when he won the contest, he ended up smashing it into his own forehead.

This time, I couldn’t keep the scream down, but it wasn’t too loud, and the attacker did not appear to notice it. He stared at the guy on the ground for at least a minute, possibly waiting for him to move, but he didn’t. Even in the darkness, I would have seen movement. After the shock had worn off, the attacker wiped the tire iron with the sleeve of his shirt, and ran off. Finally, now that the danger had passed, I was able to remove myself from my stupor, and go help the poor guy. When Emergency Medical Services arrived, they claimed that I had properly used my training, and that there was nothing I could do, but I was not convinced. Sure, I technically had no obligation to step in before the fight had a chance to escalate, but I’ll always wonder how things would have turned out if I had just done it anyway. The man didn’t die instantly, but he had suffered from sufficient enough trauma to prevent him from speaking to me. Yet in my mind, I’ll always imagine him having asked me why I didn’t save him. When I call upon the memory of that night, that’s what he’ll be saying to me, and I will never have an answer. But I might be able to stop this sort of thing from happening to me ever again. I’ll be signing up for EMT training on Monday. Screw my career.

Perspective Seventy-Two

Microstory 295: Perspective Seventy

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Perspective Sixty-Nine

Oh yeah, I’ve definitely been stalking someone. But you know what the say; you only fight fire with fire. I guess you don’t, because you would then just end up with more fire, but you know what I mean. My girlfriend is being stalked by this guy from college she never actually ever met. He just saw her one day and became delusional about the nature of their relationship. That is to say, he thinks there to be a relationship, when really my girlfriend was just being polite by accepting his friend request online. I guess I shouldn’t say that she’s my girlfriend, because that makes me sound like I’m stalking her. We’re not together anymore, and I legitimately don’t think it’ll happen again, but it might. I’m only stalking him to protect her because we’re still friends, and I would still do anything for her. She’s tried to go to the cops, but proving a stalker is next to impossible, as most people know. Technically, he hasn’t broken any laws, so I’ve had to take things into my own hands. I’ve studied and memorized his schedule, so I know when he’s going to be alone. He spends a lot of time like that, so getting to him should be pretty easy. Don’t worry, I’m not going to kill him. We’re not there yet, but he does need to know who he’s messing with when he tries pushing himself onto an innocent young woman. So I’m going to scare him. And yeah, probably beat him a little bit. People like that don’t learn if you just use a stern tone or write a strongly-worded letter. In order for the lesson to sink into his already-damaged mind, it’s gotta be engraved on a wooden bat. Or maybe a tire iron. I can’t be sure which one will be less likely to lead to his accidental death. I can’t look up online which one I should pick, because then there’s a paper trail that leads right to me. It would like that guy who left his kid in the car to die, claiming that he just forgot the baby was in there. Then they went through his browser history and discovered that he, and I think his wife, had been planning the whole thing for a while. What an idiot. I can’t be that stupid. No one can know what I’m doing, which is why I haven’t so much as told the father of my ex-girlfriend's baby. I probably could; I think he would understand, but I have to maintain plausible deniability for them. If I go down, then I have to go down alone. Can anyone tell me how to knock someone unconscious with a blunt object without them suffering from permanent brain damage? Regular people do it on TV all the time, but it’s never explained how they know how much force to put behind the blow. I’m just gonna wing it.

Perspective Seventy

Microstory 69: Breakdown

I blew a tire out on my way to the bulk store today. It was just another in a series of problems I’ve had with my car. It’s so old that, last week when my muffler was dragging on the ground, the mechanics had to build a new one out of parts. They literally don’t make them like they used to. I was already late to help my mother with the heavy groceries, so it was even more humiliating rumbling and shaking like a crazy person, trying to desperately make those last couple of blocks. After getting the groceries, my mother needed help unloading them, so I rode with her back to her house. I tried calling a tow truck, hoping to meet them back at the store, but they said they wouldn’t even send one out unless I was already there waiting for them, so I borrowed my father’s truck and left. Apparently this was a big day for tows, because it took them almost an hour to reach me. The driver had to find a workaround because I evidently don’t have any “hook points” in the front. But he finally got it strapped down, and we headed out for the tire shop.

I was told that I had arrived at the tire place with enough time to install new tires before closing, but it took them much longer than expected; so long, in fact, they they wouldn’t be able to finish until tomorrow. That was extremely annoying, but my dad didn’t need the truck since they were going to be out of town for a couple of days. As it turned out, it didn’t matter since the truck refused to start anyway. There was a guy sitting in his own car nearby who heard me dealing with it and was 99.9% sure they it was something called the “fuel pump”. He had me stick my head in the tire well to prove it wasn’t making the sound it was supposed to. Having no other choice, I began the long walk back home. When I finally got back, exhausted and just wanting to go to bed, I found police officers escorting a man in handcuffs from my front porch. I asked one of the officers what was going on at my house. He answered, “he just robbed the liquor store down the street, across from the police station. It’s a good thing you weren’t home. He’s been holed up in there for hours, claiming to have hostages.”