Microstory 2071: Wake Up Clean

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I just reread my post from last week, and realized that I didn’t really tell you anything about myself, since I started going on and on about how the cosmos really works. So let’s do that now, but you still don’t have to read it. I was born in central Kansas, and moved around a lot in my youth. I suppose I moved around a lot as an adult too. I was a quiet kid, and people hated that about me. Have you ever had to deal with someone yelling in your ear incessantly? It’s like that, except I don’t make any noise, and I guess some people perceive that as just as irritating? My incessant silence: it doesn’t hurt your ears, but it hurts your heart, because you have an incessant need for attention, and if you’re around someone who doesn’t give it to you, it feels like dying. I spent many years pretending to be a regular person, and many years afterwards unraveling most of that so that I could become my true self. Then I started to develop my idea of what my best self would be, and tried to work towards that.

Here are a few random facts about me. I’m left-handed. I once knew a guy who was legit mad at me for wearing my watch on my right wrist. I may be left-handed because I was born with an extra finger on my right hand, which jacked up the joints. All of my fingers are crooked, and my hands hurt literally all the time, especially when I use them, which is why it’s so great that I’m a writer, because it doesn’t require the use of hands. I like baby rhinos, and hate pandas. On principle—but not in practical terms—I don’t believe in war, national borders, money, poverty, the inherent value of work, or religion. I think sex work should be legal, and recreational drugs should be illegal. I would rather lose a competition than win it, because it will always be more important to other people, and I don’t want them to feel bad.

Here are a few random facts about you: if you’re a smoker, you’re an idiot, and a bad person. It doesn’t matter what you’ve accomplished, or what your IQ is. Only a total moron would poison themselves on purpose, and only an asshole would do it in a way that potentially causes harm to others. No matter how you die, as long as it’s not an accident or something, the smoke will either cause your death, or exacerbate it. It will never help you, nor remain neutral. There’s no logical reason for it. Some people like you, and some don’t. No one is hated by all. The human body is beautiful, and you shouldn’t be afraid of it. The toilet paper goes over the top, ‘cause gravity. Some of your food contains bug parts. It’s fine.

Here’s some random advice. Find your strength in school, and focus on that. Work half as hard at the things you struggle with. You’re never gonna be as good at them as you are with your best subject, and normal people don’t need to be good at everything to succeed. If you struggle with a subject for years on end, while doing fine in others, that’s your worst subject, and it’s never going to change. Smart people don’t suddenly become that way in adulthood after being unintelligent before. Some jobs require you to be committed and driven. Most of them, however, come with bosses that aren’t paying enough attention to you to reward good behavior. Your number one job in life is to find happiness, not build profit for your company. Never forget that every company needs you more than you need it. You could survive naked in the woods with nothing but your wits. Without labor and customers, a company doesn’t exist. Life is all that matters.

Shower before bed, so your bed is clean, and you wake up clean. Wash your hands. Clean everything else too. Let your children get dirty to build up their immune system.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: March 30, 2399

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Vearden is sitting next to Arcadia, as he does all day every day. He doesn’t even go to bed anymore. He just reclines the chair, and stays there, only getting up to get food, or get rid of it. In this reality, the vital sign monitor keeps track of all the usual suspects, like heart rate and oxygen levels, but it also logs the weight. The doctors didn’t explain why, but it’s apparently what first alerted them to the fact that the baby was gone. Now it seems to be back. Arcadia’s weight has just suddenly gone up by eight pounds, seven ounces, which Vearden noticed, because they programmed the system to alert them to any further changes in weight. Just as he’s calling for help, she starts to tremble, then shake, then scream. She’s awake.

“Arcadia, Arcadia, Arcadia. Shhhh. Shh, my darling, it’s okay. It’s okay. You’re okay. You’re back, everything is gonna be fine.” 

She pulls the oxygen tube out of her nose. “I’m back? Where did I go? Where was I? Tell me! Tell me what happened! Did I jump through time!”

He keeps trying to reply, but she’s not really letting him. She’s hyperventilating. A nurse steps into the room. “Put the oxygen back on, please,” he asks of her.

“No!” Arcadia cries. She starts ripping out the other medical things attached to her. That’s when she seems to first notice her belly. “Wha—what the hell happened? She looks up to her love, tears in her eyes. “Vearden? How long have I been away?”

“You haven’t been away, dear. You’ve been in a coma. At least that’s the best diagnosis that the government doctors could provide.”

“How. Long.”

He frowns at her. “Two and a half months.”

“The baby? How’s Kendra?”

“She’s perfect. She’ll be coming soon, Dr. Best thinks.” No need to mention the part where the baby disappeared for a week.

Arcadia nods. “What happened to Mateo? Where is he? He’s dangerous. There is something wrong with his mind.”

“That’s all been dealt with,” Vearden assures her. “You don’t have to worry about anything except taking care of yourself, and our little girl.”

She nods again. “Hey, Vearden.”

“Yeah?”

“It’s happening.”

“What’s happening?”

“The baby. She’s coming.”

“Now?”

“Yeeeeeeeeeaaaaaargh, right now!”

Vearden reaches up and pushes the big mauve button, which indicates an emergency, and sounds an alarm to wake everybody up. More nurses flood into the room. “She’s going into labor!”

They all move to their stations, and start getting things ready. One of them checks under Arcadia’s gown. Another handles the IV bag and monitor. A third leaves again to retrieve the doctor. It takes a really long time for him to return. When he does, Dr. Best is not the one following him. It’s a doctor that they’ve never met.

“Where is Dr. Best?” Arcadia demands to know.

“I’m afraid Dr. Best is trapped in an elevator, and won’t be able to help you. It’s my first day at this facility, but I’ve been a gyniatrician for eighteen years, I have full clearance, and I’ve been fully briefed on your situation.”

“Someone needs to teleport to Dr. Best,” Arcadia begs Vearden.

“That’s not possible,” Vearden replies apologetically. “Not these days.” He looks back up at the new doctor. “What’s your name? It’s important.”

“I’m Dr. Suggitt. Dr. Cheyenne Suggitt.”

Vearden and Arcadia share a look. “You see?” he begins. “This was always meant to happen. Our child has a future, and while we know her life won’t be easy, we also know that she survives at least into her thirties, and becomes a beautiful, powerful woman. “We have nothing to worry about.”

Arcadia has been listening, but she’s also clearly in an incredible amount of pain. It takes everything she has to nod her head at him between contractions.

Dr. Suggitt takes her stethoscope out of her ears. “Okay, this is happening, and it’s happening now. I’ve never seen someone in labor for such a short period of time. Sorry, no time for drugs. Dad, if you want to stay here, I’m going to need you to clean yourself up, and put on that set of scrubs.” She jerks her head towards one of the nurses.

The nurse shakes the scrubs to show that he’s ready to help Vearden put them on.

Vearden leaves for a moment to wash his hands and arms. By the time he gets back, little Cheyenne is already crowning. Arcadia no longer seems to be in any pain. She’s resting her head against the pillow, and appears to only be experiencing a little bit of pressure while the head slips out. In under a minute, their baby girl is out and in the world. She’s cooing, and not crying. At first, she looks pretty normal, but then she begins to glow. The nurses exchange nervous looks. They obviously know that there’s something special about the girl, but they weren’t warned about this. Probably because no one else was aware that it was going to happen.

The glow intensifies, and spreads beyond her tiny body. As it grows like a bubble, the light fades, but a strange visual distortion remains, like the heat shimmer from a flame. Once it passes through Vearden’s body, he begins to feel a calmness, and a strong sense of relief. It reminds him of what it feels like to teleport or travel through time. No, it feels like it does once the pinch from doing so is over, and he’s reached his destination. He watches through the window as the bubble accelerates, and starts to roll over the lands, so far into the distance that it disappears over the horizon. 

The nurse in charge of tracking Arcadia’s vitals disappears, but only her. Her clothes remain, suspended in the air for a split second before collapsing to the floor. They hear a crash outside. Two cars have collided with each other in the parking lot. One of them starts to slip over the edge of a dark hole that appeared out of nowhere. People are screaming down the hallway. It starts to snow over a small area down the street.

Vearden looks down at his precious girls. Back in the main sequence, when he was resisting finding a partner to settle down with, people would tell him that a baby changes everything, as if telling him a scary story would somehow convince him to go for it. They had no idea how right they were. “This is her. This is Cheyenne’s doing.”

“No.” It’s his supposed future son-in-law, Curtis Duvall. “People are getting hurt, and that’s sad, but this is not your fault, and it’s certainly not Cheyenne’s. It’s Danica’s. She didn’t stop time powers from existing, she just pent them up, and now they’re coming out all at once. Chickens. Roosting.” He pauses for effect. “Temporary.”

Microstory 1570: Vatutotew

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Prompt

Some tiny little creature has been living in my utility room, and I know it’s not a mouse. I got a good look at it once, and I saw intelligence behind its eyes.

Botner

I think I’m scared to look at it again, because I don’t want to see just another grisly rat corpse on my kitchen floor. Or to know what it is that has been chewing up my animal crackers. The rats in the basement have been a constant thing. I’ve bought things that deter rodents, and I put small amounts of poison in the walls and floors. It’s always the same: for three weeks, they are gone. Three weeks. Then they come back. The wads of mouse poop in the utility room? I’ve never seen that before. I know I haven't been in the basement for a while. There are doors in the walls leading into the house, I think to keep me from getting killed. I think I should have all of my meals in the kitchen. Not so much for convenience’s sake, but because there are mice. I can’t find my glasses. I have one set, and one set that I am pretty sure they aren’t in. I’m pretty sure that they are in the damn utility room. And, you know what? I know my husband bought another pair of glasses, and I...

Conclusion

...have to wait until my birthday before he’ll give them to me. He probably hid them in the utility room too, which means, if I want to get a better look at the weird creature living in there, I’ll have to go in there first to retrieve the glasses. Even though I won’t be able to see very well, I can still protect myself, with a long-sleeve shirt, and elbow and knee pads. I look like an idiot, but I’m not taking any chances. If it turns out to be a mouse, then fine. If it’s a rat, then not as fine, but I’ll still probably survive. If it’s an evil alien bent on the destruction of the human race, then...then I don’t know, but I’m not going in there unprepared. I have a bat. I slowly crack the door, but then throw it open. It’s easier to see tiny animals when they move, so I would rather it scurry away fast than sneak behind me so I can’t even tell it’s there. Nothing. I see no movement. I lift the laundry basket, nothing moves. I open all of the cabinets, and shine a flashlight in them. Not there either. I open the dryer, but it’s insane to think something that small would exert enough force to get inside. I bend down to check the washer too, confident in the same assessment. It’s in there, staring at me, not like it’s scared, but confused as to why I’m in what it must think is its territory. It looks like a little furry human, gray, with a tail. It turns its head slightly, and looks at me more with one eye, which is something a person would do when sizing somebody up. It is as smart as I thought, or maybe even smarter. Finally, it extends an arm. “My name is Vatutotew,” it says politely. “Have I misidentified this room as abandoned?”

Microstory 1055: Ida

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I work at a dry cleaners/laundromat. Because we do both, we stay open a lot later than a normal dry cleaning place would. But that doesn’t really mean we get a lot of customers coming in at night. So, I’m sitting there reading my book, nearing close. I’ve just emptied the coin receptacles, and I’m ready to go to bed. No one else is there, and I’m meant to lock up by myself, like I’ve done a million times. Viola suddenly walks in. Of course, it’s all windows, so I have no clue where the hell she came from. It’s like she just appeared in the doorway. She’s drenched in blood, and...other matter that I will not say out loud, as I am a lady. Though, I guess I shouldn’t be so afraid to say it, since I deal with it on the reg. I deal with a lot of blood too, but usually we’re talkin’ paper cuts that get out of hand, or errors in reading the lunar calendar. This was an insane amount of blood, though. It looked like she just walked out of a horrible slasher film. She assured me none of it was hers, but that wasn’t great either, because then whose blood was it? Well, I did ask, but I didn’t force her to explain herself before I agreed to help, because we’re friends, and friends are friends with no conditions. She stripped naked right there, while I flipped the sign on the door, locked it, and shut all the shades. I tried to take the clothes from her, but she wouldn’t let me have them. She said they were dangerous, and only she could touch them, which right away sounds like the person who spilt it had a disease, or was carrying some biological weapon. I told her that there was really no way of coming back from the kind of damage those clothes suffered, so she would be better off throwing them out. Apparently, she couldn’t do that. She had to wear them the next day. So I told her what to do.

First, we soaked the clothes in the toilets, with a lot of soap. You don’t want that much of that kind of stuff in any of the machines, and the pipes that come from sinks aren’t designed to handle such great volume. Plus, if you’re investigating a murder—not that that’s what this was—you’re gonna check the sink long before you even consider digging through sewage. After the majority of the bad stuff was off the fabric, I got a bucket, and we soaked them again, but this time with stain remover, and then a little ammonia. Then we dropped the laundry into the washer, so we could clean up the floors. Here we could use bleach, which makes for a better cover-up. After the washer was done, we ran it again, to be safe. And then we used the dryer on high heat. Finally, I dry cleaned them, just for good measure. They looked good as new, but I couldn’t promise all the blood was gone, or rather, the DNA. She understood this, and seemed okay with it. We spent all night working, and when it was over, before she left, she told me she hooked something for me on the garment conveyor. I found what she was talking about, in a beautiful dress worth hundreds of dollars. A note was attached to it, which warned me I was never to tell this story until someone specifically asked me how I knew Viola. You are the first to ever do that, so congratulations. Also on the note was a little round symbol I wasn’t familiar with yet, and a future date. It’s this cryptocurrency called tyros. It was trading at two cents when I bought tens of thousands of them using the money I got from selling the dress. Today, I’m literally a millionaire. Tyros crashed to nothing the day after I finished selling off all 40,000.

Microstory 859: Wash Out

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The last thing I expected to find when I went out for what was to become my last day of work as an exterior cleaner was a bunch of people sunbathing on top of a roof. This was no nice and flat roof, by the way. I was at a very steep angle, but they were just lying there, wearing nothing but their smiles. I didn’t see any other ladder around save mine, so I couldn’t figure out how they got up there. Perhaps they did have a ladder at some point, but then someone stole it, and they were taking it in stride. I asked them if I had the right address, and they confirmed that this was exactly where I was meant to be. I asked them if they were going to move, so I could clean it, but they just laughed and stayed put. I called my boss up, and she said all I could do was start my work, and hope they wise up, and get off on their own. I was incredibly uncomfortable doing that with such toxic chemicals, but if I went over to the other side, and started off slow, maybe it would all work out. Before too long, I had stalled long enough, and was drawing dangerously near the sunbathers. As if this was the first time they realized I was even there, they all hopped up as soon as I got too close, and flew away. I was so stunned, I slipped off the roof for the first time in my whole career. Of course, I was perfectly fine, strapped into my harness, so I just hung there for I don’t even know how long. I couldn’t figure out how they had done it. They actually flew. Humans. I had heard rumors that some guy had learned how to fly in his dreams, and managed to bring his lessons into the real world, but like most others, I didn’t believe it could be true. But I’m here to tell you, folks, that it is one hundred percent true, even though I obviously can’t personally prove it to you. I sought out the teacher—my now boss—immediately, and started my lessons. Unfortunately, what we discovered is that not everyone is physiologically capable of flight. We can predict the likelihood of your success, but we need quite a bit of information first. So yes, it is absolutely imperative that you fill out these health histories with perfect accuracy, and go through the rigorous physical assessments. You don’t wanna end up in a chair like me, do you?

Microstory 39: Keyless Entry

Last night, while I was taking a bag of bad ham from the freezer and putting it in a trash bag, I saw something dripping from it. It was probably just water, but I wanted to be cautious. After I was finished with rolling the trash to the curb, I wiped the kitchen floor with disinfectant, cutting myself off from the sink. I didn’t want to use the bathroom sink because I needed to wash my arms too. Instead of just waiting, though, I decided to hop over the place where I had cleaned. I apparently underestimated the range of my reach. My socks slipped on the disinfectant and I fell to my back, scraping my feet against the edge of cabinet under the sink. I quickly jumped back up and washed my hands. That was more important than dealing with the pain. I could have broken my leg, I still think I would have washed up first. Once I was done, I looked down and saw a little baggie on the floor. I must have knocked it from its hiding place under the cabinet. Inside was a small object that looked like a vehicle’s keyless entry device. I pushed the the button and heard a chirp from the basement. I pushed it again. Another chirp. Was there an invisible car in my basement? I put on pants, grabbed my wooden training sword, and carefully walked downstairs. The chirps were coming from the far wall. I hovered the device a few inches from the wall and pressed the button once more. The wall receded and disappeared into a pocket, revealing a room filled with jars of food and MRE’s. A disheveled and dirty man was in the corner, eating some rice. “Is Cthulhu defeated?” he asked.