Microstory 58: New Car Smell

My car is two years older than I am.  The most advanced thing in it is the radio. Despite having been manufactured in 1985, it only had 40,000 miles on it when I bought it a couple years back. The woman who owned it before had other vehicles, and didn’t drive it much. I have some errands to run after work, and my last stop is at a client’s house. I park it on the street but don’t even turn it off since I’m just dropping off some papers. A moment later, I step back into my car and notice something different. There’s a tape deck and a CD player. As I look closer, I notice an auxiliary port, power windows, and cup holders. I haven’t had cup holders since college when I drove my dad’s old truck. My first thought is that it’s a prank, but it would be logistically impossible to pull off. Even though this strange new vehicle is clean of dust and grime, the fast food trash, my books, and other such things are all in the exact same places as before. Even the towel I keep draped over the passenger seat hasn’t budged. My defroster stopped working a few weeks after buying it, so I use the towel to wipe off the inside of the windshield when it’s raining. I start the car, and find that the defroster now does work. I step back out and look at the exterior. It looks like a slightly newer model, but the bird droppings and tree sap on the hood are still there. I take out my phone and do some research. I find one theory that says reality is fluctuating all the time but that we just don’t reme

Microstory 57: Adaptation from Back Burner

Years ago, my fiancée, my best friend, and I went skydiving. I had pulled my chute before realizing that my fiancée’s wasn’t working. She fell to her death, and I irrationally blamed our friend for it. Over the course of the next five years, he and I grew apart. I graduated from the police academy, and eventually became a detective. He continued to spiral, and found himself surrounded by worse and worse people every week. I tried to stay out of the investigation of his crimes, but he kept crossing lines. It was like he wanted to get caught. In fact, I couldn’t help but think that he wanted me to catch him. My captain and I finally gave in to his presumed wishes. That night, I was chasing him through the streets of Kansas City. For some reason, he chose to go up to the roof of one of the tallest buildings. When I finally reached him, and he had nowhere to go, he started ranting about how she actually always loved him, and not me. He revealed that he blamed himself for the incident as well, even though it was determined to be no one’s fault. Before I was able to respond, he started running towards the edge. I bolted forward and tried to stop him, but lost my balance, and we both fell. I quickly resigned myself to the fact that I was going to die the same way she did. But that isn’t what happened. Night turned today, and we were back in time. I looked back and saw the airplane flying away. I thought I was being given a second chance to save her, but there was too much space between us. There was no way for me to catch up to her before the lower limit. Our friend was closer, and could potentially save her. But would he?

Microstory 56: This Thing on Fire (first verse + chorus of a song I wrote)

I wrote this last year. But I didn't really write it. It's by a musical artist named Peter Fireblood. I've mentioned him before.

---

We’re gonna light this thing on fire!

We’re gonna set this place ablaze

We’re gonna watch as all the people come

just to see how much hell that we raised!

We’re gonna wait for the cops to roll in

And bind our wrists and legs

We’re gonna look the judge right in his eye!

And persuade him to throw out the case!

We’ll return to the scene of the crime

And fix what we had done

Then we’ll light a single wondrous match

And burn that place right down again!

Oh I love, how I love, to see the world transform from red to black

Oh I know, I know that they can’t understand how we fell out of whack

Soon the day will come to pass when you and I live on no more

I hope that before that day comes we leave a mark they can’t ignore!

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: March 29, 2022

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The woman at the train station ticket counter gave Mateo a hard time about his identification. But since the train was leaving in less than 15 minutes—and he had purposely made himself look like a nomad—she gave in. He scooped up his bag and ran for the platform, boarding just in time.

He found his seat on the upper level and sat down. He took out a map and a calculator. When he was in Las Vegas, he jumped at midnight according to the central time zone, which meant that it was only ten o’clock where he was. The map said that the train would get into Salt Lake City at 11:05. That was five minutes too late. He would have to get off at Provo instead. Which was fine. He didn’t know much about Utah, but one city didn’t sound any better than the other, and they both existed within the “loci non grata” category. The trip was incredibly boring. Everyone else around had tablets and phones to play with, but he had to shed himself of such things. He didn’t know how easy it was for people to track him with technology. Leona would normally keep him up-to-date on world progress. He was missing out on so much. He decided to make a habit of going to the library every day and find a recap of each passing year. Perhaps he would just live at the library. It wasn’t like anyone could logistically stop him, and he would have to sleep somewhere.

Throughout the ride, they had to make frequent stops, and not just at other stations. They would wait, sometimes for nearly an hour at a time in the middle of nowhere. Freight trains held priority over passengers. No wonder people didn’t take the train anymore. It was an absolute nightmare. He was growing more and more concerned. The longer they were taking, the farther he would be from his stop when he had to get off. He shuddered to think what might happen if he were on a moving vessel during the timeslip. But then he had an optimistic thought. Maybe he wouldn’t be able to jump at all. Maybe whatever force was causing him to go through this would keep him tethered to the timestream in order to protect him. Afterall, you can’t throw someone through time if they’re dead; or rather, it would be pointless. In the end, it wasn’t worth the risk, though. He kept his map out and pulled back his departure station by station as necessary.

A voice came on the intercom after a particularly long wait. “We do apologize for the inconvenience. I would just like to mention that we are all in the same boat, so to speak. The crew is tired and hot and miserable, just like you.”

The man on the other side of the aisle laughed. He and Mateo locked eyes. “The difference between us and the crew, is that we are paying for the misery, while they are being paid.”

“So true,” Mateo replied.

“What is your final destination?” he asked.

Mateo had to think about his answer. He couldn’t say anything about Salt Lake City, or Provo. He tried to remember which station was his last before midnight. It wasn’t in Utah, this much he knew.

“I didn’t know it was a trick question,” the man said jokingly.

“No, sorry. It’s Grand Junction, Colorado.”

“Business or pleasure.”

Mateo breathed in deeply. “New life.”

“Ah, interesting. Running from, or just running to?”

He tilted his head and thought this over for a second. He wasn’t trying to get away from his family so much as he was trying to keep them away from him. And he had no real destination. His life was completely meaningless at this point. Part of life was dealing with the consequences of your actions day to day. But for him, each day was a pit stop before the next. There was no connection between them. He was in a constant state of flux. As a Catholic, he believed in hell, but had never trusted the depictions of it in art. It was at this moment that he realized what was really going on. This was his hell. If he died of old age, it wouldn’t be for another tens of thousands of years. Would humans even still exist? Would he spend most of his time alone on the planet, statistically likely to skip over any disaster that might consume the population? He took another deep breath and exhaled. “Both.”

“Well, I’m rooting for you. I hope you find what you’re looking for.”

“Thanks,” Mateo said genuinely. The train finally started moving again. “What do you do for a living?”

“I’m a physicist. The name is Duke Andrews. I assume you don’t have a career at the moment. What’s your name?”

“Mateo.” He smiled. “I don’t have a last name anymore, though.”

“Full commitment,” Duke smiled back. “I respect that.”

There was one more delay a little while later. All in all, they were almost nine hours behind schedule. He looked back at the map and determined that he would have to get off at the next train station in Glenwood Springs, Colorado. As he was double-checking his math, he could feel himself nodding off. His eyelids felt so phenomenally heavy. He couldn’t keep them open. He couldn’t remember how long it had been since he’d last slept; at least a couple years.

He jolted awake after what felt like only a few minutes.

“Welcome back to us,” Duke said. He was holding a newspaper.

“Where are we?” Mateo asked in a panic.

“Don’t worry. You haven’t missed Grand Junction yet,” Duke answered in a fairly comforting voice. “You can go back to sleep. I promise to wake you up.”

“No, I made a mistake. I meant Glenwood Springs. I’m supposed to go to Glenwood Springs!” His voice woke up other people in the car, including a now crying baby.

“Oh, well you’ve missed that. But it’s okay. You’re starting a new life. Does it matter where? You won’t be that far off course either way.”

“What time is it?” Mateo pulled his sleeve back and looked at his watch. It was a couple minutes before the jump. “Oh my God. It’s almost midnight.”

“No, it’s eleven o’clock.”

“I mean a different midnight!”

Duke looked like he was about to tell Mateo to calm down, but he didn’t get a chance. The train screeched to a halt. “We apologize once more,” said the voice on the intercom. “We’re not sure why the train stopped this time, but we are looking into the matter and will have you back on track in no time.”

“I have to get off!” Mateo screamed.

“You won’t be able to,” Duke said. “We’re on a bridge over the Colorado River.”

“I’m still on the upper level!” He was making the rest of the car very nervous. He tried to pull his bag from under the seat, but it was stuck on something. He gave up on it and ran for the door. But it was too late. At midnight central time, he jumped forward. The train disappeared and he started to fall several feet, breaking his leg upon landing. He cried out in pain. He looked up and could see lights approaching. The year 2023 train was headed right for him.

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Mr. Muxley Meets Mediocrity: Part II

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Mr. Muxley sat impatiently in the passenger seat. “Why is this taking so long?”

“It’s a common land vehicle,” Monty explained. “It can’t even go a hundred miles an hour.”

“What’s a mile? What’s an hour?” Mr. Muxley asked.

“That bridge we passed a couple minutes ago is about a mile back that way,” Mervin said. “A minute is sixty times the length of time it takes for me to say...one mississippi. An hour is sixty times a minute.”

“I see,” Muxley huffed. “That is quite frustratingly slow.”

Mervin pressed the pedal to increase his speed by just a little. “We have things that go faster, like trains and planes. But this thing is cheap. We can’t all afford spaceships.”

“The spaceships we do have,” Monty furthered, “haven’t gone any farther than the moon, except for a few unmanned vessels. But it takes them a really long time either way.”

They were finally at their destination. They stepped out of the car and into the diner. There were a few other people in there. They took one look at the alien then went back to their meals. Despite having never seen an alien before, this was a ghost town, and people didn’t really care about anything. Monohon was small lake town that lived and died in the span of a century. In its place was a completely different city. A few decades ago, however, Monohon came back to life. If you drove on the streets, you would remain in Sammamish. If, however, you drove on East Lake Sammamish Trail while flickering your lights and keeping your radio on static, you would end up in Monohon. Half of the residents were dead; but half were alive, like Mervin. Why they chose to live there was kind of a mystery. Few people, Monty included, lived outside of the ghost town but were aware of its existence.

Miss Milly’s Mess Hall at the Mill was one of two major businesses in Monohon. The sawmill had burnt down and was rebuilt so many times, that people theorized that time itself eventually got used to the idea of the mill’s existence. Instead of waiting for someone to rebuild the town, it invoked the buildings on its own. The only people that worked at the mill were the ghosts. They never seemed to get tired. At the end of the day, they would eat dinner at the Miss Milly’s, and then eventually fade into oblivion. The next morning, they would reappear at the hotel and start all over again. On the weekends, they could be found fishing on Lake Sammamish. They would mouth words and pretend to talk to be polite, but were seemingly incapable of forming sounds. All the living residents worked at the diner, hotel, and post office. The train depot was completely out of use, but there were a few people, both living and dead, who wandered around and received payment to do nothing.

Mervin and Monty went over all this while they were waiting for their food, but Muxley was completely unimpressed by it. He shrugged his shoulders. “Yeah, it’s a pocket dimension. Whatever.”

“Is that what this place is called?” Mervin asked. “So, you’ve seen a ghost town before?”

“Yeah, of course. We have them all over the place. You were supposed to show me something interesting.”

Monty laughed. “Did we not tell you that we’re not really equipped to be tour guides of Earth?”

“No.”

“Oh, well. It should be pretty obvious. I thought we’d start with breakfast, and hopefully come up with something to try afterwards.”

“What does breakfast mean?”

The waitress set the plates down and smiled. “It’s when you eat food in the morning,” she said.

“Eat food?” Muxley asked.

“Yeah, you put it in your mouth and chew,” she said. “How else would you gather energy for the day?”

“We lather ourselves with the sap of the miulwebirkovel plant. Then we set our body on fire, and when all the sap has evaporated, we have enough energy for the rest of the week.”

The other three stared at him in silence. “We don’t have any...” Monty started to say.

“Miulwebirkovel,” the waitress assisted.

“...plants on this planet,” Monty finished.

“Well no, of course not,” Mr. Muxley laughed. “It only grows on Mekajs. But any sokugni class vegetation will do. I’m not picky.”

“We don’t have any plants that will help you if you set yourself on fire,” Monty revealed. “I hope you packed enough of your sap.”

“You’re telling me that you put objects in the same orifice out of which you speak every day?”

“That’s right.”

“Where does it go after that? How would it even evaporate?”

The two men looked away uncomfortably. The waitress went back to the counter and tried to forget the last five minutes.

“Answer me,” Muxley demanded. “What happens after you do this strange eating food thing?”

Two minutes later, Mr. Muxley burst out of the bathroom and ordered them to take him away from that wretched place. “I want to go somewhere I haven’t seen before and that doesn’t make me want to tear my ears off and erase my memories!”

Mervin sighed. “Let’s try the space needle,” he suggested. Click here for the next installment...

Microstory 55*: Excerpt from [Redacted]

What interested [Redacted] the most was the fact that humans of different breeds were functionally incapable of conceiving children together. Two Earthans could make an Earthan. Two Universals could make a Universal. Two Legitimates could make a Legitimate. But they were unable to crossbreed with each other. By far, the most common breed was the Universal. No other species, subspecies, tangent species, or superspecies could compare to their magnitude. And she had met no one who knew where the Legitimates were, or if they were presently on hiatus. This meant that incompatibility was statistically rare, and usually just something couples dealt with on their own. But now, because of a death she wasn’t yet sure she believed, she was incompatible with the one man in the entire universe that she was predestined to conceive a child with. She was literally born for this, and it was impossible to follow through. It felt like God had reached down and flicked her in the face.

Microstory 54: Continuum Transfunctioner

The Continuum Transfunctioner is one of the oldest inventions in the history of the Universe. It was first created by one of the last remaining survivors of the very first populated galaxy, the name of which never made it into lasting records. The inventor diffused the plans for the Continuum Transfunctioner into an interversal conduit. When someone unwittingly comes across the plans, they find them to be so cryptic and complicated that the resulting device never turns out the same way twice. In fact, they usually misinterpret the plans to be original thoughts. Because of the cryptic plans, and since the Continuum Transfunctioner has so many different purposes, the replicating inventor ends up only ever discovering one major purpose. No one has ever realized quite how versatile the invention is. It is powerful enough to destroy, reconstruct, or replicate the universe itself. It is also responsible for minor inventions like tarot cards, magic 8-balls, and paper fortune tellers.

Microstory 53: “Mar” Laws

• Martial Law: state of emergency when the government is taken over by the military.
• Martian Law: a set of laws developed and enforced by the Mascos.
• Marshal Law: when the government is decentralized and each region is run by local militia.
• Marshall Laws: a set of amendments designed to limit law-making so that local law enforcement does not contradict, override, or otherwise interfere with parent-state law (named after primary advocate Frederick K. Marshall).
• Marshell Law: commonly used slang term to describe environmental laws and regulations specific to bodies of water and adjoining land (marshell is a synonym for seashell).
• Mere-shill Law: derogatory term used to describe incompetent elected officials who rely too heavily on advisors (not necessarily the mother), and who are merely a mouthpiece for the true leader.
• Marital Law: a set of conventions specific to married persons.
• Marcia Clause: the only in-text amendment to the constitution, clarifying child labor to be any work performed by persons under the standard age of 12 that is either paid, or resembles a position that is more often paid (created after the case of Marcia Atenheim v. Blanchard Atenheim in 1746 which involved household chores that were unreasonably strenuous for Marcia's age).
• Margin Laws: set of laws that regulate both the physical and virtual distances an adult-oriented product or service must be from children or child-oriented products or services. It also established a "half the age plus six" rule that governs age of consent (with a minimum age of 13).