Microstory 921: Hand Sanitizer

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I discussed hand sanitizer in the Stepwisdom entry about Cleanliness in general; wherein I recount my first experience with the stuff as being God-adjacent. For someone like me, cleanliness is extremely important. I’m not a germaphobe, mind you. I get sick all the time, and it has been this way my whole life. I’m not afraid of being infected by something, and I’m about 83% that, if the zombie virus ever plagued this world, I would be immune to it. What I have a problem with is cross-contamination. My OCD is what gives me the need to control the nature of my environment, but it’s my autism that dictates what how that environment should ideally be. There’s this trope you can find on the web called Blessed With Suck. Basically, a character will be burdened with some supernatural ability that is mundane, pointless, or downright inconvenient. There are a lot of superpowers that I occasionally believe myself to possess, like being able to see the future, or sensing other people’s emotions. The one power that I actually do have, all the time, is the ability to feel the ick around me. If you were to clean a table thoroughly, I would be able to touch that table, and tell that it’s happened. No big deal, right? Anyone can intuit the cleanliness of an object. Now imagine you ran your palm along the tabletop. Your hand isn’t particularly dirty; you weren’t picking your nose, or chalking up to climb a mountain. It was just your hand. Well, I can tell that too. I won’t know exactly what happened, but I’ll be able to tell that something contaminated that surface, and it’ll bother me. I once worked with this girl in a room where all the tables were pushed together, and we sat around it. She would put her feet up on her section, and—I dunno, doodle “Mrs. Donald Trump” in a notebook, I guess. When it was lunch time, she would go grab her food, and place her fork on that table...right where her shoes were. Then she would use that fork to pick up food, and put it all in her mouth. She was putting dirt in her mouth, along with animal feces, and God knows what else she’d walked through. Because she was a crazy person. People think I’m weird for walking around with hand sanitizer, but it makes me feel safe, and it makes it a lot more difficult for me to put poop in my mouth. Can you honestly say the same?

The Advancement of Leona Matic: September 18, 2195

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Breakfast the next year was quiet. Not even Vitalie was going off about what ancient film she watched, or serial she binged. Ulinthra had done a lot to them over the last two weeks, but this was the first time they felt completely powerless. Brooke Prieto was the very definition of integrity and loyalty. That she could be convinced to abandon her friends for selfish gain meant that there really was no stopping Ulinthra. She could lose her powers right now, and she would still have the upperhand on the world, not because she was stronger, but because she was good at breaking people’s spirits, and quashing all hope.

“I wanna see her,” Vitalie finally said as they were still sitting at the table an hour after everyone was finished eating. They weren’t even looking at each other.

Leona shut her eyes, and shook her head. “No, you don’t.”

“I do.”

“I don’t think that would be a bad idea,” Ecrin said.

“What do you know?” Leona questioned.

“Quite a bit, actually. I’m over three hundred and seventy years old.”

“Call me when you reach your first millenium,” Leona volleyed.

“Why are we fighting?” Vitalie asked

“I’m sorry,” Leona said. “You just don’t know what you’re asking. I’ve already seen her, and it took all my strength to wait until I could find a bathroom before throwing up. I was her guardian for...well, a long time. While I’ve never considered her my daughter, I guess she’s like a niece. She was family.”

“She’s not dead, Leona,” Ecrin reminded her.

“I know that,” Leona acknowledged. “But I don’t know that there’s any coming back from this.”

“Don’t count her out just yet,” Ecrin said, like a mother herself. “I’ve encountered a lot of people that I never thought I would trust, but circumstances forced me to take the risk, and I was pleasantly surprised sometimes.”

“Sometimes, meaning...” Leona invited.

Ecrin sighed. “Maybe half the time.”

“I’ll take those odds,” Vitalie noted, having based her whole outlook on life on fifty-fifty chance.

Before the conversation could continue, they started hearing muffled voices on the other side of the door. Back in the day, this was either cause to feel fear, or go open the door to see who was there. As it were, things were generally best left to happen on their own. Leona could make out someone egging another on with, “do it. Do it!”

Inaudible chatter.

“That’s an order, soldier. Do it!”

“Leo—” the other voice started to say.

“No! No warning! Just do it!”

Ecrin suddenly flipped over the table, and tugged on Leona and Vitalie’s shoulders to get them both behind it. They heard a crash as the door was blown off its hinges, and sent flying into the room. Debris collided with the table, proving that Ecrin had at least made the right call, and had even possibly saved their lives. Somebody chuckled in delight.

After a pause, Ulinthra spoke up. “Uhh, anyone in here?”

“Yeah.”

“Vitalie,” Ecrin whispered. “Jesus.”

“What’s a jesus?”

“I’m overjoyed that you’re alive,” Ulinthra, bottle of beer and all, said as the three of them were standing up.

“As am I,” Brooke said, not as glad to be there as her compatriot was, but more sincere with her words.

“You were right,” Vitalie agreed. “I don’t wanna see her.”

Ulinthra grimaced and looked back at Brooke. “Come, Brookey. You belong at my side.” It was hard to see that, but Brooke did seem resistant to it. She was not extremely pleased with what had come to pass, so maybe there really was hope. “Now. As you can see, I’m a little drunk. People don’t drink as much as they did when I was alive. I mean, I’m alive—I just...” She closed her eyes in a wince, and tilted her head to find out whether she needed to throw up or not. “Sorry. You know how it is. What I’m trying to say is that everyone in this room understands me, and no one else does.” She was sounding more and more like the stereotypical drunk girl at a party. “You guys are my friends,” she said, like it was an argument. They weren’t bothering with any response, though. “Okay, I’ll say it. The war is not going great.

“Cranama—shit. Panama is safe. This is my stronghold, but I have lost territory. Kansas City is a bitch. She was bitch when I lived there. And she’s a bigger bitch now, ‘cause she wants me back. I need an advantage, because my strategy is no longer working. Apparently somebody spread the word about the penny trick.” She stuck out her tongue and mimicked heaving sounds, but ended up actually throwing up a bit. Once she was done spitting, she went back to her speech, “so I’m here looking for an advantage, because my strategy is no longer working.” She left her mouth opened, and darted her eyes back and forth. “Did I already say that?”

“What do you want from us, Ulinthra?” Leona asked.

“Not you,” Ulinthra shouted. She lifted her hand, and pointed out Ecrin. “Her. I need you to make a call, Ecrin.”

“It’s pronounced Ecrin,” Ecrin corrected. “It’s Turkish.”

“What did I say?”

“I’m not calling anybody for you,” Ecrin said.

“I need you to call the salmon battalion. I know you know them. They came to your planet, you worked with them when you were a,” she loudly whispered, “secret agent.”

“They’re not going to help you,” Leona argued.

“They’ll do what I say. Everyone needs to do what I say! Call them!”

Ecrin shook her head.

Ulinthra started tiresomely repeating herself, changing her volume and inflection for added effect. “Call them! Call them. Call them. Call them. Call them. Call them.”

Brooke threw something small on the floor in front of Ulinthra.

Ulinthra stopped and squinted at the shiny thing. “What’s that?”

“I don’t know,” Brooke said. “What is it?”

Ulinthra squinted more, and leaned closer. “It’s a penny. It’s on heads.”

“Good,” Brooke said.

Ulinthra stood up straight, and looked at Brooke. “You’re gonna hit me again, aren’t you?” She did not have the mental capacity to do anything but brace herself and take it when Brooke reached back and punched her right in the temple, possibly hard enough to kill her.

“Holy shit,” Vitalie said.

“What did you do?” Leona asked Brooke.

“Don’t worry, she’s not dead. I may have put a bit more force than was necessary, out of anger, but it was not a lethal blow.” Brooke looked to Vitalie and Ecrin. “You two get her to the couch. Leona, you should shower. I’m having my people come with plastic sheeting, because it wouldn’t be safe to transport.” She looked back at the entryway. “We coulda used a door, but we’ll figure it out.

“Tell me what’s happening,” Leona demanded to know.

“I know you’ve not had much time to recover, and I also know that you’re not meant to undergo a bone marrow transplant while you’re pregnant, but we’re going to need just a pinch more.”

“More for what?”

There was a hustle and bustle down the hallway; the sound of boots.

Brooke started talking to her wrist, “they’re coming. Move in. Protect this unit with your lives.” She lifted Ulinthra’s unconscious body like a suitcase, and carried her to a bedroom as the shooting started, ushering the other three in as well. Two soldiers rushed into the unit, and stood post at the bedroom door as Ecrin was closing it.

“Brooke Victoria Prieto-Matic, what is going on?” Leona repeated the question.

Brooke dropped Ulinthra onto the bed. “The end of the war.”

Leona came to sometime later, feeling groggy from the anaesthesia. In this state, trying to wake up all the way, she went back over everything that had led to this. Ulinthra had gotten Brooke on her side by giving her the cure to some disease she had given her in the first place. Brooke spent two years working apparently undercover, training cadets in Ulinthra’s war against the world, and waiting for a good opportunity. This came when Ulinthra let herself get drunk, and taken hostage, while a team of her loyalists tried to reach her. Brooke evidently had her own people, though, who fought back against them. While they were doing that, Brooke was extracting bone marrow from Leona, and transplanting it to Ulinthra, presumably to even the odds. If Ulinthra ended up on Leona’s pattern, her power would be severely limited. There was still the question, however, of whether any of this would actually work. The powers that be might have taken measures against this sort of thing. After all, both Leona and Ulinthra were salmon, even if the latter seemed free to do her own thing.

The first face Leona saw when she was finally able to keep her eyes open belonged to Governor-Councilor Isabeau Tribaldos, who was one of two leaders for the Panamanian arcstate before Ulinthra took over. She had been reportedly killed in the initial battle, but a lot of people believed her, and other members of the representative congress, to still be alive, locked up somewhere. The other Governor-Councilor was executed publicly, in a gruesome show of strength. “She’s awake,” Governor-Councilor Tribaldos said.

Vitalie appeared in Leona’s field of vision. “Brooke said I’m meant to give her this.” She took an injection gun from the nightstand, and shot something into Leona’s shoulder. “This should help with your recovery time. I don’t know what you remember, or what you heard when it was over, but we had a good fight about what Brooke did to you. Pregnant women are not allowed to donate bone marrow. When Ulinthra did it to you the other day, it was wrong, and when Brooke did it again, it was still wrong.”

“It’s okay,” Leona said, sitting up. “I understand why she did it. I just don’t know if it’ll work.”

Governor-Councilor Tribaldos shook her head slightly. “It was just a contingency, to lessen her power. We took the arc back, and we have her. She won’t be hurting anyone else, time powers or no.”

Leona adjusted the pillow behind her. “Are you one of us?”

“I barely understand any of this,” Governor-Councilor Tribaldos said, straightening Leona’s sheets. “I’m just what I believe you would call a human.”

“Well.” Leona began in a hoarse voice, which Vitalie noticed, so she went to find some water. “We’re glad to have you back.”

“I am too. We’re putting Arianrhod in the same cell they kept me in. She should be comfortable there. I mean that too; it wasn’t bad, there just weren’t any windows.”

When Vitalie came back with the water, Leona asked, “where are Brooke and Ecrin?”

Vitalie fell into a frown. “Brooke is coordinating efforts to hunt for remaining Ulinthra loyalists.”

Leona waited patiently for too long. “And Ecrin?”

“We already found a lot of loyalists. They’re dead, because they tried to get into this room.”

“Where’s Ecrin?” Leona asked once again.

“Brooke’s cadets did the best they could, but they were severely outnumbered, so they needed help. Since I’m entirely useless, Ecrin was the only one who could do that.”

“Where is she?”

“She’s at peace, in the other room. With a sheet over her face.”

“How do you know she’s at peace?” Leona asked, angry but managing.

“She told us. She didn’t...pass right away. She said she had lived five lifetimes, which she thought was more than enough.”

Leona struggled out of bed, and stood up. “She was almost four hundred years old, because she had superpowers. Most people here are immortal through tech. There’s no such thing as enough life.”

“I’m just telling you what she said,” Vitalie responded calmly. “I’m not saying I agree.”

Brooke ran into the room. “We have to get you to safety, Governor-Councilor. You two should probably come as well.”

“Why?” Governor-Councilor Tribaldos asked. “What’s happened?”

“Ulinthra escaped.”

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Fervor: Time Slider (Part IX)

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We all go back to the Bran safehouse to rest and regroup. Dr. Hammer said that the treatment she provided would slowly return the three patients’ memories. The brain doesn’t handle well the sudden onslaught of memory. Evidently things like this have happened before, and when proper precautions are not taken, the subject can totally freak out. Remembering all the bad things one has done, and that which has been done to them, always outweighs the good things. It doesn’t seem to ever do irreparable damage, but it’s always safer to bring them back more gradually. This left them with two options; either for Hilde and me to move on with the plan without help, or to wait until the others were ready. The first one wasn’t going to work, since we didn’t really have a plan, so now only one option. Well, still two, because it wouldn’t be a bad idea just to let it all go, and leave it to the professionals. As confident as I feel as an independent person, I do know that I’m still just a kid. What can we do?

Theoretically out of an attempt to answer that question as nothing, Jesimula Utkin shows up the next morning after breakfast with her private security. I recognize one as the guy who shot me with a taser gun, but I don’t see the one who helped me get back at the first. I feel like I should be worried he was found out, and suffered consequences. That makes me responsible.

“It took me longer than it should have to find you,” Jesimula says. “I guess that’s why they call it a safehouse.”

“So, we’re not safe anymore?” Slipstream asks. She now remembers a fair better chunk of her life. It’s not anywhere near enough to really know who the rest of us are, but she recalls the hero she became to help rid this city of gang violence, which makes her the leader here again.

“Yeah, that sounded bad,” Jesimula admits. “We got started all wrong, and I’m here to clear the air. I spent years working on my company. I wasn’t drawing up profit schedules, or commissioning the most lavish of offices—as you saw with our fairly drab two-story brick building. My friends all went above and beyond to make their organizations high-end cash cows. I just wanted to cure the world, but I can’t do that if just anyone can walk in and out as they please. I personally vetted every single one of my employees. When we slide through time, we dismiss all but essential personnel, and we use a trick I picked up in the future to erase specific memories. We can do this because they each underwent comprehensive medical testing.

“When you showed up unannounced, we were not ready for you. We don’t know how your respective brain chemistries work, and you were too close when we released the memory blocker. We need to be able to slide out of any time period without alerting the locals to it. There’s a reason why we chose to set up shop in that part of Independence. It’s kind of dead, so there aren’t a lot of people around, and those that are, are usually far enough away to avoid the full force of the memory field. Like I said, you were a mistake. We give most people an uncontrollable desire to leave the immediate area, but you were too determined. That is a contingency that we are currently working on, so it does not happen again.”

“What do you mean when you say you’re trying to cure the world?” Leona asks. She now possessed almost all of her memories. What Hammer learned by consulting with other choosing ones was that Leona had before experienced memory manipulation, which apparently makes it easier to remedy.

“There’s a cure for what ails you,” Jesimula answers. “It may not be from now, and it may not be on this world, but I promise you that it exists. There’s this blue flower on Orolak than turns everything around it blue, wherever you plant it, and it can...anyway—it can do amazing things, as can others, and we can get those to the people who need them.”

“And they’ll all be very grateful to you for it,” Hogarth points out. Hers was the worst memory of all, but her love for Hilde negated all that. She knew how she felt about her, and she didn’t have to remember what they had been through to trust her. “They might even give you a little money for it.”

“It’s 2025,” Jesimula says with a sour face. “Capitalism reigns. It won’t in the future, but I’m not trying to cure people in the future. People expect to pay money for value. If I gave it away for free, they would reject it. I actually did try this. Then I went back in time and rewrote my own history, because it does not work; not in this time period. However, I have a special team, just like any other company, who know how to price. We charge just enough to get people to think it’s worth it, we have a discount program for the less fortunate, and we donate what we don’t use for upkeep to free clinics. I don’t know who told you I’m the bad guy, but I really do have good intentions.”

“Yes, good intentions,” Hilde begins to say.

“Road to hell, yeah, I’ve heard that. Life isn’t so simple.”

“Are you here for nothing more than an apologia for your business model?” Slipstream asks, trying to get to the point.

Jesimula glances back at her security detail. “I’m here for an offer.”

“Join me, and we can rule the world together!” I mock.

“It’s not like that,” Jesimula says. “We could use a couple more scientists, and Miss Horvatinčić, there is suddenly an open position on the security team.”

“You seem to know a lot about us,” Hilde notes.

“More than they know about themselves, I would suspect,” Jesimula agreed. “I think we’ve established that I do my research. If you think that I’m destined to do something wrong with that research, we would all be better off with you by my side. I don’t want to keep fighting you if it’s just going to end to disaster. If you know something, then let’s act on it.”

“We don’t know enough,” I finally speak up. “You would have to shut the company down. I mean, even if we stop what we already know is going to happen, maybe your new path leads to something worse. You could go back to the cretaceous period, and awaken some ancient fungus. It doesn’t matter how many safety protocols you come up with, there will always be leaks and accidents.”

“Why don’t you help me with that?”

“What?”

“You could find the loopholes.”

“Weren’t you listening to me?” I ask. “You can never be one hundred percent safe. This whole operation is too risky.”

“Plus, she’s fifteen,” Slipstream argues.

“Fourteen,” I correct her.

“Even worse!”

“So, you’re young, so what? I can fix that for ya,” Jesimula says, casually and seriously. She hovers her open palms in front of my temples, and forms a warped spacetime bubble around me. I suddenly feel myself being stretched and altered. I grow a little taller, my boobs get bigger, and my face feels rougher and wrinklier. I can’t see anything while it’s happening, though, and by the time I can reopen my eyes, Slipstream is midbattle against Jesimula’s security team. Hogarth and Hilde are right next to me, presumably having tried to break through the time bubble.

Leona is holding Jesimula’s arms behind her back, like a cop trying to make an arrest. “Put her back!” she orders.

“No,” Jesimula replies plainly.

“Put. Her. Back,” Leona repeats.

“No, you let me go, I’ll finish it. She’s still younger than I was planning.”

“You planned this?” Hilde growls.

“I got the idea from your daughter, and her friends.”

“What are you talking about?” Hilde questions. Does that mean she doesn’t have a daughter, or that she doesn’t know what Jesimula knows about that daughter’s future?

“You’ll see...” Jesimula teases.

Slipstream is finished putting down all the guards, so she takes tiny Jesi by the shoulders and presses her against the wall. “You’re going to fix this.”

Jesimula is not at all intimidated. “I offered you peace amongst us. I expect you to come around eventually, and I won’t return to this time period until you do so.” She tilts her head and smiles, then she disappears, evidently not needing her hands to use her powers.

Slipstream turns around. “Tie them up with their own zip cuffs. They’re going to help us. Paige, I promise we’ll figu—” she stops short, and freezes, trembling slightly, but violently. She suddenly falls hard to her face.

Behind her, Jesimula is bringing her leg back down to the floor, having kicked Slipstream in the back. She’s pointing a weapon at the rest of us. “Get up!” she orders her men.

They struggle to their feet, and gather around her. “I know this doesn’t help how you feel about me, but we all make mistakes, as you pointed out, Older!Paige. I believe you will one day forgive me.” She creates a bubble around her and her people, and slides them all out of time.

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Microstory 920: Youth Programs

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If there’s one thing I’ve learned since the beginning of this series, it’s that creating a list is a lot easier than expanding upon it. I’m ashamed to say that it took me a long time to come up with ninety-seven things that I love. Yes, that means I still have two empty slots that prove how negative of a person I really am. I tried looking online for ideas, but people are...what’s the word? Basic. People are basic. They like rainbows, and the smell of coffee in the morning. They like curling up with a good book, and—my God, this isn’t a joke—long walks on the beach. I’ve not been to a heck of lot of beaches—being landlocked in Kansas—but even on those few, never did I see a single person taking a long walk. Anyway, the point is that I love the idea of youth programs. I like that children are being engaged, and that they’re learning, and gaining new experiences, and that they have a safe place to go. I don’t however, have much experience with them, though. When my sister and I were younger, we were often placed in programs during the summer, so we would have something to do, and because our parents needed to work. It wasn’t until I was older that I discovered kids go to summer school because they have trouble completing requirements, or understand material, during the regular year. I’ve also been to summer day camp, sports camp, and participated Boy Scouts activities. They had me do these things because, like I said, I didn’t have anything else, but also to try to figure what I liked, and where I excelled. I was well provided for, well-educated, and I lived in a safe environment, but not everyone has that. While I don’t personally carry a connection to any sort of youth program (except for that one time in middle school when a group of us went to pair up with elementary school students at an underfunded school, for literally one day), I did want to take a moment to give them a shoutout. Thanks for looking out for our kids. We’re gonna need them if we ever wanna clean up this mess.

Microstory 919: Decline in Child Mortality

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Wow, this is a depressing topic, isn’t it? Any attempt at being positive will be overshadowed by how dark the subject is. Before I started this entry, I was doing research, and what I learned was something I’ve already intuited, about a number of other concepts. It may not seem like any, or much, progress is being made, because people lack the historical references to understand what has changed. You’ve only been alive yourself for so long, and you can only understand so much about what things were like before you. I often hear arguments for going back to the way things were that involve claims that we did things that way for so long, and our ancestors did fine. Well, no, that’s not true. Before the nineteenth century, the child mortality rate was roughly fifty percent. This means that, for every one child that was born, and lived past five years old, one child did not. Medical science was severely lacking, as you would expect; utilizing treatment techniques that would be laughable today, if not outright horrifying. Sanitization was difficult to come by, if not virtually nonexistent. And people simply did not know how to care for children as well. Part of this was not their fault, but part of it was. Things were once so bad, that offspring were seen as a means of continuing one’s legacy, rather than family to be cherished. The Abrahamistic God, in his infinite cruelty, one killed a man’s entire family, just to prove the man would continue to love him. He and Satan teamed up for a wacky adventure where they destroyed this man’s life, taking everything from him, in an attempt to win an argument between each other. Of course, being the Bible, God won the bet. He used his power to not just restore Job to his former state, but make his life better than it was. He didn’t do this by undoing his own actions, but simply by replacing his wife and children with a whole new set. That’s right, people were living in such wretchedness, that a human could be replaced by another, and no one would bat an eye. We don’t know what the child mortality rate was back then, but I’m guessing it wasn’t great. I’ll never understand this need to trust in a higher power that would ever kill a human being for some “grand design”. How despicable an entity you would have to be to ever do that, much less to a child. I have big plans for the future, and none of them includes killing any children, and I hope yours don’t either. Things are getting better, but like any progress I’ve mentioned on this site, or not mentioned, there is always room for improvement. We must seek a state of zero child mortality, and the only way for us to do that is to embrace advancement, reject counterproductive nostalgia, and abandon religious superstition.

Microstory 918: Posthumanism

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If you redirect your attention to this post, and this post, you’ll see that I’ve already spoken on the subject of transhumanism. If you’ve already read those stories, and don’t feel like going back, or if you just don’t want to, here’s the gist of it. Humans are weak and fragile creatures, just like most other creatures. There are too many things that can destroy life. Even the most ferocious beasts, and the hardiest of extremophiles are susceptible to multiple dangers. A lot of people have this belief that evolution is heading towards some level of perfection, but that is not how it works. A specimen develops a trait as a random mutation, and if it’s a bad mutation—one that hinders their ability to survive—then they simply won’t live long enough to procreate. If it does happen to help, then they’ll pass those genes on to their offspring. The reason humans have hair still, even though we’ve learned to fashion clothing, build houses, and invent central heating, is because there’s no one to change it. Having hair isn’t a problem for us. At best, our descendants might evolve out of it due to sexual selection, if mates begin to favor less hair enough, but that’s so unlikely, because for humans, it takes all kinds. The point of this is that evolution isn’t going to give us gills or wings, because we don’t live in environments that would require them. Winged humans wouldn’t have an advantage over non-winged humans, because we do just fine right here on the ground. If the floor suddenly literally turned to lava, we would just die out by the time our physiology changed to accommodate our new conditions. If you want wings, then you’re going to have to have them implanted. You’re going to need two things to do this, though. One, superhuman pecs. Seriously, look at any bird. There’s a reason the breast contains so much more meat the rest of any poultry. Two, you’re going to need to live in the future, because we can’t attach wings to people yet. We can’t implant gills, or artificial eyes, or neural interface chips. But we will be able to. One day. That’s what posthumanism is all about, and posthumanism is what I’m all about. Like I said, humans are weak, and I am no exception. I have allergies; my hands are in a permanent state of pain. I wear glasses, frequently have to ask people to repeat themselves, can’t smell the black mold in a house, can’t taste the difference between a hundred dollar steak, and a ten dollar steak, and can’t ever tell when my skin is wet, or just cold. I used to be adamantly opposed to body mutilation, like piercings, and tattoos. I guess I still am, but it wouldn’t bother me to have one, even if it seems permanent, but I know a secret: it isn’t. I’m young enough to still be around when we can replace any organ with a 3D printed upgrade. That’ll let me live long enough to see a time when my consciousness can be transferred to some other body; say a robin, a dolphin, or maybe a sentient tree. Posthumanism is looking forward to breaking the limits of our birth, which is why I love it.

Microstory 917: Photography

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Every time I go to the bulk store, one of the first things I see is the electronics section. This makes sense. As much as they move things around in that place, they still want to make sure everybody gets eyes on the most expensive things there. I pass longingly by the cameras, wishing I could afford one, but knowing that I can’t. Years ago, I started getting into Instagram. I didn’t use it to take pictures of friends, or myself, or the cool places that I visited. I was snapping photos of random objects at close range, and overusing filters, in order to create an image that you wouldn’t necessarily be able to recognize. A few weeks of this made me realize that I was into photography a long time before the service even existed, but in order to take a class in high school, I first had to take some other art class, and I was just not into that. I’ve never wanted to be a professional photographer. I had no dreams of opening my own studio, or traveling to far off distances with Sean Penn to shoot wildlife. I just wanted to take pictures. And that would be a fine dream if it weren’t just another one in a whole cluster of them. Filmmaking, astrophysics, evolutionary biology, medicine, futurology. These, and more, are my other passions, to varying degrees, and for different reasons. I don’t have time to do them all, and I don’t have the money to do any of them. Not even my writing actually makes me any money. I’ve earned $27.45 from Google Adsense on my website over the course of more than three years, which isn’t even enough to cash out. But my writing career holds the number three priority spot over anything in my life. It’s third only to family, and revenue. Photography is probably number four. It would be nice if I could purchase a decent camera, plus lenses, and anything else that goes with it, along with a couple classes so I understand how the damn thing works. I don’t know that I would ever do anything beyond more interesting Instagram posts, but it would at least be a start. If you personally would like to see my dreams come true, then spread the word about my website. The better this does, the more chance I have of publishing a real book, and the closer I get to pursuing any or all of my hobbies. Thanks!

Microstory 916: Free Hugs

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Anyone who’s ever met me probably assumes that I don’t like to be touched. My diagnosis as autistic surely only reinforces this belief, since sensory issues are often associated with the condition. The reality is that I appreciate human contact. Yes, I will admit that I’ve never much liked kissing. If you take a step back, and try to look at the whole concept from an alien’s point of view, it’s a pretty bizarre thing that we do. Even stranger is that we freely do it in public, as the only socially acceptable form of incontrovertible sexual behavior. Hugs, on the other hand, carry no necessarily sexual intentions or sentiments. Any two or more people are capable of hugging each other without it being an expression of anything beyond friendship, no homo. That’s not to say that there isn’t such thing as an inappropriate hug. All parties involved must consent, but it’s also possible to hug a child without it being a problem. Or rather it’s possible for a child to hug an adult without causing problems. Every year, between the first of December, and Christmas, I have this tradition of watching the movie Love Actually. The pattern began as an accident. Of course, it plays during Christmastime, and I happened to just keep seeing it, but then I started watching it with purpose. The film is bookended with scenes of people hugging each other at an airport. “Fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, old friends.” I think we don’t do enough hugging in this world. Just watch any movie where two lovers come together after some harrowing series of events. They always start making out, even if buildings are exploding around them, or the antagonist is literally chasing after them, and they gotta go. We’ve been taught to value romantic relationships over comradery; sex over loyalty. Well, I’ve never really gotten a chance to incorporate this into my stories, so I’ll just tell you that there is a world where things are different. Shaking hands is reserved almost exclusively for executing business deals. When two people who don’t dislike each other greet each other, they hug, and it doesn’t seem odd to them. I’m not suggesting we could ever make our world like that one, but maybe we could start taking steps in the right direction, because the best hugs are free.