Day 1, Earth: “...the world woke up 24 hours later, exactly as they threatened. Everything seems covered by yellow, pollen-like dust...”
Day 2, Earth: “...the aliens have departed... good riddance, one can’t live under a dictatorship, be it of peace. Humanity will find its own way... Preliminary reports define the yellow dust as inert, no risk to life...”
Day 3, Earth: “...reporting live from downtown... the food riots reached this neighborhood... oh, God, the shop owner pulls out a revolver, John, point the camera...”
Day 3, Luna: “...a five seconds flash. The black pebble in the sky that was Earth...”
*
in whatever
Day 1, Earth: “...the entire world woke up earlier today, 24 hours later, exactly as they threatened. Cameras show that also animals fell in the kind of hypnotic sleep that befell the entire human race. No one can yet and maybe no one will ever be able to explain how people did not fall, planes did not crash and sharks did not asphyxiate, among other things. This is clearly a technology way beyond our understanding. The space ship just across from this TV station disappeared, as well as the structure that they engineered next to it. And everything seems covered, suffused by this yellow, powdery, pollen-like dust which you all are certainly aware of by now. I found it impossible to remove any of it, even inside the studio. We hope to get more news, hopefully with scientific backing, later today. This is Jack Holloway, reporting from studio...”
Day 2, Earth: “...the aliens have departed from everywhere on Earth, along with their structures, and if I am allowed I will say it for all of us - good riddance! The history books will have a ball describing the short romance between Earth and its extraterrestrial visitors, but I guess that humanity will find its own way to the better future the aliens were trying to impose upon us. After all we, humans, hate dictatorships and cannot accept one, be it as benevolent as they claimed it to be. As you certainly remember, a variety of specialists claimed that the promised and enforced ‘peace and understanding’ was beneficial only to the aliens so that with time they would be able to fully control us and our resources. And with the kind of technology they possess it is certainly ridiculous to accept their claim that the reason was that they were afraid of us. Now we’ll never know, better this way... Preliminary scientific reports from labs around the world define the yellow dust as inert and presenting no risk to life. So you can drink your tap water, irrelevant of its yellow tinge. I for one will stick for now to bottled water... This is Walter Matheus, reporting from...”
Day 3, Earth: “...Nancy Jones reporting live from downtown... The food riots reached this peaceful neighborhood early this morning, with rioters smashing everything on their way, not only food store windows... police is for the moment unable to contain the fury of the growing mob... oh, God, the shop owner just across from us pulls out a revolver and points it to the rioters, he’s going to shoot, John, turn the camera...”
Day 3, Lunar colony: “...the flash lasted a full five seconds. What was blue Earth is now a black pebble in the sky, all radio links silent, is Earth?... Our scientific center has issued an urgent call for a meeting regarding the yellow dust that covers the entire moonscape, our glass domes, the interior...”
Then I saw her. At a table, sipping something through a spiraling straw, I froze.
I crossed the street like an automaton, got almost mowed down by a biker whom I could still hear cursing one hundred meters on, and stopped at her table. Her dog looked up. Then she looked up, her straw momentarily orphaned. I pulled a napkin, wrote on it “I love you” and I left. The dog whined.
Two years later we were married. Five years later our third daughter was born.
I don’t know about God, bur heaven does exist. And it’s not “up there”.
*
in whatever
Then I saw her. She was sitting at a table on the other sidewalk and sipping something through a spiraling straw. She was a beauty. She was the beauty.
I froze. Then I crossed the street like a mechanized doll, got almost mowed down by a bicycle courier whom I could still hear cursing one hundred meters on, and I stopped at her table. Luckily there were no carriages, or cars, or trains at that moment on that street.
Her dog looked up. Then she looked up, her straw orphaned for a moment, the world orphaned for a moment. I pulled a napkin, wrote on it “I love you” and my phone number, and then I left. The dog whined.
Two years later we were married. Five years later our third daughter was born.
Oh, the dog... he’s still with us, ten years old now and still as sneaky a bastard as ever. Late at night, when he feels it’s “safe” he jumps on the bed and crawls between us, thumping his tail vigorously in a plea for forgiveness. We forgive, too tired from the earlier “unsafe” behavior; and anyway, it is a good preparatory drill for the morning when three bundles of unremitting energy stomp all over us in cacophonic choir of laughter and squeals and... barks. Hell, why not?
I don’t know about God, bur heaven certainly does exist. And it is not “up there”.
“I got my Metal of Honor,” he smiled, sliding the beer over. And before I could correct him he knocked on his head. “I have also the other one, there.” I opened the drawer. “Gulf. Iraq. Afghanistan. Went there to protect ours, not to kill theirs.”
“And this one?” I pointed in awe to a fourth medal cased between the bottles.
“My wife’s. We married in Afghanistan. Died. I couldn’t protect her.”
“Married again?” I asked, eyeing his ring.
“Married still.”
My beer got a sudden tang of salt to it. He kept mopping the bar long after I left.
“Congratulations.” The Guinness guy was delighted. “You two now officially detain the international marriage longevity record.”
“What about the abstention longevity record?” I asked, looking in an aside to my wife.
He smirked.
“I am afraid that sex abstention cannot be proven.”
“Who talks about sex? I talk about murder.”
*
two
“Congratulations.” The Guinness guy was delighted. “You two now officially detain the international marriage longevity record.” He regarded the walls covered with wild life heads on shields. “I see you hunt a lot. You have there an empty shield,” he pointed.
“Is the record final?” I asked, eyeing my wife.
*
three
“Congratulations.” The Guinness guy was delighted. “You two now officially detain the international marriage longevity record.”
My wife was delighted as well.
“Is the record final?” she asked.
“Yes,” he answered.
“Then drinks, everyone. A special whisky for you, my dear.” She handed me the glass, an ice-cube already in.
This time He didn’t hold back the hand slaughtering Isaac. Six million Isaacs. And there was no Abraham so whom was He testing? Isaac?
Probably.
Look at me, Isaac, my flesh marked with the pact and I’m still here and he’s still my god and I wouldn’t deny him for all the Nihilism and the Scientism and the Atheism I was brainwashed with and I still believe in with the Fanaticism of modern man. Look not for a paradox, there’s none. The only thing that changed is the color of my star. It was yellow. Now it is blue.
The Russians arrived. All I remembered about Russians was that they eat children and rape virgins, a major improvement over the present hell. Would they even know I was a child, a girl, naked as I was?
One soldier approached me.
“Yevreyskaya devushka?” Jewish girl?
I wasn’t even afraid anymore.
“Da.” Yes.
He opened his knapsack and took out a loaf of bread. Then he covered me with his army blanket.
“Sergei, Ivan, Petya...” he called over his comrades and they laid around us a mound of bread and blankets.
All I remember about Russians now is bread, and blankets.
My father finished the war in a forced labor camp.
“I saved many people, they were weak I was strong, I carried my share of stones, their share of stones, no one knew... they lived to see the end of the war,” he told me once, eyes glistening.
My father was a simple man. A couple years religious schooling, a couple years primary school, good hands was all he had. And he loved my mother with a simple man’s devotion.
She died. A medical mistake. His only question was: “God, I saved all these people. Now you punish me. Why?”
3 eggs, 300 ml milk, 200 gr sugar... I followed the recipe to the letter, the mix, the wait, the baking time, temperature... I failed. I bought a digital scale accurate to two digits after decimal point, a liquid container accurate to one digit after decimal point, an oven accurate to three digits after... tried electric, gas, charcoal ovens, even a dry wood oven. Failed again and again, seventeen times. It was never as good as hers. My mom’s.
Mom, I miss your cakes, you were always better at baking. You were always better at everything.
You belonged to an older generation. But I cannot say you were old fashioned.
Your clothes nicely fashionable, your hairdo perfectly cared, you liked your lipstick red and your fingernails even more so. Your shoes renewed every year. You danced, you loved dancing even modern dances, no one could tell your age by your dancing skills. By your open mind and your knowledge of human nature. You were a seamstress but you could have been a doctor in psychology even without studies, no one would have known.
And yet, mom, you were nevertheless old fashioned, in one aspect. Your love.
When they knocked on the door, forced us in the cattle wagons, I couldn’t imagine that I would fall in love there, amidst the greatest of human miseries, an electrified barbed wire between us and black smoke rising behind me.
We knew exactly what we were doing the day we ran towards each other, clasped hands across the fence... I survived the electric shock, she didn’t. Friends pulled me away kicking and screaming, guards laughed, dogs barked.
I never forgave myself living through liberation, my mind’s eye nailed to the soot spitting chimney. Part of that rising smoke... was she.
We are a perfect couple, the secret residing in having always good discussion subjects. Today it was mosquitoes. Yesterday it was... ahm... mosquitoes. Day before... come to think of it, it was always mosquitoes. How to eliminate them... zapping, flame-throwing, atom-bombing. No, this last one is too expensive, she commented.
We decided to change the subject. Now it was about taming mosquitoes, you know: fetch! roll! sit!... This way we could make a lot of money... and then we can buy that atomic bomb, she concluded.
I’m still into fetch. She into roll. Hmm... it was so easy with Rex.
“There are no flowers here, only vegetables,” she stated proudly. “Here are the tomatoes, there scallions, radish, cucumbers...” She presided over her patch of ground like a modern version of an Amazon queen, breasts swaying freely under an undersized T-shirt, loose shorts, army boots, knees and palms carrying brown traces of earth, hair haywire, smudged face, even the partly bleeding scratch down her thigh was Amazon.
“You are wrong,” I said.
“Wrong how?”
“There is a flower,” I said eyeing her intently, insolently and observing a mounting blush starting to invade her face.
My observations, my calculations were accurate. They all laughed at me, newspapers, universities, politicians.
“A fourth dimension is hurtling through space and will reach us in six days, four hours...” I pleaded.
“...and the only way to save Earth from extinction is synchronize the sleep of 80% of Earth’s population coming Saturday for ten seconds at 03:47:18 AM, which will prevent the mass hysteria jump into the 4th dimension dragging the entire planet into an inversion effect, inside outside and outside inside...” They laughed and laughed.
My eyes were nailed to the clock. Ten minutes... ten seconds... six... five... fo
*
chapter two
Thank God for that mosquito. It woke me up sweating, shaking.
She watched me, worried. I told her my nightmare, ending with... “...Extinction. Irreversible. What’s this?” I asked, pointing at the clock.
“Changed to summer time, four fifteen.”
“So it’s... three fifteen?!”
I started shivering and she laughed and laughed. Then she agreed to wait it out with me on a cup of tea, she watching a late night soap, I watching the clock. She also promised to mock me to the end of my days.
My eyes were nailed to the clock. Ten minutes... ten seconds... six... five... fo
You know, the most loyal animal is not the dog, it is the mosquito. We never leave you, even under threat of death by towel, palm, bat or 9mm. We care for your bodies, reducing blood pressure (not proven yet, it will), warning of incoming earthquakes (not proven yet, it will), using a buzz pattern to communicate with you (not proven yet, it will).
Join the power of trillions of mosquitoes, vote Mos Qui (sounds better, French) your loyal party to the parliament.
We are also poets (not proven yet, it will) so next time you hear that zing, sing!
The bible scribes had it wrong. It was the eleventh plague that forced Ramses II into releasing Israel. Not locusts, boils, first-born death... no, it was the undocumented mosquitoes plague. Ramses, fed-up with the interminable buzzing, itching, scratching, finally said: Go! And they went.
Suddenly, remembering that they took also all the sprays and creams with them, he rushed after them only to drown in the Red Sea.
The truth, finally out.
BTW, the real reason for the dinosaurs’ extinction? Mosquitoes, of course. Read my soon to come thesis on the subject. Nobel, Oscar, Pulitzer, Goncourt, Raspberry... here I come!
At 25, he had already PhD degrees in Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry and Shakespeare. And just started Microbiology.
When I asked him about eventual women in his life, he smiled knowingly then started enumerating: Marie Curie, Emmy Noether, Rita Levi-Montalcini... That kind of man. When I asked him if he knew how children are made, he was surprised and said he’ll Google it. That kind of man. When he invented transparent steel and sold the patent for a billion dollars, he kept one and donated the rest to cancer research. That kind of man.
Brilliant, innocent, naïve. That kind of man.
*
part two
“I am married,” he texted me one day.
“I am divorced,” he texted one hour later. “I suggested that we should teach also our neighbors how to make children, the way she taught me, and she left me. Strange. I wonder if more people know it, quite different from reading about it on Google.”
I heard later on that he was shot by a jealous neighbor when he suggested to teach his wife how to make children.
“I am not dead,” he texted me, “my second heart works perfectly. Strange people, my neighbors.”
Peace was declared. Our lawyers were disappointed, like vultures robbed of a corpse.
We decided to split everything fifty-fifty: cash, savings, house selling proceeds... of course we couldn’t split the kids, the dog, the cat, so we agreed to keep them on alternate weeks.
“But you can keep my half of mosquitoes,” she declared magnanimously.
“No, you can keep my half of mosquitoes,” I replied.
“No, you keep mine and also all those to come in the future.”
“No, you...”
Obviously, we disagreed on a crucial matter.
War was declared. Our lawyers were enthusiastic, like vultures entrusted with a corpse.
48 hours shore-leave. No hookers in dark alleys this time, but a high-class call-girl in a hotel. I counted my agonizingly saved dollars, five hundred in ones and fives, and made the call. We agreed on price, time...
She walked in, a dream in perfumes and chiffons.
“Nice accent,” she smiled, “Argentinian?”
“Rumanian,” I answered, handing her the thick wad. “Count!”
She slapped me so hard that the bills flew all over.
“Nobody calls me that,” she hissed, strutting out.
I started collecting the bills, eyes tearing. My next shore-leave will be spent on something else, I promised myself. Diction.
*
in 150
I had a 48 hours shore-leave. This time it was not going to be a hooker in a dark alley, but rather a high-class call-girl in a top-class hotel. I counted my hard-earned and agonizingly saved dollars (selling potatoes-peeling and decks-scrubbing shifts to my mates), five hundred of them, all in ones and fives, and made the call to the elegantly adorned phone number. We agreed on price, time, location...
I opened the door and she walked in, a dream in perfumes and chiffons.
“Nice accent,” she smiled, “Argentinian?”
“Rumanian,” I answered, embarrassed, handing her the thick wad of bills. “Count!”
She slapped me so hard that the bills spread all over the floor.
“Nobody calls me that,” she hissed, strutting out of the room.
I started collecting the bills from the floor, my eyes tearing. My next shore-leave I will use them for something else, I promised myself. Diction.
“Not all heroes are dead,” I consoled her. I was referring to myself, of course, especially after allowing her to copy from me during five examinations, and she got even higher grades somehow. I was sure she would suddenly realize it, get up, rush my way...
She got up, rushed my way, rushed past me and took in her arms a somnolent Oscar meowing his protest. Well, Oscar was a hero of sorts, having caught at least one mouse every single day.
I sat down obviously obfuscated, and reverted to my pass-time and hobby: knitting sweaters. For Oscar, of course.
Mine was a placebo, I knew immediately. Movements clumsy, gasps exaggerated...
We were ten testers, male/female, testing the new generation of placeboes, robotic sex toys advertised as “undistinguishable from humans”. They always threw in surreptitiously two-three high-class human prostitutes as test group, and twice I lucked out spending the night with one such. Job perks.
My night over, I stated filling the report as she emerged from the bathroom (part of the programming).
“What is this?” I asked, horrified, pointing at the blood-stained bedsheet.
She crumbled, crying.
“I needed the money.”
We started dating. We married. A first son followed.
*
in whatever
Mine was a placebo, I knew it right away. Her movements were much too clumsy, her gasps were slightly too exaggerated, her smile did not seem to reflect inside her stony regard...
I took pride, though pleasure as well, in my job. We were ten testers, a varying mix of male/female characters, with some returning more than once for the peculiar assignment, and I was one of these. It was a nice student job, well paid, and let’s admit that no one really forced me into it.
We were assigned to test samples of recurring generations, or rather versions of the placeboes, the robotic sex toys “undistinguishable from humans unless cut or X-rayed” as the factory advertising claimed. Placebo was, of course, an internal name, to the world they were Daisy and Robert and Marilyn and similar, rechargeable, reprogrammable and... returnable. After all, some customers were becoming “serious” after a playing-around while.
The factory’s QC always threw in surreptitiously, for test purposes, two-three real human high-class prostitutes into the tested mix, to be used as a test reference group, never telling us which was which, and twice I was the lucky one to spend a night with one such. Job perks, ha-ha. Of course, I never told them that I always could identify a placebo and they did not seem to care. All they wanted was a honest assessment and a honest report the morning after, which is what I always delivered.
My assignment was manufactured to look twentyish (most of them were), blonde (half of them were), shapely (all of them were). My exciting (as almost always) night over, I sat down to fill the extended report form attached to the new version, just as she emerged from the bathroom (part of the programming, of course, “make them behave as realistic as possible”).
I looked her way and froze. “What is this?” I asked, horrified, pointing at the blood stain visible on the white bedsheet. She crumbled to the floor, crying.
“I needed the money.”
We started dating. We married. Our son was born last June.
I was the god of this universe. I gathered all its heroes and selected the one that will save it. Then I was the god of another universe and the same again.
Then another universe, and another universe, until I finished them all. It was a finite number, dreams, you know.
Then I was the god of all gods and universes and I chose the hero that will save them all. It was me. Then I woke up.
I peed, brushed my teeth, dressed, took my sandwiches, went to work.
This story started as a 100 words story. Then, while writing it, I saw that 100 words will not have the “power” to say all I wanted to say so I let it flow freely. However, since this is a 100 words book, there is a 100 words version after the “free words” one. So no one can blame me for criminal inconsistency, yey...
*
in whatever
She, my wife, being IQ 190 and jobless and restless, needed a complex hobby; so I found one for her: “What about all the legalistics surrounding stealing, honey?” Her eyes lit with a strange light and she kissed me passionately.
I lived to regret my proposition. I died too.
Our small apartment got soon so cluttered with the various paper publications and CDs and DVDs and newspaper cuts on the subject (and this was only regarding our state, she was going to get started on the 49 others) that it was difficult to find free tiles to step on anymore. “We need a bigger apartment,” she ventured but did not pursue the subject because I was jobless as well.
Three blissful social security years and a delightful daughter later, I finally found a job and returned home in a singing mood, proudly showing her the signed contract. And then she paled. And then her eyes clouded. And then I could almost hear that unexpected yet fatal (and final) snap in her mind. “The paper clip?!”
“What about the paper clip?”
“Did they put it there?”
“No, I picked it up from the HR director’s desk.”
Paleness turned lividity and lividity turned faint before she recovered and was able to articulate a meaningful combination of words again.
“Unclip it and tomorrow take it back, I hope they will forgive you. This is theft of company property.” She started biting her fingernails and I was afraid she would lose them so I promised to do as she asked. “On second thought, just take it back and don’t tell anyone, just make sure you wipe it clean of fingerprints.”
“Love, you cannot pick fingerprints from a paper clip.”
“They can – Police, FBI...”
“CIA...” I attempted good humored mockery but I was wrong to attempt it.
“The I is for International, they are not involved.”
“FBI has an I as well.”
“This is for Internal, moron.” There was no good humored mockery in her answer.
“And the I in your IQ is for Imagination,” I didn’t say, just thought. Too viciously, maybe?
I wiped it clean. I also sandpapered it, burned it over a candle, boiled it in milk... making sure she witnessed each stage, nodding approval. Then I took it back, hidden in my sock.
But events started multiplying. I tried to disregard, accommodate, argue softly... did you ever hear of a snapped twig unsnapping. Probably you didn’t. Probably you never will because it can’t. She couldn’t. And the constantly hanging third degree “menace” got me fragilized to a point that if you hit me with a soap bubble I would keel over.
We had to soundproof the apartment (stealing sound waves from the neighbors), I had to stop using the elevator (my weight being slightly over the calculated average allowed, thus stealing capacity), kiddy had to show us the soles of her shoes every time we left the supermarket (thus ensuring she did not get a fallen candy stuck to them, stealing property)... absence of intent, according to a penal code book from 1871 that she shoved under my nose, did not reduce by much the gravity of a perpetrated crime. OMG!
Yet, somehow, I survived. Until that fatidic day when we had this really big, really bad fight that there was no return from.
I took our daughter to work, she was three years old by then, and when we returned she kept babbling and babbling about the wonderfulness of dad’s playground and about all the aunties and uncles that were smiling at her and about all the drawings that she was drawing there (on paper sheets I brought from home, didn’t take any chances, you know; or so I thought)...
My wife paled (again), her eyes watching me accusingly (again).
“Did you bring the drawings home?”
“Papa would not allow me,” answered the little one, looked at me accusingly (kaì sú, téknon?) then rushed away to her room. My wife seemed temporarily relieved.
“Thank God, so the company ink stayed with the papers in the office, I guess it cannot be called stealing as long as the ink remained on the premises.”
“Yes, and I guess that the air I breathe there is also not stolen since it stays on the premises as well.”
“Hey, Joe, I hope you exhale each time, before exiting the company door to come home. This way you don’t take with you any air part that is company property.”
I was getting red in the face.
“Hey you back. And you, do you do it each time you leave a shop?”
“But of course, it’s self-understood, I thought you understood this point as well.” Questions were forming in her eyes.
“I did exhale before leaving papa’s office,” tweeted the little one and rushed back to her room. Well, clearly someone understood and clearly someone was getting one hell of an education on the subject of honesty. I started steaming, on top of the red in the face.
“And what about the dust on the soles of my shoes?” I bellowed (sounded more like a choking rooster). She laughed.
“Nothing to worry there, love, the street is considered a public space and we all share the dust.”
“I mean the dust on the soles of my shoes when I leave the office,” I countered sarcastically, and was immediately sorry at my outburst. She paled (again again) and left me there, her eyes filling with tears as she started tearing through all the publications, and the CDs, and the DVDs, finally after several hours of intense internet search she returned triumphantly to tell me that “since there is no way to differentiate the office dust from the home dust, any dust picked up on the soles of the shoes cannot be considered incriminating stolen property evidence.”
“Yes,” I countered, sarcasm returning and now boosted by increasing hunger pangs, “but what if I put new shoes on when leaving the office, what about the dust on the soles of the shoes then?”
She paled (again again again), then crumbled to the floor. “Now I will end up like Madoff’s wife,” she mumbled. And I was at the end of my tether as well.
“You can stop worrying, all your worries end tomorrow when I jump from the office building roof,” I screamed. My scream did not change her posture but seemed to return some color to her cheeks.
“Did you check who owns the air rights?”
It was my snapping moment, everyone has one.
“Do not worry. Instead, I will hang myself there.”
Suddenly she smiled, oh, she was so beautiful when she smiled. A rose’s pink returned to her face as she leapt up from the floor, descended to the cave and returned with a rope and a piece of paper in her hand.
“Here, and this is the receipt saying that I bought this rope and that it was not stolen,” she said, tears of happiness streaming down her cheeks.
I hanged myself, then and there. Did not even stop to wonder how the police were going to react when seeing that receipt with her name on it. Well, at least she would not end up like Madoff’s wife.
*
in 100
My wife was honesty obsessed. To extremes.
“The paper clip...” she paled, looking at my new job contract, “did they clip it?”
“No, I picked it from the HR desk.”
Her paleness deepened.
“Return it immediately, it’s corporate property, the FBI...”
Followed discussions about ownership of air breathed on company grounds, ink ownership on my daughter’s drawings in my office, dust ownership on my soles... I decided to commit suicide in the office. She paled (again).
“Wait!” She brought me a rope and a piece of paper. “Here, the rope receipt, proving you own it.”
In April this year I decided to finally contact him. I went to the garden and started shouting skywards: God, God, where art thou, I need thee. God, I need thy advice with this year’s tax declaration.
When he didn’t answer (busy? disinterested? language?) I climbed on the roof, to get closer, trying Hebrew this time.
I lived a frightening experience spotting a few burly white-dressed guys descending from a red-crossed vehicle and running towards me.
Now I am in hiding. God will find me, he is God after all. I still need this tax advice.
OK, so I wanted to have a story starting with OK and I just had it. Of course, it is more of a microessay than a microfiction, but this is my book and I do what I want, right?
Now the problem is... how do I finish it? 100 words don’t look like much when you have a lot to say but it is a hell of a lot when you have nothing much to say. But I will do my best, trial and erroring or bla-blaing some nonsense off my mind.
I had one of those adults-kids exchanges with my 4 years old.
“Daddy, does the word penicillin come from penis?”
I stumbled. Where the heck did he take the second word from?
“Listen, it’s silly...”
“Aha,” he lightened up, “so it’s a contraction...” contraction? “...of penis and silly. And sex is a contraction of satisfaction extreme so when I want ice cream I’ll ask for sex. And stork is contracting store kids...” It was getting out of control, he needed serious guidance.
“Peter,” I called my 7 years old, “do you have a moment?...” He consulted also me, at times.
Paleo 2.0 was a failure. I froze it and yanked it off the planet.
Paleo 3.0 was planned better. I was getting short on clay, ideas, patience. I created some carbon molecules, water, some DNA rules and went to sleep for a billion years. I was damn tired.
I woke up, horrified. All my plans went haywire, the only consolation being that the controlling species were busy exterminating themselves – burning, poisoning, choking... would save me some freezing and yanking. I went to sleep for another billion years, let them finish the process.
When I say my memory is failing she laughs, delightedly.
When I say I have budding symptoms of Alzheimer she dances and claps her hands, enthusiastically.
I wonder, are all wives as proud and supportive of their husbands’ achievements?
(Needless to say I am/have none of the above, but I have to bring joy into her life. I have to be careful, though, not to overdo it or she’ll start suspecting foul play and the bouts of joy will be gone.)
Another one of those “started as a 100 words story then...” so... get used to it. May be not the last of its kind. The 100 words version follows, of course.
*
I had a boring job, but I did not mind as it was paying my studies. I worked at the university for professor Zandt, and my job consisted in calculating G, the gravitational constant, on a daily basis, based on a piece of equipment developed by him.
As the name implies, G is an absolute constant, same like Pi, no deviations or tolerances there. However, while Pi is a mathematical constant and is theoretically calculated, G is a physical constant and is calculated based on empirical data, i.e. measurements. Therefore its precise value was a matter of debate and experimentation for... centuries. It still was.
I did not question the roots to my professor’s obsession with the value, I was just running the experiments, daily, calculating the result and noting it in a paper notebook. Yes, paper; professor Zandt believed that important facts are to be stored on physical media rather than be entrusted to the whims of computer memory. Of course, secretly I kept the results also on in an XL table.
The notebook went back about 15 years, and leafing through it I found slight deviations between the measurements, positive or negative, as boring as my job. This, of course, due to experiment related inaccuracies: measuring person, equipment tolerances, environmental fluctuations and the like (all of which parameters were registered as well). After a couple weeks on the job I was reduced to measuring, calculating and jotting down the results, not even paying attention to them.
That’s why I was mildly surprised when one end of month, after I showed them to my professor, I saw him raising an eyebrow as his eyes turned upon me, inquisitively:
“And what do you think of it? When did you have the equipment calibrated last time?”
The following end of month a grimace added itself to the raised eyebrow. And the month after a wrinkle added itself to the grimace. I wasn’t really sure what was bothering him, the G numbers were their usual average value, but I started getting worried once he decided to join the measurements and calculations sessions on a daily basis. I don’t think he did not trust me, he was probably seeing something which bothered him but wasn’t’ so obvious to me, not yet.
Finally I dared ask him the question, and his answer unsettled me.
“Well, Jake, I hope I am wrong, I damn well hope I am wrong. Can you please copy the last 12 months G values into the computer and bring them up on a graph?”
I did not have to copy them, I had them already in my XL file and I brought the graph up within minutes of his request. He did not even complain. Well, what I saw was the G values settle around some imaginary horizontal average, above or under it due to the afore mentioned tolerances, nothing special there.
“Apply a 1000 magnification.” I did. “Draw a regression curve based on the points.” A regression curve, of course, approximates the theoretical value around which the empirical values oscillate.
“Linear?”
“Fourth degree polynomial.”
I was surprised at the request – why look for a curve where there is just a straight, horizontal line? But he was my employer and I did not ask any question that might highlight some incompetence or inattention on my part.
“Here we go.” I pushed the button and I gaped. Incredulity drove my fingers to choose a small portion of the graph and without asking permission I pushed for a 10000 magnification. The calculated line was slightly curved and clearly not horizontal – it carried a distinct predilection to move lower in value.
“Calculate the curve.” The computer obeyed my shaking fingers and the exponent number against the t hit me like a hammer. The t was scaled in days but it did not matter at all what units were used. “Go into predictive mode.” His voice sounded dry, strained, hollow. I pushed the button. Then I instructed the computer to calculate the impact point where the curve would strike the horizontal time axis, and we both looked at the resulting number stupidly.
“Where are you going, professor?” I asked, my voice not mine. He dropped his white coat on the back of a chair, picked his hat from the coat hanger and turned to face me.
“Take care to inform whomever you think should be informed. The universe will end much earlier than...” he looked at the graph’s impact on the t axis “much earlier than 7072 days from now. Probably when G will get around seventy-eighty percent of today’s value. I want to be with my family. Good bye, Jake.”
G could not change, it was a constant, it was part of the unwritten laws of the universe, it could not change any more than Pi could change, it could not change any more than... I kept looking at the graph, knowing the futility of trying to find snags in the equipment, or errors in the calculations or bugs in the programs used. Gravitation was disappearing, imperceptibly now but at an accelerating rate. I wondered when and how we will start feeling the effects. Was it universal?... probably yes. Will we start feeling lighter before Weight Watchers will feel there is some anomaly at play? Will water from the seas start floating into air before humans do, will air float away into space before waters from the seas, will the sun start expanding and swallow its planets before all this floating starts? When will the entire range of universal bodies disintegrate into aimlessly wandering dust without any chance for coagulating resurrection? I asked myself, without really caring for an answer.
Gravity is the traffic cop of the universe, was one of professor Zandt’s preferred expressions.
I did not have any hat to pick up. I just dropped my coat on the same chair he did and went to be with my family. I didn’t even bother to turn off the lights.
*
the 100 words version
The job was boring but paid my studies. I measured and recorded the gravitational constant G for professor Zandt, daily. Statistics, probably. Everything was recorded on paper, 15 years now, by a variety of students.
I showed him the last results and for whatever reason his face darkened.
“Oh, God...”
Following month he joined me in the lab.
“Show me a graph, fourth degree polynomial.” I showed him. “Oh, God...”
He left without a word. I looked at the graph, transfixed. G was diminishing at an accelerating rate reaching 0, i.e. the end of the universe, in exactly 7072 days.
Colonization Report: Earth (translated to native gibberish as per protocol)
Synopsis
Strange planet. Billions of species contrary to evolutionary 1-2 expected. Three major families:
1.Microscopic, the most powerful, no tools. Chemical communication.
2.Vegetal, the key provider of life supporting CO2, no tools. Unclear communication.
3.Animal, the strangest, some tools, varied communication. The controlling species composed of basic units including man, woman, dog. Communication by pheromones, air vibration and random direct physical interface reserved man to woman accompanied by strange, irrational grunts. Dog communicates also with tail.
Recomnmendation1: avoid colonization unless disposing of 1&3.
Recommendation2: return 1000 years from now, 1&3 expected to disappear due to internal and external species conflicts.
She carried a disillusions bagful: divorce, depression, a married man... Only a hurricane could sweep her again off her feet. A hurricane it was.
So when he finally kneeled in front of her, she said “No, please get up.” Then she kneeled in front of him. “Will you marry me?”
*
slice 2
“Who marries at 60?” asked her son, incredulously.
“60 year old people,” she answered, sipping her chocolate.
“Maybe... a side effect?” tried her daughter.
“I gave up side effects ten years ago,” she smiled.
“Does he love you?” asked her divorced daughter.
“I adore him,” she answered and stopped listening.
*
slice 3
They were married, separately. Yet, they were in love. Maybe because of it.
“Life robbed us of our happiness.” They kissed a long, final kiss... “...that should hold for the rest of our life. Luckily not much left,” he said.
“Lucky you,” she said, her sadness cutting him to ribbons.
*
slice 4
“Marriage should not be a legal institution, should be a mental institution,” she said, half joking. “You understand my meaning?”
“Marriage should not be an institution, should be a philosophy with adepts and detractors. And free will,” he said. “You understand my meaning?”
She understood.
“And happiness.”
“Correct.”
They married.
*
slice 5
Once upon a time there was a happy couple. Then they married.
They were still happy.
Several universities’ teams researched the matter until... they gave up.
A TV show host asked openly: “What is your secret?” to which they laughed before they answered. “We’re in love. What is the question?”
I got this sudden, uncontrollable desire for... boiled eggs.
It was unconceivable that I was pregnant; sure, would welcome the million dollars offered for the first pregnant male. Just for the heck of it I bought a pregnancy test, peed on it... the color was anything but pregnant. Pity.
So I boiled two eggs. Peeled. Salted. Delighted. Just to play it safe I bought another pregnancy test (the pharmacist hesitated between selling and running... selling won). Same. Pity.
I hope next time I will get this uncontrollable desire for herring. Better pregnancy chances over herring, as I have once read.
It was his hundredth “saved someone from certain death” act. ER was his Life, he wouldn’t have changed it for any other kind of practice, public or private, be it as remunerative as possible. Seventy-five men, twenty-two women, two dogs, one hedgehog. At that moment he looked neither old nor young, neither man nor woman, he looked... Doctor.
“Doctor, how does it feel to fight off death on so many occasions?”
“It feels great, beating it at its own game. And though it will surely strike again later on, pushing anew a deathly sword through Death’s heart feels good. Feels...God.”
Just store some tons of organic ashes, vegetation mainly, then sell by weight to interested parties. People who spilled the dear one’s ashes and were sorry, people who wanted urns in several rooms, people with a macabre sense of decoration...
It took off like fire. Ideas kept popping up, like mix ashes with real DNA, jars with (supposed to be) celebrity ashes, ash’n’confetti showers... All I had to do was sell my ashes, the buyers were free to enterprise anything.
I did my first billion in one year, the second started.
Airport Immigration. Similar to IRS, only tougher. The old couple approaching me stood no chance.
“Your reason for visiting America?”
“Gooder life.”
“Better.”
“Gooder. Badder was there.” He beamed my way gold-plated incisors, his wife joining.
“Family?”
“Family?” he echoed.
“Hotel?”
“Hotel?”
“Passports, sir!”
He held the passports between thumb and forefinger, three fingers missing and the thumb tattooed a thick cyrillic ‘Stalin’. Like the hand my mom described carrying her from the Auschwitz gates to the medical tent... ‘I weighed nothing.... he was so strong...’
I scribbled a number.
“Family. Welcome to America, sir,” I said, my eyes flooding.
We have an international language. It is called barking. We all understand each other. Humans have thousands of languages, punished by their God for a crime they committed, for all crimes they committed and were going to commit later on. Strangely enough their God punished them also for their love. Job, for loving God. Jesus, for loving humanity. Martin, for loving freedom. Adam and Eve for carnal love. Maybe warnings, maybe lessons, maybe... errors?
I guess humans need a God. Luckily, we don’t have a God. Luckily we don’t need one, we don’t commit crimes. We love, our only vice.
*
dog two
They love their God. Their God loves them back. Conditions attached.
We love them too, no condition attached. Be they old, young, sick, crippled, men, women, children, whatever race, whatever mood, whatever handling they handle us.
They love us too, sometimes. They also kick us, experiment on us, abuse us, starve us and sometimes even, oh horror, eat us. And yet we still love them. We love them more than they love their God. We love them more than their God loves them. More than they love themselves.
They call it genetically. We call it differently. We call it godly.
dog three
*
One day God called a few of us to chat about humanity.
“How do you do it?” he asked. “How do you keep on loving my creation when I, myself, doubt my love for them and at times feel like erasing the board?”
We looked at each other, I mean us dogs to us dogs, wondering how he, God, does not know the answer to such a simple question.
“We give the only things they need. Love. And we expect nothing in return. So we are never disappointed.”
We left God scratching his head, in wonder at his own creation.
There are no guards there. No admission fees, road tolls, customs officers or any kind of officers. Trespassing is allowed and even encouraged without facing fine sentences or jail sentences or death sentences... ha!... you’re dead already when you get there. The realm. Death’s realm.
Billions of gates, they should have WELCOME written over them in billion Earth languages if you take in consideration also dogs and spiders and flies and banana trees and everything else that lives and dies.
Yeah, billions of gates, yet some highly intelligent highly skilled individuals decided, designed and built two more. Showers. And chimneys.
The world thinks of Pinocchio as a story. The world thinks of Geppetto as a story. The world thinks of Pinocchio in the whale as a story plagiarizing the bible. Haha, the world doesn’t know.
The only story in the story is Pinocchio turning flesh and blood. Kids need a happy ending, you know.
My assumed name is Jean Pierre, trying to honor my father’s name, Geppetto. Our neighbor was someone called Collodi, a friend of my father’s. Rings a bell? I am 140 years old now. I am... Pinocchio.
My wife’s gone lately bananas on it. It started logically... milk, meat, drugs. But suddenly it expanded into almost (almost?) mania.
I started worrying for real when she banned toilet paper from use, since it carried no expiry date, favoring newspapers (dated, thus controllable). A few incidents further it climbed a notch higher when we were burglarized and she insisted that the burglar shows her the dates on the bullets, just in case she gets shot.
Of course, it all went ballistics when she shut me out of our bedroom. How do I know your sperm’s expiry date? she inquired.
A cop lay there, bleeding. One bullet through the liver, one lodged in his kidney. No one had called an ambulance yet. A passer-by spat his way.
At home his wife was finishing dinner preparations, her husband’s mom recipe. Their three years anniversary. His son was doodling what he believed was a drawing of the family. Only the dog, knowing dog-mysterious-ways something was wrong, sat by the door whining softly. It didn’t touch the biscuit its mistress tossed its way.
A cop lay there, bleeding. A people loving cop. Another day on the job, his last day on the job.
Flies are some of the most misunderstood animals. Humans are trying to communicate with extra-terrestrials while not being able to communicate even with intelligent species here, on Earth. Flies, human lovers of first degree. Touching the corners of eyes to gaze into their depths, touching the corners of mouths to kiss lovingly, touching open wounds to heal and soothe. Oh, such a tragedy this inter-species gap, this racial cleansing humans perpetrate with such impunity.
I know. I am a fly.
So how come I can write these things? Why do you ask, you will not understand anyway, you are human.
My mother wasn’t Jewish, yet she could have run circles around yiddishe mames. She wanted me to take to college my bed, my wardrobe, my “aunt Sonja” dishes... I almost had to tear away from her embrace, promising to call every day.
A knock on the door. “Mom, what are you doing here?”
She stormed in and sat on the bed completely disregarding my bewildered girlfriend under the covers. “You didn’t call. Are you okay? Brought you soup. Brought you clean underwear. Brought...”
I lost my girlfriend that day. She just dressed quietly and left. Pity, I liked her tremendously.
This was the only indefinite integral I ever encountered that I couldn’t solve, and I tried all documented and undocumented tricks; it distressed me. Then, just by accident, I happenchanced upon this young Chinese prodigy (and show-off) solving it on YouTube, and it pissed me off tremendously. OK, so he got his doctorate age sixteen. OK, so he owned three Guinness records. OK, so he was a Nobel Prize candidate. So what? What gave him the right?
O, God, I hate Chinese. It was probably to compensate for a small penis. Or worse, he was gay. Or, worse, a communist.
"Man’s chest: hammer, file, spanners, screwdrivers...” I continued for 10 minutes. “Woman’s chest: round mirror, square mirror, cracked-to-2 mirror to limit the number of bad years, big brush...” I continued for 10 hours. “This is the portable version. The un-portable version...”
“You are a misogynist,” she concluded.
“I am a women lover,” I countered.
“Prove it!”
I proved it. Put a kiss on her mouth, put a rock on her finger, put a baby in her belly and stayed home to raise it. Also put wheels on her un-portable version.
I was a hit-man. The perfect professional. Feared. Respected. Had my own deontology... work only inside criminal circles, never make targets suffer...
Everybody knew, yet I was never even questioned. Wasted effort.
The chatty oldie joined me at the bar. “You know, I also was a professional, never wanted them to suffer. So I gassed them first, only afterwards burned them.”
I guess he awaited co-professional praise. I pulled my piece and shot him. He didn’t suffer. Then waited for the cops.
When asked the inevitable “Why?” I just smiled. “Professional courtesy,” I answered.
His skin was coal-black, his build medium, his fierceness handling the gladius incomparable to anything human. I was his centurion and yet, I was scared of him. Khnum. An Egyptian.
Caesar collected him somewhere along the Nilus and assigned him to the tenth legion, to me specifically as part of his personal guards. I never asked Caesar how he identified his personal recruit’s arms-handling capability, maybe on Cleopatra’s advice? But once I’ve seen him in action I was dumbfounded. He could easily vanquish ten opponents, he could easily vanquish twenty opponents. Thank Jupiter he is on our side, I once told Caesar, and he laughed appreciatively.
He gained the respect of his fellow legionaries very easily. A few skirmishes, a few fights and his place within us was uncontested.
We started calling him “goat herder”. Whenever everyone else was busy robbing, raping, drinking, Khnum was wandering the killing fields looking for goats. Herding them together and making sure they were well cared for wherever we were going. “Not food,” he kept repeating and no one in his eighty strong centuria dared even joke about it.
Even I hesitated, before finally asking him: “Khnum, do you know to count? How many goats you have?” I believe it was the first time since I met him that a white crescent separated the top of his cranium from the bottom of it, and he raised both palms twice and then one once. “It’s called twenty-five. I need five more,” he raised one open palm again.
It took him about one year to get that far, never interested in gold or salt or silks, these he left to the others. His only interest was goats. “What for goats, Khnum?” I asked further, offering him a flask of wine. He refused. “It dulls the senses. To pay for the woman I love.”
I was probably really dull of senses at the moment and it took me quite a while to separate and assimilate what he was saying. Kind of like in stories that old, blind men were telling for a dinar. Warring, I understand. But love?
Four months later he left with his thirty goats. Not even Caesar dared object. I could not help thinking, years later, that had Khnum accompanied Caesar to the senate on that fateful day, there would certainly have been sixty dead senators and one living Caesar left on that floor.
*
in 100
Khnum. Coal-black, medium build, fierce with a gladius. Could easily vanquish 10-20 opponents.
Caesar “collected” him along the Nilus (Cleopatra’s advice?) and assigned him to my centuria. Even I was afraid of him.
Strange man. Everyone looting, raping drinking, he was collecting... goats. One day I dared ask him why. He smiled (a first): “to pay for the woman I love”.
Love? I was thunderstruck.
At thirty goats he left, even Caesar did not dare stop him.
I kept wondering, years later: had he gone with Cesar on that fateful night, sixty senators would be dead and one Caesar alive.
There she was, resplendent in her black-and-white servants’ uniform, Madame paling in comparison with all those colors in her robes and jewels and on her face. And here I was, came to woo Madame and wishing to woo Maiden.
“Will you follow me?”
“To the ends of the world,” she said taking my hand and jumping behind me on magnificent Rocinante, her budding breasts pushing against my back as we trotted into the night, leaving Madame cursing behind.
We weren’t yet at the ends of the world when she stole all my coins and trotted into another night.
“I went to the new Welfare Chief Administrator’s rally, God, is she both good looking and articulate. Even children cheered loudly. She drowned us in F-words but wouldn’t let us sink, kept us floating at all times... ha, float, also an F-word but 5-lettered, haha.”
She watched me, strangely.
“Have you lost your marbles or are your hormones talking? She peppers her speech with Fuck in front of children and you admire that?”
It was my turn to watch her strangely.
“Fuck? What the fuck you talk about? Fair! 4-lettered used in almost every sentence, what‘s on your mind, woman?”
Money. Millions. Some steal it, perfectly illegal, some make it, perfectly illegal or legal, some marry it, perfectly legal. I married it. Then I lost it, legally, on Wall Street.
I tried stealing it, certainly illegally. Then I lost it again, legally, playing Roulette.
Now I try making it, legally. I’ll never make it legally since I keep losing it, legally. IRS.
I guess law-abiding citizens are cursed. Luckily some, like me, are compensated with perfectly immoral, decadent, libertine partners that make them forget anything about legalities. Invaluable partners. And none of Wall Street, Roulette, IRS can touch them. Legally.
Sometimes Oh, no! is a precursor to... Oh, no! further down the line. Like Moses descending Mount Sinai and finding the golden calf. Like Jesus learning about Judas’ betrayal. Like Caesar falling under Brutus’ blade.
Sometimes it’s a precursor to an Oh, yeah! further down the line. Like Fleming finding a mold destroying his Petri dish culture. Like Newton getting conked with an apple. Like Pemberton screaming at his assistant for mistakenly using carbonated water instead of tap water.
And sometimes it’s neither, or... both, like when I found my lover sharing her love with other lovers. Damn! And Hallelujah!
The 27th generation born in space and finally reaching their destination, the source of that gold plated message sent by the only other known civilization in the universe.
An unmistakable Pi in binary was placed to loop on the vessel’s short range transmitters, a greeting to be understood by any intelligent entities receiving it. Then they primed themselves for the first inter civilizations meeting ever: attire, gifts, speeches, binary symbols.
They landed.
John Henry lifted his leg and let the boot fall with a thunderous clap. “Damn cockroaches,” he muttered, wiping his boot on the threshold rag.
I set out to write a 100 words story, which I did. But somehow it didn’t feel complete (one of those) so I decided to complement it with a whatever-it-takes words story. And this time I start with the longer version, otherwise, the shorter one, will kill the inevitable twist that a short story must (mostly) have.
*
I was a doctorant in Nuclear Physics, not the best-in-class type. A run-of-the-mill-runt definition would have had certainly applied to me and the only reason I followed my studies was that: a) my rich parents conditioned my allowance on the fact; and b) the university enjoyed their generous donations so none of the many esteemed professors I encountered on my way were inclined (or allowed) to fail me.
To make it clear – I wasn’t a complete idiot, but my attention was focused more on the one called Laura (assistant to my assigned professor) than on the one called Johnson (my assigned professor). I did enjoy also a cold beer, a lazy broil on the beach and a good sci-fi novel. I won’t specify whose sci-fi novel, I am not about to advertise anything for free – that much I did learn from my father.
The subject of my doctorate was around radioactive decay of isotopic elements, nothing earth shaking, a rather benign, tame subject in which my professor (and my parents and Laura as well) hoped I would not fail. After all, all I had to do was tailor the mathematics (at which I was quite good) around one of my professor’s theories, write a computer program for it and voilà – I get my PhD in physics and professor Johnson gets a nice bonus check from my father.
Did I mention higher up that I was a dreamer? Outside the Laura sphere and spell as well? Well, I was and one day, or rather night, I found myself emulating the famed Archimedes’ Eureka when I jumped out of Laura’s bed (it was bigger than mine) in my underwear and started hopping all around the room screaming Eureka!... Eureka!... The calling had nothing original to it but my inspiration... by God, the hell with professor Johnson and his subject, suddenly I got MY own subject and MY own idea to chase so I sat straight away at Laura’s opened laptop, skipped all the proposed continuations to the porn film we watched together earlier on and started typing formulas like a maniac. Told you, I was good at math, I didn’t know how good I was until that Eureka moment.
It took me exactly two weeks and three days. Laura gave up on trying to bed me after exhausting her entire lingerie collection, Professor Johnson gave up on threatening me with a big fat F, even my indefatigable father stopped trying to bribe me away from the screen with various new models of cars. Joe was finally on the path. Joe was finally clear which direction he was going and nothing but a new piece of lingerie on Laura could have dragged him away from his calculations (luckily, she did not know it at the time).
“You’re an idiot!” concluded Professor Johnson, after reading carefully my entire analysis, and handing me back the thick sheaf of partly printed and partly hand-written papers. He offered me to pick-up the original doctorate thesis and get it to a final conclusion or to F me right away. It was a strange moment, the first time in all of our encounters where he said he was ready to F grade me, seemingly having forgotten that fat bonus check promised to him by my father. He seemed, actually, to be quite irritated by my insistence that we go through my papers again, which we did. He did not retract the earlier idiocy statement, rather doubled it. Laura was trying desperately to catch my attention and to signal me to accept his proposal. I think the poor girl was seriously in love with me, not that I was indifferent to her.
I was crestfallen. Could it have been that I was so wrong all through my analysis and calculations, many of which professor Johnson easily shattered or dismissed as either incomplete or unorthodox, and that my entire thesis was a castle of cards, many of which were pulled away skillfully by my professor until said castle was busy now falling down into a pile of rubble at my feet?
Imagine we live in a 2-dimensional world, I replayed my solid(?) arguments literarily in my mind, knowing that each step had been mathematically supported. XY only, so we have no idea in our flat world that a third, Z dimension, exists. Then, for whatever reason, a piece of this world is whisked away in the Z direction, its place filled with our 2-dimensional air. We, the flat creatures inhabiting this world, have no idea how or where this missing piece disappeared since we are unaware and cannot sense in any way the 3rd dimension. Now imagine further that the disappeared piece of our world travels sideways in the 3rd dimension and lands back into our world elsewhere. What do we, as inhabitants of this 2-D world, think happened? A positional quantum leap. Size at this stage irrelevant, relevant is only the assumption of the travel through a dimension completely inexistent to our senses.
Now back to our Earth. We live in a 3-D world. My claim was that there is a 4th dimension and what we call quantum leap/skip/etc. is simple the moving through this 4th dimension. It could be maybe even T, time, I was still working on this eventuality because this would allow (theoretically) movement up or down time.
What I discussed with him was considerably more elaborated, hundreds of supporting formulas, graphs... he rejected my entire thesis, completely. With academic arguments of his own. Called me an idiot, twice. He was probably right, I felt like crying.
I closed the laptop, collected my papers and crawled slowly towards the door. Laura rushed my way and hugged me in a consoling manner, she almost succeeded.
“Hey,” she whispered in my ear, looking backwards, “I wonder what he is doing?”
I looked to Professor Johnson as well, and he was scribbling away like a madman, ferociously fast, ferociously concentrated, ferociously intent. He didn’t even hear me as I approached from behind and peeked above his shoulder.
The bastard!...
*
in 100 words
“I know how,” I blurted excitedly and my professor looked up. I continued, careless if he would fail me. “If we lived in a 2-dimensional world and a part would have ‘disappeared’ in a 3rd dimension, we would be completely baffled. And if it ‘returned’ elsewhere, we’d say it moved from place to place without traveling between.
Now, I claim there is a 4th dimension and any quantum leap is actually a passage through it,” I concluded enthusiastically.
His regard was... frightening? “Get out, idiot!” he shouted.
I turned at the door and, for whatever reason, he was scribbling frantically.
They stopped making love long time ago. Like a married couple. Hey, I said making love, not fucking, ok?
He watched TV alone, his preferred programs. He ate alone, preferred dishes. He shopped on his own, no need to pretend anymore he enjoyed her shopping. She watched TV alone, her preferred programs. She ate alone, her preferred dishes. She shopped on her own, no need to pretend anymore she enjoyed his shopping. They stopped kissing, they stopped patting each other’s behind.
Everybody was surprised when they parted, after that many years. Like a married couple... they forgot to love.
Her lover, named Rudolf (his mother loved Valentino): “...luckily Richter is an open scale, so her snoring could fit there, at the top of the scale...”
Her neighbor, named Sue (his mother hated Johnny Cash): “...I rushed the entire family out in their pajamas, I thought the house was coming down. I think I will sue [sic]...”
Her cat, named Mitzi (he would have preferred Tiger but nobody asked his opinion): “... my mistress purred so nicely, so powerfully, I wish she was a cat...”
The architect (sent by the city): “...no serious structural damage, needs some reinforcement and follow-up...”
85, still beautiful, sharp-minded, graceful... part of my Social Services graduation project research. She clearly didn’t belong to a ‘home’.
“I even bought ‘this’,” she said pointing to her smart-phone, “trying to fit-in with my kids, grandkids, the world. Facebook, Instagram... I’m still lost. Over-love, over-protection, over-control over my money and life, my kids got me committed here. While I, wanted to find a nice gentleman and roam the world. Instead, I rot here, in this golden cage.”
Her tear rolled and, for a moment, I felt ashamed to belong to the humans club.
They were approaching their mono-centennial fast, their shared bi-centennial even faster. The queerness of mathematics.
“You know,” he whispered, the only couple still on the dance floor, the others having retired already to their lusterless lives, “when making love I feel like a necrophile.” She exploded in a laughter that almost kicked her dentures out.
“And I like a necrophilee,” she retorted, his turn to almost lose his dentures.
“And dancing with you is my second most preferred activity,” he added.
The music ended and their retired to their room, for their first most preferred activity.
*
Calories
He ponderous. She voluptuous. They gracious.
“And voluminous,” she complemented, laughing heartily.
The orchestra was showing signs of exhaustion, nearing collapse with the present rock’n’roll at the dancers’ request, yet the indefatigable couple seemed as fresh as when the evening started. He made a move that at the dancing school was considered impossible, she followed easily ending with a graceful pirouette.
“Shall we give them a break?” he winked, “anyway we don’t burn sufficient calories on the dancing floor.”
They returned to their room, where the calories’ burning process got much more intense. Verging on smoke alarm proximity. Oh, Yeah!
*
They shoot horses, don’t they?
They watched the movie, hugging from start to end. They both had tears in their eyes.
“Jane was so beautiful...”
“Michael was so handsome...”
“Rocky was so horrible...” On this they both agreed.
They stood up, hugged each other, placed the soundtrack LP on the turntable and started dancing the film score, track by track. They were too old for it yet they persisted, to the end.
“Please, don’t shoot me, make love to me,” she was hardly able to breathe.
“Now?”
“Now!” she commanded, “I wish to turn misery into beauty.”
They certainly succeeded. To turn misery into beauty.
USA: buy suitable weapons for each family member – father a shotgun (one pellet will hit the bastard), mother an AK47 (budget reasons), kids each a Colt Magnum (to compensate for lost schooling), the baby a Derringer (safety above all).
UK: create a Virexit program applying visa checks, fingerprint checks, iris checks, earform checks, weight checks, and other checks (to immigrants, not to viruses, because everyone knows immigrants are to blame for the viruses).
Belgium: one more government (now eleven active), one more health minister (now eleven active), one or two or n more taxes (now countless active)... virus? what virus?
*
some other
Israel: one more party (now 120 parties for 120 places in the Knesset [parliament]), each one a seat, each one knows best how to fight the plague if only the others would accept...
Russia: vodka.
China: we did our part, your (world) turn now.
Saudi-Arabia: masks are not being accepted as niqab replacement.
North Korea: North Korea! North Korea!!! Hello! Anybody there?
France: we will strike against the virus. Then we will strike against those striking against the virus. Then we will strike against all strikes preceding our strike until the following strike. Merde, citoyens, what did we strike for?
*
some other other
Colombia: finally they have other worries (quote from drug lords latest meetings protocols).
Romania: (those in need of vaccines)... what with do we bribe those supplying the vaccines? (those supplying the vaccines)... what do we accept as bribes from those needing the vaccines?
Yemen: once we’ll stop worrying about bullets then we’ll have time to worry about viruses.
Sudan: once we’ll stop worrying about filling our bellies we’ll have time to worry about viruses.
Turkey: investigates ways to expulse the virus alongside ten ambassadors seen as interfering in its internal affairs.
...based on historical, real facts told from father to son to grandson to grandgrandson to xgrandgrandson (or mother... daughter, if you prefer), the following harrowing, epic story proves beyond doubt that we are NOT at the top of the food chain on Earth... maybe it’s time we find a new planet?...
************************************
I’m trapped in a cartoon. Where I’m Tom and he’s Jerry. I Bluto and he Popeye. I Elmer and he Bugs. OK (political correctness obliging), he might be a... she.
The rat invaded my cellar whenever, and proven since to be... indestructible. Tried (humanely, mind you, I’m humane to all except mosquitoes and some humans) to trap it with cheese. He disregarded it. Then more cheese. The ‘more’ disappeared, the trap did not click. Then meat, chocolate, viagra, botox... he eats everything except for the part triggering the hook.
I despair. Is he more intelligent than humans? Than... me?... boo-hoo!!!
*************************************
...I wonder if I should go to Pulitzer or Pulitzer will come to me...
It was that special time of the year, when I was thirteen. Sure, every boy is thirteen at least once in his lifetime, but not every boy knows he’s going to live forever and knows he hates girls with a passion that only a boy can feel. I was that unique boy. I knew all these things, and I was so ashamed that I almost burst crying with my head buried deep into my pillow and the smell of my just passed away dog enveloping me with the warmth that only the smell of a boy’s just passed away dog can envelop. I fell in love with a girl. And the following day’s evening I was departing to a faraway place and leaving her behind with her age of twelve. It was that special time of the year for her too. I didn’t think she hated boys and I knew she couldn’t live forever, the way I would. I was wise beyond my age, but I didn’t even know the distance in kilometers to that faraway place, I just knew ‘far away’. Shame, pain, were eating me alive.
Our parents were upstairs saying goodbye the boring way that grown-ups say goodbye to each other, knowledge of imminent death sometimes in the future coloring their thoughts and words. They didn’t really care about us kids saying goodbye to each other and we were sitting on the bench in the garden, our shoulders and hips squeezed tight, my left hand venturing around her shoulders in search for god knows what, my right hand venturing under her skirt in search for god knows what, our mouths squeezing for a few seconds the way I saw once in a movie with additional details missing. I hated girls when seeing that movie so I never wondered about the additional details, that scene was anyway a waste of screen time and delaying the more important action to come. None of us said ‘I love you’ because it was both shameful and unnecessary, but she cried first and I followed and when we heard our names called we jumped meters apart and ran towards the voices. We were never that close again until the train finally stretched the distance between us to a meaningless number. The curve in the tracks cut the line of sight much earlier than that.
I was right then, now I know, I was right then about many things. The parents’ imminent death. The shame, the pain, the buds of love. I was wrong then about many things as well. My immortality. My love forever. My belief in an ‘after’ to follow the ‘before’. I am busy now building my castle of eternal memories, knowing it will crumble into nothingness together with me, yet for as long as mortality allows, the corner stone of that first touch will keep my castle as strong and proud as a steel monolith. Of course, once mortality disallows, steel turns potato mush and my eternal memories die with me. Oh, the wonders of chemistry, and eternity.
*
in 100
I was thirteen. I knew I’ll live forever, hate girls forever, I’ll... suddenly I knew nothing. I fell in love. A girl. Twelve years old. Oh, the shame, the pain, the heartbreak learning I was going to part soon faraway.
Last day. Parents saying goodbye, we saying goodbye, how do you say goodbye to the girl you hated forever, will love forever? In the garden, on the bench, one arm around her shoulders one arm under her skirt, lips glued clumsily the way we saw in movies.
Now, ages later, knowledge, memories. I know I’ll die. Oh, wonders of life.
Do you allow your smartphone to complete words for you?
I do, with at times embarrassing results.
“...you are facing this impotent (important) decision on your seventieth (seventeenth) birthday, oh, poor organ mime (orphan mine), your worms (worries) are mine and I want to help. It’s a boobs hang (boomerang) situation. Incest (invest) or sell is a difficult decision, especially in a diary fart (dairy farm), since there are so many wolves in shit (sheep) skin out there... butt do (but don’t) despair. I plan to scam (scan) all your parents’ accounts and provide a fuck (full) ass element (assessment) of the situation. Internally (eternally) yours, Martian (Martin).”
Variations possible.
*
Something romantic? Something like this?
“...that UN forgettable (unforgettable) moment with my mound (mouth) pressing against yours, the call of our floss (flesh) painting red lice (lace) on your checks (cheeks) , your breath burping (burning) the promise of absence (abstinence) into our bodies... oh, I feel so compote (complete) with you, so hapless (happy) next to you, my flesh feels so stiff (still) and lost within (without) you... love, I’ll call your name out lout (loud), I’ll sell (send) you pots (poems)... I crap (crave) for you... goat (God) be with you.”
Do you see any romance left after this?
*
Renting a house? Sending a message to the lucky one?
“...you will find sugar, salt, spiders (spices) in the drawers, wasted (washed) bedsheets on the bed, and other used (useful) items like dildo (dill), potatoes, cocaine (coca cola), etc. Baboons (babies) and dogs welcome. Most of the neighbors are greedy (great) they will exploit (explain) everything I do not exploit (explain) here. You’ll find bugs (books) in a variety of sizes next to the bed, the baloney (balcony) is great, overlooks the nearby cemetery (century) old grounds. To pay (play) the...”
“People are completely insane, they are buying Björn Borg’s underwear, ha-ha. I don’t remember him throwing it at the public after a match, like Elvis was throwing his sweaty scarves. Maybe I missed it? I hope someone washed it...” and I rolled under the table, hiccupping.
“Love,” she purred cautiously, “it’s new underwear, like Calvin Kline...”
I turned suddenly serious.
“Calvin Kline plays tennis? Throws his underwear to the public?”
I rushed away.
Well, she left me. She probably thought I was gay, while for me it was something else: a great investment opportunity.
“Every time I think ‘sex’ I sneeze,” I wrote her. We were still pen pals at the time.
“Strange,” she answered, followed by a smiley. Strange, I thought, no smiley following.
We met. She was beautiful, exquisite, cheerful... what have I done to deserve it?... I wondered. We kissed on the cheek, chatted, sat down to eat something, chatted some more. I was about to order another round of drinks...
I sneezed. She sneezed.
Wild laughter followed us all the way to the hotel. Our lives turned into a symphony of sneezes, pen palling turning into a secondary occupation. Yey!!!
*
s two
“I’m at the age when you either die or moan,” I said.
“Moan?” It’s not that she was dense or something, it’s that I was inarticulate or something.
“Yes, moan. Oh, my back, oh, my knee, oh, my brain, oh, my sex...”
“Oh my sex?”
“Sorry, typo, should’ve been ‘oh, no sex’.”
She watched me, quizzically.
“Listen, I can do nothing about the ‘oh, my’s but I can certainly do something about the ‘oh no’.”
“Something?”
“Yes, something, like ‘oh, yes’.”
Life was never the same. Even the ‘oh, my’s dissipated. It was she now with... ‘oh, my back’. Yey!!!
*
s three
Thirty years later I reached a respectable 101. Thirty years later she was still at a respectable 30.
“Hey, you didn’t change one bit,” I complimented. Actually it was true.
“Hey, you didn’t change one bit,”. she complimented back, and I had to turn my entire body (my neck was stiff, I wished the ‘rest’ was stiff as well) to see who she was talking to. There wasn’t anyone. Hey, can someone get Alzheimer at eternal 30?
We went the same (also eternal?) hotel. God, with this woman stiffness of the ‘rest’ seemed to be an eternal non-issue too. Yey!!!
Orthopedist: “Take pain killers. 50 Euros.” Didn’t help. “Take more pain killers. Do a radiography. 50 Euros.” Didn’t help. “Don’t know, take more pain killers. 50 Euros.” Didn’t help.
Went to a fingers specialist: “I think it’s this. Do an ultrasound. 70 Euros.” Did ultrasound. It wasn’t ‘this’. “Needs operation. 70 Euros.” An operation and 600 Euros later. “Come for a bandage change. 70 Euros.” I came. “Come for a check. 70 Euros.” I came. “Come again. 70 Euros.” I stopped coming.
Friendly advice: don’t go to Belgium for finger problems. You’ll get the... finger.
“I created greed?” He looked quite unhappy with Himself. “And indifference and arrogance and hypocrisy?”
“Yes, so we can appreciate generosity, and care and humility and honesty,” tweeted the human, voicing millennia of built-in indoctrination.
“And hate?”
“And love.”
“Without reason?”
“You have Your reasons,” continued the human the brainwashed path.
“One more peep of you and I turn your species into mosquitoes. This was so wrong, oh, Me, so wrong. It was probably a glitch.” He learned the expression from humans, of course He didn’t glitch. “Six days again, dammit.”
God is allowed to use ‘dammit’.
The human fainted.
*
godly, two...
“I’m fed up with them, hereby I banish Death from Earth,” was His final verdict.
Humanity rejoiced, thinking He was kinda senile to think of it as punishment; yet no one pointed it out to Him. “Except for that... business as usual? Wow!” said humanity.
They should’ve thought better. The no-death encompassed everything defined as alive by whatever definition: human, animal, vegetal, microbial... That meant no food, no space, endless pain... in a few years Earth turned a solid mass of barely squirming flesh and plant.
“Please, let Death in,” screamed those who still could.
He was kind-hearted. He did.
*
godly, three...
“I wonder what the world will look like a hundred thousand years from now?” said the human.
“You mean if there is no ecological, nuclear, astronomical, biological, social, genetical Armageddon?”laughed the one who could bring any of these, if He wished. The human squirmed uneasily. “OK, one scenario.” He liked His drama. “No more sickness. No more animals. No more sex. Children conceived from frozen eggs and sperm. Synthetic food from recycled organic matter with additives. Brain implants taking care of education and specialization. Limbs reduced to useless appendages. Mobility unnecessary. Obesity fashionable. Laughter forgotten...”
The human fainted. Again.
*
godly, four...
“Shall I tell you how the world looks a million years from now?”
The human fainted straight away.
God didn’t mind, after all he had eternity to wait. He prepared some biscuits and eventually the human woke up.
“You despise us, don’t You, You despise us, Your children. And yet, You are our father.”
God laughed good humoredly, this was one naïve human interviewing Him.
“A biscuit? I try new recipes, when I find a suitable one you will certainly be made aware.”
“For biscuits?”
“Also for biscuits.”
Well, you know by now how this human reacted to such news.
*
godly, five...
Several billion years later, several suns and trials later, He finally found the correct formula of creation. Some new isotopes of the five elements of life, combining them for so and so humans, so and so animals, plants, micro-organisms, etc. Took him a bit longer this time, seven days, but he was satisfied with the result. He decided to keep free-will as well... “I’m too old to play puppet-master...”
Well, it took twice as long this time for humans to wiggle their way to atomic bombs.
“No more!” He thundered, and chose an Armageddon. Then He opened His Lego box.
She doesn’t allow me to check her temperature... forehead, mind you.
She doesn’t allow me to fold her undergarments... socks, mind you.
When, mistakenly, I use her toothpaste, she squeezes out five inches before using it again. And if I mistakenly use her tooth-brush, she’ll shave its bristles before burying them alongside the handle in a one foot deep hole. Which I have to dig. And cover. A lesson of kinds.
Sex? Well... with three overlapping condoms... OK, I don’t mind, she insists on rolling them up herself; it’s burying them next to the tooth-brush that is my problem.
They are creators in their jobs, artists, masters... the guiding light of world’s lesser IRSs, yey!
Latest work of art: EVERY monetary transaction MUST be accompanied by a computerized receipt, giver and receiver (for balancing) linked directly to the ministry’s ever vigilant computers. This includes pocket money for the kids, money dropped to beggars, coins for supermarket trolleys, lost money (still debating how), coins tossed in fountains...
Peeping-Tom (so nicknamed) cameras pepper the landscape, the house interiors (except bathrooms, they claim), the pavement, a new industry is born!
The IRS world applauds. We, suckers, pay the machines. Yes! We! Suckers!
*
impact...
The supermarkets have to re-vamp their entire trolleys fleet. All kids have to download the ‘My IRS’ application. Beggars are issued ecological-sun-powered collection cups (free of charge up to ten reports per day). The prime minister proudly reports that money thus saved from potentially criminal citizens’ hands will be wisely invested in new parliaments, new ministers, new traffic lights [a traffic light every ten meters! he boasts], healthier food for ministers... and so on.
There may have been mentions about better conditions for police, teachers, nurses, I probably missed it in the overall enthusiasm.
The citizens applaud. Yes! Citizens! Suckers!
*
plans for the future...
Thankful for his knighthood, the IRS General Director exposes plans for future expansion: We started small, monetary transfers, next will be all material and immaterial transfers with implied monetary value that will have to be reported... toys offered, candies offered, kisses applied or implied, handshakes, poems recited, ink used for letters... thunderous applause follows, equating a Boeing 747 passing ten meters overhead.
And then, he continued emboldened by the wolf whistlers, the mascara milligrams under the eyes, the drops of sneeze when sneezing, the milliliters of air per breath... he was triumphantly carried out on strong arms.
Oh! Us! Suckers!
*
guests...
The world watches astounded as a UFO lands on the PM’s roof (damage was minimal). The PM immediately calls the IRS GD and media, for ...this is humanity’s first encounter with intelligence from Mars... who seemingly have learned of the wonderful IRS Belgium successes through stray TV radiation, and came down to investigate the situation directly.
After listening carefully, the little green men take out their ray-guns and fry everyone present, TV crew excepted. We saw famine, wars, plagues... this time it was too much. We had to intervene. Then they mount their UFO and fly away.
I poured a few drops on my tongue, almost chocked.
“Not my taste either.”
“You’re an idiot,” she blurted.
“And you’re a plagiarist,” I countered, reveling in my wit.
Three hours later we were divorced. Oh, we were married five hours already.
“You’re dead to me,” she screamed. Then we had sex. Nothing beats having sex with a widow. She even scribbled her phone on my chest. Damn!... how did she expect me to read it in the mirror. I started googling...
*
hmm, two
It was our third marriage each. In two days. With each other.
“Maybe we’ll make it into Guinness,” she smiled.
“Damn, I hate beer,” I said.
“We made it into Guinness,” she said, whatever she meant. It ws four marriage in less than four days. I was getting tired. “I’m getting tired,” she said. Damn! (again) she’s reading my thoughts, and I ran away forgetting to divorce. When I called to apologize she kept barking at me. Bitch! “I let my dog talk to you,” she confessed after a (later) orgasm. I wasn’t so sure. An FBI friend confirmed, though.
*
hmm, three
Don’t fight fate. There wasn’t place anyway on our fingers for additional wedding rings (we kept them all), so after seven divorces/marriages we decided it’s cheaper (lawyers) and more convenient (sex-as-and-when-you-wish) to just stay married. We even got pregnant twice.
“We?” Told you, she was reading thoughts.
“Why artificial insemination?” Didn’t tell you, I was reading thoughts as well.
“Guinness!” God, this beer obsession... Ten months later we got our first octuplet. Another twelve months and another octuplet. All alive. “Call Guinness,” she whispered.
She did not appreciate the gigantic keg. “Time to divorce again.”
“As you age, your life is invaded by poetry,” I stated, “things like, pardon my spelling, arthroz and psychoz and thromboz and varicoz and kolkhoz...” I was clearly getting carried away by my zeal.
“Yes,” she agreed enthusiastically as we doddered side by side into the sunset, “also, pardon my spelling, dementia and incontinentia and impotentia and intumescentia...”
We arrived, made love surrounded by the poetry of our bodies, then opened our little pill boxes. Oh, it was so good to wallow in poetry... sildenafil and pleconaril and alfentanil and nedocromil...
The sunset caressed gently our outsides, then our insides...
She had to win the Weight Watchers contest, all she needed was to shed a few extra grams.
She did everything possible: undressed stark naked, shaved head, armpits and... well... you know, cleaned any mascara, lipstick and nail-polish trace, removed the artificial eyelashes, cut fingers’ and toes’ nails, emptied bowels and kidneys, donated blood maximum possible, spit until she was dry like the Sahara... micrograms, just a few extra micrograms... she was about to cut her little finger... oh, divine, inspiration... she emptied her lungs for as long as it took to weigh... YESSS!!!... then she fainted. A winner, nevertheless.
Ghica is beautiful and poor. Ghicu is handsome and rich and sick. On his way to dialysis Ghicu falls in a lake and Ghica saves him, getting pneumonia. Ghicu pays for the only doctor in the world that can save Ghica. They find they are compatible and Ghica donates Ghicu a kidney. But she is losing her eyesight and he donates her an eye. They fall in love however Ghicu’s mother tells them they are actually siblings. Just as they are about to commit suicide Ghica’s mother says she is not Ghicu’s sister, it’s a mistake, his sister actually died.
*
season two
Ghica and Ghicu marry. Their mothers are unhappy, as teenagers they loved the same man, who finally died in war. Each mother tries to poison the other’s child, finally by mistake they drink the poison and die. The man who died in the war isn’t dead, he just suffered from amnesia and just recovered and is back. The dead sister is not dead, she was just sold to gypsies and now she’s back. The undead fall in love and want to take over the family fortune from Ghica and Ghicu. Ghica cannot get pregnant and blames Ghicu, who starts drinking.
*
season three
Ghica is treated in a fertility clinic. The undead (Ghihe and Ghishe) concoct an evil plan to have Ghihe’s seed used to get Ghica pregnant. Ghicu stops drinking and takes karate lessons instead. Ghica gives birth to triplets. When Ghihe claims he slept with her and these are his children, Ghicu karate-chops him and Ghihe loses the use of an arm and a leg. DNA proves the children are Ghicu’s, as a good-hearted nurse uncovered and overthrew the undeads’ plans. In a dream sequence the two mothers who poisoned each other make up. Ghihe sues Ghicu for his advancing paralysis.
*
. . .
*
season seven hundred ninety two
[We are thirteen generations later. The original protagonists are long dead. The new viewers’ generation demands heavy CGI and a touch of super-natural to keep their attention. A computerized Ghicu and Ghica are revived from cryogenic freeze and are now good-hearted zombies. A recent wolf-man character is attacking the heirs of the Ghicu & Ghica empire. The resuscitated heroes decide to employ Spiderman to help them out. Spiderman hates both zombies and wolfmen but can also breathe fire or ice, as he wishes. Spiderman’s DNA is traced back to Ghihe. Spiderman faces a dilemma, since he is wolf-man’s half brother.]
*
. . .
*
season much-much-later
[Earth is about to fall in the sun. Will we have the time to see the season much-much-later-minus-one’s cliffhanger conclusion?]
Roman soldier: Damn! I broke my sword on his kidney stones.
Allergic guy: Damn! I saw a peanut butter ad, luckily I had my epinephrine shot with me.
Trappist monk: Damn! after being bitten by a snake; he was stripped of his monkhood for double faulting his vow but died before being informed of it.
Virgin hooker: Damn! you tore my hem.
President Trump: Damn! He used also ass, crap, bullshit, pussy, fucked, hell, motherfucker and goddamn (I/he may have missed some).
Mars’ emperor: Damn! It was a misunderstanding (after cupping Earth’s ambassadress left breast, which means “peace” on Mars).
*
damn, two
“Damn! I have to leave early. Today I have to go to bed with the chickens and wake up with the rooster.”
He winked, stood up lean and godly, crushed my apple boobs to his steel pectorals, kissed my forehead and left. We started dating recently, were still Platonic and I hesitated before moving Aplatonic. Still...
Next day I faced him, stonily.
“Listen, I’m a modern girl, I understand fetish, I would understand sheep, goats, even inflatable dolls. But chickens?... How can you?” I wailed.
He faced me, stonily, took his hat and left. Rude. Didn’t even explain the mechanics.
*
damn, three
“Damn!” said God. Not ‘Medamit’ preferring the human version which he couldn’t use of course. “Damn, Death has again overstepped its limits.”
His angels had strict goals, yet Death was constantly overachieving and double-tripling the results. It was already one of its best performances this century, with the Covid, it was time to restrain its zeal.
“Give me your scythe!” commanded God, took it and inversed the blade. “Now go find another way.”
Death finds always another way, smirked Death, He’s so old fashioned. It threw the scythe into a corner and picked gingerly a vial with murky, dark liquid...
There are many others. True, Death is so renowned that its name became generic, lost its capital and got different appellations in different languages: muerte, tod, smrt... But there are other angels who, much more modest, took human names: Alzheimer, Parkinson, Crohn...
Are there only ‘bad’ angels? Unfortunately, nowadays this is mostly the case. Once there were good angels: Moses, Jesus, Mohammed... irrelevant what human interpretation did with their legacy lately. But today? Well, maybe almost good angels, like Rabin, Mandela, Yousafzai...
I hope (believe?) God is busy revamping his armies. I certainly hope so.
She looked strange. Smallish, small guitar, smallish voice. “One room for one night, please?”
The receptionist handed her a form. “Sign here.”
She drew a small house. Flowers, some trees...
“Do you have a shorter signature?” asked the receptionist impatiently.
“Yes, but it is longer,” and under his amused eyes she drew a line edge to edge.
Next day the room was empty, just the guitar with a notice stuck between the cords: Goodbye, ending in an inverted heart and signed with a miniature landscape of houses, flowers, trees, dogs, children...
Before sugar. Before flour. Before oil. Before potatoes and soap and rice and medicinal alcohol... Before water.
Toilet paper.
The razzia was swift, exhaustive, completed within seconds of the first hy-steria sign, irrelevant paper color, size, perfume, motif and price. The shelves were empty as if the virus ate it all, up to the last sheet. 1 kilometer radius, 10, 100... If sandpaper manufacturers would have been wise, they could have packed their stuff in rolls, placed it on toilet paper shelves... would have been gone immediately, surely the 800 grade but probably also the 30.
Art is fully exportable between cultures. Sure, there’s always a matter of taste, but anyone anywhere can appreciate a sculpture, a painting, a movie, music, dance, a book translated to local language... books can for sure be translated to any language with an accuracy close to 100 percent.
One art type, though, cannot be exported. Even by experts. At most it will result in a sad, deformed image of the original, losing its power entirely. Like porn emulating love making.
Poetry. There’s no way one can export poetry to another language. So sad yet so powerful, so beautiful the fact.
Suddenly I found myself putting the salt in the fridge.
“What are you doing?” someone asked. It took some time to identify the someone as me. Sane me.
Yesterday I realized I was driving the wrong way on a one-way street. I damn well knew it was one-way, like forever. Earlier I went shopping and left empty handed, what was it I wanted to buy, if at all? Some days ago I started talking to God. Strange, I do not believe in God.
I miss you. It kills me. This is the one thing I do know. I miss you.
I wasn’t there, to start with. Then I was born but that’s beside the point.
Followed a life in which I did nothing to be remembered by, but that’s beside the point.Sure, I wrote a word of two, which I read and admired, I loved a love or two, to admire or not.
Soon I will die. I won’t be there to end with, but that’s beside the point.
Come to think of it, my entire life was beside the point. So what’s the point? Probably none, I could as well have been born a hamster, if at all.
I hope to finish this book before I finish this life. There is some kind of competition here, I wonder who will win. My bet is on “book” but I lost my bets so many times already (like... always) that this doesn’t really mean much. I could “rush” it but I hare rushing words. They will come when they’ll feel like coming. Until then I’ll keep wondering. And betting.
Somehow it is easier to write poetry, even lengthy one. I’m sure there is a logical explanation to it, which eludes me. Well, you will know the winner. I... may not.
Time for my rant. Rant not runt... rant, r-a-n-t. Romania-America-Nicaragua-Tanganyika. You don’t know Tanganyika? OK, Turkey. Turkey neither... hmmm... Togo?... great, so Romania-America-Nicaragua-Togo. Now you get it, I hope. And now I forgot what the rant was all about. All this spelling effort kind of took my mind off the subject, will have to find a new rant. Rant, not rent, you nincompoop. Nincompoop... n-i-n-c... hey, you’re pulling my leg there, right? Leg, not lug, Luxembourg-Ecuador-Ghana... Georgia? Gabon? Garibaldi?... aha, Garibaldi you know, you Italian? Italian... Ikea-Togo... Aha, Ikea you know. You Swedish? Why do you think I’m Idiot? Oh...
Some Israelis have long noses. Like some everybody elses... Cyrano, Barbra, etc. So they wear their nose above the mask, negating any protection. Some, more creative, cut a hole for their nose. Yey!
At the cemetery entrance: masks mandatory. Yey!
In the bus, cameras detect mask non-wearers, warning: Mask Mandatory! The targeted guy disregards. Second warning. Guy disregards. Third warning. Guy disregards. Freedom! Yey!
ALL Israeli talk on their phones ALL the time. To sound better, they ALL remove their masks. Also on public transport. Yey!
Most popular mask usage? Chin support. Better than having it in cast, no? Yey!
“...to a meeting where we discuss what it would look like if Germany and Japan lost the war,” she whispered.
“Huh?”
I looked left from the Chrysler building. A sea of swastikas. To the right a sea of imperial flags, down a sea of bugs, VW bugs...
“Huh?” I repeated stupidly. “The blacks?” Now she looked at me stupidly. “Why, slaves of course.” “The Chinese?” “Slaves.” “Russians?” “Slaves.” “Jews?”
She clamped a hand over my mouth, looking fearfully around. “Shush, there’s mikes everywhere.”
“Say what year are we?” I croaked. She stumbled backwards. “Why, nineteen fifty-one of course.”
I fainted.
*
chapter two
I woke up looking at a bigger-than-life Adolf smiling down at me from a painting on the ceiling above my bed. She sat next to the bed, looking scared. She was scared? I was mortified.
I tried to climb down but she restrained me.
“Don’t, you do not want to be shipped out to a camp...”
‘Camp’ sounded ominous to me. I looked around, all the inscriptions were in German and, presumedly, Japanese. I beckoned her close.
“Tell me, who won the war?”
“Why, the Germans of course.” She followed my regard. “Soon English will be banned.”
I fainted again.
*
chapter three
She thought I was pulling her leg, left in anger, returned...
“What’s this ‘alternate reality’ nonsense?”
I told her the truth. For a pocket-size rebel and under-size sci-fi writer, she took it quite well, though she was still shivering. And I was alive, meaning in this reality I wasn’t Jewish. “What’s my job here? I don’t remember what it was there.”
“Why...” (the ‘why’ was getting on my nerves) “you’re heading the Nazi atom bomb project, though you hate them.”
“Whaaat?”
I gagged.
OK, my immediate reaction was ‘sabotage it!’ Which I did, becoming Public Enemy No. 1. Tant pis!
*
chapter four
I went into hiding. A minor resistance movement helped me, so physically I was OK. Mentally I was devastated. I tried to figure out why’s, how’s, seemed I was a great physicist and I ‘dragged’ this knowledge with me, so I joined forces with a great mathematician, filling thousands of papers with formulae, postulates, hypotheses.
One day, jokingly, I asked my girl... “Love, I need some divine inspiration, could you please bring me a Capella Sistina pictures-book?”
Guess what? All the figures had dark, narrow moustaches added to their upper lip. Females too. MG, this reality was going too far.
*
chapter five
If this was a story, movie, I would’ve found a solution. But this was reality and reality does not allow for short-cuts, it asks evolution, research, sacrifice. Which I gave and... found the solution. Written in microscopic characters by Michelangelo between the fingers of Adam and God. Why? How? Irrelevant. We plugged the formula in our theory, proving this reality was unstable and could be usurped. By getting myself into an... atomic bomb explosion.
I surrendered to the authorities, was allowed to finish the project, then exploded the bomb with myself and the entire Nazi elite next to me. Vrooom!!!
*
chapter six
I am back. Stable reality is back. MG, what a fright...
I remember the facts, not the formulae. And in my visit to Italy I didn’t find any secret message in between Adam and God’s fingers. My girl calls it an LSD induced fantasy (I do NOT do drugs) or at best a fabulation, a hypnotizer gave up the effort (but not the fee), some students started calling me Adolf. Even I started doubting my sanity.
Then, one day she (my girl) gasped loudly mid of our intimacy. “What is that?” she asked, bewildered.
That, being, my un-circumcised self. Wow!
*
chapter seve
I never understood the first reality change. I remember quite clearly the second change though not the important details. Actually, I prefer not to remember.
Realities do not co-exist, it’s one or the other. And each carries some scars that the previous one inflicted upon itself. I like the present one, and since anyway I can’t control changes, I prefer that it stays the way it is.
I just entered the hospital to ‘restore’ my intimate self, hoping to further cement this reality into itself. I even married my girl, what the heck, why not? A true Hallmark ending, lol.
On a Pharmacy door, mid of the day: back in one hour. They just omitted writing when the counting starts.
Queueing at the supermarket. A lady barges in front: sorry, just a short question (takes 15 short minutes). A lady barges in front: sorry, my baby waits at home. Another lady barges in front: sorry, my mother waits at home. Another lady barges in front, this one not sorry for anything, just barges. One hour later I am still waiting.
At a Falafel stand: one hand holds a cigarette, the other fills in the falafels.
Dogs, thank God for sanity.
*
two
Supermarket queueing, another supermarket. The cashier suddenly leaves. The queue lengthens, she’s still gone. The queue lengthens, she’s still gone. The queue...
In the bus, everyone is shouting. Not angry at anyone, just trying to get heard on the other side of the phone with everyone else shouting as well.
On the street, a guy lies on a mattress, a beggar of kinds. Ten meters on another guy, same type mattress. Ten meters on repeat of the same scene. Maybe they unionized? After seven I stopped counting.
Dogs, hundreds, proudly taking their owners to a walk. Thank God for civilization.
*
three
Scooters, big small electric manual one-wheeled two-wheeled three-wheeled, thousands, everywhere, worse that Vespas in Milano (where they at least keep to the street).
Beach, from monstress to goddess, from Brazilian line to Monastery line, light on sharks heavy on medusas (human and animal).
Everybody chews. Irrelevant what. Irrelevant sitting or walking or running. Chewito ergo sum.
Shops. Dusty. Dusty windows dusty merchandise, dusty dis-appetizing owners, dusty dis-appetizing buyers. A marketing promoter’s heaven. A marketing purist’s hell.
TV debates. Luckily guns are not allowed in studios and mail-bombs are outlawed. Otherwise Israel would empty after several debates.
I was vindicated. The academy verdict was: the homosaurs disappeared from the planet following the Chicxulub meteor strike, 66 million years ago; they could not survive owing to their small size, while our dino-sapiens ancestors (and paradoxically mosquitoes too, damn them) survived due to sheer size. How naïve all those sci-fi writers imagining a world where homosaurs survived... and evolution in all this, gentledinos? Ha-ha! Thank God for cold blood.
I closed my case and drove home, where my beautiful wife was brooding our second egg. We planned to watch together the concluding episode of the (almost) never-ending soap: Dinosty.
They killed all human contact. Chat, fax, telephone, e-mail... either a dead-end and you wait (and pay) eternally or an endless automatic “guidance” leading you and leaving you nowhere. Hey, you don’t want my money? (Probably not, their answering “private” banking defined as 100 million upwards, gulp!).
When, by trick, treat or threat you penetrate a bank’s interior, get ready for another cultural shock: queue stealing, shoving, shouting, spitting and a bank clerk dealing with everything else EXCEPT your issue, fifteen minutes turning two hours and fifteen minutes...
One flight, one week, 2000 euros later and I’m still nowhere. Heeelp!!!
The parrot looked at me with grey, grave eyes. Not watched, looked. I did not know exactly what it meant to say but it was the first time it waited on the branch and did no fly away as I approached.
I poured some new seeds in the feeder and stepped back, slowly. It climbed clumsily down, tasted the seeds, then flew upwards with a shriek.
Maybe it was good bye? Maybe it was I’m already 200 years old... flying back to Amazonas... I’m afraid of the cat...?
It never returned. I miss it, oh, I miss it so much.
I actually met the gentleman. He was thrice my age at the time, ratio that would have diminished by today, as math goes, if he was alive. Which he, unfortunately, is not. Even saints die of natural or else causes. It was ‘else’ for him.
He was very much for real and he entrusted me with the location of his handwritten memoirs, worth a fortune already. But I’ve no intention of making this fortune myself. I leave instructions that it should come to light ten generations after me. He made me promise, because he knew I keep my promises. Always.
Not because of the impending doom of being deprived of life but because of the impending doom of depriving the world of my wit, percipience and genius. Oh, modesty too.
To my billion non-readers... know you deserve it.
To my single readers... know I loved you.
To my occasional readers... know ‘occasional’ does not really count so you’ll never know what I think of you.
To myself... know that the day the fear materializes is also the day the fear de-materializes, so stop fearing.
To academics... well... iiIii if you get my drift...
Strange, the longer I live the more I remember; and not necessarily new stuff but rather the older, long gone, or long thought gone. I wonder what the brain tries to accomplish... more time? more pain? more of the finite mirage?
I walk the resounding halls, so many pictures and sculptures and sounds mark my passage. Hey, you were... hey, you were not... hey, you are still...
I rarely laugh. I mostly cry, not aloud, the other, the horrible internal one. And no one will ever know, strange, not even I once...
Hello family, hello friends, hello pets, good-bye... all.
Hey, we never hugged so much... you say, hey, we never hugged so many times... you say.
And I acquiesce as I lift you from your bed, as I place you on your handicapped chair, as I carry you to the garden bench, as I...
Life carries on indifferently by, and we bleed empty of tears trying to find in those mandatory hugs of now the essence of the voluntary hugs of once ago. Gone.
Not completely though, as your head lands on my shoulder and we watch the sunset. Of the day. Of our lives.
They found pineapple in my DNA. I don’t mean pineapple contamination but pineapple DNA in my DNA. Fact which resulted in opening a new branch of science (of which I cared less) and some hefty ‘investigation’ sums deposited in my pocket (of which I cared more). When they finally identified the programming bug, I was already well settled and refused any reimbursement.
“Listen guys, now go and find yourself some luck DNA in my DNA. Good luck,” I added smugly.
I learned much later that it was NOT a bug. The entire subject was moved down to Area 51. Ahm...
He walked slowly. The dog even slower, and he stopped from time to time to allow the dog build some slack in the leash. Then he advanced again. Stopped again. The dog closed the gap again. Old. Together they had probably over 100 years. Certainly 100 years of love between them.
One day I saw him dragging the leash behind him, no dog attached. One day only. Then I did not see him anymore. He probably joined his friend in heaven. There must be a heaven, such love cannot get lost, it’s inconceivable. It turned me into a believer. Amen!
“You better stop writing,” she said. “This universe will end when you reach the 100th word of your story.”
Crazy as a bat, she was. “So the universe’s death is synchronized to my writing, yes?” I kept laughing and hiccupping.
“No, its life. And I have no idea if you or I will exist in the following one,” the witch added.
I stopped laughing for a moment. “Say, will it end before or after I have had time to add my punctuation after the 100th word?” I asked, uneasily counting the words, nevertheless.
