This Isn't Happening

The man shambled into town. He was weak from exhaustion and covered in blood, though the lack of obvious wounds suggested it might not be his own. A few of the townspeople recognized him as coming from the neighboring community a few miles to the west.

"Everyone's dead. I'm the only survivor."

"What happened?"

"It was the trees. The attacked us. But not physically. They did something to our minds, made everyone go crazy. People started killing themselves. It was awful.”

“I don’t mean to make light of your situation, but that sounds exactly like the worst movie ever made.”

Death

Death. That was all his card said.

What the hell was that supposed to mean?

He knew the machine was perverse, playing with a person's fate in the most ironic ways possible. Academics and the intellectually insecure called it the Sophocles, because only the ancient Greeks could match the machine for its macabre sense of humor.

But Death?

Was he supposed to die from fear. Was the machine getting philosophical? Should he avoid anyone in a Grim Reaper costume for the rest of his life?

All in all, Bill could think of better ways to have spent that twenty dollars.

His First And Last Day On The Job

Shawna James was the only female butcher in the tri-city area. She was known to be impatient with the new employees, especially as they looked at her as some kind of aberration.

But she wouldn't have trusted anyone else with explaining how the machinery works. No one else cared as much.

"This here's the mincer. First you need to wet the sausage down. If it's too dry, you might create friction. Then you need to insert it into the slot. If it doesn't fit, don't worry. Just keep pushing until it goes all the way in."

"That's what she said."

Institutional Negligence

They found her body–tattered, ripped open at the seams with the fluff bleeding out–in the middle of the sidewalk. The authorities labeled it accidental murder; she was the victim of circumstance.

But murder is never an accident. It takes nerve and planning and years of resentment piled on top of envy and systematic failures. Triggers don’t just pull themselves.

Neither of the authorities wanted to hear about it. They refused to own the fact their institutional negligence had allowed Mrs. Cassidy to be chewed to death by Chocolate, the cocker spaniel. Her parents were always skirting the blame.

Fabrication

Everything is desolation.

The more involved the enterprise, the more bustling and productive society becomes, the greater the emptiness.

Activity creates a void.

There is an inherent meaninglessness in fabrication. The greater the heights of the accomplishments--both metaphorically and literally, if one was talking about the mammoth skyscraping towers--the more devoid of meaning they become.

Even religion has become transparent in its vacancy. Enforced attendance and ritualistic devotion do not make for fulfillment. It just seems something fundamental is missing. It's like memorizing a list of vocabulary without understanding what the words mean.

Everything was different before the robot apocalypse

Dear Diary

Today I got my first period. I'm the first in my grade to have one.

It wasn't bad at all. I was in English class, and I told Mrs. Johnson what happened, and she gave me a pass to the nurse's office. Only a few of the girls understood what was going on, and none of the boys.

Mom tried to be reassuring, like it was something I might be ashamed of. I think Dad was more embarrassed about it than I was.

Actually, I'm proud. I'm way ahead of schedule. This is definitely going on my application to Harvard.

Absolute Zero

Is it so easy to discard Einstein? To forget Kuhn? Nothing is absolute. Even the rules Einstein himself believed inviolable proved fallible.

We've broken the light barrier. We've entered a black hole and returned. Still they demand their rules be sanctified.

Now she would prove them wrong again. She would surpass absolute zero. She would prove that no matter how cold, it could always be colder. She would do so by transforming the hermeneutics of quantum gravity, and forever alter our understanding of the universe.

And she would die in the process, praying she's right about the viability of cryogenics.

Glass House

She'd built it metaphorically, to point out the fragility of our realities. If it earned her six figures, well she had to make a living.

Now she was confined inside a true house of glass, forever damned to clean windows, and floors and walls. Her fingers tasted of windex.

The worst part was the audience of gawkers and art critics parading past, taunting her with their stones and opaque clothing. They recycled themselves incessantly, and their presence was a constant reminder of her former hubris.

You see, the devil believes in metaphors too, and in prisons of our own making.

Alice With The Small Hands

She was a freak, her hands impossibly tiny. They all shunned her.

She dreamed her hands were larger than they actually appeared, shrunk on their way through the looking glass, but life was no wonderland.

Her grandmother made her believe. There was always a logic to God's madness, a meaning behind her abomination.

And then, the clockwork men attacked, their precision machinery working in time to destroy the Earth. Alice, only her tiny hands able to fit inside, saved humanity. Her day had arrived.

They still shunned her. Even her grandmother. Her purpose had been served, praise be to God.

The World's Worst Optimist

Dr. Jane Spurlock, world renowned neurologist, just finished the worst workday ever.

"You won't believe the awful things that happened today. First, several babies died of brain cancer. Then, a puppy with a broken spine tried to climb stairs to reach its master, who also died of brain cancer. And I spilled coffee on my new blouse."

Her always attentive husband, Roger, tried to place everything in its proper context.

"Look at the bright side. With the Republicans about to retake the House and dismantle Obama's health care reform, you won't have to attend to the poor and disenfranchised anymore."