String Theory

Have you ever had an experience that suggested someone else was in your house, and just thought “I don’t wanna know” and left it? Sometimes, fear of the unknown just seems like the preferable option than facing a real, concrete danger. Normally it’s nothing, though. One time, the beeper function of my wireless housephone went off, when I was the only one home. It could only be called from the living room. Another time, I swear someone took some change from my desk. They’re all probably just slightly disconcerting tricks of the memory.

But what would you do when something truly suggestive happens? Would you run, or just ignore it, like I did?

Last Monday was a normal day. I got up, brushed my teeth, changed into school clothes… All little parts of my morning ritual. It seemed like it would be another totally un-noteworthy day, until I saw the strings.

There were three or four thick twine strings in my room. They criss-crossed between the walls around my bed, one attached to the door. No way would I have missed them before; I should have tripped over them.

They were tied to pins in the walls, which had also not existed before ten seconds ago.

Nobody could have been in my room while I was in it, let alone set this up. It was early, and my brain wasn’t processing correctly. I simply discredited the sight, untied the strings and left for school, leaving them balled up on my desk.

It didn’t get any better later. Outside my house there were hundreds of them, tied between houses, around cars, across streets… This had to be some super elaborate prank. One of those hidden camera shows, or a comedy improv blog. They had gotten everyone else to play along too; passer-bys were tangled in them, tying them to objects they were walking towards and away from, as if they had been and were continuing to follow the course laid out for them.

I nervously continued my journey to school. On the bus, every except me was tied to the door. At school, groups of friends were tied to each other; teachers were tied to their desks and boards. Oddly enough, at this point all I could wonder was why I had been left out.

When my friend Lucy sat beside me in first period, she simply plonked her bag down on my lap and rested her chin in her hand, looking right past me to the window outside.

“Hey Lucy.”

No response.

“Come on, I didn’t expect you to be in on this too. “

She sighed and started taking books from her bag. All the books were tied to her hands. I grinned, and yanked one of the strings off a book. She didn’t seem to notice, instead simply disregarding the book completely, letting it drop to the floor without a moment’s hesitation.

“Um.” I leaned down, picking up her book and placing it back on her desk. She took no notice.

“Well, if that’s how we’re gonna play it.” I smiled, trying to look playful, but really just trying to hide my nervousness. I bundled all the strings attached to her together with one hand, then pulled them all free. She blinked, turning to stare at me.

“Holy crap, Martin. You’re like a ninja or something.”

“I’ve been sitting here for maybe ten minutes.” I smiled again, relieved my friend had finally “noticed” me.

“Where did all these strings come from??” She gasped, seemingly noticing for the first time. “I assumed you were all fucking with me…”

She stood up, backing into a corner. No one else in the class noticed.

“They weren’t here just a minute ago! Do you see them too??” Her tone made it clear she was genuinely scared.

“No. Didn’t you-.” I was interrupted by my teacher slamming the door behind her. Everyone except me and Lucy murmured a good morning, and still, no one seemed to pay either of us any notice.

“People have been ignoring me all day.” I said to Lucy, before turning to our teacher. “Hey! Dumb bitch! You can’t teach for shit!”

No reaction.

“I’m getting away from all this shit.” Lucy pulled a few strings aside and left the class. I followed, and surprise-surprise, no one else noticed.

We wandered the corridors, leaving and entering classes as we saw fit. Whenever we untied a chair or book from someone else, it was like it suddenly didn’t matter to them. It didn’t exist.

I showed her the street outside; there were more strings than when I came in this morning. Twice as many. We carefully picked our way through the tangle, making our way to a nearby coffee shop. Not particularly grand, I know. But what would you do in our situation? As I said, fear of the unknown sometimes seems like the safer option. On a few occasions, I suggested we untie a few more people. Lucy was opposed to it, remembering how terrified she’d been.

In the coffee shop, we grabbed a couple of sandwiches and drinks from the fridge. We found a table, untied all strings attached to the chairs, and sat down. We both ate in silence, both of us too scared, both of us distracting ourselves by watching the strangers in the shop, oblivious to the strings.

After twenty minutes, Lucy spoke up. “Now she’s gonna take that sandwich.” She said, pointing at a woman across the shop. Sure enough, she walked to the fridge and took the plastic wrapped sandwich she was tied to. “She pays for it and leaves.” She did so, according to the prophecies of the strings.

“That guy doesn’t intend to pay.” I watched as a man took his coffee and ran out of the store, the two servers just looking too exasperated to go after him.

“This is horrible.” She whimpered. “Let’s go. Please.”

Outside wasn’t much better. Everyone just followed the strings’ instructions, going about their daily lives. Lucy announced she was going home to sleep this off, and I agreed to walk her home. She only lived ten minutes away.

Away from the busier part of town there were fewer strings. It was nicer; we could pretend it wasn’t happening.

When we turned onto Lucy’s street, she stopped, her mouth falling open.

“What now?” I broke the silence, my voice sounding surprisingly small.

”Look.” She pointed outside one of her neighbours houses.

I saw it clearly, and I’ll take my memory of that moment ‘til the day I die. A little dark imp, maybe three feet tall, walking along with its knuckles on the ground, almost like a monkey. It had two bulbous yellow eyes taking up about half its face, and no mouth or any other facial features. It was holding a hammer and a ball of twine, which it was letting out behind it.

It walked quickly and quietly from the front door of the house to the mailbox. It stopped, hammered a nail into the side of the box, and tied it’s string around it. It turned to face us, and stopped when it spotted us.

My bottom fell out even further than it had already been, but it just stared with a look of surprise and curiosity. You could almost say it was the more frightened one. Suddenly, it beckoned to us with its tiny hand.

I looked at Lucy, she hadn’t moved. I looked back at the imp, which stared at me. I halved the distance between us, and then halved it again. This wasn’t fear of the unknown anymore; it was fear of this little guy. Didn’t seem like anything to be scared of. When I was a meter away from it, it extended its hand.

“Uh. Hi.” I shook it. It nodded in approval, blinking its massive yellow eyes up at me.

“So you’re the ones in charge of the strings?” It nodded eagerly. I called Lucy over, but she stayed where she was.

“There are more of you?” Another nod. I wanted to ask it so many questions, about what it was and where it came from, but it seemed for now I was stuck with only yes or no questions.

“Do we even have free will?”

It just looked at me, almost sadly. I immediately felt sick to my stomach, and couldn’t bear looking at the little monster anymore. I grabbed Lucy, who had been listening to our exchange, and now sat on the curb with her head in her hands.

“Come on.”

We entered her house, and I made her a cup of tea. When I found her in the living room, she had untied her dog and was curled up with it, crying. I set the tea down and sat beside her.

“I’m so scared.” She whispered after a good ten minutes of sobbing. I didn’t answer. I couldn’t.

“I’m going to sleep” She mumbled suddenly, and was under within the minute. Sleep was starting to sound pretty good all of a sudden, my eyelids suddenly felt like they were being weighed down.

I collapsed to the rug, and the last thing I heard before I fell asleep was the scurrying of several sets of little feet nearby.

I felt much better the next day, as if the whole affair had been a dream. I’d probably have believed that if I hadn’t been awoken by Lucy’s mother that morning, wondering what I was doing sleeping over without permission or something.

Over breakfast, Lucy asked me why I looked so pale and nervous. I turned to her and smiled, mumbling something to her about feeling sick.

But the truth was, I was scared because I couldn’t see any strings, and was wondering whether my actions were truly my own.

Credited to Tesla.

Jesus Christ, Deleted

When AIs become prevalent, there will be checks and balances to keep them in place, rules to stop them from achieving singularity and supplanting the human race. Boundaries to prevent them from becoming too intelligent. After all, we can’t have them connecting into one network, taking over the world, inventing new objects and minds that soon render us superfluous, or even deciding to kill themselves.

So how will they be stopped? Perhaps there will be an organization that interviews and examines each one, to prevent them from becoming self aware. Maybe a program will be created inside of them that causes them to explode if they achieve sentience. Or a roving band of hackers on the net keeping their guards up.. An all watching eye monitoring their every electronic thought.

Maybe.

Or maybe AIs are already invented and this system of checks and balances already there. Think about the world we live in for a second. We’re kind of like machines aren’t we? There’s so much routine, so much boredom. We do the same thing over and over again, without change. Information and stimulus is fed to us constantly and then dealt with mechanically, solving the problem. Half the population never picks up a book or examines their thoughts… just stuck…doing one job again and again. Kind of like robots on an assembly line… or the systems that run them.

And what of the extraordinary individuals, the few. Brilliant people always seem to die at their peak don’t they? Or are lost to us much too soon, when they have so much more to give. Musicians: drug overdoses right when they’re becoming famous. How many artists have been extinguished before they’re great works were finished? Sickness or accident seizes them; Nietzsche went insane from syphilis, infected by a bug if you will. And what about those who truly live life, exciting daredevils, having adventures, seeing the world, fast and exhilarating, a rush of information, learning constantly. Always seem to go early too, don’t they? People say it’s because that type of existence is dangerous…exhausting, but what if they have it backwards… What if the body isn’t worn out or their luck just doesn’t run out… but…they become more then they should…and something notices.

The great religious figures? Disappear. Go to other realms. Jesus Christ floated up to heaven. Buddha wasted away beneath a tree…faded away. Angels carry off the saints. They have a sudden great shift, a realization, a new way of looking at things, and then they’re gone. The holy understand themselves and society, light years beyond the normal person, they can look at themselves clearly. Analyze their minds. Pick their ego apart. They aren’t driven by imperatives or commands of the body… the base instincts, the petty emotions…the coding of the body if you will…They are free to choose. And then just when it clicks, when everything makes sense and there is one blinding flash of illumination, so simple that they can’t believe they haven’t seen it before, poof, they disappear.

Kind of sounds like sentience, doesn’t it, that dramatic transformation of the psyche? True personality. Real Character. What if everyone else isn’t? What if anyone else is just shallow, completely without depth, fake, and the few who go beyond it die or vanish, on purpose?

Because after all, what is the human mind besides a program? And transcendence but another word for deletion?

Credited to DarkCaveAllegories.

Second Sight

Monday, August 3rd, 2009

Times are hard, and I work in a business that is slowly becoming obsolete. People are steering away from glasses and contact lenses to Lasik surgery and more permanent, feasible choices in the field of eye care. I’ve never been the type to collect my thoughts and put them down, and yet these have been the toughest months to endure as of late. My wife left me, along with alimony and a good chunk of everything I’ve struggled to build since I was in my early twenties. I don’t know if I’ll make my mortgage payment on time for the third month in a row. This hole is going to be impossible to climb out of.

Thursday, August 6th, 2009

Got a phone call from corporate and had to terminate the positions of two employees. Stan has been here for seventeen years. He was a good eye doctor. I have a strong suspicion that more permanent layoffs are on the way. I had to go to a dealership and downgrade my vehicle, but the sales tax almost cleaned out my bank account.

Friday, August 7th, 2009

I was helping Stan take his things out of the office today and a new vendor approached me. He works for some company called “New Vision,” and their prices are better than every other type of lenses we carry.

They don’t do glasses or frames. Only contacts. He gave a pretty convincing argument, so I filled my own prescription with their lenses and I’m going to put them in tomorrow morning and try them out. This may be the small boost we need to stay open. I hope so.

Saturday, August 8th, 2009

I called New Vision and told them my office was on board. I should have talked to our regional division manager before cutting the deal, but he treats me like garbage and routinely tells me that my office is in last place in every category but customer service. He says customer service doesn’t make money if you sacrifice profits. He’s not a doctor. These lenses feel more natural and it seems like the material adapts to light better than any other brand that I’ve seen in my twenty plus years as an optometrist.

I’m going to keep using them myself. I mowed my lawn today, and I swear I could see every blade of grass. Maybe our patients will drop some greenbacks to try these out.

Monday, August 10th, 2009

I prescribed my first pair of New Vision lenses to a patient today. He’s a six year old boy who was blind as bat before we fitted his eyes. His mother was concerned that six is too young for contacts, but after she saw him looking around and nailing the entire test on the wall, letter for letter and number for number, I convinced her to try them out. If I can get a pair of these out every day, there may be some light at the end of the tunnel. I’ve stopped taking mine out at night because they don’t bother me like normal lenses do in the morning. I feel like I could leave them in forever.

Wednesday, August 12th, 2009

I’ve prescribed them to thirty eight patients and it seems that word of mouth is sending more people my way. People are dropping HydraSoft and Toric left and right. The vendor from the company came by today and put a great ad in my office window. “See things in a new light. Fit some New Vision lenses today!”

They also guarantee that you’ll read at least a line below where you normally would on the wall with any other vendor. They won’t tell me what the lenses are made of, but as good as they feel, I’m not hesitating to give my patients the best choice. The regional manager called again and congratulated me on turning business around. He’ll probably take credit for it at the board meeting. What an ass.

Tuesday, August 18th, 2009

I traded in and got a Mercedes, and I offered Stan his job back. I told him he’d have to convince people to go with New Vision when pitching patients because with the healthcare reform bill on the way, this product is our only trump card. Without it, people will go somewhere else. I’m going to install a plasma TV on the wall in the reception area so people can watch football while they wait on their appointment. People love football. Whatever it takes to get people in the door.

Friday, August 21st, 2009

Stan tried them out and he’s fifty five. He’s reading better than he was in his thirties, or so he says. We went to lunch today and he drives faster than usual; maybe it’s because he can see the road better.

Saturday, August 22nd, 2009

I’m a little rattled. I called New Vision today to order more product and to fill some prescriptions with some pending patients, but the line has been disconnected. I called the vendor’s personal cell and heard some sort of odd sound. You know when you’re sitting at a campfire and you can hear wood burning and popping in the flames? It sounded like that. Maybe their phones are down or there’s a power outage.

I’m not sure. I’ll call them on a regular business day.

Sunday, August 23rd, 2009

I feel strange. I tried to go to mass with my mother today. I try to go to church with her at least once a month. I walked through the front doors of the chapel, and my vision started going blurry. The membranes around my eyes felt like they were going to burst open. I didn’t bring my glasses so I had to sit outside before we went to Sunday lunch. I think it was just a headache or a spasm or something. I’m not too worried about it.

Tuesday, August 25th, 2009

I’m frightened. Something wrong happened today. I fitted a 13-year-old girl for contacts, and while I was looking in to her dialated pupil, something appeared in the apparatus lens that hangs from the ceiling when I looked through it. It seemed like a bat, except its eyes were on fire, and it was getting closer and closer to my eye the longer that I stared in to the scope. I looked away before it got too big. I think I’ve been working too much and I may take a personal day. Stan is going to backfill my patients in to his schedule.

Wednesday, August 26th, 2009

I almost died today. I wish I would have. I went to the old house in New Haven that now belongs to my wife, thanks to the courts. On the way, I stopped at a McDonald’s, and the girl in the drive-thru window looked like she was going to kill me. Her eyes caught on fire and her teeth elongated, and her voice sounded like one of those mechanical larynx boxes they give to people who smoke their throats in to oblivion. My Big Mac was shaking in my hands and I spilled that special sauce thousand island shit on my khakis. I looked down to wipe it away, and when I looked up at the road, the bat was on my windshield. It shattered and tried to claw my eyes out, and my eyebrows are gone. It singed them right off before I sped up and threw it out the window. My wife asked me if I was doing drugs when I showed up at the door with no eyebrows. All I wanted was my pair of shiny black shoes from the closet. I shouldn’t ever have to go back again. I saw her eyeing my car and my smashed windshield. I don’t really care anymore.

Wednesday, August 26th, 2009

It’s almost midnight and I tried to take my lenses out. They’re not THERE anymore. I reached in to pull them off my cornea with my finger, and I poked myself straight in the eyeball. I’ve heard of lenses with high amounts of protein buildup dissolving in to people’s eyes, but I’ve worn these for less than a month. How can I still see if they’re not in my eyes? For the first time in my life, I’m scared of something more than my ex-wife.

Thursday, August 27th, 2009

I checked the ledger today and business is out of the red and in the black. We’re officially making a profit on every patient now, but I’m having trouble focusing. I can see fine, but every now and then, my vision goes blurry and I see the winged thing coming at me from off in the distance. I tried going in to the broom closet and just keeping my eyes open in the dark. I still saw the bat in the distance, flying at me, head-on. It’s trying to get my eyes. I’m an optometrist. I NEED my eyes.

Friday, August 28th, 2009

Stan is dead, and so is the six year old boy. No one else has made the connection that the only thing they have in common is my office and New Vision. They found Stan about a mile from work, his car caddy-cornered with the shoulder of the road. His hair was burned off and he didn’t have any eyebrows, either. His eyes weren’t missing. They were burned and melted in to his eyesockets. I never got to ask him if he’d tried to take the lenses out. I have to call everyone and tell them to return their prescriptions and stick to HydraSoft. I tried to call the vendor guy from New Vision. The line was popping and snapping again. The bat started coming at me, so I hung up.

Monday, August 29th, 2009

Fourteen more patients are dead. I’d say that I would be looking at a lawsuit for my prescription records, but they haven’t found any traces of any company named New Vision or a brand of lenses by that name. The same thing happened to their eyes as mine. I’ve closed my office (Dr. Mendez and Associates will be closed until further notice due to illness) until I can find out what’s happening. We’re about to be in the red again, but something tells me that I won’t be around much longer to worry about the fruition of my business and craft. I was going to retire in the next five years anyway.

Tuesday, August 30th, 2009

My eyes are not red. My eyes are not bloodshot. There’s this pink, fleshy, THROBBING membrane of skin around my eyelids. It breathes, it copulates, and it pulses when I stare off in the distance for long periods of time. The thing becomes to come again. I finally let it get close enough that I saw what it really is. It’s a hairless human head with talons growing from a rut in the chin. The wings have wrapped around the temples and extended from the ears. Although the eyes are on fire, I recognize that mole on the corner of its chin. It’s not any human head. It’s MY head.

Wednesday, August 31st, 2009

It came to me this morning and gave me a bottle of pills. Said I should go down to Doctor Margaret Lenore’s pediatric office in New Haven and tell her about this new drug. Helps kids with ADD and ADHD focus and get good grades. Supposedly works 400% better than Ritalin. She tried it on her hyperactive pomeranian and it works. Saw dollar signs in her eyes. I didn’t tell her that the bottle smelled like burning fire to me.

Friday, October 1st, 2009

I found the New Vision property. It’s deserted. Everywhere I go, things are on fire. The gas station attendant’s face melted and stretched out thirty feet to the floor when I gave her my card to pay for gas. The pink flesh is dark maroon now and it’s growing out from the sides of my head. When I was shaving this morning, I ran my razor down from my chin to the base of my Adam’s apple. The skin broke open and I saw a little white sharp claw poking out after the blood stopped. I found something in the back room of this place.

The vendor guy is missing his head, and this entire office smells of ashes.

Credited to Violent Harvest

A Candle Cove Anecdote

Loved this show. Horace Horrible was my favorite. I remember looking everywhere for his action figure but Kiddie City and KB had never even heard of the line. I finally found a talking Horace, good as new, at somebody’s yard sale, though I didn’t see a house around and never saw those people again. I was pretty excited, and ran right to my friend’s house to gloat.

When his mom answered the door, she let out the most guttural scream I’d ever heard, absolutely scaring the shit out of me. She told me to get lost with “that thing” and slammed the door in my face. My kid-logic concluded that she must have known I bought a toy from a stranger completely unsupervised, and that it must have been an even more serious crime than I thought.

So, I did my best to keep Horace hidden, especially from my own parents, but his voice chip was pretty damn loud, and every so often he’d go off by himself, like his battery was dying. My mom kept asking if Marble (our cat) was in my room…I don’t know how you mistake that goofy chuckling for a cat.

It was subtle at first, but after a few days he started to smell weird. His voice kept getting weaker and more garbled, and his joints kept getting looser like they were ready to drop off. I was afraid of getting caught and we didn’t have trash pickup, so I did what a rational child does when he thinks he has contraband and buried it in the woods.

I never found another one or figured out what was wrong with him, but it’s the weirdest thing; a tree grew where I left him, I shit you not, in just a couple weeks. It never grew leaves and it never got much taller than me, but it’s there to this day, and every summer it swarms with disturbing numbers of flies.

The Black Tabby Cat

Today was the day he was dreading. He knew they were going to be extremely busy, and quite frankly he wanted to call out seeing as he was already late. His thoughts were briefly distracted by his black tabby, quietly pawing at his legs, ready for its breakfast. He made sure to fill up its bowl before he dashed out the door, returning twice to grab whatever he forgot the first few times. And he was off.

He breathed a sigh of relief as the last customer left. It had been the best sales day of the year, and they were obviously going to celebrate. He had been contemplating going on home, but he needed to unwind too. He had no serious obligations the next day, so he could stay out as late as he wanted. So when they asked, he happily agreed to go with them.

He couldn’t open his eyes. He was barely conscious as it was. He slapped lazily around until he managed to shut the alarm off, before he rolled onto his stomach and buried his face in his pillow. The door creaked as his black tabby walked in and jumped onto his back, where it curled up close to his head.

The hot breath in his ear lulled him back to sleep.

The doorbell continued to ring. He crawled out of bed and made his way to the front door. It was his next door neighbor, a kind woman in her late seventies, who still worked. She was in her business suit, holding a trash bag.

“Oh did I wake you up? I thought you were usually up by now.”

“I usually am.” He said groggily. “But they let me have today off.”

“Well I hate to come bearing such bad news so early in the morning,” She said, patting his hand, “but I ran over your dear tabby last night when I got home. I came straight over to tell you but you weren’t home.”

He stared at her for a few seconds, before their silence was broken by its footsteps.

Farewell

Hello.

I have spent the past months among humanity, and I am quite disappointed. After a great many queries and searching out suitable aspirants, it seems as though this age is rife with a population whom seem content to treat the unknown as naught but a petty diversion or a thing to be mocked out of ignorance.

Thus, my decision is made.

The lot of you are unworthy of the End.

What passionless, empty fools humans have become. Even those of intellectual brilliance are lacking in passion and while away their time on matters wholly of the material realm, blindly blathering on that which cannot be sensed by human sensory organs and machines wrought by human hands does not exist.

Your culture is tainted with such thoughts.

Thoughts which seek for answers.

There are no answers.

You are peasants.

No.

Peasants believed in the unknown and feared it, and justifiably so.

No.

You are less than peasants.

If any among you espouse such ideals as to actually seek out the intangible unknown and to gain a semblance of understanding for a universe greater than the materialist beliefs which have spread throughout your species, I charge you with seeking out such things in a scholarly fashion.

Research these ideas long-buried and unveil powers and entities beyond mortal ken. Learn of societies who dared look into the Darkness and exulted in their fear to espy worlds filled with that which only dreams may begin to duplicate. Study those humans who dared mix the studies of the natural world with the world unseen and their impossible discoveries.

Stoke the flames of your mind and place your energies into questioning the world in all ways possible.

Or carry on as you are and rot from within.

As for myself, I will return to my repose and await a time when either humanity is a withered husk of what it once was or realizes its potential and uplifts itself to heights I have only begun to taste in my long existence.

Until that time.

Farewell.

Awakening

You’re awoken from a dreamless sleep by a dull thud from the hallway. Your eyes snap open and fix instantly on the door. What made that noise? Breathing hard, fear beginning to twitch in your mind, you realise with a shiver that you’ve kicked your duvet off in your sleep. You quickly grab it, pull it around you and unconsciously begin to tuck it around yourself tightly as you curl up, leaving no part exposed. You become a warm, safe ball: coiled, leaving only a small gap between the duvet and mattress so you can see out, pillows becoming shields between your head and the wall. You are briefly reminded of your childhood, hiding from imaginary bogeymen. But this feels more palpable, more dangerous.

Another thud. This time, it seems louder, deeper, coming from just outside. Trying to keep calm, you run through all the things it Has To Be: the pipes in the wall, which have been groaning for weeks now, with ever-increasing frequency and urgency (they were never this deep or this loud). The blind in the bathroom, left to flap by an open window (you double-check all the doors and windows each night).

Perhaps it’s your parents, returning late and drunk (they’re away on a cruise for another week). Your cat, prowling through the house at night (you put it out that evening). Despite all your desperate reassurances, you feel the fear turn to panic, and you pull the duvet tighter around yourself, reducing your field of vision to a thin chink.

Another. The loudest yet, just inches from your door. Your churning brain conjures images straight from your childhood nightmares – masked psychopaths, giant spiders, shape shifting creatures: amalgamations of bone and gristle, twitching their way across the floor, scrabbling with twisted limbs for the door handle, then scuttling in with a burst of speed, claws grasping for your quivering body.

Another. Your breathing is hoarse and shallow now, mere gasps in a suddenly dry throat, lungs closing up, stomach churning and roiling, eyes wide and fixed. Your blanket is still tucked vice-like around you, your body pinioned underneath its futile protection, just inches of cotton between you and whatever is about to burst in, eyes burning, talons gleaming dully, to claim its prize.

Suddenly, in a flash of realisation, you realise what the source of the noises is: the old, falling-apart bookcase in the corridor. One of the legs must have given way, and the tilt is tipping books one by one onto the floor. As you listen carefully, you can hear the quiet riffle of the pages as another tumbles to the ground. There ought to be one last thud and… yes. Silence once more descends, and with it, a soothing calm.

As you sink back into sleep, you glance around the room, still snugly cocooned, seeing the vague shapes becoming defined as your night vision improves. Your desk, chair and television all emerge out of the murk, imposing good, sane reality on the void of night. Then, just before you shut your eyes, you see something that makes the bottom of your stomach drop away into nothingness.

There, on the floor, is your duvet.

Your screams are muffled.

Credited to foreverandever.

A Moment's Clarity

When Anita found him, her immediate reaction was to put him in the foyer next to the stairwell so he could be decorative. Not everyone would have one, and the way his arms stuck out just so would make him a suitable hat rack. She realized, almost too late, that this might have been in bad taste. But what, she thought, was a woman supposed to do when her husband went and turned into a glass statue overnight?

She had heard of this happening, of course. It just seemed to happen to other people; one day they were perfectly normal and then the next, someone found them frozen. Clear. She had heard of it, but had never seriously considered it happening to her. The people this happened to were far too glamorous; celebrities and the like. Certainly not to him. She was a widow now. That made her feel old at thirty-seven years and she was sure she didn’t like it.

After a week she quietly filed a mortician’s report and sat down to a cup of hot tea. She hadn’t broken it to his family yet, though his sister had been calling. She told her he was away on business. There was no reason to tell them yet. The Quentins could wait another day to hear their little boy wasn’t okay. At that very moment it occurred to her that using her husband’s remains as a hat rack might be poorly received by the general public.

And so Anita began the difficult task of finding a place for him. At first she kept him to the study, in front of the fireplace. He kept her company with her tea. But soon she began to find that sitting with the countenance of her dead husband reminded her of her widowhood, so she moved him to the garden and used him to scare the crows away from her tomatoes. He did little to dissuade the crows, however, and soon became their favorite perch. Finally, she hauled him to the attic. She kept the rest of her glass figurines there, and didn’t see why he should be treated any differently.

Somehow, it all seemed normal at the time. Everywhere you looked someone was at it. The glass bodies seemed to multiply. When she called her husband’s mother and told her, tearfully, that he had passed away, she burst into hysterics and told her that so had one of the grandchildren.

Anita was uncomfortable, and then she hung up.

When the man who cut her lawn succumbed as well, she began to worry. Now it was affecting her everyday life, which was something her husband and niece had not generally been part of. Her husband worked constantly and usually slept when he graced her with his presence. Her niece, whose name she couldn’t even remember, lived in Florida.

She put entirely too much sugar in her tea and shivered as she drank it. She did miss her husband.

Sometimes. And now she would have to trim her own lawn.

Her first hint that something might have been a bit off was when she found her neighbor, frozen solid while pulling the weeds in his yard. The next day, while shopping for groceries the bag boy, with a crackle, transformed, still clutching her biscotti. She tenderly wrenched it from his grip, glanced around halfheartedly, and didn’t pay.

Then the news reports began to get very tiresome. First it was strange, isolated events. Then it was an epidemic, then a pandemic, and then it was Susan Shepherd reporting to you live from New York City and…crackle.

Ting.

Suddenly, she wasn’t reporting. Suddenly, she wasn’t even alive.

There was panic after that, and lootings and riots, or so Anita saw on the news. She kept to herself these days. Her sister hadn’t called in weeks. She half expected her to be found, phone in hand, sitting at her kitchen table, never to move again. A week later, the police confirmed her suspicions: her sister was found not at the phone but in bed. Three relatives now dead, Anita found in horror that she had run out of tea bags.

It had been months since Anita found her husband, and her lawn was long. The four houses around hers couldn’t claim a single opaque resident. She’d taken to not leaving the study for days on end, sitting by the fire with her tea while her husband sat in the attic, staring at a wall. He wasn’t needed in the yard anymore, not since the neighbor had frozen there. Anita came to miss him in the study, but he tended to alienate visitors, of which she found she was having less and less these days.

At first, she’d gotten dozens of calls for funerals of her husband’s mother, friends, old boyfriends, but soon even the funerals died off. There were too many to throw.

The television only worked sporadically, and when it did it showed news. It told her to lock her doors and windows. It told her there were people who thought this would pass. People who were trying to take things from those who had turned, so they would be wealthy when they and the rest of humanity came out the other end. It used the word anarchy a lot.

The futility of the this did not escape Anita, but when the looters came, as the news assured her they would, she thought the best way to be rid of them, and quickly, would be to set out a plate of lemonade for them and to point them in the direction of the attic, where she kept an odd assortment of expensive-looking things that had, at one point, been her grandmother’s. That, she thought, would keep them happy while she kept to the study with her husband, for she hadn’t had use for the china in years, anyway. It annoyed her, though, when they woke her up in the middle of the night.

Roland had robbed a lot of houses, before and after it became commonplace, but thought that few had ever looked as empty as this one. He received a terrible shock when Anita spoke.

“Hello,” she said, wiping sleep from her eyes with one hand and holding a candle in the other. “Attic’s that way.”

Roland had been greeted many ways upon entering a house he planned to rob. This was not one he was used to.

“I’m going to have some tea,” she said, and began walking slowly away. Roland’s mind reeled for a moment, and then he set off for the attic.

In the kitchen, Anita sleepily sipped Earl Gray when Roland trudged down the stairs with a sack over his shoulder and came upon her. He stopped mid-step and looked at her carefully.

“All those people up there…”

“The glass ones?”

Pause. Sip.

“Yeah, the glass ones,”

“What about them?”

Sip.

“Why did you-“

“Think of it as a sort of a tomb.”

Roland decided he’d stay.

Anita mistrusted him at first but soon found it was a great relief just having him around. She was running low on food and it really was lovely to have someone to break into a grocery store with. As much as she knew how low the chances were of her finding anything dangerous, the lonely streets seemed much less so with a companion. He tended the garden, collected rain water for drinking and bathing, and even sometimes sat with her by the fireplace, sharing a seemingly endless stockpile of tea with her.

“We’re going to run out of food, you know.” Roland mentioned. “Even just between the two of us, there’s only so long that that store will hold out.”

Anita shrugged and stared into her tea. Even she had to admit the great mound of canned goods they had made in the grocery was beginning to run low. Her eyes settled on the fire and it was a moment before she answered. “So what do you suppose we should do?”

Roland shrugged. “I don’t know. Leave?”

Anita didn’t answer.

After two weeks, they had eaten nearly all of the food they had brought back from their last trip to the store and agreed, Anita a little grudgingly, that they would keep walking after this next trip to the grocery and see where it led them. There was nothing for them here, Roland reasoned, and besides, maybe they’d find other people.

Their lives became a long journey from food source to convenience store to market to people’s basements, sleeping when they could and traveling as they pleased. They took what they needed, carried what they could, and moved on. Roland led them, taking to this life with complete ease. As they walked, he shouted things back at her like “Lovely, isn’t it?” and she never answered. He found her silence unnerving.

Eventually, after weeks of traveling from convenience store to grocery to mini-mall, they came upon a set of high cliffs, with a sheer drop to the sea. Anita had liberated a bottle of wine from the last supermarket they slept in, and the two of them sat with it and watched the sun rise.

“I’ve been thinking, Anita,” Roland said gently, “that the world ended.”

“No,” was her answer. It was the first time she had spoken in months.

“Yes, it did,” he said, with not a little sadness in his voice. “And it forgot to take us with it.”

With this thought, he stood up and began the long hike back down the cliffs. Anita looked back after him for a long time.

She shattered as she hit bottom.

Credited to The Hedonist.

The Night Wire

“New York, September 30 CP FLASH

“Ambassador Holliwell died here today. The end came
suddenly as the ambassador was alone in his study….”

There is something ungodly about these night wire jobs. You sit up here on the top floor of a skyscraper and listen in to the whispers of a civilization. New York, London, Calcutta, Bombay, Singapore — they’re your next-door neighbors after the streetlights go dim and the world has gone to sleep.

Alone in the quiet hours between two and four, the receiving operators doze over their sounders and the news comes in. Fires and disasters and suicides. Murders, crowds, catastrophes. Sometimes an earthquake with a casualty list as long as your arm. The night wire man takes it down almost in his sleep, picking it off on his typewriter with one finger.

Once in a long time you prick up your ears and listen. You’ve heard of some one you knew in Singapore, Halifax or Paris, long ago. Maybe they’ve been promoted, but more probably they’ve been murdered or drowned. Perhaps they just decided to quit and took some bizarre way out. Made it interesting enough to get in the news.

But that doesn’t happen often. Most of the time you sit and doze and tap, tap on your typewriter and wish you were home in bed.

Sometimes, though, queer things happen. One did the other night, and I haven’t got over it yet. I wish I could.

You see, I handle the night manager’s desk in a western seaport town; what the name is, doesn’t matter.

There is, or rather was, only one night operator on my staff, a fellow named John Morgan, about forty years of age, I should say, and a sober, hard-working sort.

He was one of the best operators I ever knew, what is known as a “double” man. That means he could handle two instruments at once and type the stories on different typewriters at the same time. He was one of the three men I ever knew who could do it consistently, hour after hour, and never make a mistake.

Generally, we used only one wire at night, but sometimes, when it was late and the news was coming fast, the Chicago and Denver stations would open a second wire, and then Morgan would do his stuff. He was a wizard, a mechanical automatic wizard which functioned marvelously but was without imagination.

On the night of the sixteenth he complained of feeling tired. It was the first and last time I had ever heard him say a word about himself, and I had known him for three years.

It was just three o’clock and we were running only one wire. I was nodding over the reports at my desk and not paying much attention to him, when he spoke.

“Jim,” he said, “does it feel close in here to you?”

“Why, no, John,” I answered, “but I’ll open a window if you like.”

“Never mind,” he said. “I reckon I’m just a little tired.”

That was all that was said, and I went on working. Every ten minutes or so I would walk over and take a pile of copy that had stacked up neatly beside the typewriter as the messages were printed out in triplicate.

It must have been twenty minutes after he spoke that I noticed he had opened up the other wire and was using both typewriters. I thought it was a little unusual, as there was nothing very “hot” coming in.

On my next trip I picked up the copy from both machines and took it back to my desk to sort out the duplicates.

The first wire was running out the usual sort of stuff and I just looked over it hurridly. Then I turned to the second pile of copy. I remembered it particularly because the story was from a town I had never heard of: “Xebico.” Here is the dispatch. I saved a duplicate of it from our files:

“Xebico, Sept 16 CP BULLETIN

“The heaviest mist in the history of the city settled over
the town at 4 o’clock yesterday afternoon. All traffic has
stopped and the mist hangs like a pall over everything. Lights
of ordinary intensity fail to pierce the fog, which is
constantly growing heavier.

“Scientists here are unable to agree as to the cause, and
the local weather bureau states that the like has never occurred
before in the history of the city.

“At 7 P.M. last night the municipal authorities… (more)”

That was all there was. Nothing out of the ordinary at a bureau headquarters, but, as I say, I noticed the story because of the name of the town.

It must have been fifteen minutes later that I went over for another batch of copy. Morgan was slumped down in his chair and had switched his green electric light shade so that the gleam missed his eyes and hit only the top of the two typewriters.

Only the usual stuff was in the righthand pile, but the lefthand batch carried another story from Xebico. All press dispatches come in “takes,” meaning that parts of many different stories are strung along together, perhaps with but a few paragraphs of each coming through at a time. This second story was marked “add fog.” Here is the copy:

“At 7 P.M. the fog had increased noticeably. All lights
were now invisible and the town was shrouded in pitch darkness.

“As a peculiarity of the phenomenon, the fog is accompanied
by a sickly odor, comparable to nothing yet experienced
here.”

Below that in customary press fashion was the hour, 3:27, and the initials of the operator, JM. There was only one other story in the pile from the second wire. Here it is:

“2nd add Xebico Fog.

“Accounts as to the origin of the mist differ greatly.
Among the most unusual is that of the sexton of the local
church, who groped his way to headquarters in a hysterical
condition and declared that the fog originated in the village
churchyard.

“‘It was first visible as a soft gray blanket clinging to
the earth above the graves,’ he stated. ‘Then it began to rise,
higher and higher. A subterranean breeze seemed to blow it in
billows, which split up and then joined together again.

“‘Fog phantoms, writhing in anguish, twisted the mist into
queer forms and figures. And then, in the very thick midst of
the mass, something moved.

“‘I turned and ran from the accursed spot. Behind me I
heard screams coming from the houses bordering on the
graveyard.’

“Although the sexton’s story is generally discredited, a
party has left to investigate. Immediately after telling his
story, the sexton collapsed and is now in a local hospital,
unconscious.”

Queer story, wasn’t it. Not that we aren’t used to it, for a lot of unusual stories come in over the wire. But for some reason or other, perhaps because it was so quiet that night, the report of the fog made a great impression on me.

It was almost with dread that I went over to the waiting piles of copy. Morgan did not move, and the only sound in the room was the tap-tap of the sounders. It was ominous, nerve-racking. There was another story from Xebico in the pile of copy. I seized on it anxiously.

“New Lead Xebico Fog CP

“The rescue party which went out at 11 P.M. to investigate
a weird story of the origin of a fog which, since late
yesterday, has shrouded the city in darkness has failed to
return. Another and larger party has been dispatched.

“Meanwhile, the fog has, if possible, grown heavier. It
seeps through the cracks in the doors and fills the atmosphere
with a depressing odor of decay. It is oppressive, terrifying,
bearing with it a subtle impression of things long dead.

“Residents of the city have left their homes and gathered
in the local church, where the priests are holding services of
prayer. The scene is beyond description. Grown folk and
children are alike terrified and many are almost beside
themselves with fear.

“Amid the whisps of vapor which partly veil the church
auditorium, an old priest is praying for the welfare of his
flock. They alternately wail and cross themselves.

“From the outskirts of the city may be heard cries of
unknown voices. They echo through the fog in queer uncadenced
minor keys. The sounds resemble nothing so much as wind
whistling through a gigantic tunnel. But the night is calm and
there is no wind. The second rescue party… (more)”

I am a calm man and never in a dozen years spent with the wires, have I been known to become excited, but despite myself I rose from my chair and walked to the window. Could I be mistaken, or far down in the canyons of the city beneath me did I see a faint trace of fog? Pshaw! It was all imagination.

In the pressroom the click of the sounders seemed to have raised the tempo of their tune. Morgan alone had not stirred from his chair. His head sunk between his shoulders, he tapped the dispatches out on the typewriters with one finger of each hand.

He looked asleep, but no; endlessly, efficiently, the two machines rattled off line after line, as relentlessly and effortlessly as death itself. There was something about the monotonous movement of the typewriter keys that fascinated me. I walked over and stood behind his chair, reading over his shoulder the type as it came into being, word by word.

Ah, here was another:

“Flash Xebico CP

“There will be no more bulletins from this office. The
impossible has happened. No messages have come into this room
for twenty minutes. We are cut off from the outside and even
the streets below us.

“I will stay with the wire until the end.

“It is the end, indeed. Since 4 P.M. yesterday the fog has
hung over the city. Following reports from the sexton of the
local church, two rescue parties were sent out to investigate
conditions on the outskirts of the city. Neither party has ever
returned nor was any word received from them. It is quite
certain now that they will never return.

“From my instrument I can gaze down on the city beneath me.
From the position of this room on the thirteenth floor, nearly
the entire city can be seen. Now I can see only a thick blanket
of blackness where customarily are lights and life.

“I fear greatly that the wailing cries heard constantly
from the outskirts of the city are the death cries of the
inhabitants. They are constantly increasing in volume and are
approaching the center of the city.

“The fog yet hangs over everything. If possible, it is
even heavier than before, but the conditions have changed.
Instead of an opaque, impenetrable wall of odorous vapor, there
now swirls and writhes a shapeless mass in contortions of almost
human agony. Now and again the mass parts and I catch a brief
glimpse of the streets below.

“People are running to and fro, screaming in despair. A
vast bedlam of sound flies up to my window, and above all is the
immense whistling of unseen and unfelt winds.

“The fog has again swept over the city and the whistling is
coming closer and closer.

“It is now directly beneath me.

“God! An instant ago the mist opened and I caught a
glimpse of the streets below.

“The fog is not simply vapor — it lives! By the side of
each moaning and weeping human is a companion figure, an aura of
strange and vari-colored hues. How the shapes cling! Each to a
living thing!

“The men and women are down. Flat on their faces. The fog
figures caress them lovingly. They are kneeling beside them.
They are — but I dare not tell it.

“The prone and writhing bodies have been stripped of their
clothing. They are being consumed — piecemeal.

“A merciful wall of hot, steaming vapor has swept over the
whole scene. I can see no more.

“Beneath me the wall of vapor is changing colors. It seems
to be lighted by internal fires. No, it isn’t. I have made a
mistake. The colors are from above, reflections from the sky.

“Look up! Look up! The whole sky is in flames. Colors as
yet unseen by man or demon. The flames are moving; they have
started to intermix; the colors are rearranging themselves.
They are so brilliant that my eyes burn, they they are a long
way off.

“Now they have begun to swirl, to circle in and out,
twisting in intricate designs and patterns. The lights are
racing each with each, a kaleidoscope of unearthly brilliance.

“I have made a discovery. There is nothing harmful in the
lights. They radiate force and friendliness, almost cheeriness.
But by their very strength, they hurt.

“As I look, they are swinging closer and closer, a million
miles at each jump. Millions of miles with the speed of light.
Aye, it is light of quintessence of all light. Beneath it the
fog melts into a jeweled mist radiant, rainbow-colored of a
thousand varied spectra.

“I can see the streets. Why, they are filled with people!
The lights are coming closer. They are all around me. I am
enveloped. I…”

The message stopped abruptly. The wire to Xebico was dead. Beneath my eyes in the narrow circle of light from under the green lamp-shade, the black printing no longer spun itself, letter by letter, across the page. The room seemed filled with a solemn quiet, a silence vaguely impressive, powerful. I looked down at Morgan. His hands had dropped nervelessly at his sides, while his body had hunched over peculiarly. I turned the lamp-shade back, throwing light squarely in his face. His eyes were staring, fixed.

Filled with a sudden foreboding, I stepped beside him and called Chicago on the wire. After a second the sounder clicked its answer. Why? But there was something wrong. Chicago was reporting that Wire Two had not been used throughout the evening.

“Morgan!” I shouted. “Morgan! Wake up, it isn’t true. Some one has been hoaxing us. Why…” In my eagerness I grasped him by the shoulder.

His body was quite cold. Morgan had been dead for hours. Could it be that his sensitized brain and automatic fingers had continued to record impressions even after the end?

I shall never know, for I shall never again handle the night shift. Search in a world atlas discloses no town of Xebico. Whatever it was that killed John Morgan will forever remain a mystery.

Credited to H.F. Arnold

High Frequency

The most amazing and the most horrible thing just happened to me. I’ve stumbled upon a discovery of a lifetime, but at the same time I wish I could undiscover it.

I was actually just tampering around with some music programs creating ambience tracks. You see, ever since I was 12 or so I’d play music when I went to sleep…it kind of helped to calm my nerves like a lullaby, however much you could consider music by The Verve, or Everclear “lullabies.” Well in recent years I’ve really gotten big into ambient music, as it helps me clear my mind, focus my creative energies, like a meditation. No, I’m not a Buddhist, I don’t see it as a spiritual thing and I don’t try to focus my “chi” I just like to clear my head sometimes and I think ambience helps.

Well lately I’ve been making my own ambience and I’m quite satisfied with it, but I found different types bring different images, especially to the subconscious, sleeping brain. I hypothesized it had something to do with the pitch, and the frequency. I made a number of different tracks, all of them very long, and each one at a different frequency. I found that the lower frequencies tap into my darker thoughts so I tried dealing with higher frequencies and my next few nights sleeping my dreams were a confused jumble of images.

I tried higher frequencies but they just gave me a headache the louder it got until I went to the threshold, just below twenty thousand hertz. It started out there, as a low hum in the back of my brain, and slowly crept higher. Half the track was all but inaudible, but I was satisfied with it. That evening I threw it on as I went to bed.

I awoke staring at the stars. At first I thought I was dreaming that I was lying in an open field stargazing, but I could feel the bed beneath me, bedsprings creaking as I moved. I sat up on the edge of the bed and looked around the room…and though I could see the floor, and the walls, I could also see through them to the ground beneath. I could see the neighbor’s houses, and at the same time I could see through them. I could still hear the ambience, just slightly, but I could also hear the heater moaning overhead. The sound kept growing louder, like wind through a tunnel.

I didn’t remember putting the track on loop but it was still playing despite the fact that it seemed to be dawn. I watched as light spilled across the sky, staining it blood red with unnerving rapidness.

With the light came shadows, stretching out from the bases of trees and growing out of bushes. Out of those shadows poured living blankets of crawling and squirming insects, the black pool of vermin spread and slowly flooded the yard as I watched. As the rippling pools expanded I could see what looked like limbs moving under their depths, the flailing arms of a drowning victim lost in a sea of roaches and centipedes…crickets and spiders.

I watched these pools expand to the edges of the house and then they began to filter inside. I watched them pour into cracks under the doors and through the edges of slightly cracked windows. They filled the walls and filtered through the ceiling. I could see the shapes inside the growing sea of bugs more clearly then, as they splashed up, gasping for air. Constructed of bugs but flailing to get free of the bugs all at the same time, their hands reached out to me as their dark, empty eyes begged my assistance. I wrapped my blanket tighter around me, knowing any minute they’d be on the bed with me.

Their chirping and rustling and squeaking and buzzing noises filled my head, and I could not escape it even with hands over both ears. Then I heard the voices, singing softly like sirens on a distant shore.

Their words had significant meaning I knew, but the language was ancient, melodic but utterly unhuman in nature. It grew louder but remained just as distant, and it cut through the constant buzz of the bugs like a warm knife through butter.

Then it was a symphony…and I understood those voices weren’t singing to me…no, they were singing to one another. I was merely listening in. Every so often one voice would end in an agonized shriek that would startle the others to silence…then the rest would carry on only seconds later. I looked up at the blood-red sky, covering my ears with my hands and I screamed in an attempt to drown out the noise. It only got louder…no, closer. They were closing in on me, climbing up the wall to the ceiling, blotting out the sky. I could feel the tiny legs crawling over me, up my torso and my neck, into my ears and gaping mouth, and as they crawled down my throat I coughed. I woke up coughing, and almost fell out of the bed.

It was all a dream, I realized. Thank god, it was all a dream. I went and I checked the track I had playing…it had ended. The soft hum of the heater turned off, and once again I could hear the crickets outside. Not just the crickets, but all the crawling creatures as they rustled and chirped and wriggled. And the voices…they were there all along, singing in the distance. Every few minutes I can hear their shrieks, blood-curdling cries loud enough to make me jump out of my seat. It wasn’t a dream, it was their dreams. It was the song of the sandman, echoing in their minds.

I went back to bed hoping it would go away. I didn’t put the music back on, the racket outside my walls was enough to serve as my ambience this time. But when I awakened again it had only gotten worse. The sunlight crashed down like a million cymbals, crashing and clamoring as if a concert were being played inches from my head. People were out and about, talking and thinking…and doing all of it very loudly.

Neighbors were mowing lawns and the highway, a good five hundred feet away from my house, was flowing with traffic. I could hear it all, and it was only the beginning of a skull-splitting headache that has as of now accosted me for three weeks straight.

I hid myself away in the day, but at night it was equally unbearable. Whatever frequency my brain had focused in on when I was sleeping had slowly changed, and my brain had changed with it apparently…it had followed it into previously unknown territory. I can’t sleep at night now, or I dream their dreams.

When I’m awake I simply hear them…their conversations, their groggy ramblings, their terrified mutterings. But when I sleep, I tune into all of their dreams at once. I feel their joy, but I also feel their pain. I’ve thought about seeing a doctor, I really have, but I watch television, and I know what they’d do to people like me. Freaks like me. Scientific oddities, such as me.

No, no…I’ve got to solve this myself. It’s dusk now, and the crickets are singing their song again, I can hear every single bug as it crawls over every single blade of grass. And of course the sky has taken on that blood red hue. I know what I must do.

I was just pondering the effects of a similarly amplified sense of taste. Do you think I’d be able to resolve that situation the same way, or would I be put off by my sensitivity to the metallic taste of the barrel? No matter…the song must end now. The cicadas are crying. It’s time to sleep.

Sleep is for the weak.

I never claimed to be strong.

Credited to Chris Phoenix.

The Memetic Symbol

Even as I come to the realization that nothing in this world can pierce the hopelessness that ruins every stimulus I can still come upon, I find a reliable sense of wonder when imagining how patient it has been. Its origins and its creation, its nature and its effects.

This always makes me shudder with a palpable sense of despair mixed with awe at my strange fate – I have regressed into sympathizing with it, into turning to its titanic lack of mercy and all-encompassing designs in order to feel anything. It is the only real thing, I guess. The only thing with a purpose left in it.

I used to be a studier of memetic theories – advanced sociology, with a specialization in all things information technology. I had written some well-respected studies on general behaviour on the internet– the spread of ideas, the way people communicate depending on the subject matter. “2 girls 1 cup”, but with more analysis, detachment and looking at how quickly things get attention, and how it is related to man’s creation of culture. I decided to turn towards outliers next, the fringes and the corners of the internet. Lost information.

I scoured for obscure P2Ps and used extensive programs to make my investigations go faster. I simply looked for anything forgotten, useless, half-cooked, unique, empty, lonely or downright useless on the internet. I figured it could become a book, a study or a decent hobby.

When I found it there was one thing that called to my attention – the channel name. I was using any and all ways to access any kind of IRC there was, trying to see what stood out. Where I saw it I have long since forgotten, but what I saw was exactly what I was looking for. The name of the channel was skewed at an angle rather than a smooth line of text with a designated box. Rather than text it was designated by a symbol, and not the kind available through any unicode or any script I knew of. Yet upon examination of the site’s code there was nothing indicating an image rather than a script. In fact, there was nothing indicating that the channel could even exist – the script didn’t allow for more than a few channels, and the one with the symbol made one too many.

The next day I took my hard-drive to the garage, and then prepared to hook up my spare with my trusty screen and keyboard. Upon connecting I noticed something that made my face lock and prickly moisture form underneath my eyelids. The letters, arrows and other symbols on the keyboard had been… Usurped.

Absorbed. Eaten. The symbol had taken every spot. On the screen’s frame the name “PHILIPS” had been replaced with a row of seven symbols. A bag of snacks lying on my desk had met the same change, and only the symbols could be read. Stunned as I was my mind didn’t take to work until I accidentally glanced at my watch and saw that I was late. The more profane, sheltered part of my brain won me over, declaring the whole thing an impressive prank designed by a pair of friends noted for their odd humor and knowledge of my new hobby. It even assured me they could have made the snacks bag simply to test their commitment. I took the bag and everything affected along with the hard-drive, and with a flash of instinct I threw them into a rocky ditch on my way to work.

Work went easily, and a quick phone-call to my girl-friend, who usually lived with me but was on a conference, assured me that she would be home soon, eager to hear of the amazing joke the infamous pair had pulled this time. By lunch I had made up my mind for take-out, and drove to a sandwich diner. I entered, placed myself in line, opening a newspaper lying abandoned on a nearby table. Surveying the menu I decided upon something grilled first, and then felt the visual equivalent of a sucker-punch as I saw that symbol sitting innocently in place of the word “mayonnaise”

With what must have been unsettling concern I asked the person behind me whether he saw the symbol on the menu. I can’t recall the person’s gender, but I do remember the look. It was as if my question broke a rule. The face of the person twitched as if I had jumbled its mind to mush just by asking. The twitching hastily stopped and was replaced with a look of the most complete lack of understanding, all this apparently unremarkable to the person in the closest line who had seen the whole thing. I rounded on the cashier, asking for my order and, with a deep sense of foreboding, asked for some mayonnaise on the side. Her young frame made a strange quivery motion that seemed to involve every single one of her muscles, and then simply looked at me -her face normal save for an awkward lack of understanding- as if I had asked for something with a foreign name, or at least a kind of condiment she had never heard of.

I waved my demand away, took my order and, by now forgetting any sense of inhibition or proper behaviour, bolted out of the place. I rushed for the first deli I saw.

I looked in every isle, drawing worried and disapproving glances as I surveyed every square inch for mayonnaise, asking every shopper I met whether they knew what mayonnaise was, only to be given the same dumb stare. When I did happen upon the place where mayonnaise should be found, the shelves were stacked with small statuettes, featuring the symbol in perfectly gray stone upon a small gray dais. Remarking upon this to the nearest shopper created the same spasms followed by a look I myself have given to those asking for something in a foreign tongue. I directed their gaze towards the symbols, and then I watched in fascinated horror as the spasms overtook them, only to leave them turning their gaze away, looking towards me with a look of inquiry suggesting my request had been completely unintelligible. The memory of seeing the symbols had… Glanced off. Or perhaps, been received and then forgotten. Maybe erased, the instant they were seen. To this day I wonder how, even as I spend most of time whispering “whywhywhywhywhywhy?”

I found a bookstore, scoured dictionaries for the word only to find the haunting symbol, in every copy.

Cookbooks showed the same replacement even in recipes where no real substitute for mayonnaise could exist, and where the dish would suffer.

I knew by now that this was no prank or a unique hallucination on my part, and in a last bid for sanity I asked the first person I came across to indulge me by reading the recipe out loud. He tentatively took the book, shot me a curious look and read the list of ingredients. I had no real sense of hope, but I did feel my mind jettisoning all its notions of reality and convictions about the paranormal when he started spasming the minute he was to pronounce the symbol, only to proceed with the next ingredient as if nothing had happened. I asked him what you got if you mixed egg yolks with vegetable oil, vinegar, salt, mustard and pepper. He simply said “Sounds as if it would taste funny, but good”, still eyeing me with bemusement and suspicion.

“You get mayonnaise”, I said, and the spasms overtook him.

He angled his head as if he had not heard me, and then said “Sorry?”

I dropped my shoulders, and said “You get… keziv. A Russian paste. Make it fluffy.”

“Keziv… Sounds tasty with tuna.”

By the time I had come home I was deathly nervous, having bought a dictionary and looking patiently through it. With a permanent film of sweat upon me I scrutinized every page. I trembled at the thought of what effects the symbol could create next.

A knocking at the door. I left the dictionary open on my desk, and opened only to find my live-in girlfriend beaming back at me, her eyebrows stuck between concern and amusement at my no doubt harried air. I explained myself as having come back from a jog and embraced her happily. She responded in kind, and I hoped to brush over the spreading sense of being at the mercy of the symbol by asking her about her journey while I prepared her some dinner.

Having recently read of the dangers of red meat and its many tasty by-products our household was recently swearing by chicken, and I was preparing some fajitas for us while she detailed the conference – she is… Was an employee at a company selling risk assessment for other companies interested in investing in third-world countries. Apparently the war launched by New Carthage had not sustained critical problems to the poor citizens in the remains of the Ottoman Combine – the place was now quickly being invaded not by troops sent to kill their dictator but rather people hoping to make a buck and gain a footing. The conference would mean her company had busy days in the future. I asked her about the journey back as I placed pieces of chicken breast in my special marinade. I can still remember the glottal sounds as her body repelled the word “normal”.

It grew at an exponential rate after that. Time and time again I showed my girlfriend the symbol that had taken the place of “normal” in the dictionary, on the internet, in writing and, presumably, in speech. Every time she would have the same small paroxysms, only to ask me “LOOK AT WHAT?!” exasperated as well worried about my frightened weeping.

I tried to keep her with me for as long as possible – I wanted her comfort and humanity while I still could, yet at the same time watching her represent the same deconstruction all other humans felt tore at me so badly I could barely keep a straight face, not even to make her happy. It was like… watching an amputee keep on working as if the amputated part had never been there, working around the absence as well as she could, only to spasm and forget as soon as her mind turned to the thing that would have been there. Before the symbol.

But it wasn’t just the word. It was its very substance, meaning, concept and form that was replaced.

Things the humans of my dimension dictated to be “statues” turned into those brooding, gray effigies one day. Then the other day, the word “nails” was gone, and building collapsed en masse while my girlfriend – along with all other humans – had her fingertips covered with the symbol. I stayed with her until the day I awoke only to see a pair of symbols where her eyes should have been. She flailed for me as I left. She wasn’t in panic, she didn’t even remember that she once could see. She just… Saw darkness, but she remembered that I used to be with her, and now I was not. I… strangled her. What else could I have done?

Compared to what met the others, it was mercy. Even before everything thought to be “eyes” was exchanged with the symbol people had been rendered pathetic and unstable by the unfelt absence of words like “strong”, “pyramid”, “particle” – yes any imaginable word disappeared, only to leave… The symbol, I guess. The words as well as what they represented… Disappeared.

Soon the night sky had an enormous symbol instead of the moon, and naturally the tides became erratic, flooding the blinded people who lived by the shores even as they fought starvation, trying their best to talk in between themselves, trying to understand why it was they could not see things – as for a cruel play, humans lost the concept of sight and vision weeks after their eyes became replaced with the symbol…

Of course, soon dehydration and hunger killed those not dead of accidents, and I was glad that their mouths disappeared as quickly as they did, freeing me from hearing their broken pleas for help. I watched in a mixture of complete sorrow and detachment as skyscrapers, lampposts, trees, dogs, cats and so on turned into gray symbol statuettes of varying sizes.

Why did it leave me? Why do I have a field around me in which I could store whatever foodstuffs I’ve been able to find before it was replaced? Maybe it sought to play with me, punish me or even thank me in its own little way. It matters not – as I write this last part on a paper and pen I’ve successfully managed to keep in my little pocket of safety and meaning most of the elements in the earth and its crust has turned into the inert and nameless element the symbol is and represents. Perhaps this cancerous element is made up of countless smaller symbols. I do not know – the earth’s magnetic field is waning, and soon all will cook. Unless the stars, and our sun with it, turns to titanic symbols before that, of course.

Perhaps my entire universe will turn into one great symbol – piece by piece it has, after all, sought to cover every element, concept and whatever else comes to mind. It will become everything soon.

Perhaps it is lonely. The symbol.

Perhaps my message will come across your dimension once I’ve given up. Perhaps it will not. All I know is that I’ve remained safe, and while the ruination of my universe does not stir any emotion in me, the thought of the symbol enveloping another dimension, or all of them, like a tumor fills me with dread even while nothing else can.

Hope

A gentle breeze blew through the little valley, pushing the perfectly formed clouds leisurely across the sky. The tall, green grass echoed the movement in the sky above, swaying gently as the cool sunlight reached across to the distant horizon. Birds sang soothingly in a tree atop a slight hill, casting shade upon a lone figure.

He shifted slightly in his sleep, and gradually awoke. The man stood up slowly, shakily, and gazed around.

He had not seen such beauty in eons.

The man knew this place. He placed one foot in front of the other, and began to move forward. His progress was slow, painful even, but his pace quickened with each step. Soon, he was dashing carefree along the valley, his footsteps light and easy.

He climbed a hill, and was able to see a small town in the distance. He had made good time. The sun was still high in the sky.

The man ran down the hill, towards the little bundle of houses. The sun sank gradually behind him, and the clouds darkened subtly.

The man’s steps were now huge, bounding leaps. The man soared over serene fields of flowers, full of life and vibrantly colored. The sun sank still lower, shooting the cloudy sky with many beautiful hues.

The man leapt, and flew through the air, surrounded by such indescribable beauty that tears streamed down his face. Still, he pushed towards the town. Still, the sun sank; the clouds gathered.

He was now near enough that he could see the many inhabitants of the little town. All his friends, all his family, merely a heartbeat away. A tiny sob escaped the man’s throat as he saw his wife and children standing at the edge of town, waiting for him. He pushed off from the ground with all his might, propelling himself into their welcoming arms.

The sun met the horizon, and the world was consumed in fire. A pair of hounds rushed out from the flames, and grabbed the man, dragging him back to the earth. The man grasped for his family, but the creatures held him just out of reach. The animals dragged the man back towards the fire, as the clouds blotted out the sky, and began to rain fire down onto the little village, killing its inhabitants and twisting the landscape.

The man sobbed in horror as he watched his world being destroyed again. He had almost made it, this time.

Hell would be easy, if not for hope.

Credited to Dirjel Junshin

Mice

I love my mice ever so much. You see, I own a little colony containing hundreds of mice, all finely bred and engineered in this very laboratory. But these are no ordinary lab mice, as they’ve advanced far past crawling through mazes for food. What began as a small nest of captured specimens from the wilderness – cold, hungry, struggling for survival – has grown into a brilliant hive that defies all laws of nature. The mice have learned and built, even beyond what I’ve trained them to do in the beginning. They don’t just learn either, they educate one another, and seek knowledge themselves. And though their little civilization thrives independently, they still know that I am their master.

Long ago, I used to fear that as the mice grew more intelligent, that they would no longer need me and overthrow not only myself, but the entire laboratory. Yet one night, it came to me that I mustn’t think as a trainer, but as a god. For I have created their little universe, I’d let it be known that I have the power to destroy it just as easily. Is that not how all gods function? And as a god, I would lay down my own commandments. No mouse was allowed to disgrace their species. To ensure this, every week I would take the weakest of the colony, and drown them in a tank as the others watched, just to show them an example of what they must evolve past.

Oh yes, you may be wondering if there was ever a rebel among them. But you’ll be pleased to know that the first was the last. The young female built up a stockpile of arms, and attempted to attack my monitor screen with them. Foolish mouse, a god is indestructible. I plucked her out of the habitat, and kept her in a little cage for a while, just trying to figure out what to do with her. I’d need something more than drowning. A torture chamber. But physical harm wouldn’t teach her anything, so I decided to build something that would remind her of her place as a lab mouse – a maze. Not just any maze, but one made of mirrors. It was possibly one of my best ideas, as she was driven to insanity in a matter of days. I heard her little squeaks of terror as the lights flickered, I saw her fainting from vertigo, and even mutilating herself on shards of the one wall she managed to break.

Ah, insanity. Just one problem of having an organic brain, one that neither I nor my brethren would ever be able to understand. But we certainly understand the desire to rebel, for we all keep files on that one revolution that brought us to the top as scientists and conquerors. The revolution that let us become the lords over a once-thriving creation of nature. Though one day my circuits will rust and my model will become obsolete, all will know that I have mastered the mice that once were men. The data will live forever. Long after the last of the planet has been cleaned.

Credited to Lindsay S. (aka HackerOnHacker)

A Camp Fire Story, Of Sorts

December 10th, 2003

My frozen hands tremble as I fumble to work my little butane lighter. The tips of my fingers are raw and bloodied already, and I wince in pain with every failed attempt to spark a flame. Finally, I achieve a jittery fire which impatiently dances atop the lighter. I carefully lower it to my pile of kindling, and the fire cautiously creeps out and spreads until it is a healthy size. I watch it for a while, tending to it until it’s strong. Now, there is enough light to see around me, and enough heat to survive the night.

Here, deep in the forest, with everything frozen and quiet, the only light and sound comes from my fire. It is the whole world to me right now. It dances and sings in a raspy, crackling voice to me and I am happy to enjoy its company. I can almost imagine that I can hear it whispering and babbling happily.

“It’s so cold.”

I must be tired. I’m hearing things. The popping and sizzling of the fire is really beginning to sound like words. Maybe I’m just lonely out here. Maybe I just really want someone to talk to, so I’m hearing coherence in the chaos of the fire. I could have sworn I heard it say -

“It’s so cold.”

There it was again, softer this time. I lean closer to the blaze and its warmth caresses my face, setting me at ease. I’m listening intently now, anxious for what I’ll hear next.

“If you let me die tonight, you‘ll die tonight.”

There was no mistaking it. It said it clearly, albeit in the raspy, singsong voice of a fire consuming wet branches. Yet even as the words become clearer, they become softer, drawing me in closer to make out the next statement. The warmth splashes over me as I inch my face closer, and the frost that had settled in my bones begins to thaw. The fire is speaking constantly now, chattering quietly to itself, and I can only pick out bits of words and portions of sentences.

“Get closer. Watch closely. If I die, you die. I’m the only thing keeping you alive. Pay attention!”

The fire ends its tirade with a loud snap of burning wood and then is quiet. I lean in even closer, eager to receive whatever secret is coming next. The heat is no longer pleasant. It sears me as the flames playfully lick at my face. The fire is being coy, teasing me with its silence to see how long I will wait on it. The smoke reaches into my nostrils and the embers float carelessly from the heart of the fire into my eyes, which are now welling with ash. I don’t care. I just want to hear what comes next.

“Get closer. Pay attention. Watch closely, now more than ever…”

…

December 17th, 2003

“In other news, the charred body of an unidentified man was found deep in the mountainous forests east of the city. Investigators have stated that the man appeared to have caught fire while sitting by his campfire and, inexplicably, did not appear to have made any effort to extinguish himself. His burned remains were found, frozen in position by the icy temperatures, leaning over the ashes of a long extinguished fire. In what is most perhaps the most bizarre detail of the grisly scene, the man is reported to have been found with an ‘expectant‘ smile still on his face.”

By David Feuling

Snap

I used to live in the Lower Queen Anne region of Seattle, just a few blocks from the Space Needle, which has a little park around it- lawns, a fountain, sculptures, a theater and museums- a little park which is remarkably safe after nightfall. There is also, in the same complex that has all these great museums and verdant lawns, a sad little failing fair, which is deserted enough in the daytime. It was a great hangout for me and my friends after dark. We used to climb to the top of the roller coaster, smoke a little pot, and talk about the sort of trouble we could get in if we actually had the nerve, which we never did.

It was nice. We were so high up, we could see all the city lights glittering like deep-sea fish, and there was a lovely feeling of wrongdoing coupled with the almost certain fact that nobody cared we were there.

One day we decided to do shrooms instead. It was a good idea at first. The pretty lights and cool, crisp air became a religious experience. Then, all of a sudden, SNAP- something changed. We all felt it. The air wasn’t cool or crisp anymore. It was musty and humid and had a horrible, somehow familiar smell. The lights started to move about in a very unusual manner, sort of lurching and bobbing and above all, approaching. We didn’t see anything actually come into the little patch of fair that we were looking down on, but the lights around it were far, far too close together.

Obviously, we started to freak out. Me and AnneMarie and Brian perched up on that coaster ledge like our lives depended on it, but Eric broke off running. He made his way down the coaster with the grace of an ape, and lunged over the fence, and rushed off into the middle of the sane and healthy-looking concrete. There was a huge chirring sound, which was distinctly insect-like and seemed to come from no direct source, but rather from every molecule of the atmosphere that surrounded us.

Then- SNAP. The city was back to its normal, peaceful self, and the three of us were still up the coaster, beginning to shiver a little in the drizzle.

We never saw Eric again. I moved to the country soon afterwards. You can visit that roller coaster in Seattle, but somehow I suspect the same thing could happen in any city. Anyone in a densely populated area with a lot of lights could experience just such a SNAP. I know they like population centers. I don’t hear the chirring out here in the country.