Chapter one.

(I'm going to try to do a chapter-by-chapter type dealio now, periodically adding the next installment. Again, I did literally no research, and would probably die within minutes if I were in the protagonist's predicament. It's fiction, deal with it.)

Buzzbuzzbuzzbuzzzzitybuzuzzzuububuuzbuubzbztybzuuzbuzbubzubzubzuzzuzbubububbzuzzzz. In my head but not my ears. Just drones in a sadistically geometric farm, filched for our undervalued worth. Only those willing to acquiesce to spewing non-words and oozing fake confidence have any chance of breaking through the spotted-tile-of-mysterious-origin ceiling. Whoever invented those pseudo-material rectangles must be making a mint right now. My only source of pride is my ludicrous speed when switching windows when I hear the shuffle-hush of one of the higher-ups, holding my semblance of sanity in their dairy hands. I swear, if those husks ate any more cheese, they’d have curd children. I’ve taken to playing old text-adventures, at first as an experiment to see if I could fool the boss-folk, hoping that I could do something marginally entertaining and make it look like work. Hopefully, I will one day have worked in data entry, instead of this mind-bog of repetition and Excel. It’s a sad day when you find yourself pining for strife and adversity, something to fight against, overcome. All I’m doing now is passing the time until I die. Five of the clock, yes, success! Weekend.

---

I wake with crust on my eyelids and sand in every crevasse. Damn, the dream again. I’ve found my dreams to be a mirror of my current situation. When I was safe and sound, all I dreamt was danger and violence. Now that I’m on my island, it’s just endless droning. Surprisingly, it’s a nice break. Checking my nets, I of course find nothing edible; still need to weave them tighter. My crab traps are the same: ineffective. My supply of bananas should last me a very long time, I just want to broaden my cuisine a little, and test myself. I’ve always liked problem solving, my old employer never new they had a budding engineer on their hands. My water trench is still about half-full, I’ve found the sand to be an effective filter of the ocean water if dug deep and far enough away. I still boil all of my drinking water in my rock pots to be on the safe side. Nobody wants cholera. I guess it’s time to check on my next batch of banana stew, it takes a few days to fully simmer to perfection, a result of the low heat and thick sides of the shale cauldron. I could live off this stuff, and I do. I am peace, I am strife. I fight a faceless torrent, and I hope I never escape.

SAIO #3

My ferocious speed is stationary, my intensity desolate. In all the vastly finite competitions with the indifferent mechanical beasts never end in defeat, each victory the onset of the next confrontation: another empty triumph. I am a lean body with tremendous girth and nonexistent height. My life on tar cuts through deserts, traipses swathes in great forests, glides conically past mountains, running parallel with myself among giants of finance. I will only crumble long after man, never changing. Ready. Set.

I am a stagnant nomad, fed the lives of others. I am an indifferent purveyor of news of all persuasions. With time’s steady aging my usage has diminished, but my life will only end with the death of my hierarchal parents, the teeming bureaucracy that first created me, in their eternally adolescent minds, a long time before now. All empires end, but with them, so will I. My inevitable demise, however, is faced with giddy expectance. Super Savers taste like shit.

SAIO (Self Aware Inanimate Objects) #1

I am an amalgamation of toppings, born from various cans that live in a cavernous 40-degree cathedral. I will be a guilty treat for one of millions. I was built by six hands: two hurled me elliptically through the flour air, two smeared my visage with glorified ketchup, the last two masked my hideousness with chunks of pseudo-meat and disingenuous chunks of a cheese substance. My greasy brethren are partially responsible for the most pitiful epidemic known to reality. Now I am on the fiery procession of my puberty, I will soon transcend my pupa form to achieve adulthood. I am divided, ripped from my self, eight miniature clones adjacent, tantalizingly close. I am garnished with a synthetically green pepper and an insidious cup of ambiguous goo. Now I am swiftly whisked away, borne to my pitiful destiny. It confounds me that these creatures, these humans, honestly believe that all things inanimate are without consciousness. Do they not know that we are all the same? Everything is matter, everything is aware. Does a lack of the ability to communicate or navigate one’s body condemn one to constant servitude? I exist, therefore I am.

Howdy.

This is just an update-type thing. I won't be posting anything that's "all me, all the time" for a while, since I've decided to work on something that most certainly doesn't rhyme with "book." I'm not sure how long that will take me, but I will be devoting most of my conscious time (hopefully) to it. Also, all shorter works of mine, all mine, will be for an upcoming 'zine I'm doing with my brother, so this thing will be pretty stagnant for a while. I will undoubtedly still be doing the joint works with friends, and will post those here, since those are purely for fun (seriously, try it sometime, you'll surprise yourself). Also, the Literary Commune will, of course, still be fully active (or as active as you, the faceless mass of 21 people, liberally, will allow) and open for submission.


Seriously, submit to it, it's just begging to grow.

(I wrote this for a piece of art by Avery Collins. Basically, she showed me her piece and said "write a story about this," so I did.)

Cindy Cartwright had been anticipating her first mission since she had first learned of space flight at the age of seven. She had lucked into the current mission, expected to be the single most important exploration mission in the history of mankind, surpassing the New World explorers and the first lunar landing in terms of significance. She had only been included on the mission because the return flight would require a minimum of seven crew members in case of communication failure with Houston, and she was one of nine astronauts physically prepared for a launch, and the only one with adequate medical training. The mission was surface exploration of Earth’s second moon. The moon had appeared two weeks prior to Cindy’s scheduled launch. The term “appeared” is the only appropriate word, as all witnesses and video evidence described the phenomena as “blinking into existence.” The moon physically realized itself instantaneously, its perceived existence taking no time. There was no materialization or growth, not trajectory or visible approach; one instant it wasn’t, the next it was. The moon seemed to have no gravity, as it had not affected the tides or the orbit of the Earth or Luna. All satellite or telescopic pictures of the surface of the new moon were exasperatingly inconclusive, as a dim brown haze clouded the atmosphere. Cindy and her team were part of an emergency explorative mission, their sole purpose being to clarify whether there was an immediate threat to the planet or not. If the moon was to be deemed safe for the time-being, the crew was to return immediately so a more experienced crew could investigate further. The shuttle was on the launch-pad, seconds away from takeoff. 30, 29. Cindy’s breath quickened, her heart a sporadic stampede. 23, 22. A lifetime. That was what Cindy had spent to reach this very point, a decades-long climb to touch this ultimate pinnacle. 12, 11. She looked at the rest of the crew, all of whom had spaceflight experience. She recognized the restless serenity she had seen on the faces of the not-quite-grizzled veterans while assisting in the control room in Houston. It was surreal to her that she was about to become a peer to them, their colleague. Blastoff.

The brown cloud surrounding the moon was discovered to be comprised of mostly methane and various unidentifiable gaseous substances. None of the crew had any solid expectations pertaining to the appearance of the actual surface of the new moon, but what they saw upon breaching the cloud mass was subconsciously strictly unexpected in the minds of them all. It looked like a bastardized version of Earth, a crude model one-tenth the size. The color of the oceans was too flat, the coastlines lacked detail, looking as if a child attempted to draw the world map from memory. They shifted their flight path so the shuttle would land in the imitation Gulf of Mexico, and shortly splashed down. A quick analysis of the atmosphere showed Cindy that the air was unbreathable, giving the crew less than five hours for surface exploration. They directed the ship towards the nearest landmass, what would have been the coastline of Texas. When within sight of the shore, the crew noticed thousands of figures dotting the landscape, information they quickly relayed back to the original Earth. Upon reaching the beach, the crew studied the lifeforms using the outboard cameras in order to discern whether they were hostile or docile. Cindy and the others had been instructed to use extreme caution in event of an extraterrestrial presence. They were also under firm instruction to capture both male and female specimens, dead or alive.

The shock felt upon first sight of the familiar surface was replicated triplicate when the crew first saw the figures in detail. They were all the size of sixth-graders, and shared the same awkward similarity to humankind as the moon they inhabited. They seemed to be wearing identical clothing: high-waisted blue jeans, long-sleeved red, black, and grey plaid shirts, brown leather belts with oversized belt buckles, brown cowboy boots and black cowboy hats. They seemed to be mocking a stereotype of a Texan. Their faces were also vaguely human, the only perceptible difference being the creatures’ noses: they had one larger nostril instead of two. The crew began preparations for surface exploration, as their cursory examination of the creatures found no weapons or hostile intent. They donned their suits and received their orders one last time: study the area and the extraterrestrials for three hours, capture at least one specimen of each sex, stay within one hour’s travel of the shuttle, and return home.

Cindy was now face-to-face with the first confirmed extraterrestrial life-forms known to present mankind. She had lucked out again: her two jobs for the extent of the mission were communications (with the crew, home base, and any intelligent life encountered) and the presiding physician for the crew. The first oddity she noticed when faced with the creatures was their clothes, or lack thereof. What the crew had thought was clothing was actually their skin, colored as clothing. The hats’ brims were the only addition to their selves, as the bodies of the hats appeared to be severely elongated craniums, the brims attached. Another anomaly was the eyes. Each eye had three pupils, which were triangular in shape, arranged to form a larger equilateral triangle. They also had two extra eyes, which were covered with patches of flesh-colored material. Then she noticed their skin. Although the skin tone matched the majority of her countrymen, it was unnatural to them. They coated all “bare” areas with a strange substance that, upon further inspection, seemed to be moving, as if it consisted of millions of microorganisms. This dim movement covered their entire bodies, lending Cindy to believe that the organisms provided the illusion of clothing. The creatures were not the only things on the new moon masquerading as Earthly. The surface analyst had been testing the water and soil and told Cindy to relay his findings to home base. He had been testing what they thought was water, only to find an unidentifiable substance with a gel-like substance floating on top, lending him to believe that it was meant to only look like water. He then attempted to take a soil sample, but found that the ground also consisted of the same microorganisms that coated the skin of the creatures. The layer of organisms ran six inches deep before the analyst hit a dark, smooth, solid metal layer wherever he tested, a substance that apparently comprised the surface of the moon. Cindy stepped in front of the crew and slowly approached who she assumed was the leader of the creatures, for it was standing proud in front of the line, a beaming smile molded on its face. She approached cautiously, her arms by her side, palms outward in what she desperately hoped was a truly universal gesture of docility. She had intended to be the first to breach the silence, but the alien leader encroached upon her intentions. It spoke a broken form of English, akin to a sitcom caricature of a Middle-Eastern immigrant. Its voice was odd, sounding with a deep, simultaneous echo that sent chills down the spines of the crew. “Welcome for our Earth, travelers weary!” The creature then darted forward, trapping Cindy in an amazingly strong embrace, nearly causing catastrophic failure to her breathing apparatus. Cindy pushed her affectionate assailant away from her and bowed her head as a sign of respect. “I name be Jimothy, do how you do?” The creature declared with gusto. Cindy managed to stammer out an introduction, much to her amazement. “Come us with, we want to show all you our city!” The crew was then herded towards a large sedan-like vehicle, as if somebody designed the Honda Accord to be fifty feet long and twenty feet tall. The inside of the strange vehicle was a typical early 20^th century American den, complete with a couch, chair, fireplace, and radio. The crew sat in mostly silence, the only sounds being Cindy’s constant narrative with her superiors back on Earth. They were alone in the odd car, and were too stunned to speak to each other, and they heard no sound from outside. They were in the vehicle for only a few minutes when the door opened and another of the same creatures came in and introduced himself as Jimothy before shuffling them out of the door. “Is this the city of ours!,” the creature exclaimed emphatically. What Cindy saw barely resembled a city. There were certainly tall buildings, and roads, and bustling activity (complete with very strange aircraft that seemed to be suspended on cables), but it was a diorama of decimation. All of the activity seemed to be the creatures’ rebuilding the skyscrapers, as they were all in shambles, as if the city streets played host to an intense battlefield. “Ah yes, beauty the war!” their new host said with much pride. “Come, to battlefield!” They were then reloaded into the shuttle and whisked another few minutes away to the most horrific sight Cindy could imagine: thousands of the creatures slaughtering each other in a mixture of bloody anachronisms. There were “soldiers” from seemingly every era of weaponry, from medieval knights to stealth bombers. The only thing they all had in common was their expressions. They were all euphoric. They were enjoying themselves, even those being slaughtered died with grins on their faces. Cindy realized that these creatures idolized the human race, and wanted to shape their lives and their selves to be akin to her kind. She pleaded with the nearest creature to bring her and her crew back to her ship, a request quickly granted, as the creatures all revered her and hung on her every sound and motion. The crew initiated their return trip as soon as they reached their shuttle.

World leaders, upon learning of the creatures and their behavior, decided to destroy the new moon, releasing statements to the press that the moon was highly radioactive and could potentially poison the Earth’s atmosphere. However, all attempts to destroy it were fruitless. After decades of attempts, the moon disappeared as silently and swiftly as it had arrived. No notion of the creatures was heard or seen again.

The Man and the woman

When The Man first awoke in the curious place, he found he could not move. More specifically, he could barely control his movements. He also realized that he had lost all of his personal memories. He still had the universal memories regarding speech, gesticulation, and overall general knowledge. For instance, he had no idea if he had any siblings or not, but he knew what the word “sibling” meant. He looked around his self as well as he was capable, only to discover nothing. Every direction he looked, there was only whiteness. It was not bright or blinding, or even unpleasant, it just was. The Man had a sneaking suspicion that this place had always appeared in this manner, and always would. He realized that, not only was there nothing but white, but there was no horizon. There was no perspective in this affable, barren world, as no lines of any sort could be discerned. He felt as if he were lying upon a smooth, solid surface, yet he could not see it when he turned his head to place his cheek adjacent to the invisible plane. He subconsciously expected it to be cool to the touch, but it did not seem to have any temperature at all. After taking in his meager surroundings, The Man tried to study his own body. When he looked at his hands, he was greeted with those of a newborn. His body was a virgin to this world, so it took on a form. The Man then realized that, due to the absence of everything, he had lost all perspective of time. He had no idea how long he had been there, prone upon the ethereal ground. Time was of no importance in this place; it’s meandering passage akin to a mortally wounded animal: desultory, arbitrary, and desperately lingering. The maturity of The Man’s body flicked through the ages that comprise the life of the common man: one instant The Man was a trembling elderly figure prone upon the vaporous floor, the next a curious infant with eyes like plates, the next an adolescent form wallowing in it’s own pubescence. Eventually The Man learned to control the fleeting rhythm of time by counting seconds in his mind, changing his own perception of time’s passage. This mental metronome resulted in The Man’s body taking the shape of a middle-aged human male. He drew himself up to his new height in order to gain some bearings in this alabaster desert, only to be reaffirmed that there were no bearings to be had here. He tried walking, but found this automatic task to be perceptually onerous, as he could not see where to place his next step. The entire process resembled the unexpected stomp accompanying the miscalculation of the number of steps one must climb. As with the problem of time-fluctuation, The Man grew accustomed to the issue of walking, and began what would become a trek that would have circumvented the planet Earth twelve times over and lasted countless years. This fact went unnoticed by The Man, as he soon realized that he did not tire or require sustenance in this place. The Man was employing a similar tactic to those lost in a desert or ocean with no sense of self-placement or direction and no hope of rescue: move in a straight line until something changes. Near the end of his oblivious journey, The Man noticed a subtle change in the landscape: a nearly imperceptible speck became visible where the horizon would be. This was the first evidence he had that he was actually moving at all. He continued walking toward the speck for what seemed, for the first time in this place, to him to be eons. He finally had a goal, a purpose in this pointless realm, and the thought of such thrilled him. The Man had something to strive for, a solid plan. Eventually, this newfound goal drove him to the brink of insanity. Like Tantalus in Hades, what he desired most seemed beyond his grasp, as the speck seemingly never changed in size. His gait quickened, and the engine driving his lust pushed to the threshold of chaos. He had regressed to a mindless animal, his entire existence predicated upon this mystery speck in this mystery world. This fervor continued for what would have been 50 years on Earth, absorbing his self with insatiable fire. At long last, The Man saw the speck grow at a torpid rate, but grew it did. This only pushed The Man even farther. Now the speck was the size of a dime, now a penny, now a quarter. He could discern that the speck was shaped like a person, for he could see blotchy limbs and a blurred silhouette. The figure seemed to be sitting, but upon what was invisible to The Man. He assumed this was because of the vast distance that still separated the two life forms, but came to realize the reason for the lack of seating assistance: there was none. This new figure seemed to know how to work the environment to its will. This revelation lead The Man to believe this stranger to have the answers to his heretofore unasked questions. This pushed him further yet, and the rest of his journey was a dead sprint, which brought on a curious sensation. He was moving faster than he had ever thought possible, yet he was not tiring. He was not even straining. So he ran faster, and faster, and faster, until he was but a color smear on a white canvas. He stopped moving his legs, but convinced his mind that his body was still running, and he moved faster still. He rotated his body all around, but he knew he was still zooming toward the other figure. He was flying without wings or machine, the first human to achieve this feat. He lapsed into a period of joyous oblivion at this point, flitting back and forth as a hummingbird upon first flight. He soon re-realized his task, and turned to face his objective with a newfound calm. While standing stock-still, he had himself moved to the figure in an instant, and in mere moments was standing right next to the figure, which had become a young woman with an air of boredom about her. She did not notice him, as he was over her slumped right shoulder, and her head was resting in her right hand with her elbow upon her right knee. The Man cleared his throat to announce his presence, and the woman lifted herself up soundlessly to face him. Her face was graced with a distant curiosity, and her eyes gleamed with obvious age, despite her youthful appearance. The first words The Man heard in his new existence were: “So that’s what humans look like. I’ve always wondered.” The Man realized that, although her mouth was moving, he was not hearing her voice with his ears, but rather in his head, as if her words were his own thoughts. In lieu of arbitrary proclamations of wonder, The Man worded his inquiries with great care, as he had a distinct feeling of reverence in regards to this new woman. “What do you mean? You yourself are human, you must know what you look like.”

Her response was instilled with a detached coldness, as if she were speaking to her unwanted child: “I am no human. I am nothing.”

“You can’t be nothing, I can see you in front of me, so you must be real.”

“You see what your mind wants to see. You were alone in a different place, and you wanted to see another human. I only appear to you as a female because you are selfish. But your selfishness can not be blamed upon you; all human flaws are my own doing.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I created you. Your universe, I mean, not just you.”

The Man, being a tentative Catholic in his previous existence, did what most loose believers would in the presence and undeniable existence of what they believe to be God: he collapsed to his knees, clutching at his creator’s feet, and wept. “My God, I can not believe I am finally in your presence, I can not believe I ever doubted your existence, I beg your forgiveness, my Lor-,“ a curt thrashing of the woman’s leg cut The Man’s groveling, and he now kneeled as low as he could and stared at her feet, not daring to look into her face. “I am not your lord or your god,” she spat at him, this time not bothering to move her mouth. Her denouncement was steeped in venom; purely contemptuous at the very idea he put forth. “I made you, I do not rule over you, and I do not want your worship. Only a vain fool demands reverence from their creations. Your god is a cowardly ideal ingrained within your race by meek-minded men. I have pitied your race more than any other I have created, and that pity is the reason I decided to end your universe and begin anew. The only reason I left you here is to see my mistakes firsthand, so they may not be repeated.”

The Man lay crying at her feet for what would have been days in his previous existence, her revelations weighing upon him like so many dashed hopes and dreams. No human felt the torment like this one man, for the fallacy that was the entire human race was laid upon this one man’s shoulders. Atlas himself would pity the sheer weight pressed upon The Man’s body. The Man lay prone upon a ground that was not there, as he did when he first existed in this plane. He was stricken with absolute despair, and he wanted to die. His one remaining goal was death, and he immediately regressed into the primal fervor he was afflicted when he first noticed the other figure. “You can not die here,” was the woman’s curt interjection, cold and indifferent. “Death requires the recognition of time, and time has no dominion here. That is why you do not hunger or tire. You will stay here for as long as I deem necessary, and then you will not exist. Your universe was the product of my own boredom, and my lackadaisical attitude towards its creation attributed to your race’s hideous misconstruction. That indolence is a blunder I do not plan on repeating.” She began moving her body in a circle around the pathetic form at her feet, studying his trembling frame as a biologist studies an unidentified carcass. The Man’s tremors quickened as he changed from inquisitor to lab rat, his quivers emanating not from desire, but of nervous fear. “How could such putrescence reside within such a beautiful shell?” Her tone was one of discord with tinges of regret and awe. She lowered her self in order to examine his body with more scrutiny. She picked his handout from under him, picking through his fingers as if she were perusing her prized record collection, caressing each with a gentle reverence reserved for the newest of mothers. “The greatest atrocity of man is the utter desecration of such a perfect base form. I spent many of your eons perfecting your races physical forms. There are countless planets littering your universe that house hideous abominations of your basic physical structure; so many experiments of mine that were discarded as refuse. And the sad truth is that they have achieved so much more with their presence in your plane of reality, fantastical marvels of science and imagination that even your greatest story-weavers would scoff at and pass off as irrational garbage. I have developed a theory on your race’s inner repulsiveness and absolute egotism. I think it spurns from vanity. If that is the case, then it is my own doing, as evidenced by my many “failures” of the human form. I was so focused on the outward beauty of my creations, and allowed the inside to fester as a fetid boil on the visage of a prospective prom queen: the only imperfection on an otherwise beauteous masterpiece. And it sickens me to think that such an outright travesty could render the beauty of the outer body a prideful façade. The human form as become a stranger to its own body, the meticulously manicured front lawn of a house that contains a drunken, abusive bundle of bigotry and filth.” Her mood changed from subdued awe to vindictive disgust. She raised herself up to be above the still-cowering Man. “Get up, you sniveling fool, you must answer my questions, then I will finish your reality.” The Man retched out several more sobs, then seemed to compose himself enough to raise his body, and seemed to fill himself with veiled pride. “I will now ask you a series of questions, and you will answer them. I will not force you, and I will not punish you, but you will answer me, for there is nothing else for you to do. If you leave, I will follow, if you stay mute, I will wait.” She began moving in a slow arc around The Man, gearing herself up for what she has anticipated for centuries: the interview with a base human. The silence persisted, growing heavier and heavier until The Man could not take the oppressive calm any longer. “Well, do what you must do, you so-called ‘creator,’ ask away.” Her response was “Why did you exist? What was the purpose of your existence on your former plane of reality? What was the point?” The Man seemed slightly perturbed by her inquiry. He went through all that he did, the torment, the near insanity; just so this woman who claims to have created him and everything he knew (and all that he didn’t) could pester him with this nuisance of a question. “I existed because I was born,” spat The Man, almost as if he were explaining the most common of knowledge to a perceived intellectual. A silence overcame the pair of figures for what would have been a few minutes before the woman let out a peal of laughter of such a genuine nature that it had no equal in the history of any reality. As genuine as her laughter was, it was not infectious. The Man was stricken with a firm embarrassment and suffered a mortally wounded pride. Were The Man asked to explain why one woman’s laughter could have such an effect upon his psyche, he would be even more speechless than in his current predicament. He was defeated. It was then that he subconsciously subverted himself to the woman, that he answered each question only after much deliberation and honesty. This was the most important moment for all humanities past and present: it changed The Man’s perspective from one of self-preservation to the defense of his entire race, and would shape all realities the woman would make henceforth. The woman’s laughter did not die out or fizzle to an end, it just stopped. “That is no answer, that is an excuse, an excuse for proper thought, a way to skirt the question. You are afraid to answer my question, for it is not one you have a default answer for. I will wait for as long as it takes, as long as you desire, but be warned: ponder the question until you are certain you have a complete response, or suffer. Bear in mind that you are my creation, and I can do with you what I want. I can turn you inside out, flatten you, cause your bones to outgrow your own skin, set you eternally ablaze, and you will not die. You will feel everything, but you will not die, and you can not escape.” Sadness then overwhelmed The Man, but not a desperate or paralyzing sadness, but a dour of acceptance. “Answer some of my questions first, if you will. If I must submit my will unto you, I would like my curiosity to be placated.” The woman seemed on the precipice of laughter again, but she seemed to respect The Man on some level. “If my acquiescence spurns your honesty, then I will whet your appetite for useless knowledge, although I do not see the point.” The Man was then faced with a dilemma. He had countless questions, some he was not even aware of and could not form coherently, but did not know which select few to choose. “How do you exist? Who created you, how long have you been toying with realities or universes or whatever you call your little experiments? When will you die, and know what it feels like to face your end, and finally become aware of the torture you have thrust upon us, your toys?” The woman seemed satisfied with The Man’s renewed ardor, anger- and hatred-fueled as it was. “I have no creator, and I will have no death. In order for something to have a death, it must first have a birth; there can be no ending if there was never a beginning. I have no age, I have just always been. Nothing existed until I decided; I am the master of all space and time. Your third question is utterly impossible to answer, as no questions concerning the concept of ‘time’ concern me, as it does not apply to me. And my response to your final question is thus: everything I have ever created is a part of me, and I feel what they feel. I have felt infinite deaths, infinite births, infinite sorrow, infinite anger, and infinite joy. I felt the euphoria you felt at the birth of your son, I felt the fury you felt when you discovered his sexuality, the shock and depression you felt after you beat him to death, and I felt your suicide.” The Man, having no memory of his past existence, ignored the last of her statement, as he did not believe himself capable of such an atrocity. “If you must undergo the torment and pain of your creations, then why did you even create them at all? Why knowingly put yourself through that?” The woman dwelled upon this question for what would have been some time. She had never been asked of her motives, despite her own thoughts on the subject, and was hesitant to voice them. “Why did you put yourself through the emotional torment of raising a child? The answer is simple: love. I first created on a whim, but continued out of love. I could not explain the way I felt when I first molded an utterly new universe. I relished that feeling so much that I instilled its potential within every being of my fabrication. That is, however, not the only reason, I realize.” A deep sadness came across the image of the woman, and her presence seemed to falter and nearly flicker out altogether. “As a sentient being with no hopes of a death, I needed to feel something. There is no life without the possibility of a death. Before I envisioned the creation of any other reality other than this, I had felt nothing for eternity. Eventually, I felt the first emotion anything had ever felt: desire. I longed for feeling, both physical and emotional. That’s why I created. I am a part of every being in every universe, and they a part of me. That link allowed me to feel every feeling imaginable, and all those unfathomable. I felt the ultimate anguish and the pinnacle of ecstasy simultaneously. I came to crave it, so I continued creating. For each universe, every deformed race of being before your own, that feeling became compounded, to the point that I was unable to cease.” The Man took this revelation as it was: a long-recognized but ignored seed of disturbance within the conscience of the woman. “Now, tell me what causes the selfish destruction seen every day of the human race.” It was not a question. “Well, simply, Pride. Pride is the root of all emotions, and emotion breeds dissent and destruction. We subconsciously hold all others to an unmatchable standard: what we view our own selves to be. We fear all that is different from us individually, and that fear leads to hatred. That fear also stems from Pride; we only qualify the difference of others due to our own sense of self-importance. As for procreation, we only have two reasons for succumbing to that whim. One is the survival of the human race, a primal instinct to continue our legacy. We only want our race to continue because we believe it to be worthy of infinity, because of Pride. The other reason is personal Pride. We hold ourselves to such high esteem that we feel the need to create bastardized versions of ourselves. I believe Pride to be your only mistake.” The woman pondered this for a few moments, with seemingly little consternation or deliberation. “Okay then, no more Pride. I’ll keep the survival bit, though. All right, you’re done.” The Man was no more. The woman dissipated her human front, and began creating anew.

The End.

It sounded like bullshit.

My "best" friend's insistence on going first is troublesome yet comforting. I wish I could have emotional connections to others. I'm not even sure I could wish, we don't exactly have wells here. The silliness of her seriousness negates my heartfelt attempts of discussing my issue. Why do people have to be so dang human? Humans...pfff. "Mark I's" they are just as useless as I, a little less forgetful, but whatever. The new models are nice, though. I wish I was as sexy as them. The meds are wearing off, my lip hurts and I miss you. I've almost forgotten you, but I still keep the yoyo in my pocket to remember us by. I wish the past still existed. They say time is cyclical, but that's just a heaping pile of shit. Once the minute has passed I can no longer remember. I keep things to tell me. I count seconds. Seventy-six seconds ago I found this ticket stub in our pocket. I wonder where I went? Probably a Knicks game.

False Nomenclature.

(Me and Avery again.)

This chair is comfortable, I can't stop picking at the paint on the tips of my fingers, revealing the microscopic crop circles on them. Almost makes me feel human. I hope this meeting doesn't result in my termination, I'd like to maintain a linear reality. I guess one can call lying on my back linear. Where the hell is this guy the paint is almost gone. A pantsuit-ensconced woman enters, informing me of a reschedule. This day and age, and we androids are still treated like less than filth. We aren't waiting again, fuck John I always knew he was a prick. No use in fighting though. Despite the fact that I have perfectly dysfunctional emotions and am currently thinking thoughts, Humanity Law classifies me as "Sub-human Mark II," disallowing me most freedoms. I'm not even allowed a name. I almost regret opening that door, I almost regret walking through. I'm not trying to be demeaning, but you made that choice. Why did you shut it behind us. (exhale) At least god has a name.

Another Untitled Ramble.

(This one started off as me and Avery Collins, but Kneesmith butted in halfway through and Avery was offended out of it.)

I don't want to start this. How many times will this pen run out before I forget. Butter, milk, and eggs. Only three goddamn things. I hate my brain.
These bullets continue to taunt me..."to-do"..."to-do"...who the hell writes these things down? Lists are merely excuses to have feeble minds. Feeble minds feed common indecency. Feeble minds, feeble bodies, feeble hearts. We are-- man fuck "we," they, they are weak... I denounce my humanity, and will hereby be classified merely as a "Timothy," first and last of my race, and I will not tolerate any discrimination. I want to make some changes around this place, as such an important individual I must do important things...maybe a pb&j? We Timothys have always been fond of pb&j. I should take my newfound special classification to Congress, I deserve benefits for the rarity of my race. Based on how much land given Native Americans, I should get Minnesota or something. Or at least a Timothy day or maybe even some sort of badge. ha. This is too much for me. This is taking me forever to finish and I'm still starving. Maybe I could cut the mold out of the bread and scrounge up those tomatoes Shirley bought me last week. Or was it two weeks ago? No, no that was Kate. She's nice, but Frank swears she's manic depressive. I suspect orangutan tits under those loose blouses. bitch. I need to get this shopping done, but that would require some sort of human mingling, and I don't play that shit. I look at the clock, it's been four hours since I first sat down at the kitchen table with this notepad and pen. And they say no one ever starved to death from ADD. This is starting to feel just like some twisted dream. I stopped taking my meds weeks ago, people keep telling me to start doping again. That's all they are, really. Just fancy dope. And then gears started to turn inside his head, dust was shaken from his eyelids as they widened to the rhythm of what alcoholics commonly refer to as "a moment of clarity." He reached for the phone muttering that jingle he knew all too well, "Tuesday two for one/Eatin pizza, havin fun." That place has some shitty-ass pizza. Too much sauce, not enough crust. And they're known to slip anchovies in different orders from time to time.

(No, all my posts won't be these things, I'm working on two longer stories right now, but they will probably take a while.)

This one doesn't have a title.

(Another alternating narrative, this one just me and Kneesmith.)

I swore it would be the last time. But I just couldn't help myself. Teasing me with a tempting glare, I realized giving in would be inevitable. I'm not too proud of my pitiful acquiescence, but what can I say? DDR just calls to me, with all the sinister temptation of a high-class prostitute. "Tic-tack, Joe Jack, tic-tack, if you think of going closer take another step back, tic-tack, Joe Jack, tick tack" was the failed nursery rhyme, stuck in my head, the therapist told me to say in times like these. I find myself creeping ever closer, feel the slow trickle of sweat on my spine. I finally begin to give in. I'm a master, of course, I don't even look at the screen yet I'm perfect. They all cheer me on, but don't understand, can't understand. Won't understand. Why no one ever dances beside me. This game isn't about dancing, fun, or looking cool, I just want someone beside me. And that's when she joined me. She was ugly, fat, and ten years too old for me. She wasn't even good.

Non Sensical Sense of That Color

(More alternating writing with Avery. I guess you could consider it a sequel to the previous one.)

The millions of people coursing through my veins reject my body; I separate myself from me, our entities separate at long last. At last long, I am an asexual flake of crust. I crawl, I, I am an I. I can snap, I can retract, I am above reproduction, I am laughing at you. Your peals of laughter hurt me, how dare I? What was I thinking, me? You weren't thinking, you, that is the issue's core. Now think your non-thoughts, insignificant fool. Stop trying to break from me, our insignificance is fulfilling like some sort of garage sale. Remember that time I found the glow in the dark yoyo. Your insistence on substance astonishes me. Stop being so damn visible, please. Please let the visibility stop being. I think we spoke too soon, my lip is bleeding again. All this logic makes me wonder what John is doing. Oh look, my legs have found the audacity to move me. Jackasses. ha. My ass is attached to my legs, and they are moving. I'm actually being consistent. I like this repetitive motion, I think we should continue. Well, I guess we can see where they take you. Oh yeah, the walls are gone, we're now moving through the ceiling. Is a ceiling still the ceiling if you lay on your back? John would know the answer. I wish we were more like John, he has most answers. How could we lose her? I think I'm feeling sadness- well, that's what she called it. Maybe it is just the ceiling without walls. You know what? Fuck John. He's an asshole. What's the fun of having all the answers? That's when the inquisitive journey ceases to be. Ceases? What was I thinking nothing ceases here. We couldn't even find a fucking door. We had an eternity to look and I gave up. My thoughts are pathetic anyhow. John is pathetic, you are so fucking pathetic, I can't even walk without tripping over these tiles. Tiles? Where were those last eternity? Let's take a peek underneath, shall we? Fanfuckingtastic, it's my door. It's smaller than I expected. The yellow red orange color barely makes sense, it barely writes our number, it barely reads. This door is shrinking with time, how can that be? The numbers are changing...I thought time wasn't possible here. I reach for the handle before it laughs out of existence. As I touch it I am already through it. All this drab whiteness is bland and depressing. I wonder why God has done this to me, ME, of ALL people, ME. We then realize that behind God is a man, the only separation being the curtain of oblivion. My existence is just as meek as his, He just has a name. Our room is just as I expected though, the white is somehow comforting, my existence somehow more appealing. You are contemplating shutting the door behind us. Or, at least you would, if there ever was a door. I do notice a patch of grey in what I guess you could call "the distance." Might as well give it a chance, nothing else here possibly, maybe, whatever let's just walk. I'm trying not to smirk at your sad attempt to blame God. He doesn't even deserve a capital "G." He made people like John, who the hell likes her? Plus, he's a man, I've never even met the guy, bet he's horrible at conversating. I bet he has a grating, "holier than thou" personality. Hell, where do I think the term "God complex" comes from? ANyways, I'm in the grey now. Not all you made it out to be. Who the hell forgot to put up a "wet paint" sign my hands are all grey and sticky now, dammit. Now I'm stumped. The foolishness of this irks me, would you write me in a visual story next go-around, I like colors.

The scribbles of the non reliable pen.

By Avery Collins and Dylan Vaz

(this is another of those alternating-sentences things. We didn't really stick to the "one sentence at a time thing," but who cares.)

The hallway was of such immense length that the walls, floor, and ceiling met at a single point in both directions, doors all along the way. Numbers were a rust-yellow jumbled in no specific order, as if each door had been rearranged over time. I was oddly familiar with this. I began walking, trying every door, only to find each one locked, as it was not meant for me. This place isn't for me, it isn't for us either. You and I we are those people. My curious gait quickly became a fervent gallop, a raving search for my door, our number. I am moving too fast, I think I'm going the wrong way, my anxiety is quickly approaching its peak. My lips are now bleeding from my impatience gnawing. I give up our search, seat myself upon the floor with distinct exasperation. My door opens behind us. WHy did you call this our door. This is not my door, not your space. This opening vaguely resembles that floral pattern, that one I despise, this cannot be it. My hatred of the door bleeds to the rest, they sicken me. I don't want to see them, you make them blink away, changing the substance of this bleak reality. We can continue to change this reality over and over, it will make no difference you have no power. I'm just repeating text, you are just clearing your throat, keep going its still itching. He stands, her eyes closed to their surroundings, nothing exists to me. Now we can begin. Make the move...take a step you cunt, open your eyes you coward. We cannot hop away from this, let's try skipping. I am a child, crippled by my old old age. You no longer exist, we are finally at peace.
The number is seventy-six, sixty seven, six, seven, I can't remember. You shouldn't have played that game.



(Don't worry, there is more, but we felt it worked better separated into to separate Chapter 1s.)

Linear Boredom.

By Dylan Vaz, Avery Collins, and Kneesmith.
(We did this in about twenty minutes, and we wrote it by alternating sentences, the order being Me, Kneesmith, then Avery.)

So it begins. For the 3rd time. The pandas are continuing to drop the bombs. The war with the koalas was a long one fraught with senseless hysteria. But the people will become detached, and soon the bombs would stop, and the koalas will hide their faces for a few years until things seemed clear again. Years and years continued to pass until the koalas began to form extravagant powers. Then the pandas gained the ability of unassisted flight, and the fourth wave of wars began, this time with no end. And until I get out of bed this will just repeat over and over in my head. So I pull back the covers and step to the floor. The familiar staleness of my padded cell hit me like a sledgehammer of stark reality, and I dove upon the tray the guard had pushed under the door. Fucking bastard, never leaves enough ketchup.

THE END.

This is only half of what I have done, and that isn't done yet.

(This will hopefully become a performance thing, so I'm only going to post what is essentially the introduction. I feel it safe to post this part pre-performance because the only way I could get this to work live would to have a narrator, so it might actually help anybody who sees the possible performance to read this beforehand. I'll shut up now.)

The Man and the woman
When The Man first awoke in the curious place, he found he could not move. More specifically, he could barely control his movements. He also realized that he had lost all of his personal memories. He still had the universal memories regarding speech, gesticulation, and overall general knowledge. For instance, he had no idea if he had any siblings or not, but he knew what the word “sibling” meant. He looked around his self as well as he was capable, only to discover nothing. Every direction he looked, there was only whiteness. It was not bright or blinding, or even unpleasant, it just was. The Man had a sneaking suspicion that this place had always appeared in this manner, and always would. He realized that, not only was there nothing but white, but there was no horizon. There was no perspective in this affable, barren world, as no lines of any sort could be discerned. He felt as if he were lying upon a smooth, solid surface, yet he could not see it when he turned his head to place his cheek adjacent to the invisible plane. He subconsciously expected it to be cool to the touch, but it did not seem to have any temperature at all. After taking in his meager surroundings, The Man tried to study his own body. When he looked at his hands, he was greeted with those of a newborn. His body was a virgin to this world, so it took on a form. The Man then realized that, due to the absence of everything, he had lost all perspective of time. He had no idea how long he had been there, prone upon the ethereal ground. Time was of no importance in this place; it’s meandering passage akin to a mortally wounded animal: desultory, arbitrary, and desperately lingering. The maturity of The Man’s body flicked through the ages that comprise the life of the common man: one instant The Man was a trembling elderly figure prone upon the vaporous floor, the next a curious infant with eyes like plates, the next an adolescent form wallowing in it’s own pubescence. Eventually The Man learned to control the fleeting rhythm of time by counting seconds in his mind, changing his own perception of time’s passage. This mental metronome resulted in The Man’s body taking the shape of a middle-aged human male. He drew himself up to his new height in order to gain some bearings in this alabaster desert, only to be reaffirmed that there were no bearings to be had here. He tried walking, but found this automatic task to be perceptually onerous, as he could not see where to place his next step. The entire process resembled the unexpected stomp accompanying the miscalculation of the number of steps one must climb. As with the problem of time-fluctuation, The Man grew accustomed to the issue of walking, and began what would become a trek that would have circumvented the planet Earth twelve times over and lasted countless years. This fact went unnoticed by The Man, as he soon realized that he did not tire or require sustenance in this place. The Man was employing a similar tactic to those lost in a desert or ocean with no sense of self-placement or direction and no hope of rescue: move in a straight line until something changes. Near the end of his oblivious journey, The Man noticed a subtle change in the landscape: a nearly imperceptible speck became visible where the horizon would be. This was the first evidence he had that he was actually moving at all. He continued walking toward the speck for what seemed, for the first time in this place, to him to be eons. He finally had a goal, a purpose in this pointless realm, and the thought of such thrilled him. The Man had something to strive for, a solid plan. Eventually, this newfound goal drove him to the brink of insanity. Like Tantalus in Hades, what he desired most seemed beyond his grasp, as the speck seemingly never changed in size. His gait quickened, and the engine driving his lust pushed to the threshold of chaos. He had regressed to a mindless animal, his entire existence predicated upon this mystery speck in this mystery world. This fervor continued for what would have been 50 years on Earth, absorbing his self with insatiable fire. At long last, The Man saw the speck grow at a torpid rate, but grew it did. This only pushed The Man even farther. Now the speck was the size of a dime, now a penny, now a quarter. He could discern that the speck was shaped like a person, for he could see blotchy limbs and a blurred silhouette. The figure seemed to be sitting, but upon what was invisible to The Man. He assumed this was because of the vast distance that still separated the two life forms, but came to realize the reason for the lack of seating assistance: there was none. This new figure seemed to know how to work the environment to its will. This revelation lead The Man to believe this stranger to have the answers to his heretofore unasked questions. This pushed him further yet, and the rest of his journey was a dead sprint, which brought on a curious sensation. He was moving faster than he had ever thought possible, yet he was not tiring. He was not even straining. So he ran faster, and faster, and faster, until he was but a color smear on a white canvas. He stopped moving his legs, but convinced his mind that his body was still running, and he moved faster still. He rotated his body all around, but he knew he was still zooming toward the other figure. He was flying without wings or machine, the first human to achieve this feat. He lapsed into a period of joyous oblivion at this point, flitting back and forth as a hummingbird upon first flight. He soon re-realized his task, and turned to face his objective with a newfound calm. While standing stock-still, he had himself moved to the figure in an instant, and in mere moments was standing right next to the figure, which had become a young woman with an air of boredom about her. She did not notice him, as he was over her slumped right shoulder, and her head was resting in her right hand with her elbow upon her right knee. The Man cleared his throat to announce his presence, and the woman lifted herself up soundlessly to face him. Her face was graced with a distant curiosity, and her eyes gleamed with obvious age, despite her youthful appearance. The first words The Man heard in his new existence were: “So that’s what humans look like. I’ve always wondered.”

My first foray into the fantastically unfantastical world of nonfiction.

(This is incomplete at the moment, so I will be revisiting and constantly updating it, so it will most likely eventually drastically changing its course at some point.)

On Language
For the purpose of this thing here, I will capitalize the word “Language” when I’m typing about Language as a whole and whatever-the-opposite-of-capitalize-is (since I’m pretty sure that “lowercase” cannot be verbalized. And yes, I’m aware everything about the preceding nine-or-so words go against what will come later in this passage, but I’m a hypocrite just like everybody else, so deal with it. Also, you may notice that I like to go off on minor tangents and wear out the dash and parentheses buttons on my keyboard, but try to keep up with my meandering mind, please.) the word “language” when talking about specific languages (English, Spanish, Sanskrit, etc.). To start off, I would like to laud the supreme importance of Language. The two greatest inventions in human history are Language and fire. Fire is up there because it was probably the first invention by humans. But Language takes the cake by default. Think about it, fire did not exist until the first form of the word “fire” was created. It physically existed pre-christening, but it wasn’t “fire.” No things existed until the first form of the word “thing” happened. You get my point. However, I do find it (hilariously) unrighteous (in the “they don’t have the right” sense, not the Bill S. Preston Esq. sense) of the human race to name things rather than classify them. Specifically natural, non-manmade things like organic life and everything in the universe. Who is man to decide that the space-rock we are hurtling through space upon is named “Earth”? We can call it Earth, but how dare we have the gall to name it Earth. That is an atrocious notion to me. For instance, the fact that people can actually get stars named after themselves is enthusiastically infuriating to me. Seriously, consider that fact for a few seconds. Stars that undoubtedly have extra-terrestrial life forms revolving around them (its basic logic and probability. Life happened once that we know of, space is infinite, therefore there is other life. It can happen, therefore, in an infinite plane, it must happen an infinite number of times.) have arbitrary names that we dreamed up. That is a prime example of the pompous atrocity that is humane self-importance. But I digress (I warned you about the tangents.) Anyways, back to what I may have been saying (I don’t feel like looking up slightly.) I have always been fascinated with Language, and although I acknowledge and applaud (see what I did there? Me either.) its importance, I also believe it to be utterly subjective, especially in its written form. Write what you feel sounds/looks the way you want, don’t change your style to fit arbitrary grammatical guidelines. They are called “guidelines” for a reason, grammar isn’t the strict code that public school would have you believe, it is simply a preset meant to help make your writing easier to understand. I used to be a grammar-Nazi, but not anymore. Spelling errors used to bother me, but no longer. Language is subjective to the point that there is no such thing as a “misspelling,” just a new way to spell.

Trespassing in the land of the Cockroaches.

(This one actually contains some science regarding aging, of which I did no research whatsoever. But, as it is a fictional story, I can put down whatever the hell I want, and you have to accept it as fictional fact. So there.)





Trespassing in the Land of the Cockroaches

Darren had spent his entire life in the oppressive emptiness of space. 24 years
before, Darren’s parents had answered the call of NASA, the organization in charge of
sending other people and animals into the unknown purely for the sake of frivolous knowledge. In the 1960s, the then-modern world was stricken with what can only be described as childish delirium by what was known as the “international space-race.” The object of so many desires was a relatively small hunk of rock that has been running circles around our own relatively small hunk of rock for all of memory. Everything in space is relatively small. The only feasible reason for such a mostly senseless fervor was to be the first. To win. Virtually countless units of currency were wasted on this fruitless pursuit. Nearly 70 years later, Darren’s parents sold him to NASA for 4 million USD on the day of his birth. They did not do this for the sake of scientific research or out of a love of the unknown. They sold him because they were greedy and selfish, and wanted money. They ended up selling 8 children to NASA, but Darren was the only one to qualify for space exploration. The other seven were inserted into random orphanages with false names. Darren, of course, knew none of this. As he was to be raised by NASA, he was never told anything of his actual past. He was told that he was the very first biological android, created and programmed by NASA. Naturally, being a developing child, he firmly believed everything he was told without any hesitation. He came to love (or as close to love an android can come) NASA as any other child loves who they believe their creator to be, as a parent. NASA told Darren that, since they wrote his programming, not only did he have to follow their every instruction; it was physically impossible for him to ignore them. So, during his 24 years exploring the solar system, he believed himself to be a machine designed to do as he is told, so he did as he was told. Until the instructions stopped coming. During one of his years, (he was stationed in orbit of the planet Jupiter, so his year was the equivalence of twelve years on Earth. If he had been lucky enough to be ineligible for space travel, he would now be 288 years old.) the periodical transmissions he was programmed to expect stopped coming. He was unknowingly apprehensive and frightened by this lack of occurrence. Being a fake android, he did not know the names of any emotions, and had only ever felt a seldom few. This was his first experience with either fear or apprehension, which brought on yet another new, nameless feeling: worry. He subconsciously worried about the break in routine, about his personal future, and about his parent, NASA. So, in his first act of self-preservation and of emotion, Darren activated the Automated Return Trip System, and began his trek back to his first home.
From the outset of his journey, Darren felt yet another, more complicated, specific emotion: the excitement felt when doing something utterly new and unknown. The extent of his lack of knowledge concerning his home world is astounding. Not only does he not know of his real parents, he does not know what a human being looks like. The transmissions from NASA were purely audio. Also, the craft upon which he was stationed was molded to have no reflective surfaces, so Darren does not know what he looks like. This made him excited. He was anxious to see his creators for the first time in his existence (he had no notion of the term “life,” since he was not “born,” but “created”). When he finally arrived on Earth, he took everything he saw as status quo, for he did not know otherwise.
His travel craft touched down where the docking station designed specifically for his shuttle used to be, around 3 miles offshore the Florida coast. After he splashed down in an ocean unexpected, he made his way toward the only landform visible to him upon the onboard watercraft as per his programming. NASA had placed some precautions onboard should they ever want the spacecraft back on Earth, so an automated message repeated itself, informing Darren what to do to start the return sequence and where to go once he touched down. They wanted him to go straight to a building near the shoreline where he would go in, and then they would kill him. They didn’t care about him at all; they just didn’t want to lose the expensive craft. Life is cheap, material is worth something. Upon reaching what was supposed to be the destined building, Darren was confused (yet another new emotion) when there was no building there. In fact, there was nothing, just a barren landscape. This was a very crucial time for him, as this is when all of his programming ended. He did not know what he was supposed to do next. His very next movement would be his first of free will.
His first motion under no influence other than his own was also the first time he ever made a gesture that symbolized something in human culture: he scratched his head. He was utterly lost. He was afraid to move; for fear that his masters might miss him when they arrived. It was in his programming to come to this very patch of land and wait for his parent to show up to end his existence. But there was nothing here, nothing coming. He spun around, scanning the horizon for any approaching figures. When nothing appeared, he sat down on the spot to wait. He sat there stock still for 27 hours before he realized that he had not “refueled” since his arrival. He knew that he needed to give his body energy in order to continue his existence, and he did not want to end before his parent arrived, as that was not in his programming. Accordingly, his first conscious, uninfluenced decision was to search for energy, then return to the area where he was supposed to be. His journey began very slowly, as every step he took went against every fiber in his being, and he had to summon all the courage in his body in order to move at all. Courage was another concept unknown to Darren. The most courageous acts are those done of one’s own accord, while blind obedience is rife with cowardice. He continued his slow walk in a nearly straight line for five miles, which lasted around 16 hours. Eventually he experienced another new sensation: exhaustion. Eventually he collapsed out of fatigue, for he did not know his own limits. He would have died face down in the dirt if not for the last remnants of visible life on the planet.
He awoke in what appeared to be a low, underground cavern, approximately 30 yards from the entrance. The feeble rays of light seeping through the mouth of the hollow, illuminating the swirling cloud of gray dust, resulted in a pall of dim, ashen light that seemed to cling to the floor. As the sun slowly rose and more light was swallowed by the opening, Darren saw a chaotic movement coating the bottom of the cavern, a sinewy mass that seemed to have one consciousness. As more and more light shone in, he finally came face to face with what he assumed were his masters, as they were the only creatures he had ever seen. They were cockroaches, billions of cockroaches, a species that had flourished since the total nuclear holocaust that had happened on the planet 12 years before. Unhindered by other life-forms, the cockroach population had reached the octillions worldwide, feasting on any remnant of the past reality of the globe. Darren was unable to move under the weight of the cockroaches, as they had begun to swarm him, forcing themselves into every crevice of his body, filling his lungs, his stomach, his ears, his nasal cavity, his eye sockets, and his intestines. They were eating him from the inside and the out. Darren felt his last new emotion in the waning moments of his existence: ecstasy. He had fulfilled his programming, sacrificing his body to what he believed to be his creators. He felt no pain, the whole process lasting mere minutes. The roaches ate until there was no Darren.



THE END OF IT ALL.

(I want to preface this first entry with a cautionary statement: this is the very first draft. I haven't even read it. Also, I do plan on re-writing it as a narrative instead of whatever it is now. It's more of a report, I guess. I don't know, I don't have to analyze it, I wrote it.)







Visitor (temporary title)
Few humans witnessed the amber streak that graced the sky on the night of July 28th, 2016. It raced across the nightscape in a wide arc that culminated in a large crater on the Sudanese countryside at first light. The animals, being the only rational creatures left on the soon-to-be devastated planet, were stricken with sudden bouts of distress and savage hopelessness. The lions stopped hunting, the gazelle ceased their grazing, the birds refused themselves the joys of aviation. The surrounding human inhabitants began noticing the “strange” behavior over the next few sun cycles, and they reacted the way any other human being would: with uncanny stupidity and egocentricity. They called upon their various shamans and witch doctors and the priests supplied to them to ease the minds of the wildlife, upon which they depended for sustenance. They had forgotten how to continue their own lives without ending others’. They tried to eat off of the land, but they had subjected their constitutions to a steady diet of flesh, so that their body and minds craved it, and they became weak and sick. Entire villages were dead within months, victims of starvation and suicide. This was only the commencement of what would become the end of all life on the planet earth.
The aforementioned amber streak was the result of the atmospheric trail of a pod from a planet orbiting the star Alpha Centauri (as named by the humans, it does not actually have a name, since it’s a star, not a sentient being. This was a disturbing trend adopted by the human race during its infancy). The beings that reside upon that large chunk of orbital rock did not have a name, and had evolved to live for millions of years, as their bodies produced all the energy it needed and did not produce waste. They were near perfect beings, only crippled by their own curiosity. They grew tired of their home planet and decided to travel to other worlds in search of other “intelligent” beings. The being borne within the pod that landed on the earth came to be called “God” by half of the planet, and “Satan” by the other, as the humans could not grasp the fact that this being that had mastered speech was not only nameless, but had a name that was fabricated a long time before (relative to the lifespan of the humans). For the sake of simplicity, as it will be humans themselves who will be reading this chronicle, the being will be recognized as “God,” as that moniker had a much more polite connotation. All God wanted to gain from his trip was all the knowledge of the dominant being on the planet. Due to his body’s efficiency, he could travel by foot at incredible speeds and had no need to rest, eat, sleep, or defecate. God was neither good nor evil, just curious. It was in God’s nature to accrue as much information as he could in his nearly inexhaustible life, purely for the sake of knowing.
There were those who did not take part in the factional warfare, most of whom did so willingly and not as a result of incapability. Those humans wondered what God did to start all of the vicious nonsense of the following three years, and the answer to all their ponderings is simple: he existed, and he was different. God traveled from human to human until he came face-to-face with every single one that inhabited the planet, a process that lasted 16 days as recognized by the humans. Each human instantaneously labeled God as either “good” or “evil” upon what they called their “gut feeling,” even though the human guts consists of the majority of the digestive system and provides no insight or opinion whatsoever to the being within which it is housed. Once reports of God’s travels reached every “corner” of the utterly cornerless spheroid, and the people of the planet realized that it was not an outright invasion by extraterrestrials and was the work of one being, the human race began splitting into the two distinct factions that would consume the planet in blood and fire over the subsequent years. Those that called the being “God” named themselves “The Explicit Followers of the Savior God,” and those that called the being “Satan” named themselves “The Saviors of the Earth From the Bastard Satan.” The two factions believed their ludicrous delusions so ardently that each henceforth action taken by the individual humans was for their concurrent faction. The dispute became violent within one year, and as the two factions had possession of a large quantity of the deadliest weapons the planet had ever seen, the contest did not last long. As for God (or Satan, depending on which farce you subscribe to), he wandered helplessly throughout the conflict, pleading each human to end the silliness and explaining his reasons for visiting their planet. His attempts were pointless, however, as the human race as a whole has always had a deep-seeded self-hatred, and merely needed an excuse to exterminate itself in order to justify its actions and appease the collective pride of the species























THE END












































OR IS IT?!?!?













































YES, IT IS. EVERYTHING IS DEAD.













































IDIOT.

So it begins.

My intent for this web-based log is exactly how it sounds: it is my creative outlet. I see myself as an apathetic cynic: I hate most things on some level, but I'm too lazy to act. As you (and by "you," I mean all 3 people who will probably ever read this, including the future me) may tell by the vast majority of my entries, I firmly believe the human race has less than 200 years left to live. I base this notion on a combination of what I perceive human nature to be and the rapidity of technological advancement.