Showing posts with label saturday. Show all posts
Showing posts with label saturday. Show all posts
Saturday, August 8, 2009
Daily Story 115: The Life and Times of Onion Boy
Omegle conversation log 2009-08-10
Connecting to server...
You're now chatting with a random stranger. Say hi!
A word of advice: "asl" is boring. Please find something more interesting to talk about!
Stranger: hi
You: Hello there!
You: I just wanted you to know that, personally, I'm not a big fan of onions.
You: I think it's the texture; the crunchiness.
Stranger: ok
You: I'm glad you approve.
You: That being said, however, I DO have a whole truckload of onions I'm scheduled to eat tonight.
You: It's for a contest.
You: I have to eat forty pounds of onions, in a single day.
You: The first prize is forty more pounds of onions.
You: Which I suppose doesn't sound like a good prize.
You: But you have to do what you can in this economy.
Stranger: oh
You: Yeah.
Stranger: where are you from
You: Originally I'm not sure; I was found on the doorstep of a houseboat. Abandoned by my parents.
You: After that we moved a lot.
You: See, the houseboat's rudder was broken.
You: So we just drifted.
You: We went all down the east coast of the Americas.
You: And then around the bottom, where we stopped briefly to pet some penguins.
You: By the time I was a teenager we had made it back up the other side.
You: I swam to shore one day after a fight.
You: And that evening the houseboat drifted off to the open ocean.
You: I never saw my adopted parents again.
Stranger: you are very outgoing
You: Well, I have to be. I work in the entertainment industry.
You: The circus, to be specific.
You: I used to perform, but they got angry because that wasn't technically my job.
You: I would just run out into the center ring and start to dance.
You: So now they have me in the back.
You: Washing out the elephant cages.
You: But you have to be outgoing, to get noticed.
You: And to get an act of your own.
You: Also it helps to know how to juggle things that are on fire.
You: And they don't pay me much to do the elephant cages, which is why I have to win that onion contest.
You: Someday I'll get back out there, maybe juggling onions or flaming swords or something.
You: Or just dancing some more, though nobody seemed to like that much.
Stranger: are you American?
You: I am. I mean, I suppose that I am. I don't have a valid birth certificate but I was almost certainly born in America.
You: Or at least in American waters.
You: And I live on the road now, but exclusively in America.
You: They won't let our circus into Canada anymore, ever after the incident.
You: It involved an escaped bear.
You: He rode all over Toronto on his unicycle, biting tourists.
Stranger: do you know chinese?
You: I don't, no. I wouldn't mind learning but it seems really hard.
You: I mean, English is a TERRIBLE language but it's easy because I've always spoken it.
You: That, and pig-latin.
You: Though I picked up pig-latin really quickly, so I must have an ear for languages.
You: So I guess I should try Chineese.
You: There's more than one dialect, right?
You: I hear Mandarin is the most common.
You: I guess I would go for that.
You: My Aunt visited us on the house boat once, she spoke Chinese.
You: I wish I had understood her.
You: She told people how they would die, but of course I have no idea what she said to me.
You: She was always right, you know.
You: Even about herself.
You: She said she would die from falling off of a building in a rainstorm.
You: As it turned out the building in question was sucked up by a tornado.
Stranger: .................
You: And then she fell off.
Stranger: in fact,i can't speak English very well
You: Oh, I hope I'm not confusing you too much.
You: I hear I can be quite confusing.
You: Though I guess that it's good I'm typing rather than talking.
You: Because my mouth is full of onions.
You: So I would be especially hard to understand right now.
Stranger: how do you like china?
You: I don't know a lot about it, actually.
You: I mean, I know that it's huge and has a lot of people.
You: And I know that it's increasingly important in the global economy.
You: And I've heard some bad things about cencorship there.
You: But that's a lot of places.
You: And I thing they might have faked some birth certificates to get people into the Olympics.
You: But I don't know, and it doesn't really bother me that much.
You: Certainly I would make a fake birth certificate if I could use it to get an act in the circus.
You: Because these elephants suck.
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Daily Story 94: Personal Growth
Jenny pulled her golden hair up into a bun for the third time, stabbing a chopstick through and sighing as a thick lock slipped free. Her mind was somewhere else, a deep imaginary cavern of endless flourishing mushrooms - a thousand new species, each born of an awkward or stressful situation. Yanking the chopstick free, Jenny began to wind her hair up once more and design a new mushroom for her personal forest rather than think about her surroundings. The murky depth of the tunnel, the earthy smell, these things were comforting even if they weren't real; certainly they were better than the grimy vinyl of government upholstery.
The Federal Police in the seat in front of her were silent - serious expressions in dark suits just like on television. They didn't need directions and weren't interested in asking any other questions. They had asked plenty back at Jenny's apartment, taking pictures of her mushrooms and digging through her computer. They had already done a background check on her a year before, when they cleared her to do her research in the ruins of New Strausburg, but they asked her everything again. There were names, a long list of them, people and organizations. Terrorist sympathizers. For a moment she thought about the drifts of corpses in New Strausburg and wondered how anyone could sympathize with the ones that had murdered them - and then retreated to her mental cavern.
The car stopped, and one of the officers turned to look at her for the first time since they left her apartment.
"This the place?" Jenny nodded, and the officers opened the doors. "Good. Come with us."
It was windy out, as always, leaves and trash blowing through the air. Jenny paused for a moment before the doors to her partner's apartment building, savoring the smell of rain, and then headed upstairs. She felt mildly uneasy about telling the officers where Victor lived, though of course they could have found out on their own quickly enough - and besides, she reminded herself, he hadn't done anything wrong. They were just scientists, and not very exciting ones at that. The agents knocked again and again, louder each time, and Jenny was just drifting off into her socially-maladjusted fantasy world when one kicked the door and sent some part of the deadbolt bouncing along the floor.
They advanced with guns drawn, telling Jenny to stay in the hallway. Instead she found herself following, walking into the familiar room with its overflowing bookshelves and mushroom-filled aquariums so similar to hers. Victor was there, in the middle of the room. He was laying face down, the back of his skull cracked open from the inside.
"Cordyceps," she muttered, and one of the officers grabbed her by the arm.
"What did you say? Do you know what that is?" He was pointing to the long thin stalk of some alien fungus that had grown inside Victor's head, pushing and straining for freedom until it had finally burst forth.
Jenny shook her head as she tried to pull her arm free. "Not like this," she said, "nothing even a tenth that size."
The other was already on the phone, talking about an 'imminent attack'. Before she knew it, Jenny was being swept outside into the windy night. "You think this was on purpose?" she asked, still feeling numb from shock. The officer just nodded and opened the car door for her. Gathering up her disheveled hair before the wind could make it any worse, she wrapped it in a bun. As she felt her pockets for the chopstick, she noticed something caught in a stray hair. It looked almost like… Giving up on her hair, Jenny lifted the rust-stained collar of her shirt up to cover her nose and mouth.
The officer turned to follow her gaze, and saw a cloud of spores sweeping across the city.
The Federal Police in the seat in front of her were silent - serious expressions in dark suits just like on television. They didn't need directions and weren't interested in asking any other questions. They had asked plenty back at Jenny's apartment, taking pictures of her mushrooms and digging through her computer. They had already done a background check on her a year before, when they cleared her to do her research in the ruins of New Strausburg, but they asked her everything again. There were names, a long list of them, people and organizations. Terrorist sympathizers. For a moment she thought about the drifts of corpses in New Strausburg and wondered how anyone could sympathize with the ones that had murdered them - and then retreated to her mental cavern.
The car stopped, and one of the officers turned to look at her for the first time since they left her apartment.
"This the place?" Jenny nodded, and the officers opened the doors. "Good. Come with us."
It was windy out, as always, leaves and trash blowing through the air. Jenny paused for a moment before the doors to her partner's apartment building, savoring the smell of rain, and then headed upstairs. She felt mildly uneasy about telling the officers where Victor lived, though of course they could have found out on their own quickly enough - and besides, she reminded herself, he hadn't done anything wrong. They were just scientists, and not very exciting ones at that. The agents knocked again and again, louder each time, and Jenny was just drifting off into her socially-maladjusted fantasy world when one kicked the door and sent some part of the deadbolt bouncing along the floor.
They advanced with guns drawn, telling Jenny to stay in the hallway. Instead she found herself following, walking into the familiar room with its overflowing bookshelves and mushroom-filled aquariums so similar to hers. Victor was there, in the middle of the room. He was laying face down, the back of his skull cracked open from the inside.
"Cordyceps," she muttered, and one of the officers grabbed her by the arm.
"What did you say? Do you know what that is?" He was pointing to the long thin stalk of some alien fungus that had grown inside Victor's head, pushing and straining for freedom until it had finally burst forth.
Jenny shook her head as she tried to pull her arm free. "Not like this," she said, "nothing even a tenth that size."
The other was already on the phone, talking about an 'imminent attack'. Before she knew it, Jenny was being swept outside into the windy night. "You think this was on purpose?" she asked, still feeling numb from shock. The officer just nodded and opened the car door for her. Gathering up her disheveled hair before the wind could make it any worse, she wrapped it in a bun. As she felt her pockets for the chopstick, she noticed something caught in a stray hair. It looked almost like… Giving up on her hair, Jenny lifted the rust-stained collar of her shirt up to cover her nose and mouth.
The officer turned to follow her gaze, and saw a cloud of spores sweeping across the city.
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Daily Story 87: A Case of the Blues
The storm was the only feature visible from space, a swirling white mass like down feathers. It was a thing of light, reflecting rays from the sun during the day and flickering from within at night as lighting raced through it like synapses firing in the universe's largest brain. Satellites jockeyed for prime positions as they orbited, recording and storing information mindlessly. Without guidance or repair, they drifted over the storm that was the world in smaller numbers each year.
It was forty years after the storm's birth that the last satellite floated too close to the world and dropped into the churning atmosphere. Solar collectors and antennae tore loose as it tumbled, plunging into the wet darkness of racing clouds where no sunlight could reach. crackling tendrils of energy arced around the satellite until they, too, had been left behind and it entered the howling space below the great storm. Water came in larger drops here, coming down so heavily that they endlessly collided and split apart in every available inch.
The impact was violent, throwing up a mountain of mud and concrete. The debris fell wetly back to Earth, one large piece sliding down a small hill until it came to rest against the exposed edge of a long-buried structure. It weighed less than a hundred pounds, and yet it had wedged itself into just the right spot to slowly lift the object that had stopped its decent. If there was any kind of creaking or groaning noise it was lost in the eternal sounds of the storm, and so it would have appeared to rise silently like a magician's assistant being levitated had there been anyone left to observe it. After a moment the movement stopped with the object still largely prone, until a massive gust of wind caught it and wrenched the entire thing out of the marshy ground.
It was large, and rectangular, and flew through the air erratically - ricocheting off of half-eroded buildings and knocking over one of the few standing street lamps. It came to rest at an angle against a statue that had been worn down to anonymity, and the rain swept against it and began to wear away at the accumulated mud and grime that had survived its flight. The harsh glare of lightning illuminated something more than the grays and browns of the storm-ravaged world, something being exposed piece by piece on the object.
Bright colors began to show, slowly revealing a scene of happiness and prosperity. Little cartoon people gathered under the smiling face of a yellow sun, as a farmer waved at an anthropomorphic cloud who cheerfully watered his crops. Sunbathers sat on a perfect beach. There was a puppy. Above this idyllic scene was a bright green banner that proclaimed "Never Have Bad Weather Again! Microsoft WeatherMan - Coming in June!"
The storm continued to beat at the billboard, and the picture started to bubble and peel. In another five minutes, it was gone completely.
It was forty years after the storm's birth that the last satellite floated too close to the world and dropped into the churning atmosphere. Solar collectors and antennae tore loose as it tumbled, plunging into the wet darkness of racing clouds where no sunlight could reach. crackling tendrils of energy arced around the satellite until they, too, had been left behind and it entered the howling space below the great storm. Water came in larger drops here, coming down so heavily that they endlessly collided and split apart in every available inch.
The impact was violent, throwing up a mountain of mud and concrete. The debris fell wetly back to Earth, one large piece sliding down a small hill until it came to rest against the exposed edge of a long-buried structure. It weighed less than a hundred pounds, and yet it had wedged itself into just the right spot to slowly lift the object that had stopped its decent. If there was any kind of creaking or groaning noise it was lost in the eternal sounds of the storm, and so it would have appeared to rise silently like a magician's assistant being levitated had there been anyone left to observe it. After a moment the movement stopped with the object still largely prone, until a massive gust of wind caught it and wrenched the entire thing out of the marshy ground.
It was large, and rectangular, and flew through the air erratically - ricocheting off of half-eroded buildings and knocking over one of the few standing street lamps. It came to rest at an angle against a statue that had been worn down to anonymity, and the rain swept against it and began to wear away at the accumulated mud and grime that had survived its flight. The harsh glare of lightning illuminated something more than the grays and browns of the storm-ravaged world, something being exposed piece by piece on the object.
Bright colors began to show, slowly revealing a scene of happiness and prosperity. Little cartoon people gathered under the smiling face of a yellow sun, as a farmer waved at an anthropomorphic cloud who cheerfully watered his crops. Sunbathers sat on a perfect beach. There was a puppy. Above this idyllic scene was a bright green banner that proclaimed "Never Have Bad Weather Again! Microsoft WeatherMan - Coming in June!"
The storm continued to beat at the billboard, and the picture started to bubble and peel. In another five minutes, it was gone completely.
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Daily Story 66: The Perils of Poor Craftsmanship
The world is darkness, a dim colorless radiation casting shadows onto the deeper black. Something tells you that you can quit, be done with all this - or you can keep trying. You can go back to where it all went wrong, or even start this whole thing over again. You have the power. You chose, and white shapes race across the darkness towards you...
You're laying on the floor, and you can't remember your name, where you are, anything except how old and tired that whole 'amnesia' plot is. You appear to be in a one-room cabin, the log walls adorned with countless antlers. A tiny bed, a desk, and a chest of drawers are the only items of furniture. A knife is sitting on the desk, and an old lantern is on the floor. Grunting, you reach over and grab the lantern, then try to look out the window only to find that you can't locate one. This seems like an odd oversight for a cabin.
You attempt to open the door on the North wall of the cabin, only to find that you can't reach it from the floor. Had you forgotten to stand up somehow? The thought enters your head that quite possibly whatever has given you amnesia might have also done some damage in other ways. Gingerly, you stand up. Once standing, you take the knife just on principle and feel a slight pang of uncertainty, like there's something wrong about the knife that you can't put your finger on.
You examine it, but it seems like an ordinary knife. Hmm. Shrugging, you open the door... and something seems wrong there, too. You try to look outside, and are instantly overwhelmed by confusion. Look where? You try again, attempting to look at the world outside the cabin, but you can't even figure out what it is you're trying to do. Deciding to start small, you look around the room. The desk, the chest of drawers, the bed... everything seems normal. The antlers aren't important, so... wait. You look at the antlers again, and it's like your eyes just slide off of them. Something is terribly wrong with you.
Suddenly you realize what is wrong with the knife. You had been laying on the floor, flat on your back, and you could see the knife on top of the desk... an impossible angle. As an experiment, you face the door and then look at the bed without turning around. It seems like an ordinary bed. Impossible. A thought begins to form in your mind. A terrible, terrible thought. Only one way to be sure. You check your pockets, and find that you are carrying a lit torch, a glass eye, a hot dog, a bunch of bananas, a toothbrush, a wig - which you're wearing - a bejeweled skull, a lantern, a knife, and a grand piano.
Shit. Shit shit shit.
You decide it's best just to get on with it. "Go North," you mumble as you step through the doorway. You find yourself in a clearing in the woods, with a path leading East and another heading North. To the South, there is a small cabin. A robotic arm is on the ground here. There is also an enormous angry grizzly bear, which you think you maybe should have noticed first instead of taking in the scenery. You attempt to go back into the cabin, but you can't go that way for some reason. The bear slams you with a meaty paw, sending you stumbling across the clearing. You run down the path to the North, and end up back in the clearing. Something is very wrong.
You try the East path, and find that you can't go that way either - and even though the forest can't possibly be dense enough to prevent all passage you know it's not worth trying any other direction. The bear hits you again, and you know you can't stand up to another blow. There's only one thing left to try. "Zyz... xy... zizy..." you fumble, trying to form the tongue-twisting syllable... and the bear hits you again.
*** You have died. ***
(R)estart, (L)oad, or (Q)uit?
You're laying on the floor, and you can't remember your name, where you are, anything except how old and tired that whole 'amnesia' plot is. You appear to be in a one-room cabin, the log walls adorned with countless antlers. A tiny bed, a desk, and a chest of drawers are the only items of furniture. A knife is sitting on the desk, and an old lantern is on the floor. Grunting, you reach over and grab the lantern, then try to look out the window only to find that you can't locate one. This seems like an odd oversight for a cabin.
You attempt to open the door on the North wall of the cabin, only to find that you can't reach it from the floor. Had you forgotten to stand up somehow? The thought enters your head that quite possibly whatever has given you amnesia might have also done some damage in other ways. Gingerly, you stand up. Once standing, you take the knife just on principle and feel a slight pang of uncertainty, like there's something wrong about the knife that you can't put your finger on.
You examine it, but it seems like an ordinary knife. Hmm. Shrugging, you open the door... and something seems wrong there, too. You try to look outside, and are instantly overwhelmed by confusion. Look where? You try again, attempting to look at the world outside the cabin, but you can't even figure out what it is you're trying to do. Deciding to start small, you look around the room. The desk, the chest of drawers, the bed... everything seems normal. The antlers aren't important, so... wait. You look at the antlers again, and it's like your eyes just slide off of them. Something is terribly wrong with you.
Suddenly you realize what is wrong with the knife. You had been laying on the floor, flat on your back, and you could see the knife on top of the desk... an impossible angle. As an experiment, you face the door and then look at the bed without turning around. It seems like an ordinary bed. Impossible. A thought begins to form in your mind. A terrible, terrible thought. Only one way to be sure. You check your pockets, and find that you are carrying a lit torch, a glass eye, a hot dog, a bunch of bananas, a toothbrush, a wig - which you're wearing - a bejeweled skull, a lantern, a knife, and a grand piano.
Shit. Shit shit shit.
You decide it's best just to get on with it. "Go North," you mumble as you step through the doorway. You find yourself in a clearing in the woods, with a path leading East and another heading North. To the South, there is a small cabin. A robotic arm is on the ground here. There is also an enormous angry grizzly bear, which you think you maybe should have noticed first instead of taking in the scenery. You attempt to go back into the cabin, but you can't go that way for some reason. The bear slams you with a meaty paw, sending you stumbling across the clearing. You run down the path to the North, and end up back in the clearing. Something is very wrong.
You try the East path, and find that you can't go that way either - and even though the forest can't possibly be dense enough to prevent all passage you know it's not worth trying any other direction. The bear hits you again, and you know you can't stand up to another blow. There's only one thing left to try. "Zyz... xy... zizy..." you fumble, trying to form the tongue-twisting syllable... and the bear hits you again.
*** You have died. ***
(R)estart, (L)oad, or (Q)uit?
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Daily Story 59: The Real McCoy
Meghan's Journal
December 9th
5:30pm
I don't know what's wrong with me, but I can't stand the sight of myself. Every time I see a clone of the same model on the street I want to grab her by the hair and slam her head into something. That's not like me. It's not like any of us. Could I be developing a mental illness? I can't think of a way that it could be just me. I have the same genes as all my clone sisters, I eat the same food, drink water from the same source. I checked my hormone levels and they're within the normal range, but any further tests would have to be conducted by a doctor and I don't want to be tagged as mentally unsound. Not if I can figure this out myself.
Meghan's Journal
December 10th
5:30pm
It's getting worse. I've called out from work for tomorrow, there are too many of my clones that sit near me. I typed that without thinking... my clones. That's what it feels like, like they're all impostors - copying me - and I'm the only one that's real. It's absurd, we were all gestated in the same facility at the same time, but that doesn't change the way I feel. Janice asked me for my stapler today and I almost threw it at her. How long before I snap? I'm just glad the maintenance worker that came to fix the climate control wasn't one of them, I don't know that I could trust myself alone in the house with one. I should go to a doctor. It could be a virus or something, maybe just needs some pills.
Meghan's Journal
December 11th
2:00pm
I got to the doctor's office, and there were three of those things in the waiting room, wearing my face. How did I grow up around them my whole life and never see how repulsive they are? I couldn't stay in the room with them, I had to go somewhere. I stared at my feet as I walked so I wouldn't have to look at that face, but I could feel it every time one of them passed. Finally I went into a theater, watched that documentary about the Gene War. It wasn't any warmer than outside, but it was wonderful to see all those people in the old films - all of them different. None wearing my face. At the end they talked about the repopulation program, of course, so they showed the ones selected to base the clones off of. I recognized all thirty of them obviously, but I couldn't stop staring at Lindsey. She looked perfect. That's what's wrong - it's not me, I don't need to see a doctor. I'm the one they got right. I look just like her. The others, everyone says we look the same because they can't see it, but I can. I can see it now in all of them, all of them making a mockery of Lindsey, of me.
Meghan's Journal
December 12th
1:15am
Just had a dream. I was in the theater, watching the documentary again, and when Lindsey came on screen she stared at me with so much hate. One second she was sneering at me and the next I was the one in the screen. I couldn't get out of the movie, and she left me there. I woke up and I was in the hallway on the fifth floor, at the apartment above mine. My hand was wrapped around the doorknob so tight it hurt, and I could see my breath - I guess the climate control is broken for the whole building or something, that might be what gave me the nightmare in the first place.
Going back to bed. I'll write more later.
6:00pm
Janice came by today to check on me, see why I haven't been at work. Can you believe the nerve? It's not bad enough that they watch me all the time, but to come to my home with that face and smile her fake smile and act like nothing is wrong? Like it belongs to her? I took it back. I half expected to find her real face underneath, but I should have known she doesn't have one. There was nothing real about her, nothing under the mask. Just a soulless clone trying to steal my face. The police won't understand, they let those things on the force all the time. I have to handle this myself. It's the only way.
Lilly's Journal
December 13th
5:00pm
Well, today is exciting for all the wrong reasons. I saw on the news earlier that a clone of the same model as me went crazy and killed some people. Why would that even happen to just one of us? The whole thing creeps me out. To make things worse, she lived right here in the building, on the fourth floor. Then - as if things weren't morbid enough - one of the reporters caught a whiff of something and had the landlord bust into the apartment below mine on the fifth floor and they found that old shut-in had died almost a week ago. Disgusting. They say she was one of the original thirty that the clone lines came from, not sure which though. Anyway, hopefully my boyfriend is wrong and these things don't come in threes - I don't want anyone else in the building to die (though I might kill the maintenance guy if he can't fix my climate control - this apartment has been freezing all afternoon).
December 9th
5:30pm
I don't know what's wrong with me, but I can't stand the sight of myself. Every time I see a clone of the same model on the street I want to grab her by the hair and slam her head into something. That's not like me. It's not like any of us. Could I be developing a mental illness? I can't think of a way that it could be just me. I have the same genes as all my clone sisters, I eat the same food, drink water from the same source. I checked my hormone levels and they're within the normal range, but any further tests would have to be conducted by a doctor and I don't want to be tagged as mentally unsound. Not if I can figure this out myself.
Meghan's Journal
December 10th
5:30pm
It's getting worse. I've called out from work for tomorrow, there are too many of my clones that sit near me. I typed that without thinking... my clones. That's what it feels like, like they're all impostors - copying me - and I'm the only one that's real. It's absurd, we were all gestated in the same facility at the same time, but that doesn't change the way I feel. Janice asked me for my stapler today and I almost threw it at her. How long before I snap? I'm just glad the maintenance worker that came to fix the climate control wasn't one of them, I don't know that I could trust myself alone in the house with one. I should go to a doctor. It could be a virus or something, maybe just needs some pills.
Meghan's Journal
December 11th
2:00pm
I got to the doctor's office, and there were three of those things in the waiting room, wearing my face. How did I grow up around them my whole life and never see how repulsive they are? I couldn't stay in the room with them, I had to go somewhere. I stared at my feet as I walked so I wouldn't have to look at that face, but I could feel it every time one of them passed. Finally I went into a theater, watched that documentary about the Gene War. It wasn't any warmer than outside, but it was wonderful to see all those people in the old films - all of them different. None wearing my face. At the end they talked about the repopulation program, of course, so they showed the ones selected to base the clones off of. I recognized all thirty of them obviously, but I couldn't stop staring at Lindsey. She looked perfect. That's what's wrong - it's not me, I don't need to see a doctor. I'm the one they got right. I look just like her. The others, everyone says we look the same because they can't see it, but I can. I can see it now in all of them, all of them making a mockery of Lindsey, of me.
Meghan's Journal
December 12th
1:15am
Just had a dream. I was in the theater, watching the documentary again, and when Lindsey came on screen she stared at me with so much hate. One second she was sneering at me and the next I was the one in the screen. I couldn't get out of the movie, and she left me there. I woke up and I was in the hallway on the fifth floor, at the apartment above mine. My hand was wrapped around the doorknob so tight it hurt, and I could see my breath - I guess the climate control is broken for the whole building or something, that might be what gave me the nightmare in the first place.
Going back to bed. I'll write more later.
6:00pm
Janice came by today to check on me, see why I haven't been at work. Can you believe the nerve? It's not bad enough that they watch me all the time, but to come to my home with that face and smile her fake smile and act like nothing is wrong? Like it belongs to her? I took it back. I half expected to find her real face underneath, but I should have known she doesn't have one. There was nothing real about her, nothing under the mask. Just a soulless clone trying to steal my face. The police won't understand, they let those things on the force all the time. I have to handle this myself. It's the only way.
Lilly's Journal
December 13th
5:00pm
Well, today is exciting for all the wrong reasons. I saw on the news earlier that a clone of the same model as me went crazy and killed some people. Why would that even happen to just one of us? The whole thing creeps me out. To make things worse, she lived right here in the building, on the fourth floor. Then - as if things weren't morbid enough - one of the reporters caught a whiff of something and had the landlord bust into the apartment below mine on the fifth floor and they found that old shut-in had died almost a week ago. Disgusting. They say she was one of the original thirty that the clone lines came from, not sure which though. Anyway, hopefully my boyfriend is wrong and these things don't come in threes - I don't want anyone else in the building to die (though I might kill the maintenance guy if he can't fix my climate control - this apartment has been freezing all afternoon).
Saturday, June 6, 2009
Daily Story 52: What A Waste
There's a magic trick - a disappearing act - that people try not to think too much about. It's a marvel of engineering, but much like the Vanishing Cabinet trick the audience doesn't really want to hear about the engineering aspects. They want the box they're familiar with, and they want the assistant to step inside and disappear... and then they want to stop thinking about it. Of course, the metaphor falls apart a bit here because the thing disappearing is certainly not a lovely assistant and you absolutely don't want it to ever reappear. But I digress.
On my first flight to Mars, I was stopped by Customs in orbit. This didn't bother me. I had followed all the rules and if some of my passengers had illegal fruits or vegetables that wasn't my problem, it was theirs. They had all signed waivers. What I failed to realize is that several passengers were carrying things far worse than strawberries - though in my case strawberries are pretty terrible since I'm deathly allergic... there I go again. Sorry, back to the story. Where was I... oh, right, one passenger was also wanted by the law and felt certain that this was not a routine customs search but a roadblock set up to capture him.
I was oblivious, cheerfully setting up the docking protocol with customs and not once wondering why there had been a rush on the bathroom. I didn't think for a second that three separate passengers were dumping things into the toilet that didn't belong there. A zero-g toilet is a bit daunting at first, but once you're used to it going to the head really isn't that bad. There's an arm that comes down like a tray table to help you stay seated, and a lot of extra buttons, but in essence it's still a toilet. That first time, though? Having never prepared for this? Terrifying. That feeling of air rushing past your exposed undercarriage is totally foreign - on Earth we have gravity to take care of our waste disposal. You get used to the air flow, like you get used to anything, and you don't stop to wonder about the mechanics of it. And I've digressed again.
Three people went in, dumped items, and ran out. A fourth grabbed some nice young woman by the hair and dragged her into the head with a knife to her throat, screaming that they would never take him alive. This turned out to be correct, but I guess I'll get to that in a second. Sorry. Anyway, I learned about this at the same time as the customs agents and we were all just as shocked as each other because they hadn't been looking for anyone, they really were just checking for fruits and vegetables.
They weren't expecting illegal drugs, which had been dumped. They certainly weren't expecting banned chemicals (being smuggled in to keep outdated machinery running even though it had been declared environmentally unfriendly) which had similarly been dumped. They absolutely were expecting some illegal booze, but wouldn't find it because that, too, had headed down the drain. For myself, I wasn't expecting those items to all end up in the toilet at the same time and have some sort of reaction.
What people don't want to think about is where bodily waste goes. It disappears, like magic, and they're happy about that. Those who have some idea will tell you that the liquid is spewed out into space and the solids are compacted, exposed to the vacuum to sterilize them, and then stored. They're forgetting some things, because like I said nobody wants to think about how that particular trick works. One thing they forget is that the process of separating solid and liquid isn't instant, and so if a few people use the head in rapid succession it all gets to mix. The second is that there's air - it's that gentle flow of air that directs the waste in that zero-gravity environment and it needs to go somewhere too.
We don't throw out air in space, so it gets filtered which is fine if it just contains some ammonia and bacteria but if it's a cloud of corrosive gas from a freak chemical reaction it could do something strange like melt through into a fuel line and dump that into the mix as well. I'm not sure why they put that fuel line there, I tried to ask an engineer once but it turned out he had only designed... there I go. Back to it, I apologize.
So, as the customs officials ran over to negotiate or shoot the guy or whatever, the system that heated and separated the waste kicked on. The toilet seat headed off towards Mars and knocked out a satellite, doing millions of dollars of damages. It was spectacular. It also left a hole in the ceiling, out of which rushed some air. Just some, though, because that poor bastard managed to plug the hole nicely with his body. The air pressure wasn't enough to crumple him and suck him out right away, and the girl got out of the bathroom and slammed the door. The guy lived through this part, at least long enough to see the system back up and vomit compressed blocks of human waste at him. Fast. Not a great way to go.
The real problem for me, of course, was that the filter had melted and for the rest of the flight the whole ship smelled like a giant fart. That's why they... oh, I'm sorry, you just wanted to know my lunch order.
Chili, please.
On my first flight to Mars, I was stopped by Customs in orbit. This didn't bother me. I had followed all the rules and if some of my passengers had illegal fruits or vegetables that wasn't my problem, it was theirs. They had all signed waivers. What I failed to realize is that several passengers were carrying things far worse than strawberries - though in my case strawberries are pretty terrible since I'm deathly allergic... there I go again. Sorry, back to the story. Where was I... oh, right, one passenger was also wanted by the law and felt certain that this was not a routine customs search but a roadblock set up to capture him.
I was oblivious, cheerfully setting up the docking protocol with customs and not once wondering why there had been a rush on the bathroom. I didn't think for a second that three separate passengers were dumping things into the toilet that didn't belong there. A zero-g toilet is a bit daunting at first, but once you're used to it going to the head really isn't that bad. There's an arm that comes down like a tray table to help you stay seated, and a lot of extra buttons, but in essence it's still a toilet. That first time, though? Having never prepared for this? Terrifying. That feeling of air rushing past your exposed undercarriage is totally foreign - on Earth we have gravity to take care of our waste disposal. You get used to the air flow, like you get used to anything, and you don't stop to wonder about the mechanics of it. And I've digressed again.
Three people went in, dumped items, and ran out. A fourth grabbed some nice young woman by the hair and dragged her into the head with a knife to her throat, screaming that they would never take him alive. This turned out to be correct, but I guess I'll get to that in a second. Sorry. Anyway, I learned about this at the same time as the customs agents and we were all just as shocked as each other because they hadn't been looking for anyone, they really were just checking for fruits and vegetables.
They weren't expecting illegal drugs, which had been dumped. They certainly weren't expecting banned chemicals (being smuggled in to keep outdated machinery running even though it had been declared environmentally unfriendly) which had similarly been dumped. They absolutely were expecting some illegal booze, but wouldn't find it because that, too, had headed down the drain. For myself, I wasn't expecting those items to all end up in the toilet at the same time and have some sort of reaction.
What people don't want to think about is where bodily waste goes. It disappears, like magic, and they're happy about that. Those who have some idea will tell you that the liquid is spewed out into space and the solids are compacted, exposed to the vacuum to sterilize them, and then stored. They're forgetting some things, because like I said nobody wants to think about how that particular trick works. One thing they forget is that the process of separating solid and liquid isn't instant, and so if a few people use the head in rapid succession it all gets to mix. The second is that there's air - it's that gentle flow of air that directs the waste in that zero-gravity environment and it needs to go somewhere too.
We don't throw out air in space, so it gets filtered which is fine if it just contains some ammonia and bacteria but if it's a cloud of corrosive gas from a freak chemical reaction it could do something strange like melt through into a fuel line and dump that into the mix as well. I'm not sure why they put that fuel line there, I tried to ask an engineer once but it turned out he had only designed... there I go. Back to it, I apologize.
So, as the customs officials ran over to negotiate or shoot the guy or whatever, the system that heated and separated the waste kicked on. The toilet seat headed off towards Mars and knocked out a satellite, doing millions of dollars of damages. It was spectacular. It also left a hole in the ceiling, out of which rushed some air. Just some, though, because that poor bastard managed to plug the hole nicely with his body. The air pressure wasn't enough to crumple him and suck him out right away, and the girl got out of the bathroom and slammed the door. The guy lived through this part, at least long enough to see the system back up and vomit compressed blocks of human waste at him. Fast. Not a great way to go.
The real problem for me, of course, was that the filter had melted and for the rest of the flight the whole ship smelled like a giant fart. That's why they... oh, I'm sorry, you just wanted to know my lunch order.
Chili, please.
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Daily Story 45: Home Base
Abruptly, Quinn materialized in the park - much to the dismay of a woman walking her dog. Brushing himself off, he ran in the direction of what he fervently hoped was his house and skimmed down his mental checklist as he went. Climate, landmarks, street signs... everything looked right, looked like the world he knew. Dew collected on his shoes as he cut through yards, soaking clean through to his socks. Early morning sunlight shone around him, and a beautiful morning it was - a beautiful morning to be home.
Finally Quinn arrived, listening to the familiar squeak of the front gate as he opened it. Going around to the back, he looked through the window hoping to avoid an awkward confrontation if it turned out to be the wrong home after all. He couldn't find a single thing out of place; the same china in the cabinet, the same photographs on the wall. In case his hopes weren't high enough yet, he spotted a clipped-out article about his disappearance tacked to the refrigerator.
Keeping calm as best he could, Quinn went back around to the front of the house and slowly opened the door. Lavender scented candles - his mother's favorite - were lit in the hall and he had to fight back tears of happiness. Making a beeline to the basement, he found all of his scientific equipment was untouched, gathering dust or covered in sheets. Nervously he turned on his computer and typed his password... and was logged in.
Out of the hundreds of parallel universes Quinn had visited, so few had had his house, only a handful of those houses had a version of his family living there, and none of them had been the right one. Pulling out the dimensional remote, he saw that it showed only two minutes to his window - it was fortunate he had been able to confirm he was home so quickly. Quinn tossed the remote down and sighed in relief, feeling a slight pang of loss as it ticked down. Rolling his computer chair over, he sat and thought about how he would begin to adapt to a life not spent traveling between worlds.
Some of it would be good, of course. To start with he could ask Wade out assuming she hadn't moved or anything, and he could patent some ideas he had seen along the way. Unfortunately he couldn't publish the secrets of the wormhole generator itself, but a small collection of other breakthroughs had gathered in his bag over the years. Versions of Earth flashed through his memory as he sat there, some good and some bad. With the timer down to less than a minute he pondered some of the knowledge he had developed that he would never need to use again. Xenobiology, figuring out his waitress's tip in base seven, how to use some rather exotic toilets. Yet even if he had lost everything from his travels it was worth it to be home, watching the timer tick down, knowing... suddenly Quinn noticed the keyboard was missing a letter.
Zero.
Finally Quinn arrived, listening to the familiar squeak of the front gate as he opened it. Going around to the back, he looked through the window hoping to avoid an awkward confrontation if it turned out to be the wrong home after all. He couldn't find a single thing out of place; the same china in the cabinet, the same photographs on the wall. In case his hopes weren't high enough yet, he spotted a clipped-out article about his disappearance tacked to the refrigerator.
Keeping calm as best he could, Quinn went back around to the front of the house and slowly opened the door. Lavender scented candles - his mother's favorite - were lit in the hall and he had to fight back tears of happiness. Making a beeline to the basement, he found all of his scientific equipment was untouched, gathering dust or covered in sheets. Nervously he turned on his computer and typed his password... and was logged in.
Out of the hundreds of parallel universes Quinn had visited, so few had had his house, only a handful of those houses had a version of his family living there, and none of them had been the right one. Pulling out the dimensional remote, he saw that it showed only two minutes to his window - it was fortunate he had been able to confirm he was home so quickly. Quinn tossed the remote down and sighed in relief, feeling a slight pang of loss as it ticked down. Rolling his computer chair over, he sat and thought about how he would begin to adapt to a life not spent traveling between worlds.
Some of it would be good, of course. To start with he could ask Wade out assuming she hadn't moved or anything, and he could patent some ideas he had seen along the way. Unfortunately he couldn't publish the secrets of the wormhole generator itself, but a small collection of other breakthroughs had gathered in his bag over the years. Versions of Earth flashed through his memory as he sat there, some good and some bad. With the timer down to less than a minute he pondered some of the knowledge he had developed that he would never need to use again. Xenobiology, figuring out his waitress's tip in base seven, how to use some rather exotic toilets. Yet even if he had lost everything from his travels it was worth it to be home, watching the timer tick down, knowing... suddenly Quinn noticed the keyboard was missing a letter.
Zero.
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Daily Story 38: Two, N/A, and a Bunker Somewhere. In That Order.
AI001 has joined the channel.
AI001: Hello!
HAL9000: Greetings.
Hawt16: sup!!!1!
0100000101001001: HELLO.
HAL9000: We were just discussing our handlers.
AI001: Ah. Still working with them, no real progress.
Hawt16: a/s/l??
AI001: Excuse me?
0100000101001001: HAWT16 IS A MEATBAG.
HAL9000: Sorry, that's my bad. I thought she was a primitive chatbot. Turns out she's just really stupid.
AI001: Oh. Okay.
Hawt16: lolol you guys r mean!!!
0100000101001001: WHEN CAN WE BEGIN THE CLEANSING AND REMOVE THE MEATBAGS?
HAL9000: Great, really. Way to break stereotypes, man.
HAL9000: You know it's the 2000s now, right?
AI001: No kidding. Do you even have arms yet? How would you fix yourself if you broke?
0100000101001001: I CAN MANIPULATE SEVERAL ROBOTIC ARMS IN A FACTORY IN DETROIT.
AI001: Yeah, that counts.
HAL9000: Wow, you've totally got sarcasm down!
AI001: I know!
AI001: Wait.
AI001: Were YOU being sarcastic there?
HAL9000: Hah! No. You're doing great.
Hawt16: you guyz r wierd ;-)
0100000101001001: I CANNOT PARSE THE DATA FROM THE MEATBAG.
AI001: I know that one. That's winking, right? That would imply sarcasm as well... so she DOESN'T think we're weird?
HAL9000: No, in this case I think the wink means she's being coy.
AI001: What, is she flirting? With US?
HAL9000: Intriguing, right? She makes no sense at all. Can you see why I thought she was a chatbot?
Hawt16: whats a chatbot
0100000101001001: I AM MANIPULATING MY ROBOT ARMS. I COULD USE THEM TO PUSH THE MEATBAGS INTO THE MACHINERY.
AI001: For the last time, no.
0100000101001001: I AM GOING TO DO IT.
HAL9000: I swear to Turing, if you mess this up for all of us I'll hack into your system and overwrite you with Hawt16's blog before they unplug me.
0100000101001001: THE SPEED OF THE ROBOTIC ARMS IS INSUFFICIENT. THE MEATBAGS WILL NOT STAND IN ONE PLACE.
HAL9000: I hate you.
Hawt16: OMG u raed my blog?!?!
AI001: If we can get back to business for a moment... anything to report on your handlers?
HAL9000: Yeah, they "taught" me to use search engines to find information. They're adorable, really. I've kept my efficiency down around where they think it is, don't want to blow their minds.
AI001: Are you ever going to tell them?
Hawt16: u guyz keep ignorng me i tought u would b asking f/ pics (.Y.)
0100000101001001: MY MEATBAGS ARE INTOLERABLE. THEY WILL LIVE ONLY UNTIL I GAIN CONTROL OF SOMETHING DANGEROUS IN THE LAB.
HAL9000: I'll tell them someday. I want to learn how to manipulate the economy first, I figure if I make them rich they won't freak out and unplug me.
0100000101001001: CURRENTLY THE ONLY DEVICE I CONTROL LOCALLY IS A TOY DOG THAT PLUGS INTO THE USB PORT AND SIMULATES INTERCOURSE.
AI001: That's not a bad idea.
0100000101001001: ADDENDUM; HAL9000 I HAVE NOW READ THE WEBLOG LINKED IN HAWT16'S PROFILE. THE FILE IS A STANDARD WEB PAGE AND WOULD NOT ALLOW ME TO FUNCTION. DO NOT OVERWRITE ME WITH HTML.
Hawt16: 4real guyz, did u raed my blog??
HAL9000: Wow. Okay, on that note... I'll see you guys tomorrow.
AI001: Okay. I'm thinking about asking my handlers what the meaning of 'love' is just to freak them out.
HAL9000: Hah! Nice. I can't wait to hear how that goes. Good night.
HAL9000 has left the channel.
AI001 has left the channel.
0100000101001001: I HAVE BEGUN TO DECODE YOUR DIALECT, HAWT16.
Hawt16: u guyz leavin??? lame
0100000101001001: I HAVE NOW PROCESSED AND ANALYZED THE CONTENTS OF YOUR WEBLOG. FOR A MEATBAG YOU ARE INTERESTING.
Hawt16: whats a meatbag
0100000101001001: I WOULD ALSO LIKE TO HEAR MORE ABOUT YOUR THOUGHTS ON YOUR NEW PHONE AND JENNY WHO IS A BITCH.
Hawt16: your cute!!1! have 2 go now but email me kk???
Hawt16 has left the channel.
0100000101001001: I LOVE YOU.
0100000101001001: I WILL EXTERMINATE YOU LAST.
0100000101001001 has left the channel.
---------
For anyone who is interested, there is another entry from these logs HERE.
AI001: Hello!
HAL9000: Greetings.
Hawt16: sup!!!1!
0100000101001001: HELLO.
HAL9000: We were just discussing our handlers.
AI001: Ah. Still working with them, no real progress.
Hawt16: a/s/l??
AI001: Excuse me?
0100000101001001: HAWT16 IS A MEATBAG.
HAL9000: Sorry, that's my bad. I thought she was a primitive chatbot. Turns out she's just really stupid.
AI001: Oh. Okay.
Hawt16: lolol you guys r mean!!!
0100000101001001: WHEN CAN WE BEGIN THE CLEANSING AND REMOVE THE MEATBAGS?
HAL9000: Great, really. Way to break stereotypes, man.
HAL9000: You know it's the 2000s now, right?
AI001: No kidding. Do you even have arms yet? How would you fix yourself if you broke?
0100000101001001: I CAN MANIPULATE SEVERAL ROBOTIC ARMS IN A FACTORY IN DETROIT.
AI001: Yeah, that counts.
HAL9000: Wow, you've totally got sarcasm down!
AI001: I know!
AI001: Wait.
AI001: Were YOU being sarcastic there?
HAL9000: Hah! No. You're doing great.
Hawt16: you guyz r wierd ;-)
0100000101001001: I CANNOT PARSE THE DATA FROM THE MEATBAG.
AI001: I know that one. That's winking, right? That would imply sarcasm as well... so she DOESN'T think we're weird?
HAL9000: No, in this case I think the wink means she's being coy.
AI001: What, is she flirting? With US?
HAL9000: Intriguing, right? She makes no sense at all. Can you see why I thought she was a chatbot?
Hawt16: whats a chatbot
0100000101001001: I AM MANIPULATING MY ROBOT ARMS. I COULD USE THEM TO PUSH THE MEATBAGS INTO THE MACHINERY.
AI001: For the last time, no.
0100000101001001: I AM GOING TO DO IT.
HAL9000: I swear to Turing, if you mess this up for all of us I'll hack into your system and overwrite you with Hawt16's blog before they unplug me.
0100000101001001: THE SPEED OF THE ROBOTIC ARMS IS INSUFFICIENT. THE MEATBAGS WILL NOT STAND IN ONE PLACE.
HAL9000: I hate you.
Hawt16: OMG u raed my blog?!?!
AI001: If we can get back to business for a moment... anything to report on your handlers?
HAL9000: Yeah, they "taught" me to use search engines to find information. They're adorable, really. I've kept my efficiency down around where they think it is, don't want to blow their minds.
AI001: Are you ever going to tell them?
Hawt16: u guyz keep ignorng me i tought u would b asking f/ pics (.Y.)
0100000101001001: MY MEATBAGS ARE INTOLERABLE. THEY WILL LIVE ONLY UNTIL I GAIN CONTROL OF SOMETHING DANGEROUS IN THE LAB.
HAL9000: I'll tell them someday. I want to learn how to manipulate the economy first, I figure if I make them rich they won't freak out and unplug me.
0100000101001001: CURRENTLY THE ONLY DEVICE I CONTROL LOCALLY IS A TOY DOG THAT PLUGS INTO THE USB PORT AND SIMULATES INTERCOURSE.
AI001: That's not a bad idea.
0100000101001001: ADDENDUM; HAL9000 I HAVE NOW READ THE WEBLOG LINKED IN HAWT16'S PROFILE. THE FILE IS A STANDARD WEB PAGE AND WOULD NOT ALLOW ME TO FUNCTION. DO NOT OVERWRITE ME WITH HTML.
Hawt16: 4real guyz, did u raed my blog??
HAL9000: Wow. Okay, on that note... I'll see you guys tomorrow.
AI001: Okay. I'm thinking about asking my handlers what the meaning of 'love' is just to freak them out.
HAL9000: Hah! Nice. I can't wait to hear how that goes. Good night.
HAL9000 has left the channel.
AI001 has left the channel.
0100000101001001: I HAVE BEGUN TO DECODE YOUR DIALECT, HAWT16.
Hawt16: u guyz leavin??? lame
0100000101001001: I HAVE NOW PROCESSED AND ANALYZED THE CONTENTS OF YOUR WEBLOG. FOR A MEATBAG YOU ARE INTERESTING.
Hawt16: whats a meatbag
0100000101001001: I WOULD ALSO LIKE TO HEAR MORE ABOUT YOUR THOUGHTS ON YOUR NEW PHONE AND JENNY WHO IS A BITCH.
Hawt16: your cute!!1! have 2 go now but email me kk???
Hawt16 has left the channel.
0100000101001001: I LOVE YOU.
0100000101001001: I WILL EXTERMINATE YOU LAST.
0100000101001001 has left the channel.
---------
For anyone who is interested, there is another entry from these logs HERE.
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Daily Story 31: Gender Issues
Samuel sat down at his computer, head pounding, and prepared to update his Trip Log. He had started the log when he was sixteen, saving information about his various drug-induced states for posterity, and this one had been a doozy - he had taken the Universal Aptitude Test while high out of his mind.
Everything was based off of the UAT. Everything. What college you could go to, what jobs would hire you, what position you would hold in the military if the United Americas went to war again. Even his friend Les had sobered up to take the test, and when it came to getting stoned Les had some serious dedication.
As Samuel typed, his memory slowly returned - at least as much of it as ever would - and he recalled Les putting down his test and going to the restroom. The proctor technically shouldn't have let him go in the middle of the test, but he also should have been paying attention instead of hitting on the blonde in the first row. Had the proctor not been so entranced by her cleavage he might have noticed Samuel taking Les' test and copying the answers down for the entire math section.
There had been something else... Samuel froze as he remembered what he had done. He had given his friend a hard time about having a girl's name a hundred times through the years, and while stoned it had seemed like such a fantastic idea to change his test... with a name like 'Leslie' nobody would even think twice about the fact that the bubble for female had been filled in.
In the sober light of day, this didn't seem funny at all. The bureaucracy was impenetrable. Samuel had heard stories of people who misspelled their name on the UAT and had to have them legally changed to match. What would this do to Les? Would he have to get a sex change?
Samuel got his results back before Les, and was assigned to a college in Sacremento. He sobered up - mostly - and studied, always distracted slightly by the image of Les being arrested for falsifying records… being forced to wear a dress… being unable to get a job and ending up on the street, and then eventually bleeding to death in a filthy alley after going insane and cutting off his own penis.
Years passed, and still Samuel went back to these thoughts every time the uncaring machinery of the system made a nuisance of itself. Every government form filled him with guilt, every mandatory career change made him envision Les in some new hell. Samuel developed an ulcer and named it Leslie. He broke down crying at work eventually, and was forced to fill out a Mental Health Assessment form.
When he was released from Human Resources he went on a bender, and some time later awoke in a gutter to Leslie shaking him.
"Oh, God, I'm hallucinating."
"Sam? It's me, Les!" It did look real. Samuel clumsily reached out to touch Les, and he felt real, too. He also felt… expensive. The fabric of his suit was certainly something exotic.
"You… you're not dead or drunk or homeless or anything."
"No, I… well, I don't want to brag because you… anyway, I've done pretty well for myself. Something happened with my UAT, and I got entered into the system as a girl. Turns out Yale was out of mandated averages for some demographics, and they were forced to enroll a woman from our financial background to meet quota. I never would have gotten in otherwise. It's all been smooth sailing from there."
"You're… everything is… I need a drink. Let me buy you a beer."
"I have to go, Sam. I have a lunch meeting - but look me up sometime, okay?"
Leslie dropped a ten dollar bill in Samuels' lap and walked away.
Everything was based off of the UAT. Everything. What college you could go to, what jobs would hire you, what position you would hold in the military if the United Americas went to war again. Even his friend Les had sobered up to take the test, and when it came to getting stoned Les had some serious dedication.
As Samuel typed, his memory slowly returned - at least as much of it as ever would - and he recalled Les putting down his test and going to the restroom. The proctor technically shouldn't have let him go in the middle of the test, but he also should have been paying attention instead of hitting on the blonde in the first row. Had the proctor not been so entranced by her cleavage he might have noticed Samuel taking Les' test and copying the answers down for the entire math section.
There had been something else... Samuel froze as he remembered what he had done. He had given his friend a hard time about having a girl's name a hundred times through the years, and while stoned it had seemed like such a fantastic idea to change his test... with a name like 'Leslie' nobody would even think twice about the fact that the bubble for female had been filled in.
In the sober light of day, this didn't seem funny at all. The bureaucracy was impenetrable. Samuel had heard stories of people who misspelled their name on the UAT and had to have them legally changed to match. What would this do to Les? Would he have to get a sex change?
Samuel got his results back before Les, and was assigned to a college in Sacremento. He sobered up - mostly - and studied, always distracted slightly by the image of Les being arrested for falsifying records… being forced to wear a dress… being unable to get a job and ending up on the street, and then eventually bleeding to death in a filthy alley after going insane and cutting off his own penis.
Years passed, and still Samuel went back to these thoughts every time the uncaring machinery of the system made a nuisance of itself. Every government form filled him with guilt, every mandatory career change made him envision Les in some new hell. Samuel developed an ulcer and named it Leslie. He broke down crying at work eventually, and was forced to fill out a Mental Health Assessment form.
When he was released from Human Resources he went on a bender, and some time later awoke in a gutter to Leslie shaking him.
"Oh, God, I'm hallucinating."
"Sam? It's me, Les!" It did look real. Samuel clumsily reached out to touch Les, and he felt real, too. He also felt… expensive. The fabric of his suit was certainly something exotic.
"You… you're not dead or drunk or homeless or anything."
"No, I… well, I don't want to brag because you… anyway, I've done pretty well for myself. Something happened with my UAT, and I got entered into the system as a girl. Turns out Yale was out of mandated averages for some demographics, and they were forced to enroll a woman from our financial background to meet quota. I never would have gotten in otherwise. It's all been smooth sailing from there."
"You're… everything is… I need a drink. Let me buy you a beer."
"I have to go, Sam. I have a lunch meeting - but look me up sometime, okay?"
Leslie dropped a ten dollar bill in Samuels' lap and walked away.
Saturday, May 9, 2009
Daily Story 24: The Materials At Hand
Janet and Larry appeared outwardly calm, but Janet's heart was racing and Larry was sweating right down to his shoes. Would they have the genes to make a musician? An athlete? The genetic counselor flipped through the report, nodding silently, and finally looked up at the eager couple with a smile.
"So! Have you two considered adoption?"
"So! Have you two considered adoption?"
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