They gathered in the woods, but that was not enough to save them, as they were mistaken for trees, cut down and shipped to a lumber mill.
One of them was fortunate (or unfortunate) enough to be made into thick planks; most of the rest were sadly torn apart into sawdust and mulch. But that one continued to live, in great pain, as he was violently sawed and assembled into a large, polished grandfather clock.
They attached to him some cold, foreign bits of metal that moved jarringly. The ticking of the gears against his aching frame was unceasing; day...
They gathered in the woods. In ones and twos, hiding in lengthening shadows. None walked there proudly, none stood tall, with their eyes blazing. No. This was a gathering of shame, a coven of the embarrassed and beaten.
It was probably Malachai who spoke first, that devil of lovely hair who had seduced women away from their husbands for centuries. "I think it is long past time that we declare failure." There were many murmurs of agreement, along with a few shouts of disapproval.
Barbastos came next, his red skin oiled and beautiful. He was known for his ability to...
"Where am I?" asked Jolene, as she took some hesitant steps toward the elevator. "Am I on the moon?"
"You are not on the moon," was the response. The voice seemed to come from all around her. "You are on a spacecraft. The Earth as you know it is uninhabitable."
"What? Why? What happened?"
"You will find out later," it said. "Take the elevator to the highest floor."
Jolene entered the small enclosure and pressed the button marked '35'. There was no 36.
"God will ask you a series of questions," the voice continued. "If the answers are incorrect, he...
The floorboard creaked. The house came alive and... walked.
It did not walk as people walk, as things designed to move would move. No, a house is not meant to ambulate, not meant to be in a place different from the place it had always been. That was the first trial, overcoming years of inactivity, millenia of tradition.
But the house was determined to leave its lot, after its lot in life had fallen. All around it, other houses had fallen, eaten away by neglect, time, disuse. And while this house had not had resident or human inhabitant for far...
The teacher looked at her students and said, "You will not make it."
"You will not be the next R&B star, a famous football or basketball player. You will not become the next Snookie or The Situation. You will not be discovered as a famous model/artist/musician/actress/fill in the blank after a year of struggle in New York City, where you went to 'find yourself.' You will not write the next great American novel. You will not become a billionaire."
The students threw bullets with their eyes that screamed a silent defiance. How dare you?
"You are going to need to...
"Two-thousand-seventy bottles of beer on the wall, two-thousand and seventy bottles of beeeeeer. Take one down, pass it around, two-thousand-and-sixty-nine bottles of beer on the waaaaaaaaaaaaaaall."
Johnny steps down from the stage to thunderous, silent applause. A few faces are comically stunned. Most are arranged in various expressions of disgust.
I'm sure the patrons of the Poet's Society were hoping for better lyrics from the Frontman of the Year. I walk hurriedly to the publicist to begin my explanation. Should I go for the cancer, the break-up, the drugs, or the booze option? I'm sure that's what everyone's thinking anyway....
"I hate him. He could get hit by a car randomly in the street, and it wouldn't matter to me. It would probably make my days better."
Anyway, it happened. It would. And so then the whole school was plunged into mourning of varying depths. Mourning of the grievous type, and mourning of the more celebratory kind.
Let's be honest. He made everyone's life miserable. He never bothered to even sit. His room was the hallway, not a desk.
The administrator who suspended him that day couldn't stop questioning himself: could I have done more? Should I have done it?...
He saw everything for the first time. Spread out before him, yes, the world was his oyster. He reached forth his hand, but unseen, as he should have known, was the wall. He could touch it, if he could just touch it. Everything he needed, the love, the comfort, the possessions, the knowledge.
The frustration didn't set in until later, but not much later. He took the time to soak it up, to breathe it in, to become accustomed to his surroundings. It was a relief. He would do things the way he remembered. He wouldn't be concerned.
There was...
2070 grains of rice. For six people. To last six weeks.
Less than 60 grains of rice per week.
No water too cook it with. All the water is too polluted.
We don't even have canned beans anymore.
What if you were one of these six people?
Maybe you could save your brother, child, or friend by sacrificing your own life.
Would they eat you??
Maybe, but at least you would no longer feel the pain of your body slowly eating itself.
Would you really be saving your family, your friends?
After all, there is no guarantee of another 2700...
Please do not ask me to write some fluffy SciFi romance. Nothing will have changed by 2070. I will probably still be alive, I will probably still have this fucking job.
Remember when you hired me, based on the screenplay in my application? I worked hard on Zilly and Jack. For years, my every step was fueled by the thought of Zilly and Jack seamlessly executed on a Broadway stage. (A production, I mean, not a beheading.)
"Such wit!" you exclaimed. "Such cutting-edge quirks! We love the way Zilly listens to movie soundtracks while she studies BioChem! Dun Dun DUN!"...