The sweetest honey was the one they daubed on his lips.
This wasn't really torture; not in the traditional sense. Instead of pain, he was given touches of pleasure.
Simple pleasures - gentle whispers, the smell of bread, the touch of soft wool against his cheek.
After a few days, he wondered if they really wanted him to talk, or if they wanted him to stay. If they wanted him to remain there, relying on them, content to be with them until the end of his days.
To call him a pet would be too extreme, but the principle was...
She didn't look at him.
He didn't look at her. They had an understanding. The only way to succeed was if they didn't show the mark that everyone in the room was absolute strangers.
Glasses clinked, the lounge pianist droned his snooty song, polite ladies left to powder their noses, and she stood directly under the chandelier's magnificent crown. In a few seconds, the lights would fizzle out, he would pull the cord, and she would lie dead, crushed by the weight of the crystals and copper.
Or they would make it. They would make it to the mark, take...
I'd had so many plans, just before I went back. I was prepared to an insane degree. I'd spent days camping in the wilderness, gathering enough iron to create a goddamned magnet. I'd memorized the fundamentals of aviation, chemistry, nuclear physics. I knew all there was to know about rebuilding civilization.
And it had all slipped away, one memory after another, fading into a blur, after I'd fallen through the time vortex.
So here I am, trying to explain to some neolithic ignoramus how to make gunpowder. The most I can remember is that it requires a mixture of sulfur,...
The mannequin stared at me again, just like it did every morning.
It was the same this morning as every morning. My route would pass in front of the shop; the same steely look from that dummy. I didn't want to admit it to my older sister, but there was something about that look that made me completely afraid. "Come on, you!" she said. "Stop your dawdling, we're going to be late again, and every time we're late, it's all your fault. Come on!"
I glanced over my shoulder at the mannequin once more. I was sure, this time. Something...
Good night…
Good morning…
Good afternoon…
Chet had to find his own fun while working as a department-store greeter. Sometimes he said “Good evening” instead of “Good night” to the fancier-looking customers. Sometimes he said it to the disreputable customers, too, but a bit sarcastically, to see if they’d pick it up on it. They usually didn’t.
Every now and then Chet would greet someone with the wrong time of day. “Good afternoon, sir,” he’d say, as the sun was peeking over the mountains. “Good night, ma’am,” while the sun was burning hot overhead. And usually people just continued on...
When he'd signed up to visit strange new worlds, he'd never envisioned this. He turned slowly in the glass globe, devoid of even snow or glitter, and bemoaned his fate.
He should have known better than to answer an ad for interstellar traveller posted in the local classifieds.
Crap.
I shot my butler. R500's faults were many, burning the morning toast, giving me a crumpled newspaper to read, ushering guests into the wrong rooms to name a few. Robots should know better, after all their programming is far superior to our brains.
After a week of complaints from Marie, my third wife, the sexiest one I've had, R500 had to go. I used my new rifle to shoot him outside in the garden, scaring the peacocks strutting around on the lawn.
Obviously it was the wrong method of dispatch, he's back in the house, ironing my dress shirt for...
I sit high in the tree above the water. Watching. Bapa sits in his little green boat rocking gently in the water. The sight is a familiar one for me. I have been watching Bapa fish and gather since I could climb the tree. I close my eyes and listen. Bapa's voice floats through the warm sticky air and up to my perch in the tree. His voice is deep, warm, and smooth just like the water. when he is in his boat, I don't worry about him. Mama died when I was born and most of the time it...
When the butterflies are high in the afternoon sky is the best time to sit by the lake. I am lucky to have the view I do, not many people can just waltz out their back door and be in the wonderland that is nature. I can.
I take my walkman (don't judge me) with me whenever I go down to the lake. I like to think about the day and all the wonders tomorrow will bring. It's not so lonely just being me and my walkman because a few butterflies always join me. Their gilded wings brush the water's...
"The key to the door is lying on the floor, a meter and a half to your right," it instructed. The more it spoke, the more unnatural it seemed to Jolene, the more artificial. Synthesized.
Slowly she followed its directives, feeling along the stone-cold floor in the dark. "Be quick," it admonished her tonelessly.
Finally her fingers brushed it; her pounding, she seized the key and stumbled her way back to the door. She took a deep breath, forcing herself to be calm, and carefully inserted the key into the lock. To her relief, it turned, and the door moved...