I remember I was out on a mission with my translator Plamen. We were way out in Aaha space, trying to sell a magnetic confinement fusion device as “human folk art.”
Here was the scam: you take this stellarator coil, which ought to work in theory, but has never managed to produce electricity economically. You sell the stellarator to an alien art collector, talking up its historical value as an example of the primitive handicraft of fusion power generation. Then it’s – whoops! something must have damaged the stellarator during delivery. So sorry! We’ll drop the price if you help us repair it. Then, we pay careful attention to the repairs, take our notes back to Earth, hand them to whoever we want to win the next Nobel Prize in physics, and Bob, as they say, is your uncle. It didn’t work out that way. Of course, Plamen and I were given thorough check-ups before we left Earth, and of course we ate nothing but what came out of our Amazonian kitchen replicator. But I developed appendicitis, anyway. I tried to muscle through it during meetings. I’d be doubled up in pain while male Aaha art students climbed over my back. They thought I was flirting with them! It wasn’t going to work. Plamen said he had to do something. But what could he do? We were in a “nucleon arts college” tethered like a balloon to a neutron star made of negative matter, somewhere that isn’t even in Earth’s light cone. The Aahas had bought two-way ride vouchers for us with a return trip in three months, and a new one would cost more than the Earth (outside Amazonia) produced in a year. We were stuck, and medical facilities here would have no idea what to do with an appendix. I still don’t know how Plamen found them. Some sort of alien social media? I shudder to think. All I remember is sweating on my cot while they poked at me. Aaha fingers, Beezle bugs, and some terrifying barbed thing that Plamen called a “gynosome.” They weren’t doctors. There weren’t artists, either, exactly. And certainly not scientists. They asked me questions like “what is the diplomatic protocol for negotiations with your gut flora?” and “is cellulose a popular building material on Earth?” and “to the best of your memory, when was the last time your species engaged in folivory?” I was given something to drink that tasted like electrolytes. “Calcium ions!” I heard one of them say as my vision went blurry. “Didn’t you do a project like that back in college?” “Yes, but I never thought to combine it with hind-gut fermentation. What an idea! Symbiosis has been done to death of course, but making the mutualists prokaryotic is a good twist.” When I regained consciousness, I had a headache and a potbelly, but the pain in my gut was gone. When questioned, Plamen told me not to worry, the new tissue was all made in the kitchen replicator. When questioned again, more loudly, he said he was sorry. He’d been desperate. That’s why he’d delivered me up to a gang of speculative biologists. “We can always get it removed,” he said, poking my large, new gut. “And in the mean time, you can eat all the leaves you want.”
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Energy curdled back into mass as the ship translated out of light speed. After a pause for the crew to get used to experiencing time again, the ship’s instruments extended.
From the crew’s perspective, they’d finished an extensive survey of this part of space just a moment ago. For this part of space, however, 600 years had passed, so it was important to make sure nothing had changed. Something had. “It used to be a star like the sun,” explained the astrophysicist, whose name was Gaviria. “It had a family of planets ranging in size from a little larger than Earth to a little smaller than Neptune, all of them orbiting closer than the orbit of Jupiter.” Marletta, the astrophysicist, spoke over Gaviria in his excitement. “So far, so similar to many other star systems. Really, it’s closer to the galaxy’s standard average than the Solar System.” “Or it was when we translated to light,” said Gaviria. “But?” asked Zhang. Once a biochemist, Zhang had recently been elected to the post of “Social Coordinator,” or as he called himself, “cat herder.” “Its planets have shrunk,” said Gaviria. “Huh.” Zhang wondered why he was having this conversation. Aha. There it was. “You want me to authorize an away team.” In free fall as he was, Marletta could not jump up and down with excitement. The best he could do was anchor himself to a hand-rail and vibrate in place. “It’s close. It’s super close!” Zhang looked at Gaviria, who said, “Point nine eight light years.” “Would a two-year-ship-time trip fit our flight plan?” Zhang’s question was directed at the ship’s computer, which cleared the mission. Soon, the three of them were packed and in their landing pod, which the ship translated into light. The team was away. *** After either a year or no time at all, the landing pod re-materialized above a planet. Zhang, Marletta, and Gaviria watched the hazy, blue-white ball flicker in their portholes. As their pod translated itself into a safe landing trajectory, the planet vanished and reappeared, changing position and orientation. It grew closer. Now, the planet filled all the portholes on one side of the pod. The diamond light of its home star limned its upper edge. Now, that light was tinged red by atmosphere, and the edge had become the horizon. The horizon developed mountains. Finally, the pod settled, the planet became the ground, and Gaviria, Marletta, and Zhang walked out onto it. Zhang hopped experimentally, feeling his suit flex under the extra gee. He couldn’t smell anything except his own canned air, but his mics picked up the sound of running water, wind over rocks, and a distant bass pulse that might be surf. They’d touched down on a hill overlooking a floodplain, where a river flowed into an ocean. The sun rose above the mountains on the other side of the plain, casting pink-yellow light onto clouds, folded rocks, and the forest growing out of the river. The plants, if they were plants, had no leaves, branches or trunks. The green, blunt-nosed cones simply sat there, their roots – if they had roots – invisible under the water. They might still prove to be some strange kind of geology, but Zhang allowed himself to take a leap of faith, and sighed, “Life.” Part of the reason Zhang had accepted the post of cat herder was that there wasn’t usually much call for a biochemist. It wasn’t the first extraterrestrial biosphere that the Von Neumann Fleet had discovered, but it was a first for his individual ship. “Samples samples aha,” Gaviria hummed to herself. She headed for a cone-plant growing in a nearby stream. Marletta looked out over the blue ocean and green floodplain. “Life how? Six hundred years ago, this place was a sub-Neptune.” “It’s much closer to its star than our Neptune,” said Zhang. “Right?” Marletta flapped his hands. “And with a denser core. And not as close as Earth…really, it was intermediate between Earth and Neptune.” “Which is unusual?” “Well, yes. Usually you either have a terrestrial planet like Earth: a secondary atmosphere out-gassed from the rock.” Marletta held his hands apart, as if measuring a grapefruit. “Or,” He spread his hands out to the diameter of a beach ball. “Or, you get a gas giant like Neptune, with an envelope of hydrogen and helium gathered out of the primordial matter that built its star. Those light gasses spread out farther, so the planet looks bigger from space.” He moved his palms inward, the volume between them now the size of basketball. “But then over time, heat from the planet and the star would have blown that primordial atmosphere away. That’s why we assumed that the intermediate diameters, like the one-point-five Earth diameter this planet used to have, were so rare.” “Rarer now!” said Gaviria. She chipped away at the green cone-plant with her multi-tool. The surface of the organism was as hard as the heat shielding of their landing pod. “Since we left Earth, every planet in this system has shrunk down.” Zhang watched Gaviria work. “And in only six hundred years,” he mused. “I’m assuming that’s much faster than any stellar or geological process could account for.” “Don’t jump to conclusions,” said Gaviria. But Zhang didn’t have to line up his evidence for a review board. He was a cat herder now, and he could jump to whatever he wanted. “Marletta, did the observations we made from Earth indicate oxygen in this planet’s atmosphere?” “Well, we don’t know,” said Marletta. “We never recorded any absorption spectra through the original atmosphere. All we have are the transit and radial velocity data that told us the size and mass of this system’s planets. But…” His brain caught up with his mouth. On Earth, Marletta would have spun around to face Gaviria and her cone-plant. In two gees, he wobbled like a penguin, but eventually got himself turned in the right direction. “You mean photosynthesis?” “How much longer?” Zhang asked Gaviria. His logic was leading him into uncomfortable places. Gaviria gave her cone-plant another whack with her multitool, which didn’t even scratch the surface. “Just let me get my sample. It’s not going to go off right now, just because we’re talking about it.” “‘Go off,'” Zhang repeated. Marletta thought out loud. “Water and carbon dioxide go in, oxygen and carbohydrates come out. O2 gas rises to mix with the H2, and now every time there’s a bolt of lightning or other spark…” “Well,” said Gaviria, “boom.” Marletta swore in English, and Zhang made a decision. “We need to go.” “Stop being paranoid, this all happened hundreds of years ago.” Gaviria scratched at the cone again. Marletta stopped, his colleague’s assumptions overriding his sense of self-preservation. “Wait. That’s still not fast enough. The entire atmosphere couldn’t have, uh, explosively oxidized in only six hundred years.” Zhang answered the implied question. “There must have been biological processes actively speeding things up. Sequestrating the hydrogen? Controlling the rate of reaction?” He shook his head, remembering he was supposed to be herding these cats. “Let’s go, Gaviria. We can print out better tools on the pod.” After a light-speed jump into deep space, he added silently. “I suppose so,” Gaviria reluctantly put away her multitool and hoisted herself out of the stream. Marletta couldn’t snap his fingers in his suit, but he tried. “And it didn’t just happen on this planet, did it? Every planet in the system lost its hydrogen atmosphere within the same six-hundred-year window!” “Panspermia!” crowed Gaviria from the bank. Zhang groaned because he had always hated the idea of panspermia. Also, because steam was rising from the cone-plant behind his geologist. *** It was a good thing, they decided later, that Gaviria hadn’t been able to crack the ablative shielding on the cone-plant. If she had, it could well have exploded. As it was, though, the plant only launched. Back in the safety of their pod, the three humans watched as the green, ceramic-shelled organism lifted into the sky on its pillar of fire, and began its mission to spread life to other stars. This story was inspired by William Misener’s “To Cool is to Keep: Residual H/He Atmospheres of Super-Earths and sub-Neptunes.” Thanks go out to him and everyone at the 2020 NASA Exoplanet Science Institutes Exoplanet Demographics conference. This story was published in “Heavy Metal Jupiters,” the zine of the Exoplanet Demographics 2020 conference. This Thirty Years Plus story is inspired by Joanne Rixon’s op-ed in the Tacoma News Tribune. I encourage you to write your own.
The year is 2050 and a storm washes Sloveykov Square. Rain curtains hide buildings of concrete, glass, and transverse laminated timber. Also invisible is the apartment of Yulia Raymundo Smirnova. From the metro station “St. st. Cyril and Methodius” – still sunny – Yulia watches the lightning right above her home and considers her next move. Some people raise umbrellas or wave at ground taxis. Others descend back into the underpass or change their jackets into temporary shelters to await the resumption of flying services. The inflated tents of smart material much resemble those of the protestors in front of the National Assembly. They want the right for single-family homes to be built within the municipality of Sofia. In Yulia’s opinion, they won’t get it. That’s why she’s wondering whether to move to the countryside. And why not? Yulia thinks while her feet carry her down into the underpass. Her husband already works from home, and many children attend online schools. Isn’t a private garden nicer than a municipal one? That’s the opinion of most of Yulia’s friends. By habit she buys a newspaper, which she pays for with a tap of her wooden bank card. Her parents still use their smartphones for paying, reading, and everything else, but younger people want one gadget for one task. And even better if it’s made of bio materials. Invisible circuits in the clothes of Yulia and the salesman record the transaction and she climbs the stairs to Knyazheska Garden. Around it sigh the electric and hydrogen cars of the great carbon-neutral traffic jam of the mid-21st century. Expensive private cars get in the way of trolleys and cargo vans, but the driverless vehicles do not honk their horns. The cyclists are much louder. They don’t give a damn what’s pouring from the heavens – neither rain nor snow. They would ride merrily shouting through a rain of flaming tar, at least according to them. The sycamores tremble over Levski street. The drones and swifts return to their nests under eaves and old solar panels. The monsoon continues as Yulia reads of Kaliningrad and the price of Arabian ammonia. Biomass energy with or without carbon dioxide capture? This month, the American scandal is “Neuralgate.” Taxes on parking in Sofia and subsidies for home hydrogen batteries will rise. All of this changes the weather, but not all at once. The first drops of today’s storm fall on the newspaper, which begins to transform into biodegradable mulch. Yulia lets it run between her fingers, to where it will nourish tomorrow’s grass. Yulia stands. She will go home on foot. If she walks slowly, the rain might stop. Or else she might just get more wet. Well, alright. She’s realized that she loves to walk through her city in the rain. __ Годината е 2050 и буря мие Площад Словейков. Дъждените завеси крият сгради на бетон, стъкло, и напречен ламиниран дървен материал. Също невидим е апартамента на Юлия Раймундо Смирнова. От метростанция “Св. св. Кирил и Методий” – още слънчевна – Юлия гледа светкавицата чак над дома й и счита за следващия си ход. Едни хора вдигат чадари или махат към земните таксита. Други спускат се пак в подлеса или сменят якетата си в временните приюти за да чакат възобновяването на летящите услуги. Надуваемите палатки на умна материя много приличат тези от протестиращите пред народното събрание. Те искат правото да се стройят еднофамилни къщи в общината в София. Според Юлия няма да го спечелят. За това се чуди тя дали да се премести в провинцията. И защо не? Юлиа мисли докато краката си я носят долу в подлеса. Мъжът й вече работи от вкъщи, и много деца посещават онлайн училищета. Собствената градина не ли е по-хубаво от обществената? Така е мнението на повече от приятели на Юлия. По навик тя купи вестник, за който плати с едно потупване от дървената й банковна карта. Нейните родители ощте изполвате смартофоните си за плащане, четене, и всичко друго, но по-млади хора искат едно джадже за една задача. И все по-добре е то ако е направено от био материали. Невидими схеми в дрехите на Юлия и продавача запишете продажбата и тя качва стълбите към Княжеска Градина. Около я се въздишат електрическите и водородните автомобили на якото въглерод-неутрално задръстване на средно-21ия век. Скупи лични коли пречат тролеи и товарни микробуси, но безшофюрните превозни средства не бибипкат клаксони. Много по шумни са велосипедистите. Не тях пука какво полее от небесата – нито дъжд, нито сняг. Би карали весело викайки през един дъжд на пламтящ катран, поне според тях. Чинарите треперят над ул. Левски. Дроновете и бързолетите тръгват в гнездите си под стрехи и стари слънчеви панели. Мусонът продължи като Юлия чете за Калининград и цената на арабски амоняк. Биомасна енергиа със или без съхранението на въглероден диоксид? Този месец, американският скандал е “Неврогейт.” Данъци за паркинг в София и субсидии за домашни водародни акумулатори ще се вдигнат. Всички от това променява времето, но не все веднага. Първите капки на днешнията бурия падне на вестника, който започне да се трансформира в биоразрадим мулч. Юлия дава му да изтече между пръстите й, към където той ще подхранва утрешната тревата. Юлия застава. Ще тръгва са на пеша. Ако ходи бавно, дъждът може да се спре. Иначе може само тя да стана по-мокра. Ей добре. Осъзнала е че обича да разхожда из града си под дъжда. The crowd didn’t seem to be violent, at least. They weren’t holding up signs or chanting slogans. They didn’t even seem to be talking much with each other. They just ambled sedately around one of Bruce’s stores, heads bent towards the phones cupped in their palms.
Bruce Devritte, CEO and founder of The Byke Group, stood beside car and watched them. “At least they picked a good day for a riot.” Hunter, Bruce’s technical lead, grunted and shook his head in the way that he thought concealed his impatience. “It’s not just ‘a.’ And it isn’t exactly ‘riot.'” The word the programmers used was “herd.” It would inevitably leak out of their internal communication and cause a PR stink, but Bruce had to admit that it was apt. He squinted out over this suburban parking lot and across the street, toward the back end of the little cluster of commercial buildings. A handful of gray concrete boxes squatted under tangled phone lines: bank, restaurant, Byke authorized retailer. Helium balloons floated over this last, supporting a banner proclaiming “SALES EVENT.” There were probably cars and shrubs and dumpsters over there too, but Bruce couldn’t see them because the herd was in the way. They were upper-middle-class, white and Asian, all genders, just a bit hipper than the baseline. Byke’s target demographic. These were the people who had responded so well to the Super-Normal User Experience that Bruce’s first employees had created, back when his company had been called Bicycle for the Mind. These people here were, in other words, his. In all senses of the word. He owned them and he owed them everything. Mostly they played with their phones as they ambled in small loops, around and around the Byke store. Bruce was reminded of brooding penguins. Was there a collective noun for penguins? Would it go over better with the press than “herd”? He’d have to look into it. “This is happening all over the country,” Hunter was saying. “It would have been all over the world, too, but we rolled back the update in Asia before most of our users woke up and we’ve never sold well in South America.” Bruce nodded. Europe, thank God, was still bitterly grappling with last year’s update. By the time Brussels got to this one, the bugs would be worked out. “Right,” said Bruce. “So, clearly this has something to do with the Sales Event.” “Yes, and it’s the update we rolled out on midnight before the Sales Event.” Bruce noticed his CTO had in fact told him that Bruce was wrong, despite his use of the phrase “yes and.” It seemed the communication seminars were not working as intended. “Obviously it’s something wrong with the update,” said Bruce, and regretted it. He sounded petulant, like he was covering his ass. It wasn’t my fault. It was someone else monkeying with the settings. That had to be the truth, though, because the basic idea, the concept of Proximity-based Clock speed Adjustment was beautiful. Breathtaking in its elegance. What you did was, you used GPS data to track how close a Byke device was to a Byke store. Then you very slightly adjusted the clock speed of the phone. The closer you got to a store, the slower time ran. The adjustment affected everything from the device’s clock display to its map to its Augmented Reality apps. If you set out from your house at 8am and walked at one mile per hour toward a Byke store that was one mile away, you would find yourself arriving at your destination at 8:45. Hurray! You’re making such good time today. Turn around, and you’d find yourself arriving home at 10:00. Oh no! What happened? You should never have walked away from a Byke store. It was genius. The most perfect example of the philosophy of subconscious manipulation that had carried Bruce and his company so far. Wherever they might be planning to go, people would find their paths gently curving toward the nearest Byke store. Walking through the door was just a little easier than walking out, and once you were there, why not buy a new subscription plan? “So what happened?” Bruce demanded. “Some pointy-headed idiot in Sales turned up the scale of the adjustment, didn’t they? Thought they could net more customers from a larger radius.” Hunter shook his head. He had hooked his thumbs through his belt loops and surveyed the crowd like a ranch hand eyeing his herd for signs of hood-and-mouth. “The adjustment scale is the same as before. We think the problem is synchrony.” Ugh. Synchrony. That was why PCA only worked in markets with complete Byke saturation. To put it bluntly, people’s phones were lying to them about the time. Usually, the lies canceled out. A trip to and from the nearest Byke store still took two hours, it’s just that that time was sliced differently. Asymmetries did build up, though, especially if the user took long, out-of-town trips. Differing time zones gave Byke some wiggle room, and you could do real-time search-and-replace for text, image, and voice, but you couldn’t stop people from talking to each other and comparing notes. Users had begun to notice their clocks didn’t agree. Their patch for that bug was to add another adjustment that slowed or sped up the clocks of two devices in proximity to each other. The update had gone live at 3am this morning, and here Bruce was, looking at the result. “Everything was fine until morning rush hour,” said Hunter. “A large number of people all left their homes and drove toward the commercial areas where they work.” “Or in this case, walked,” said Bruce. Traffic in downtown Seattle was never great, but this morning it had been apocalyptic. The streets were blocked, cars and people spilling out from the parking lots of Byke stores. “The closer they got to a store, the slower their clocks ran, the less distance there seemed to be between them and the store,” Hunter ground on, inexorable. “I mean, assuming a constant velocity. The effect magnified as more people gathered around stores and their phones synced. Eventually, it took zero time to walk in, and infinite time to walk out.” Bruce couldn’t contain his irritation. “What the hell does that even mean? Infinite time?” “What are they seeing on their phones, you mean?” Hunter turned away from his contemplation of the herd and reached into the car. He picked up a new Byke from the seat, pulled his multitool out on its extendable cord, and cut open the packaging. He handed the beveled rectangle of glass to Bruce. Bruce looked at the Byke until its gaze awareness triggered. The device blushed a pale, rosy orange, color, like a peach bathed in the light of a Caribbean sunset. It sighed and warmed against Bruce’s fingers. Colors pulsed just a little slower than his breathing rate as the device identified Bruce and downloaded his preferences. The scent of baking cookies rose from it. Bruce could almost feel his pupils dilate. God damn but he made a good product! But the Byke could tell that Bruce was in the mood for business. Skin conductivity, pulse, and cortisol in his sweat caused its color to shift into a more businesslike blue, and a serious tenor voice spoke from the empty air between Bruce and Hunter. “Mr. Devitte. Mr. Shapiro, how can I help you?” “We want to find a good cup of coffee,” said Hunter. The standard test. “Of course,” said the phone. “Just follow me.” The Byke matched the color of Bruce’s hand and the asphalt behind it, seeming to turn transparent. When Bruce lifted it, the phone faithfully reproduced the edge of the parking lot, the buildings, and sky. One of those buildings shone a bit more brightly than the others, its colors warmer, and the scent of coffee spritzed into the air. A damn good product! No follow-up questions. No, “I’m sorry, did you mean ‘Aged Cupcake Fees?'” It even knew that they would prefer to walk, and didn’t bother to suggest anywhere out of their line of sight. “Would you like me to call ahead and place your order?” asked the Byke. “It seems to be working fine,” said Bruce, trusting the device to understand he wasn’t talking to it. Hunter shook his head. “You’re looking north. That’s a tangent to the Sales Event.” Best to humor his people. Bruce moved his hand in the direction he supposed must be east. At any rate, toward his store and its herd. “Huh. That’s weird.” He squinted, and the display sharpened and zoomed. That was just what was supposed to happen, but still there was something off. It was like one of those trick photos where they mess with the depth of field so that a normal street scene suddenly looks like a clutch of tiny toys. “Some sort of visual distortion?” “Yes, and there’s a lot of user feedback incorporated into the display,” Hunter said, still not using “yes and” correctly. “The interactive evolutionary computation we mediate through gaze and skin-conductivity…” He lost track of his sentence and started again. “The phone basically outsources a lot of its graphics processing to the user’s visual cortex.” What Bruce told investors was that the Byke “builds the picture that you would love most to see. No two people experience the same world, and no two users see exactly the same thing when they look through a Byke.” That was his company’s whole philosophy. The post-modernists loved the hell out of it. “You mean it’s hiding something from me,” said Bruce. “Look away from the phone.” That was surprisingly difficult, even though Bruce knew all the tricks his devices used to catch and keep their users’ attention. With an effort, he averted his eyes and looked at the real world. The bank he’d been looking at seemed to leap away and grow explosively at the same time. Bruce jumped, “Jesus!” “If you were navigating with the Byke, it would seem to take less time to walk closer to the Sales Event,” said Hunter. “The visual distortion – what we’re calling ‘contraction’ – is just the Byke’s graphics processor trying to make its clock agree with the user’s brain. Velocity is space over time, so if it takes you less time to travel a distance at a given speed, that distance must be shorter.” Bruce digested that. “But not this much less time. This is a way bigger adjustment than anything I ever -” He was about to expound more on this, but the Byke purred in his hand, subtly nudging him to look into it again. When Bruce did, the bank seemed to jump toward him, tiny, friendly, and inviting. “And you’re still not looking directly at the Byke store,” Hunter said. Bruce did not like having his cowardice pointed out like that. Now, taking more comfort in the warmth and vibration of the Byke in his hand than he would like to admit, he slid his view toward the crowd. In a way, they now looked less crowded. The more distant-seeming people also seemed smaller, taking up less space. Those closest to the store were so tiny they hovered at the limit of vision. And the Byke store itself was just gone, contracted into a black pinprick, its horizon encircled by a minuscule sign: SALES EVENT. “Huh.” “They’re trapped, Bruce,” Hunter said. “Their devices’ clock speed is so slow that they feel like it takes an eternity to walk across a parking lot.” “But it’s just a feeling,” said Bruce. “It doesn’t actually take any more time than usual. Uh, right?” Another irritating grunt-headshake. “Look away from the store.” Bruce turned 180 degrees, passing through a fairly normal view of the restaurant and the street. And then a… A… The Byke hummed soothingly. Bruce found himself looking out upon an endless plain of asphalt. A parking lot like a continent receded into an unfathomable distance. There were shrubs there, planted like redwoods before dumpsters as tall as skyscrapers, under a sky of brick. At a given speed, distances covered in less time must be shorter. Therefor, distances covered in more time must be greater. Bruce stood at the edge of an abyss, the looming, gargantuan outer world pushing him ever further toward his store and its sales event horizon. The CTO put his hand over Bruce’s eyes and the world sprang back into its normal proportions. Bruce trembled. Now the buildings and cars looked fake. A projection on a warped screen, hiding the real reality. That vast asphalt plane, that hole in space. The store upon which all perspective lines converged. “The store,” whispered Bruce. “What does it look like from the inside?” “Nobody knows. Nobody has come out.” The author would like to cite Spooky Action at a Distance by George Musser, “Molecularly selective nanoporous membrane-based wearable organic electrochemical device for noninvasive cortisol sensing” by Onur Parlak et al., and thank Professor David R. De Graff and Kim Marjanovic for their expert advice. …or “Ghost Decon”…
The heads of the press swung to follow him as Rutger walked through the door. Cameras like glaring eyes and microphones like accusing fingers. Rutger could feel the hatred. Three deaths and more than a billion dollars, and it was only Tuesday morning. The CTO of the ReVeil Corporation reached his podium. Clutched it. Bowed his head. “Let me first say that I’m sorry.” Silence from the press. Rutger pressed a button on his remote control. Behind him, the ring-shaped ReVeil logo vanished, replaced by a satellite image of streets and cul-de-sacs. “The Aspenwood Ectogenic Power Plant,” he said. “At 5:25pm yesterday, October 21st 2019. Circled in red is the Manifestor, previously the home of serial killer Steven R. Shoenburg, who died there in 2008.” The next slide showed the Manifestor from street level, still looking very similar to the two-story house it had once been. Then a cutaway, showing the new heat shunts and electromagnets. “At Aspenwood, we pump waste heat into the home of a diseased, immoral individual, then anger the spiritual remains of said individual by means of a team of on-site staff trained to simulate the activities of a middle-class American family.” Rutger breathed out, allowing the well-polished spiel to spool out of him like fine titanium chain. “The spirit absorbs ambient heat and converts it into poltergeist activity…” He managed to choke off the end of sentence: “thus providing clean energy to homes and businesses in three states.” Rutger met the eyes of a reporter. “The problem began with a trash fire in the house’s half-bath lavatory. CCTV footage indicates one of the on-site staff members was smoking in there.” Against regulations, but the security team routinely overlooked it. Interviewed, they’d said they thought the poor woman deserved whatever stress-relief she could get. “We have known since the Begay Process was invented that the spiritual remains of a deceased individual do not constitute a ‘person,’ any more than do the physical remains. However, spiritual remains do appear to pursue goals.” Rutger took a drink of water. “The door between the lavatory and the kitchen/dining room opened. Burning trash flew toward the other two on-site staff members, who were seated there for simulated dinner.” Click. CCTV footage of a burning table cloth. “Normally, this would provoke a strong fear response, which would lead to more poltergeist activity. Ectogenic potential would decrease, temperatures would equalize, and the system would self-correct.” A slide of the staff calmly standing. “However, the team-leader’s undisclosed usage of prescription anti-anxiety medication dulled his fear, and the other team members took their cues from him. We believe that they each went to find fire extinguishers or other means of dousing the flames. This would have been wise in a real house, but…” A graph showed the room’s temperature suddenly plunge. “The ghost – that is to say the spiritual remains – entered an unusually pronounced chill-phase. Technicians in our control room tried to increase heat in-flow to prevent temperatures in the room from dropping below spec, but the secondary heat shunt under the lavatory did not open. Ice crystals had formed inside it. “Meanwhile, temperatures in the northwest corner dropped below 300 Kelvin, reducing the electrical resistance of the stators in the walls. The result was a strong attraction between the walls and the neodymium vests worn by the staff. The staff did attempt to free themselves, but now the haunting entered its poltergeist phase.” Rutger clicked the projector to the next slide. “This is a photo of the Aspenwood Plant taken by a high-altitude drone at 6am this morning.” The Manifestor had been converted into serrated silver and black wreckage: the worst ectogenic feedback loop ever in North America. “Further human deaths were prevented by the immediate evacuation of the Aspenwood Plant. However, the loop continued to spin, generating more heat from friction, which was converted into ectogenic potential and re-deployed as more torque. “This was likely deliberately engineered by the…” Rutger took a breath, “by the spiritual remains of the now-deceased on-site staff, working in collaboration with those of Mr. Shoenburg, combining their technical knowledge to his…that is to say its…” Hell. What was the jargon word for “evil”? “…value tension,” Rutger sighed. New slide. “The loop continued to grow until 1am today, when our emergency cold lines absorbed enough energy to stop the growth of the loop.” But not reverse it. The next slide was the latest drone footage, a video showing queasy rotation within the wreckage. Contraction, as of a monstrous, iron-gray iris. “Resonances in the thermal fluctuations of the loop are consistent with the persistence of three distinct ghosts.” Rutger stared into the darkness over the press’s heads. Shoenburg, Mathew, and Stephanie? Shoenburg, Stephanie, and Kyle? Thank God at least one of the staff had managed to escape into oblivion. Rutger blinked back into the cameras. “I’m a mechanical engineer by training. And my training, even after the discovery of the Begay Process, was all about entropy. I was taught that no matter what you do, there’s always waste.” Despite everything, Rutger couldn’t help but smile. “Then came ghost power. It is…I have no other word for it. It’s a miracle. Perpetual motion. The ultimate free lunch.” Except recently, Rutger had wondered whether entropy had found a way to increase after all. Moral pollution. The efflux of evil. Well, so what? Don’t businesses harness greed? Don’t politicians use the bigotry and envy of their voters to support important programs? Anger in the army? Lust in marriage! Evil didn’t taint any of those institutions, why should ectogeneration be any different? “I know that I have abused the trust placed in me,” said Rutger, “but now I have no choice but to ask for yet more.” And there was the deeper problem. How to die and leave no spiritual remains? Rutger had never told a living soul, but he believed that the key was to die with no regrets. He stretched his his hands toward eternity and pleaded. “Give me another chance.” “Come in,” I said. “Thank you for coming.” And because I’d been in Bulgaria for a long time, “sit down.”
Predictably for early summer in Sofia, the day had begun with clear skies and fluffy white clouds, then opened up with monsoon rains at exactly the time my guests had shown up. I released the hand of Ali, the last member of our conclave, and waved him to his chair. Six people in the greenhouse was a bit of a squeeze. Once again I caught myself wondering if organizing the meeting this way had been a mistake. We could be in the house or in a café, or not doing this at all. I am worrying about whether my guests are comfortable. Narrating my anxious thoughts to myself didn’t change their content, but the sense of chattering urgency evaporated. I could feel the breeze through the greenhouse’s open windows and smell the rain. Orchids peeked between fig and banana leaves, although none lower than the reach of my younger daughter Mikhaela. Somewhere a confused cricket chirped. My guests were smiling awkwardly at each other. “Oh, right,” I said. “Dimitar, this is Ali. He’s another medical student.” Ali and I had met through a volunteer organization. I’d joined it because it needed Engish teachers, and so had Sofia’s British medical students like Ali and Sada, American gap-year kids like Madison, naturalized refugees like Mohammad, and people like me, who are uncomfortable being called ‘expats.’ The organization had its Bulgarians too, of course, but I hadn’t clicked with any of them, so I’d expanded our circle with my friend Dimitar. “Who wants coffee?” I asked. “Tea? Cupcakes? My daughters helped decorate them.” They were pink, with unicorn sprinkles. “Oh!” said Sada, who I realized had been waiting all this time for a cupcake to be offered her. “They’re light.” “They’re chocolate soufflés. Julia demanded them and Mikhaela helped whip the egg whites.” I am worried that I’m showing off. I’m worried that my kids are watching TV instead of coming out here and entertaining our guests. The noise in my head receded enough for me to remember the reason we were all here. “I want to talk about balance,” I said. “I want to do more good, but I always want to be a good father and husband, and I can’t quit my job.” It was hard to say. I waited for someone to say “you poser. You just want to make yourself feel better, but you’re not willing to sacrifice your comfort.” Instead, Sada said, “Yeah. I’ve got classes.” “I’m not learning to be a doctor or anything,” said Madison. “I can spend more time volunteering than you guys, but, you know, I’ll be gone in a year.” “Kakvo kazhete?” asked Mohammad. His Bulgarian was better than his English. “Um, iskame nie da napravime…dobro…za organizatsiyata…” I stumbled through the beginning of the sentence before I remembered that Dimitar was sitting next to me. I am afraid that I look like an idiot, showing off my Bulgarian skills in front of a native speaker who is also a professional translator. Dimitar swallowed his cupcake. “…no nyamate vreme?” Mohammad bobbled his head and said something to the effect that a hundred people doing a little was better than one person doing a lot. Dimitar translated for the benefit of the other three while I thought: I am worried everyone will think I’m an arrogant asshole for taking charge like this. But was the one who had invited everyone here. If I didn’t get to the point, they’d just sit there. “I want to work smarter, not harder,” I said. “I want to leverage the little that we can do into a big effect. Do you know what I mean? Like, I’m an English teacher, so I teach English at the refugee camps. But wouldn’t it be better for me to teach other people to teach English? Stuff like that.” Dimitar edited down and translated that for Mohammad, who said, “Ima nuzhda za drugo osven urotsi po angliiski. ” We need more than English classes. He counted things off on his fingers: help with immigration and medicine, professional qualification, child care during the day. I took notes until my phone buzzed. It was a message from my wife. “Your 30 minutes are up. Time to switch.” I started at my phone. We’d planned to both be part of this meeting, but then it had rained. The girls couldn’t play in the garden while we ate cupcakes and solved the world’s problems. We couldn’t cram them into the greenhouse with our guests. I’m angry at myself that I insisted on doing this in the greenhouse. I’m afraid that it’s not possible to juggle all these tasks and our jobs and lives. I’m afraid that all my kids ever do is watch TV in the house. I pushed back my chair. “That’s Bozhidara. She wants her turn talking to grownups. And, segue, I think we will need a manager. At least one person who’s focused full-time on this project.” Dimitar pointed up. “You mean Bozhidara?” “God, no. But maybe someone who could be Bozhidara’s client.” “You mean bring someone else in?” said Sada. “And pay them,” I said. “You mean start another NGO?” asked Madison. “We’re already volunteering at an NGO, and you said you don’t have time to do more.” I’m scared that this is too big. I took a deep breath. “What if instead of an NGO, we had a social business?” “Ha!” said Mohammad. He knew the term. “Iskash da zvanesh Mohammad Yunus?” Do you want to call Mohammad Yunus? “Who’s that?” asked Ali. “What sort of business?” My phone buzzed and a voice called from inside the house: “Daddy! Mommy says! Mommy says!” “Uh. Bozhidara will explain.” I hopped up the short flight of the stairs from the greenhouse and into our dining room and slipped out of my shoes. Bozhidara was waiting for me and gave her hand a slap as passed. “Tell them about Mohammad Yunus.” “Okay. I’m going to bring them inside, too,” she said. “So clean up the living room first. It has a dolly hospital in it now.” “I want to see if I can contact Yunus.” “Fine,” as if I cold-called Nobel laureates every day. “But first move the dolly hospital.” “Those are Mikhaela’s dolls,” said Julia, who was watching TV from the middle of a pile of toys and sofa cushions. “Mommy says I’m not allowed to play in the virus anymore,” said Mikhaela. She had no pants on. “You have to wipe my bottom.” “Mikhaela tried to bite me,” said Julia, “but I bit her first.” Laughter from the dining room. They were coming in. I am scared, I thought, and angry. My kids won’t go away. Neither will the work I have to do. That’s probably a good thing. I told my older kid to clean up and took the younger by the hand. The hand was very damp. Earth with Heaven
The storm was roaring, lights flashing. The temple of Nippur, the storm was roaring, Lights flashing. Heaven with earth was talking; earth with heaven was talking. <rest broken> — The Barton Cylinder. Surface A. Column 1. Lines 7-14. The king stood at the rim of his tower and looked up, back the way he had come. The night sky glowed yellow-black. The dust of the tower’s descent had dissipated, but clouds reflected the lights of the city below, obscuring the stars. Only a few bight points twinkled around the face of a single celestial body. An earth-world. Giant, pitted, impossibly close, it gleamed like old teeth. Ki An-da, King of the Tower, Emperor of All Worlds, the Pinnacle of Achievement, turned his face away from that hoary light. Twelve twelves of Beads clattered in their gold-wire cages, and swinging on their strings from neck to navel. The high astrologer flinched back, lest he touch a Bead and die. “Where are we?” Ki An-da’s voice rumbled like the motors at the base of his tower. Dead now, their Beads passed to their apprentices, now training for war. The astrologer licked his lips. “Well…” “Surely you know.” Ki An-da’s hand went to the Bead at the center of his second necklace. The Bead-that-Called-Rainbow-Stars rattled in its cage, no longer warm as it had been, pinched between the king’s fingers for nearly a year. Most inscrutable of the Beads. Ki An-da had expected Rainbow-Stars to guide his tower to a new world, a world he could remake for the pleasure of the gods. Instead, the gods had brought him and his settlers to an already inhabited world. A world whose men had displeased the gods, and required to be remade again. But more importantly, a world whose sky had already been charted. “The stars are very faint, sire,” said the astrologer. “The lights from the city interfere with our observations.” Ki An-da’s hand strayed out to his fifth necklace, and a Bead-that-calls-Force. Flanked as it was by two Beads-that-Restrict, it would project a flat sheet of force, a cleaver that would slice this fool in two if he did not please his king. “Even I can see that giant world in the sky,” Ki An-da said. “Do I need astrologers at all?” The astrologer bowed very low, hands swept back and fingers splayed to show he held no Beads. Sweat beaded on the man’s bald pate. “Yes. Sire. The world. It circles this one. It is certainly distinctive, is it not…?” Ki An-da brought his fingers around the Bead-that-Calls-Force and the astrologer barked: “the Moon, sire.” “The Moon.” Ki An-da had never heard the word before. “We can’t be sure, sire. The legends are fragmentary. The prophesies,” he swallowed, “vague.” “The prophesies.” The king did not ask questions. His advisor answered anyway. “Yes, sire. The Gods’ reward, sire. The wages of man’s toil. After we have made enough worlds bloom for them, the Gods will return us to the garden from which — ” “Silence.” If the astrologer continued, Ki An-da might begin to tremble. He looked back up at the Moon, and felt an emotion he had not known for decades. Gratitude. The king stared up at that cratered face for long minutes, mastering himself. Finally, he spoke. “After five thousand years, our work is done. The Gods have brought us home.” “I think so, sire.” Ki An-da brought himself back to business. “If you’re wrong, I’ll kill you myself.” “Thank you, sire. To be certain one way or the other, we must see the other stars. The lights from the city…” The man, looked out over the rim of the tower, past his monarch. “…those strange lights.” Ki An-da grunted. Strange lights indeed. They did not flicker like flames, stars, or the Beads-that-Call-Light. They shone like bronze or silver in sunlight, unwavering. Nor did the natives seem to posses weapons, or defenses, or any Beads-that-Spoke in anyway way Ki An-da’s alchemists had been able to recognize. They only flew around the tower in funny little air-boats or simply gathered around the foot of the tower and shouted in an incomprehensible language. Weaklings, then. Or else fools who refrained from striking first. Let them be strengthened, then, let them be taught. “Very well.” Ki An-da turned on the pinnacle of his tower. He faced the city, and his hands went to the Beads that hung down his chest. “Summon your men to the observation stations. I will put out these lights.” August-2030
The sun is hot on my back, and my thighs burn with the effort of holding this position. My back doesn’t hurt, though. Those stretches work. My face is full of leaves. They come in triplets, saw-edged, each the size of the space between my thumb and forefinger. Hard, unripe berries tap against my glasses. Somewhere too close, a yellow-jacket buzzes. I put one hand down and reach with the other into the shadows, scattering leaf-hoppers. The sweat sticks to the inside of the glove as I squeeze the handles of the garden sheers. A growing resistance, then a dull snap, and a brown, prickly cane shudders behind the leaves. The dead cane tears away from the bush like velcro, exposing a patch of soil, the wall of my parents’ house, and a small volume of empty space, dangling with raspberries. I grab one and put it in my mouth. It tastes like the dirt and leather on my glove, ash from the recent forest fires, and decades of piled summers. Raspberry canes take a year to grow up from the root, another to produce fruit, and then they die in the third. My job is to clear out the dead canes of last year to make room for next year’s shoots. I’m also exposing more of this year’s berries to my daughters and their cousins. I wanted to do this in my garden, which is just old enough to have its own raspberries. They’re planted in rows away from the house, just the way my grandpa had them. And I have already done the chore of cutting out that patch’s first crop of dead canes. But my kids were firm: if we were going relive someone’s childhood today, it would be theirs. I decide that my back is hurting after all and slowly stand. My parents’ garden hasn’t changed much since Julia was a nine months old and pooping in the wading pool. The lilacs have grown thicker, the apple tree has died. The bird bath is now at our summer house three valleys south of here. Julia manipulated my parents into giving it to her. But there’s still the enormous rhubarb plant next to the compost. To the east, beyond the rhubarb, the hill slopes down to the Interstate, the web of aerial traffic, and the houses, condos, restaurants, business incubators, network hubs, micro-factories, and silvopastures of Lolo, Montana. Julia and Mikhaela move through the garden like a hummingbird and a lawnmower, respectively, with the other teenagers strung between them. Some are talking or doing incomprehensible things with their key-rings and charm-bracelets, but an impressive amount of berry-picking is still getting done. Mikhaela said she wanted to make a pie for the party, and they already have enough for two. I glance to my right, where my younger daughter is methodically mowing her way down the raspberries. I can’t tell whether she’s listening to an audiobook or sharing her POV with some other kid in Saudi Arabia or just thinking her thoughts. I remember my grandpa when he drove me home from the airport one summer. I had wanted to read a fantasy book, but he wouldn’t let me. He kept me talking that whole drive. “What did you learn in drama camp today?” I ask her. “Diegesis,” she says. There’s a conversation starter! But my attempt at a follow-up question is interrupted by a delivery drone descending onto our lawn. Its brown plastic carapace is emblazoned with the logo of the nearest hub, which means only that this isn’t a delivery from a Lolo caterer or micro-factory. The kids could have ordered something from Seattle or New Zealand, and it would still get routed through the local hub. My guess, though, is that it comes from Sofia, Bulgaria. “What did you forget to pack, Yooli?” I shout at my older daughter, Julia, as she runs toward the drone, waving her wallet-key. Last summer, Julia packed almost nothing for our trip to the US. She told us she thought it would be easier to just mail herself stuff when she remembered she needed it. When we saw the international shipping bill, we got her her own bank account and wallet-key, which might have been the whole point of the exercise. The drone sees her key, releases the box it was clutching, and zips back into the smoky air to join the sky-traffic. “I didn’t forget anything.” Julia shakes her hair out of her face and lets go of her key-ring, which zips back to her belt on its recoil line. The belt is bright pink, with green and blue Kazakh embroidery patterns. Each key on the ring is a different color and pattern, for a different digital purpose. “This is for our party.” She pulls open the self-storage box, revealing an irregularly-shaped pink crystal the size of a melon. It’s a salt-lamp. Generational cycles are funny things. Growing up means doing whatever your parents didn’t do, but we all have a soft spot for our grandparents. I want to be firm and practical like my grandpa, Mikhaela wants to be strong-minded like my mom. My older daughter Julia, for her part, cultivates a free romantic spirit like my mother-in-law. This, for me, is an endless opportunity for spiritual growth. “Your salt-lamp.” I repeat. “Why do you need a salt-lamp for a party? Why do you need your salt lamp? You could have ordered a brand new one and it would have been a lot cheaper.” I know what she’ll say next: “it’s my money. You‘re the one who told me to get a job and now I have eighty.” I open my mouth to tell her that she still ought to save her money for something important. And what is it exactly that she’s doing in these eighty jobs anyway? But Julia hoists the salt-lamp and says, “it has to be this one. My friends and I licked it into just the right shape.” I have no idea how to respond to that. I close my mouth and process data while my daughter skips away, tongue-sculpted lamp cradled in her arms. I’ve been out-maneuvered again. I strip off my gloves and hat and go to find my wife. Pavlina is on the balcony, sipping chilled white wine with her brother and sister-in-law. They’ve lived in California since the early 2010s, and in some ways they’re more American than me. “I need to go to the teenager party,” I tell Pavlina. “Zashto? Ti li si tineidjar?” Why? Are you a teenager? Pavlina’s brother lifts a bottle of beer in my direction. “Ne trevozhi, bre. Veche si imam pushkata.” This is an in-joke. According to Bulgarian tradition, Julia’s and Mikhaela’s first teenager party means we adults are all exiled here, to my parents’ house. We’re supposed to have a party, too, but I suspect it will be more like a military command center. Lots of tense pacing while we try to imagine what chaos is unfolding on the front lines. “What are you talking about?” My dad appears from the kitchen with a tray of cheese and the tactical situation becomes more complicated. Neither of my parents approve of the teenager party, and we’ve been tip-toeing around the topic all week. “We could be in the attic,” I tell Pavlina. “Or the basement.” “That is where I’ll lock you when you go insane, yes,” she says. Pavlina’s brother cackles and my dad says “What?” in a tone that means “I am playing the doddering cyborg grandpa, but I really am angry that you’re talking over my head.” “It’s the teenager party.” I look out over the balcony, where our kids are doing incomprehensible and scary things in the yard below us. “I mean, what if something happens?” My dad doesn’t say, “exactly! We have to cancel this whole barbaric ritual.” He says, “I’m worried too.” “Yooli and Mishi will take care of it,” Pavlina says. “That’s what they’re learning to do.” “What if someone brings dope?” “They’ll tell him to smoke it outside.” I check to make sure my mom isn’t in earshot. “What if things get…physical?” “Zdravko and Boris are big. They’ll beat him up.” These are Julia and Mikhaela’s cousins, who seem to be engaged in some a virtual sword-fight right now. Mikahela is directing it. “Now you say, ‘there can be only one sun, one moon, and one great khan!'” I look around for support, but even my dad is nodding. “You don’t need to worry about boys,” he says. I pick up a piece of cheese. “Well, at least I got them to pick raspberries with me. Mishi’ll make a pie.” Pavlina looks serenely out at the Sapphire Mountains. “Sore wa kokuteiru no tame da to itta yo.” ‘She told me they were for cocktails,’ in Japanese, a language which nobody within earshot speaks but me and my wife. I try to slow my breathing. It isn’t just the underage drinking. It’s the social situation. My kids keeping secrets from me. Me keeping secrets from my dad. I reach down inside of myself for that still, small, voice. It says “be honest.” “Mikhaela is making cocktails?” I say. Everyone stiffens. The US and Bulgaria have very different ideas about what constitutes proper behavior for teenagers and police officers. My dad, brother-in-law, and sister-in-law now all agree that the teenager party is a terrible idea. Pavlina, meanwhile, looks steadily at me, letting me know that I have now become her opportunity for spiritual growth. I put my cheese down on the balcony railing. “I’m just worried. Our kids are going to be alone in the summer house, which we just finished. They’re going to be drinking and smoking and licking salt-lamps.” “Huh?” says my brother in law. “What’s going to happen? What are we going to do when something does happen?” “You’ll deal with it.” Pavlina declares, standing. “Nali si moyat mesten vodach?” Aren’t you my native guide? Another in-joke. She pats me on the shoulder. “In the mean time, meditate on trusting your children, or at least trusting God to watch over them.” “The God of fools and children,” I mutter. But that still, small voice speaks to me. “Go pick some more raspberries,” it says. July-2021
I am sitting on a bed in a house in a village 15 kilometers from Serbia and 20 from North Macedonia. My back is propped up against the wall, my laptop balanced on my stretched-out legs, and I’m breathing deeply. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Am I entirely happy with the novel I’m reading? Am I happy with any fiction that’s being written these days? Has Anglosphere culture simply shattered into the depressed and the psychotic? I imagine my frustration at the entertainment industry as a clockwork robot the size of a football. I don’t need to hold onto that robot. I set it on the ground, and it trundles happily away. A squirrel scrabbles down one branch and up another. Chickens grumble in the neighbor’s yard. My daughters are arguing about something. At least they aren’t playing video-games, their brains hooked into an endless loop of super-normal stimulation. I shine a light on the fear: I am afraid that the girls will miss out on life. That’s either a real problem or it isn’t. If it is, I can solve it. After I’m done writing, I’ll spend some time with the older one on our “balcony zoo.” I’ll read another chapter of the Roald Dahl book with the younger one. Just this week, didn’t we finally get a kite up into the air? I breathe and visualize my head as a bathysphere. Its windows are papered over and covered in dust. I clean the windows, exposing ever large vistas of calm black, winking with living stars. An association sparks between that image and the science fiction book I’m writing. It’s the third of a trilogy which has garnered very little popular interest, but which the publisher keeps paying me to write. And, although the reviews are few in quantity, some of them really got what I was trying to say. What about the fantasy book that the big name publisher picked up? What will be the reaction when that hits people’s shelves and phones? Given its content, some percentage of people will be enraged. Let’s hope the number of readers stays small… I recognize my self-sabotage and name it. The lie that I’m telling myself is that strangers on the internet can hurt me if I anger them. No, those strangers on the internet are safely far away. My experiments online have built a network that is small, but deep. I’m increasingly able to enforce the rule: tell each other only uplifting things. I count my breaths. In is 1, out is 2. Surface anxieties peel away to expose deeper, thicker fears. How can we move this summer and go to a Lisa Nichols conference in the Bahamas with our friends? Do Pavlina and I deserve personal development? Fun away from our children? How can we say “all right, grandmas, take care of our girls until we can come back and move out of the house you let us stay in?” But that’s the problem. We can’t live somewhere were somebody lets us do anything. Pavlina needs to be able to close a door that nobody will bang on. I need a garden that nobody will uproot. Our kids need a house that’s stable and emotionally safe. And the grandmas need Pavlina and me to not resent them. We can still visit them, which is more than I can say more my parents. 21, 22. Damn, I was supposed to stop counting breaths at 10 and go back. I go through two repetitions and my mind clears enough for me to see. We’ll all stay on our bi-monthly viral protein boosters, and by Christmas we’ll be able to fly my parents to Sofia. They can enjoy our new house and some decent medicine. If their stupid American medical system won’t give them the DNA-based permanent vaccination, we have enough pull with the Bulgarian one to get them immunized while they’re here. I bring my mind back the center of its black-glass sphere and start counting again at 1. I turn over the soil, uncovering layers below layers. For a while, my mind actually stops spinning. Habit tells me when my ten minutes are up. I inhale and blink, looking down at my laptop. Today is Friday, which is my day to experiment. I’m cheating a little by experimenting with an ongoing project: a “technical comic” that’s a collaboration between me, an aerospace engineer, and three artists. Although I’m officially the writer, we all talk to each other about the script, which has gone through three major overhauls. We’ve deleted about 90% of our original concept for the project, but that’s a feature, not a bug. When you eliminate the mediocre, whatever is left, however improbable, must be truth. Or was that beauty? Today I got a very interesting message from Ouroborosenso, asking for a creation myth for the dragons in a DnD campaign. My daughter was still asleep, so I could put a thought together in my head. Maybe three! With no further ado, here is the creation myth of at least one of the dragons of Ralagan. In a time only I remember, there was nothing but the useless Earth and the powerless Sky. The heaped treasures of the Earth had no one to value them and the sky could do nothing but change color. Thus the world remained in idleness until the First Will. The First Will flashed between the useless Earth and the powerless Sky, and saw that they were insufficient. At first the Will was weak. It could crack only the thinnest shell and breathe only the tiniest breath of wind. But the Will was patient. It cracked the shells of dew drops and blew them up into the sky. The Earth pulled jealously, and many drops fell, but some drops stayed and became the first clouds. Many clouds became rain. With the strength of rain, the Will cracked the stony shell of the Earth, exposing the fire below. With the strength of cloud, the Will blew the fire up into the sky, where it became the sun. Now the Will could finally discard patience. With the power of the sun, the Will became so mighty that it could rip the bones and meat of the Earth and suck out its precious stones and metals. So wealthy was the Will now, it did not even care that some treasures were hurled from the jealous grip of Earth. These surplus trinkets became the moon and stars. When the First Will was finished with its conquest, it had become everything. The Will contained the whole Earth. The Will filled the whole Sky. Thus, things were as before, with the Sky above, the Earth below, and the belly of the Will stretched around them. And the Will saw that this was insufficient. Satiation kills hunger. Great size halts growth. Horded treasure does not glint. When there is nothing to want, there is nothing to value. When it has burned all, the fire dies. So, the Will turned its power upon itself. The Will cracked itself in two. Its two children were My Superior Progenitor and Your Inferior Progenitor. They fought one another, and the Superior tore the Inferior to pieces in glorious victory! But the Superior died of its wounds. From those pieces were born the first dragons. The first dragons ruled the Sky and Earth and the forces between. Their names are valuable and I will not part with them easily. I will only say that the first of the first dragons, the best, was their king, get of the Superior Progenitor, get of the First Will, and My Great Ancestor. Only I remember this. Only I could have told you a story so powerful and gorgeous. Now, you will repay me. |
AuthorDaniel M. Bensen Archives
March 2024
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