choosing-their-lives

[choosing-their-lives]

Source

[choosing-their-lives]

I would completely understand and sympathize with aliens who might come all the way to Earth and kick humans off it.  In a sense, we are destroying the only habitable world we know of.  What if those same aliens decided that we no longer deserved to live here, and moved us en masse to a desertified, barely livable planet, just inside its star’s habitable zone, barren, hostile, garbage covered, with chemical and fossil fuel soaked water and soil, and a barely breathable atmosphere (sound familiar?).  We would change our ways overnight just to get our own planet back.

[choosing-their-lives]

[choosing-their-lives]

[choosing-their-lives]

Deserter of the Human Race

Kamari works without a spotter, because there are no other snipers in the Kokhab army. Perched on the second-highest skyscraper with a view of the square, the people below resemble mere blades of grass. Humans might be different shapes and sizes, but every one of them is fundamentally the same. Every blade buffeted by societal forces outside their control. Yet when one blade of grass sticks up a bit too high or grows in a new direction, the other blades rally together to suck all the nutrients from the soil around it so it will never thrive.

Propping themself up on one arm, Kamari glances at the rings of their drawn range card one last time. The familiar distance calculations answer themselves and Kamari knows they are ready to take the shot. Peering through the scope gives them an open window into exactly what’s going on without having to be there physically. People start applauding, with some jumping up and down as Khalid pounds the podium with his fist. As the crowd’s energy swells to a fever pitch, Kamari pulls the trigger.

The recoil hits their shoulder like a punch. They keep watching through the scope. Khalid falls like a shot bird, limp. Blood splatters the wooden stage and the first row of spectators. Kamari can’t hear the screaming from up here, but they do see the blades of grass, pulled up by the roots, billowing in all directions.

Their entire front aches from lying on concrete all day. But they must be quick now. The human authorities are already being alerted. Unscrewing the scope and stand, Kamari packs everything into their fake guitar case and slings it over a shoulder. They pull their hair out of their bun and shake it out as they vault over the side of the building and slide down the fire escape.

Adjusting their expression to be appropriately panicked, they easily fade into the stampeding crowd. No one pays attention to others when they’re afraid for their life. To their left, a man in a drab brown coat stumbles over the edge of the pavement. Under hundreds of frantic footsteps, the snap of bone is lost, and his yells blend with the cries of the uninjured.

What beautiful unity, Kamari thinks sarcastically. And people call them a traitor?

When they return to base, Nak dashes out to greet them with a hug. Kamari taught her the human custom a week ago and she’s been using it since. “You have returned! How goes the hunt of honchos?”

“It went well. Shen, Green, Khalid, all dead.”

“You are ahead of schedule! Come, you must be tired after squinting into a scope all day. It is about time for human dinner. Erog has tried a lasagna recipe tonight.”

Erog sticks an antenna out from the kitchen door. “I also stole popsicles from the supermarket we raided!”

“Thanks guys. Feel like I’m gonna collapse, so I might go take a shower.”

“You must stop working so hard! We will have victory.” Nak places an appendage on their shoulder and they relax into it. “Do not ensure it at the cost of yourself.”

“Thanks.”

What does it say about a society, when people from another planet care more about them than anyone in their own species? Their own family considered them too abnormal to be human. The invasion was their luckiest window of opportunity, and Kamari has never looked back.

They’ve found their own family in these so-called aliens.

[choosing-their-lives]

nightwalk 🌕

[choosing-their-lives]

Bird watching. 🐦😻

Etsy | Instagram  | TikTok

[choosing-their-lives]

The Great Beyond

Lazing in a sunlit spot, Piper tracks the movements of the birds outside. They flit up and down, never satisfied with the branch they land on. Piper idly scratches the soft carpet at her feet. She longs to feel the thin pine needles under her paws and to roll around in the mud until it covers her fur.

Claudia and Zoya enter from the hallway. Zoya is gesturing with her paws as she speaks.

“I’m telling you, we need to do something about her screen time!”

Claudia heaves an exaggerated sigh. “I don’t see why you’re making such a big fuss about this. It’s normal for kids her age to play a few video games.”

“Don’t you think four hours is even a bit excessive?”

“It’s not like her grades are dropping. Jodi can manage herself. She’s a big girl now.”

Abandoning her warm spot on the carpet, Piper trots up to the pair and butts her head against Zoya’s leg as a greeting.

Zoya glances awkwardly at Claudia and crosses her arms. “Pipes, sweetie, it’s kind of a bad time to ask for pets. We’re in the middle of something here.”

Hmph! Fine then. Piper will get pets from someone else. Holding her head high, she struts away.

“Fine, okay… I’m going to take a walk to cool off.” Zoya’s voice fades as Piper gets further down the hallway.

In direct contrast, Jodi’s voice blares from her room. Luckily, she’s forgotten to close the door today, so Piper slips in without being noticed. Jodi continues to talk to herself, mashing her paws into the table as colourful shapes fly across the box in front of her face. Faster and faster, they dart, as graceful as the birds in the trees. It triggers a primal instinct in Piper and she leaps up onto Jodi’s lap, trying to catch the red one between her claws.

“Piper, you stupid gremlin, I love you but I’m trying to play Overwatch right now.”

Jodi shoos her off her lap and Piper dismounts with a hiss. Why is everyone busy again? Guess she can just take a nap to pass the time. Hopping up on the bed, Piper curls up experimentally. Jodi throws her a quick glance but doesn’t stop her. Piper takes that as a win and burrows under the blanket until only her head peeks out.

When Piper wakes up, the room is dark and Jodi is gone from her desk. The smell of roast meat emanates from down the hallway. She picks her way to the dining room and climbs onto the ledge. This is her favourite spot because it gives her the best view of the outside, although the invisible barrier blocks her from going out. It seems more spacious today and she doesn’t need to tuck herself into a ball to fit. The cool wind blows through her fur and she lets her eyes drift closed, basking in the autumn breeze.

Wait. The wind?

There isn’t supposed to be wind in the house. The invisible barrier always traps stillness inside the house even when the trees are threatening to break their spines outdoors. Cautiously, Piper lifts a paw to tap on the barrier. When she finds no resistance, she feels further out. Nothing.

Across the room, she sees that someone filled her food bowl while she was asleep. Claudia, Zoya, and Jodi are chatting happily at the table as they tuck into their food. This is the chance of a lifetime. Piper doesn’t understand why the barrier is suddenly gone, but it may never happen again.

She drops from the ledge and lands on her feet with a thump. Pine needles form a coarse carpet in the mud. Above her, the inky black sky stretches infinitely, finally unblocked from the invisible barrier.

Piper rushes off into the unknown.

[choosing-their-lives]

Something I made while dealing with my own stuff and hoping drawing this would pick me up somehow. Maybe it worked.

FT my cat. His name is Mischief

[choosing-their-lives]

Burnout is honestly such a mild word for what people use it to mean. I'm not experiencing "burnout", which sounds so casual and routine that some face masks and a little rest is going to fix it.

My body and mind and even nervous system are stretched to the point that it's going to take a lot more than just a "break" or a few self care tips to recover, and even then, my recovery is just so that I can reenter the spaces that contributed to me being this way in the first place. I'm a little bit more than just burnt out by this.

Workplaces and educational institutions aggressively overwork us, expose us to all kinds of discrimination, which they overlook and gaslight us out of acknowledging, and then constantly ask us to ignore our mental, emotional, and physical needs so that we don't inconvenience them.

We're not burnt out. We're borderline traumatized. Burnout is always talked about like something transient and mild that a little rest and relaxation will fix.

But we're exhausted. We need deep rest and healing. We need new systems. We need new ways of being. The language around burnout just seems like a way of upholding these current violent systems and downplaying their impacts.

[choosing-their-lives]

Can I please just give up...?

[choosing-their-lives]

Are You Tired of Life? Here’s Why the Military Might Be Your Window for Escape

Hi, I’m Private Michael Wong, also known as Mike. I’m healthy, fit from training, and happy to boot. Now, pull out your phone and look at your own reflection. Stare into those dark, bruised circles around your eyes. The sunken lines of your face.

I don’t want to be the one to say it, but someone has to. You’re wasting away. If you’re reading this campus poster, you’re probably working yourself to the bone each night, pushing yourself to a dead sprint away from deadlines that are quickly encroaching. It stresses you out just thinking about them, isn’t it?

Yeah, I was the same way. I’ve walked a million miles in your shoes and I’m here to tell you it’s not worth it.

I graduated high school as a salutatorian. I fought my hardest and only got second best. Yale thought it was enough, though, so I got into the college of my dreams with a full-ride scholarship. Food, dorms, and even my textbooks were paid for by Yale. Needless to say, my parents were ecstatic.

Everything was downhill from there.

I wanted to be an astronaut, so I enrolled in astronomy and physics courses. But hours of watching videos on the stars on YouTube and Khan Academy had not prepared me for this. Physics was like another language. I had no idea what the Lorentz factor was or how it interacted with the velocity four-vector.

Forty percent of the students in my class failed the midterm. I was one of them.

It didn’t get better from there. They scaled the exam so we wouldn’t all fail, but I was struggling to keep afloat. Even seventy percent seemed out of reach. I stopped talking to my friends back in California who were studying archeology and computer science. My only social interactions were lectures and study groups with people whose names I didn’t have enough brain space to remember.

Despite my best efforts, it wasn’t enough. In year three I finally failed enough classes for Yale to kick me out. There was raw screaming in a full dorm and crying, lots of crying, but I won’t tell you things you already know.

It was a relief, in a way. I didn’t have to fight anymore.

Then I had another problem: with my scholarship gone, I had nothing to eat and nowhere to stay. My parents were furious. I ruined their dream of a perfect child, and for that, they still haven’t forgiven me. I freeloaded at my uncle’s place while scouring the internet for jobs. Somehow, I got the idea to apply for the military, and they accepted me.

I don’t have to meet impossible expectations here. My superiors know my capabilities and push me just enough. I don’t have to fight for a place in the world without starving—I only have to do what’s expected of me. I find it’s way easier to fight for others than to fight for myself.

At Yale, everybody was trying to one-up the other guy. It’s not like that here. I really enjoy the tight camaraderie among members of my rank. We all look out for each other and work as a team. Life in the military definitely isn’t easy, but to me, it’s a lot simpler than fighting for my own place in the world.

We also have frozen pizza and brownies, if that’s what convinces you.

Well, that’s all from me. I hope you think it over. Don’t feel pressured to make a decision too soon. This is a window of opportunity that will stay open as long as the United States still stands.