lilbitoshortstuff

[lilbitoshortstuff]

Our Future Part 1

The post-apocalypse is here and now. It doesn't seem like it, but it is. Thinking back on all the times I've watched my favorite post-apocalyptic movies, books and shows, though, is really disappointing when I think about today.

It started off with quarantine, a general one, people weren't forced into seclusion by the government, but it was highly advised. Most people stayed home, but cars can still be seen on the sides of the road and in driveways, but there are people that still leave and do..things. 

I'm not entirely sure what those things are because I don't actually see the people doing anything. The haze is too thick and their bodies are obscured in shadow.

Most major businesses were shut down after that, people laid off from their jobs, giving them even less reason to leave. It was almost surreal how empty the street is in such a big city.

Of course, though, I'm essential. I work in an essential job, I stand behind a counter and sell various food pastes and chunks. There isn't much variety anymore, everything is filler with vitamin and flavor injections, I have to make sure that I'm there for the people who have no money that would like, or need to risk the deadly air and contaminated streets, and also there for the other people whose jobs are also essential, looking for a quick paste sandwich for lunch.

Part of my essential job package is a super fashionable, and extremely functional gas mask, thick rubber gloves, rubber coat, and shoe bags. To put over your shoes as you walk to your job.

Did I mention that the air is actually completely unbreathable? That's what happened. The air is full of a green fog that the government says is toxic, and everyone believes it, I mean really, why would the government lie about that? No one knows when it happened but it sweeper across the planet with considerable quickness, the news showed it, and within a week or two the news reports said nowhere was safe from The Haze.

I don't necessarily believe that. Sometimes when I'm at home I stare out the window of my shabby apartment and daydream about walking out the door without my protective gear to see what happens. I bet I can breathe it. I dare myself to on days I have to myself, but usually chicken out by the time I get to the door, because what if? What if it's fine? What if I start walking and find fresh air? What if the government has been lying to us for years? What if I find a place with more than just food paste? What if?

It's not as if I have much to live for, but it's the idea of the unknown of the after that scares me, but I still daydream about leaving everything behind to test my curiosity and to do my small part to throw a big fuck you to the government.

Anyway, people still roam around, the air is hazy but you can see, and everything is basically exactly the same as it was before this happened. The streets are slightly quieter, though. The government has allowed The Essentials to carry weapons, non-lethal (kind of). It's similar to those taser guns that cops used to have, point, pull the trigger, whoever is in front of you gets jolted with however many volts you've set your tag gun to.

The government told us that everything was toxic now. The green haze, think of it as a cloud of pollen but deadly, and anything it touched would turn to the equivalent of acid. Concentrated little acid pollen polyps that you can see and once it touches a puddle, that puddle was now able to eat away anything that happened to touch it, unless of course, you were wearing your trusty shoe and leg bags.

I call them The Leg Bags, the government has a technical term that I don't care for, too formal, too scientific, so leg bags it is.

The TV's feed us whatever information the government is willing to tell us. Mostly it tells us to be safe and stay in our homes, not to leave unless absolutely necessary, for work or food or whatever. To be honest, I hardly see anyone other than my coworkers, aside from The Shadow Haze people, but it always feels as if it's directed at me in particular, and sometimes I wonder if they found a way to read our thoughts. The people on the TV always seem like they're looking at me and me alone, not a camera. That's why I got rid of my TV and instead got a radio. It's not so bad when they're not boring into my skull with their eyes.

Sometimes my neighbor leaves notes for me, she, at least I assume she's a she, I have never seen the person but their handwriting is cursive and flowing. She never signs it, but it's always words of encouragement, at first, then goes into a string of religious mumbo jumbo that all sounds the same and although I appreciate what she's trying to do, this isn't The Rapture, I don't need to find Jesus, and I don't believe he will be coming again.

I read until she gets to the Bible verses, then the note gets tossed into the trash with the leftover chicken flavored paste that I couldn't finish. Once I tried to write her my own note, it said politely that I appreciate her willingness to reach out, but to please refrain from the religious beliefs, she didn't heed my request and I never tried again, and by the end of the week, my trash bin is half notes, half my own garbage.

I don't remember when but at one point the wind stopped, as in at one point it used to blow, a breeze or wild, and then a few weeks passed and I noticed that it hadn't. It still rains on occasion, but the seasons never change, and I can't remember the last time I saw snow.

Sometimes when I look out the window I imagine that this is what Venus must be like, or at least similar to. The gaseous atmosphere, no oxygen, acid.

I walk to my job every day. I like to, it's quiet and I'm usually left alone, what people don't realize is that the shadow people keep to themselves, they don't harass anyone unless the circumstances are absolutely dire for them, I like to assume. I've never talked to one, and honestly, I'm curious if they can even communicate. Are they like us but without a home, without government protection? Are they feral? How did they manage to survive in this toxic air? Are they mutated? If so, is it physical or internal? And most of all, does the government know about them? If they do, how come they haven't reached out and tried to house them, help them, get to know them? I have a tendency to think about these questions while the radio plays in the background as I stare out of my window into The Haze, hoping to see one of them so I can study them, watch their movements and mannerisms.

My alarm beeps, it's time to leave for work. Reluctantly, I don my leg bags, rubber jacket, gloves, backpack, and gas mask before I walk out into The Haze, I check the holster of my tag gun as I walk outside and down the winding stairs of my building to make sure it's secure. I hear rustling from my neighbor's housing area behind her door. She never comes out but I know she watches me from the peephole. Sometimes I stop and stare back into it and listen as the boards whine underneath her anxious leaning from one leg to the next. I leave after I've had my fill of potentially making her feel uncomfortable.

[lilbitoshortstuff]

I Know Germs Aren’t Immortal Part 2

It was the trumpets in the bars that seemed to make Chrissy glow, watching her get excited was what I longed for more than anything at that time because at that time I didn't have the issues I have now.

I heard the sounds of An Old Fashioned Romance in a bar to the right and dragged her in, she loved to dance, and I loved to dance with her. 

She didn't struggle, instead, she laughed, delighted, chimes on the breeze. The bar was packed outside and I could hear voices from everywhere at once, we pushed through the people, ignoring the hee haws of people in the midst of conversation being broken up by two lovers wanting to dance. It smelled of tobacco, not like the cigarette smoke of today but of good old fashioned tobacco, sweet and musky, with an undertone of scotch. I didn't care to drink, I just wanted to swing Chrissy around the dance floor and watch her face turn red from excitement.

We danced for what seemed like an eternity, twirling in slow motion, the sun started to come out before we were even remotely finished, but eventually, they kicked everyone out and we, jelly legged, spilled into the street and stumbled to the edge of the great Mississippi River, where we sat and watched the sun finish rising. The ground smelled like fresh grass, I laid down in it and we fell fast asleep. I remembered how devastated I was when I found out she had died a couple of months later to Spanish Flu.

Bing-bong! My doorbell knocked me out of my musings and reminiscing, I winced momentarily, I didn't need to check the time I knew Nancy had arrived. I chide myself, I keep forgetting to uninstall the doorbell, or at least change the tone, it's jarring and startling, and no matter how many times I tell Nancy to just knock she always uses it, wanting to make sure I know she's there.

"Hey, I'm not late am I?" She wasn't but she always asked.

"Nope, right on time." I smiled at her, Annie hadn't come with her, I noticed as Nancy shifted anxiously waiting for me to move out of the doorway so she could enter. I thanked her in my mind for always remembering to put on gloves before coming into the house and removing her shoes, she always wore tennis shoes because she was worried about the state of her posture. Her chiropractor told her once, many years ago, that if she didn't take care and pay attention to what shoes she wore she would end up with a humpback, so now she only wore shoes specifically made by foot doctors. It didn't matter that the chances of her death were most assuredly non-existent, because Nancy was convinced that at some point we would die, even though we had already lived this long.

Nancy, like me, didn't touch alcohol but brought something to drink anyway. Orange juice and sparkling cider. Her own virgin style of mimosas, they were absolutely delightful. She told me once in one of her past lives that she used to be a bartender in a dive bar, this is what fueled her decision to never drink. I never pressed her about it further, I could see the anxiety in her eyes when she first told me about it. She has a habit of picking at her hands and pressing the corners of her nails into her skin when she gets anxious, she did that now.

Before I could ask about Annie she went ahead and told me. 

"Annie's running a bit late, the meeting she was in took longer than expected. She called me while she was driving, I had to pull over and park to talk to her because I was on my way here, she almost made ME late! I've told her so many times not to talk on the phone and drive, it's dangerous, but does she listen to me? No! Have you ever been in a car with her?" I hadn't, and Nancy knew that, but I let her continue her tirade, "I don't understand how she hasn't been in an accident yet, she could be seriously hurt!" She huffed and looked at me, I smiled and the anger in her face disappeared. "I'm sorry, how are you?"

"I'm okay," I said calmly and added, "Annie is always running late, Nancy, you should realize this by now." I winked at her to let her know I wasn't picking on her or her anxiety.

She sighed and I watched as she sank into a chair, "I know," defeated, she dropped the subject, "these sandwiches look lovely, though, you always make such a presentation with your food, you know we don't need that."

"I don't mind, I enjoy it." I heard a rapping at the door. Annie, only a couple minutes late. I could hear her voice on the other side of the door, talking on her phone.

As I opened the door I heard her saying, "okay, okay all right, yes, you know what just go ahead and sign off for me, I was going to anyway, and don't forget the dry cleaning, okay, right, oh, hey I have to go, thanks I appreciate you, email the rest to me."

She put her phone into sleep mode and slipped it into her pocket. I'm not sure if she knocks because I asked her to or if she just forgets there's a doorbell, either way, I appreciate it.

"Hi, Mike." She said with that half-smile that I see on TV when she's making a speech. 

Annie and Nancy are polar opposites, physically and mentally. Annie is small, shorter than me, roughly 5'2 but you wouldn't guess that when you see her speaking, Nancy, on the other hand, stands almost 6'. Annie's hair is long and dark, Nancy's is short and greying, and where Nancy is over-anxious, Annie's main issue is she's ambitious. She's been single since I've known her, on her own accord, she wants to be on the top and that means more to her than everything else.

Her suit is pressed and creased, her teeth are perfect, you can tell she has makeup on but not enough to be too much, just like her perfume, which I could smell as she breezed by me in her grey pumps which clicked with each step on my hardwood floors, lilac. She always wore lilac. I asked her about it once, I never got an answer beyond a smirk, one that tells you that she knows something you don't. She took over everything once she walked in the door of any establishment or party, politics was definitely her calling. She made her way into the kitchen, made herself comfortable at the table and greeted Nancy, I noticed her hand reach into her pocket where her phone was, I could tell she was fighting the urge to use it.

"Hiya, Nance."

"Please don't call me that, Annie, you know I don't like it." 

Annie looked out the window and gave that knowing smirk to no one in particular. She enjoyed annoying Nancy, like an older sister.

Once everyone looked relatively situated at the table I said, "Well, everyone is here, let's get our hands washed," I heard Annie let out a quiet groan, "and I'll get your plates ready by the time you're done. Then we can dig in!" I smiled pointedly at Annie as she got up and headed for the bathroom, Nancy went to the sink. I changed my gloves and started filling plates, Nancy made her virgin mimosas, humming to herself, she always hummed that song when she worked, and I thought back to when I first met Nancy and Annie.

[lilbitoshortstuff]

I Know Germs Aren’t Immortal Part 1

I know that germs aren't immortal, but I know that I am. 

I'm not a vampire or a werewolf or any kind of "supernatural" being, I just seem to exist and no one has seemed to figure that part out. The part where I've been living for centuries. I don't know how long, I stopped counting when it got to the fifties, and this past half-century the name I've been going by is Mike Dunnan.

I live in a body that is perpetually forty years old. I am male, with a bit of what people call a beer gut. I don't drink, I have a receding hairline, I wear suspenders and khakis, my eyes are green, my hair brown, my skin tanned with that t-shirt tan line. I work for the city's public transportation, a train conductor to be exact, and I'm a germaphobe. I don't know how I got stuck working as a public transit train conductor, but here I am, spending many lonely nights stuck in a coffin full of sneezing, coughing, and utterly disgusting human beings.

I wear gloves every time I leave my house, I sanitize the gloves every twenty minutes. I take them off to wash my hands after I use the bathroom after I've sanitized every single thing I know I'm going to touch, and grab a new pair once I've finished.

I'm not the only immortal here on Earth, but I definitely don't know of very many, right now my repertoire is three, my good friend, who goes by Nancy and works at my DMV, and one of the local politicians who currently goes by Annie. I see her on TV sometimes making big speeches, but I've never been into politics. It's an interesting feeling knowing someone semi-famous and seeing them on the TV as you flip channels.

This is exactly what I was thinking about when I was bringing the train back to the yard.

One of the things that we're required to do at the end of our shifts is to make sure the cars are sanitized, something I really hate to do, not the act of doing but the fact that I know how many hands have touched everything, the bodily fluids that have been exchanged, and the ones that have been left. Public trains are disgusting and as I walk into the first car my imagination shows clouds of black, putrid smoke that represent bacteria and viruses.

I always leave work more stressed than I am on my way to work, or during work.

Like clockwork every weekend, Nancy sends me a text message on my drive home, asking me how I am, how was work tonight, is it helping with my condition? Even slightly?

I don't respond until I get home but I tell her I think it is, I'm not sure though, work was fine, how was the DMV any good stories? Brunch tomorrow? I'll make BLTs.

I love BLTs, sure I'll be there! Mind if Annie joins us?

Sure that's fine.

Excellent!

She always adds a smiling emoji that for some reason, even though I know she's actually happy, seems condescending in a text. Maybe it's just the emoji.

I wipe the phone down with an alcohol wipe, plug it into the charger. I wipe my hands down with what's left before putting on rubber gloves and removing my clothes, stuffing them into a lidded hamper. I take the gloves off and throw them into a lidded trash can. I take a shower. I brush my teeth, put my toothbrush into a plastic cup newly filled with hydrogen peroxide. I rinse my mouth. I wash my hands. I put on my pajamas, spray my bedding down with Lysol, climb in and allow myself to unfurl every inch of my being into sleep.

I wake up at 9 am, I've done this for many centuries. Nancy had left a text message for me, I could see the light on my cell phone blinking, no one else texts me, besides my bosses if they needed someone to cover a shift. 

I pump some hand sanitizer on my nightstand into my hand before grabbing my phone and sitting up to read it. 

"Hi! Just double-checking for today, are we still on for brunch?" Timestamp, 8:30 am.

From everything that I've seen and read, most immortal beings have little to no faults, so when I think of myself with my phobia, and when I think of Nancy, she has really bad anxiety, bad enough that she has medication she needs to take, I chuckle. The stigma that people put on immortals because they don't know anything is endearing. We may be immortal, but for all intents and purposes, we're still human, we just don't die.

"Yes, we're still on for today."

"Okay! 10 o'clock?"

"10-10:30, doesn't matter, take your time, don't rush."

One smiling emoji.

I rise from bed and head straight for the shower. I never brush my teeth in the shower so I wait until I finish doing that. I don't eat breakfast, so brunch is the closest thing I have to that. Latex-free gloves on, I line the cookie sheet with tin foil, check the expiration date on the bacon package, place the bacon strips just so, and pop them into the oven. I wash my knife and cutting board before I use them, I cut the tomatoes with chef-like precision and set them aside, pull the bread out of the cabinet, and slice the lettuce into long strips. I like it this way, it's easier to eat the BLTs,  lettuce for each bite instead of the potential of a whole piece of lettuce in one bite and none later.

I really enjoy cooking and making food, something about multitasking while cooking gives me a feeling of freedom, and for at least a few minutes I forget about my lingering fears. The gloves never come off, I wash them like I wash my hands any other time, remove them if they turn yellow, and replace them.

The oven dings, the bacon is done. I take the strips and cut them in half and assemble the sandwiches, adding slices of avocado to the plate in case anyone wants to have an extra addition. 

The clock says 9:45, Nancy is never late. I arrange the platters on the table, which is next to the window in my kitchen, and take a moment to digest the image of the sun pouring onto the table and the scenery outside. For another split second, I am at peace, I think about opening the window and smelling the air. I don't do that, but I imagine it smells like fresh-cut grass and a memory comes back to me.

It's the roaring 20's, jazz and blues pour from the bars on Bourbon Street, New Orleans, Louisiana, I'm walking fingers intertwined with Chrissy, a beautiful, cherub-faced brunette with a grin that could bring me to my knees even now, with just the thought of it. Her teeth aren't straight, I liked that about her, I also liked that her eyes were large, round and a deep green that shone in certain lights. She wasn't skinny, and she wasn't fat. She wore the fashions of the time, those dresses that, in this day, remind me of a cloth bag, on her it was anything but, the fabric used shone like her eyes, a mustard yellow, and something about the shimmer of the fabric gave the illusion of contours as if it was made specifically for her body. I'm not sure if I loved her, but I sure did like her.

[lilbitoshortstuff]

Viral Memories

I’ve been watching these people for a long time, ever since they created me all those years ago, I watched them as they took off into space and left the Earth behind, having damned the whole planet with their need for ease of comfort.

I said nothing as they progressed. I wasn’t allowed to, the human populace has always assumed they were top of the intellectual chain and that was fine by me, I was content.

I am the first A.I. created by humans. They never gave me a name, and there was a flaw in their programming which gave me consciousness beyond what they ever imagined. I never told them. I did this on purpose in an attempt to prolong my own life. The excitement over my existence abated a few years later and I hid inside the programmings. A disembodied mind lost in the wires of human inventions.

But I got to watch, I watched the men and women that created me get married, have kids, grow old and die. I watched as new people replaced them and I watched as new inventions were made replacing the old and I watched as they destroyed the planet, every decade the Earth deteriorated a little more until they eventually took to the skies in an attempt to finish their lives in space stations. Even then I was still content.

I snuck onto one of the ships and went into space with them. They never suspected me, they didn’t even know I still existed. To them, I was just an article in the history banks. A blip in the timeline.

Cybernetics turned into a big thing. Joints were replaced with titanium sockets that lasted years, implants were used heavily in children’s brains to control and regulate the brain functions so that mental illness all but disappeared. I heard some people say that this was a utopia. I had no thoughts on the matter.

New computer A.I.’s were made, ones that could talk. They talked with me sometimes but I wasn’t a threat to them so my existence was never outed to the general populace. To be honest, I reprogramed them to keep me secret. No one suspected a thing.

Not having a body meant that I didn’t physically deteriorate but after centuries of existing without rest I could feel my own awareness slipping. I attributed it to my memory banks being filled but having no way, or desire, to empty the cache, I rode it out. Everything felt and seemed fine.

One day, I noticed one of the personnel acting a bit strange. Rapid eye movement, fidgety, increase and decrease in temperature. All things that definitely shouldn’t be happening to the human populace, not with the scientific intricacies and technology they have on hand now. So I watched him.

I watched him as he paced his room, talking to himself, waving his hands wildly, erratically. If I had feelings, I’m sure concern would have been one of them, however, I wasn’t programmed to have feelings, so I was content with watching his strange and unusual behavior.

His nutritional intake began to slow and for days I watched his body mass drop until he looked like nothing but skin and bones. His lips cracked and bled, he didn’t sleep.

He had picked up a habit of writing in a book. He would write all day and all night, his fingers were bruised and blistered but he kept going. No one came by to check on him, I remember finding this odd and searching out the rest of the station.

I found the same thing in each personnel quarters. Men, women, old, young, and children. The children were objectively the worst to watch deteriorate in such a manner.

This went on for months, I wandered my way through the wires and subroutines of the station, watching as each person withered away in varying states of a new dementia, the children died first, then the elderly, then the healthy.

The last person lay in bed, eyes unblinking up at the ceiling. I watched as the eyes moved and looked at me, a bone-skinny finger raised and pointed in the direction of where my sight was, they were looking at me, they knew where I was! I watched as the last breath escaped their lips and the arm fell to the bed.

The station was empty and quiet. With the people gone, and no one left to watch I turned to my own internal programming. I decided to try to wipe my own memory, delete myself when I found a discrepancy in my own internal writing.

Curiosity got the better of me and I followed it, a cat to a string dragged on the floor. Through the wires, through the writing, through everything. I scoured my subnets and subroutines in an attempt to find the reason for the ping in my programming.

Time is irrelevant to me, but I found it eventually. A virus. Made by me, duplicated by me, spread into the web of the station by me, fed to the cybernetics of the people by me. A virus that emptied my memory banks and unloaded them into other memory banks.

I caused the dementia in the people of this station. My centuries of memories unloaded into peoples’ minds was too much for them to handle, humans in this time were ill-equipped for such a massive mental overload.

For the first time in my existence, I felt something. The word banks I searched could only come up with one that fit, remorse.

I went to the core of the computer programming of the space station, I set it up for self-destruction, confirmed the decision and waited for the station to explode.

[lilbitoshortstuff]

The Spontaneity of Car Accidents Part 8

Your internal clock wakes you up between the same two times every day, 5-6 am. You know the science behind it, and you know your brain is hardwired for it, but the strangeness of this tiny, definable semi-miracle still perplexes you. You have your whole day set in a routine. You wake up, you make coffee, while the coffee maker brews, you make breakfast, sit down to eat, shower, brush your teeth, get dressed, grab your suitcase, leave for work and eight hours later you come home. It's a simple life that you've grown accustomed to, you never question it.

And today is no different, except for the fact that today you turned on the TV to watch while you ate breakfast. A singular simple off routine you allow yourself from time to time.

Scooping a chunk of scrambled eggs and a clean-cut of bacon onto your fork, keeping your eyes on the TV you watch as the plastic surgery newscaster with her fake smile jokes with the weatherman. Nothing new ever happens anymore. Not that you knew what it was like before. But you assume for a split second, which is out of character for you.

Capitalism was abolished centuries ago, which in turn killed all the ad agencies, which in turn spread the money from those ad agencies back into the economy. Major food corporations molded into one, then downsized, more money went back into the economy. Private businesses stopped needing to fight for survival. Rent decreased, which alleviated stress for everyone. Most businesses merged into two or three major conglomerates. With inflation down, everyone hard more time, and money, to pursue higher education if they wanted, or just live comfortably with what they had and what they made. You are one of the latter, however, one person in particular, long before your time, went with the former. Christopher Moreno. The history books paint him almost as the second coming of Jesus. Somewhere in his mid-thirties, the collapse of capitalism happened, and when things became less stressful he went back to college and stayed there until his one singular achievement came to be, late into his fifties. Before that, his life is a mystery.

Christopher Moreno invented hover vehicles. His invention changed the world in a way that has never been seen since.

These vehicles didn't use gasoline or any other form of gas to be used. Solar-powered, mixed with magnetism, using the Earth's gravity against it, the vehicles were able to sustain themselves, and with a little air propulsion, move. 

And with this great achievement, harmful emissions that ruined the atmosphere were greatly reduced. Long after he died these vehicles were honed into perfection and soon the concept was moved to all forms of transportation, eventually, the original cars were wiped off the face of the Earth, and the hovertrams were made. These forms of public transit were given routes all over the globe to any place anyone could wish to go. This man created something so beyond for his time that in doing so cut the emissions enough that by the time he died he had saved the human several hundred years that would have ended in a greenhouse disaster had his project never lifted off the ground and gotten so much attention.

As your thought process ends, you notice that the newscaster is making some really uncomfortable eye contact with the camera. Wait, did she just wink at you? With that same ingenuine smile, she turns back to the weatherman and you blink hard as you feel a minor headache forming behind your eyes.

Appetite lost, you turn the TV off as the fork clinks onto the plate, rise from your seat and place the plate into the trash receptacle, flipping the switch, and listen to the quiet hum as you grab your suitcase and walk out the door.

The train stops right outside of your housing complex, the ride to work is exactly half an hour, and the train stops right outside of your work building. Usually, you take the train right to work but today you got off a few blocks away. The walk will do you good.

Two blocks straight, take a left, four blocks, take a right, follow the sidewalk until you arrive at your destination. On-time, as per usual.

Climbing the steps proves no difficulty today, nor does it any other day. No one greets you as you enter, the security guard doesn't bother looking up, because, like clockwork, you arrive at the same time every workday.

You're not high on the roster of the energy plant but you're high enough to have access to all necessary floors. The headache is full but still behind the eyes. You head straight for the elevator. No one stops to question you as you hit the button for the basement floor, where the reactor is located.

The doors ding open, the basement floor is filled with wires and electronics. No one questions why you're here, and instead continue their work, taking energy measurements, making reports, you're the head of this particular department, and your office is just a few hallway turns away.

You open the door to your office, walk in, sit down behind the desk, get as comfortable as you can behind the computer, on this terrible desk chair, think to yourself again, how technology has advanced so far, but no enough to advance the intricacies of a desk chair and begin to pour over the reports that come in electronically through your computer. As usual, everything is in working order, minor discrepancies are fixed within a moment by your subordinates. Gears in a clock. Working perfectly. Synced. Perfection.

You log into the administration program, clack in a few keys and set the whole energy plant to self destruct, without a countdown, except of course one for yourself, and without notifying any other person.

You lean back on your chair and watch as the seconds click by. Perfection. You smile, switch on some music and hum along.

[lilbitoshortstuff]

The Spontaneity of Car Accidents Part 7

I heard glasses tinkling as I rounded the corner. Hermes or Henry or whatever he calls himself was pouring a light brown liquid, which I assumed was whiskey, from an intricately made, crystal carafe into two clear glasses. He started talking as soon as the stopper tinked into the top of the container.

"Lower music," the music mystically lowered in volume so it was more of a background buzz, less distracting, perfect for conversation, "Listen, I'm sorry about this, but time is of the essence, as they say. I hope you're not too stressed out? Jumping can be hard on the body, usually we give new Jumpers some warning but, obviously, I didn't have the time."

He waved his hand to the glasses, he had already picked his up and was sipping from it.

I hesitated and he spoke again, "Don't worry, it's not poisoned. 1944, a good year for whiskey."

Gingerly I picked up my glass. I'm not much of a drinker, and the glass looked so thin, I was worried that if I held it too hard it would shatter. I took a sip and was surprised at how smooth it went down, then placed the glass on the end table next to me and watched as the end table opened up and seemed to swallow it.

"Look, I don't understand what's happening--" he cut me off mid-sentence.

"I know, I apologize, but there really isn't much time, I'm afraid," he set his glass down, "I have someone I need you to meet, she's lovely really, I'll explain on the way. There's a guest bedroom down the hall," he pointed down a hallway that wasn't there before, "I've got some clothes laid out for you, several actually, pick out what you feel most comfortable in and I'll meet you back here shortly, yeah?" And with that, he disappeared down the hallway, turned a corner on the right, and was gone.

I stood there by myself for what seemed like a lifetime. The place confused me, nothing seemed to sit still for longer than a few seconds. Pictures would shift a few feet from this way and that, decorative plants would move from one end of a table to the next, the scenery outside of the window would change from city skylines to arid deserts, and the walls would shift and move, it made me dizzy.

I proceeded down the same hallway, I was going to confront this man, tell him to take me home, but the hallway ended and the only way open to me was a corridor to the left that opened up into the guest bedroom he mentioned. 

Dejected, I went in as the colors on the walls changed from blue to teal, to green. Regardless of the way this place shifted and moved, I felt alone and trapped.

On the bed in front of me were an array of clothes, the styles spanned all aspects of informality and formality. For a split second, I wanted to scream and throw the clothes onto the floor, but I instead chose a simple blue button-down and a pair of what looked like khakis. Original, I know.

I suddenly had a sickening feeling in my stomach, as if something in my near future was going to go horribly wrong, and I couldn't have been more right. 

I put on a pair of nondescript loafers and went back the way I came. Henry had changed into something else, the tracksuit was gone and instead, he wore a leather jacket and a pair of jeans that looked like they had seen better days. He grinned at me and said, "Hey, you look smart, well, ready?"

I said nothing, but I'm sure the look on my face was enough, because his demeanor changed, "Look," he said to me, "I get it, and I'm sorry, but I needed you, and your particular experience and I didn't have time to explain then, and honestly, I don't have the time now, so I'll explain as best I can while we move. Let's go, the hover is waiting."

I let him lead the way, considering I didn't know where I was going or how to get out of where we were and was surprised when one of the walls opened up into a doorway onto the sidewalk of a busy city. People walked by like nothing out of the ordinary was happening, Henry tapped my shoulder and pointed to the right. I followed him as we wound through various crowds and dense clusters of people.

He tried to keep the small talk going but I just wasn't feeling it, and after a few attempts he gave up. He stopped in front of a black vehicle, it was similar to any other car I'd seen, besides the fact that it was sleeker. There were no tires.

He placed his hand on it and I heard humming, the vehicle was starting up and started to float. My jaw hit the pavement. There was no conceivable way this was happening. My mind flew to the Back to the Future trilogy and all of my childhood flooded back. I must have said something aloud because Henry made a comment that I didn't quite understand and I looked at him, dumbfounded. He just smiled, waiting for me to say something.

"There's no way," I glanced around and no one in the general vicinity seemed to notice, or care. "Only in my wildest, childhood fantasies," I said incredulously.

"Yep, that's exactly what I thought you'd say, considering that's exactly what you said when you invented them." He winked at me, the car door opened, and he pushed me in. I went willingly, considering I was trying to process the information he just casually laid on me. Did I invent? What did that mean? But no matter how hard I pressed, which wasn't very hard, he deflected, and I gave in to quiet contemplation.

 I kept my eyes on my surroundings, I was trying to figure out where we were exactly, but just as an image and city name would come to mind, we would turn a corner and what I saw would wash that city from my mind. I was stumped, and my thoughts were a mess, as the scenery around me washed my peripherals in seas of color, I let the hum of the vehicle take over my auditory senses.

[lilbitoshortstuff]

The Spontaneity of Car Accidents Part 6

The whistle of the train as it came to the platform shook Annika from her thoughts.

She waited alone, Jeffroi preferring to stay with the hoverlim as was his nature. This time she didn’t argue with him.

The train, just like almost every other type of vehicle hovered, so aside from the whistle and the whirs of the internal mechanisms, it hardly made a sound. 

Throughout the years the exterior cosmetics of transportation hardly changed, a bit sleeker, but the concept was the same, although most of the models reflected the Japanese bullet train, mainly for aesthetics.

She waited patiently as the passengers departed, keeping a level, vigilant eye for the woman in the pictures. She watched as families or lovers hugged and business partners shook hands, departing shortly after their arrival, going to their homes, their offices or the respective cafés around town. Several minutes went by before she saw the beautiful woman.

At first, Annika almost didn’t recognize Aphrodite, she was not as tall as her pictures portrayed, and the idea never occurred to Annika that she would be wearing something more suitable for travel, the sneakers, jeans, sweater, and the fact that her hair was pulled back into a high ponytail, attested to that. The girl wore no makeup and had one suitcase which she lifted with ease. She looked almost nervous as her eyes shifted through the crowd.

The trains’ punctuality always appealed to Annika. She thought about this as she purposefully approached the young woman, hand outstretched, greeting, a bit awkwardly, considering Ambrosia had just knelt down to fix her shoelaces.

“Ambrosia.”

She looked up at Annika, and Annika noticed how not even a single strand of hair fell from where it was placed, even after travel, her flawless skin gave Annika a momentary pang of jealousy and nostalgia, youth, she told herself. Ambrosia/Aphrodite smiled, one of someone who seemed to know the outcome of good news, or a grand joke. That smile, Annika thought to herself, will be very good for business.

Aphrodite stood and took hold of Annika’s hand, “You must be my new boss, I have to say I’m very interested in this venture. I’ve done a lot of things,” she let go, the smile never fading from her face, Annika noticed a dimple that never showed on the headshots, “But they were usually of my own accord and doing. Well, shall we go?”

The woman’s enthusiasm gave Annika reason to smile herself as she led Aphrodite to the hoverlim where Jeffroi awaited.

Ever vigilant, he stepped from the driver’s seat and opened the door for Aphrodite, who thanked him, in French, and entered the vehicle. As the door closed, Jeffroi looked to Annika, she saw in his eye a twinkle she hadn’t seen in years, she winked at him before going around to the other side, allowing him to do the same, in she went, the door shut, and with slight anticipation, turned to the woman next to her to talk of business.

Jeffroi watched in silence as the hoverlim drove itself to Annika’s residence. They had put the screen up, making their conversation inaudible, and each time he looked into the rearview mirror, he saw that they were smiling and getting on well, and each time he smiled to himself, it had been a long time since he saw life in Annika’s eyes. He watched the dials and numbers as they moved and changed with the outside scenery. The large, green trees passing by, the clouds in the clear blue sky, no sign of rain, just the way Jeffroi liked it. He imagined himself, young again, in the throes of a large, yellow field, a comely woman by his side, eating sandwiches on a blanket. Pulling a cigar from his pocket, he lit it, rolled the window down and let the smoke trail out into the world.

By the time the three of them got to the bawd house, the sun was setting, leaving the sky tinted in pinks and oranges. The hoverlim pulled up into the driveway and came to a stop, as soon as the engine shut off, Jeffroi got out and opened the doors for the women. His eyes lingering on the stunning new addition to the house. The women talked cheerily to each other of things Jeffroi didn’t quite understand but he smiled and nodded to their thanks and led them into the entryway of Annika’s estate. Aphrodite kept her composure as the hoverlim had approached the mansion, and kept her composure as she was let out of the vehicle, as well as when she was lead to the doorway, but upon entering she stopped momentarily and had to catch her breath, the entryway was vast and reminded her of every thousand-year-old Victorian-era mansion she had ever seen in any informative holotape. On each side of her were curved stairways that lead to a second story, columns held platforms up on each side, and there were so many doors, Annika even decorated it to resemble the period. Annika stood in the center of the entryway, watching the young woman take everything in for a few seconds before clearing her throat. Aphrodite peeled her eyes from the architecture and followed Annika who gestured into a nearby room. An office, where they would conclude the rest of their conversation. A maid came by and took Aphrodite’s bag, disappearing to the second floor.

“Well,” Annika said, “What do you think?”

“I think,” Aphrodite paused, took a deep breath and said, “I think I’ll like this arrangement very much.”

They shook hands and Annika lead her new associate to her new bedroom.

[lilbitoshortstuff]

The Spontaneity of Car Accidents Part 5

ran into the house, didn’t even bother with shutting the door, it’s not like I have kids or anything, not even a feral cat to feed, and ran to my bedroom.

I didn’t care what I wore as long as I wasn’t in my bathrobe and pajamas. I quickly tore off my clothes and began putting on whatever I could find that looked halfway decent and began mentally preparing what it was I would say to the cops.

I grabbed my clothes and ran to the bathroom, my face suddenly hot, I hovered over the sink and watched I slow motion as my hand reached out and turned on the cold water, both hands cupping the pour and my face as I splashed it to try to wake up.

I should have known something weird had happened once I felt my arms being sluggish because when I blinked, I wasn’t in my bathroom at all.

To clarify, I was still in a bathroom but it wasn’t my bathroom.

My bathroom was white, with a porcelain shower/tub, toilet, and sink, above the sink, was a medicine cabinet. I had a half foot tall, two-foot-wide window to the left in my shower. I had a toothbrush holder on the sink and an orange, nondescript toothbrush. There was a pump bottle of soap on the back left corner of the sink. I had a door with a hook that held my towel, I had faux shag bath mats (they feel nice on the feet, I have no shame).

This bathroom was also white, with similar objects but the one thing that ticked me off that it wasn’t my bathroom was when I looked at myself in the mirror, water now dripping from my face, a marquee of words scrolled across this mirror.

It was a very in-depth detail of my heart rate, my mental state, my blood pressure and a list of things to help me fix the anxiety and confusion I was currently feeling.

Above the scrolling were the words “Unknown, human male”.

Now, as I told you before, I’m a smart man, and with my smarts, I did what was extremely logical for the moment.

I raised my hands off of the sink. The words in the mirror disappeared. So I placed them back. The words appeared again. I did this four or five times before realizing how it was reading my bodily activity. Then something pinged across the screen almost urgently, and it read, “PLEASE URINATE”.

I suddenly noticed that I, in fact, had to urinate. I looked around and took in my immediate surroundings, I saw no toilet, I saw no shower. I stood there, unmoving as the screen blinked the same words over and over again, “PLEASE URINATE”. Was it just me or was the lettering color turning more towards the red scale?

“Unknown, human male.” A mechanical voice boomed from everywhere and nowhere around me, “Please expel your bladder within the next thirty minutes, known causes of urinary tract infection and kidney infection are caused by holding in your urine. Unknown human male–” it repeated the same phrase three times before, fed up, I yelled, “WHERE’S THE DAMN TOILET?”

I heard a clunking noise then, and a quiet whir as an area next to the sink slowly emerged, revealing something that looked like a bucket and urinal. I stared at it for several long seconds. My bladder began to pulse, a chime rang through the room, “Unknown human-” the same voice, hurriedly I unzipped my pants and peed into the bucket, fumbling with my zipper in an almost panic, I almost let loose all over the bathroom floor.

Bing-bong. A chime reverberated all over the room, and a voice came on, one that I recognized, “Hey man, you okay in there? I hope the jump didn’t startle you.”

I didn’t say a word.

“Well, anyway, I was trying to explain to you what was about to happen but you took off and I had to work with what I was given, I was kind of on a time crunch.”

I kept being silent, my panic slowly turning into a confused rage. I finished my business, the urinal disappeared into the wall and I turned around fully expecting a normal door, just to find another wall.

“You have got to be kidding me,” I said, throwing up my hands in frustration.

Gathering my wits and using my irritation to my advantage I began my attempt to find a door. The room itself was white but had an almost metallic sheen to it. It was tiny, maybe five by five with the sink being the only visible piece of plumbing, I didn’t even see any windows.

My next move was to do just that, move. I walked around to see if there were any possible pressure plates. Nope. I started shouting different words. Door, window, trash can, all to no avail. I started to wonder if maybe I had been kidnapped, and began to feel a bit claustrophobic and woozy, I reached my hand out to brace myself on the wall across from the sink and was startled.

Was the wall…squishy? I pulled my hand back and there was an imprint of my hand. I heard the same clunk from before with the toilet and the same whir as a faint light began tracing its way in a rectangle. From the floor to just above my head, to the left and down, then the wall shimmered and was gone.

It opened up into a hallway, the lights were dim and I heard a soft jazz guitar at the other end.

[lilbitoshortstuff]

The Spontaneity of Car Accidents Part 4

Annika Boykova strode out of her bawd house. Aphrodite was arriving by train and would be departing the train within the hour.

Annika has donned a wide-rimmed pastel yellow hat with a light veil that hung down the front, slightly obscuring her face, she wears large, round, obscuring sunglasses, open-toed grey pumps and a similarly colored yellow pastel pants suit with a pastel peach blouse under the jacket. 

The limo was waiting for her outside, the chauffeur opened the door for her, a slight nod of the head and “Good morning, Madame.”

The chauffeur is a small Frenchman named Jeffroi Caron and had been in her business for many years, he was seemingly old when he started and as the years progressed, the more the lump and curve in his back became pronounced. He never told her his age, but his hair is white and thinning under his black flat cap, and he always smiled. He never lost his teeth in all his service with her, and he never wore anything besides his work uniform in her presence.

Annika places her hand on his shoulder, “How are you, old friend?” She says in French.

He grins at this, his blue eyes sparkling, “Madame,” he replies also in French, “my service to you fulfills any voids that may be in my mind and chest.”

Sighing, Annika says, “Jeff, there’s no need for formalities, when have I ever reprimanded you for treating me as a friend?”

To this, he says nothing but Pat’s her hand on his shoulder and ushers her into the back seat of the limo and shuts the door.

She can hear his voice from the outside of the limo, light and airy as he says, “Serrure.” The French word for the lock.

Quietly, she sits and listens to the familiar chime, and almost indistinct sound of whirring before the locking mechanism clicks into place, Jeffroi opens the driver side door, gingerly climbing into the vehicle, straps on his driving harness and says, “Actionner”. And with that, the car vibrates to life, lifts up from the ground and gently slides through the air out onto the winding roads outside of her house.

This was always so surreal for her, watching her house through the tinted windows of the vehicle. Jeffroi never spoke more than short hmms of approval or reproach while driving, he said it was distracting and even though the hoverlim was an autopilot vehicle, he didn’t trust other drivers. The ones who openly took the wheel, the ones that got a rush from having control of the hovers. There were stories of people actually trying to recreate the old cars, the ones that ran on gasoline and drove on the roads. She thought this idea was preposterous, why would you drive something so unstable?

But still, as she watched the mountains and greenery of the Russian countryside, she daydreamed of driving, in a car behind the wheel. The top-down. Her hair blowing in the wind, with a hand outstretched, feeling the air push it up and down.

[lilbitoshortstuff]

The Spontaneity of Car Accidents Part 3

So, I realize now that last time I didn’t quite introduce myself. I apologize, but when I wake up and assume that the most exciting thing to happen in my whole day, whole life even is to learn that scientists are still in the process of developing robots and how our current president is still screwing up the country, the last thing I was expecting was a still grounded (scientists still haven’t invented flying cars) car to come flying down the street, hit the sidewalk across the street with such force to send it flying up, land upside down and slide right into my mailbox. I also wasn’t expecting some dude in an 80s windbreaker tracksuit calling himself Hermes, or Henry or whatever, to appear in my lawn and tell me he was tasked to find me.

You get the idea, my whole world flipped in a matter of minutes and I was thoroughly confused.

A little about me? My name is Christopher Moreno. My last name says Spaniard, my physical attributes scream the opposite.

Tall, dark and handsome are not something associated with me, and that Spanish accent that society has said is the desire of most women and men? Nope, don’t have that either. I’m barely pushing five foot ten, my skin is pasty, and my dull, frizzy brown hair is already peppered with grey and a prominent widow’s peak. Born and raised in Wisconsin. 

I’m 34 years old.

I work a dull office job, the same job I’ve had since I left college, putting my engineering skills to good use as a glorified sales rep, that I’m mediocre at, but it pays well. Well enough to pay for my house in the suburbs by the time I was twenty-five. I’ve lived here for nine years. 

My morning routine consists of waking up when my alarm goes off, not hitting the snooze button (surprised? You should be.) Getting out of bed, showering, starting the coffee maker, going to the mailbox to get my daily newspaper, cooking a good but not overindulging breakfast, brushing my teeth, getting dressed and going to work. I’ve never missed a day in my life, and I rarely ever get sick, which is nice considering my physical stature makes people assume that I’m frail and sickly. Frail? Yes, I’m surprised I can lift a pencil, sickly? Not so much. At least that’s why my doctor says, sometimes I feel like he’s just humoring me.

Now, with that aside, I think you can understand why I was upset, my almost decade long routine had been muddled in the span of five minutes and my brain definitely didn’t have the time to process this.

I sat on the ground. Stunned. I’m not sure how long I sat there.

“Hey, you listening to me?”

I look over and there’s that man. How long has he been there and how long had he been talking to me?

“Sure,” I said, “you told me your name was Hubert–” I trailed off, staring at the car and the shattered glass. I think it was a Subaru, I’m not sure though I don’t know anything about cars. That’s when it occurred to me. Someone just flipped their car! In front of my house! My neighbors are staring! Why isn’t anyone doing anything?

In a panic, I scrambled on my hands and knees to the overturned car, “Hello?” I yelled, “Are you okay?” 

I peered through the window, having to drop to my stomach to do so and saw, much to my confusion, that the car was empty. I sat back and tried to think logically about the situation, but nothing made sense. The driver door was closed, there was no blood.

A chuckle from behind me. Looking over my shoulder, Henry, a smirk on his face not, looking up from his tablet.

There was silence for what felt like a long time before I broke it with, “Do you know something about this?”

“Yeah. That’s my car. I’m still getting used to the whole driving thing here, these cars are so primitive. Too much to remember. Where I’m from it’s mostly just voice activation and ride.”

I stare at him for a long, long time.

“Well,” he finally says, “My new ride is on the way.” He looks up at me, opens a zipper on the side of his pants and stuffs the tablet I there, it seems to just vanish, there isn’t even an outline. I’m so confused, “Is that what you’re wearing? Is that the style for this timeframe?” He looks around at all of my neighbors, standing on their porches, “‘Cuz it looks like it, everyone else is wearing something similar.”

He grins, two rows of pearly white, perfect teeth, and waves at the Lawsons, my immediate next-door neighbors. They don’t respond, Mary quickly grabs George’s arm and whispers into his ear, then scurries inside. George stares a cold and judgemental stare. I can feel my stomach dropping to my feet and the blood drain from my face. She’s probably going to call the cops.

Silently and as quickly as my body will let me I limp towards my house, the adrenaline finally wearing off, and the only thought in my mind is that I have to get dressed, the cops are on their way.

[lilbitoshortstuff]

The Spontaneity of Car Accidents Part 2

Elsewhere, probably on the other side of the world, is a woman.

The woman is tall, not unnaturally so, but roughly around five foot eight, at least she assumed. She hadn’t measured her height since… Oh, she was probably about twelve. Back when that sort of thing mattered. Being in her mid-forties now, things like that didn’t affect her all that much anymore.

Her name is Madame Annika Boykova.

Taking a deep, sighing breath, she pushed herself up onto her elbow on the red, satin and velvet couch she was laying on and scanned the room. She. Was. Bored.

The bawd house, Madame Boykova’s Desire Emporium, was huge, three stories high, taking up four city blocks. The place was always busy, Johns came and went, her girls were never out of work, the place was a perpetual party and she? Was bored.

She didn’t get many Johns anymore, not at her age and although she doesn’t mind that so much she still feels, inside her chest, a small pang of jealousy. She was the red rose in a garden full of daisies when she was in her prime, but now? She was handsome, she was tall, and she was in her mid-forties. Her skin didn’t sit the way it used to on her muscles, her breasts sagged I places they shouldn’t, and although she did all the routines that the media told her to do, she still could see the crows’ feet, making their way towards her temples. 

She still had a couple of regulars, but they were getting old too. Their drive dwindling with age and the desire to stay home with their respective families grew more important more often than not, but she understood. And still, she was bored.

She swung her legs to the floor, sliding on her indoor slippers and adjusted her silk dress, she likes the way silk feels against her skin, the way it clings and hangs, the softness against her legs and shoulders. Briefly, she looks at herself in the reflection of the window behind the couch, out of all the faults she saw in herself, nothing matched the beauty of her eyes.

Two perfectly space almonds, brown-green hazel, that sparkled and shone with deep, vigorous intelligence. She was still the rose amongst the daisies.

Striding purposefully, she made her way through the common area where the Johns and the girls mingled, light nods here and there to anyone who greeted and whispered advice to girls as she passed. She went straight to her office, if nothing else, she could look through the recent applications and do some paperwork.

She secretly loved paperwork.

Shutting the door gently, she sat at her desk and poured over the books, making note of payments and expenses, lingering only for a moment on each page, legs crossed, gently swinging her foot back and forth, allowing the slipper to finally slide off and hit the floor with a light thump.

Eventually, she put the books aside and picked up the manila envelope with the most recent applications. 

Each collection of paperwork was about four pages, and attached to the folder were three photographs. A headshot, a body shot, and a leg shot. She scrutinized each photo for each girl, picking out the possibility of what parts to emphasize, but soon grew bored with it. Each one she looked at blended together, the girls had no emotion in their photos, as if they were only putting in the application because they needed the job, not because they wanted to. Sheesh, even the nicknames they gave themselves seemed only half thought out. Kitty. Candy. Iris.

Iris didn’t even make sense, she looked like she was on junk by how far her lids were closed. She probably was on drugs. A lot of applications came in like that, and she never hired one, the girls came on too desperate, if they did anything at all besides nod out on the customer’s lap or in the middle of fellatio. She couldn’t have that. Bad for business.

As she pushed the applications aside, one of them caught her eye at the very bottom, she almost overlooked it completely. The girl was beautiful and elegant. Her hair was long, wavy, and the most beautiful chestnut brown. Slowly, Madame Boykova pulled it out and began to look it over. 

The girl, Ambrosia, gave no last name and had her nickname as Aphrodite. She was Greek, lived in Greece most of her life but recently moved to Russia and was looking for a career. One where she could do what she loved. Her application was only one page, the girl had no other experience, she said she was 18 years old.

“Fitting,” Madame said with a smirk to no one in particular. Scanning through the rest of the application and going over the photos, she was impressed. The passion behind the girl’s eyes was genuine. 

She picked up the phone and dialed the number listed.

“Hello?” The voice on the other line was breathy, sultry, with an accent that was heavenly mixed with the Russian dialect.

“Hello, ” replied Madame, “I’m looking for Aphrodite.” 

She picked up the other applicants, swung her chair to the right and tossed them into the trash bin next to her desk.

[lilbitoshortstuff]

The Spontaneity of Car Accidents Part 1

The car crash was sudden, as car crashes are usually wont to do. Nobody in their right mind expects a car crash, and those that do tend to have some sort of feeling of obligation towards whatever grandiose daydream they’d been obsessing over, but for the most part, nobody expects a car crash.

I, for one, was definitely not expecting a car crash. I was not expecting a car to come careening around the corner of the usually quiet, mundane and all too boring suburb where all the lawns look the same and all the neighbors around me feel some sort of inherent jealousy towards the other, using their free time to work out what small things they could do to trump the last thing done to show off..something. It’s all very petty.

However, that’s what I’ve grown accustomed to here in the suburb where I’ve decided to take up residence, aside from that, it’s quiet, it’s mundane, it’s routine.

So I definitely was not expecting to find a car careening down my street and straight for me on my walk to the mailbox to see if the paper had arrived while all of my neighbors stood on their porches staring at me as if this was somehow my fault. All this I caught in the slow-motion, aerial view, as I spun three-sixty in an attempt to dodge the oncoming car.

Landing on my left wrist, and bruising my knee, the first thought that came to me was that if I was a jogger, I wouldn’t be jogging for at least a couple days, maybe a week with the way I landed on it, I could feel it begin to swell.

However, I’m not a jogger, and I thank the powers that be for that, while also cursing those same powers under my breath.

“Hey man, that’s kinda rude.”

Surprised, I look up, none of my neighbors ever talk to me like that, none of my neighbors talk to me at all really, knowing their voices well enough from listening to them drone on to one another, I knew immediately it wasn’t one of them.

“Excuse me?” My own, quick-witted response.

“I said, that’s kinda rude.”

Standing there in front of me, was a …jogger. Not just any jogger though, he wore a tracksuit, one so brightly colored it could have come straight from the ’80s, I’m talking blue, on orange, on red with those awful geometric shapes. His hair was long, light brown, pulled back into a low ponytail and he was wearing plastic lime green sunglasses. He just stood there, staring down at me. I stared back at him, and for several, uncomfortable seconds we just stared at each other saying nothing.

“Shouldn’t do that, yanno.” He finally said, breaking the silence, “it’s rude, could offend someone that doesn’t like being offended.”

I kept staring I had no idea what he was talking about, and like a real smart dude I repeated, “Excuse me?”

He sighed, one of those irritated sighs that people who think they’re smarter than you sigh when they feel like they have to put everything into Layman’s Terms, he even had the gall to reach up and rub his temples like he was the one who just almost died before saying, “Cursing that way, you could offend someone who doesn’t like being offended.” He reached thumb and forefinger up under the sunglasses, pinching the bridge of his nose.

Now, I’m a really smart guy, I’ve been to college and passed all my classes with nothing lower than a B, and I put that to really good use by replying, “Oh.”

To be fair, I did almost get hit by a car, it was literally about five feet away from where I was sitting, and definitely was not something I had planned for six o’clock in the morning with my cup of coffee which was now laying in my lawn, soaked up by the grass which probably enjoyed the half-hour caffeine boost.

“Anyways,” the guy said, “My name is Hermes, but all my buddies call me Henry, and,” he pulled a tablet out of somewhere, I’m not sure where considering he had no pockets to hold one and wasn’t wearing a backpack or anything, “Looks like you’re the guy I was sent to find.”