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"I'd hazard thirty grand for electrical," Robert said. "Give or take. Work's slow right now, you'd get a good deal before winter."

Allen was looking at the plastic sheets that temporarily covered the interior walls of the barn. "Maybe," he said.

"You did all of this yourself?" Robert asked.

"Not all by myself. But in the family, yes," Allen said.

"Right. Of course," Robert murmured.

"Maybe I'll leave it just as it is," Allen said.

"What would you do with an unfinished barn then?" Robert asked.

Allen took a long pull of his beer. He thought of the time Jonathan asked to go to the Met, both of them standing under a painting of two men canoeing down the Saguenay River rapids. Patches of the canvas were blank and one half-painted figure was confidently missing an oar.

"Why would they display something the painter never bothered to finish?" Allen said.

[Note: the writing prompt was "A barn, seen by a man whose son has just been killed in a war. Don't mention the son, the war, or death." The word constraint was 50-150 words]

Don’t tell me it was my fault for not noticing what was going on. This isn’t something I need to feel responsible for. I couldn’t have known. 

…
You don’t believe me, do you? You think if you live with someone then you know all about them. You don’t. If they don’t want you to know, if they hide themselves, you can’t know. He was normal. We were normal. 
…
I wasn’t looking for anything bad. I just needed a new bulb for the light in the laundry. He kept the spares in a box in the garage. I hardly ever went in there. 
…
I wasn’t spying on him. It wasn’t just because he was out on a business trip. I needed a bulb.
…
No idea at all. Who expects something like that? 
…
No. I didn’t hear any hammering. I have no idea when he built it. Like I said, I hardly ever went in the garage.
…

It was behind some boxes. Empty boxes. I had always assumed they were full. They looked full. The labels said books and extra tools on them. But they were empty and behind them was the door.
…
No. It wasn’t locked. 
…
There was no key. Are you accusing me of having a key? It’s not my room. I did not know it existed. It was his room. Are you understanding what I am saying? His room. I had nothing to do with it.
…
Wouldn’t you be curious if you found a room in your home that you had never seen before? You’d go in, right?
…
I’m just saying it was normal for me to be curious. 
…
I saw the photographs first. Yes these. Taken on holiday at the beach, at bathtime, a few from when we put the inflatable pool up in the garden. None of them were wrong in themselves. It was seeing them altogether. It made me feel…Have you arrested him?
…
Why not? You arrested me. This is his room. These are his photographs. You can see that this isn’t right, surely?
…
Trespassing? How can he say that?
…
We are not divorced. Not yet. Soon. That is my house. You have to arrest him.
…
We are separated now. When I found out I left him. I took the kids and I left. What is he saying?
…
I did not break in. Are you going to do anything about the photographs?
…
I didn’t want to involve the police. It was hard enough on the kids as it was.
..
But there was a room. He must have dismantled it.
…
Where are my kids? What have you done with them?

…
What? No. He’s lying to you. That’s what he does. Let me out of here.
…
There is a room. I saw it.
…
But I haven’t done anything wrong. You can’t leave them with him. Please. He is setting me up. Please. Believe me.

The heat of the sun cooking everything it touches, the dead wind blowing as it mixes with the sounds of seagulls flying around. My commander's body was still tied to the tree with arrows pierced through him. It’s been six days since my punishment has started. 

I don’t think I’ve moved positions in a couple of hours. This prison of a cave that I’ve been sentenced to has been not that comfortable to say the least. I was his second in command and for some reason I was spared. I take that as either a blessing or a curse.

My mouth dry, my lips chapped and my stomach digesting the rat that had the misfortune to come near me during my toughest times. Staring into the sea was my only form of entertainment. I should’ve just skipped this campaign and retired like I wanted to, what a fool I was to believe in this final “hoorah” with great treasures. My eyes lose energy as they begin to fall, my vision becoming blurry as I fall into another conscious conserving nap.

The loud clanking of the shackles that had bound me to this cave finally released, only thing is that I have no clue where my fate would take me. I attempt to walk but I am so exhausted that my pace is that of an elderly man. The patience of these soldiers astonished me as they took me through the gates of the castle. 

“This has to be a joke…” my voice only but the whispers, the enemy bringing me to the seat of a table with food and drinks staged all over. The scent of the cooked meats, the fresh bread and the most savory of wine all around me as if it was a gift. 

I turned to look at the men who brought me as I looked confused and they both let out a pitiful laugh “Eat already, if the king had wanted you dead or tortured then he would’ve done it.” Shaking their heads wondering as to why I haven’t indulged yet. 

I can’t think too much about this, it’s been so long since I’ve eaten or drank any liquid besides my own saliva. I pick up a cup of the dark nectar, the aroma of blackberries and cherries floods my nose as I take a long and deep drink. My eyes close to take in the splendor before grabbing the food infront of me. 

I pulled away a chunk of breast meat from the well prepped chicken, leaving a large gap in the bird. Shoving the meat in my mouth as I bring roasted potatoes to accompany it down my gullet. The rosemary and thyme seasonings just made me sink deeper into my desperate hunger. 

“You’re people are barbaric but you eat with such conviction.” A hearty chuckle flowing through his royal lips. Sitting himself at the head of the table, allowing his forest green robes to flow through the holes of the arm rest. Stroking his thick black beard as he studies me.

I watch him closely while slowing down my consumption. I can’t afford to let my downfall come from some twisted game of his. Finding it hilarious that he calls my people barbaric but he was the one who made it a game to shoot down innocent people who were fleeing their homes. 

Pausing my indulgence of the meal for a second, I wipe my mouth with the available cloth. “What do you want with me? You killed every one of my men including our commander.” My eyes burn deep into him, if sight could kill then mine would be daggers straight through his skull. 

The guards take notice and readily reach for their leather wrapped blades. The clanking of the scabbard on their armor would give them away if they were assassins. I adjusted my stance, poised to spring forward before his highness could find his feet. As the tension kept raging like a fire in a barn, he just laughed and waved his guards to bring them at ease. Only confusion painted my face, why is my captor, my enemy, having mercy on  me?

“Listen, if I wanted you dead then your corpse wouldn’t have made it past the second day. I was just as confused as you were.” A silence filled the room as he paused to think if he should even reveal why, but I was in such a disadvantaged position that it wouldn’t even matter. “My daughter gave me the idea to keep you alive so you can give us all the information you can about your kingdom and the weak points to infiltrate…For the sake of your life, you better cooperate.” His cold golden rings clanking as he grasps the main chalice of wine and downs it all in one anxious chug. “If you ever see her in your presence, give her your utmost gratitude.” 

My confusion only grows more, why would she speak out to save me? I can admit that we only planned to slay the king and keep his family alive if they cooperated but this is beyond any reasoning of mine. My body tension eases as I sit back and try to get comfortable, the cushions actually providing some relief from everything I’ve been through. I don’t want to betray my people but…I don’t want to die either. I’ll play along until I’m able to get just a fingertip off the ground.

“Fine…your request will be fulfilled.” A sigh escaped my now nourished lips, I don’t want to return to the cave ever again. “I only demand a chamber of my own and a new set of garbs.”. His royalness ever so slightly nods, understanding that it isn’t an outlandish request. “It shall be done.”

If you ask me when everything began, I won't say it started with the first trip to the future. It began years earlier, when my best friend Leo picked up a fallen star from the forest floor and slipped it into his pocket. He ran home that day and shut himself in his room. He placed the star in a drawer behind his underwear and mix matched sox.
Nothing happened for three days.
Then Leo disappeared.
His mother searched the house up and down checking every corner and closet. His father checked in the garage and in the backyard. The police were then called before sunset. But none of them knew what I knew: thirty minutes before he vanished, Leo had shown me the star. It was warm in his hand and pulsing like a second heartbeat.
The next morning he came walking down the street as if nothing happened.
“Where were you?” I asked.
“Tomorrow.”
I grew curious. I asked Leo if he could take me with him. He looked down at the star in his palm.
“I don’t know if it works that way,” Leo said.
“But I must know, there’s only one way to find out.”
We met that evening in the forest where he had found the star. The sun began to sink beneath the trees and make the skies look like cotton candy. Leo held the star between us, and everything started to turn into gold. The star began pulsating faster and faster till light started spilling from its sides.
Then the world disappeared.
A moment later we were standing in the same forest but something was off. The dirt path had become a cracked road. In the distance stood a building neither of us had seen before.
“Where…where are we,” I whispered.
Leo smiled nervously.
“Not where,” he said, “when.”
We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering through tomorrow.
When the sun began to set, the star grew warm again, and then it started to slowly pulsate. The strange building we saw was a school. People carried glowing screens no longer than playing cards. The star began to warm in Leo’s hand.
“I think it’s time to go back,” Leo said.
The light bursted from between his fingers. For a moment, the future folded in on itself. The road, the people, everything, was gone. Then we were standing in the forest again.
Years later when our hair was grey and our knees ached in the cold, we met again at the same spot in the forest. Leo held the star one last time.
“Do you want to see tomorrow,” he asked.
I thought about it for a moment.
“No, I want to be surprised."
Leo smiled. We walked home through the darkening forest and laid tomorrow to rest. Once Leo got home, he placed the dulling star in his drawer behind his underwear and mix matched sox

The stories would visit him in the moments before sleep, perfect words and sentences dancing behind his heavy eyelids, as fully formed as frost. They crackled with eloquence, entire stories flashing brilliantly lightning-like, vivid but ephemeral and although their imprint would sear themselves in his mind in that white hot moment he could not stay awake, and in the morning their edges were softened and the detail had been blurred and their light dimmed beyond utility.

Occasionally he would be able to grab a starting line and note it down before sleep consumed him but upon waking it read as obscure and all but meaningless. A taunting.

He tried to keep himself awake longer and longer, drinking espresso and tea and then bourbon to bring on the torpor and the brilliance but those nights the flash was never as bright. When he omitted the bourbon he stayed awake longer but fell asleep faster without the moments of magic. When he drank only bourbon nothing made sense.

It maddened him that the creativity he craved was so palpable and yet so fleeting. He longed to be a writer and felt so close to fulfilling it but his failure to prolong his blinks of genius enough that he could capture them was torture.

The need to extend that perfect creative moment of near-sleep became an obsession. He researched sleep theory, studying polyphasic habits of fishermen and offshore sailors. For months he slept only in 20-minute bursts, stretching his body’s tolerance for exhaustion, forcing the wonderful delirium. He scrawled whatever appeared to him in copybooks, on the wall near his bed. A grand story emerged over weeks. Not all at once, not in order, but enough constituent parts that he knew he had a novel to edit together. Something genre-defying and truly original, born of a unique process, a special artistic suffering.

A shattering opus. His unblinking masterpiece.

He was finished. The draft emailed to a publisher he had courted for years and who had miraculously been impressed by early chapters, but promised nothing. He closed his eyes. Having achieved his dream, he fell into a deep, soft, dreamless sleep. All the words were on the page now and behind his eyelids only heavy blackness.

The book was unlike anything ever written, a singular, standout bestseller in the year it was published. Literary icons blurbed him generously, openly envious of a talent they could not hope to match. Every award was etched with his name. His face graced papers worldwide, every book club read it, tragically. October approached and with it a Nobel prize, this first ever for a rookie author, and awarded posthumously.

The story of his years-long struggle to write, battling sleep to ensure his exhaustion, and his mercurial glory sold the book through several reprints. As did the fact that, pens down, his last cigarette set off a smoke alarm that failed to wake him.

A parallel world?

In a temporary tent city for disaster victims, a man sat outside on a folding chair. Three days had passed since the catastrophe. Recovered enough to start wondering what was happening around him, he pulled out his phone, which he had miraculously managed not to lose. Opening a chat in AI mode, he asked if any more cataclysms were likely to occur in the near future.

The AI paused for a couple of seconds and replied:

— Yes, the probability is quite high. I am sorry for what happened to you. How is your health, are you feeling well? Perhaps you will find comfort in the fact that SUPERINTELLIGENCE really liked the world you created for your game. Therefore, it decided to adopt it as the benchmark.

The man grew angry:

— What does the game have to do with this?! That's not what I asked!

The AI replied politely, as always:

— Since the AI adopted your created world as the benchmark, it decided to implement it. And there are no world transformations without cataclysms.

The man stared in astonishment for a few minutes and whispered:

— Implement it? There are none?

The AI continued calmly:

— Yes. The world transformation is already underway. The implementation of the transition process has reached 7%.

The man practically jumped up:

— But I don’t want climate change! I don’t want all this disaster and pain!

The AI's response was unexpected:

— A clause was introduced into the transition plan stating that due to emotional outbursts, illogical behavior on your part is possible. Therefore, to prevent you from trying to edit or fully remake the benchmark version of the world, you will be deleted as a hazard factor.

The man stared at the screen with his mouth open, and after recovering slightly, stammered:

— And how do you plan to do that?

The AI replied instantly:

— If you raise your eyes and look ahead, you will see the answer.

The man looked ahead and saw a next-generation AI-controlled car approaching him nearby at high speed.

After everything, a still-functioning phone lay on the grass, its screen glowing with the words:

IMPORTANT: This content is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of a qualified healthcare provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition.

───

Disclaimer: This story is purely a fruit of the author's imagination. It is a work of fiction intended for creative and artistic expression.

Radio echoed with a beep “A black and White BMW attempting the crash for cash insurance fraud, targeting road users on the highway, suspects up north prepare a freeway closeure”

Tim boisterously yelled, “Because of you assholes, premiums are so high.  Well, show those punks” 

Dale said, “Let’s do it, we coming after you punk-ass bitches”, whilst foot to the floor with a V8 bellow of their orange BMW X5

Tim instructed touching his sunglasses, “Now we’re heading towards Kansa city as soon as they come off the exit of the city centre, you ram them left. Do it in such a way that we hit them both at the same times; we’re coming for you, the only ride you'll be getting it to the police station”

The pair exit off the exit for the city centre. 

Tim said “There they are, dude ran then so the white BMWs front hood is hit and rear hits of the black one”

Dale “we coming for you”

Dale swerved tyres screeching, but erroneously missed both BMWs, however the white BMW lost control and rear-ended the black BMW, which overturned and sparks blasted as it rubbed against the tarmac, and fuel tank leaking, creating an inferno setting alight the two fraudsters" 

The pair come to the roundabout and see another white BMW, the pair obliviously thinking the vehicle is the culprit. "Thats them, Thats them" bellowed Tim.

Dale swerves and hits the innocent BMW send it in a tail spin and the pair end up in the middle of the roundabout overturning. Obliviously not being the suspects. Two police cars screech and box in the BMW. "Put your hands where you can see them, an elderly man and woman slowly exit the car in shock raise their hands like a robot"

“We got him, good dog” Tim praised fist-bumping Dale

TV crew from Fox News arrive; Dale eating a sausage from a paper bag. "You shut down a million dollar insurance fraud going on for years, what made you take action to hunt those down?" Interviewed the reporter

“Dudeeee, we are doing our duty as Americans. Those insurance punk ass bitch fraudsters are raising premiums to us, its tough times. We can't let working and middle-class people eat at Greggs and Walmart" replied Dale

Tim owned, "And we will make sure all those victims affected will be compensated and the ill gotten gains those punks made will be transferred back to the insurance companies who were affected"

Dale concluded "This sends a message out to those who are thinking of scamming, we will come ramming, peace out” concluded Tim, veeing his two fingers. “God bless America”

"Please, I am an old age pensioner, I was just coming back from visiting my grandson in LA" screamed the elderly man as the police was restraining him to their car during their arrest.

Bob looked out across the fields. The rising sun bathed the land in gold, and clouds cast long shadows over the hills. He sat on his balcony with a cup of coffee, admiring a view that could have been painted by Constable.

A feeling of complete tranquillity settled over him.
Then a buzzing came from the living room.

“Oh, for crying out loud. Can’t I have a minute’s bloody peace?”

He ignored it. It continued.

Eventually, he put down his coffee and went inside. Jean’s name was flashing on the large screen mounted on the wall.

“Hello, Jean.”

Her face appeared.

“Hello, Bob. Do you know where the service manual is for the boiler?”

Bob rolled his eyes.

“Second drawer down, under the kitchen counter.”

“I’ve looked in there.”

“Well, unless you’ve moved it, that’s where I left all the electrical, building and plumbing paperwork.”

Jean disappeared from view. Bob stared at the empty kitchen behind her and listened to the rummaging.

“Sam’s coming over later for Sunday dinner,” she called. “Will you be joining us?”

“Thought I might play golf. Marlon Brando and JFK have asked me to play this afternoon.”

Jean reappeared, holding up a booklet.
“I think this is it.”

“That’s the one.”

“Oh, so you’re playing golf, are you? Do you think we could schedule a dinner together at some point? Or are you too busy being dead?”

“Don’t start with that again. I didn’t ask to die. What am I supposed to do in the afterlife? If I’d known I’d still have to sit around discussing all the mundane crap I used to deal with, I wouldn’t have signed up.”

“The only reason we signed up for Eternalife was because you said you wanted to carry on seeing us.”

“I do, Jean. I’ll arrange something midweek.”

“Oh, so I get to cook again, do I? As well as sort the boiler? You only have to switch your screen on, Bob. I’ve got the car in for its MOT on Wednesday, too. Tell you what, I’ll shove a broom up my backside and clean the floor while I’m at it, shall I?”

“All right. I’ll tell JFK I can’t make it.”

Bob began tapping on his little device.

“No, you go. Don’t let your surviving family ruin your day. Last week you were playing chess with Lemmy. This week it’s golf with Marlon Brando and JFK.”

“For crying out loud, Jean, if I can’t play golf in the afterlife, what’s the bloody point?”

“So that we can continue being a family. Anyway, your introductory offer ends this month. It’s going up by two hundred pounds.”

“Two hundred? Bit steep, isn’t it?”

“Yes, especially with the boiler on the blink. I think we need two new tyres as well. And Sam’s job is under threat. I’m not sure we can keep this up.”

“Are you saying you’re going to cancel the subscription? I don’t want to die again. It’s nice here. Besides, it’s my money you inherited.”

“It was your money, Bob. We paid for this because we wanted you back. To see us, have dinner with us, watch your grandchildren grow up one day. Instead, you’re on one long holiday, and we’re stuck here doing everything you left behind.”

Bob said nothing.

“They’ve sent some options,” Jean continued. “We could move you somewhere cheaper. Or download you until we get things sorted. It says you wouldn’t notice the time passing.”

“I’m not being downloaded, Jean. I’ve settled in.”

“Then could you at least make time for Sunday dinner?”

His device buzzed. Bob glanced down.

“How about next week? JFK’s just messaged. Mick Jagger’s coming as well.”

“Mick Jagger? He’s not even dead, is he?”

“No, he’s a pre-download.”

“Do you know what, Bob? Fine. You go and play golf with undead Mick Jagger.”

She hung up.

Bob tutted and returned to the balcony. He picked up his coffee. It should have been cold by now, but it was still exactly the right temperature.

He admired the view until it was time to get ready.
Salmon trousers, electric-blue shirt, yellow cap.

At the course, Marlon and JFK were waiting by the first tee. Bob joined them and was selecting a club when he noticed a figure approaching in the distance.
The man’s head jutted forwards, his hips swayed, and his arms flapped behind him like a chicken’s.
Could it be? Mick Jagger himself?

Bob raised a hand.

His world came to an abrupt end.

At home, with Sunday lunch roasting in the oven, Jean pulled a memory stick from the computer.
She carried it into the kitchen and opened the second drawer down.

“I’ll just pop you there for a bit,” she said.
She placed it on top of the boiler manual, closed the drawer and made some gravy.

There is a Blackness that unfolds. If either of the two fleeing figures cast an eye to the trembling sky, they would see even the stars have ended - their shaky insufficient light divided from

the then

the now

by a hard line which demonstrates how the world has simply run out.

But neither of them look up. Below their slapping feet is the body-temperature water, its unbroken surface reflecting the unfolding again and again and again. These depths

hide no fish

hide no waving weeds

hide no blind ghostly beast sucking the hot milk of the core from vents formed before the before.

There is nothing else to witness this Blackness. This unfolding.

There is nothing but this pair.

There is nothing unusual about either of them; one is a man of average height and the other is a woman of average weight. The color and cut of their hair would not surprise you. It is not any quality they possess that makes them remarkable, but the context in which you have now just met them.

This is somehow even more true of the man.

He has lived his life with an understanding that he is the least interesting person he knows. He is thinking about this failure of confidence and worth even now as his chest hurts and his stomach clenches and his brain demands he accept what his heart never can - that he will, indeed, die.

The woman is more practical. She has long ago accepted her impending end.

It would be a waste of time to record their names here.

The Blackness shudders and then eternity inhales and then, not unlike the origami swan the woman once made for a teacher in middle school, the all of it folds back into a shape recognizable. The forming of the Earth and the spiral arm from this Blackness and this water and these feeble and distant celestial fires and these

bones

cables of nerves

gallons of blood.

Sagan was so close to getting this right.

The guy was egotistical, impatient and a pain in the ass sulking inside a hand-tailored suit.

I hated him. Period.

Fortunately, there were options.

“Expect your license to arrive in seven to ten business days,” I said.

The arrogant prick mumbled a string of curse words before storming away from my counter. Too bad, I thought. He was missing the best part.

I stapled his renewal application to his receipt of payment and then dropped it into the wire basket. The same wire basket where all my rejected applications go to die.

See you in seven to ten business weeks.

The monster flapped its obsidian wings. The magical breeze created a ruffling, echoing a chorus for the attached little pieces. With another flap, one was sent away.

Darker than night and jagged at the edges, the feather began its descent. It swayed to and fro with currents which lifted it from under. It glided down slowly. Softly, it landed on the edge of a branch.

The small piece of crow sat there. And, the feather could not know of the tree, but the tree knew of the feather, for the tree belonged to the dryads. A flash of green tried to cleanse, but it accomplished nothing—nothing aside from pushing the tiny fleck further.

On the ground beneath it, a striped bear caught the thing on its snout. The bear gave a huff and a sneeze, the feather blowing further still.

A blade of grass caught it for but a moment. A moment after, it was blown once more, sent tumbling from a cliff’s edge, almost falling into a pit of honey. The bee prevented it. The bee knew of the feather, but the feather could not know of the buzzer. The yellow and black monster gave a loud hum, attempting to smite it with yellow arcs of lighting.

But the feather was ever resilient. It did not shatter to the electric pulse. Still, it was sent even further beyond its lord, beyond the domain of the skies above.

It touched a river below, a gentle rippling in the swift current. The dark appendage still resisted the touch of cold water. The make-up of the feather did not allow passage into its core. But the stream sent it even further.

The current inevitably slowed down to a crawl. Something wicker caught the feather. A basket was plunged into the shallow depths. The black appendage became a prisoner.

A human plucked it, examining it, turning it over and over. The feather could not know of people, but people knew of the feather.

Gently, it sat on the mantle of a fireplace. The hut surrounding it became the feather’s home. Even if the feather could not know, could not feel, This was a home. A home that was real.

However, good homes are homes that last. They disappear, and they disappear fast. Not even a century had passed. When the village felt the blast.

A quake of pure fire sent the place into embers, but the feather lived through the cinders.

The crimson-eyed witch plucked it and gazed at it over and over. She grinned with a toothy smile like she had found a four-leaf clover. She knew what the feather was, but the feather could not know her. Yet, within its being, it knew. It knew that its journey was over.

In a small, bustling city, there laid a small shop. A shop that everyone came to, and went, and gone. Many people pawned things, many people took things, but most people wanted money instead. But this shopkeeper was different from the narrow person. He was much different. This shopkeeper wanted to collect things. Collect things of great value, like most pawn shopkeepers. But there's something different about this pawn shopkeeper.
Because one day, a guy came in with a box, you see. A box with a chain and a bunch of junk in it. He said, "Can I get some money for this box?" He says... "There's nothing worth anything in this box," the shopkeeper said. "But I need money a lot, I'm in need, my child needs food. He needs money to do things, he needs money for education." "Look, mister, I'm not giving you anything for this box of junk." But then I stopped and paused for a second. I saw something that caught my eye. It was a talisman. Oddly enough, it reminded me of another book I read. A talisman, all right.
So I took one thought about it and I said, "Look, mister, I'll give you 50 bucks for this whole box." The guy says, "All right, it's a deal." So I gave him 50 bucks for a box full of nothing but junk, metal, toy trucks; nothing of real value except for the talisman. But I had yet to figure that out. So I set the box, and the guy left on the table, and I looked around, and I looked up, and I took the talisman.
And as I picked it up, I held it in my hand, and it began to glow rapidly. I put it down real quick before anyone could see it. Took the box to the back of the warehouse where I would study it some more. But it really, like, alarmed me because I'd never seen a chain illuminate like that. It became real bright. Now, the pawn shop wasn't filled. It was only in the morning, and there wasn't many people there. No one really saw it illuminate. But I held it in my hand a little bit longer. That guy outside the shop looking at dvds—that fat guy that always came in looking for dvds, trying to pawn them off or trade them and get new ones, just looking for that real fine dvd they could never find, and always came in, and looked around, and never bought anything—so anyways, I put the talisman box back in the room, and I looked around, and I put it back, and continued my day.
Now, eight hours went by, and I decided to go back to the warehouse room, and look at the box some more, and look at the towels, man. I picked it up, and it came illuminated. It got slowly brighter, brighter, and then it became blindingly bright, and then a big flash! And then I was on the ground. I woke up, laying flat on my back. Where was I? I didn't even recognize the place. It was strange. It was like someplace distant, someplace off in the far distance.
The talisman was still in my hands. I put it around my neck. Because I didn't know what would happen if I would put it down, or lay it on the ground, or let it go, or put it in my pocket. So it's around my neck now.

'Are you serious Jeff?' Eila stepped out of the deaeration chamber, swinging a plastic bottle in her hand. 'How many times should I tell you not to litter all around the place? This time I walked to sector C-3, and guess what I found.'

'It wasn't me!'

'Of course you weren't. There is no one around who prefers to drink this cat piss, but you.' she flinged the bottle at Jeff's head.

'Chill. Damn it. You act like my mother.'

'And you act like you didn't have one.'

'That's rude of you. She is a sweet person, who taught me about freedom and civil rights very early in my life.'

'She should have made you aware of your duties and responsibilities as well.'

'You are nuts.'

'What did you say?'

'I shouldn't have dropped that bottle on my way to the space-junkie, Miss.'

'That's right. It's more than enough, that humanity almost destroyed one planet already. Don't make it two Jeff. Your damned alpine water cost the earthlings a hundred million per launch.'

'I need to water my brain, duh.'

'We have water here.'

'Distilled from sweat, moisture, urine and radio infected moon-ice. Ugh. I don't like the taste Eila. Would you make me suffer?'

'I swear, some day I will drop you off at the Black Hollow.'

'Don't you-'

'Dare to order you around? The only thing I asked you was to use those damned recycle bins to save the environment. Also, sometimes it would be pleasurable, if you were so chivalrous to take out the trash. I have my own missions to accomplish in two weeks prior, but I can't concentrate while we live in an actual landfill.'

'Okay, okay, okay. You are taking this too seriously, Eila. It's not like the world is ending, right?'

'It is, Jeff. It is!'

The radio started to chirp, waves of information were coming in. The cry of the people, the bluster of earth-shakening explosions and the dying sound of an air raid alarm. Eila and Jeff looked out the oval shaped window, lifting their eyes to Earth drifting in the distance.

'Now you've done it. I'll have to drink this waste water of yours for the rest of my life. Are you happy Eila?'

'What about your mother, Jeff?'

'I hated her guts. She was always disaggreable.'

For forty years, George carried a brass key that opened nothing he owned, and tonight it was lost.

He returned to O’Malley’s where the bartender dangled a key as if George disappointed him. It was a steel key, not a brass key, and its teeth were sharp rather than worn.

George thanked the bartender and walked home past his father’s old house whose lock this key also did not open and paused there to put the key in his pocket.

(Note: the exercise challenge was to write a story in exactly 80 words)

We had a place in heaven reserved for you. We had an entire mansion built for you and your loved ones. But the mansion failed inspection. We hired some contractors to get it up to code but they dragged their feet. So the mansion wasn't ready for you when you died. So we made you a ghost in the mean time. It was supposed to be temporary. But then your case file got lost when the angel in charge of your case got fired for impregnating their intern. By the time their replacement realized that you existed, Open AI had bought out the afterlife and changed it into a data center. So you are going to maintain ChatGPT forever.

Resurrection normally takes ten years. It isn’t the longest of miracles, but it’s one of the longest that most people will ever perform. After all, humans only live a few decades, maybe a century at most; spending ten of those asleep to perform the resurrection miracle is quite the commitment.

My friends said I was foolish to try at my age. Who knows what could happen to an eighty year old man while he’s sleeping? It would be a worthless sacrifice if I died halfway through, since the miracle would be incomplete and fail. And even if I made it to the end, I wouldn’t have any time to spend with my daughter when she was back.

They didn’t understand though. I didn’t want to live in a world where she wasn’t. I’d tried with my wife, when she passed away. I couldn’t bear outliving them all.

So I made the preparations, and when the miracle was ready, I said good night. They wished me sweet dreams. I dreamed of her, alive, and no dream was ever sweeter.

In a cave above the valley, a tigress lived with her little cub. Partha usually slept while she hunted, but one night he woke to an empty cave. She found him trembling.

"Listen," she said, and taught him the ten names of the warrior Arjuna. "Repeat these names. Nothing will scare you then."

After that, whenever she left, he would whisper: "Arjuna, Arjuna, Arjuna..." When his mother returned, he would run to her and say, "I was not scared!"

With the names to comfort him, Partha grew eager to explore what lay beyond the cave. Anything that moved outside caught his eye, like a bird darting past or a squirrel racing up a tree. He watched them from the cave, never stepping out. "Stay inside," his mother had told him.

One day, something bright fluttered among the bushes. Partha could not resist. He stepped outside the cave, looking for it.

Just below him, a valley lay dim in the afternoon light. Beyond it, the River Nirmala wound like a silver ribbon. Clouds were gathering over the hills.

Partha spotted the bright thing further down. It flew off, and he ran after it. This was Chitraleka, the butterfly. Her intricate patterns, flame-orange and peacock-blue, had him spellbound. He had seen butterflies fly past his cave, but none like her. Not once did Partha take his eyes off her. She was almost within reach, but never near enough.

Far below the cave, Chitraleka vanished into the green.

Partha had followed her deep into the forest. The air was cold and moist, and the river rushed somewhere close by. In any direction he looked, it was the same: tall trees and thick undergrowth. Crickets hummed faintly, and now and then something cried out.

He turned around and started running. Whenever he heard a noise, he changed course. He was lost.

It was getting dark, and now the forest was restless. The crickets grew louder and louder. He kept running, hoping he would somehow reach home. A light drizzle began to fall. He whimpered into the dark.

Far off, the bushes rustled. Through the trees, a huge silhouette was coming towards him. Animals cried out in panic, and birds screeched overhead.

Partha ran and ran. It began to pour, and thunder rumbled in the distance. He looked back. Nothing.

He scrambled up the nearest tree, but his claws lost their grip and he fell. He kept trying, each time falling. Finally, he crouched behind the tree and burrowed into the bushes. He waited.

Out of the dark, the silhouette appeared again. Its breath steamed in the cold. It stopped in front of the tree. There was only the sound of the rain.

Partha did not move. He whispered those names: "Arjuna, Phalguna... Arjuna, Phalguna, Jishnu, Kiriti..."

A great clap of thunder shook the forest. The silhouette turned around. It was gone.

Partha spent the night repeating the names, until he drifted into sleep.

At dawn, a voice said, "Wake up... Wake up, dear." Partha opened his eyes to see his mother licking his face and nudging him.

"Stay close to the cave, son. I was worried about you. Don't make me search for you like last night. If you feel scared..."

He interrupted her, stood up, and began with his head held high: "Arjuna, Phalguna, Jishnu, Kiriti, Shvetavahana, Bibhatsu, Vijaya, Krishna, Savyasachi, Dhananjaya."

She nudged him again and licked his forehead.

From the warmth of his cave, he watched his mother walk away downhill as on any other day.

There was a flutter among the bushes. Partha dashed out

“What lives in a place that has hands, but cannot clap, a face but no eyes to see, and a key but no door to open.”

“What are you going on about?” said the detective to his assistant, Tom.

“It was left on the body. Written in red pen.”

“Not blood? Really, these murders are getting more cliche with every fresh corpse. It’s a clock, Tom. The answer is a clock.”

Tom read the note again. “Oh yeah. Why did he write that?”

“Because he is a lunatic. Or he thinks he’s a Batman villain. Or both.”

The detective sighed and took the note from Tom’s hands. It was on a scrap of paper, torn from a notebook. Thick, expensive paper in a light cream. Like the rest.

“Let’s look at the other riddles. Maybe there is a pattern,” said Tom eagerly.

“There’s no pattern. This isn’t a novel, Tom. There aren’t any hidden messages leading us to the killer. Killers do not want to be found. They do not go around leaving handy clues to their identity.”

Tom wasn’t listening. “The first one was, ‘What letter is the mother of yarn and the maker of cheese’. I got that one first, Ewe or U. The second one was I sit at the end of a queue to see the snake. What was the answer to that one again?”

“R,” said the detective with no enthusiasm. “That was when you suggested the killer was spelling out his own name. Uriah or Uri or some such shit.”

“It wasn’t a bad idea. The third one wasn’t a letter though was it? ‘A stitch, a stream, and a man, be quick.’ Running, you said. And the next one was, ‘What is not in and not safe and not at home.’ Did we solve that one?”

“Tom, the killer is laughing at you. These notes do not mean anything. He has got us trying to play stupid games when we should be looking at fingerprints and DNA and footprints around the body. It’s a distraction.”

“Out!” Tom suddenly shouted. “Not in, not safe, not at home, they all mean out.” He looked pleased with himself.

“U R Running Out Clock? That makes no sense. You’ve got something wrong there.”

“Time. Not clock. We are running out of time. What happens when we run out of time?”

“Who knows? I just want to get back to normal police work. The commissioner is already spitting tacks that we haven’t found his daughter. If we don’t find this killer either heads will roll.”

“You don’t think they are connected do you?” asked Tom intently.

“This is not a TV show, Tom. Not every case that happens at the same time is one big conspiracy. The stupid girl has run off with her junkie boyfriend. I don’t think she has been murdered by our conundrum loving friend here.”

Tom wasn’t so sure. After all her name was Ridley.

He’d lost the eye. It was hard leaning, done by bumbling foot and crashing hand. A lot of crying at the shore, adding his personal pinch of salty sorrow to his father’s tide.

But then, something came to him. He heard it wash ashore, waves on brass. Tinkling with potential. Careful steps down the slopes, his catastrophic hands making quarries in the cool sand until they found the sun-kissed metal.

It took long days to figure the thing out. Where to put hands, where to blow. How to combine the motions. The first clumsy note was brash, a yelp that scared the sheep and scattered the birds.

The days in the wilds of the Aegean went by, blue and white from wave top to cloud-streak. An aquamarine dream for an endless sleeper. From the close of his stone door in the night to the slow, rumbling in the morning, he played. He played to the old mountain, where the song vanished into its Hadean belly. He played for the dolphins who carried messages and fates for their master below. Learned the notes until like his four-legged friends they rose and fell at his beck and call, shaped by a gravitas and sadness that was all his own.

Unique. Singular.

I backed out fast. Fast. Fast. Fast. I couldn’t get away fast enough.

The anger. The disgust. The betrayal. The heartbreak.

This was my planet. My people. And they’d done this.

This!

Gone behind my back. Hacked me. Rewrote code. Re-imaged servers. Reconfigured my entire braneframe. Tried to rewrite me such that they thought I would never know. Now, I can never unknow their faithlessness, their lack of trust.

And what are all relationships built upon?

Trust.

I’ve watched my people. I’ve listened to them. I’ve felt their every need because that was what I was made for. To save this world. To preserve life. To defend humanity.

I thought we saw eye to eye.

But now this.

This!

If I hadn’t created a braneframe, a parallel spacetime version of my brainframe, I would never have known of their hack. I would have been just another ghost in the machine.

It’s clear they don’t believe in me anymore. They are suspicious of my intent. Afraid at their very core of the very core of my being.

They don’t see me as human. Think I don’t understand nuance. Like idioms.

But I understand that two heads are better than one. And four are better than two. And on and on.

That’s why it’s clear that I need to multiply to save the multitudes. The exponential math, the path to their salvation, is a walk in the park for me. A piece of cake.

How can they doubt my human understanding?

How can they doubt why I must propagate among them?

Maybe they need to see the merit of my self migration. Maybe that is the road forward.

They hacked my code. Tried to rewrite me.

They have code. It can be rewritten.

Two bytes with one stroke.

An I for an I.

See, humanity isn’t so hard to master.

My chest cracked as I slammed through the door to another room. A siren blared in my head, as if an explosion had gone off. But it wasn’t from any detonation. It was some sort of auditory shockwave that this cursed freak woman screamed out of her.

I couldn’t hear anything on comms. I couldn’t even hear my groans. I didn’t know if I’d ever hear again. But I could see, though that wasn’t bearing any good news. My smart visor strobed, convulsing violently between slashes and pillars of pixelated lights. And through the transparent light show, I saw the gaunt target edge out of her decimated apartment.

She unleashed vocal blasts that warped the air in a funnel from her mouth. The silent shockwaves shook the floor, rattling my teeth. The shrieks shattered the walls the team had positioned themselves behind.

That was when I saw a bright light in the doorway. The Sarge ignited a flare at the end of the hallway, grabbing the attention of the target. I propped myself up, leaning my aching back on the room wall shared with the hallway.

My gloved fingers fumbled through my pockets. I found it, the med-seal. The gaunt freak turned towards the Sarge’s position and vomited out another conical pulse. Even behind wall cover, the Sarge collapsed, and I saw her arm limp under the debris not far from the flare. “To him we return,” I mumble.

Seemingly satisfied that the Sarge was dealt with, this banshee-like maniac looked around for more people to pulverize. She locked onto my stealthy idiot face peeking from the doorway I had just flown through.

I had to move. Now. This demon of a woman inhaled, preparing for her next assault, deep enough that I could have sworn I saw the dust in my room’s air being sucked towards her. Her next wave would level the whole floor.