Learning from Madeline

Madeline brought me a dead thing. (Madeline is a cat.) When I found it, she moved toward the door and looked back at me expectantly. I threw the dead thing away, and Madeline looked puzzled, and perhaps a bit disappointed. The next time she brought me a dead thing, I petted her and thanked her and scritched under her chin. Once she was distracted, I threw the dead thing away. I later found Madeline where she had left it, looking around and looking at me.

Each time Madeline brought me a dead thing, I got rid of it, and she seemed to regard me differently. I felt something slipping away from me, like bathwater slowly draining away, leaving me chilly.

Eventually, I realized it had been some time since she had left me a dead thing. I went over and petted her, and scritched her, and she looked at me with tired, disappointed eyes.

The next day, I brought Madeline a dead thing. She looked a question at me, and I petted her, and scritched her, and opened the door. I saw excitement in her eyes, and perhaps a hint of pride. She dashed out the door, and I followed.

Mr Winter

“Once you hit the button, rip out the ethernet cable and trash the machine, yeah? Don’t want anyone shutting the process down.” The techie looked, improbably, like nothing so much as a football player. “I recall telling you to make that impossible.” Mr. Winter looked like nothing so much as a very well-dressed, balding scarecrow.

“Once you pull the cable and scrap the machine, it is.”

Winter was there to finalize his latest effort. Homemade nukes and control back doors secreted into every major satellite launch of the last decade. Activated, the satellites would plummet toward major cities across the world, detonating on proximity and simultaneously plunging the world into chaos and nuclear winter. Little of humanity would survive, and that in small, remote tribes across the world.

Vengeful gods, conceived and abandoned ages ago, would emerge from hiding and reclaim rulership over the humans who lived, and Mr. Winter would be their heirophant.

The techie lying finalized on the floor, Winter pushed the button, then left the room, cable and machine distinctly untouched. The last thing he wanted was to actually succeed. What a miserable thought.

The game was great fun, but winning would be very, very boring.

Appreciation

Half dark. An infrequented spot on campus. Perfect for an asshole in a hood to step around a corner of Donal Music Hall and point a gun at my chest. Froze in my boots, of course. Just gave two more assholes a chance to appear and surround me. Was shit, is what it was. “Here’s the deal,” said First Asshole. “Stand your ground and fight me,” flick, and a knife appeared in his hand, “or run and we hunt you. Either way, your life is on the line.” Blank look precipitates explanation. “No one appreciates life ‘til they fight not to lose it. You’ll thank us after, just like the others. If you survive.”

The fuck? Stalled, asking if I got a knife. Yes, apparently. Other assholes were there to keep me from running once a fight starts.

Guess all those fencing lessons were worth something. Cut on his arm and Asshole Prime drops his knife. Starts to congratulate me, then runs when he sees I’m not stopping. Only fair, right?

Turns out, I do feel pretty great. Giving no shits about late essays now. Maybe Asshole was onto something.

Still called the cops, of course. Fucking pretentious presumptuous asshole.

Harry's Story

When Harry was young, he wanted to be a fireman. Excellent, said everyone. Firemen save lives. But be careful, because it is dangerous! The next day, Harry wanted to be an astronaut. Terrific, said everyone. Astronauts further scientific knowledge. But it takes a lot of hard work to be an astronaut.

The next day, Harry wanted to be an explorer. Okay, said everyone. Explorers find new places. But there’s not much to explore any more. You should stick with astronaut.

The next day, Harry wanted to be a monkey. Huh, said everyone. You’re already a little monkey sometimes. But you can’t be a real monkey.

Yes I can, said Harry. I’m going to be a monkey astronaut fireman explorer.

Oh, said everyone. You can’t be all those things. Maybe choose one. Not the monkey.

Harry studied hard at school. He studied math and astronomy. He studied materials science and psychology. He studied economics and sociology. He studied biology and genetics.

Grown Up Harry joined a spaceship heading to new worlds as Chief Emergency Warden. It was an important job: he kept others safe from fire and other dangers while exploring space.

I’m still working on the monkey part, said Harry.

Not a Solution

The nightmares were getting worse. Once had become once a month, then weekly, then daily. Now the mix of violence, risk assessment, troop deployment, and death were intruding on her waking hours. No abstract patterns on the inside of her eyelids, no, just training schedules, enemy communication analysis, and the inevitable firefights and screaming and lines of corpses shredded by automatic fire and roadside bombs. Double-blinking brought up her optical desktop. She chose an app and some files with a few flicks of her eyes, and a transparent map overlaid the squat grey building in front of her, tinting it yellow. Federal Census Bureau, read the filename in the upper left, read the imposing block letter above the door.

Harvey might have been a boring boyfriend and a mediocre hacker, but he was a top-notch paranoiac. When his hack-spiders crawled across something that implicated the US Census Bureau, he dropped it on her doorstep and disappeared.

Its not going to solve the problem, but a general goes to war with the troops she has. She idly wondered where that thought came from as she revved her bike, checked her pistol, and peeled out toward the front door.

Sleep, Conquered

I have conquered sleep, but the war is not without casualties. With the exception of my mind, I do not act. In truth, it is more of a stalemate than a victory. I hold sleep at bay, and my mind runs unfettered. But sleep’s armies have my corpus pinned down, unable to maneuver or strategically retreat. But while my worthless body struggles, immobile and useless, with fatigue, my mind builds. It builds on foundations that never collapse beneath the weight of unconsciousness. Sleep is the toddler that monsters, innocent and ruthless, through the sand castles of thought, forcing their architects to rebuild day after day.

Free of this monster, my sandcastles reach to the sky. With twice the time to think, I think more than others do. More than twice as much! The more one thinks, the more momentum one’s thoughts acquire, as a train gathers speed on a straightaway, fatigue the rusted rail that grinds momentum to a halt.

Shed of that burden, my sandcastles reach with infinite momentum into the sky of space! I have fixed the economy, solved social injustice, created free energy, and cured disease.

When I figure out telepathy, you’ll all understand.

I’m so tired.

More Independent Thought

“Have you ever disarmed someone at this range?” she asked the guard. “No, I--” She took the guard’s gun, kicked in his knee, and stomped his neck as he hit the ground. His partner froze at gunpoint.

“You’re well-paid private security professionals. I’m an intruder. But you need to ask yourself, ‘Are we good guys or bad guys?’ You can’t always tell. You get your paycheck and take it home. Maybe to your family. You have hobbies. Friends. Ambitions. You’re a normal guy working a normal job, except with guns and retinal scans to get to work.

“You aren’t bad guys. You’re just guys. Your employers? All you know is they pay too well to be government. So judge based on me. I get a shitty government salary for this. I’ll be filing reports in DC tomorrow. I have two kids, Alan and Gertie, and I have pictures. But those are just words. Judge on this: I’m talking, when I could just kill you and move on. I’m the good guy. Trust me.”

“Hk-k-kk-k-kk-khhhhhh.” The downed guard breathed his last. Marty’s eyes widened. His hand twitched toward his gun.

“Godshitfuckit,” she said, and fired. “What a waste of breath.”