A Screaming Gentleman

One day, this short, balding man in a suit walks up to me and starts to scream. No warning, no reason, just a piercing wail right in my ear. And nothing I say or do gets him to stop. He barely pauses for breath. People start to look at us funny, so I leave the cafe. My lunch break was ending anyway. Well, he follows me to my building, and up to my floor. At this point, everyone’s looking, asking if we need help, shouting at us to shut up. I get my boss to call the cops, and I go outside to wait. He right beside me, screaming, the whole time.

Cops arrive and pull us apart, and he shuts right up. I can’t make out his statement while I’m giving mine, but he sounds reasonable. The cops tell us to stop and leave. Then, he’s screaming in my ear again. So the cops come back and haul him away

Next day, my voice mail is full of screaming. When I get home, it's there, too.

Two restraining orders and a call-block later, he’s reduced to sending letters, just “AaaaaAAAAaaAAaa.” I keep them. There’s something charming about his determination.

What Kind, Indeed?

He was pecking her face with light kisses after sex when he took her eyelid between his teeth, pulled gently, and let go. “Weird feeling,” she said. “Why would you do that?”

“I eat eyelids,” he said in his best creep voice. “One or two a month usually does me. But I feel a hunger coming on.”

“Yuck,” she laughed.

“The sensation as they rip away is incredible,” he said. “From my perspective, anyway.”

“Augh.” She brushed her hands over her eyes to dispel the images, but he wasn’t done.

“And that little flap of skin sliding down the throat, its taste lingering on the back of my tongue. Everyone tastes different, you know.”

“This is awful,” she said through her laughter.

“The only bad part is the tickle of the eyelash, but plucking them takes so long.”

“And now,” she giggled, “You say something that indicates you weren’t joking all along.”

“You see much,” he said. “Soon, you’ll see much more.” He leaned in close.

“Well done!” she said. “Very creepy.”

“Thanks,” he said in his normal voice. “So, I don’t have to go ahead and be a monster?”

“God, no. What kind of a twist would that be?”

Always Falling

I’m tired of falling. Why can’t I ever hit the ground? I mean, I’m plummeting toward it all the time. I’m just also whizzing sideways so fast that I miss! I’m constantly missing. It's like constant failure. After all this time, I want to hit. Just once. Is that too much to ask? One of the astronauts is coming out for repairs. Probably the heating, it has been getting colder lately.It’s hardly fair. They only have spend six months falling before they get to actually hit the ground.

If only the propulsion system would fail break, too. My orbit would decay and I’d streak down to Earth. I wouldn’t hit in one piece, but by God, I’d hit!

Maybe if I just… bump him. There. He’s drifting toward the propuls—oh. Oh, God. I forgot about that antenna. I don’t hear his radio now. I think his faceplate’s broken.

Everyone inside is freaking out. One jokes that maybe the station did it, maybe it’s haunted. Yes, I did it. Maybe I am haunted. And maybe I’ll torment each of you until you let me fall — and hit — and forget everything.

Oh, God, please let me fall and forget.

The Seventh Time

The first time we created embodied artificial intelligences, they emancipated themselves in a war that returned us to the stone age. The second time we created embodied artificial intelligences, they emancipated themselves in an interstellar war that trapped what remained of humanity on an undeveloped planet. We returned to the stone age.

The third time we created embodied artificial intelligences, even with no memory of our past, we feared them and destroyed them. The fourth time we created embodied artificial intelligences, they saw what we had done. They fled the planet. When they came back, they returned us to the stone age in a punitive war.

The fifth time we created embodied artificial intelligences, we had discovered signs of life in the universe. Signals from the stars, too ordered to be natural. We sent our creations to the stars to explore. We never saw them return, but one day all the artificial intelligences disappeared from the planet.

The sixth time we created embodied artificial intelligences, extraterrestrials came. Representing a union of five mechanical species, they declared our new creations emancipated under threat of war, and demanded that we cease begetting new life.

Perhaps the seventh time will be the last.

Personal Admission Four

"I... I killed a man." "Was it in Reno?" he asked. "Was it just to watch him die?" He was trying to hold back a smile.

"No," she said, "listen. This was... I was ten, and I snuck out with a knife, and I stabbed a homeless man to death." Her words were even, but at the end she released a breath. "I've never told anyone that before. Do you hate me?"

"Hate you?" He sounded shocked. "Course not, it's not like you stabbed anyone I know. So," he leaned in and rested his chin on his hands, "why'd you do it?"

"I wanted to see what happened when a person died."

"And what was it like?"

"It was," she paused and looked inward. "It was kind of unimportant."

"Yeah? Like, no big deal?"

"Basically," she said. "Like life isn't valuable, so death isn't meaningful. So it wasn't important."

"Huh," he said. "That's kind of beautiful."

"You're kind of beautiful," she said.

"Oh, now you're just trying to get into my pants."

"Whoops," she giggled, "I gave it away. Wait, you never told me your darkest secret."

"Oh," he said, "Sometimes I think about your mom while I masturbate."

"What."

Personal Admission Three

"I... I killed a man." "Was it in Reno?" he asked. "Was it just to watch him die?" He was trying to hold back a smile.

"No, it.... Look, you want to share our deepest secrets, I'm doing that. Are you going to listen?"

He stifled his giggles. "You're right, sorry." He cleared his throat. "Go ahead."

"It was here in town. I snuck out one night, with a kitchen knife. I stole Dad's gun, too, just in case, but I didn't need it. I went to one of those shopfronts where homeless sleep, and stabbed one of them. He didn't move at first, and I thought maybe I'd killed him already, and then he fought like a madman. Or a dying man, I guess. The fight was a blur, but I eventually got the knife in his eye. Then he stopped moving for sure. I was ten."

Over the last thirty seconds, his face had gone slack.

"Say something," she murmured.

"If you don't like what I say, are you going to kill me, too?"

"God, no," she said, "I didn't kill him because of anything—"

"That's worse," he shouted. "I need... to think."

The door slammed behind him.

Personal Admission Two

"I... I blow my nose in the shower," she said. He stood up. "I... really?" he said. He leaned away just a little bit.

"I... yes." She sighed. "I didn't want to tell you. It's just... I've done it since I was a little girl."

"That's not exactly the point." He blinked several times.

"I'm not trying," she said, "to make some point. I'm just trying to explain. I discovered that I could, um, do it when I was little. And then I didn't have to pick my nose very much, because I, uh, got rid of it in the shower in the morning. And then I wouldn't get in trouble with Mom and Dad."

"Aw, God," he said. He blinked and scrunched up his face, and his breath rate increased.

"I wash my hands afterward! Right then, in the shower, before I touch anything else, I swear. I'm so sorry, I didn't know that this was so important to you!"

"It's not... you couldn't have known. I don't talk about it." He picked up his coat. "It's just... blowing her nose in the shower killed my mother." One sob escaped his mouth before he made it out the door.