One to the Left

Armin benefitted throughout his life from a condition that caused him to look at the next person to the left of whomever he was addressing. When a policeman ticketed Armin's car just as Armin was running up, he yelled at the bewildered woman next to him on the streets, avoiding a greater charge.

He once explained an esoteric element of physics, completely wrongly, to the person at the next table instead of his conversation partner. The woman went on to patent a very successful product on her misunderstanding of the principle, and gave Armin half the credit and the profit.

Meeting Armin's future wife was a matter of trying to ask out the woman he desired and getting a date with the surprised woman next over. When they had a child, the maternity ward nurses frequently corrected him as to which child was his.

In a consulting job, Armin tried to fire an extraneous employee for "inappropriate use of company resources." The next employee over demanded to know how Armin had discovered her peculation.

And naturally, when Death came for him, Armin made an eloquent argument to prolong his life... to the child beside him. Death took him without delay.

Slightly Intimidated

"Arneson," Dr. Umbre leaned into view through the doorway, "I need help." "Reeeeallly," said Dr. Arneson. She leaned back in her chair. "You haven't asked me for help since I was failing you in Modern Galactic." Her eyes crinkled as she smiled.

"Yeah, and if you fix this with me, I'll let you tell that story wherever you want." He tossed a manila folder on her desk. "This is freaking me out."

She raised an eyebrow, but started to flip through the data and photos. A few minutes in, she flipped pages faster and faster, then stopped partway through. "What was your final count?"

"Twenty-four in the habitable zone, all earthlike."

"That can't be natural," said Arneson. "So, what? Someone put them there?"

"God?"

"I was thinking aliens, but God has to pay the same cost. He just has a bigger wallet. What would it take to kick a planet into a new solar system?"

Arneson scribbled on an envelope, but Umbre got there first. "Roughly four-point-five time ten to the thirty-two joules, he said. "Assuming roughly our solar system, and a precise enough push that it doesn't need course correction."

"What about slowing into new orbit?" asked Arneson.

"Oh, shit. Okay, double it, so ten to the thirty-three joules?"

"Okay. What if alien-God used direct energy to mass conversion?" Both went back to their calculations. This time Arneson was first. "Five times ten to the forty-one."

"Um," said Umbre. Both looked at the sketch Umbre had made of the data, exoplanets arranged in a maximally efficient pattern around a star.

"Well, I quit," said Arneson.

"Quit what?"

"Astronomy. If someone out there can do that, they've done all the science we're gonna do for the next century. My research? All been done. By an alien fifteen light-years away."

"What if it wasn't aliens?" asked Umbre. "What if it was God?"

Arneson looked Umbre in the eyes. "If God made that system and our system, which one is his favored land? I hope to Heaven that that was aliens and not God, because if it was God, we are his forgotten bastards and we might as well all give up now."

In a small, confused voice Umbre asked, "Maybe we don't have to tell anybody…"

"No," said Arneson. "We tell everyone. We drop this bomb on the scientific world, and maybe everyone else will notice. Maybe we'll pick up the pace and learn what we need to match this in the next fifty years instead of a hundred, or five hundred years instead of a thousand." She put a hand on Umbre's shoulder and shook him. "We can shake the pillars of the world.

"And then I'm going fishing and never looking through a telescope again so long as I live."

This great post inspired this story. Enjoy!

Yes, I Got Some Stuff Wrong

From Chaos begat Ouranos, the sky that breathed across the water, and Gaea, the water flowing beneath the sky. For an epoch, this is all that was. “Hey, baby,” said Ouranos.

Gaea was quiet.

“How you doing, girl?”

Gaea tried to flow nonchalantly, but there wasn’t a moon yet, and it was kind of hard without a tide. “What do you want, Ouranos?”

“Jus’ wanna get to know you, baby. Let’s talk.”

“What’s there to talk about? It’s not anything happens around here.”

“So let’s make something happen, girl.”

“Really?”

“Oh, yeah, girl, I’m ready.”

“I mean, really? That’s your line?”

“What’s the problem, girl? You don’t like what you see?”

“What, the infinite horizon? The pale blue? They’re nice, sure, but-”

“Then what’s wrong, girl? Let’s mix up a storm.”

“Do remember the beginning of the epoch? Both of us begat by Chaos? We’re practically siblings. And frankly, you’re coming off like an asshole.”

“Hey, girl, I’m sorry, okay? No big. Let’s just hang out for a while, forget about this little thing, yeah?”

“Okay, fine.”

The wind blew over the water for a while.

“Am I wrong, or does having me on top of you make you wet?”

A Message from the River

A beautiful woman walks out of the river. Her hair is a rich mud-brown, her eyes a river-water blue. She is naked as the day she was born, a meaningless phrase because this was the day she was born. She walks until she finds civilization: a fisherman’s cabin by the water, fisherman included. Approaching him, she asks, “Please help me. The river has made me to bring a message to humanity. Will you help?”

Finding his voice, the fisherman says, “Ah, sure, I’ll help if I can, miss. What can I do?” He puts down his pole.

“The river has been misused and is on the verge of catastrophe. She has sent many messages without change, so she has sent me. I need your help to tell the world.”

He clears his throat. “I’ll do what I can.” He leads her to a van parked by the cabin. “Let’s see about getting you some clothes, then we can tell folks about your message.”

“Thank you,” she says, accepting his hand up into the back of the van. “Your wisdom will save our world.” He closes the back of the van. He locks it.

“They never get any smarter,” he mutters.

History Lesson

"...Planters invented peanuts, and Exxon-Mobil discovered oil." "Very good, Jeremy," said Mr. Alword, "you may sit down." He turned to the rest of the class. "Now, if you will all turn to page," his laser pointer struck the day's assignment on the whiteboard, "three hundred twenty-three in your history texts, we can resume yesterday's lesson."

Kim often had questions during their history lessons, but she usually kept them to herself. This time, she raised her hand. Mr. Alword gestured for her to speak. "If inventing or discovering something means you get the profit from it, why does Don get full marks for copying my homework? He didn't write it." The other students murmured, and she could feel Don staring at her.

Mr. Alword didn't smile. "Do you have any proof that Don is copying your work?"

She shook her head. "Then perhaps you should spend more time deciphering a way to increase your profit from your own work, rather than what someone else may or may not be doing with it. In exchange for that interruption, why don't you begin our reading. Second paragraph, please."

Kim sighed and looked at her book. "When George Washington first discovered the American continent..."

Principal Winter

She wore a narrow-cut dark suit, a thin slash of white shirt showing in the front. Her face was as sharp. She leaned forward as though she might strike either person sitting across from her: two children. The nameplate on her desk read "Principal Winter." "You," she pointed at the left child. "Speak."

"Well," it said, and Winter wondered how people discerned larval males and females. "Some of us were playing pirates, and Sammy said he was pirate king, and we had to give him our pirate loot or he'd take it."

"No," said Sammy, "I—"

"Silence," said Winter. "Proceed," she said to the first child.

"Um, I said no, and he pushed me. I pushed back, and Mr. Beecham grabbed us for fighting."

"Fine," said Winter. She looked at Sammy.

"We were just playing, and I didn't hurt Jenny, and that's how pirates work."

"Enough." The children stopped. "You," she pointed at Sammy, "have an overabundance of spirit. I am confiscating your soul for the rest of the school week." She plucked something from just over his head. Sammy's eyes dulled and his posture slumped. "You," she pointed at the other. "Continue defending yourself. Dismissed."

Sammy walked out, unprotesting.

For a Good Cause

"Please, I need them back." I had her right where I wanted her, and to highlight that I dangled one of the pouches in front of her. Her face went chalk white and her eyes nearly bugged out of her face. She knew the pouches were sealed and in no danger of opening, but she wasn't used to playing this close to the edge.

I tossed it to her, and she nearly passed out right there. "That one's free. You know my price for the rest."

"Please! This isn't just my professional reputation, this is, is... it could release a global plague!"

"Then it should be an easy decision," I said. I held out a pen. "Need my back to sign on?"

She glared, but she signed the papers. When she smacked them into my hand, she said, "Are you happy?" in a voice that could scrape paint.

"Almost." I gestured for her to open her car, then I pulled out a carrier. "Hey there, buddy," I said. Li'l Ben's meow gave me my first smile in days. It almost brought me to tears.

So I thanked her for the divorce and told her where to find the other pouches.