Murderers Anonymous

I checked that my face was covered, then stepped up to the lectern. "Remember that this is a safe place. Don't judge, because everyone here is trying. Who wants to speak first?" The first person up was fully covered with the robe and hood, but I recognized his tennis shoes from previous weeks. "My name is Mike," he mumbled, "and I'm a murderer."

"Hi, Mike," we chorused.

"I still remember when I lost control. He was just a kid, fourteen or fifteen, and I was older and so cool." We'd all heard the story before, but when he sat down, the front of his hood was damp.

"Thanks, Mike," I said. "Who wants to follow him?"

The person who replaced him had a reedy, grandmother's voice. "My name is Agnes," she said, "and I'm a murderer."

"Hi, Agnes," said the chorus.

"I'm afraid I fell off the wagon this week." I rolled my eyes. She falls off the wagon every week. "I took my rifle down to the park, picked out some man and shot him." She paused. "I'll try to do better next week," she said quietly, and then sat down.

Some of us are trying harder than others.

The Humane Thing

Death sits over a book, leaning into it as though hanging on a great speaker's every word. Every other minute after silent minute, Death turns a page, scrabbling with its bony finger for a grip on the paper. Occasionally, it brings its hand up to its mouth as though it might lick the phalanges with an absent tongue before turning the next page. Near the end of the book, a whisper slips from between the Reaper's teeth, like the last hissing breath of a dozen dying folk. Someone close enough to Death, close enough to be quite reasonably nervous, might think the whisper sounds a little like the words, "Oh, no."

"No, really?" it breathes again, and it turns the pages faster until it reaches the end. "I can't believe he did it," Death says. "It makes sense, but still... wow."

Death reaches for the next book in the series. Later whispers sound more like, "Really?" and "Oh, but... why?" along with, "God, he kills more people than I do."

In the end, Death took George R.R. Martin before he could finish the series. In a one-of-a-kind press conference, Death stated, "It seemed like the humane thing to do."

The Grim Reader

She hardly expected the visitor. She was in good health with good doctors, and she wasn't old. But there it was, interrupting her a quarter of the way into Ancillary Justice: the Reaper. "Listen," she said, "just let me finish this book and I'll go quietly, okay? You don't want me to throw a fuss, do you?"

Death shook its head and beckoned.

"Now? Okay, how about a deal. I hear you like those. So, read the first thirty pages of this." She pulled the Game of Thrones off a shelf and handed it to Death. "If you can put it down without finishing it after that, fine, I'm yours. Otherwise, I get to finish my book."

Death sat and read silently. She went back to reading. She was getting hungry when she realized Death was still reading.

"Here," she said. "I have to go out. If you finish that before I get back, here are the rest."

A week later, Death came to her while she was working on Ancillary Sword. "All finished?" she said. "If you liked those, try the Wheel of Time. Here." She pulled another stack from her bookcase.

She lived another forty long, healthy years.

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.