Of Cause and Effect

God looked down at the Earth, which was lush with green and fruitful things and teeming with animals. God thought that this wondrous creation would be nothing without minds to explore and to shape it. So God created humanity. Humanity did as God willed without instruction, exploring and expanding across the earth and building from God's creation. Their exploration taught them of cause and effect, that everything follows from what precedes it. This led to the obvious question, and humanity built centers dedicated to the contemplation of what cause had effected the world.

Delighted by humanity's curiosity, God granted humanity revelation of the divine. Temples to questions became temples to God and the answers. Humanity explored many interpretations of the divine revelation, and different groups favored different conclusions. Some forbade alien beliefs. They warred, and many temples fell.

God looked down on humanity, spilling blood and toppling houses of knowledge over as trivial a thing as what to think about God, who wasn't even part of the world humans had been made to explore. God chose to make a new people, one that would be totally unconcerned with what anyone else thought.

And that is how cats came to be.

You Have to Say

The three police officers waited in the precinct lot. One stood, two leaned on their cars, but none was at ease. "God, I wish this guy would show up," Officer Brusky said. "Stop it," said Sergeant Chopra. "It doesn't work like that."

"Yeah," added Officer Millikan. "You have to say something like, 'I wish I could run faster than Usain Bolt,' and then he shows up."

They didn't notice the purple smoke drifting out of their tailpipes until it coalesced into a muscular man with a broad smile. They jumped when he clapped his hands and boomed, "Your wish is granted!"

Service weapons practically leapt into the officers' hands. "You're under arrest," Chopra shouted. At the same time Brusky stammered, "What wish?"

"The wish to run faster, of course! Look at your phone!" Against Chopra's direction, Millikan holstered her weapon and checked the news. The surprise genie crossed his arms and looked smug. "Oh my god," she said, "look." She showed around a breaking news article: Bolt had just broken both legs in an accident.

"I didn't wish that!" she cried.

Chopra repeated, "You're under arrest!"

"Of course you did, Officer," the genie said. "And under arrest for what?"

"Um, battery. On Bolt," said the sergeant.

Millikan said, "But I didn't mean it!"

"I never touched him, your Honor," said the genie, dissolving into mist. "And you don't have to mean the words. You think anyone else thinks their wish will come true?" He vanished.

"Dammit," cried Brusky, whose trigger finger looked itchy.

"Told you this wouldn't work," Chopra said.

Officer Millikan met with the department counselor a few times, then returned to work. A month later, she ran down a fleeing suspect with unbelievable speed. The next day, the news revealed that Bolt's supposed injury had been a hoax.

A Pretty Firm Rule

"So, this is my place." Robert spread his arms and turned a slow circle. "It's not much, but... it's not much." He smiled. Mallory took a few strides into the center of the space and pointed at a closed door. "Bathroom?" He nodded and she stepped through the door without hesitation, but didn't close it. Robert heard his shower curtain clatter. "Hey, you, uh, feel like taking a shower?" Sensing an opening, he tried to lean confidently in the doorway. She was peering into the open tub.

"Nope," she said. "I have a pretty firm rule about checking the tub for bodies." Nodding in satisfaction, she left the bathroom. Robert stepping to the side so she could pass.

"Okay, um, why would you have that rule?" Robert watched her make herself comfortable on the couch.

"Ever gone to the bathroom after sex and found a body in the guy's tub?" She cocked an eyebrow at him. Robert shook his head. "Well, once is enough, y'know?"

From then on, Robert was the sort of person who checked to make sure his date wasn't the sort of person who checked the tub for bodies. It didn't help him win many second dates.

That's a Strange Noise

Lily was cruising along at a comfortable, almost-legal five miles above the limit when a small smile grew on her face. "Huh, that's a strange noise" must be the worst thing to say to yourself while driving, she thought. She started thinking about other times you wouldn't want to think that: in a plane, on a spaceship. Was it all mechanical conveyances? No, Lily decided, I'd hate to hear a strange noise while high up in a tree or climbing a mountain. Or having sex. Was there any circumstance where hearing a strange noise was a good thing?

Well, she thought, it must depend on the noise. Being strange meant it had to be unfamiliar, and that unfamiliarity made it suspect and potentially dangerous. Even if the noise presaged something good, the listener couldn't know that, must feel something like fear or discomfort until she could identify the noise. If it turned out to be good, she would experience the pleasure of relief. And if bad, she would have the initial alarm to help prepare herself. But it always started out bad.

Shifting gears to leave the freeway, she heard a metallic squeal. Huh, she thought, that's a strange noise.

Bold, Red Letters

KEEP OUT said the bold, red letters on the green door. Sam felt it made clear that the door was worth getting into. He didn't read instruction manuals, either. A moment with his tools and the door let him in. That revealed a small office, a comfortable chair, a small rug, a small bookcase, and an old desk polished by use. The room was orderly but not overbearingly neat: a book canted against the reading chair's armrest, and a pen lay atop a few papers on the desk. Sam looked through the books and papers, leaving little disturbance behind.

He found the notebook inside the desk drawer, next to a pen gone dry. It looked like a journal to him, green with KEEP OUT in bold, red letters. Sam smiled. He wouldn't need his tools for this one. The inside cover declared in the same bold red NO EXIT. He turned the page.

The first entry began, "After the events of the following page..." Sam blinked, but read on. The author described breaking into a small office and rifling it, coming upon a private journal and opening it. Uncomfortable, he looked around and noticed text on the inside of the door: NO EXIT, red and bold. The next page began, "Then I returned to the previous page."

Sam felt the skein of the world peel back, and his rising panic subsided into a feeling of superiority as he picked the lock of the green door with the bold, red letters.

Miriam and Heather

Miriam and Heather grew up in the same neighborhood, on opposite sides of a street that was only just too busy to be easy to cross. That street came to represent their relationship: a minor schism that was always too inconvenient to bridge. Their faiths had split fifty years prior over a matter no one remembered. At school, they were neither friends or enemies but mutual mild irritants. Each was too shy to approach the same crush. They attended seminary together, but almost never spoke. Through perverse coincidence, they came to minister churches on opposite sides of a street too busy to easily cross. They had an uneasy truce until Deacon Miriam renovated her church. It looked grand, drawing all eyes. The next year, Pastor Heather found the funds for a renovation, and soon her church stood taller and more glorious than that across the road.

The chasm between them widened. Over the next decade, each church added grandeur until they gaudily outshone everything else for miles. Their rivalry finally came down to height, and each heightened their steeple to the extent their church could bear. One stormy night after staring daggers across the street, the two women climbed their steeples, reaching to the sky and screaming at the other.

In a satisfying story, the two proud women would be struck by lightning, or they would find common ground and reconcile. This is not that story. Heather and Miriam hated each other well into their dotage, with no satisfying resolution.

Danger of Further Sleep

Manny looked blearily at his alarm clock. He wondered if he'd just hit snooze or off, then wondered if he'd wake up again even if it blared more shitty 80s music. "God," he croaked, "I wish I could sleep longer." He closed his eyes and hoped he wouldn't be late for work. "You can!" boomed a deep voice, eliminating all danger of further sleep. Manny sat upright to see a large man in his small studio apartment, smiling at him with gleaming white teeth. He was muscular from the waist up and an intangible wisp from the waist down.

"How'd you get in?" Manny scrambled for the baseball bat he kept by the bed.

"I'm the surprise genie!" the man boomed. "Now, you can sleep as long as you want, no interruptions, guaranteed!"

Manny blinked. "Really?"

"Truly!" The genie grinned.

"So, I can go back to sleep?"

"Of course! Farewell!" The genie disappeared with a sound like a balloon popping and a burst of purple mist. Manny went back to sleep and got to work three hours late and received a reprimand. As he ground his teeth over it, he heard a distant, "The power was within you all along!"