Wedding Day

The reception was in full swing. Everyone was dancing and laughing and generally having a good time. But not Carter. He sat at the back of the room at his empty table working his way through the bottle of champagne at the centre of the table. Although there was an open bar, he didn't feel up to weaving through the crowd and making pleasantries, so he sat downing the fizzy junk. He hated the stuff but he wanted to get drunk and quickly, so he soldiered on.

Carter was just glad the whole thing was over. He didn't know how he had made it through the ceremony but he planned to use the champagne to kill the memory. Why had he come? He knew it would rip at his heart to see Claire resplendent in wedding gown walking down the aisle. Was he that much of a masochist? Secretly he knew why. He was a coward. He never had the courage to tell Claire how he felt and so he watched the possibility of them together grow smaller and smaller until it vanished. Similarly, he knew he could never disappoint her and not come to the wedding however he secretly felt.

So here he was in the reception, alone and on his fifth glass of champagne. The combination of alcohol and sugar had hastened the process and he was drunk and surly. He glanced up at the head table. It was raised slightly so he could just make it out from the back. he caught a glimpse of Claire and his heart skipped a beat and tightened painfully. She leaned out of view and was replaced by Clark, her new husband. Tall and good looking, he was the rakish manly type. Carter hated him. He was the sporty type and loved outdoor activity. Carter, more of the bookish intellectual, had nothing in common with the man. Except they loved the same woman. And he had stolen her from him.

The rational art of his brain knew this wasn't true since they had never actually been together. But the alcohol subdued logic at this point. He built an image in his brain of Clark, air headed, vacuous and philandering. He simmered and had another glass of champagne.

Finally he was set to boil and decided to tell the prick off. He pushed back his chair and stood up, more than little wobbly. He started threading his way through the crowd towards the head table, swaying as he went. He got about two tables forward when he caught the edge of a table cloth and tripped. He almost fell over but someone caught him and sat him down roughly.

His savior was a young woman, about his age. She wore green cat's eye glasses and had delicate features. Her hair was in a bun and was auburn brown. Her gray eyes sparkled behind the lenses.

"You ok?' she said, a little too loudly. Clearly she'd had a few.

"Just fine..I'm going to give the groom a piece of mind!"

"Yeah? Cheers to that!"

She took the champagne bottle and filled the flute in front of him. She refilled her own and raised it in a toast.

"To speaking your mind! And mine, as a matter of fact."

Befuddled, Carter raised his glass and clinked it with hers.

"But- what do you have against Clark?"

"Well, he broke my heart. And what's worse, he never even knew he did it!"

He was silent for a moment then asked "And with whom am I toasting the groom's demise?"

"How silly of me...Sue. Sue Sim."

"Susan?"

"Noooo....Sue. Sim" she enunciated the words carefully.

"Ah. Sorry. You must get that a lot."

"Would you believe you're the first?"

"Not for a second. My name is Carter, by the way."

"Well Carter By-The-Way, it's a pleasure. But tell me, what do you have against Mr. Clark Richardson?"

"Well-"

"Wait. Don't tell me. I'm gonna tell you mine then you tell yours, ok?"

"Uh...I guess so.."

"Great! Clark and I are old friends. We went to the same kindergarten for god's sake. And even then I had a crush on him. I just never got over it. When I was small and I said I loved him, he just laughed it off like it was absurd. But I was completely serious. I would have married him at 7 if t was possible.

Time passed. We were in the same grade and through some cruel quirk of fate we were in the same class all the way through grade school. When my hormones finally kicked in I added lust to my love and wanted him even more. But any time I tried to tell him about it he just laughed it off or flat out didn't understand what i was trying to tell him. I got so desperate I tried to liquor him up and get a pity fuck. He passed out cold and nothing happened.

That was the last straw. I had planned to dog through college too, but that last incident convinced me I needed to get away.  I applied to college out of state and moved to the east coast. I lived a life for myself instead of someone else. I was happy. Until about a year ago.

Walking the streets one sunny afternoon and who do I bump into? Clark! He says he's just moved here and why don't we have dinner and catch up and it's so go to see me and blah blah blah. So like an idiot I'm all aflutter and agree to go to dinner, thinking at last my time has come.

No dice. We sit and eat diner food at a crummy place up the block and all he can talk about is this girl Claire he's just met. How smart she is, how pretty, etc, etc.

Now, I'm dying a little inside. he's too wrapped up in what he's saying to notice I'm almost in tears. Somehow I get through the dinner and excuse myself saying I feel a little sick. I head home and cry myself to sleep. I don't see or talk to him after that. He tries a couple of times but I'm not having any of it.

Then I get a wedding invitation in the mail. I think, no way, and go to toss it. It hovers over the garbage can but I don't drop it. it goes on the fridge instead, stuck under a puffy frog magnet that looks ominous to me now.

As though I can't stop myself, I watch as I RSVP. I see myself picking out a dress and trying it on. Buying a wedding gift. Before I know it, the day is here and gone so fast I can hardly catch up. It suddenly hit me in between speeches by Aunt So-and-So and Uncle What's-His-Face: I can't deal with this. So I've been downing glass after glass of this soapy champagne trying to blot out my mind. And then you came over!"

She smiled wanly for a moment before looking horrified.

"I can't believe I just told you all that. Now you probably think I'm crazy. But I just couldn't stop once I started, you know? It was like it was out of my control."

Carter felt a chill run right through him and into his heart as she spoke. It was just like what happened to him. Ridiculously close, anyhow.

"No," he said finally. "I don't think you're crazy."

"Well I've shown you mine, now you show me yours," she said with a hint of playfulness.

"I will. A promise is a promise. But first, why don't we get a drink? A real drink, not this fizzy bullshit."

"God yes...I never thought a can of beer would sound so good."

He offered his arm and she took it. They started to weave through the crowd but were holding each other up and so neither one swayed or fell. As they reached the bar Carter thought 'Maybe this is enough' and smiled to himself.

Nuclear option

The president was pacing back and forth in the oval office. This was an extremely trying decision. Although his top advisers and generals were all on hand and had weighed in, he sent them away to consider what they had said. After all, he was the one that had to make the final decision.

It was war with China either way, he knew that. Talk had proved futile. He refused to listen to their wild demands for concessions or aid. If he took the chance and launched a nuke he might be able to remove the hostile leadership and replace them with something more benign. The war could be quick and painless. Of course, he may not get them all. Or they may issue a counter-launch. US missiles could probably shoot down Chinese missiles, but it was by no means certain.

Otherwise it was a full-scale ground assault. China had invaded parts of India and while it was completely unsustainable territory for them to hold, they could make the US pay very dearly for every inch they gave up. India and the US had a treaty and the Americans were obligated to come to their rescue. It was a lose-lose.

He decided to risk it. He reached for the red phone on his desk when suddenly he heard a high pitched warbling sound above his desk. He looked up and saw a distorted image of a face hovering above it, flat like a projection.

"Security!" he bellowed, running for the door. It wouldn't budge. And nobody came.

"This will only take a moment Mr.president," the head said between a couple of racking coughs.

"Who are you? What do you want?" he responded, his back to the door and still trying to jam it open.

"I come to warn you," came the reply.

"The US does not give in to threats! Now tell me what you want!"

 "I do not threaten you. I am here to warn you. My people live a galaxy away. We have searched for thousands of years to try and find another planet with life. Now, finally, we have found yours."

"Suuuure you did. And you just happen to be human too, huh?"

"Call this face a...disguise. We do not wish to alarm you."

"I don't believe a word of this nonsense."

The face sighed before saying "Very well," and the image changed. The creature's face closely resembled an elephant but with a shorter trunk, more pronounced mouth and bigger eyes. It also had a golden sheen. It was like nothing the president had ever seen.

"What...are you?" the president said shakily.

"We will say my race is similar to your mammals on Earth and leave it there, it would take too long to explain further and time is short."

"What..why?"

"I am the last of my race. We were coming to initiate first contact with you when a plague came across our world and decimated it. Some escaped to shuttles and made their way to space, hoping to wait it out. I am the only one left of that group. Communications have met with silence."

"That still doesn't answer why you're here."

"My race searched high and low throughout the universe for another sentient species in the universe. The only thing we ever found was a dead bacteria sample in a dead star system billions of light years away. Then we found you. When I am gone, you will be the only race of beings in the known universe with the capacity for thought. If you disappear, the universe will be silent again. That is my warning. Take care of your planet and its people. There aren't any other."

"Why don't you come here? Perhaps we help treat you."

"Thank you for your kindness. But I must remain on board my ship or risk transferring this sickness to you. In any case, my time is almost up. Consider what I said. Observe the fragility of life. You are the universe's representatives now...take care!"

With that the elephant man's breathing became shallow and raspy. He shut his eyes and his skin changed from golden to copper. The face continued to hang in space but it was completely immobile. He was gone.

The president was very still for several minutes. He went back to the red phone and looked at it. He turned towards the regular phone, picked up the receiver and said
"Get China on the line. We need to try talking again."

Time flies

The first time it happened I was waiting for the bus at the crowded stop. I had been waiting for a little while and my Ipod had run out of juice. I was kind of zoned out, but I recall the bus being a stop light away. I was wondering what the delay had been, when next thing I knew it was zooming past me. I swore at the stupid driver for ignoring us and turned around to complain to the people behind me when I stopped short. There was nobody. How had everyone else been picked up and I hadn't?

The second time I was at work. I'm a TA at the moment and I had a mountain of essays to get through. This is usually a tedious process but today was particularly bad. I had spent what felt like an hour going over one student's incredibly bland and overly verbose essay when I looked up at the time. It had only been five minutes! I know it felt like forever but that was ridiculous.

The third time was when I was at home. I was dying for a cup of tea and set the pot to boil. I sat down to read a novel but occassionaly glanced up to see if the kettle was ready to boil. I must have looked up a dozen times in 15 minutes without the kettle boiling. I checked to make sure it wasn't broken or leaking or soemthing. It was fine so I put it back on the element. The moment I took my hand away it started sto whine. Impossible!

Now I knew something very odd was going on.

"I'll bet you think something very odd is going on," said a voice behind me.

I whirled around and was faced with a man in a very strange getup. It was a silvery one-piece leasure suit, kind of like what you'd see in a cheesey sci-fi movie. He had absolutely no hair, not even eyebrows. His pupils were orange, and his face looked as though it had been carved all out of one mass of flesh. He had a wristband that flashed and sparkled red and blue randomly.

"Who are you?" I sputtered out as I took in the sight of him.

"That is not relevant. You have fallen out of synch with normal time and I have been sent to address the situation," he said in a chirpy, sparrow-like voice.

"What are talking about?"

"This morning at 10:19.32 1/4 you briefly went faster than regular time. As a result, you missed your transit vehicle. When correcting a document at 3:44.45 6/8 it occured again, with you going slower than the regular speed. Boiling water on arrival here at 6:29.12. 2/5 caused both a slowing and quickening withing 2 minutes of each other."

I tried to take this in. It sounded crazy. It was crazy. But today was definitely unusual so I gave him the benefit of the doubt.

"So...you're here to correct the problem?"

"Impossible! There is no known cause or treatment for this condition. Only containment."

"You going to try and lock me up?" I said, making a fist. I was suspicious of this nutbag now.

He emitted a sound like a seagull's squawk which after a moment I realized must be laughter.

"We have neither time nor resources!  You are free person! We do not do this!"

"Well, then what are you doing here?"

"You must self-contain. Am here to offer early warning device."

He opened his hand to me. In it was a gaudy looking mood ring. He gestured with his other hand toward it.

"Take! It will warn you. It will flash green if you fall fast and red if you fall slow."

I took the ring and looked at it for a moment, then put it on. It wasn't any weirder than anything else today. The man disappeared the moment I put the ring on and hasn't been back since.

Life since then has been weird and chaotic but at least a little more controllable. It's gotten me to appreciate the regular moments more than I ever did before. So if you ever feel like time is dragging by or zooming past, maybe it really is. Don't be surprised if you get a visit from a silver jump-suited bird-like man.

Finis

The future didn't lead to a utopia of futuristic technology to dazzle the mind and bring about a new level of engagement between nations and citizens. It didn't lead  to a dystopia with the world ground under a tyrant's heel or destroyed by a natural or man made disaster. In the end it was neither of those things.

Much further in the future (it doesn't matter when now is, it's likely a few days in the future still) the Earth is finished. All the resources of the not just the Earth but the entire solar system have been extracted. We can no longer draw energy from oil or cola as they are all gone. The wind doesn't blow anymore. The sun is barely strong enough to keep temperatures at a global level of -30 celsius. Quite simply, the solar system is about to die.

So we take all the works of art, science, literature, history and anything else we can manage and digitally encode them in every language we have left. We launch them via rockets in every direction out of our known space and hope someone somewhere can figure out what the squiggles mean. This is the end of time for us. But we can beat the future and live on, if only in the memory of some unknown hypothetical race far off in another galaxy on another world. Remember us. Tell our story. Be our future.

The unexamined life

I'm immortal.Or at least I think I am. I would say I'm about 400 years old, so it remains to be seen whether I will  live forever or not. I'm certainly the only person I've ever known to make it past 90, never mind to 500. Don't be fooled by all those stories you've read about ageless vampires and immortal gods. Being immortal (Or living long past your peers, anyway) is unpleasant to say the least.

While I don't seem able to die, I still feel pain. Acutely. I still get hungry and if I don't get food I get hungrier and hungrier until it's unbearable. Can you imagine what it's like to go a month without any food and just waste away until you can't even move? Or to catch an infectious disease and have it eat away at you and leave you writing in pain until it finally burns out after 5 years? I don't have to imagine because I know.

I was born somewhere in Africa in the 17th century. I don't know when or where exactly as I was only a toddler when the slavers must have come to my home. Whoever my parents died on the journey but I survived and made it to the new world . I was in high demand as I was a child. I spent nearly 200 years doing slave labor and escaping before getting caught and sent to a new plantation. My hair grayed and I got a few wrinkles but this is probably due to stress rather than age.

Finally, due to the civil war I was freed and tried to make a life for myself, learning for the first time how to read and write. Unfortunately, I got Cholera and was bed ridden until my money ran out and I was turned into the streets where I starved and suffered until I finally just outlasted the virus.After that, life was easy by comparison.

I spent the twentieth century living my life. I would go to whatever job I had at that moment, spend time with my whichever wife and kids I had and do the dozen little things one does throughout each day. It was a good life and I finally found little bits of happiness.


But I didn't really age. My family and friends would grow old and die and I would have to start again. You can only do this so many times before it starts to weigh very heavily on you. Nowadays I try and spend most of my time alone since to acquire and lose friends is now more than I can bear.

Lately I have been feeling a bit under the weather so I went to my doctor for a checkup. I got the results back today.  Prostate cancer. I hope to hell they can treat it, and that I don't become weighed down beneath a mountainous tumor that just grows and grows. Immortality sucks.

Wonderland revisited

I had suspected Mr Carroll of reading my diary for some time and the publication of Alice in Wonderland confirmed it. Although he changed my name to Alice, it is actually Mary Wunder. The events he so whimsically described in his two novelettes did not occur, at least not as he wrote them. Let me explain.

I was off in the woods near my family's home in Essex, England. I often went there to play as I was an imaginative and excitable child and this irritated my parents greatly so I tried not to be underfoot as much as possible.

That day, I remember clearly, I was playing tea party with my stuffed white rabbit. We had just had our first imagined cup when I heard a noise coming from a little further in the brush. It is hard to explain it. Low and humming at first with a high pitched whistle that sounded like a whirrrrlllll. Too young to know curiosity killed the cat I went to investigate.

What I found was mystifying. I wouldn't know what to call it except to say it was a doorway torn into the ground like a page torn out of a book. It was about the size of a seat cushion except that it kept forming and reforming in different shapes with many rough angles or smooth like a circle or a few like a triangle. Except it never quite took those shapes either, merely resembled them for a moment and changed again. The coloring was extremely odd, too. It would shift colors rapidly throughout the spectrum and at random, sometimes becoming reflective like a mirror or striped, checkerboxed or a dozen other patterns I can't begin to describe.

Had I been a less inquisitive child I would have fled at the very sight of it; I merely stood transfixed. I got a little closer until I was hovering above it. The oscillations grew more intense. In my distraction, I dropped my stuffed bunny and it fell directly into the portal. It swirled around as though in a whirlpool but otherwise stayed put. I reached out to try and fish it out. As I grabbed ahold of it, we were both pulled with a great force into the doorway. I was through the looking glass.

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Before I go any further, I must say my story here varies quite a bit to the account of young Alice in the story and is a quite a bit shorter and more bizarre. Wanting to write a children's book I suspect Mr.Carroll sanitized my version quite a bit to make it more palpable to his audience. I don't blame him, I merely wish to point out the fact.
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There is no possible way to properly catalogue my experience, so I will attempt to do so via contradiction. I immediately had the sensation of falling yet I also felt I was floating. I would feel exceedingly heavy and then feathery light. Some moments I felt as though I were encased in concrete one moment and swimming in pudding the next. The sensations my body and brain took in changed so rapidly I have no basis of comparison whatever. Hot then cold then wet then dry then frozen then on fire. Sometimes all at once or a mixture. I might have been sick except all he parts of my body and mind felt as far away from each other as a distant point on the horizon.

All around me were shapes that vibrated and changed color and shape and texture and smell and sound so often I never quite knew what it was I saw. Several times I thought I saw a face in the jumble, the way a rock will sometimes seem to look like a person. but it would vanish and become incomprehensible just as quickly.

My young mind, attempting to sort out meaning where there was none, began to see other shapes as well. A man in a hat. A caterpillar. A grinning cat. A face splitting into two and back into one. Some would collide with me for a moment and the images would completely vanish.

Finally one did not disappear. It was like a large black cloud and turned in strange orbits but remained aimed directly at me. It made a strange faraway and suddenly close sound that was very much like a large group of people whispering. It suddenly collided with my arm and it was as though hot tea had been spilled on it. It slopped against my leg like sold muck. I started to shriek, my voice seeming a great distance away. The cloud reeled away and began to shift from form to form even faster. My brain at this point mercifully gave way and I lost consciousness. 

I awoke. I was back in the woods behind my parents house. It was dark and there was no moon in the sky. I ran back to the house as fast as my legs could carry me. My parents were waiting for me. They demanded to know where I had been. I tried to explain but they called me a liar and my father thrashed me as I cried until there were no tears left and I was sent to bed without supper. Between the pain and delirious confusion I didn't know what had really happened either but I risked another beating by lighting a candle and writing down everything I could remember. I wasn't caught and did the same thing every week until I had every detail as exact as possible.

I don't know what really happened to me that day, if it all really happened or if it was just a delusion or the result of an overactive imagination. I do know that no matter how many times in the months and weeks I went looking I never found a trace of my stuffed white bunny again.

The ghost

Billy was a ghost. He thought he was, at least. He could walk through stuff. No one could see him unless he focused VERY hard on one person and then they saw a flash of him only for a second and freaked out and took off. He floated. But he could move around freely, to anywhere he liked. He didn't have or want to haunt anyplace. So he didn't know.

Of course, he had no memory of anything at all. The very first memory he had was of floating around in the clouds and suddenly being aware of it. He had no idea what his name was or even his gender, if he had one. So he picked a name and a gender based on the very first person he saw, a young boy named Billy.

To fill the time, Billy floated around and looked just looked at stuff or watched and listened in on people. When that got boring, he would watch movies or read books over people's shoulders. (Billy had taught himself to read by sitting in on a kindergarten class or two).

Billy wasn't the only ghost. He would sometimes meet others, floating around in houses or apartments but never outside like him. They didn't tend to talk, just wail and moan loudly and try and get whoever lived in that place now to notice them. When they did talk, it was only to talk about themselves, to the point he couldn't get a word in edgewise. So Billy tended to steer clear of other ghosts.

Finally one day something different happened. He was floating above the city taking in the sites when the clouds suddenly parted and a ray of light shone directly upon him, holding him in place. A large man, easily nine feet tall and naked, descended from the sky with large silvery feathered wings. he floated down until he was directly in front of Billy, then said

"Hello. Do you know who I am?"

Billy paused, trying to remember how to speak. it had been awhile.

"N..nah.." he sputtered out with difficulty.

The man smiled. His teeth shone pearly white.

"I am the angel Michael, the angel of mercy. I am here to end your purgatory."

Billy was still having trouble speaking and made a huh? kind of sound.

"You have earned the right to ascend this plane at last and take your place in heaven."

With that, he reached out and took Billy's suddenly touchable hand. It was like an explosion in his mind. he remembered everything now. Poisoning his wife. Strangling his infant son. The midnight burial and the cannibalism. The gun to the head as the police closed in. It was all there.

Billy, or Simon Watson as he was once known, let go of the angel's hand. He remembered speech again.

"No. I don't deserve it. Leave me here."

Michael smiled again.


"Very well, it is your decision. I will return again one day and offer you the same choice."

"Fine."

The angel rose into the clouds again and the beam of light released Simon and it was as if it had never existed.
Simon just hung there for a few moments. As the violent images of his life filled his mind he began to howl and tried to will his mind to forget.

A day in the life

I woke up a woman. Which was odd, as I went to bed a man. I knew something was up immediately. Even laying down, I just felt different. My body was weighted differently and my blood and hormones seemed completely alien to me, like when you're waaaay too drunk and lose motor control. So for awhile I just lay there, feeling strange and a little scared.

Finally I got up and fell almost right on my face. My centre of gravity had completely shifted thanks to my new found breasts (and though you guys may not realize it, a penis also provides a bit of balance control too it would seem). I got up slowly and made my way to the washroom slowly to compensate for my weight redistribution. I took off my pajamas and just stared at my naked body.

It's weird, but I started to feel kinda normal then. My crotch looked about the same, just minus the penis. I was always pretty hairless for a dude and remained so as a chick. my breasts were small and seemed more manageable naked than clothed. I flicked them up and watched them fall. I pinched the nipples and it hurt. So I didn't enjoy that kind of thing I suppose.

Really I would say the big differences were in my shape than my genitalia. I was far more curvaceous and my features were more soft and delicate. My boy hair, cut short for easy maintenance just looked cute and tomboyish now. Before you ask, no, I didn't touch the nether regions. I was too scared.

I took  my first ever shower as a woman and basically just stared down the whole time, causing me to get a lot of shampoo in my eyes and cry like the little girl I guess I used to be.

I still just had all my dude stuff so I brushed my teeth and put on deodorant and tried to find something unisex enough to wear. I had to go to work in about an hour and figured I would just go in and see say I was my cousin or something and that I was sick. I finally settled on an old tank top to act as a bra with a pair of too tight cords which fit girl-me perfectly and a hoodie which was a perfect fit before but now looked too big on purpose. I had a pair of girly ballerina slipper-shoes an ex left that I never bothered to throw away. These fit well enough so I took off out the door.

I ran into a neighbor in the hall as I  was coming out of my apartment and she recognized me and called me by name as though nothing was wrong or different. It was the same at the local coffee shop where I stopped for some java.

I work at a vintage clothing store in the heart of downtown and while the pay is utter shit I don't have to do much and can wear just about anything. So I get there and I start to tell my boss I'm my own cousin and I'm sick when he just says "very funny" and tells me to clock in.

It's a straaaange day. I take an active interest in organizing dresses and pumps and getting them out on display just so. What girls are wearing is constantly catching my critical eye in a catty way. I get hit on all day by the boss who makes lewd jokes and touches my shoulder suggestively and 6 different dudes who alternatively cause a rush of blood through my body or a tidal wave of horror. I even get hit on by a girl, something that's never even happened to me as a guy! Her pass is by far the best but I don't have any response, physical or verbal and she soon leaves.

When I clock out for the day I just decide to go on home and get a little drunk and see further inspect the goods. After some light exploring I drink a little too much and pass out on the couch watching an old episode of The Simpsons.

I wake up the next morning and everything is back to normal, dick and all. I have no idea how or why it happened but for a day I was a woman. It was the oddest experience of my whole life. I don't know that I really learned anything, except that similar as we are the two genders are real different in how they perceive the world and how the world perceives them, but that's nothing new. I guess the point is that for one day at least one of us guys knew exactly what you girls are always talking about.