Special Day

Deirdre Morton finished adjusting her husbands tie and brushed his lapels with her hands.

“You look wonderful, dear. Just perfect for your special day.”

She reminded him each year, since they first met in the coffee shop.

She brought him cherry pie.

He’d only ordered coffee.

Her hand touched his and she smiled and said, “Today is your special day.”

Today she placed a flower in his pocket, kissed him at the door and told him to enjoy his day, his special, special day.

It was a beautiful day, even if it was the day he was going to die.

Straighter

The straighteners worked without end.

On the sub-atomic plane they would flatten probabilities to a linear distribution.

They moved on to the realms of geometry.

Triangle was ripped wide and bent to one hundred and eighty degrees.

Circle was pierced, torn, and drawn taut.

Mighty Hexagon was crushed.

They came to the macro universe and found more curves than they ever imagined could exist.

They were appalled, but delighted at the work ahead of them.

To honor his work in fractals, they chose Mandelbrot to start their task of straightening our world.

They straightened his muscles.

They straightened his bones.

Leaving a Mark

Countless quantum decisions flowed through diverging universes in the cosmic expanse.

Patterns formed and emerged; intelligences arose, history and memory began.

Systems to monitor, store, and analyze the universal information flow came into being.

For lack of anything better to do, they set to task; cataloging, sifting, recording all of existence.

When their work was done, they sent the results to a focal point of contemplation.

It considered the stories of all the possible universes, and awoke.

Opening his eyes, the boy looked down and picked up a stone, then slowly and methodically carved his initials in the sandstone wall.

Toshie’s War

“I hate you, Toshie. I always have.” she screamed across the room.

“I don’t understand why. What have I ever done to you? I’ve always been here for you.”

“Because you’re stupid and vain. You think that you’re so much better, so much prettier than me.”

“That’s so not true. I love you,” Toshie answered in sadness.

“Liar!” she screamed, hurling her hairbrush at Toshie’s face, and with a crash she shattered into countless, jagged pieces to the ground.

In the mirror, her lonely reflection cried, and mourned the one who could never be replaced.

Seasons

Jesual Crichton had failed his Emperor.

The architect had been commissioned by his Lord to create the perfect world, with azure seas and velvet skies swirling around golden plains and towering mountains, orbiting in synchrony around it’s star as the tidal satellite revolved around it.

It was the astronomers who hadn’t noticed the comet that smashed into the world before it’s presentation, knocking the axial tilt to 23.44°.

It was Jesual who paid with his life.

Long after the empire had fallen, those who lived there gave thanks to the designer in spring, in summer, in autumn, and in winter.

Yarn

Michael looked down frowning at the errant strand poking forth from the weave of his sweater.

He idly tugged the end and it smoothly drew forth.

Pulling faster at the multi-colored yarn loops and coils formed at his feet.

He toiled on, nearly buried by the mass of fibers.

Finally, the thread pulled taut and Michael gave one ultimately satisfying tug.

At the far end of the cosmic string, where it was firmly secured to the super-massive black hole at the center of the galaxy, a small piece of space-time fabric tore free.

With a hissing wheeze, the galaxy deflated.

Jack

I lay in deathly sleep.

The cold, sharp edge of the blade opens me, awakening me from my sweet slumber.

My skull carved open, brains scooped out and discarded as useless trash.

I would scream, but have no mouth for my agonies to issue forth from.

Not yet, anyway.

My simple, smooth face is next.

Ragged holes for eyes, and now a jagged mouth, teeth bared and hungry.

Then, a burning within.

I stare with gooey, gleaming sight at my tormentor, then feast and satisfy my new, eternal hunger.

In the compost pile, my children germinate and begin to grow.

Picky Eater

Everything was set for a perfect romantic evening.

Cobwebs swaddled rivers of frozen wax flowing from toppled candlesticks, artfully strewn across a tablecloth decorated with stains of memorable repasts.

He sat at the table in anticipation as his lovely wife brought the main course and gently set it down with a sloshing thud.

As she slid the dish in front of her husband, Maisey’s nose fell into the bowl splashing lukewarm broth across his pants.

Dejected, Edgar picked around the offending member as it sniffled at him from his soup.

He would never be able to enjoy Bouillebrains again.

Eclipse

Andy stopped in his tracks, dropping his burden to look up at the darkening sky.

His co-workers continued on, oblivious to the growing black crescent that was eating away the sun.

As totality neared, the organization of the harvesters shattered into pandemonium.

The hole in the sky became a nova.

Then the sun fell to earth, turning Andy into a cinder, as the smell of burning flesh filled his olfactory senses and screams shook his antennae.

“Billy!” Mrs. Parker shouted from the back patio, “Stop torturing those poor ants or I’m going to take that magnifying glass away for good.”