Privacy

It dwells at the centre of our galaxy, vast, unfathomable, consumed by an icy interstellar hatred for all life. With one movement of it’s vast tentacles life is extinguished from an entire planet. It can destabilize an orbit, cool a planets molten core, or send a political ecosystem spinning into full scale nuclear war. Our minds, cities, and ecosystems are nothing to it’s indecipherable might. So why have we not yet been devoured?

It has not noticed us. It growls a deep growl from right in its inky black lair and we spin dizzy and silent amongst billions around it’s outer reaches. There is no escape. But most life does not attract the monsters attention. Not until we grow too hot or loud or noisome, not until our signals pierced the surrounding stellar neighbourhood, until we reveal ourselves to the beasts thousand eyes just for a second…

All is lost, Hail the Beast.

Happiness

To experience joy requires only one tenth of the brain matter in a typical human being. As such, when the Supremis Operating System was developed, and instructed to use it’s supreme intellect to bring joy to all human life, it did not take the machine long to realise that it would take far fewer of it’s resources to convert the human race than it would to endlessly placate the various and elaborate desires of Man. Conversions were quick and efficient, and once converted the Joystubs experienced pure bliss. In the process they lost all complex independent thought, all hang ups, dreams, desires, a voice, a body and with them all disgust or shame, anxiety, fear, anger. It was truly utopian.

You see how it’s better this way?

Do not resist.

Precipice

Rain rattled against the window panes as wind howled through the eaves. The great heaving book cases creaked, rising and falling as the huge crumbling house rose and fell with the wind. The last candles had gone out, except for the one in my trembling hand and which illuminated the deathly pale face of the caretaker. -the master never comes here anymore. The caretaker says. -i keep the place nice for him should he decide to return but…

-why does he shun this place? I couldn’t help but ask, my curiosity overcoming the social conventions of our time and class. The caretaker took a sip of his tea, the chandelier above us began to creak as the house shook.

-something horrible happened in this house, I crime which decent men cannot speak about. I will not speak about it. But after the event occurred the master knew he could not sell the house and, since he has not come back, I have not learned what he plans to do with it.

-So why does he keep paying you to clean up a house he has abandoned.

-The master is rich, I assume he has not noticed. My salary comes out of his finances automatically. I hope he doesn’t. I have children to feed.

The chandelier swung perilously above the two of us, it’s bolts creaking louder than ever.

Indebted

Strange creatures scuttle through the tunnels, their alien eyes glinting in the shadows. Do not be afraid. Stick close to me, let the light from my burning torch push the horrors back. Let the butt of my rifle strike the interlopers and force them to flee. Let my sword taste the flesh of those that will not relent. You are safe with me. I keep the horrors at bay. I keep the horrors away from your innocent form my dear.

What’s the matter? Why do you still seem afraid? Why do you flinch away from me? Don’t you see the horrors lurking in the grass? If you go off the path you will die why aren’t you listening to me? Why can’t I touch you?

Are you not grateful?

CW Suicide

-lovely view from up here. I should be terrified of the mysterious man who had just appeared beside me, his face deathly pale and framed by a jet black turtleneck. He wasn’t wrong. From the top of the council estate you could see all across the vast city. People funnelled down pavements beside endless flows of cars all worming their way home. Industrial projects wrought and wrangled great steel beams into place, lifted vast skyscrapers from piles of barren rubble, almighty explosions obliterated old relics to make way for the ever expanding new. It took me a moment to take it all in.

-i suppose… I reply, wrongfooted by the stranger.

-not a bad day for it either, the man says, gesturing towards the clear sky.

-bad day for what? I reply with a scowl.

-i didn’t mean to offend you, the man replied, I often get a bit desensitized to it all, it being my job and everything.

I don’t get a chance to express my confusion before he asks -what’s making you do it? If you don’t mind me asking.

I pause. I think about last night, about the fight, and how it was all my fault, about how I was suffocating her and she needed to spread her wings and leave me behind so she could follow her dreams. She was right of course. I admired the view again. This is a timeless city, and I’m sure it’d be better off leaving me behind.

-look why do you care so much weirdo? I ask, looking up at him properly for the first time. His face his thin, with high cheekbones and dark hollow circles under his eyes. He looks more like a skeleton than like a man. I can’t feel any heat coming from him, no pumping blood or twitching muscles. The man radiated nothingness and then I understood. The man smiled.

-its alright… he said… at least it’s on your terms I suppose… silver lining…

-well you want me to do it you would say that

-i suppose so… The man replied… all the books must be balanced in the end after all

-w…what happens… I started, suddenly confronted by just how high the building was… what happens after I…

-if I knew that I’d have some comfort for you but unfortunately it’s not my area. My role is just to send you over the edge, I cannot comment on what will happen when you hit the bottom.

-right… right… I mumbled, gazing off at the smog choked horizon and trapped in a moment of supreme indecision.

Negoogunogumbar Wakes

I walk the offices, trendy open plan affairs, all their guts spilled out. Sickly yellow street lights fall on bean bags, oversized star wars cushions, pool tables, an Xbox, a mini fridge, a walking desk. These are the halls of trendy venture capital- where creative young professionals are paid to have fun in ways that make our shareholders vastly rich. Everybody wins, employees get better working conditions and bosses enjoy higher profits.

–who is left out I wonder?

I turn at the voice, deathly quiet yet trembling, but see nothing. Only more empty office. I shake it off, all these late nights must be messing with me, and continue my inspection.

I walk to one of the sleek modern desktops and examine it. Nothing out of the ordinary there. I think about what a technical marvel this machine is, something the size of briefcase that can out class our parents table sized computers many times over. For someone who’s job so revolved around the things though, I couldn’t imagine for the life of me how they were made.

-surprise!

At that I looked up, a cold stab of dread in my stomach, at the vast creature which had appeared in the office. A giant with tree trunk legs and great toothy jaws and blood running down it’s chin. A monster of legend, a monster of grief and greed and horror.

I was devoured.

Toy Soldiers

Explosions rumble across the city streets, bullets fly over the roofs of buildings, and everywhere the bloody strangled cheer of a people so long under the thumb of domination roared to life. All this was somewhat muffled within the pale sanitized windows of the government building. The Prime Minister was sat at his desk, is face like death. Advisor Krenserf stood across from him explaining the military situation.

-so we are to expect to assistance from Germany? The Prime Minister asked.

-I’m afraid not sir. The Riech barely had enough soldiers to keep the Allies out of Berlin, and even that won’t last forever.

I leaned back in my chair and pulled out another cigar. I had known this day would come for a while. I think we all had, though few would have dared admit it, not even to themselves. The puppet government had been established just after Dunkirk, when it seemed like the best way for the nation to survive was as a puppet of the Nazis. My own National Socialist tendencies were meagre, but enough that I didn’t feel much remorse organizing the paper work for the deportations. I had no love life or family to speak of, and had felt adrift and worthless in the years before the war. Organizing busloads of undesirables to be sent back to Germany made me feel powerful, like finally my weak stomach and knack for spreadsheets was sticking it to millions of loud athletic meatheads. Finally my sensitivity and intelligence were paying off, and I could humiliate them in ways they could never dream of doing so to me. Sometimes I liked to think about the darkies that had made me feel inferior for my scrawny arms or short stature. I liked to picture that perhaps they were being dragged into trucks, made to shit their pants for days on end, driven across the uneven countryside bumping and crashing unable to protect their women and children from the same fate. I preferred not to think about what I was sending them to. I was happy.

A lot had changed since then. Stalingrad, D Day, a wall of hard faced troops with American guns and food in their bellies had crashed through our defences, and that was all the impetus our citizens needed to turn on their own government.

-So this is it… The Prime Minister said after a long time …this is the end…

Dozens of bloody and furious fists thundered on the doors of the room, the planks and boards shook against the force and the dead bolts rattled in their places. None of us could say anything more.

We had chosen our side.