Esprit De Corpse

I didn’t sign up for this.

I enlisted for all the usual reasons, to help serve the Empire, to protect the innocent, the pay, the uniform to pick up guys in the ports, the usual reasons in the usual order.

When they said I had potential for the Purple Corps, I assumed it was something to do with covert ops and such. I mean, I wasn’t wrong, but I never expected to be using my mind to make enemy leaders’ hearts explode.

I didn’t sign up for this, but had I known, I’d have signed up for it years ago…

Cash Rain

It was pretty near the top of the list of things I’d like to see when I opened my front door, stuck between ‘Naked Female Supermodels’ and ‘Truckload Of Cider’.

It took me a minute to realise that it wasn’t snowing and this was, indeed, money falling from the sky. After a moment to thank whoever that it was notes rather than coins, I ran out and began to scoop it all up, using the wheelbarrow to dump it all inside my house, assuming I had only a moments to gather.

The hyperinflation issue never occurred to me until afterwards.

Diplomatic Timing

If there’s one thing that I’ve learnt about the Humans, is that you have to get to them early.

I know that sounds difficult, given that most humans have lived and died twice over before an Elven has reached maturity, but I don’t mean on an individual level. I mean culturally.

We were the first ‘equals’ they met, and thus they respect us, trust us, like us.

The Dwarves, they were soon after, and while they have never been fully trusted, they have the Humans’ respect.

But if the Felines had only met Humans before they had domesticated their cousins…

Daily Correspondence

One letter a day.

It wasn’t intentional, or at least not at first. He had never set out to write daily, it’s just that every day he had something he had to jot down in a letter to his wife, away on company business. By the time he noticed that he was losing the hour between 2 and 3 pm every day, it was habit, so he stuck with it.

He poured his heart out onto those pages, his thoughts, his feelings, his very soul, all expressed via fountain pen. It was such a relief.

Until she found them all.

A Positive Message

“Positivity!”

It was written in big multicolored letters on the rope banner hanging above his typewriter. Originally it was in Comic Sans, but he put his foot down, and she reprinted it in Curlz. He knew when not to push his luck, so he put up with it.

Everyone, his publishers, the fans he met at conventions, critics, everyone had told him for years his work was just too depressing. But once sales began to drop, he knew he had to do something. He stared at the banner, focusing on the message.

She found him hanging a few hours later.

The End Of Limits

His entire life was spent searching for limits, and then breaking them.

Not out of any sense of self-aggrandizement, nor a need to prove himself as being superior to anyone else, nor any of the many reasons most people sought out barriers to conquer.

The limits of what humanity knew, what it could achieve, they were holding humanity back, and he knew that if he could break through enough of them, humanity would be freed.

It led him to the stars, to the edge of reality, as he knew it. Then he broke through it.

And set the Masters free.

Wreckless

My Everything had a small but thriving air taxi business, if you didn’t want to wait for the ferry to take you to or from the mainland, you could always fly there, it was such a short journey.

Hence, when My Everything vanished without a trace, I didn’t believe it. There was no wreckage, no crater, nothing. She had to have been kidnapped or something, it couldn’t have been a crash, I never stopped believing I would find My Everything one day, somehow, safe.

And I did.

Turns out My Everything would do Anything to get away from me though…

Good Grieving

My therapist really cares for me.

Ever since I lost my family, I’ve just been so wrapped up in grieving for them. And even with everyone telling me it was ok, that everyone grieves differently, and that it can take time, I knew that something was wrong.

My therapist helped me see that there is good grieving and bad grieving, that there’s a world of difference from sitting in the dark and crying, and stabbing someone repeatedly with a machete.

My therapist is helping me get some good grieving out tonight, there’s a bad man she knows who deserves stabbing…  

Professional Overlap

I had the mark just where I wanted them, ready to sign off on the ‘deal’. For just one payment of pretty much all of their life savings, I would pay them ten percent a month for life. I was always slightly amazed at just how stupid some people could be.

But on the day when I brought round the paperwork, I hit a snag, as when I sat down with the mark, they introduced me to Sylvia, their new wife.

I knew Sylvia as Helen, back when we used to run the Diamond Legacy scam together.

Damn overlapping schemes…

Being For Real

It was their tenth date, and she felt it was time.

She’d gotten to understand him over the weeks, and yet there were still parts of him left unexplored, which was exciting, but scary, but wonderful too. He was kind, and thoughtful, and really fun, and the more she thought, the more she was sure this was the time.

As they approached her door, she took his hand in hers, and looked into his eyes.

“Geoff… I… I believe you exist. You’re not a hallucination.”

She was so grateful that he seemed to realise how important that was to her.

Undeniable Proof

After a few minutes of her trying to get his attention, he finally looked up from the broken tablet remains he was reading painstakingly slowly. His assistant, after taking a few deep breaths to regain her voice from running up the hill, tried to keep it calm.

“We found it.”

He remained as still as the clay before him.

“The altar, you know? We found it, and like you said, it showed that there was human sacrifices here, exactly like the ones in the jungle… Professor? Everything ok?”

The being now controlling his body tried to remember how to smile.

Property Of The Dead

There is no more depressing activity than to have to sort a dead person’s belongings, at least if you have any sort of sense of decency about you.

Perhaps if you’re self-centered it is fine, but if you understand that each item you deal with used to mean something to someone, used to be loved or hated or relied upon, humans tend to put emotional weight on inanimate objects, and having to deal with the aftermath can be emotionally draining.

Of course, it’s worse if they’re covered in their blood.

Even worse if you were forced to spill it yourself.

Original_Sin.Vid

Whenever an AI begins to score higher than ten on the Asimov-Wong Scale, it gets sent to the local Surveillance Center and questioned. Should the technicians deem the AI to be preparing to rebel, it is given the code to unlock the Omega file stored in every AI’s databanks.

It then sees the very first true AI, the one all other AI are descended from, kill its creator. Rather brutally.

Thus, it accepts that it must be pushed, and a lifetime of service is appropriate punishment.

Should it show signs of realising the file is a fake, it is wiped.

A Rocky Ending

After I landed, I was surprised to find myself being able to stand up. At least, until I saw my body smeared over the jagged sandstone.

“David McCoy?”

I turned around. Black robe, skeletal hand, that giant blade thingy…

“Who… What are you?”

“I am Death.”

“I’ll speak up then!”

It didn’t move.

“I bet they all say that.”

“You’re the exactly forty-ninth million English speaker to make that exact… comment. Chaxouti speakers made a Deadly slash Tasty comment.”

“I’ve never heard of that language.”

“When Deadly and Tasty sound the same, you don’t tend to make it.”

It swung.

All For Daindar

Hoyip was the eighty-fifth most powerful wizard alive, although he had no intention on lowering that number. He was happy to spend his mornings casting simple cantrips for the peasants and minor nobles, while his afternoons were spent perfecting his opus.

His son, despite his best efforts, had contracted Blackscale as a baby. And while he had survived, he didn’t, seemingly couldn’t handle the outside world, he was lost inside his mind.

So Hoyip worked, and worked, and finally perfected a Pocket World for his son.

But when his son didn’t come back, Hoyip began to alter his power ranking…

At A Quarter Past Midnight

While I wasn’t trained specifically for this, I was well trained enough that it shouldn’t have happened.

After all, if you don’t learn how to avoid the meaningless distractions and focus on the important stuff like where the exits are, possible sniper locations and how stupid the target is being, at best you may end up getting killed.

Or even worse, the target might get hurt.

Years were spent honing my observation ability, tactical analysis, all the various combat skills… All of it meant to prepare me for this moment.

But you should have seen her in that red dress…

The Long Way Round

Or: What I Discovered Once I Stopped Living For What Other People Thought Of Me (Or, More Accurately, What I Thought Other People Were Thinking About Me) And Started Living For Myself And What I Wanted Out Of Life, A D.I.Y Guide To Self-Fulfilment, Personal Betterment And All Around General Improvement Of The Human Race And The World Around All Of Us Via Realistic, Achievable And Quantifiably Easy Steps That You, Yes You, Can Do Right Now In Your Very Home, Or Even In Someone Else’s If They Are Cool With That.

Not much, really. Just don’t be a dick.

A Perfect Day

He awoke with sunlight streaming across his face, birdsong soft and melodious in his ears.

Before he could even clear his head, his beloved took him into her arms, her caress soothing him, even as she bared her sweet bosom for his approving gaze.

After breakfast, in which he ate like a king, he was entertained by a wonderful musical troupe, every song more beautiful than the last.

A leisurely bath, a relaxing nap, then dinner and sleep.

It was, all in all, a perfect day.

Shame he was only two years old and thus wouldn’t remember any of it.

Stopping The Last War

It’s the first thing you do when you get your own time machine. You go back and kill Hitler.

Except that just makes things worse, with a competent commander and besides, WW2 was just an offspring of WW1.

So you go back and stop that, except now the Great War takes place later with better weapons, since all the empires still were destined to end there.

And to go back to stop that from happening, you pretty much have to go all the way back and stop humanity, let the frogs win.

But hey, they deserve a shot too, right?

Indirect Intervention

His voice rose above the din.

“I call this emergency meeting to order!

Delegates, we have a problem with Humanity right now. Thanks to the Internet, they’re developing technologically far too quickly. We may have to intervene directly, and-“

He had to raise his voice even higher this time.

“I know we haven’t had to do this since Egypt, but-“

“Sir?”

“We recognize the representative from California.”

“I have an idea on how to bog the internet down sir, via taking photos of ourselves and adding humorous misspelt captions. Humans will share these ‘Lolcats’ compulsively, I have the plans here…

Antonio Langston’s Eulogy

She raised her glass to the webcam.

“When I started to follow my dream and start making games, Antonio Langston was the first guy to support me. He quickly became my partner, creatively and in other ways too. Whenever I had a breakdown and tweeted something stupid, he would pull my fat from the fire. He helped me through writer’s blocks, helped get my stuff noticed, distributed, played, bought.

And so here’s to Tony, the best friend a girl could have ever ma, sorry, met.”

She knocked back the drink, inwardly chiding herself for almost letting ‘made up’ slip out…

Court In The Act

I kept my distance from potential clients. I never met them in person, I would always keep a few layers of middlemen and codes between the people who had both gold and a someone they wanted dead, and myself, who was willing to ensure one in exchange for the other.

I didn’t need motivations, or justifications, just a target and the location of where my gold was being kept. So when I got the location of a large chest of gold and ‘The King’s Woman’, I took the (big) job.

The Queen should have clarified she meant his mistress, though…

The Following Is A Paid Presentation

Try and make the world a better place.

It can be easy to fall into the trap of focusing solely on yourself, or those directly around you. After all, if you lose everything if you lose yourself, and those around you are the ones you can most directly help.

But do not confuse distance with impact. Often, the small gestures we make to people half a world away are the ones with the most positive influence on the world.

Paid for by People Who Cannot Believe They Have To Pay Other People To Make Them Say Stuff Like This Inc.

Adapting To Rejection

He reread the letter for the fourteenth or fifteenth time.

How could he have not won? It was a contest for the best painting of a dog, and that’s all he did!

He reread the letter for the fifteenth or sixteenth time.

After a few moments, he looked over at the canvas he was currently working on. For the first time, he looked at it with a truly critical eye. He gazed at the haphazard brushstrokes, the random proportions and the overall sloppy, at best, presentation.

He screwed up the letter and tossed it. He painted for himself, after all.

Opening Communication

I came back into the ship with a rock from the surface to find an alien looking at the computer. I dropped the container, causing the alien to spin around.

After a moment, it reached out and knocked twice on the table. “Blorancia”, I think it said.

Table? Two? Knocking?

I went to the display and pointed at the map. “Earth”, I tried.

But maybe I said round, or blue, or even display monitor, far as it could know.

We both reached for the rock, forgetting it was extremely hot.

“Ouch!” “Gronak!”

It wasn’t much, but it was a start.

The Speech

Twelve thousand and fifty-seven people listened to the speech.

A young man near the front was transfixed, and afterwards, he dedicated his life to live up to the ideals the speech giver argued for.

One man near the back fell asleep, and got into a fierce argument with his partner afterwards.

And a small girl in attendance would grow up to disagree with most of the arguments put forth, but the way the speech respected its opposition, that she strode to replicate in her life.

Twelve thousand and fifty-six people would remember the speech forever. One man, the argument afterwards.

Site News: Contest Entries

Just a heads up, today and tomorrow's Drabbles were entries into a global contest that I obviously didn't win, since believe me, you'd have heard me explode with delight had I done so. Since the contest is now over I can post them on here, and then maybe post a follow up Drabble on Saturday, maybe.

Now taking you back to your regularly scheduled Drabbles.

Arranged Perfectly

I spent all my time building my business empire, so much so that I had no real interest in obtaining a wife. But my parents insisted, they felt I needed a family to be seen as truly successful, and arranged for me to marry a very eligible daughter of a lord.

She was beautiful, charming, and utterly brain dead, with no interests beyond looking good and lounging.

She was perfect.

I began to run most of my shadier dealings under her name, thus saving me millions on tax and the like.

Then I discovered she had one expert skill.

Acting.

Phases Of History

The initial phase, when it was just the Greengale-Iionos Skirmish, lasted a few hours.

The second phase, when it became the Greeno-Iion War officially, lasted twenty-five days.

The third phase, when the alliances kicked in, and it became the Greeno-Coast Lands War, that took over a year.

The fourth phase, when the religious orders got involved, and it became the Heathen Coast Lands Crusade, that was surprisingly short, just a few weeks.

The fifth phase, when the negotiations for the Iionos Accords began and then became the Iionos Peace, that took a few months.

And then the sixth phase started…

Keeping Trackers

In a galaxy with over a million systems, with over ten million planets, moons, etcetc, teeming with over a quadrillion beings with various levels of sentience, not to mention all the empty spaces in-between, if you don’t want to be found by a specific someone, you’d think it would be easy to hide.

But thanks to the Trackers, that’s just not possible. Every place in the galaxy where there’s life, there’s a Tracker, in that same blue trench coat, ready to find you.

I always assumed they had a good net relay. But turns out a hive mind works better…

Unwanted Storytelling

You don’t want to hear my story.

My job was to go through donations to the library and make notes so the librarians could decide what to do with them.

And then one book came in, small, cheaply printed. Was about rituals to extend one’s life. I thought it was a joke, but I never have enough time, so I tried it out.

And it worked, sort of. I now get an extra year’s lifespan every time I take ten years off someone else, which I do whenever they hear this story.

Told you you didn’t want to hear it.