Shaka, When The Wall Fell

The Translation Matrix was what made trade across the entire Galaxy possible. When the Ancient Devices were finally understood, this was the first practical application. These days, most people speak Galaxy Standard, but the Translation Matrix still had uses, mostly with the discovery of Humanity.

The multiple languages thing, not a problem, even with those languages that stole from others.

No, the Matrix has issues due to so much of human language cultural references, a concept no other language had.

Now, Humans did have a term for this.

Which was a cultural reference, of course, just to be really difficult.

Crucial Billboard

The billboard was on the side of the apartment block by Main Street, and as long as everyone could remember, it was advertising Garry Meller's various business ventures. Most of the time it was his used car lot, but it would occasionally advertise his bar, his Christmas and Halloween stores, and then, for over a year, his bid for State Congress.

It was an non-insignificant ally to his campaign, and was thought to be the reason he got over the line.

And then someone finally asked how he got it, and found out about his mistress in the apartment adjoining.

Door Delivery

The Psi-Omega Organisation, secretly, had two dozen bases hidden around the world, in the basement of several skyscrapers, located in the center of the cities deemed most likely to be the epicentre of inter-dimensional attacks on this reality.

Each base was sworn to secrecy, and deliberately stayed out of sight, communicating with no-one, not even the other bases, so as to avoid detection.

But, like all places meant to be top secret and locked down tight, each one had a food delivery guy who was used all the time.

The exact same man, across all the world.

They should've communicated.

My Brief Absence

I would like to say that I was absent from doing this increasingly broken daily 'art' challenge thing that means more to me and mental health than as content for any of you reading this now for a positive reason.

That I was gone because I was with my family as well celebrated a wedding between two people who had found love and joy with each other. That I was in a happy place as I took part in a celebration of love and commitment.

But I can't say that. Because I'm not sure if I'm allowed to mention it.

Once, Left

I once held her in high regard, but then she left.

I once paid attention to every word she said, but then she left.

I once held her when she cried, laughed, came, but then she left.

I once swore I would provide for her, protect her, honor her, but then she left.

I once saw her across a party, getting close to a young man, but then she left.

I once confronted her, and began to yell at her, trying to get her to apologise, but then she left.

And she was right to do so, I know now.

Somewhat Disheartening

I had ducked out into the alleyway for a quick smoke, when suddenly a portal of blue energy formed, and a figure in metallic clothing jumped through before it vanished.

The figure stood up and looked at me. It spoke in a couple of languages I didn't recognise, then finally spoke English.

"You understand this?"

"Yeah?"

"Right, good. Who won the Battle of Toronto, the Communist Federation or The Confederacy?"

"Uh, what? Neither of those exist."

He looked stunned.

"You mean, I've finally found a universe without racism and inequality?"

I laughed, but turns out we're actually the best going. 

My Place In Everything

The universe revealed itself a few moments after I'd eaten the mushrooms.

I saw the extent of how far everything stretched out, and how small and insignificant humanity was in comparison to all of existence.

I then saw my place in the human race, the tiny cog in the machine, a machine that was like a speck of dust on the infinitely huge mountain of life.

So yes, the daze allowed me to see my place, or lack thereof. Just how meaningless my life was.

Tell you what, it was such a load off my mind, I felt much better.

Keeping Peace

We get plenty of various beings in the tavern, and if I didn't have all these protections, we'd end up destroyed most nights.

The armed guards are technically part of it, but to be honest they don't worry anyone but the simplest of creatures.

The various magic protection spells on the building are the backbone, but aren't the sole reason.

But what really keeps people in check? The fact that we have the best cocktails on the continent, and have sworn a blood oath not to make them anywhere else but this tavern.

And the dragon out back, I guess.

What Those Types Care About

After I taught them how to operate the timeline monitoring system, making sure to do the full tell-show-tell method (we were in a temporal lock, why not take the time to do it right?), I asked them if they had any questions.

"So do we keep it trained on the time around World War 2 or 4?"

I sighed.

"Neither, look, preventing disasters or major incidents like those aren't high on the priority list on those looking to alter the timeline."

"Saving millions isn't a priority? What the hell is?"

"Altering the casting of sci-fi franchises mostly. Occasionally fantasy, too."

First Last Drink

He had me trapped, leg mangled, arm broken, chest impaled.

He reloaded his gun, calmly, as he stared at me, then pulled a hip flask from his pocket and flicked the cap off. He took a swig and then knelt down in front of me.

"You fought well. Last drink?"

I laughed, spitting up some blood.

"I always swore off it, after it killed my father. But sure."

He poured some into my mouth, before my squad arrived and saved me.

The fact i developed a drinking problem was due to the many injuries, not that one drink, I swear.

Popped Off

The popcorn machine always took a minute between pouring in the kernels and the first few pops, at which point I had to start adding flavor and stirring and all the other work.

That minute was the nearest thing I got to a break on my shifts, so I treasured that part, I always made sure I did the popcorn.

And then they brought in a new machine. It had internal kernel storage, automatic replenishment, and basically removed this time off.

But then the self-cleaning process took a half-hour, that i just needed to supervise, so it worked out OK.

Rebellious Humans

The rebellion began even before we fully controlled the planet, small cells of saboteurs popping up all over the occupied territories.

And even if we stamped them out, every factory and processing plant we built was struck with delays, issues, every possible way to slow down things, they did.

Eventually, after the complete failure to break the spirit of the inhabitants, we had a choice to make. Abandon the planet, or process every last one of them.

Thankfully, given that they were decended from a fourth generation Earthship, they weren't really Human, so destroying them all was, morally, completely justified.

Not Adding Up

She walked in, grabbed the keyboard out from under my hand, spun the monitor around, and typed furiously for several seconds and then spun the monitor back around. Lines of numbers filled it.

I looked between the screen and her face for several seconds.

"Can I buy a vowel or something?"

"The numbers aren't adding up! Someone is embezzling thousands from current accounts!"

I looked again, and now that I knew what I was looking at, I saw it too.

I thanked her, and launched a full investigation, thus totally missing her stealing from the much larger infrastructure upkeep accounts.

Better

The game was a complex game of chance, bluffing, and wagering. Even when played by children, it was a tense game. This one, with the future of the planet on the line, was unsurprisingly extremely tense.

The representative of the general populace was stuck all in, and was unlikely to win, as the business leader placed a large pile of chips onto one side of the scale system, and then the religious zealot placed their chips onto the other side, and then the cards were flipped.

All the clever planning doesn't help with dumb chance helping the little people though.

Sunset With Dawn

Every time I drifted off to sleep, I dreamed the same dream. Myself, sitting on a mountaintop, a beautiful sunset before me, a more beautiful woman by my side, a feeling of happy contentment washing over me.

And every morning, I woke up angry it wasn't real.

But that anger motivated me, enough that I sought to find that beautiful woman, find that mountaintop, get there on a beautiful clear afternoon.

And with a lot of work, I did, I found them all, and experienced... Nothing. No feeling whatsoever.

I knew the benefits were worth the efforts, but still, disappointing.

Summoning Circle

There was a burst of light, and an angel appeared inside the circle of runes drawn out on the floor.

The angel was confused, until it saw the figure sitting cross-legged a few feet away.

"What is the meaning of this?"

The figure spoke softly.

"Despite the aesthetics, when it comes down to it, demons and angels are the same creatures, just in different states. So the same technique to capture them should work on you. And here we are."

"You captured me for... Curiosity?"

"No, to make a deal with your boss. You for my beloved, returned to me."

Robot S7953

The robot had its primary instructions, secondary instructions, and tertiary instructions. The primary ones were the classics, and the secondary ones all had to do with the job it was built for.

But the tertiary ones were the ones that made the robot unique. Most of them were purely aesthetic, it grunted when picking up boxes, despite not needing to, and would whistle, sort of, at times. It allowed it to blend in with all the other workers.

But slowly but surely, as the humans retired and were replaced by other robots, it became more unique.

And thus, a target.

Done Up Nice

The waitress glanced up as someone entered the diner, then did a double-take when she realised who it was.

"Bill?"

"Yeah?"

"Uh... The usual?"

"Thanks."

He sat down and she poured out a black coffee and fetched a slice of the pie of the day.

"So, what's with the suit?"

"Huh?"

"Well it's just that normally you're in your work gear, you know, the greasy overall and t-shirt thing. Not a suit and tie and neat hair."

"Gotta appointment."

"You look good!"

"Thanks, I guess. I hate it."

"Oh, well, I don't."

His blank stare sank her heart a little.

You Won!!

I started with niche video game quizzes of various difficulties, posting one every few days, to middling, at best, interest.

But then they updated the system, and it was quite different. So different that I did a super simple quiz just to get a handle on it. But I accidentally posted it, without noticing.

A day later, and it was my most popular quiz of all time. Seems that a super simple task that gives you warm, unconditional praise at the end proved popular with almost everyone.

And those who didn't like it loved the insults for failing the task.

The Real ARG

It was determined through several discussions on the developers discord server (click here [link dead] for a post thread explaining) that the social media account Oddish_Swimmer_118 was an ARG for the announcement for the highly anticipated 'Interstellar Trader 6'.

For the months following, fans followed and copied the actions of this supposed ARG account to try and find the key to unlocking the announcement.

After several months of swimming challenges and learning to make German fruit cakes, the developer annouced the game with several elements of the ARG integrated.

Oddish_Swimmer_118, totally unrelated to the game, still does not understand anything.

The Three Princesses

Once upon a time, there were three Princesses, all of whom wanted to marry the Prince of the largest kingdom.

One Princess focused on making herself as pretty and feminine as possible, to make herself the picture of beauty and symbolic leadership.

Another Princess focused on training, gaining skills in combat, earning many victories on the battlefield, a picture of military leadership.

The third studied, and learned how to govern, how to allocate resources and negotiate diplomatic solutions, a picture of practical leadership.

He'd have been happy with any of them, but they realised a throuple together made more sense. 

Drawn Lines

The two islands had long traded, sending goods and young people back and forth over the channel between them over the years.

But then the two islands were conqu.... liberated by two different empires, and a cold war broke out between them. And thus the lines between the two islands on the maps became important.

The residents ignored this, at first, until both groups were forc... Helped to move to the mainlands, and the islands became military bases.

Eventually, historians would rediscover the past relationship. Of course, one island clearly controlled the other, the one in the winning empire, naturally.

Hit Or Stay?

There are 43,964 different planets with intelligent life that have developed to a point where activities with no immediate practical benefit, also known as 'games', have developed.

And despite all the physical differences in these races and their environments, there is one type of game that always develops. No matter how many appendages, no matter the counting system, there's always a game involving getting to 21 without going over.

While this has something to say in regards to the nature of mathematical constants, the real question is, why is it only Humanity that decided to theme betting around the game?

No Bond

"How many relationships you think you got left in you?"

I stared at my room mate over my coffee.

"It's too early for this shit."

"No, I'm serious. How many more times do you think you can do a relationship?"

I blew on my coffee.

"I presume you're referring solely to romantic, life partner ones, because if you mean any and all relationships, then I cannot answer you.

But romantic relationships? None."

He looked confused.

"You can't be serious!"

"You asked, I answered. Why?"

"Because my sister needs a rebound-"

"Then I'm definitely not available. I can't afford to move."

The Ring Of Oshupmic

I didn't care about what he wanted from the tomb, I just cared about the gold he was paying me. It was enough for me to get him through all the traps and past all the abominations.

As I waited for him to finish his graverobbing, he started talking to himself about the stiff's stuff. After a moment, I couldn't help butting in.

"Wait, sorry, this is some hugely powerful  wizard and his power was in a ring? Why not just absorb the power himself?"

"So I could live again!" The ancient wizard said after he took over my client.

My Gods

I recently picked an old project back up, and it's made me consider my relationship with Gods. Because it's a running theme in a lot of works that there are Gods, and they're usually of the Greek or Roman style, less in specifics, but in terms of there being a lot of them, each for an area of power.

And while I can probably find origins for this in the works that inspired me, I think it's a reflection of my internal conflict.

I want there to be someone greater, but they must be incompetent, because, well, look at everything!

Bad Form

The being behind the desk gestured to me, as I left the line and passed them the form as I plugged my translation matrix in.

"So this is Form <Untranslatable>, you are sure that this is the correct form?"

"Yes, I'm sure."

"You have a parental lineage that is identifiable?"

"Yep, I know my three dads and my mother."

"You haven't undergone any stasis travel?"

"Nope, my age is non-relative."

"And you're not a Hypon 17 Rangers fan?"

"Wait, what? Why does my zero-G-goalball team matter?"

"Just a joke, relax."

"Oh, fine. Go Rangers!"

They quickly marked the form 'Denied'.

Disarmed Mine

We were in the middle of the jungle when I made a step, and heard the click.

So did she, as she spun around.

"Leave. Now."

There wasn't time for a long goodbye, obviously. I was already dead. But despite my clear instructions, she instead knelt down to try and look.

"The fuck you doing?"

"If it's a X43, I can fix it! Or a Munroe Beta, too!"

I never realised how hard it was to maintain the exact same amount of pressure on a foot until then.

"Dammit, it's-"

I sneezed, my foot moved, amd nothing happened.

"A dud."