Hidden Wife

After the third round of knocking, I finally opened the door, looking as casual and calm as I could with water dripping off me and a towel around my waist.

"Hi, sorry, was in the shower, I-"

He strode in, pushing me to the side.

"Where is she?"

"Sorry, who are you?"

He opened doors, looking through my apartment.

"My wife, I followed her, I knew she was cheating on me-"

He paused when he saw another man, showering.

"Yeah, I'm gay."

He left.

I then helped his wife out of her hiding place, thank goodness we had a threesome.

The Problem

Not that I wanted to be the bearer of bad news, but I had to inform the captain of the problem.

She was unhappy about it, and insisted upon seeing the problem for herself.

I took her down to the storage chambers, and showed her the problem.

She began to rattle off the regulations to me, although she was clearly trying to convince herself that the prescribed solution to the problem was the correct one.

I stayed silent, until she ordered me to deal with the problem.

I carried the stowaway to the airlock and flushed them out into space.

Bulldozer

After I turned on the lights and prepared the store, I opened the door, only to get pushed back in by a woman striding into the store.

"I need to speak to the manager."

I pushed myself back to upright as I adjusted my jacket.

"We don't... I'm the manager, can I help you?"

She looked at me and seemed to actually see me for the first time.

"Yesterday, I was in here and I was sold a faulty device, and I-"

"We weren't open yesterday, I was sick."

This derailed her, which only made things worse in the end.

That Voice

When the crowd began to turn, that's when she grabbed the microphone and began to sing a classic aria.

It was the most beautiful voice I'd ever heard, now that she wasn't being forced to do back-up singing through a vocoder. It was emotionally charged but still stunning perfect, every note on point.

For the rest of my life, I'll never forget standing there and hearing that voice only a few feet away from me.

Such a shame that thr microphone wasn't working and thus no-one else heard it, and the crowd eventually went off in a full blown riot.

Destroyed

I entered the nebula and hoped the destroyer wouldn't follow me, but it did. So now I had a hard choice to make.

I couldn't leave the nebula, the destroyer would spot and destroy me before I could go to hyperwarp. So, I could go silent, try and outlast them, hope they gave up before they found me.

Or, I could fire my plasma cluster torpedoes, and hopefully destroy them without setting off a chain reaction of thr nebula.

I decided on the later, and fired.

Of the destruction of the destroyer and thr nebula, I got one outta two.

The Gamut

I walked into her quarters intent on asking her about her work on the warp drive, but that left my mind when I saw the device she was working on.

"Uh... What's this?"

She adjusted one of the eyepieces.

"After working alongside you I feel I need to understand humans better. So I've built this device to experience the entire gamut of human emotions."

"Really? I know you Diaolities are empathetic but that's a lot."

"I'll be fine."

She slipped on the helmet, and flipped a switch.

A moment later, she removed the helmet.

"Interesting."

I felt a little miffed.

In The Trees

She found me in the Berry Blossom grove, sitting on a smoothed stone.

"You knew I was coming."

I didn't bother turning around to address her.

"Of course. The blossoms flowered. I told you you'd return when they did."

She snorted.

"My coming back has nothing to do with the fucking trees."

I laughed.

"I never said there was a causation, just that there would be a coincidence."

She pulled her sword.

"I owe you the honor of facing your death on your feet."

"Remember that other thing I told you? About my ventriloquism studies?"

I jumped down onto her.

My Treasure Map

The map was a work of art. Drawn on an irregular piece of parchment, it was covered in symbols and lines, as well as a dozen riddles to indicate clues about where to start, where to look, where to dig. All of it fifficult enough to be impossible to work out, while being just comprehensive enough to try.

I kept it in my inner breast pocket at all times, but occasionally someone would threaten me, and steal it.

After which I'd just make up a new one.

Anyone who can't simply remember where they put their treasure doesn't deserve it.

Odd Theory

So I've been thinking.

There's that thing about how even if only one in a million stars have planets and only one in a million of them are in the right area for life and even if only one in a million of those actually has life, that's still millions of millions of worlds.

If that's true, then even if one in a million of them has technical ability, and even if one in a million of those are advanced technology, that's still a number that ain't zero, and thus they should be around.

And they ain't.

I'm depressed now.

Hidden Rulebook

Many people know that when the Grim Reaper comes for you, you have the chance to play a game to try and save your life. But most people forget the second part of that, in that the Reaper can call upon the skills and talents of everyone who ever died. You might think yourself a great poker player, but better than every poker player who's ever died?

This means most everyone fails. But me, I've designed a game called Secret Rule Trumps. It's got a bunch of rules that give the dealer automatic wins. And no, I'm not telling you.

Highpoint

I picked up my fruity alcoholic drink, sipped it, and then sighed sadly.

She looked up from my side, looking confused.

"You ok babe?"

I sighed again.

"I'm here, with the love of my life, in a tropical paradise, sipping an amazing drink, food coming soon... Everything is perfect."

"And this is upsetting?"

I shook my head.

"Not as such, this is absolutely perfect."

"So why the sadness?"

"Because I can't help but think this is the high point of my life, and it's all downhill from here."

"I'll do my best to make sure it isn't then."

It was.

True Power

The Wizard led me to the middle of the village, a few old men glancing over before going back to their cards.

"Here it is, the Sword of Power."

I stared at a dull sword stuck in a stone.

"A thousand years ago, King-"

"So what are you supposed to do?"

"Ahem.

The future ruler of this land is said to be able to pull the sword out. Now, I can't use magic on the sword, so-"

"What about the stone?"

"What?"

"Just weaken the stone, it'll slide right out."

I guess that's why he picked me for the job.

Twitter, 2006-2022

So, chances are, Twitter is probably going to die soon, or at least go through such an upheaval that it'll be unrecognisable.

Much can, and will, be written about the reasons for this, and the obvious cause. I'm not interested in litigating that, at least here and now.

No, right now, I just want to be a voice to remind you that it's ok to feel bad about this. Your grief is valid, it's not stupid or shallow to have grief over such a loss.

It'll hit everyone differently, and that's ok. Like for me, It'll hit my blog hits.

Packed Up

My camp-fire was small but effective as I huddled next to it, waiting for the dawn to start moving again.

As I watched the embers and occasionally added another twig, I heard movement, and looked up.

It was three wolves, at least the ones I could see. I watched them for a few moments.

They didn't move, and so I went back to watching the fire.

I didn't intend to sleep, but I must have fallen asleep, given I woke up.

But I woke up alive, unbitten.

But the howls on the wind informed me this wasn't assured going forward. 

Mishandled

She approached me across the bar as I checked my phone.

"There you are!"

She wrapped her arms around me and kissed my cheek. My initial thought was that she was trying to get rid of a pest, but no-one seemed to be looking over.

"What you drinking?"

I tried to remove her arm from my waist.

"I'm sorry, I think you have me confused with someone else."

She laughed.

"Oh come off it, we've been talking for months!"

I shook my head and walked away, before messaging my buddy on the 'Star Complex Defense' MMO about the crazy lady.

Tactics

I took a long hard look at the map, as I tried to decide what my orders were going to be.

Our forces were tired, bloodied, and barely hanging on.

I could order them to attack, a heroic final charge, which would give them peace, eventually, after they were killed.

I could order them to lay down their arms, and give them life, albeit under our enemies.

But then I got an idea.

Three days later, we were on top, our enemies on the run.

I'd tell you what I did, but I might need to use it on you.

Helping

She came in with a chip on her shoulder and a computer under her arm.

"You the repair geek?"

"I am currently manning the repair desk, yes. How can I help you?"

She practically slammed the laptop onto the counter.

"This ain't working!"

"Well I'll help as well as I can, what specifically is the issue?"

"It ain't working! And I tried turning it off and on again!"

"Very well, let me check."

I opened it to find a smashed screen.

"That's new!"

I smiled, as I prepared the surveillance camera for evidence when I refused for poor customer handling. 

Reference Material

After three days spent crawling back and forth from my bed to my en-suite in pitch darkness, I finally emerged into the land of the living.

"So, I miss a meteor shower that blinds everyone?"

My room-mates looked at each other in confusion.

"Come on, 'Day Of The Triffids'!"

They shrugged, and I shook my head and sat down heavily on the couch.

"So what has happened?"

"They annouced a new eyepiece mobile device, preorders are already out to two years, and there's a algae that's taking over the rivers."

It was a slower pace, but the book still applied.

End Of War

For a hundred days and nights, Earth had fought against the invading alien forces in a slowly losing battle of attrition. Every day we lost a little ground, but we made them pay for every inch of ground they took.

But at 7:05 am GMT, suddenly, they all left. Every last alien was gone, all over the world.

Humanity, cautiously, took a deep breath, and began to hope, for the first time in a long time, that things would work out.

This lasted the eight minutes it took the Sun going supernova to reach Earth and destroyed everything standing.

Secret Ports

There were two types of men on the ship in regards to girls in ports.

Most of them were the type to have a girl in every port, although some of them didn't actually have girls in certain ports, and some of the others shared girls in certain ports, not that they knew it.

And most of the others had the one girl, in the one port, that they pined for all the time.

And then the captain was married to the sea, as he told the men constantly.

Until the fire forced his secret woman out of his quarters.

Critical Wind

A strong wind blew through the trees, rattling the bare branches.

As they brushed against the windows, they made the most horrible noises, like fingernails dragging across my soul. But I focused on my writing, the sound making my book take a darker turn than I intended.

But then I came to a turning point, as I needed to decide which of the twins needed to die, as one of them needed the pain for the finale.

I flipped a coin.

As I did, two windows broke, and wind blew the coin out of the building.

I reconsidered the plot.

Court Signs

The King and Queen had moods, that the court was very good at reading. They had to be able to understand that when the Queen brushed her hair, it meant she was wanting her sewing devices nearby, or that the King tapping his foot at a speed faster than the water wheel turning meant you should offer him chilled water.

So when the delegate from the mountains came in and ignored every sign of their boredom, only for the King and Queen to keep him talking, clearly he had magic. The alternative, that all the signs were wrong, that's preposterous.

Immortalcom Inc

It's a service we offer only to the wealthiest of the wealthy. We have the ability, we explain, to transfer their conciousness to our computer system. Immortality, with no need to give up their fortunes. That's what really gets them, the idea that they can keep their money.

We give them a subdermal implant to map their mental pathways, then we can transfer their minds.

Of course, it's complete bullshit, as we're only recording their voice until they mention their financial details so we can make the AIs, in their own replicated voices, give their entire fortunes to various charities.

Control Room

A hush fell over the room as the screen showed the robot reaching the artefact. It stepped up the stairs towards it, and then paused at the top of the platform.

The hush continued as the one person still moving in the room, the controller of the robot, adjusted things and then instigated the pick up subroutine.

The robot slowly leaned forward, then picked up the item.

There was no traps.

The control room cheered.

Someone slapped the controller on the back, making them fall forward, hitting the controls, and making the robot drop the item.

The controller was blamed.

The Unrelenting Evil

The Unrelenting Evil was awoken by the Breaking of the Nine Seals.

As The Unrelenting Evil emerged from its chamber, it was expecting loyal worshippers, or perhaps an unprepared, idiotic historian to have awoken it.

Not someone bearing the Sword Of Light, the one thing that could send it back into its sleep. The Unrelenting Evil hissed at the figure.

"You awaken me only to put me back to slip?"

The figure shook its head.

"No, I need your help."

The Unrelenting Evil stared.

"What do you fear more than me?"

"Nothingness."

The Unrelenting Evil considered this, and relented slightly.

Crossed Over

For the last few nights, I've seen a figure down on the street, hidden in the shadows. Every night, as soon as I spot them, they seem to melt away further into the darkness.

I've looked during the day, there's no garbage that I'm mistaking for a person. There really is someone watching me.

So last night, I set up a camera to record the street, and now I'm going to review the footage.

Excuse me for a moment.

...

Wait, wait, this is....

I don't understand, this footage is just blackness, but the street was lit up!

Unless-

Who's that?