Magic Clipboard

The University Of Magic & Witching had hired me to do a performance review, a total examination from sewer to pinnacle.

I'd spent the last few days interviewing tenured professors and learning about supposedly cutting edge magical research. I'd discovered several areas that could be improved, when I found him in a small lab deep in the bowels of the main building.

He explained that he'd been conducting an experiment in camouflage magic, that he'd been hidden from all the other staff for twenty years.

Naturally, given that I found him it was unsuccessful and thus could be terminated posthaste.

No Laws, Just Order

The MacArthurs and the Saxons had been fussing and fueding, as the locals put it, for over a century at this point. Both families had long lists of grievances, both real and imagined, enough that there was always a threat of violence occurring at the drop of a hat.

And while there had been a few star-crossed lovers, they never seemed to solve anything. And besides, there was always another cousin, another branch of the family to pick up the fight.

In the end, it was stopped by the Marshalls.

After they bought out the goldmine, they hired numerious goons.

Let Them Eat This

The mob, once riled, needed something to sate them.

Obviously, if you could ask them collectively, and get a comprehendable response, you could then provide them with what they wanted, in this case something approximate to the Queen's head on a stake.

One solution would be to raid the Royal treasures. Even the most ardent revolutionary takes a moment to reconsider when tossed a ruby the size of their fist. But this is expensive.

So in the end, the Queen sated their calls with arrows and blades.

Which works, short term. But it's a meal you have to keep serving.

Our Uniquenesses

The Idandians were the seventeenth race to open diplomatic relations with Earth after we cracked postwarp, so we felt we had the process sorted by then.

So when they requested a guide for a documentary maker, and I was chosen, the United Government already had a list of things to show them planned.

The initial meeting went smoothly, and we toured Historical sites, but they asked to see our cultural aspects, and after seeing some of them, they asked about basic Human nature, as they couldn't find anything that they didn't roughly have themselves back home.

That depressed me, somehow.

Donnie And Claire

They both saw the way the world was, and where it was headed, and they both despaired.

So they found and turned to each other, hoping to find respite in each other's arms.

They both tried to help, to do what they could to better the world, or at least stop it getting worse, but their efforts were for naught.

So they turned to other, more drastic options that volunteering at the soup kitchen and donating to the medical charity that won that award.

They both managed to get a dozen enemies of the planet before they were shot dead.

Too Many

Too many nights wasted on trying to find love at the end of a bar, or in the middle of a rave, or at a friend of a friend's place.

Too many months wasted on work, my entire being focused on my career, hoping to find meaning and purpose in spreadsheets, calculations.

Too many years wasted thinking I had missed my chance, thinking it was not to be.

Too few moments with you, the very opposite of wasteful, the one I should be.

Two minutes wasted waiting for the elevator, just too late to stop the taxi taking you away.

The Puzzle Of The Beast

The Beast guarded the the Tomb of the Jade Empress, as it has done for centuries. Two things were known to all in the land.

One, there was incredible treasure within the Tomb.

Two, the Beast had a puzzle that you had to solve to gain access to the Tomb.

But everyone who had tried to enter the Tomb had died, so there was no knowledge of what the puzzle was.

But there were alwsys new treasure hunters, new foolhardy adventurers eager for fame and fortune. And they would always fail, given several pieces of the jigsaw had been lost.