Video Chat

We'd video chat every night my time, morning her time.

We'd treat it as a way to keep using our native tongue, English for me, Japanese for her.

We'd discuss plans and events, although it was an uneven split as most of the time it was events for me, plans for her.

We'd always joke about how she always seemed to cover part of the camera with her thumb, obstructing the view for me, but not for her.

We'd speak every day to hide from ourselves and each other that the relationship was dying, recently for me, long-term for her.

Butterslice

The paperwork said that the horse's name was 'Butterslice'. The name it was most commonly called in the stable was 'fucking demon animal'.

The horse would kick, and bite, and buck, and rear, whenever any attempt was made to move or clean it, and also half the times someone tried to feed it.

Every local cowboy who was sure they could tame it never got it out of the stable.

Until, eventually, the young rookie stablehand hopped on and rode it out safely.

The fact the stable had to be on fire for this to work invalidated its repeated use. 

Impossible Prediction

The future won't look like how you think it will.

There's just far too many variables, from the huge market forces that control governments down to the individual choices that end up snowballing into massive changes.

Every macro and micro factor plays a part, and you can't comprehend them all in one go, let alone predict them.

So we're left with just waiting and seeing how things go, or making guesses and knowing they'll be wrong, but hoping only slightly wrong.

Because only one man ever forsaw the future perfectly, and he then shot himself.

But maybe we'll be ok?

The Worst Part

"And here, we see the 'Statue of The God-'"

The small group of little old ladies I had been guiding through the museum all screamed or otherwise showed shock, so I turned around to find the marble statue moving, bringing a hand up to its face.

It looked at me and spoke in Latin.

"What has happened to me?"

I was glad I didn't fall asleep that much in Latin class.

"You are a statue, is this new to you?"

"Yes."

It looked down, both physically and then emotionally.

"Yeah, that part broke off during the war, sorry about that."

Hyper Efficiency

I was told to wait to see the chairman in his outer office, so I sat there, waiting.

Opposite me, his secretary sat at her desk, effortlessly switching from answering the phone to typing on her computer and tapping on a tablet PC as well. She seemed to know everything she needed to.

I took advantage of a short lull.

"So do you love him or hate him?"

She looked over her glasses.

"Excuse me?"

"Your boss. When someone is as efficient as you, they either hate or love the guy you're working for."

"Sir, I'm a lesbian."

"So?"

"... Hate."

Question Asking

As soon as they got off the bus, they grabbed the first person they saw.

"Do you know Derek Hamelin?"

The young man said no.

The outsider didn't seem to mind, as they just went onto the next person, and the next, and the next.

They asked literally everyone in town, no-one knew. Everyone in town, town's not that big. Then they left.

A month later, guy checked into the hotel, name Derek Hamelin.

He found it impossible to dig up the treasure he and the outsider buried in town years ago, too many people following him around asking questions.

Ammo Code

The slips would be placed in the one-way drawer.

I was supposed to pick up the slip, check the security code against the relevant one for the day, then check the code for the requested ammo, and then if it was all correct, I would then grab the ammo and send it back up.

Of course, I got much quicker once I memorised the ammo codes, and then didn't bother checking the security codes. Made my rate of processing go right up.

And besides, when you're replacing the ammo with cheap knockoffs, who cares if I'm giving it out wrong?