Misnamed

"Symon Smyth, Ys instead of Is."

I'm sure that of you counted every sentence I ever said, that would be the one I said the most across my life.

"Yes, that's me, but it's misspelled here, twice."

99 times out of 100, it would be wrongly spelt, forms, cards, everything.

"My name is wrong here, I... Yes I'll hold."

I'll admit that I always feared I'd end up buried under a tombstone that had my name wrong. I made sure to triple check it. And the tombstone I was buried under was spelt perfectly.

Just a shame it wasn't mine.

Last Hold

That night, I held her for the last time.

I couldn't let her know, so I wasn't able to make it extra special, beyond the fact it would be the last time she was in my arms.

If anything, she was in a mood, bad day at work apparently, so she didn't particularly want to be held, but she tolerated it for half an hour while we watched a sitcom episode we'd seen a half dozen times already.

Then she went to bed, and I stayed up to clean up.

Which involved starting a fire and leaving for my alibi. 

Choosing Moments

You don't get to pick the most important moments of your life.

You might think the romantic marriage proposal was one, but that was just the outcome of the moment you made her laugh so hard she coughed up her drink in that dirty roadside diner.

Your acceptance speech, your wife by your side, in the hotel ballroom you picked personally? That was just the outcome of the moment your mother broke your heart.

The moments you choose are the outcomes of those you don't.

Unless you choose to break cause and effect.

The moment you do, that's truly important.

Rulers Of High School

The cliche is that the rulers of high school are the quarterback and the head cheerleader, who are inevitably dating.

Our head cheerleader didn't date anyone, which was explained when I met her wife at the ten year reunion. And the quarterback hovered between a few girls, none of whom were able to gain social traction.

So the closest we had to rulers were the running back and the head of the debating team, who were the social rulers, without question.

Although, given they were twin brother and sister, they weren't in the traditional relationship kings and queens usually had.

Destroyed Beauty

Where the two buildings met, there was a tiny yellow flower, growing out from the inch or so gap between the concrete walls.

It was just a little dandelion, nothing too exotic, but the fact it was growing up out of near pitch darkness and into the light was a near miracle in of itself.

But eventually, it was destroyed, as all beautiful and fragile things, by an uncaring world.

If it was by destroying one of the buildings or something, I could understand it.

But no, it was destroyed by a guy standing on it, hiding a smoke break.

Code Injection

It was supposed to be the perfect system. Rather than spend ages working on every minute detail of a new uploaded soul's appearance when we added them to the network, we just tapped into their subconscious and used how they saw themselves as the base of their new appearance.

Sure, we had to adjust those with low self-esteem slightly at times, and there were issues with furries, but it was all working just fine.

Until we got to the guy who, through a tightly monitored drug regime and intense therapy saw himself as a long line of malicious self-replicating code.

Sane By What Standard

I had reached my third month in the bowels of the legendary Lost Dungeon of Bucease, where I'd set up a little shop, a shoppette. 

And I'd seen plenty of adventurers, most of them willing to trade. But then a Knight emerged down the stairs in full plate armor, glinting in the pale light of the dungeon.

"Are you sane, Knave?"l

"Depends."

He swung his sword to point it at my throat.

"I have no times for games!"

I sighed.

"Ah, so you're from Kingdom of Ceneer. Then no, I'm not sane by your standards."

He thrust, I died laughing.