So it'll be April 1st in a little bit.
I hate April 1st.
I wish it was for some personal, understandable reason like I lost a loved one or something, but no, like a lot of people, I really hate April Fools Day.
And with that, i know a lot of people will tell me to take a joke, to lighten up, to have a bit of fun. But screw that, it's stupid, and I'm right to hate it, and you're wrong to like it.
...
April Fools!
...
You see how stupid that is? Why are we still doing this crap?
I sat out in the rain, waiting.
Not for either of them to apologise, I knew that wasn't happening.
Nor for either of them to realise that they were both wrong. No chance of that.
I wasn't waiting for some fourth party to intervene and solve the issue with diplomacy. Chances of that were small enough to be practically impossible.
And I certainly wasn't waiting for some sort of divine report card to win on points.
No, I sat in the rain and waited long enough to make sure the gas leak lasted long enough to do its job inside.
I approached the board, and three different muscular arms suddenly blocked my path. After a couple false starts where all three owners of said arms spoke at once, the closest to me ended up becoming spokesman.
"Beginner's Cup is over by the bathroom, Newbie."
I shrugged.
"I know, but I want to put my name down for the Open Challenge, it's open to all members of the Hunter's Guild, isn't it?"
There was much laughing, and then they let me put my name down.
Proof of kill being a pelt was changed after they found out I had a farm.
I stood at the Pearly Gates, trying to comprehend what I was being told.
"OK, let me get this straight."
"Sure!"
"When we die, we're judged, ok, not unexpected."
"Agreed!"
"But we're not judged on any one religion's moral structure?"
"Of course!"
"But rather we're judged as compared against a hypothetical best version of ourselves?"
"Gotta be fair about it!"
"OK, yeah, that all makes sense. But then it seems to me that you're giving everyone a fail!"
"Well it's not our fault none of you are discovering how to time travel, anyone can do that at any time.
Bye!"
The idea of two gunslingers meeting in the street at High Noon for a quick draw duel is more common in penny reels and pulp westerns than in real life. Most gun fights in town were dirty and undignified, someone pulls a gun and fires before the other one even knows what's happening.
But there was one time, Black Thompson managed to convince the US Ranger to a duel, whole nine yards.
And when the two men met in the street, the quickest draw won, in this case the Ranger's backup drawing on Thompson's hidden assassin behind the public bath.
I asked for silence, but got more noise instead.
I gave it a moment, then asked for silence, again, a little louder. The noise got louder in response.
I debated my next step carefully. Just raising my volume a second time would be pointless, that clearly wasn't going to work.
I decided, instead, on starting my prepared statements, hoping that ot would become obvious to all that they should stop talking at this point.
I'd gotten halfway before there was any noticeable change to the volume of the crowd.
Unfortunately, it was a change towards a still higher volume level.
As one of the content moderators for a major social media platform, he was often on deck whenever a supervillian or natural disaster broke out. And he'd almost always head to the bathroom or find some other excuse to head off, and then the Custodians and other superheroes would turn up and save the day, and he'd return after everything was settled.
Naturally, this led to the office joke that he was secretly Greatguy or Fastperson. But then the jokes turned serious, and they forced him to stay.
And found out he wasn't a superhero, just violently ill over death.
It was something every newbie to the block asked about. The power dynamics of the gangs in the jail were fairly obvious, except that one weedy looking guy who worked all day in the prisoner library. Everyone gave him respect.
When asked, old hands would tell a story about how when he came in, someone tried to mess with him and he enacted such violence that everyone left him alone.
But one guy asked multiple people, got different stories, assumed it was bullshit and messed with him.
Turns out all the stories were true, and now there was another one.
He was bored, sitting on the beach, looking out at the waves. So he picked up a rock and threw it out into the waves.
A moment later, a tenticle emerged from the choppy water, holding the rock. With a whip like motion, it threw the rock back, embedding in the wet sand with a small explosion of damp sand clumps.
The man was close enough to the impact to get hit by the flying sand, and so he got up and ran off.
And that's why the octopus waits in the bay, for the game of catch to continue.
The stewardess practically pushed me into the pilot's seat, and I tried my best not to think about the blood of the now former pilot I was sitting in. She then desperately shoved the headset on, backwards, but I sorted it out.
"Ground control to flight 613-"
"We're here! Hello?"
"Are you the passenger with flying experience we were told about?"
"I mean, I've logged 10 hours in a single engine-"
"That'll do. The plane will do most of the work. But have you restrained the stewardess who killed the last pilots?"
"Wait, she-"
Everything went dark for me then.
I didn't get up today.
OK, technically that's wrong, as I did go to the bathroom a couple times to go to the bathroom. But that doesn't count, I carried my staying in bedness with me.
I'm not sick, at least physically. And to be honest, I don't think I'm mentally ill either. Because I would argue that, if you look at everything that is going on in the world, staying in bed is in fact the sane thing to do. After all, it's sane to not soil where I sleep, so clearly I'm the right one here, shut up.
He strode in, clearly trying to portray that he had little time for me.
"You have 90 seconds."
I took 3 to consider how best to do this, speaking just as he went to cut me off again. I took 17 seconds to give what I thought was the most concise but still accurate explanation for what was going on in his company.
We spent the next 50 seconds going back and forth with his disbelief and the evidence I showed him quickly.
He spent 10 seconds considering the issue.
The last 10 were spent thanking and then firing me.
In a flash of blinding white light, the Angel appeared inside the salt circle. After a moment, it cycled through a few appearances before settling on the classic wings, halo, otherwise human looking. It then focused on me and Garion.
"Mortals, what do you think you're doing?
"Winning a bet."
Garion finished counting out gold coins as the Angel looked confused.
"What sort of gambling is this?"
"Oh, well, see, if Demons are fallen Angels, then it stood to reason that you could use the same summoning ritual to summon an Angel.
Now for the second half of the bet."
I spun the baseball bat on its tip on the floor, never letting it lose too much momentum.
After a moment, he laughed, his chains clinking.
"You think YOU are going to intimidate me? I've trained my entire life to withstand physical pain. You can't scare me!"
I ignored him as I continued to spin the bat. His attitude remained flippant until I spoke.
"See, I'm sure physical pain doesn't bother you..."
I leaned down and lit a match from the friction.
"But how about emotional pain? See, unless you talk, I'm going to set you on fire."
"I'm not afraid of burning, I can handle-"
"Chemically enhanced fire."
As I lit a small fire in a bowl on the desk, he paused, before laughing again.
"I can take it, and I'm not afraid of death."
"What the death of love? What about every day seeing the love drain from those who care for you as they're forced to care for your mangled, disgusting face and body? You think your woman will still love you when she has to wipe your ads every day?"
He blinked, faltering.
"I knew you were ablest." I said as I poured chemicals over him.
I reviewed the situation as I saw it. With there being no free cryopod, given I wasn't willing to commit murder, I was stuck taking the years trip to the destination system awake.
There was enough rations for this, provided I followed procedure and I spent most of my days tending to the garden and water reclamation systems.
I considered the irony, stuck in the most advanced spaceship ever, forced to live like a medieval peasant.
I took a deep breath, and tried the comm-unit to home.
Static.
...
I quickly reconsidered my earlier stance on murder, reaching a different conclusion.
Someone once said that if anyone wanted to become ruler, and had the capability to do so, under no circumstances should they be allowed to do the job.
Certainly, the evidence mostly supports that, given how few rulers have turned out well, as opposed to leaders.
But there is a counterpoint to that, I think. Because I feel like if you did take someone who didn't want the job and couldn't gain it by any reasonable means, is quite probably going to either run away or ruin everything, or do nothing.
So you're left with like 12 people.
They're busy.
After having pulled both cords, I was now forced to deal with the fact that I was rapidly falling to the ground with no way to slow my approach.
Not a good situation to be in.
As I continued to try both cords, I looked down and tried to choose the least worst option.
The hill was an early, if unpleasant, choice, rolling down it might help.
But then I saw the swimming center.
OK, hitting the diving pool was a risk, but what choice did I have?
I aimed, just as the chute opened and threw me off course.
On Friday night, I slumped into chair with a louder than usual sigh. She waited a moment before asking.
"Personal or cultural?"
"Both. I mean, you've seen what's going down, right? And then the usual work shit..."
"OK then. You want to play a board game?"
I nodded slowly, as she knew how to cheer me up. She walked over to the game bookcase.
"So... Twilight Struggle?"
"I really don't want to have to think about Russia right now."
"Morabaraba? Is that how it's pronounced."
"A South African game? No thanks."
"Monopoly then?"
"I hate Monopoly.
...
I'll be the cat."
His domain was a small pocket dimension, sandwiched between two universes (both of them infinite stretches of sandwiches, one Ruben, one Cuban).
He made it after he was defeated by a plucky rag-tag group of misfit adventurers, and his goal was to study the multiverse and work out how to avoid losing again.
Unfortunately, all he found was more ways to lose. So many universes had books or weapons that empowered those that touched them, many more with destined heroes, for some reason.
There were ways for evil to win that he found, sure, but they were all so dull.
The two men both slipped into the alleyway, through opposite doors. The one who came through the door with blaring music was dressed to the nines, the other who came through the door in the back of the wine bar was wearing stuff that was at least clean.
In any other circumstance, they'd have not bothered to look at the other. But right now, both saw a reflection of their own face in the other. Silently, they nodded, before they shared a silent cigarette together.
Until both doors reopened and a woman came through both, both of them looking furious.
I assume my grandfather wanted to ensure the home he'd built with his own two hands would remain in the family because he thought of it as the thing that would last. But the way he wrote the will out, it became a problem, as someone had to take it for anyone to get anything, but taking it meant you wouldn't get any of the millions.
Eventually, just to end the bickering, I took it.
If this was a story, he'd have hidden millions in it.
But instead, I just lucked out with an intended motorway led to enforced buyout.
The Lifeflame is the spark of all life on Goleium, the thing from which all the Gods, Demi-Gods, and Demons emerged, who then created all other life.
It is said that if it ever was expunged, that all of life would go with it. Naturally, this has led to it having to be defended by glass, dozens of magical wards, and a standing army of 1000 warriors, because if there's a "Kill Everything" switch in the world, lots of people will want to use it.
It's also a fake, which is good, since it's gone out eighty-four times so far.
The issue with faster than light travel was that it was expensive and needed a lot of power.
This seems intuitive, but it did mean communication was an issue. Sending a message back to Earth took years to send, if you didn't have the time, resources, and power to send a ship.
But there's always people wanting to live on the frontier. So when the first colony got into trouble, they sent a highly compressed message to Earth, and then waited.
Unfortunately, by the time it arrived, Earth no longer had the technology to detect it, let alone understand it.
"All-In."
'Texas' Sampson shoved his chips into the center of the pot and leaned back in his chair, his sunglasses covering his face, as those watching at home all gasped.
His last opponent, George Cowers, waited for a chip count, 'Texas' unmoving, as it was counted. 'Texas' was just ahead, but George couldn't get a read on 'Texas', but eventually, he called.
'Texas' didn't flip his cards, forcing the dealer to, a typical power play, and the hand was dealt, George winning.
Which raised the question, could we assume 'Texas' would have bet once again if he was still alive?
I've been thinking about the whole "you die a hero or live long enough to become the villian" thing recently, for some reason.
Now, I get the original idea, obviously no-one is perfect, but it's easier to pretend when someone is no longer capable of messing up.
But then again, there's another aspect, in that you can do everything right, but there's always someone else's story, where you're not the main character. And if you're not the main character, eventually, you're in the way.
But in any case, you see John Cena turn heel today? Man, that was crazy, right?
