Rationalizing

Safe with tenure, he spent his days teaching bored kids, and his nights working on his nearly perfect economic model.

The problem with every other economic model was that they kept relying on people being rational, that they’d make the best rational decision available. But every time someone applied one to real people, they’d act irrationally and ruin it.

But after many years, he had accounted for every variable, and began to make predictions.

That all failed.

So, he refocused. If he couldn’t make the model irrational enough, he’d make people rational.

He rationalized twelve before they cut him down.

Lessons In Growing Up

It was the moment she grew up, although she didn’t realise it then. She just thought it was a regular, normal night. She got tucked into her bed and her father kissed her on the head and told her he’d be back in the morning.

She never saw him after that.

That moment stuck with her, and she vowed to never do the same with her kids. At every chance, she told them she’d never leave, she’d be there for them always.

Until she learnt what her father obviously had.

Sometimes you have to leave those you love the most.

Respecting The Competition

The two of them spotted each other across the crowded room. One was in a perfectly cut suit, the other a smart grey dress that showed off a little skin.

Both knew each other, having spent many years here in the Capital lobbying, giving out reports and meetings and many things that were in no way bribes.

One of them was cloaked in the righteousness of moral superiority, the other knew deep down they were ‘evil’ but was paid enough not to care.

They shared a nod of respect, then went back to lobby for their respective mining companies’ interests.

Giving Up Molly

I finally got him away from all distractions.

Naturally, struggling and coming down took hours, but calm took hold.

“You cannot do this to both you and your significant-“

“Who da fuck you fink you talkin’ to? I’m-“

“My baby boy. My son. A man who had all of God’s gifts shown him from birth until-“

“Until you got into drugs, HO!”

I didn’t show him how much it hurt.

“I didn’t say I wasn’t with flaw. I was as lost as you, until I found God.”

It took many days, but finally I won.

“OK! I’ll quit MDMA, happy?”

Desperate Lone Combatants

The motley crew of deluded fools who dared stand up to me and my quest for world domination breached my last disposable troops and burst into my throne room and right into my trap. I paused to tell them how stupid they truly were.

“You fools, you think…”

I trailed off as I stared at them.

“Uh... Sorry, I’m about to hypnotise the world’s population and the last line of pathetic defence are a 1950’s housewife, a furry, someone in garish pink armor, and a severely under-dressed Japanese schoolgirl?”

They nodded, seemingly confused by the question.

“… I hate DLC.”

Man In The Mirror

I finally woke up to myself as I stared at myself in the mirror after yet another year of everything going wrong.

I’d let people down, I’d ruined my relationship, I’d lost my job, all because I wasn’t willing to admit to myself that the person in the mirror needed to change. For too long I’d seen a man in the mirror I didn’t recognize, and one that I didn’t, couldn’t live up to. Not without changing my outlook.

I saw my doctor the following day, and within a few months I had begun preparing for the gender reassignment surgery.

Do No Evil (TM, C, R)

He entered the glass and steel rimmed foyer with only a slight pause to prepare himself. Waiting at the secure entrance to the building proper was a woman, her suit neatly pressed, her face set to ‘PR’.

“Hello, and welcome to-“

She stopped when she noticed he was staring at the large plaque on the wall, upon which the company’s corporate motto was writ large.

“’Do No Evil’.” he read. He sighed softly.

“See, a noble sentiment, but the fact you have to declare that is worrying…”

The lawsuit between them decided that unintentional evil didn’t break said motto though.