Word Soup

The broadcast was strong enough to be detectable, but weak enough to not be intelligible, beyond the fact that it was a message, in an unknown language, repeated on a loop.

The computer worked for days to try and piece together the rare moments of stronger signal, building a best estimate of the message, eventually getting something, which it then began to decode, producing a template where you could enter guesses of certain words, and build a translation.

It then became a game, to find the most interesting version, then the funniest, then the crudest.

The actual meaning was underwhelming.

Little Death, Big Death

As a combat medic, having people die in your arms is something you're not supposed to get used it. It's meant to hurt and be a painful experience every time, so you fight that much harder to not have it happen again.

But, it happens, enough, where I couldn't do anything, that you do kind of get used to it.

That weird dichotomy is further added to by how many people decide to reveal dark secrets out of some vain attempt to calm their souls before they die.

The amount of super secret sex within squads is quite remarkable, apparently.

Snapped Fingers

Every day, I would open the door, let her in, accompany her to her desk, hidden among the boxes of files, and would tell her, if she needed me, to just 'snap her fingers', before I headed back to the door.

And every time she needed me, which was once a week or so, she'd get up, walk to my chair, and ask me directly.

Eventually, after months of this, I asked why she never snapped her fingers, not even once.

She told me that she didn't know how.

So I taught her, took me five minutes.

Really shouldn't have,.

Be Cynical

I saw this meme about how, in the time of upheaval and chaos, that a good way to help out is to find people who had listings on this particular application for quasi-legally renting out parts of their home that lived in the area in trouble, and make advance bookings so as to get cash to them immediately.

Now, I'm sure that most of the people sharing this do think it's a good idea, but honestly, I feel like if I owned an application that took money from every booking made on it, I'd be telling people to do that... 

Office Politics

I'd been working there for a few weeks when Keiko from Accounting led someone over to my desk, smiling.

"Hello! This is our new actuarial data analyst, he's from New Zealand, I thought since you were Australian, you'd be best friends!"

I sighed as I squeezed my nose.

"Look, I'll be honest, that means that we're not going to get along, closer together people come from, the bigger the-"

"Oh, I love Aussies!"

I wish I could say I suspected him from that point, but it took his massive embezzlement to become known before I realised I should have known.

The Woman By The Sea

Where the river met the sea, there was always a woman. The name they had before they became the woman there didn't matter, at least to the tribe.

She was once of the tribe, but no longer, as those who took the role did so knowing what it entailed.

There was a lot that the tribe needed done that was not that which the tribe could do. The births, the deaths, all that was unclean, the tribe relied on the woman by the sea.

Which gave them all the power, as the old one would tell her apprentice every time.

Medical Attention

The blow to the head knocked me out.

When I awoke, I found myself naked, tied to a chair, and under enough bright lights to be seen from space, if I wasn't in a bunker that I could only assume was underground.

The figure in the gloom beyond the lights whistled under his breath.

"Oh good, I was worried you'd not make it."

I locked my lips and tasted blood.

"Not worried enough to give me medical attention?"

The figure laughed, leaning forward so I could see him, and the scars all over his face.

"You want this?"

"... Maybe not."