The Old Sea And The Man

Even if there had been light this far underground, the water, if it was indeed water, was inky black, ripples moving through it disquietingly as he stared at it.

His filter was long useless, and he'd used the last purification tablet two days ago.

He needed to survive, he was so close to finding... He couldn't remember what he was looking for, but he knew he'd remember once he found it. But to find it he needed water.

This was water.

Slowly, he dipped his hand in, and drank.

He found what he was looking for.

And it found him.

The Text

Stories have power.

I think most people understand that, on some level. Most people will agree that the myths baked into a society help shape those inside it, be they moral tales or 'accurate history'.

But more importantly than those are the narratives we believe the world runs on. The way we talk about events, how we frame what occurs, these are more powerful, since how we see these is how we react and thus how they develop.

But most importantly of all are the stories we tell ourselves about who we are. Everyone's a hero to themselves.

Edit yourself.

Trust The Process

The swordwoman dumped a handful of scalps onto the desk.

"You had a problem with some orcs?"

I recoiled in horror.

"No! What made you think that?"

She paused, and pulled out a crumpled poster from a pouch on her belt. I looked it over.

"Yeah, this seal of the Sheriff over the reward offered is a fake, this is a forgery. Sorry."

The Swordwoman grumbled and stomped out of the jailhouse. The Sheriff then wandered in from the back.

"Who was that?"

"Oh, my husband dropping off more orc scalps. Can you go fetch our reward while I process?"

Minute Hand

It was a fusion reactor plate, forged in a neutron star forge along with a thousand other ones. But thanks to a minute impurity, it was slightly weak.

This led to it being the one that failed, and causes the battlecraft to suffer a containment leak and crash on the planet.

This led to a resource of tech for the natives to harvest several thousand years later, the drive plate being forged into a crown.

This led to the race, in several thousand more years, that saved the galaxy.

Which led to my coming here to add in an impurity...

Color Wheel

Blue, pink, green.

Those were the colors of her hair, when I first met her.

Black, white, red.

Those were the colors of a newspaper, when she told her lame joke.

Yellow, pink, orange.

Those were the colors of the prizes, when I got my eye in on our first date.

Red, black, silver.

Those were the colors of her elegant dress, when she proposed to me.

White, blue, pink.

Those were the colors of her wedding dress, when she bought it.

White, red, black.

Those were the colors of it when I got to the scene of the accident.

Viral Vira

Like a lot of viral stuff, it's hard to explain why it took off like it did. It was just an account on a video sharing network that posted a ten minute video each day of a moderately attractive youngish woman going about her life, as taken from security cameras. This video was her making meatballs while listening to a podcast, this one her watching cat videos, this one her taking a nap. I guess the mundane nature of this relaxed people, until it was discovered the woman didn't know about any of this.

That's when it really got popular.

Over

How long can you sit by and let someone be wrong? There's a guy in the next row of seats over who is loudly telling someone over the phone a bunch of stupid bullshit. I'm not going to bother trying to detail the extent of his wrongness, but suffice to say it's typical internet crap about how people loving each other is going to end the world. And I'm really getting tired of listening to it, and at some point I'm gonna have to do something, aren't I?

I should, shouldn't I? At least before he gets off?

Too late.