A Hole in What I Know

Today’s prompt: “Write about something you know absolutely nothing about. Make all of it up.”

So, I wouldn’t know from personal experience what happens when a localized black hole materializes in your lungs, but I’ve got a pretty good idea. I can wish on your behalf that the black hole sucked all the air out of your lungs first, and you died of suffocation, a not entirely horrible death. But I think we both know that’s not what happened. Your bloodstream was carrying enough oxygen for you to stay alive for at least a minute without breathing, and the black hole acted on your internal organs much faster than that, smooshing them up into their component molecules and then smooshing them up into even more itty-bitty molecules than that with all the space crowded out between the electrons and the nuclei and all the space that would normally be between atoms just broken down like when you cut all the packing tape and flatten a cardboard box. The force you felt when that happened was like being hit by a falling anvil and a bullet train at the same time, except that’s like a 0.5 on a scale that goes up to 100, which is where you’re at now. Anyway, at least it was quick. You can’t survive long with your heart compacted to the size of, what, 1/100,000th of a raisin? Probably smaller than that. How many atoms are in a raisin anyway?

It's Like This

Today’s prompt: “Death is like this….”

We’re talking about the state of being dead, right? Not the state of mourning someone else’s death? Because the second one is certainly a tragedy, but the first one, well, who’s to say whether you even really experience it? I mean, just because I’m a third-person omniscient narrator doesn’t mean I know everything.

Or does it? Huh. Give me a second, I’m trying to tap into some all-knowingness here.

Death is like a cursor backspacing over the letters of a rant-filled email that you never sent because you thought better of it and decided to go log off and have a sandwich and then write something more constructive.

It’s like peeling dried Elmer’s glue off of your hand, pulling the fingerprints into a warped residue of what they once were, stretched beyond recognizability.

It’s like the bag of brussels sprouts you had in the back of your produce drawer that’s basically a sludgy liquid now and when did you get brussels sprouts anyway and you think maybe you’ll put it in the compost but that would require opening the bag which is already super whiffy and so you just toss it in the trash and then immediately take the trash out.

You were hoping for something more enlightening? I’m sorry my similes are not up to your standards. Look, when you get right down to it, death is like something that’s going to happen to you in two minutes, right after the pack of rabid badgers crashes through your window.

A Quick Check-in Since the World is Still Awful

Hey y’all,

First things first – how y’all doing? I know the world has been pretty shitty lately. I hope your world has not been all bad. I’ve been fortunate enough to have some good things happen in my life that have mitigated all the awful going around outside me. I hope that’s true for you too.

So, like I said, the world is still pretty shitty. Coronavirus deaths have been as high as 1,000 a day earlier this month. Our black brothers and sisters continue to be killed by police, and peaceful protesters continue to be killed by armed extremists. It’s been pretty death-scenes-as-usual on my blog, but I thought I’d take a few moments out to recommend some anti-racism resources and let you know where my headspace is.

Black Lives Matter. On top of that, between foreign interference in our elections, gerrymandering, efforts to disenfranchise (mainly minority) voters, and the disturbing efforts to introduce delays in the postal service, democracy hangs in the balance. If you believe both those things – that black lives matter, and that democracy hangs in the balance, I would like to recommend donating to the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition. Florida citizens voted to return the franchise to former prison inmates who had served their sentences, but the Florida governor and legislature added a restriction, preventing voting rights from being restored until all fines and fees have been paid. These fines and fees can be incredibly steep, and returning citizens don’t tend to have a lot of resources. Since the abolition of slavery, when slave labor was disallowed except for incarcerated individuals, and continuing on into the civil rights area, when black citizens were allowed to vote except for incarcerated and (in many states) formerly incarcerated individuals, prison has been used to deny rights to blacks, and overpolicing of blacks has been a way for whites to keep blacks in line. Our past is racist, and frankly, so is our present. It’s on us to be anti-racist. A donation to the FRRC is a great way to do that.

Continuing on the anti-racism front, I recently finished audiobooks for White Fragility and So You Want to Talk About Race. Both are excellent, and I highly recommend them as a way to educate yourself and give yourself some perspective. I’ve also been reading some fiction by black authors – The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates, which was quite good, and a graphic novel version of Kindred by Octavia Butler, which completely blew me away.

Continuing on the voting rights front, make sure you’re ready to vote!

1. If you’re voting by mail, make sure you request your absentee ballot early. If you’re in Idaho like me, you can do that at idahovotes.gov. You can register there, too. Idaho is a same-day voter registration state, but that only works in person. If you want to use mail-in voter registration, you’ll need to make sure to do that a minimum of 25 days before the election, and I recommend much earlier. Outside of Idaho, you can use vote.org to check your registration, figure out how to request an absentee ballot, and find your state’s rules for voting absentee.

2. If you’re voting by mail, make sure you sign! Usually that’s on the envelope, separate from your ballot.

3. If you’re voting in person, consider voting early. There’s rarely a line, and if you run into a snag, it’s way better finding out early than on Election Day, when it could be too late to remedy anything. Some polling places are likely to be crowded on Election Day, and there’s the possibility that some normal polling places might be closed if not enough poll workers can be wrangled to open them.

4. Consider volunteering to be a poll worker. This is important, nonpartisan work that is often done by elderly people who are at risk for COVID and therefore shouldn’t be around the kind of crowds they typically see on Election Day. If you’re not at risk, volunteering to do this could be a great way to help out.

5. Consider volunteering to help your favorite campaign. I know it sounds scary, but I’ve done it a few times before, and I promise you, it’s not that bad.

That’s all for now. No death scene today – there’s still more than enough death happening in the real world – but I’ll get back to the fictional deaths. In the meantime, enjoy your quarantine, and do something nice for yourself and others.

A Jealous God

Today’s prompt: “Write a sermon for a beloved preacher who has been caught in a sex scandal.”

“My fellow worshippers, we all face temptation in our lives.” And what temptation it was, too, you think – those curves…. “Yes, temptation. There have been times that I myself thought the very notion of it was quaint. Are we not above this world’s morality, by virtue of who we worship? What mankind sees as good or bad – what does that matter? This fallacious notion of sin – does it mean anything to the members of the Black Brotherhood?”

You see some of your parishioners nodding, and you continue. “I truly believed that,” you say, “but I was wrong. Sin does exist for us. It may not be the petty sins of weaker humans, who believe that to kill, to steal, to commit adultery, is wrong. We are above that. We can kill. We can steal. We can fuck around.

“But if the Black Brotherhood collects a human sacrifice and you are chosen to guard him, and he provokes you into killing him before the appointed time? Now that is a sin.” The nods resume. “If you find yourself in dire financial straits, and you take an artifact the Brotherhood was planning to use in a ritual to bring the Old Ones to Earth, and pawn it, why, that is a sin.

“My brothers and sisters,” you exhale, picturing once again her perfect coils, writhing and wrapping around you, “you know that I have committed adultery. I will not pretend that I can be the arbiter of whether or not this was a sin. If I had simply slept with a man or a woman, then no. That would not be a sin.” You inhale, and a vision of her tentacles sweeps across your memory. “But I slept with Kassogtha. With the mate of Cthulhu himself.

“Some of you might call this a sin,” you say, and you notice the ground beginning to tremble. “I have almost certainly brought Cthulhu’s wrath down upon our temple, bringing about our destruction before the rest of humanity’s. Others might call it a blessing. If Dread Cthulhu comes here to enact his revenge upon me, then have I not achieved our goal of hastening the Old Ones’ return to Earth?

“One thing is certain,” you say, as quakes ripple through the building, and the roof is ripped apart by terrible claws, “our god is a jealous god.”

Greetings From Zoltan

Today’s prompt: “The fortune teller in the window”

You drop a quarter into the Zoltan fortune teller machine, pick up the receiver, and touch the button for your astrological sign. Behind the glass, Zoltan’s crystal ball lights up with a red glow. Zoltan’s head bows slightly, as if peering into the crystal ball, and then rights itself. Its eyelids close with a clack, then reopen. Music distorted by time plays, jaunty in tenor, but a touch creepy.

“Greetings from Zoltan,” a pre-recorded voice full of pops and warp emanates from the glass enclosure. “This is a message for you alone. Sometimes you have a tendency to become concerned with unimportant matters….”

The machine emits three loud clicks, and the background music slows down, the jauntiness gone and the creep factor steadily rising. The red glow from the crystal ball seems to be shining right onto Zoltan’s irises, which, despite their artificial nature, feel as though they are burrowing into you.

“What you should be concerned with,” a much deeper voice continues, “is the scarcity of your remaining days. I suppose I could tell you how you will die. It isn’t as though there’s anything you could do about it. But I prefer to leave you in suspense.” Zoltan’s eyelids clack. “Just know that I am truly enjoying the image of your dark blood pooled around you.” There’s a pause in the recording, and the clicks and whirs of the machine sound as though it is breathing in deeply.

The eyelids clack once more, and the background music speeds up again. The voice regains its original pitch. “Thursdays are good days for you. Blue is a favorable color now, and special numbers for you presently are 4, 5, and 7. Thank you.”

This can’t be right. You smack the side of the machine. It remains silent.

You fish another quarter out of your pocket, drop it into the coin slot, and select your zodiac sign again.

The crystal ball illuminates to red, and the automaton’s eyelids clack. “Greetings from Zoltan,” the original voice says against the tinny background music, which immediately slows to a crawl.

“I have already told you everything I will tell you,” the deeper voice speaks. “Run, foolish mortal. It will not help you, but run. It amuses me.”

The music speeds up again. “Special numbers for you presently are 4, 5, and 7. Thank you.”

What She Said

Today’s prompt: “Just when I thought I knew what she’d say next…”

Orc blood smears your cheeks. Kraken viscera drips from your calves. And your tunic is stained with gelatinous cube…gelatin.

It’s been a day.

But there she is, chained to the cliff, blonde hair billowing around her tattered raiments. A damsel in distress.

You stroll toward her, the soles of your fur-lined boots echoing through the cavern.

She pries open heavy eyelids. “You didn’t have to come here,” she says.

“I know,” you say, lowering the sword you had been aiming at her chains, and pressing your palm against her chin. “But fighting for the freedom of others is its own reward. Especially when fighting for the freedom of such a lovely young maiden as yourself.”

“No,” she said, and suddenly her chains uncoil from the ceiling, transform into tentacles, and in a few deft moves disarm and suffocate you. “I mean I wasn’t even hungry yet.”

Can't Let It Go

Today’s prompt: “Justify the one thing in your life you know you should be rid of but you just can’t bear to give up.”

You know that breaking open a piñata full of knives every week isn’t exactly the mark of someone with a sound mind. But the part of your brain that loves surprises and the part of your brain that loves shiny things and the part of your brain that wants an end to all of this always present the same excuse: “But it’s fun.”