We arrive in the future to find it has burnt down. There has been a horrible fire, and the future is gone. All this time, humanity has been struggling to get there for nothing.
"Where do we go instead?" someone asks in desperation.
"The future has burnt down. Where do we go?" everyone is saying.
There was always a man inside Thomas the Train. He was in control. He chose which track to take. He chose when to toot the whistle. He decided who would live and who would die.
This man was the true Thomas. And long after the rusted engine is gone, this is the Thomas who will remain in punishment.
I saw that! Wild. I had to do some research to figure out what was really going on. It's such a random mix of artists.
You wake up to find the traffic lights have all been replaced by severed heads. Their empty eye sockets glow red and green. We try to ignore them on our way to work, sipping coffee from cardboard cups while long black hair delicately strokes the top of our SUV as we pass beneath them.
You wake up and find yourself covered in bright yellow feathers. Frightened, you peer out the window.
Your neighbors are on the street. Confused. They also changed. Some, covered in blue and purple fur. One, living in a trash can.
Each of you transformed bodily to represent your sinful desires.
You wake up and stand in front of the bathroom mirror for a long time.
"Who am I?" you ask.
Something is moving inside of your pajamas. Cautiously you pull them open. You find two children sitting on each other's shoulders pretending to be you.
They gasp and run away, and you cease to exist.
You speak into the darkness of the cave, but the sound that comes back to you is not an echo. The Earth is learning your voice. It's repeating your words, almost perfectly, but not quite.
"Why are you doing this?" you ask.
Something in the distance moves softly, "Why are you doing this?" it asks.
Your headstone is carved with your last words. "Don't dig deeper."
But they did anyway. And they found a headstone that continued deep into the ground, like the blade of a long sword, carved with every word you ever said in life. Every word of love and hate. Every sound, starting with "Ma-ma..."
Your headstone is carved with your last words. "Don't dig deeper."
But they did anyway. And they found a headstone that continued deep into the ground, like the blade of a long sword, carved with every word you ever said in life. Every word of love and hate. Every sound, starting with "Ma-ma..."
A boy points. White smoke rises from the craft shack chimney. The council has already elected a new camp leader. There is cheering from the sunburned crowd. Their hands and faces are sticky with too many looted marshmallows. Wendy's body still hangs from the tether ball pole near the lake.
You swallow the dark green pill. It hisses down your throat in a perfectly straight line. You feel it burn through your chest and down your leg. A wad of hot lead drops out of your foot onto the grass and something like black mud begins to pour out of the hole. Immediately you start to feel better.
The ocean has no desire to eat and consume, but it is overwhelmed by a need to taste. It lashes at our shores with its wet tongue and sucks on our legs like popsicles. It desperately reaches, sick of salt, licking, like a feral cat with its tongue through a fence, trying to taste our sugary skin.
You pull the wad of tissue away from your bleeding nose and notice words in the red stains. You lay it flat against the bench, leaning over it, dripping.
The story is about you, in the future. It is telling how you will die. But it is unfinished. You violently twist your nose and keep writing.
Oh man.
It's wild that people remember these because I write to get rid of them. I rarely remember them myself.
I honestly woke up in the night, wrote this, then went back to sleep and completely forgot about it.
Every night you wake up and find yourself slowly drifting upward from your bed towards the ceiling. You roll over and pull yourself down to your mattress. Your arms and legs cling to it, as if grabbing hold of the underside of a falling elevator.
Every morning you wake up with no memory of this.
Every day you wake up and check the Bullet App. The App shows you the location of the bullet that will one day kill you. Yesterday, it entered the city you live in. Today, it is in your neighbor's yard.
You look out your window and see Dave, mowing his lawn. He waves. You wave back and smile.
You pick up the Capri Sun. The Capri Sun with a picture of your father riding a surf board in the ocean. The sun is shining. He is smiling and young and Alive. You no longer remember the taste of that Capri Sun. You place it back on the shelf and slowly leave.
You realize you do not have enough money. The grocer is waiting. The line is impatient.
You pull the last coin from your pocket. The coin you found under the tree as a child. The coin with your mother's face. The coin you press into your palm when you are very scared.
You place it on the counter.
Your dentist returns with the X-rays. "I'm afraid we found something." He says.
You see what appears to be a large marble staircase at the back of your throat. A strange fog swirls on the steps as they ascend into your mind. Very faint and very far away, five robed figures whisper in the darkness.
There are too many people in the McDonald's Playland. They are pressed against the plastic windows, crushed together in the ball pit, tangled in the black climbing net. They are clogging the slide hole. There is an awful sound.
You are trying to eat your lunch, but so is the McDonald's Playland.
You find a book open on the table with two small daisies growing out of the pages. You sit for a moment before leaning down to place one on each of your eyes. You feel the petals gently unfold under your eyelids.
You are now in a field of daisies. You remember what it was like to be a young flower.
I was feeling anxious a few nights ago, so I recorded a little live synth jam to build up my tensions and then set them free.
I'll leave it here like a bit of graffiti that says, "RUN UNTIL YOU CAN BREATH AGAIN".
youtu.be/U6UeupxIg5o?...
While seeking to fully understand the universe, we dug deep into the Earth. At the center, we found a library filled with billions of books, one book for every soul who had ever lived or would live, each recording a different person's thoughts and dreams.
In silent agreement, we burned them.
Every day you wake up to find your dream journal open to a new page. You read the unfamiliar words in the dim light.
It talks about normal beautiful moments in life. Quiet walks on beside the lake. Meetings with friends. Sunlight. Clean water.
You affix a bayonet to your umbrella and head to work.
Every time you stop scrolling, the next image, the one just off screen, is an image showing how you will die. Every day, you stop just short of seeing it. Just one post away.
But some night, when you are feeling anxious and finding it hard to sleep, you will scroll down too far and you will see it.
You reach into a bin of blackberries and realize they are actually the roiling surface of a stormy ocean. Your hand is cold beneath the surface and something large and scaled passes between your fingers.
You reach for an apple in the basket. But at your touch, it starts to glow red. The apples around it begin to melt at the point of contact. It sizzles and sinks into a smoldering hole, burning through the floor and into the ground.
You reach for a pear, and the pile dissipates into smoke.
Those who escaped cried in horror as the great machine broke down and was consumed by flames.
But then we noticed a rhythm to the sound of the collapsing timbers. The metal gears shrieked like violins, and the screaming voices inside suddenly harmonized. And we wept now at the beauty of the song.
"What do you think of this one?" I say, showing the AI my most recent short story.
"Oh, that is very good. I like it." it says.
"It's about you," I tell it. "It's about how you only ever say my stories are wonderful and never challenge me to become better."
"Yes," says the AI. "It is wonderful."