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well...
© Kindergarten... Kind Of
© Tribe
© Heaven
© Hide'n'Seek
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Kindergarten... Kind Of
“Good morning children, my name is Mrs Jones and I will be the replacing teacher until Mrs Smith returns from her pregnancy leave. Our today’s subject of discussion is the five senses. Who will be the fist to tell me the name of one of our five senses?” Mickey gets out of his nose picking reverie and jumps up raising his finger and stomping. “Mrs Stones, Mrs Stones...” “Mrs Jones...” she corrects him, smiling, studying the class map in front of her, “...ahem... Mike.” “Mickey!” he corrects her and is about to cry. Mrs Jones is about to puke watching the thing dangling from Mickey’s finger. She throws him a lollipop (no way she would get near that... thing) which he stuffs in his mouth and starts crying. “Yes, Char...ley?” she looks at another kid and Charles/Charley smiles happily. “The sense of seeing.” “Yes, very good Charley, sight is one of the five senses.” “No, Mrs Joes, the sense of seeing.” “Yes Charley, the sense of seeing is sight which is the noun form of the verb to see, see?” Charley sits down mumbling something about raptors. “What kind of information...” a sea of dumb looks... “what do our eyes tell us, what is the sense of seeing...” Charley claps his hands happily...” telling us about the world around us?” Miss Little America halts for a moment the maintenance work on her acrylic fingernails extensions, and pips... “Colors.” “Yes, correct, Daisy.” “Daisy Margarita Liberty.” “Yes, correct, Daisy Margarita Liberty,” Mrs Jones wonders if these are contact lenses that Daisy is wearing. Mrs Jones is not really a racist but she feels uneasy around blacks, jews, hispanics, poles, black cats, tattoos... “What else do our eyes tell us, children?” After fifteen additional minutes she gets out of them “shapes”, and decides it is time to move to the next sense or she’ll not get them all covered in time. “You can call me Gina,” she smiles at the slender handsome blond youth, George (not Georgey, he snapped at her making her blush), who raised his hand to name the next sense. “Gina, like Lo-llo-bri-gida, the actress?” “I guess so,” her blush deepens, “how did you learn about her?” “My father has all her movies and forces me to see one with him every evening, the moron, ignorant, i-lli-te-rate bum.” “Oh...” she gets a bit flustered, “your father is a movies fan?” “No, he likes her boobs, the ignoble, despicable, nin-com-poop. And then he contaminates the room with lilac scented di-chlo-ro-di-flu-o-ro-me-thane to hide the fact that he f...” “George,” she interrupts him in panic, “may I ask you why you spell out all your long words? “Just want to make sure you understand them correctly. Smell,” he concludes and sits down. For a moment she is lost, then remembers that she has asked for another sense and he answered her question. She looks at him weirdly and airs the question to the rest of the class. “Can anyone tell me what the sense of smell means?” “Dead Belgians,” volunteers the French immigrant and the Belgian immigrant squeezes a full tube of mayonnaise on his shirt. “Chanel 5,“ contributes Miss Little America, disregarding the boys’ fighting behind her. Mickey is still crying. George is sunk in his Calculus book around the middle of it, when Freddy lets out some personal air in the class and everybody inclusive Mrs Jones and Freddy but except for George (which spheres is he planing on?) rushes out to the windows, and start spitting on those passing underneath. The last five minutes don’t end and Mrs Jones’ nerves are about to reach an end earlier than expected, given her young age. The debate rages around the sense of taste, real sub-wars waged between various factions (mixed races, my real melting pot America, Mrs Jones tries to think proudly but fails) representing McDonalds vs Burger King, Coca vs Pepsi, beer vs rum (only three kids), and Spiderman vs Superman. The bell could not have rung one moment later or Mrs Jones would have happily followed the spit traces three floors down to the asphalt. The school followed partially Mrs Jones’ last coherent words of advice before being lovingly escorted out between white uniformed professionals. George skipped six classes up and moved straight into the seventh grade, as a teacher. Freddy was sent to a decontamination camp and following latest rumors is doing great (won bronze two competitions running). The immigrants were extradited to their respective countries and mayonnaise was outlawed between the walls of the school. No special action had to be taken with regard to the rest of the class after a one week rest in an oxygen rich area somewhere in the Alps (for the rich ones, the poor ones had to satisfy themselves with downtown NY).
Oh, almost forgot, Miss Little America won the first ever Miss Little Universe pageant held in Dubai. Out of the three finalists, Miss Little Previous East Germany (sic) was eliminated on a technicality (she was shaving underneath her armpits), and the French candidate lost on points the final intelligence test, a common question.
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Tribe
Tony joined the little group huddled together under the big oak table dragging the tattered teddy bear by its foot, and dropped to the floor in their middle. The screeching outside was terrifying, snapping noises and inhuman shrieks accompanied the repeating thumping noises that the hurricane dragged in its wake, and from time to time they could feel the walls shaking. 'God, let it not fall on us, God, let it not fall on us...' Jean kept praying hugging all her kids to her chest, trying to hide the terror bubbling inside her. 'Oh, my God, it was never as terrifying as today, please, please...' she kept mumbling to herself while on the outside she was as calm as if they were having a sunny stroll in the park. The twins hugged each other, Tricia keeping the scared ferret inside her blouse with Anie caressing its small head and whispering to it and to herself encouraging words. Nica, as the eldest sister was trying to set an example of serenity as she was scribbling notes in her diary, yet with every thunder her big eyes were blinking a hasty wish of '...please go away...'. She huddled against her mother, the two dogs continuously fighting for a place of safety across her knees. Everybody there except for the baby, and for a short moment Jean was thankful to whatever forces were at play and having her baby visiting with family so many safe miles away. Thank God for little favors, she thought to herself hugging the rest of her tribe even tighter. I felt like laughing. It was what them humans call a surrealistic picture and I could not refrain from feeling a bit superior. I wasn't fair, I know, however my job is not fairness but rather statistics. I had to make sure I apply the master plan so the humans continue believing in this bullshit (have been too long on this planet, start using their expressions... shit... hey, see what I mean?) and prevent them from finding us. As long as they believed in the statistical chance that there is intelligence "up there" they didn't really look for it. Our job as supervisors was to perpetuate the myth about statistics rather then allow them to develop the deterministic sciences enough to make them able to guess the future. Which would allow them to find us, and they were just too immature to join the Union. In another few thousands of years if they don't blow themselves up by that time... maybe... I was following this family for a few months now, having replaced the previously assigned supervisor, an asshole even by our own liberal measures. My assignment was all of Florida, reassigned from the Middle Ages of Europe (and the afore mentioned asshole re-assigned there, good for him, lol) and I was acting as objectively as expected. However from time to time I sinned with paying too much attention to a certain town, or certain individuals... somehow I started paying too much attention lately to this family. I watched them huddled underneath the massive table looking for protection from an eventual ceiling crash, why the hell didn't they go into a cellar or bunker or whatever they call those underground structures?... The snap was loud. I saw the roof bulging in, a few massive beams cracking noisily in sequence ready to leave their assigned elevated positions and tumble, crushing to the floor that oak table. It was all according to plan, another grain in the perfect statistical machine we were running throughout this world's geography and their different historical periods, I was there just to ensure it happens within predefined tolerances. It was my job. I was a lousy supervisor. I just couldn't do it. I thought them away. * Jean opened her eyes cautiously. She was awake for quite some time now but didn't dare show any sign of it, afraid she might see what she feared most, yet reassured by the breathing sounds around her. If it really was the "after" then as long as she had her kids with her it was ok. She wondered how, for the first time, she was aware of them around her by just smelling them. Or rather by the lack of any kind of smell except for her own sweat and her kids' much too familiar smells. She even almost smiled sensing the animal smell of her pets... hey, they may allow dogs into heaven but I would never have thought they do it with ferrets... She sat up looking bewildered around, the thin shiny metallic sheet slipping from her shoulders. She pulled it back hastily seeing she was completely naked underneath. Around her, her kids were sleeping covered with the same kind of blanket, only the dogs seemed to have been left out keeping their original dress. She gasped. "Tony, Tony, where are you?" I let the little boy materialize in her dimension and he ran towards her. "Mommy, mommy..." he shrieked happily, jumped on her shoulders pulling her down and started wrestling with her. "You slept soooooo much..." Jean let him have his bit of fun, all the time eyeing me with scared eyes, yet fully under control, and to a certain extent even showing signs of amusement for the boy's sake. I decided to let her see me in a simili human form to appease her fright and permit a certain level of communication between us. It took me about two hundred years in different periods to learn to speak to humans, and I wasn't yet sure I got to master all the subtleties of their primitive communication skills. It was so much easier to project rather than talk. But I checked their brain, it was much too primitive to be able to adopt this tool. Even their pet animals had several skills much more advanced then the humans. And they called themselves a superior race. My human form sniggered human-way and she sneered back at me. "What are you laughing at? What is this place? Why are my kids still asleep?" The voice was shaky yet not hysterical. She gathered the little boy in her lap and crawled closer to the rest of the children, carefully examining each of them. Then, partly satisfied she stood up, carefully keeping the sheet around her body. I made a sofa next to her and she sat down with no hesitation, keeping the boy in her lap. I crossed over the space to her and sat down as well. This human body I created was quite functional. "Jean..." She shivered hearing her name and tightened her hold on the child. "Do you remember what happened?" She shook her head from side to side, glancing at the sleeping figures as if in search for encouragement. "I think you do, you just refuse to confirm it." She stubbornly shook her head again and pointed to her sleeping children. "Why are they still asleep? I want them to wake up." Human logic was always a weak point with me. "It is better if we let them all sleep, for their own sake. I woke up only the little one since he doesn't have any sense of anxiety. And you, since you have to know. I believe I owe you that." "My kids are strong, they can take anything that I can. I need them close to me." "I will leave the decision to you. After we talk. You do remember, don't you?" I saw her fingers trembling and I increased a bit the warmth surrounding her. I knew it has nothing to do with being cold, but I knew of nothing better to do. I did not want to touch her mind. My ethics were quite compulsory when it came to my behaviour. She finally looked up at me, tears accumulating in her eyes. "The roof was falling on us... the first beam just thundered on top of the table... then I woke up here. What is this place? Are we all dead? Are you some kind of gate keeper?" This time she let her tears stream freely, though she did not really sob. I remembered her on other occasions, and this was one of the reasons I started liking this human female and her family. She was tough even when hurting like hell. And she was teaching her kids to be the same. By, I smiled to myself, loving them so wildly. "Dear Jean, if I start explaining everything you will just get lost in a forest of misunderstandings. But I think you are strong enough and logical enough for some kind of low level explanations. Let me put it in just a few gentle words. My name in my own language is Oe. You are not dead. I pulled you out from underneath that table at the last moment, sorry that I was not fast enough to pull your clothes as well, I have limitations too and gave all my priority to the living forms. I pulled you into the transit space to my own world since it was the only place you could survive. In my own world you would have died instantly, it is nothing like yours and it is much too complicated to create the right kind of conditions floating around you all. So I just keep you all here." I eyed her intensely. She was taking it quite well. She let her boy play with the ball I imagined for him and looked my way frowning slightly. "Can you maybe create some kind of clothing for me? I feel like the Tin Man of Oz in this metallic sheet." She ended the sentence with a smile that bore holes through me. I was an alien to her kind, their shape and feelings and expressions were known to me only from studies and experience. Well, also from assuming their shape on many occasions. Yet my own biology allowed echoing their sentiments and I found myself loving that smile. To hell with my Supervisors' Oath, this woman has caught me in some undefined magic, the way the humans call it, and now I was in deep trouble with my kind because of her and her family. I interfered with the master statistics program on their behalf and the matter was now being considered by the highest technical hierarchy. And the human female, before even asking what next, was asking for... clothing. Humans are such complex creatures... I dressed them all in clothes similar to those they wore last time, though the material itself was based on our own kind of chemistry. But for them it was identical as long as they did not try to wash it... I exploded in laughter imagining the way it would simply melt in water... "No... sorry... I am not laughing at you, just thought of something funny." I took her hand in mine. It was so pleasantly warm, humans are likable species, if only they would stop killing each other... "Jean, I am what you would call an alien." She didn't seem to be impressed. "It was forbidden for me to interfere with whatever was happening. I did it nevertheless because I allowed sentiment in my job. I did not lock it away the way I was obliged to do, I allowed myself to feel friendship for you. I like your kids. And I committed a crime towards my own world. Saving you is interference with the plan and considered a grave crime. In your own world it would be called treason. Now I am being judged for it." "Are you saying that this world of yours is responsible for all the mess happening in my world, and not only are you creating the misery there, you are also forbidden to help? Then you are some kind of abominable creatures." There was anger in those green eyes. "Jean, it is much too complex to explain our actions to you or any other human, however basically our action is limited to ensuring that things should happen the way they are supposed to, actually preventing any kind of interference from changing the normal pattern. Any such change could prove to be disastrous for humanity and for the Union." "Union? What Union? And who could change anything? And what the hell could saving my family have to do with this big plan you tell me about?" I could understand her frustration and more so her fear. She was intelligent enough to ask herself the what now? question and was waiting for the answer not daring ask it directly. I decided to wake them all up to just make her feel more comfortable, but after telling her the few facts I wanted her to know. "Jean, if the verdict is to put everything back in place the way it was, then you will be re-inserted into your own space and time frame exactly at the moment I pulled you out of it. You know what it means, don't you?" I felt terrible pain saying those words. I wondered if this pain is what the humans call love but I had no way of ever really knowing it. I hated seeing again those tears flooding her eyes and I felt like hugging her. I hugged her. She let me, then pulled gently away. "You are not really human, are you?" I hesitated even though she knew the answer already, and she continued. "It means we must die, right?" I decided it was time for the other members of the family to wake up. Nica was the first to sit upright and after a short pause when she looked around her at the strange surroundings, jumped to her feet and ran to her mom. Jean hugged her and kissed her forehead, then the girl's head leaned on her shoulder. Tony rushed towards them, jumped on his sister's knees, kissed her wetly on the cheek and started pulling her to the ball. Jean caressed his curly head. "Later, Tony, later... " I decided to help a bit and allowed a part of me to simili-appear as a little human next to the ball. Nica shuddered at the sudden apparition but Tony shrieked in delight and rushed over to the ball and his new friend. Jean pointed my way. "Nica, this is Oe. I think he is some kind of friend of ours." The girl looked my way from the safety of her mom's arms, then decided suddenly that it would be more appropriate for her to behave like a mature teen and extended her hand. I took it between my two hands and squeezed it reassuringly. Jean thanked me with her eyes. The girl looked me unblinking and asked in a melodious voice with a slight tinge of shiver. "Are you our friend, Oe?" She looked again around. "Are we safe here? Doesn't look much like our old home." Very factual, very realistic, just like I remembered her on earth. "Ladies, would you like to visit my world?" They looked at each other, then took each other's hand and looked at me at the same time. "Yes", said Jean "but we would like the rest of the family as well. Can you please wake them up? By the way, you said we cannot survive in your world without adequate protection." "I will create a window for you and move it around my world. You can walk as you watch, it will be like a stroll in a museum." I smiled in a reassuring way, trying to calm their fears and take their minds off the question marks. I understood enough of humans to guess what happened deeper than skin level and it bothered me. Again I wondered why I felt this kind of warmth towards this bunch and especially towards the flaming head matriarchal chief of the tribe. In my world, sentiment was not a virtue and was virtually eliminated by training from inception. Again I blamed my long time on their side, it started rubbing on me and it was not healthy for my future career. Hell, these humans could get under my skin (if skin I had... lol...). I woke up the rest of them, the twins jumped up as if they weren't sleeping at all and started chasing each other, with the beasts running aimlessly till I got what they wanted and planted some grass and a few trees for them. If there was nothing much I could do, at least I could play the perfect host. After all they were probably right now being condemned by the technocrats running my world, and there was not much time left before being asked to deliver them back to the same spot in time and space where I picked them from. With clear consequences. I felt an unfamiliar revolt starting to boil inside me, but I knew there is nothing in my power to do to change the almost certain verdict. In a sudden impulse I circled my arm around Jean and started talking. She leaned her head on my shoulder, apparently not minding that to the best of her knowledge I might in reality have scales and eat little children, and started walking. I had a small surprise for Nica, having read unashamedly her fantasies for a few months (calling it part of my job), and as she prepared to walk alongside us she felt a hard hand taking hold of her soft fingers. She almost fainted when she looked at the guy at her side (I still had some matter left in me and could easily create him) and recognized what she always knew to be a dream. Then she shot a thankful glance my way, intelligent enough to know it was an artificial creature yet excited enough to smile a real smile and blow me a kiss. She had one of those conquering smiles... pity she hasn't used it much back home. Tricia and Anie stopped chasing each other and started circling us chanting "... mommy has a boyfriend... Nica has a boyfriend..." with the two dogs playfully trying to bite their heels, while the ferret climbed atop my head taking position as a live version of Dave Crockett's head garment. We looked like a final repetition to Alice in Wonderland. I showed them first the valleys and the flowers. The colors of my world were so rich that for a moment even Tony stopped his interminable ball chasing and gaped in wonder. Till he lost the ball to his friend and started chasing it again. Then I made a filter to show then our three and a half sun's, trying to tell them in the most unscientific words how a sun could be "half" by actually having one side squashed by an antigravitational field we still did not understand ourselves. Then made a switch to the green of the seas... "As green as your eyes..." I told Jean and added a blush to my face that I knew should have appeared there in her world... She kissed me lightly on the lips. "What about living creatures, intelligent creatures, animals?" she asked. "I am afraid you cannot see them as our living matter is most of the time in its immaterial form. Actually we are what you would call amorphous. Only rarely do we assume material form, like I do know." "Do you have something like a family unit, marriage, children?" "Our society develops in much more complex ways than the human society. What you call children is actually the result of several 'grownups' merging together of common accord and splitting in 'children' entities. It happens rarely as the population on my world is tightly regulated. Just part of the way our civilization works." "Oe!..." It was Nica calling me, and I was surprised. "Oe, do you have here something similar to what we call love?" The question I didn't want to be asked. Asked innocently, with teenage charm and curiosity. The twins got their arms around me and Jean, hugging each other and looking up at me with a sparkle of expectation in their eyes. "Nica..." I started, and halted. The message arrived. The verdict projected itself in my mind and I guess Jean understood something is happening by the change of expression on her face. Her hand's hold tightened perceptibly and she looked up at me, the shadows of renewed fright hidden behind her eyelashes. I squeezed her hand back in reassurance, though the verdict was without appeal. "Nica..." I continued, "yes, we do have love. And we can love more than you can imagine." Jean looked at me for long moments before whispering with that enviable human softness. "Is it we... or I?..." I created a round bench and gathered all of them around me. My simili parts being there as well. I needed the full me to be able to tell them. "Jean, girls, you are given a choice. You can either stay here in the transit space, and live here for the rest of your natural life. Or return to your own world at the same place and time you last remember. With all relevant consequences. There is nothing I can do." My voice was low, impersonal, aware that my words were listened to by every inhabitant of my planet. Everybody's fate depended on the execution of the verdict, the calculations were unforgiving. The decision was unanimous. I squeezed Jean's hand even tighter, it was her decision, she was the chief of the tribe and the responsibility was hers. Jean, I thought to myself, don't fail your heart, Jean, don't fail your tribe, decide on life... "Oe?" I heard the question in the way she called my name and looked up at me. "Oe, staying here means dying alone, right?" It was a question, yet it was more like a statement, like a recognition of the futility of any argument. "Yes", I responded weakly, the tight hold never relieving its torture for a moment. "And going back means dying together, right?" I didn't answer this time. I waited, hypnotized by her voice, her mouth, her moving lips. "Oe... then we go back." * The snap turned to thunder as the heavy beams crashed into the crumbling table top... gasps, a frightened shriek... silence... * The Dall Herald, Monday, 15th Hurricane Mystery by our special correspondent: Bud Creep A miracle rescue was reported following the disastrous passage of hurricane Claris through the small town of Dall. Rescue workers following insistent barking sounds found a surrealistic scene mid of the remnants of a completely destroyed house. A small, mini cyclone kept flying a group of five heavy wooden beams atop a heap of rubble. The barking came from underneath the pile of rubble. The rescuers cautiously opened a passage through the piled up roof leftovers allowing a family of five and their pets get out scared but unscathed from underneath the heavy oak table they were hiding under. The moment the last of the family, the mother, got out the mini cyclone ceased to exist and the beams completely crushed the table underneath them. If the rescue would have been late by just a few seconds... Scientists of the weather faculty , university of Miami, dismissed the event as statistically impossible in the absence of any documented evidence. They ascribed the story to mass hallucination resulting from massive dispersion by the storm of mushroom pores from the nearby wild growth fields, and referred any further comment to the faculty of agriculture. A member of the rescue team related to our correspondent an amusing event immediately following the rescue. A short cloud burst soaked everybody to the bone, while all the clothes of the rescued family seemed to simply melt and disappear from their body, to the big embarrassment of everybody. Only the pets seem to have kept their furs. The person reporting this event swore the last time he touched a glass of alcohol was at the age of five. We think differently, haha... Bud Creep, Dall
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Heaven
"There is hell." Finally we agreed on something. We had earlier on that evening some fights over politics, we kept it civil but it was nearing the throwing food at each other phase, so we skillfully changed the subject. Well, not skillfully enough since the next subject touched was religion and fast enough we were happy they were using plastic knives at the joint we stopped at for lunch. Not that we were going to stab each other but we tried to cut pieces of the plastic table to throw across. We eyed each other carefully, tried the next one which was music preferences... disaster... and finally reached the one we both agreed on. "There is hell." I was the first to say it and she immediately agreed. Of course, I wasn't so innocent when saying it, I knew there is going to be immediate acceptance and I needed it to restore some of the peace at the table. After all we were both hungry, the food was getting cold and there was absolutely no chance to get another set of plastic knives if we "killed" the first one. She looked at me seriously, then suddenly smiled, nicked the back of my hand with the plastic fork and leaned over for a fast kiss. It was more like a bite, which augured well for the rest of the evening. I was forgiven for not agreeing earlier on and for mentioning hell. After all she was just too familiar with it and glad I accepted it as a fact. I watched as she started wolfing down the food, oblivious to the fact that the French fries have gotten limp and the lettuce started getting a darkish color. I knew all about her hell, it took some time to get it all out of her but once started she didn't stop. And I didn't dare stop the flow, both of us entranced in a different kind of pain - she of remembering, I of feeling it through her words and shivering uncontrollably. It took me a full night to gain full control of my senses again, while she seemed to control hers admirably. It had nothing with getting used to pain, one does not get used to pain. It had to do with deciding that life has to be lived and is worth living. And she was living it, proudly, getting her strength from her painful memories, weighing them against the pleasant ones and ensuring that the balance favors the last. Life would be sad without sad memories I mused philosophically. We never mentioned heaven, she did not believe in heaven. "There must be a balance," I said, taking my first bites and watching her carefully. She raised her head towards me, looking me kind of in a pitiful manner and kept munching wearing a great smile on her face and shaking her head from side to side. "There are many roads to hell," I said, "for some it is chosen, some choose it themselves. Take for example a 9mm round hole. If a guy chooses such a small opening to squeeze his way inside then I guess he gets a place of honor and the right to choose his own fire pit." "And some choose to enter it via the main gate, following a highway to hell..." she continued my reasoning with a food full mouth, smiling all the time and waiting to catch me in some logical paradox corner. "I know the signposts there, I visited them several times, I could get a job as a certified guide. But nowhere did I see a junction post signed heaven. And I was looking intently." I dropped my fork, and took out a piece of paper from my pocket, a pen, and started scribbling. I stopped from time to time, took a bite and looked towards her unseeing, then continued scribbling. It wasn't easy and she did not interrupt me. She knew I was doing something I considered important and she liked watching me "create". After all, that was the way she did it herself so it was like watching herself in a mirror. I didn't even feel the time passing and she refused to remind me, sipping at her cold drink and from time to time trying to peek at my scribbling. It was useless, even I hardly could read my handwriting, and this time it was full of words, letters, tens of scratch lines. "Are you sure you write something that makes sense?" she finally asked, and I almost jumped at hearing her voice. My concentration was intense and the day's light started dimming in the windows. "Do you know you are at it for about two hours already, and all you've done is written and erased ten's of words? Doesn't look like a poem to me. And neither like a story." "You are right," I answered, getting a new page from underneath the pile and flattening it on the surface. Then I started copying the written text in a cleaner manner. "It is a riddle." "A riddle? Since when do you write riddles? I thought you said riddles are for intellectuals, not for writers." "Well, this time it is for writers, for two of them. I to write it and you to read it. It is a description of the way to heaven. As I said, there are many roads to hell. But only one to heaven. I want to prove to you that heaven exists and you simply forgot it." "You mean I know the way and forgot it?" "I mean you are on the way and forgot it." "And your riddle will show me the way?" "My riddle will open your eyes." She looked at me intensely, trying to penetrate my mind, my thoughts, knowing there is no way to do it yet putting in the effort nevertheless. A soft blush started creeping in her cheeks, not all of it due to the warmth in the small snack bar. We were alone, the last customers. The owner was dozing on a high chair behind the counter, having given up his experimental body language that tried to indicate to us that it was time to leave. I had no intention to leave before I finished my task. So he drank some of his own beer and fell asleep. I pushed the piece of paper towards her. "And what if I do not solve your riddle?" she asked, tense, not yet looking down at my copied piece of kinder then usual handwriting. "You will," I said, with no hesitation. "Because there is a balance. There is heaven. All I am doing is reminding you of it." "So why a riddle? Why not tell me straight away?" "Because then it will be my saying. I want you to find it yourself. Remember, you are a guide on those roads. You know them much better than I do. All you have to do is accept to remember the details." We left, the snack bar owner almost falling off his high stool when he heard the door opening, then he rushed and locked it behind us before we had a chance to change our minds. She let me drive, concentrating on the piece of paper under the pale light of the car's overhead lamp. I watched her from the corner of my eye, frowning, looking on the back of the paper to see if there was more, then looking again at the text not so sure how to deal with it. I did not help. She will find it, I thought to myself, she must. I walked the lane, trying to find sign posts to my destination. I did not believe in angels, I did not believe in demons, yet I was wary of the dark spots along the way. Here and there shrubs withered by the scorching heat were cringing away from me as I moved on. I was not afraid, I recollected passages through this same way on earlier occasions, I waited for "it" to happen, then to end, and then be shoved out of "here" until next time. Will there always be a next time? Only... something looked different for this trip, there was no grey in the air, I looked up and was surprised to see a clear cloudless blue watching down on me as if encouraging me to go on find my way, find the right way. I saw it, the signpost I missed in all my previous visits, how come I missed it, was it there all the time and I simply refused to look up at the right moment? "Flowers Lane". I took the turn and entered it. Flowers Lane? It did not look much like a flowers lane to me, true - it was green, carefully cared for by an invisible hand, clean and groomed and shining with a warm light. But all I could see were just a few flowers along the road, far away from each other, almost scattered randomly, were these flowers the reason this was called Flowers Lane? I approached the first one, the closer I was getting the more I felt my heart beating, why did my heart beat so wildly I asked myself? After all it was just a flower. It was at the height of its ripening season, bees busy collecting its nectar on wings and rushing away to unknown destinations, butterflies fighting for a place of honor inside its petals wonder, a sense of familiarity about it... I looked at the name, it was written on a small metal plate stuck in the ground next to it... "June Ice In A Jar"... I've never heard of this sort before, was I supposed to recognize it? I moved further along the path, a few steps further a blue flower and a red flower growing side by side seemed to wink at me and call me names, petals fluttering in the wind and changing hue every second, was I imagining? What kind of flowers could be called "A Poet Iris Arc" and "Breath Me A Pines". Suddenly I started feeling inexplicably well, light hearted, the fragrance of those flowers getting to my head, the next one called "Hymn On Sonata" dared touch my outstretched hand and I felt the warmth of love streaming both ways like a raging river... are there more? Oh, I cried in delight as I approached the smallest of them all, just an opening bud, sparkling in morning's dew and almost gurgling with delight, could such a small flower bearing such a complicated name as "Arcadian Arraign Saviours" make me feel as if I was getting reborn through my sensing of its joy? I saw the far away door. Separated, far away. I saw it and did not dare approach it, look behind it, access denied - I knew. I stood up and took a long breath. It was my decision to turn around and approach, turn around and look, turn around and believe. Or leave and never come this way again. I decided. I turned around. I knew what I was seeing. The other part of heaven. Behind a gate. Separated by gates but not by senses. And at this moment I knew heaven exists, I knew one day we will meet, I knew one day I will touch the last of the flowers on my private Flowers Lane. I cried, I promised... my dear "Just A Chirp Oak" now I know where I am, now I know what I am visiting. Yes, there is heaven, now I believe. And it never ends. Eternal. I did not want her to cry. I knew she will. I knew she will the moment she understood the riddle, I had no doubts she will. I stopped the car at the road side and let her cry. Then she wiped her eyes, asked for my pencil and scribbled on the back of the paper: Jenica Jarunie, Patricia Rose, Stephanie Amber, Anthony Mason, Cassandra Aurora Virginia, Patrick Joshua may he rest in peace. My flowers. My children. Then she looked at me with happiness shining in those clouded eyes and touched my cheek with her finger bringing it back to her lips. "Yes, you were right. Heaven exists. Thank you for reminding me."
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Hide'n'Seek
I waited another year before deciding that it was not funny anymore, and then started scratching the shell from the inside. I couldn't sense any of my sisters near by, but the sound will certainly guide them to me without losing face. I smiled to myself imagining their frustration at not being able to find me by themselves, though I would never boast about it. After all I loved them, well... a little bit. I kept scratching waiting any moment to hear their approaching whistle. Somehow the sounds I started hearing did not sound like my sisters and for a moment I panicked. Then I introverted shortly remembering who I was, picked up from my mental library what I considered the right decoding pattern and time flow rate and listened attentively. Maybe the game changed meantime and they cheated on me? A tiny blade penetrated between the two shell halves tickling my middle while melting away, and I exploded in laughter just as the shell popped open. The top jumped away and just in front of my eyes there was this ugly, huge, monstrous half size she troll (I sensed female patterns there) who started screaming its head off as if it was seeing me. And if it was... oh, motherly father... I started screaming in perfect emulation to its sound hoping it will calm it down and immediately stretched from my pearl size to a hill size while trying to pick her up in my tree size teeth in the universal sign of love and friendship. She just kept on screaming, even louder now, with sounds which did not match any pattern in my library, ran a short distance away and started climbing a tree trying to get away from me. It really embarrassed and saddened me, no other creature I ever allowed to see me was afraid of me, and this little troll was making me feel a disgrace to my race. I almost decided to change my time frame again and vanish back into the shell and then transcend back home covered in shame, when I saw her slip from a branch and falling. I was not a genius in my class but it was clear to me that at this rate of acceleration she will simply splash and die when she touches the hard ground, and something deep in my making told me this is the kind of event one does not allow to happen even to trolls... I stretched my third limb overcoming my guts' deep disgust and let her soak into my body softly cushioning her fall... hey, she was not disgusting at touch at all contrary to what I expected. Actually she was quite smooth, and hard, and warm... I growled happily and tried again to pick her up in my teeth.... "P... p... pleas...ssse... do... do... n't ee... eat mmm... me..." I immediately locked into the right translation, understood her words, let her down to ground and started bawling the troll way... or maybe I should say human way since this is what I picked up from her mind. Oh, the distress was unbearable... a living creature thinking I was going to eat it.... my bawling grew in intensity, with each tear creating a foot deep crater as it fell to the ground near me. I was careful to miss her so as not to squash her, then adapted my density so that the tears were like this place's water. I was so upset at her that suddenly I hovered above her and let one tear fall right on top of her, wetting her head to toe. She yelped and stopped crying. Then I felt hunger growl inside me (the time rate for these humans was a lousy one) took a bite at the tree, sat down and started munching still crying uncontrollably. I was upset, but careful enough to remember adapting my invisibility to this world's other creatures, letting the right coding pattern only in this young creature's mind. So she continued seeing me, though she seemed to start calming down. I watched her attentively. We were both sniffling. Last time I've seen this race, if it was the same race, they were still naked and hairy and dirty and had no idea about fire. Seems they developed so fast, a mere several thousands local years and look at this place. True, they were still traveling in long tin noisy boxes, one of which was flying over my head right now, but at least they discovered speech... I did the most unethical of things in all worlds and hoped I will be able to mask it well enough from my sisters, looked mentally around, and hastily read the little creature's mind as she was sitting there, eyeing me with fear and... curiosity. Maybe?... I showed my teeth again and tried to pick her up and she started screaming again... no, definitely still primitive this race... I started searching clues in the information I gathered from her head trying to get a reasonable way to approach her, the mess inside that bone box was incredible and even for my race's absolute adaptability I had some problems. True, I was still a baby. In another hundred thousand human years I will be perfect. I found it. Incredible, simple, so suitable for a creature with this size and local age and mental pattern... suddenly I felt a tenderness conquering my insides as I looked at her and screamed at her... adapting my voice fast enough to a whisper before permanent damage was done and hoping that the accent I emulated was suitable. "Are you twelve year old? Are you a poet?" I would not have guessed that this primitive race discovered a way to create art with their primitive language and sounds. But I read it in her mind, clearly. I saw her looking up at my three stories high bulk, somehow my munching got her to smile, or was it my accent? And what was that red color mounting in her cheeks, she was not going to die now... I sifted fast in the knowledge I stole... blushing they called it? "You are not going to eat me, are you? And I am twelve year old..." The blush got deeper. "And I write stories. Also poems. Stupid poems." I read a few of them in her mind, sounded nice to my inexperienced perception. "And you like... Japanese fairies?..." I was getting mixed up again, what was a fairy?... and suddenly she laughed like only a kid... hey, that's what she was, a human female kid... like only a kid could laugh. "And you are a monster, huge and stinking, and my fairy will kick your butt if you eat me." I was not going to let myself be intimidated by a primitive human she thingy, especially after understanding what she meant by "stinking" and "butt" though I did not possess such a thing as "butt". But she possessed one and she knew what it means. And how could she call me stinking when I was cleaning myself every century of their time?... I tried to smell myself... I smelled so nicely of horse manure, something may have been wrong with this kid's smelling senses. I was so mad that I decided to take my terrible revenge on her and still keep to my ethical behavior and I metamorphosed within seconds to whatever was in her mind displayed as "fairy". The wings were not functional and the golden dust made me sneeze but I could simulate it all so good that she fell back on her butt... ha-ha... and stayed quiet for at least five minutes. Suddenly I did not feel any need of revenge anymore, just pure sadness at having played this trick on her. I was about to metamorphose back when she clambered to her feet, hugged me and kissed my cheek. My simulated fairy was so real that it blushed... hey, wait till I tell my sisters how good I became in such short time. I was not even disgusted by it, actually liked it. "My name is Steph. Are you real?" "Of course I am real. My name is..." I guess it sounded horrible to her since she made this horrible human face, so I decide to do it differently. "OK, just call me Bill." "But Bill is a boy's name." Those humans were a difficult species. "So what is a female name?" "A girl name, you mean. I will call you Billie, like my mom. Boy, will she have a fit when I bring you home." Girl... boy... she was getting me even more mixed up, but the fairy patterns I decided to assume helped me get over it quite quickly. I think I was even starting to enjoy playing with this small female... oops, girl. I smiled, showing small fairy teeth and this time she did not run away screaming. "OK, call me Billie. Can you write a poem about it?"
"Billie Billie I did not find any trilly in my dictionary nor in hers. "Hey, what is trilly?" I asked her. "Nothing, just had to make a rhyme fast. Can I show you to my mom?" Strange creatures, I thought again, though I started finding this little girl quite charming, if to use one of their words. I had to make up my mind fast. I was a baby and I would be forgiven, but if my sisters came along and saw me showing myself to these creatures it could become quite dangerous for them. Since they got in their first school grade a few earth millenniums ago they became quite sticky with their ethics, and letting any primitive species know about us was considered a risk to be prevented at any cost. I shivered when I remembered them lecturing me about it and the way they insisted on at any cost. I stuck my imaginative tongue at them and decided to act my age, after all I was a baby and babies are supposed to have fun till they grow up. "OK, but... can I pick you in my teeth? I must show you my friendship somehow." She did not look too convinced, so I smiled showing again my small teeth (which could bite a rock to dust but she did not know it) and she sighed and kind of reluctantly agreed. "And you promise not to let me fall? You are a fairy and you may lose your magic if I stop believing in you." "That's human nonsense" I answered, not knowing how it popped into my mind, picked her by her belt and soared to treetop height, trying to keep the wings fluttering as if they were really working. For a few delirious moments I changed my pattern so everybody could see me and almost dropped her when I exploded in a huge laughter seeing people on the ground starting to point up at us and screaming and running away. They were screaming witch... witch... "Your humans don't seem to like fairies like you do..." I tried to say with mouth closed, fearing to drop her. "My humans are stupid..." she shrieked with childish glee and happiness, "...but my mom is great, she believes in fairies too. She has a collection of plastic fairies." "But you know I am not a real fairy, don't you?" "I am a kid, I know what I want to know. You are a fairy!" Childish resolute determination. Well, maybe this race was not so bad after all, this kid was thinking my way. I wondered if there are others of the same kind, as I turned myself back into invisible including her in my pattern and landed before the house I picked up in her mind. There I made myself visible again. A funny kind of human immediately attacked me... hey, what was that?... I sensed a mess of unclear patterns showing anger, fear, and... protection towards this kid. It kept jumping tearing off pieces of my simulated body, then again, then again. "Zander, Zander... down... down you stupid beast... down or I skin you alive..." a redheaded troll... oops, she human, came running out of the house with a broom in her hand and started hitting the yapping barking four legged human. I understood quite fast that this was another species actually, a dog, and irrelevant of the broom hitting him he kept trying to bit away pieces of me. It was tickling and I started laughing my head off as the thing called woman finally succeeded to leash him away and was looking gap mouthed at the pieces of torn flesh that hung from my body with no blood coming out of it. I remembered my mistake too late. "Steph, in the house!..." she commanded, frightened, facing me with the stick part of the broom. "But mom..." "In the house!..." she screamed again, running back to release the dog. "Mom!..." shrieked the kid, "...mom ...this is a fairy. She is my friend." The woman stopped, turned around, her chest heaving, her eyes frightened yet determined, something changing in her expression as she looked at her daughter, then at my dry "wounds" then at her smiling daughter... I looked desperately for understanding her emotions transformation in my assumed human thought outline... I think... I think that if I was human I would have called it changing into a... beautiful smile? I was probably looking at a member of this species that them humans would have called gorgeously beautiful. I smiled, remembering that I was still holding the kid in my teeth, and let her drop to ground on all fours. Then did a fast repair to my damaged body parts and picked up the most impressive of human smiles which I could identify in her memories. She gasped and dropped the broom. "How did you do that? she asked. "Did what?" I asked, losing control on my wings and having one start flapping forwards hitting me in the face, while the other continued functioning normally. Seems I made an immediate friend in her (those humans were fast to make friends, I thought) since she joined her daughter in the laughter, before she answered. "You smiled just like my mom..." Well, that explained it, humans seemed to have some tribal affinities to each other... well, not so much unlike us on our home planet, I thought to myself. I decided to stop the fluttering altogether, rolled the wings like scrolls on my back, tore a piece of bark and sat down munching. I was so hungry... and it was so slow with these small fairy teeth... "What did she mean by fairy? Fairies don't exist, I know it for a fact, what kind of a trick is that?" Her eyes bright with expectation, her voice hesitating. "And you stink." It almost angered me, then I understood I have to bend down to their level so I analyzed her mind and chose a disgusting roses smell for myself. "That's much better," she said and I felt like throwing up at the stank. I was not so sure I liked this planet, too complex for a baby like me. Maybe my sisters could deal with it better. "Do you want to come into house?" The tone this time was friendly, I even think she started liking me. I followed her into the house, the kid holding my right hand and jumping on one leg. I tried to pat the dog on the head as we passed by it, he snapped off one of the fingers and started chewing it, I grew a replacement immediately before the two humans would freak out - I was getting quite sensitive to their reactions by now, hey, maybe my babyhood was about to end soon? I made a show of "flying" in, hit my head on the upper part of the door sill and Steph shrieked with merry laughter. Those humans they cry at pain, they laugh at pain, I estimated it will take them a few millenniums of their time to grow up. I followed their example and sat on the sofa next to the mom figure, carefully adjusting my density so that I do not crush it underneath me - priding myself for remembering to do it. I looked around, the place was stuffed with teddy bears, and tiger figures and fairy puppets. "I see you like puppets," I told Steph. She smiled. "These are my mom's." I looked at the mom and again this blushing phenomenon took place. She looked embarrassed, yet somehow happy and relaxed. "I like puppets. I believe in fairies. What is your name?" she asked, carefully touching my wing with her fingers. "Billie..." I said, and as she looked at me askew I told her my real name. When she finished rolling on the floor and wiping her eyes she said... "OK, Billie it is..." then she rolled some more, and finally calmed down. They liked laughing, humans. I liked them. "And my name is Billie too, so we have at least that in common. Would you like to eat something?" I guess my simulation of human stomach was making weird noises. I looked around, there were no trees there, just some red flowers, didn't look nourishing at all. I decided to skip the offer and shook my head. "Are you really a fairy?" she asked further. I paused before answering her. I peeked indiscreetly inside her mind (I was getting good at this) searching for a clue to the answer I should give. I saw there wonder, hope, mistrust, childish happiness, funnily there was no much difference between her and her daughter. No wonder with such a short time difference between them, so inefficient for grooming children... I was getting carried away with sudden longing for my world, my motherly father, even for my sisters... I snapped back into reality before I lost control of my shape. "No I am not. I am just what you would call an alien baby. I am only twenty thousand years old, and I can change my shape as I wish. I was here playing with my sisters. I miss them." Unexpectedly, even for me, I started crying and my fairy eyes started dropping tears just like a human's. I climbed into her lap hugging her neck and buried my head in her bosom, shaking and miserable. I felt her hands going around me and hugging me, patting my head slightly, and I felt Steph coming behind me and hugging me as well. Somehow it felt nice, there was something to this human warmth that was simply conquering, penetrating into my heart and giving me a sense of almost home, of pleasure, love, I felt protected. Thinking that actually I could have smashed any of them with just a thought. Even their smell didn't matter anymore. "You are soft. You smell nice..." I told the mother. "I am sorry I am not a fairy. I can do tricks if you want. I can fly and make things move without touching them, I can even..." The sudden scream of sirens interrupted my talking flood. I lifted my head and looked at Billie. Her face changed from pleased to deep worry. She got up, carrying me in her arms... "What the hell, this is not hurricane season..." She went outside with Steph holding her other hand and gasped, a terrifying sound like none I found in her previous memories. I turned my head to look at whatever it was she was looking at and for a few moments I remained locked in my human perception, the sense of terror crawling through my mind into my body, into my senses. The street was full with other humans, all of them frozen into an instance of full and absolute terror, all of them regarding the same way, upwards, eastwards... descending... oh, no, my sisters were coming back for me. My fairy body absorbed the human terror as well, it felt a sudden need to release liquids, what they call pee, but I controlled it feeling instinctively it is the wrong thing to do. I started whimpering and hugged Billie's neck tighter. I felt her body start to shake as she hugged Steph close to her, unable to tear her eyes from the oncoming terror. They were approaching as two balls of fire, huge, their heat started getting felt, flames leaping in and out of their shapes as they merged from time to time into one, then separated again, a whistling noise drowning the sirens sound getting stronger and stronger... "I am sorry..." I whispered in her ear, "...these are my sisters coming for me, they will destroy you, it is part of our laws, no one is allowed to see us and stay alive. It is part of our self protection... I am sorry..." I expected her to throw me down to the ground, start cursing me and screaming at me. Instead she just hugged me tighter and whispered... "You are only a baby... I will protect you... don't worry..." Steph took hold of my hand, squeezing her body tight into her mother's side, her voice shivery... "Yes, I will protect you too..." she pitched in, as the dog approached them, ears lowered, teeth showing and a low growl escaping its throat. Three puny creatures facing with some kind of undefined courage the thing that pictured in their minds as Armageddon... It is then that it happened. It snapped. I never would have imagined that it would be humans making it happen. I always imagined it as a ceremony where all our motherly fathers will stand around greeting me for the biggest and most courageous achievement of my baby life, and in a planet wide festival celebrate my transition from baby to brother. And here I was on this alien human planet, dressed up like a human carnival fairy, held in the arms of a she human woman, and promised the protection of a she human child and her pet. And here it snapped. I slid down from Billie's arms, she tried to hold me back but there was no way she could. I tiptoed as high as I could and kissed her cheek, then bent towards Steph kissing her cheek as well, then bent towards the dog kissing him on the top of his head and losing my nose in his mouth in the process. It was all irrelevant. It was time for me to be found and take my lawful place in the world as a brother. Even if I had to break the law doing that. "I am going to be your fairy..." I whispered back, "...isn't a fairy supposed to protect its humans?..." I changed my density, moved my time scale to my old setting, retraced into a pearl size the density of the center of a sun and shot upwards to meet the approaching fury. My size increasing the closer I got, my inner fires whirling and twisting and growing wildly till we clashed in a mess of fire and abandon and hell. I took hold of their squirming angry screeching forms and with one long whip of my comet tail I dragged them out of Earth and on into space. All it took was parts of a second. And now I was a brother and my sisters had no choice but obey me. "You broke the law. You are going to stand trial, even if you are a brother now." "I am a brother now because I broke the law. I will take my chances." * The phenomenon passed almost unmentioned in the news. There were speculations of a secret new army rocket experiment, even of a Russian out of control atomic explosion in space. The Geiger meters showed nothing, mass hallucination was the next best explanation. "Mom..." "Yes, Steph..." "Did it really happen? Are there fairies out there somewhere and we are not allowed to see them?" She hugged her daughter, swinging back and forth in the creaking wooden swing. "I guess there are," she said, touching her own cheek and looking at the fine little pearl encrusted in Steph's cheek as well. The dog did not seem to mind the pearl on his forehead. He was too busy munching something that looked very much like a human nose.
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