People I Don’t Like Day Carol was uncomfortable with certain commercial holidays: Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Valentine’s Day–even Christmas and Easter were moral disasters. Commercial holidays honoured almost any Day–yet why no Aunt or Uncle holidays? No Brother-In-Law Days? She did research and was dismayed. Not only did no one want new holidays, most […]
Elephants and Drugs Andrea wondered why people used recreational drugs. She knew friends who regularly got drunk or high. Why? Was it the need to escape? Then she learned of a herd of African elephants who climbed a mountain each year to eat fermented berries. The berries were only on one mountain and fermented at […]
Following Advice A group of elephants, wisest of the beasts, wanted a leader and asked the Wise Old Elephant what to do. She asked why they could not make their own decision. They did not understand her response and created a King. The Rhinos said don’t do it, but the elephants would not listen. He […]
Prior Presidents settled for assassinating important people—enemy spies and politicians and wealthy folks. The new President changed the Department of Defense to the Department of War and decided it was time to assassinate regular folks. It was a natural evolution, given there had been accusations prior administrations had been elitest. The first target was drug […]
It took almost a decade of planning but eventually the autocratic President created the Supreme Court he wanted: a Courtucopia–of favourable decisions for him. The nation rarely had such a Courtucopia available to any President. It was an achievement, especially needed as the President attacked lower courts which ruled against him. Before he held little […]
Truth came back from a vacation in Hawaii to find the world more of a mess than before, and was particularly concerned that facts had been attacked. People interpreting facts as they wished disturbed Truth, but this was something else. Vaccines, which had prevented polio, smallpox and other diseases were not only openly questioned for […]
The President told the nation that he was alarmed at violence in the nation’s cities—he decided to send new infantry to stop the crime. (Coincidentally, all the cities were run by Mayors from the opposition party.) True, the troops the President sent were new: infants, from the population tree—infantry. The new infantry was well armed […]
Arnold had been subjected to vaccines his entire life and accepted needing them–but these days he questioned them. Do they cause autism? Impair children? Seniors? Create cancers? Then a new Prime Minister appointed a new Health Secretary who promised (despite his public history) that he was not against vaccines—and then from the start he dismissed […]
Citizens needed stronger leaders and their need led to governments becoming autocracies. To explain: while lives were generally good, they always could be better. Decades of voting for politicians they only saw on TV had deadened the hearts of citizens to democracy. There was a huge disconnect between voters and the people courting them. Citizens […]
Ivan worried the robots in his life were not better. His dishwasher could be larger. His robot vacuum had trouble with rugs. His automatic interior house lighting confused very cloudy for evening, making the house lights too bright. His sex doll made unpleasant noises when lubricating. Ivan apparently had the best robots available. If he […]
Norman loved playing video games in his spare time. He worked for a gaming company, helping design new games. Norman became particular entranced by a beta version of a new game designed by a colleague, a young woman. It was a role-playing adventure, set in current times in a big city, where Norman’s avatar was […]
Chapter Forty-Four The Ghost I went into work the next morning apparently alone. The guards watching saw no one walk to the car with me, no one sit next to me. The guards in the car followed while others stayed behind, watching for Phyllis. Sitting beside me, invisible, Phyllis giggled. “This is so much better […]
Chapter Thirty-One Exploring My Inner Space As I looked at Pinetree and Dr. Orwell, I did not really care about them but knew I should. We met following yesterday’s meeting with the thick man and his associates. I did care about the two of them–they were important to me. That was sort of a start […]