Day 207 - Advanced Story

Advanced Story

Matthew Ryan Fischer

Rosalee had ninja skills. Advanced ninja skills. She liked to use that term to describe herself. It was a term that young people used that was supposed to carry some extra meaning, but could really be interpreted to mean just about anything the speaker wanted it to. It was the sort of term that would seem like nonsense five years later and the user would be embarrassed that they ever used the phrase in the first place. Such was the case of most slang.

Rosalee used her skills to sneak into parties she wasn’t supposed to get into. A very handy trick when living the high speed Los Angeles lifestyle. She announced proudly to her friends that she could make it in anywhere she wanted to go. So what were her advanced ninja skills really? A pretty face. A pretty body. Sometimes a smile. Sometimes knowing how to flirt or how to tell a lie. And sometimes it took other things as well. But she liked to party with the rich and the famous and the happening, and she had done nothing in her real life to earn her station, so it took luck, pluck and hustle to make these things happen.

The girl was twenty-four. She could party like she was seventeen and give good conversation like she was forty-three. She knew how to assess the situation and could chameleon herself properly.

There was a band that had been popular when she was a toddler, and somehow they were popular again now, twenty years later. A wealthy man that lived in a mansion on a hill was paying them to play at a private birthday party. She had no connection to the band, the man, or the party. But she found out about it. This was one of the things she did. She knew how to talk and to find things out.

She stood in the back yard, admiring the view, looking down over the city.

“Bright city lights,” said the voice next to her.

She hadn’t realized someone had approached. She had been distracted. One too many drinks, and the anticipation of the evening, and she was zoning out a bit.

“Yes they are. They really are.”

“Do I know you?”

She turned to look at him. He looked like he was late thirties or maybe early forties. He was in good shape, but the wrinkles around his eyes and his brow couldn’t hide the time that had passed.

“I don’t think we’ve met. I’m Rosalee.”

Maybe the crowd was too loud or maybe he misheard or maybe he didn’t care, but he called her Rosie. She corrected him, but he said he’d stick with Rosie. He said it with a smile, a sardonic, arrogant look that said he was right even though he was wrong. He was a man of confidence. She liked that.

“You seem anxious.”

“I’m just waiting for the band to play.”

“Aren’t we all? Tell me, who invited you tonight?”

“Why? Is this your place?”

“Actually, it is.”

“I’m no party crasher. I talked to some friends and they talked to some friends and made things happen. I’ve got ninja skills that way.”

She instantly regretted saying that last part. She realized how young and foolish it made her seem. He might have noticed it, but he didn’t hold it against her. He let it slip away into the night, forgotten.

“You’re fine, really.  It’s just when some beautiful blond shows up at my house unannounced, I like to know who she is.”

“Keep talking. I’ll listen to that all night.”

“How old are you?”

“How old do you want me to be?”

“No, it’s not that sort of game. I just want to make sure you’re not young enough to be my daughter’s age.”

“I’m not. Trust me.”

“Okay. For now.”

He was forty-one and hadn’t dated anyone so young since he was that young. He didn’t think it could possibly work, but he also felt it was one of those opportunities that he couldn’t pass on.

“So you’re having a good time? Enjoying my lovely view.”

“It’s okay.”

“Really? Just okay? There’s a problem.”

“The Hills are fine, but you’re too far away. The action is in those lights down there. That’s life happening, and you’re so far away.”

“Obviously I can bring the life to me. You’re at my house. You’re at my party.”

“Obviously you’ve got money and pull. But down there you don’t have to manufacture it. It’s happening every day, every moment. Down there—“

“The party never stops?”

“Yeah, sort of. Yeah. Down there is excitement and energy and freedom. Why give that up? That’s how I feel anyway.”

“You like my house. You like my party. You like my view.”

“Yeah.”

“You like me.”

“I might.”

“Might. Well, I’ll have to work on that.”

“Please do.”

Day 206 - Leftovers Story

Leftovers Story

Matthew Ryan Fischer

It was a universe full of leftovers – elements, energy signatures, planets... life. All leftovers. Remnants of other pasts and places and of other universes. There was the new amalgamation, and then there were the bits and pieces that didn’t fit in anymore. Leftovers.

It there were Big Bangs and Big Crunches and Big Collapses, then what was this? The Big Merge? The Big Crash? Multiple existences collided together and blended and blurred and reorganized and came out on the other side as something more. Maybe it was a Big Shuffle. And those that didn’t quite make it? Maybe that was the Big Splat. Their energy was ripped and torn and destroyed and nothing but a big mess was left.

In a random moment two universes appeared and overlapped. They intermingled and then their energies tore into each other. They got all mixed up. It was messy. It was violent. It was creation and rebirth and renewal. It was life and death and once and then a chance for something new, something more.

Which was the original? Which was lost? Those were the wrong questions. There was no one or the other.  There was what was before and then what came after. There was only existence – now, before and forever.

How many times had this happened before? That was unclear. There were elements all around. Signs. Leftovers. How many crashes? How many mergers? How many splats? It was incalculable. It was forever. It was infinite.

Quinn liked the mysteries. He tracked them down and documented them. He researched history and mythology and looked for clues. And he explored. He was always exploring. He knew he couldn’t solve them, but he knew he could find them and document them. Maybe that would help someone in the future. Maybe it would bring new things to light. Maybe there would be an answer somewhere inside them. Maybe.

He found a cavern where gravity worked sideways. There once was a sliver of something where a person could walk though it and time didn’t pass, it shot around and bounced all over the place, slowing and speeding up indiscriminately. Once he had traveled a mountain pass where water boiled and froze backwards at opposite temperatures. He had found a tiny spring of perpetual energy strong enough to light one light bulb. He had heard a story of a place where the laws of thermodynamics did not apply. He didn’t have the tools to test that one.

Quinn called them the mistakes. They were the oddities of nature. That which shouldn’t be there, but was. That which shouldn’t work, but did. They were glitches. Leftovers that were bound by other rules. Quinn had no idea how many there were. The mistakes seemed endless. They probably were.

Day 205 - Eon Story

Eon Story

Matthew Ryan Fischer

Nannos was the first to fall down. He collapsed at her feet, his flesh sizzled and burned, his body spent. The mirror was supposed to reflect the energy, but the energy had been too great. His hands were seared to its metal rim. They needed the mirror. Someone was going to have to tear it from his hands. No one welcomed that job.

Gai held the spear. It was a directional tool, meant to refocus and concentrate their power. Gai was distracted by the smell of the crispy mess that now lay at her feet.

The world was collapsing; the universe was tearing itself apart. The energy threatened to overwhelm them all. Their parents had created everything. It was their job to protect and maintain things. There had always been doubt – by their elders and within their own ranks. There was great questioning as to whether they could do even that much. Great questioning resulted in great fear. They were never quite sure of themselves in the way that children can never quite be sure they can do what their parents could. They had the power. They had the ability. They had been given the tools. The tools had been made to do the job. But as it turned out, the tools were never as important as those that wielded them.

They looked back and forth to one another. Their doubt was great. The questioning was great.

Eon had never been a leader. He had never been the courageous one. He certainly never wanted responsibility or power. He was happy to indulge in wine and pleasure. But the world was collapsing. The universe was ending all around him and none of his family or friends seemed to be able to do anything about that.

Nannos had been his best friend. Perhaps he would be again someday or somewhere else. Eon knew that time repeated itself and universes came and went, but he wasn’t ready to give up on this one yet. Eon ripped the mirror from his dying friend’s hands and reset it.

He took his own weapon, the inscribed wheel, and held it above. He said the words. He created the incantations. He looked into the mirror and opened up his soul.

No one had ever seen him as strong. He indulged. He was foolish and loud and made mistakes. He was well liked but not always respected. No one would have ever followed Eon into battle or anywhere else.

But he did understand the value and pleasure of his own existence. He wasn’t ready to give that up. He, above the others, didn’t have fear, but had resolve instead. He had desire. He had the will to want.

The world was made whole again. The universe trembled but then calmed itself. Time stretched out and the future existed again. The living had been unaware of the struggle and how close they came to nonexistence, but the cosmos knew. The cosmos knew and felt it and was thankful. Life had been given another chance and the man that caused it was the least likely of the children. Eon understood that all he had done was skip a break in the loop, but it was still a loop. Time would circle back around and the next time he might not be so powerful or lucky. But he had done his job, and that was all anyone could ask of him. He earned every right to enjoy himself and he planned on doing it. He would leave the worries to the next generation. Hopefully he wouldn’t be around when trouble came again.

Day 204 - Gap Story

Gap Story

Matthew Ryan Fischer

And then one day the gap formed in the back yard of Marcus’s house. On one side was his back yard, and on the other side was his back yard, but in between? In between Marcus couldn’t quite say. There was a sliver of something that wasn’t supposed to be there. If you approached it from the side, you would see nothing. It was so slender and thin that it wasn’t visible to the naked eye. Maybe it had the width of an atom. Marcus wasn’t sure. He didn’t know these sorts of things. But when approached from in front or behind, then there it was – the gap. It was flat as all hell, but it was tall enough and wide enough for a man to walk right into it. When it formed, Marcus did not know. But he was lucky enough to approach it from a diagonal when he did, so that he was able to see that something was happening.

The gap was a space-time rip of some sort, not that Marcus knew that or knew what it meant. There was an opening in his yard to somewhere or sometime, but he had no way of determining. Marcus wasn’t going to take a step inside and find out, that was for sure.

Marcus threw a rope up around in his yard to make sure no one accidentally walked into it. Then he set some lawn chairs up nearby so he could sit and look into it. It was a blurry mishmash of color. It was always spinning and mixing and changing. Sometimes it was bright, sometimes it was barely visible. It was always captivating. He could sit transfixed for hours, absorbed in the panorama of it all. He assumed it was something like watching a laser light show at a planetarium while on hallucinogens, although he had never done that himself.

Marcus and his friends began sitting around the gap at night and throwing their empty beer bottles into it. The gap absorbed them. They never knew what happened to the bottles. Marcus liked to think there was someone on the other side getting hit on the head every time they threw a bottle. That would be one pissed off guy if that were all true. It made Marcus laugh. He kept waiting for someone on the other side to throw something back. That never happened. Maybe there was nothing on the other side of the gap. Or maybe it was just a universal dimensional junk yard. Maybe every other universe could dump their trash into it. Marcus liked that idea. If someone could reach the other side then they would be king of the junk heap. They could reuse it or recycle it or trade one universe’s trash to another universe for something worthwhile. Certainly something in the junk heap would have to be of value somewhere else.

The gap proved to be deadly when a friend’s dog was lost inside. None of them had thought about the consequences of leaving the gap unattended before. They had no idea how many other animals had jumped into it. Marcus didn’t think he was throwing off some balance of nature by allowing small creatures to disappear into the gap, but how could he be sure? Exotic creatures always brought exotic diseases with them. That dog could have just killed off an entire planet because it had never experienced fleas.  Marcus was perhaps the greatest unintentional mass murder of all time. Marcus didn’t like that idea.  He didn’t like that one bit. Marcus built a box structure to put around the gap. He didn’t know what else to do. He was sure to run into problems when he moved and had to explain the gap. He was certain he wouldn’t be getting his security deposit back.