Short story – “A Christmas Miracle?”

“A Christmas Miracle?”

It was parents in the Western Pacific who first raised the alarm.  They were either doing last minute wrapping, or their regular routines, when presents just appeared.  Soon there were videos that showed – at the stroke of midnight – presents appearing.  There was no jolly fellow leaving them.  One second there was nothing, the next, simple toys in basic wrappings. 

As the hours passed, there were thousands upon thousands of such videos.  And some even showed crude traps to try to catch whatever was doing this, all to no avail. 

Christmas Day ended with a million questions, but no answers.  For the following year it was the number one topic of heated debate around the world.  Some even claimed The Event was the cause of several government collapses. 

Would it be repeated next Christmas?  Untold resources were spent to better record the phenomena.  But on the day, no presents showed up.  This just raised more questions and more debate.  Decades later, the general feeling was that our response to the miracle had just got us collectively put on the Naughty List.

***

For the last few years, I’ve had wondered how the world would react if Santa became active.  The basic idea being the world would freak out.  It was a fun idea, but I had assumed it might have to be a novella, and I didn’t have time for that.  But the other day I was thinking about it and started seeing this ultrashort version.  While this turned out to be about twice as long as I had hoped, it is still way shorter than I had first imagined.

Some thoughts on Elon Musk

I’ll start by saying that I’m a SpaceX fan.  I watched their first successful Falcon 1 flight and I probably jumped for joy at the thought at the beginning of a new era in spaceflight.  And at first, I was a Musk fan.  I think my biggest complaint was his focus on Mars.  I’m a Return to the Moon person, who thinks the best way to make humanity a spacefaring civilization is to go mine the asteroids and build the rotating space stations and ships we see so often in fiction.  In that type of world, Mars is more of a dead end.  I do support the scientific exploration of Mars, I just don’t see much future in colonizing it.

So I was never one of those who thought of Musk as the perfect sage.  But over the last few years, whenever I see him trending on Twitter, I groan and wonder, “What asshole thing did he do now?” My … respect, I guess you’d call it, for Musk has nosedived over the years, but the final straw came when I realized something.

There are multiple spacecraft in orbit of Mars right now.  The reason we have so many is that we don’t have tricorders, or sensors, that we can just point at an object and get 80,000 pieces of data about.  We have cameras that can only take pictures in a dozen or so wavelengths at only certain resolutions.  If we want super detailed images, that’s another camera.  If we want a look at subsurface stuff, that’s an entirely different instrument like ground penetrating radar.  Is there any radiation?  Well that’s another instrument.  And since these spacecraft were all paid for by governments, they try to get the broadest amount of science for their buck.  Meaning if someone really wanted to build a Mars Colony, they’d probably need a dedicated spacecraft with specific instruments to look for needed resources or potential hazards to help narrow down a site.  The Mars Orbiter Mission apparently cost less than $100 million, which is about what Musk makes when he sneezes.  So why hasn’t Musk paid to have the first privately funded interplanetary mission?  Some might say that it’s better to wait until the Starship is flying so they can send a big spacecraft to Mars.  But we can learn a lot with a small spacecraft that could be launched on a Falcon Heavy, which could lead to better choices on what to allocate on a future Starship. 

I’m starting to wonder, is Musk’s talk about Mars just a politician’s campaign promises?

Random Story – I will not fall

This is just an odd little story from my life.

When I was a kid, I would have dreams where I would be running along the top of some skyscraper when I would fall off.  The shock of “falling” would make my body convulse and I’d wake up.  I can’t remember how often this happened, maybe once a week or so, but it got to the point that I hated waking up like that.

Then one day in health class, or something, our teacher taught us about dreams.  After class I told her how I had these falling dreams and she told me to tell myself “I will not fall” before I go to sleep.  So with all the energy of a ten year old, or whatever I was, I began repeating to myself “I will not fall.  I will not fall.  I will not fall.” That ran more or less constantly through my head for the rest of the school day, the bus ride home, and that evening.  And – as far as I remember – in the thirty-five odd years since then I have not had one dream where I’ve fallen off a building.

Some months later, I started having dreams where I’m carrying a priceless vase down an uneven sidewalk and I’ve tripped.  And just before I and the vase hit the ground, I’d jolt myself awake.  These dreams happened less often – maybe once a month – and after a year or so they just stopped.  Looking back, I find this all hilarious, but I’m not sure how I felt after my first tripping dream.

Short story – “Memories”

“Memories”

Taking a sip of her coffee, Laura said, “So, tell me something about yourself.”

Ed shrugged.  “What do you want to know?”

“I don’t know.” Laura looked around the coffee shop and saw a flier for a “Christmas in July” sale from some local business.  “What was the most memorable thing you ever got for Christmas as a kid?”

Ed looked at her for a few seconds, then began laughing.

“What’s so funny?”

“The most memorable thing I ever got was probably the severed foot I found in my stocking one year.”

Laura set her coffee cup down before slowly saying, “Okay.”

“My dad is a big practical joker.  When I was eight, I woke up Christmas morning and went downstairs.  The rule was us kids could go through our stockings, but we weren’t allowed to touch our presents or wake our parents.  My brother and sister had stockings full of candy and little toys, but mine seemed rather empty.  I dumped it out to find a plastic severed foot; a leftover from Halloween.  It was maybe half-an-hour later that my dad got up.  I met him at the bottom of the stairs and showed him the foot.  He just said I must have been really bad for Santa to leave me that.  He then laughed and went and got me one of my presents, which was a box with all the stuff that would have been in my stocking.”

With a smile, Laura asked, “Was your several foot the best toy you ever got?”

“Not really.  I soon forgot about it until the next year when my older brother Tom – who’s as big a joker as my dad – tied a string around it and hung on the tree as a decoration.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah.  Mom wasn’t too happy, but between dad and Tom I think she knew fighting it would be a lost cause.  For years afterward it was one of our tree decorations.  I think it was the first year that Joan – Tom’s now wife – spent with us that it didn’t make it up.  But it’s probably still in one of the decorations boxes up in the attic.”

“Sounds like you have an interesting family.”

“That’s a nicer way to put it.  I usually just say my family’s nuts.”

Laura had just taken a sip of coffee and almost had it come out of her nose.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah.  You just caught me off guard.”

Ed smiled.  “So, what was the most memorable gift you got as a kid?”

Laura thought for a moment.  “I don’t know.  I don’t think Barbies compare to a severed foot.”

***

Back in June 2013, I saw a post online of someone looking for ideas for stocking stuffers.  I understand getting a head start, but June?  I jokingly thought a good stocking stuffer would be a severed foot.  So I wrote this story, which is still online.

Around Thanksgiving of this year, I was looking over my stories to see if I had any Christmas ones.  I found this one, so decided to polish it up a big and repost it.

Thanksgiving Sale!

So it’s Thanksgiving, if you live in the US.  Which means you only have a few weeks left to spend your hard earned money on mostly useless crap.  I know things have been crazy for the last couple of years, so as an early holiday gift, here are five of my ebooks you can download for free.  And the best thing is, you can get them instantly: you don’t have to wait for them to sail across the ocean and get through a crowded port. 

You can get this all for the price of a click from Wednesday November 24th, through Sunday November 28th.  I hope you all have a safe and happy holiday season, and I hope you enjoy anything of mine you read.

A Man of Few Words

A Man of Few Words is a collection of fifty of my flash fiction stories. What would really happen if a “T-Rex on steroids” attacked a city? Why do science fiction writers make the best lovers? How does a company get to Second Base with VIPs? I explore these questions and more using less than 1000 words and in various genres from humor to horror and general fiction to science fiction.

The majority of the stories were previously published (most on my website) but all were revised for this collection. In addition, each piece is accompanied by some background information on the origin of the story or a funny tale about the writing of it to give a fuller experience.

The Moon Before Mars

Over the last few years a lot of people have caught Mars fever. It seems a week doesn’t go by without a report of some new group wanting to send people to Mars, or some big name in the industry talking about why we have to go to Mars, or articles talking about the glorious future humanity will have on Mars. All of this worries me. In my opinion, a Mars base is currently not sustainable because there’s no way for it to make money. A few missions may fly doing extraordinary science, but if it’s then cancelled for cost the whole Mars Project may just be seen as an expensive stunt.

Fortunately, there are other places in the solar system besides Mars. While bases on the moon and amongst the asteroids won’t be as “inspirational” as one on Mars, they will have opportunities for businesses to make goods and services as well as profits, meaning less chance of them being outright cancelled. This will make life better on Earth and secure a firm foothold in space for humanity. The essays in The Moon Before Mars: Why returning to the moon makes more sense than rushing off to Mars allow me to describe my ideas on what can be accomplished on the moon and with the asteroids, and why Mars isn’t the destiny of humanity its cheerleaders make it out to be.

Lonely Phoenix

Partway to a new colony world, board member Geoffrey Ames is woken from hibernation by the caretaking crew of the Lucian. They require him to look into the matter of their fellow crewman Morgan Heller. Morgan’s claims – such as being over 1500 years old – would normally land him in the psychiatric ward, except he can back up some of his other claims.

Brain for Rent and other stories

Brain for Rent and other stories is a collection of five of my short scifi stories to give a sampling of my writing. The collection includes: “Brain for Rent” about a ne’re-do-well failed writer with a conceptual implant who discusses his work with a young woman thinking of getting an implant herself. “The Demonstration” is about a different young woman wanting to show off her latest body modification. “Self Imprisonment” offers one solution of safe keeping the backup copy of yourself. “The Best Job Ever” is about a necessary – yet unpleasant – human/alien interaction. And the collection ends with “Why Stay?” which explains why, after years of fighting the humans, the robots just deactivate.

An Ounce of Prevention

Like most people, Jason Fisher wanted to make the world a better place, but he doubted he would ever have the chance to make much of a mark. Then a “woman” came to him, asking his help to save humanity by threatening it.

A space hotel problem, parking

I was recently thinking about space hotels.  I’m a space nerd who writes science fiction, so that’s just a Tuesday for me.  But I wondered what a basic space hotel would be like, so I designed one.  What I came up with has fifteen modules – basically the largest thing you can fit in a rocket faring – several of which would be nearly identical.  I’ll do my best to describe this three dimensional object.  You start with the core station which has seven modules arranged as a straight sided “8.” From the middle joints, there will be two modules sticking straight out and two sticking straight back.  These will have docking ports at the end and the modules themselves will be used mostly for storage.  Also from these middle joints will be two other modules to each side.  The outer most ones will have solar panels, while one of the inner ones will be the main control area and the other one will have an airlock and storage space for space suits.

Back to the core station.  The central module will be the galley/common area.  One side of the “8” will have the two guest quarter modules.  These will each have spaces for four cabins, which can be opened up into double cabins for couples.  These modules will also have a toilet, and maybe some exercise equipment.  One of the modules on the other side will be the crew quarters, with another toilet and more exercise equipment.  The other side module will have an area for some experiments, but will mainly be a play area, where the guests can play with Slinkies, globs of water, whatever.  Now the main draw of the station will be the two observation modules; one facing Earth while the other faces the stars.  In a fantasy world, these would be all glass, but in reality there would just be a series of meter in diameter windows.  There might be copulas that could be attached to give an even better experience.  In addition there would probably be a couple telescopes mounted on the outside to give better views of things.

The basic idea I had would be there would be a crew of four who would spend six months or so on the station.  They would take care of all the maintenance and unloading of supply ships, be tour guides, and lead in case of emergency.  Between guests, they could do minor experiments – like exposing various materials to space for a year or so to see how they degrade – to have an extra revenue stream.  The guests would come up for two week stays.  The idea I had would be that they would be staggered, so each guest batch would have five or six days where they are the only guests. 

At first, I thought the airlock would just be for the crew for maintenance, because I figured the training to be in a spacesuit goes more into the area of professional astronaut than tourist.  But then I remembered that tandem skydiving is a thing.  Basically, you’d have a two person, updated version of the Manned Maneuvering Unit that the crew astronaut would control, while the tourist sat in front of them.  The crew astronaut might fly ten meters or so from the station, then let the tourist fire the thrusters a few times before taking back control and going back to the station. 

Now a visit to such a station would be a fantastic experience and one I would gladly take.  But, there’s only so much you can do in a cramped station.  To develop games like zero-g football, or whatever, would require open spaces twenty, fifty, or more meters in diameter.  That’s well beyond the capability of a small hotel like I designed.  To have such spaces – as well as allowing the possibility of middle class people affording such a trip – would require large hotels with hundreds of guests.  But if it takes thirty or forty capsules to get the hundreds of guests to the hotel, where to you park them all?  Not to mention any redundancy for lifeboat situations. 

One lifeboat solution could be a premise I had which I could never hammer out into an actual story.  It was about the Ælling, which is Danish for duckling, a play on “The Ugly Duckling” story.  The Ælling was the first spaceship built in space from resources mined in space.  Basically, they mined iron from an asteroid and made several sheets a couple meters on a side.  These were welded together into a cube with a hatch on one side.  This was placed into a larger cube, and regolith was added in between to act as micrometeor protection.  The pilot – in a spacesuit – got inside, and using compressed gas thrusters stuck on the outside, moved away from the mining space station where this was built.  They flew a few kilometers away, turned around, and came back.  It was ugly, but it worked.  It was built just as a test of building spaceships in space, but larger versions could be used as lifeboats on space stations.  If something happened, a dozen or so people could get into one of these things that had supplies for a week or two.  It would float in orbit until a rescue ship could be launched to gather everyone.  So instead of needing return vehicles for the hundred or so guests, you could just have a bunch of these basic lifeboats stuck on the outside of your hotel. 

Or instead of lifeboats, you could have hardened storm cellars that would be modules scattered throughout the hotel structure.  These could hold a dozen or so people for a couple of weeks, and they’d be designed to survive the hotel breaking up.  Of course, then there’d be all this debris floating around them making recovery efforts difficult.

Or you could just have giant spaceships that could hold a hundred or so people, so you’d only need a couple docked to the hotel.  But then will the hotel be too big for people to get to them in an emergency?  If the hotel is depressurizing, you may only have a couple of minutes to maneuver your way through hundreds of meters of corridors to get to the docking ports.

Or I guess you could do all three options.  But do you really want to design your hotel to be half lifeboats and storm cellars?  It would probably be worse to tell your guests, “If something terrible happens, half of you will die.”

Just another level of complexity to add to the idea of space hotels.

Random Story – Working with porn

This is just an odd little story from my life.

For a couple of months in the summer of 2001, I worked in a small video store.  If you’re young, what that means is I worked in a place where people would come in and rent movies on various formats.  And when they were done watching it, they would have to bring the movie back to the store. 

Anyway, besides all the beloved classics and latest mainstream movies, we also had an adult section.  Because of this section, I had an unusual day.  My boss – who also managed a couple other stores – was a rather attractive woman about 40.  One day she came in with a box full of new porn.  She had the invoice and would read off a title like, Backdoor Bitches, and I’d look through the box until I found it.  While I attached an anti-theft thing to the DVD, she’d enter it in the computer.  And then we went on to, Lesbian Island, Vol. 17.  (I just made up those titles, but I’d be surprised if they weren’t actual movies.) It was just … weird to be casually talking about porn with my boss. 

This job also gave me another porn story, but it’s not mine.  The reason I only worked there for a few months is that one morning I showed up and my boss said, “Surprise, this is your last day.  They’re closing the store.” But I got one last day of work helping pack stuff up.  At one point, her boss showed up to help.  I think at lunch he ordered pizza, and while we ate he told a story.

He drove a station wagon, and one night he got stopped at a sobriety checkpoint.  The cop shined his flashlight in the back of the station wagon and saw twenty or so large boxes and asked, “What’s in the boxes?” My boss’s boss then said, “Let me give you my business card first.” Because he was moving some twenty boxes of porn.  He said the cop made him open every box, to make sure he didn’t have any child porn.  Looking back I don’t know if saying I have twenty boxes of porn is probably cause to do a search, or if the cop was just curious about all the porn. 

Free Pies!

Here in the US, we’ll be having an election on November 2.  It’s not a Presidential Election, and for most people you’ll only be voting for local elections or issues, but voting is important.  So if you’re an American citizen over 18, I hope you’re registered and will be voting.

Every election I try to have a sale for Political Pies, my collection of forty short stories of a political nature.  And this election will be no different.  So, from Friday, October 29 through Tuesday, November 2, you’ll be able to grab the Kindle version of Political Pies for free.  If you get it early, you can have something to read while you wait in line.  And if you’re not an American, well, you can still get it, and I hope you are peacefully involved in your own nation’s politics.

Over-engineered holiday lights

I have a crappy, part time job at a store.  One of the things we sell are holiday lights.  Mostly Christmas, but also Halloween.  These strings of lights usually come in a small display box that has a super short string of lights on it and a button you can press to see how they look when they light up.  Usually, once the display box is empty, we just throw it away.  But a couple of times I’ve ripped the display lights out to hang them around the register.  I then have to rig some way to keep the lights on, usually by taping the button down.  The thing I’ve noticed by doing this a few times, is that these cheap, disposable lights will stay lit for days.  I guess the lights are so efficient we can’t make batteries small enough for them to only last a few hours.  So if you need some holiday lights, for a day or so and are okay with super short strings, ask if you can have the empty boxes the store would normally just throw away. 

***

Image from Pixabay.

Short story – “Rest in Peace”

This story began as a dream.  In the dream, I was walking along the sidewalk and I saw the Tenth Doctor carrying bags of groceries or something, and he stopped at a beat up old vending machine.  He soniced it, and it opened up to be a TARDIS, slowly decaying in plain view.  The image stuck with me, and since I had been kicking around the idea of doing some fan fiction stories at some point, I started working on a story based on that.

But after a few months, I hadn’t started anything.  Then a site I wrote on had a Doctor Who Fan-Fiction contest.  I guess a new season was starting, so I got around and wrote this story.  It didn’t win, and then a couple years later the site went belly-up. 

I have a few ideas for fan fiction stories, but I haven’t really written any because I have too many of my own stories I need to work on.  But I was reminded of this story recently and I decided to repost it.  In case you’re wondering, my only other fan fiction story is “Jedi ER,” which is more parody.

“Rest in Peace”

“Where are we?” Martha asked.

Opening the TARDIS door, the Doctor replied, “In the middle of nowhere, in what will one day be Nebraska.”

They stepped outside to a small clearing surrounded by pine trees.  The trees right in front of them were back lit by a rosy sky.

Walking forward, Martha asked, “Is that a sunrise, or a sunset?”

“Sunset.  It’s late on the evening of the Twelfth of November, 1833.” Waving at the clear sky, the Doctor added, “Right now, far out in space, untold thousands of dust particles and pebbles and other debris of Comet Tempel-Tuttle – which humans won’t discover for another thirty-three years – are heading for Earth.  In a few hours they’ll hit the atmosphere and burn up in The Great Leonid Meteor Storm.  It’s estimated that at its height, people could see 100,000 meteors an hour.  The number of meteors was so great, some people even thought the next night would be completely black because all the stars had to have fallen.”

“And let me guess,” Martha said.  “Hidden amongst all those meteors are alien spaceships here to conquer the world.”

The Doctor stopped and frowned.  “Why would you think that?”

“I don’t know.  But that’s the sort of thing that happens around you.”

After a few seconds, the Doctor continued walking.  “Those were just coincidences.”

“So why are we really here?”

“Because it will be pretty.”

The clearing widened into a small meadow filled with drying weeds.  The Doctor turned and said, “Martha, you really should-”

Martha took a few more steps before she stopped and looked at the Doctor.  The blood had drained from his face.  “Doctor, what is it?” She followed his gaze to see – at the edge of the meadow – an old, wooden shed that looked like one strong wind would blow it over.  “What is that?”

Without replying, the Doctor took off running towards the shed. 

Martha ran after him.  “Doctor.  What is it?”

The Doctor reached the shed and slowly reached out to pat the rough wood. 

When Martha arrived, she heard him whisper, “Oh you poor girl.” Martha took a closer look at the shed.  It was made from old, weather beaten planks, several of which had fallen off.  Patches of moss grew on some that remained.  Piles of dead weeds and pine needles were around the base, and a few small trees had taken root in them.

Looking back at the Doctor, Martha said, “I don’t understand.  It’s just an old shed.”

“No, it’s not.” The Doctor took his sonic screwdriver from inside his coat and aimed it at the door.  It buzzed a few seconds, and then the door – despite the rusty hinges – swung open.  Inside was a much, much larger space.  It was very dim inside, but Martha could make out what appeared to be a rustic cabin.  But in the center, surrounded in pale light, was a TARDIS console.

It took a few seconds for Martha to voice her thoughts.  “It’s the TARDIS.”

“It’s a TARDIS,” the Doctor corrected her.  “A Type 60.”

Before Martha could ask, the Doctor walked in.  After a few seconds she followed him.

The Doctor stopped by the console.  He reached out, but hesitated before resting his hand on it.  In response, the room filled with a low, mournful sound.

Martha walked around the Doctor, but had only gone a few steps before she stopped.  “Doctor.” On the other side of the console was a comfortable chair filled with remains.  All that was left inside the tattered clothing was a skeleton, but it looked as if a third of the bones had been turned to dust.

The Doctor looked at the body and sighed.  “Janithid.”

“You … knew him?”

“Only in passing.  He disappeared during The War.”

“What did that to him?”

“The Nightmare Child.”

“Who’s that?”

“You don’t want to know.”

They were silent for a few seconds, then the room again filled with a mournful sound.

Martha looked up the ceiling and asked, “What’s wrong with this TARDIS?”

“She’s dying.”

“Is there anything we can do?”

The Doctor shook his head.  “No, she’s too far gone.  They’ve been here for centuries.  Slowly gathering dust, fading away, being buried by time.” He patted the console and added, “These are her final moments.  Of course, the final moments of a TARDIS can last for decades.”

Martha placed her hand on the console next to his.  “Rest in peace,” she said.

The Doctor smiled and took her arm.  “Come on.”

Back outside, the Doctor soniced the door closed.  He then patted the worn wood and said, “Rest in peace.”

He turned around and said, “Now then, it’s getting dark.  Let’s find a good spot to watch the Great Leonid Meteor Storm.”

Random Story – Giant penis

This is just an odd little story from my life.

In 2002, I lived in a college town.  And I had a crappy job where I worked the night shift.  I had to work on Halloween, so I was asleep when all the trick or treaters came, which annoyed my one roommate because he had to deal with them. 

Anyway, I left for work – I think about 10:30 or so – and as I was driving through town I saw a bunch of dressed up college kids partying.  And then, down the sidewalk, I saw an eight foot tall penis slowly walking.  And it wasn’t just penis-shaped, they took the time to make it look lifelike. 

I can’t remember how long I laughed.  And since then, whenever someone mentions Halloween, one of my first thoughts is of a giant penis shuffling down the sidewalk.

Short story – “Shake Things Up”

“Shake Things Up”

John knocked on the open door of Principle Shelia Kubinsky.  She was typing on her laptop and said, “One moment.”

After a few seconds she looked up and John asked, “You wanted to see me, Principle Kubinsky?”

“Yes John,” Shelia said.  “Have a seat.”

Once he sat down, she said, “We’ve received a note about you from a concerned parent.”

John straightened up.  “Oh?”

“Yes.  Did you tell one of your classes that if they studied math and science they could one day build a doomsday weapon, such as an earthquake machine?”

John relaxed and nodded.  “Yes.”

Shelia raised an eyebrow.  “Why?”

“The subject came up.”

Shelia’s eyes narrowed.  “How did such a subject ‘come up?’”

John thought for a moment, then said, “As I recall, it was Monday, just before fourth period.  The bell hadn’t rung yet, and some students were talking about that new movie Shake Down where, apparently, the villain has an earthquake machine.  They asked if something like that was even possible.”

When he didn’t continue, Shelia added, “So you thought it best to tell them that by studying math and science they could one day build such a device?”

“I believe I said ‘physics and engineering,’ but added that it would be a massive undertaking probably exceeding the Manhattan Project.  And then I had to explain the Manhattan Project.”

Shelia nodded.  “I see.  I’ll send an email to the parents.  Hopefully it will clear up any misunderstandings.  Just be careful about discussing doomsday weapons in the classroom.”

“Of course.”

***

I posted this in 2015 on a site that is no longer around, and I figured I should repost it.

When I try to come up with new story ideas for stories, I often let my imagination go off on wild tangents.  One day, such a tangent led to me thinking about earthquake machines.  I liked the idea, but I couldn’t think of a story I could use an earthquake machine in.  But then I came up with this.

9/11 Memories

For the past nineteen years, around the end of August or the beginning of September, I’d get the feeling that I should write a blog about what I did on 9/11.  I think I even started writing one in 2002, but it quickly became weird.  I didn’t know anyone who died that day, I wasn’t anywhere near any of the places attacked; I was just some schmuck who watched it all on TV.  It felt like by writing about my experiences, I was trying to shoehorn my way in to a tragedy I was only a distant spectator of.  Since then, every time I thought about writing a blog about it I’d stop myself because my experiences are only the … 61,567,928th most important of that day.  And that’s an overestimation. 

So why does this blog exist?  Well, 9/11 was a tragic day that changed countless lives, but it’s not something I think about every day.  Time dulls all tragedies.  If I say Pearl Harbor, you – hopefully – know the significance of that event, but it may have been months since the last time you thought of it.  As the twentieth anniversary of 9/11 was coming up, I started thinking more and more of the day, and I realized that my memories had become fuzzy.  As the years pass, my memories will only become fuzzier, so this is more for me to have a clearer record for me to read in ten or twenty years.

A few months before 9/11, I moved to Kennett Square, PA.  It was the other side of the state from where I grew up – and where I live now – but I had gone to college in the area and some of my friends were near there.  My hope was to find a better job than I could find in the middle of nowhere.  I was living off my savings, but my plan for that Tuesday was to go around to see what places were hiring and get some applications to fill out.

For any youngsters reading this, 2001 was before … basically everything you think of as “The Internet.” I had an old laptop for writing, but to check my email, I had to go to the library.  My main source of news was a TV channel called Headline News, which went over the latest headlines every half-hour.  I’d usually watch a bit before I’d go to bed to see the latest national and international news.  And I’d usually watch it while I ate breakfast in case anything happened while I was asleep.

That morning, I turned the news on and went to go to my kitchen.  I saw something about the Twin Towers on fire, and at first I thought it had something to do with the 1993 bombing.  Then I saw “Live” on the screen, and I wondered if someone had bombed it again.  Here’s the first fuzzy part.  I can’t remember what I was doing when the second plane hit.  I’m almost positive that I just missed it, but I can’t remember if I was just flipping through the channels, or if I had just stepped back to the kitchen for something. 

Once it became certain that this wasn’t just a plane crash, I was glued to the TV.  My TV at the time was old, and the remote didn’t have numbers on it.  If I wanted to go from Channel 40 to Channel 20, I had to go through the intervening channels.  I’d watch one news channel for five or ten minutes, then switch to another.  And one of the details of that day burned into my brain, is that I left one channel, and when I arrived at the next one three or four seconds later, the first tower was collapsing.  It started to collapse just as I switched channels.  I left the report of the disaster on one channel, and when I arrived at the next news channel and it was like finding out about this whole new disaster, in progress.

Sometime that afternoon, it was reported that President Bush had been flown to some Air Force base.  At the time, I was a member of the Air Force Association.  (I’ve never served in the military, I was just an interested party.) One of the things the AFA does is publish a yearly almanac of everything Air Force: personnel numbers, types of planes, base locations, etc.  So I grabbed my most recent copy, and looked up that Air Force base.  Besides all the information on who was based there and what planes they had, there was the mundane stuff like the address as well as the phone and probably fax numbers.  It was the strangest feeling to know that – during an attack on the country – I could have called the place the President had been, an hour ago. 

Probably just a couple of weeks before, I found out about a poetry group that met each month at a local bookstore.  Their scheduled meeting was that evening, and I had planned to check them out.  I went, in large part, just hoping to be with other people.  But of course the meeting was canceled, so I just wandered around the bookstore for a bit before going back home.  Where I watched the news until 2 or 3 the next morning before finally going to bed.

As I said, I was just a schmuck who watched it on TV.  For what it’s worth, I now have only a slightly fuzzy record of that day.

I think it’s time for a Twenty-First Century economic theory

Roughly speaking, there are two big economic theories in the world today: capitalism and socialism.  A lot of people spend a lot of time talking about the successes and failures of each.  Nobody really cares about my opinion, but it is that both are failing ideologies. 

Now some will be screaming “How has capitalism failed?” Well, let me ask a question.  Let’s say there is a company named WidgetCo that makes widgets.  These widgets are so wondrous that everyone wants one, and WidgetCo makes a lot of money selling them.  But they make their widgets so well that they almost never breakdown, and soon everyone who wants a widget has one, and WidgetCo goes out of business, leaving room for DoohickeyCo to enter the market with their groundbreaking doohickey.  Now, in the ideal of Capital C Capitalism, is WidgetCo a success?  I’d say yes.  They made a healthy profit off their widgets, how is that a failure?  But is that how things work in the real world?  In the real world, WidgetCo would make less quality widgets that breakdown, and then they’d stop making parts, or stop giving tech support, all to force people into buying the – basically the same but with some cosmetic changes – Widget2.  Then, since they have all the money, they corner the market on thingumabobs to prevent DoohickeyCo from making their doohickeys.  Is that the ideal of capitalism?  I’d say that’s more Capital G Capitalism (for greed).  An argument I’ve had for why the current system isn’t the greatest is that I never realized the point of capitalism was to create a plutocracy. 

Now, since I’ve had some valid criticism of capitalism as practiced, some will just yell, “That’s just because you’re a dirty socialist.” Wouldn’t those people be surprised to learn that I think socialism is failing as well.  I think Capital S Socialism is pretty good.  The problem comes with the implementation.  Say you start with the radical socialist idea that nobody should starve.  So you start with all the numbers from 2015, of where the people are, where the food is grown, how it’s transported and distributed, etc.  You crunch all the numbers and run simulations, and by 2017 you have the perfect system … on paper.  You then need to actually put it into place, which miraculously only takes until 2019.  But the end result is that in 2019 you have the perfect system in place to feed everyone … in 2015.  And then 2020 happens.  I think a lot of the horror stories told of socialism are a result, not of Capital S Socialism, but Capital B Socialism, for bureaucracy.  Just as with power WidgetCo can turn monopolistic, any socialist system can turn bureaucratic and then be unable – or unwilling – to change when the situation changes.

Here’s an idea for a better world.  Everyone gets 1000 Credits a month.  One bedroom apartments are capped at 500 Credits a month, and a month’s worth of groceries can be 100 Credits, if you get the generic cereal, for example.  Basic and emergency medical care is covered, but a lot of elective stuff isn’t.  To pay for all of this free stuff, all able people have to do X hours of community service each year.  You could either work for a few hours a week, or eight hours a day for a couple of weeks in January and be good for the year.  If you want a bigger apartment, or a car, or whatever, you need to get a job to earn extra money.  Some will cry that people need to contribute to society and they’ll point to some kid playing video games and just call them a slacker.  I wonder what those people think of these assholes who play golf all the time while the money their parents made makes more money.  Are they contributing to society?

I think my better world idea would be great.  I have no idea how such a system would be implemented, and know it would probably only work for a decade or two before technological advance would crack it apart.  It’s only a matter of time before autonomous vehicles will drive around checking for potholes.  When a pothole is detected, another autonomous vehicle will show up, block off traffic, and fix it.  And these autonomous vehicles will be built in automated factories, which will be supplied from automated mines.  In this system, does someone need to own all these vehicles?  Would we still need to pay taxes to pay for this system?  And this won’t just be for roads.  There will be robots building solar power stations, houses, picking food, transporting it all, etc. 

Adam Smith, the father of capitalism, died in 1790.  Karl Marx, often seen as the socialist poster boy, died in 1883.  Even if you think their ideas were perfect – they weren’t – they were Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century ideas.  We live in the Twenty-first.  Shouldn’t there be a new economic system that takes automation and bitcoin into account?  It doesn’t even have to be completely new.  I’d say this new system should be about 40% Capital S Socialism, 30% Capital C Capitalism, and 30% something new.  What do you think?

Short story – “Good for the Goose”

“Good for the Goose”

There was a soft knock at Matt’s front door exactly at 9:17 AM, the time listed on his notice.  Regardless of everything else, at least the overlords were punctual.  Matt squared his shoulders and opened the door.  An A-H stood on his porch.

Humanity’s first knowledge that they were not alone in the universe came when a billion Artificial-Humans appeared all over the world along with hundreds of giant spaceships.  It was also the sign that Humanity had been defeated in its first interstellar war.  The new masters of Earth – the Followers of the All – created the A-Hs to keep their new subjects in line.  They were of basic human shape with pale blue skin and deep green eyes.  All were bald and they wore no clothing, revealing no gender.

Without invitation, the A-H walked in to Matt’s living room.  It stopped before a large pile of books and various odds and ends in the middle of the floor.  In a soft tenor voice it asked, “Are these all of the forbidden items in your home?”

Looking at his feet, Matt mumbled, “Yes.”

Forbidden items.  At first many cheered the aliens for achieving world peace in a matter of hours.  Every ICBM, warship, tank, jet and gun from every military and terrorist group in the world was collected by the motherships using some energy field and returned as blocks of steel and other metals, “to be used for better purposes.”

But the cheering did not last long.  Any false religion – or product of false religion – was abhorrent to the Followers of the All.  Once they were done with the world’s militaries, the motherships began leveling every synagogue, church, mosque, and temple in the world.  The Kaaba, St. Peter’s Basilica, Ise Jingū, and Swaminarayan Akshardham, all were reduced to parking lots.  Historical structures were not spared either; Machu Picchu, Angkor Wat, and the Moai of Easter Island were reduced to stones.  Even the evidence that it was an ancient observatory did not save Stonehenge. 

Once the motherships took care of the big things, the A-Hs were turned loose upon the people.  Lists of forbidden items appeared in every home.  On the list were: guns, pocket knives, decorative swords, any toys of a military nature, all meat products (since the Followers of the All were strict vegans, their subjects would be as well) and all books and movies concerning false religions or anything mystical.  This included the Bible, the Koran, Dianetics, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, and Star Wars.  Even The Godfather because it, “invoked a false name of the All.”

While Matt agreed the world would be better off without violent videogames and pornography – over the years he had signed numerous petitions to that effect and donated to politicians promising to curb these destructive elements – he couldn’t see the threat of angel hair pasta. 

The A-H raised its hand and a blue-green energy beam shot out from it.  The forbidden items glowed for a second then vanished.  Turning towards Matt, the A-H held out a small, black, hexagon wafer.  “You are credited with 13.7 Krells.”

Matt took the wafer and mumbled, “Thank you.”

Without reply, the A-H left.

For several moments, Matt stood with his eyes closed.  Finally, he opened his eyes and looked around at his empty bookshelves.  He had tried to be strong, but now he fell to his knees and sobbed.

***

I first posted this story in 2008 on MySpace.  In 2014, I reposted it on a site that went belly up a year or so later.  I then reposted it in 2018 on a site that – I think – is still around, but I think my profile has probably been deleted because I haven’t signed in in three years.  So hopefully this story will stay around for some time now.

There is a long history of groups of people trying to impose their religious beliefs on others, and I thought it only seemed fair if they had other beliefs imposed on them.  Of course, in any conflict – be in militarily or culturally – there are innocent bystanders.

Random Story – The headless gnome

This is just an odd little story from my life.

About twenty years ago, I worked the midnight shift at a convenience store.  The store was five or six blocks from my apartment, and to save money on gas and just to get out, I used to walk to work.  One night while I was going to work, something in the shadows of a bank parking lot caught my eye.  I looked at it, but I did not know what it was.  The first description that came to mind was a headless gnome.  It looked like a little torso – a couple inches high – with short legs that was walking towards me.

I don’t believe in ghosts, or goblins, or anything like that.  But for a second or two, I could not identify what this thing was, and I was just ….

It was a cat.  It was dark grey/black and in the streetlight shadows blended in perfectly to the parking lot pavement.  It had a white spot on its chest, which ran down its front legs.  With the rest of the cat blending into the background, this white spot looked like a headless torso walking towards me on stubby legs.

Once I saw the cat, I burst out laughing.  I’m pretty sure I doubled over, and couldn’t collect myself for a minute or two.