In any case, a few days later they were landing on Mars and as the computer guided their shuttle to the landing pad, Montgomery smiled and sighed. The shuttle doors opened and the Doctor stepped jauntily from the cramped ship. Security Officer Wills was standing cheerily with his assistant, waiting to greet him.

“I trust the flight wasn’t too uncomfortable Doctor?” Wills asked.

“Oh it was fine if you don’t mind the drivel the agency considers in-flight entertainment,” Montgomery replied.

“Well we’re all happy to see you. The boys’ll be glad to have someone to look after them.”

“Well I could use a hot shower and an even hotter meal. Oh, and you might want to check on the Captain. The food supplements haven’t been agreeing with him and I’m afraid he’s been bed-ridden.”

Officer Wills paused for a moment and looked down at his ledger. “Captain Anderson?” he asked.

“Oh don’t worry I looked after him. Just make sure he makes it to the infirmary,” Montgomery replied.

Wills began to reply but thought better of it. Instead he looked knowingly at his assistant. “Chuck would you make sure the good Doctor is made comfortable?” The extra emphasis on “comfortable” was all the assistant needed. The Doctor’s quarters wold be a bit more….padded than he was probably expecting.

These solo flights were sometimes hard on even the greatest minds.

The first place Josh went was the Land of Nouns. It was kind of boring – not much happened there because it was too crowded. (He missed the Province of Adjectives, where all the rich folks lived.) Later he came to the Barony of Verbs, where so much was going on that its inhabitants were often on the edge of exhaustion. And he barely escaped their vassal state, the Duchy of Adverbs, with his life.

When he came to the Land of Logic it was deserted – the inhabitants had developed the best tools for living, but forgot why. The Realm of Reason was a mess, too – the enlightened Philosopher-King refused to allow the evidence of his senses to interfere with the purity of his thought. As a result, things were confusing and often scary for the common people there. But when Josh got to the Empire of the Empirical, he was impressed – an industrious land, where things were constantly being built, destroyed, restored, replaced. And everybody seemed relatively happy. Well, content at least.

After that, our hero (nobody knows what his name was), decided to return home. But he could no longer remember where his home was – or even what it was called. Did he have parents, brothers, sisters, maybe a lover, waiting for him? The answer was on the tip of his tongue, but wouldn’t come.

So he waited, hoping to recall or be reminded of anything about his home. And this is how the Kingdom of Waiting was founded.

The next thing you know, you’re engulfed in the chaotic center of Armageddon. Nothing about this is random or undisciplined – this ultimate fury is expressed with military precision. This is fury, yes, but fury practiced, directed, controlled, perfected.

When the screaming, long awaited, finally begins, the anticipation realized does not release your tension, it reignites it. Dreams, fears, expectations, nightmares: reformed, rebuilt, redirected. Remember what it means to fear darkness, beasts, strangers.

Remember your infant fear of loud noises, loud voices – turn, and the fear is gone – but the loud noises, loud voices remain.

These speak to you – the words may not matter, the way words in a dream may not matter. It’s the tone, the texture, the intention interacting with parts of your brain that don’t have language. The broadest emotions – love, hope, joy – all people know them, they can be expressed in any language.

But fear and hunger – all living things know what these are, with or without language.

So this moment touches a generality within you – beyond individual, tribe, nation, people, species, genus, family, order, class, phylum, kingdom, domain – it touches life.

One small lump appeared to be a teapot, or maybe an oil lamp, or maybe who knows what. If she took the rust off carefully, and left a nice patina behind, it might make an excellent spout for the fountain she was building out of 1950’s lighting fixtures. She had barely begun polishing it when it started smoking and hopping around. She dropped it as the smoke materialized into a rather impressive genie.

“I am prepared to grant you three wishes for freeing me from this prison. What do you desire?”

Angela stared at him, and before she could speak he said, a bit impatiently, “Come on, come on. I’ve been imprisoned in that lamp for three thousand years! I have other things I’d like to get to. State your wishes!”

She cleared her throat. “Um, my first wish is that you’ll advise me wisely regarding my second two wishes – help me avoid wishing for things I’ll regret.”

The genie was flabbergasted. He hemmed and hawed, but she waited, finally raising her eyebrows at him. “Fine, fine, it is granted.” He sighed. “I can see that humans aren’t as much fun as they used to be.” He sounded disappointed.

All of his mental alarms went off at that phrase. He stopped typing and adjusted his headset as he blurted out, “What? No. Why would I be mad at you?”

“Well, whenever we talk on the phone you sound mad. Or, like, you’re mad but trying to not sound mad. All monotone and serious. Why are you mad? Does it bug you when I call you? I can stop calling you at work if it’s a problem.” By the end of this she sounded sad, hurt.

His inner alarms were now clanging in full red-alert all-battle-stations mode. “No! I love it when you call me. I think my ‘phone voice’ is just kinda blah, you know? Don’t read anything into it. Please keep calling when you want. Really.”

“So, are you saying that I read things into things?”

“What? No! I just don’t want you to think I’m mad when I’m not. That’s all. I like it when you call me. I’m not mad.”

“Okay…are you sure?” That note of insecurity in her voice always made him want to protect her, comfort her. It also drove him completely nuts – how hard does a guy have to work to prove that he loves a girl?

“I’m sure. I’m sorry – I’ll work on making my ‘phone voice’ friendlier. Okay?”

“Alright. Hey, a customer just came in – I gotta go. Love ya!”

“I love you too. Bye.”

So, no, I ain’t a super-villain. More like a super-leave-me-alone. My only crime is having super-powers and refusing to work for the government. Why is it that the first thing everybody thinks of when they get some funky power is either robbing banks or punching bank robbers? I just wanna work my farm, but once the government figgered out I had powers, it was work for them or go to jail. If we were at war, fine, I’d sign up and do my duty – my dad and grandad, and all the way back, that’s what we do. I’dve done it too. But I’m not gonna dress up in tights and punch crooks – I’m not a cop.

I ain’t exactly a guy wears tights, either. You know?

I’m fine with using my powers for good, but why does that only mean crimefighting? I help more people farming than those spandex fools do punching people. Why can’t powers be for farming or construction or something? It’s ridiculous.

Anyways, you gotta get me outa here. Can’t you get the judge to set bail? I’m not gonna run anywheres cept straight back at my farm – you know that, and he knows that.

I got work to do.

It took a little while for Jake’s eyes to make it from his mug up to Lee’s face. “I axed her to go out with me.” He sighed. “Go out with me. On a date. With me. I axed her.”

The return trip to staring at the glass was much faster and smoother. Clearly, gravity helped this time. “Thas when she tole me about her boyfrien. No mention nohow bout him before this, but now she’s got a boyfrien. I hate boyfriens.”

He weakly pounded the table with his fist, but it was enough to topple his beer over. Lee let it go, since pouring beer on the table was a probably a better idea at this point than pouring any more into Jake.

“Man, that’s lame…I’m sorry…”

Jake interrupted, “Is lame. Boyfriens lame. I’m lame.” Then he started crying.

“All right, let’s get you out of here. C’mon, I’m going to get you home.” He sighed. Jake did this, pretty much on schedule, every two years – fell for an unavailable girl, got hurt, got drunk, called Lee. The problem, as far as Lee could tell, was that Jake would only fall for girls who were unavailable in one way or another. Still, he’d hoped this one would be different. Obviously, so had Jake.

“Jake, maybe you just need to let it go: not take it so personally. Ask more girls out, increase your odds, don’t wait until you’re hopelessly spun, you know, let it go a bit.”

Jake nodded at him blearily, then leaned out the window and vomited on the side of the care.

So much for letting it go. Well, at least this probably wouldn’t happen again for a couple of years.

Tyson died in 2015, when his flight to London crashed. He had been working on the first movie being made from his graphic novels. His fans mourned, but the studio just lamented the timing – how much better it would have been for him to die right before opening weekend.

Tyson died in 2021, from a heart attack during the last leg up Kilimanjaro. His wife had tried to talk him out of the climb, but he just laughed and said he had to die sometime. She published his unfinished novel – an instant best-seller.

Tyson died in 2032 in a car wreck. Long forgotten by his old fans, his investments had created a fortune despite his obscurity. There was an ugly fight over the estate between his son and his ex-wife, who hadn’t spoken in ten years.

Tyson died in 2040, quietly in the nursing home, surrounded by family and friends. There were tears, but the family was happy to know that the long illness and pain was over. The public memorial service drew thousands of fans – people still remembered his hit songs. The surge in album sales lasted three weeks.

Tyson died in 2051 alone in his tiny, untidy apartment. He wasn’t found for four days, and the authorities were never able to determine whether he had any living relatives. With no will, and very few possessions, they didn’t try too hard, anyway. Due to a paperwork screw-up, it wasn’t even clear what happened to the body after the coroner finished with it. Fortunately, nobody cared.

He cleared his throat. “Well, today’s January 1st, 1400. So, the Middle Ages are over. Son, you need to learn to read. And in Italian! No more of this just being an ignorant peasant nonsense for you, or just learning Latin.” His son looked startled, but before he could speak his father continued. “Daughter, I want you move to a town as soon as possible. Try and work for a merchant, or maybe be an artist’s model.” His daughter started to cry.

“None of that now – There’s a Renaissance on, and we need to start acting like it.”

His patient wife finally spoke up. “Dear, it’s not like these things happen instantly. We can…”

“No, I’ll not have my family stuck in the past. It’s finally 1400, and we can start to change.” He tried to look heroically off into the distance, but since they were still seated around the rough table in the tiny hut, there really wasn’t any distance available to him. That didn’t matter – he’d been waiting for the Renaissance all his life, and by God and all the very best saints they were going to do it right!

Wait, no, make that “by God and all that’s best in humanity”. Whew, despite his enthusiasm, he could see where this would even be tough for him. But it would be worth it – the Middle Ages were no picnic. He was ready for change.

Late January. I took a small plane to a remote airfield 230 miles away. The women protested and were upset but I had to check out the surrounding area. I told them I’d return in 12 hours. Flying over the towns was eerie. The bodies, they are everywhere. I knew there would be bodies but they are everywhere. Most frozen inside their cars, the remains of charred buildings and homes. I was able to land and some vegetation survived as predicted. I went to the hanger and quickly made a list of the available planes and fuel. The airport was ransacked but locked. Finding the smashed window I found no food stores but some magazines and newspapers. The newspapers spoke of my actions and the counter measures. Just as I anticipated there were two attempts but one of their rockets suffered mechanical failure. The paper wasn’t clear but it appears they gave up.

I flew over the downtown area and circled around the downtown area but saw no signs of life. I was gone long enough, a static city with no lights and no movement. I landed on the freeway which was surprisingly empty. I suppose either it was too cold to drive or there was no place to go. I walked over to a few store fronts, most with broken glass or empty. There was a lot of trash everywhere. I’ll have to find a way to deal with the trash as we expand. The sheer magnitude of the work ahead has me debating population control. The return trip was uneventful except for the birth of another child. We welcomed my ninth daughter. I named her “Lexi”. I’ll make a return trip next month.

So how does he write about Angola, or Argentina, for example? How about Crete? Is it about the people he killed? The women he loved? But the strongest memory he has of Crete five decades later is seafood and the smell of surf. Dead bodies are about the same, no matter what the location. And calling it “love” is just another lie. But the food was good.

And who would want to read some old geezer’s vague memories of good Cretan food from so long ago? Nigel knows he wouldn’t.

It never seemed like he fought in multiple wars. It was just one big war that never stopped. Sometimes one side, sometimes another. Sometimes he got paid, sometimes he barely got out alive. He feels like the only honest autobiography would be “I was born, I fought and managed to stay alive, this lung cancer will probably kill me soon”. That’s not prizewinning or insightful, but he’s never cared for honors or awards.

Or introspection.

He shuts off the computer, struggles to his feet, and goes back to bed. He has no stories to tell, no scenes, just a life that’s nearly over. It’s too late to try and come up with something lasting.

“I remember when they sold ice in Germany and Russia. Todd would point out to me, ‘There’s Mr. Sharp!’. And why was it sharp?” He paused and looked at me significantly. “Because of the butterflies.”

With that point made, he opened his shaving kit and pulled out a stack of condoms, still in the wrappers. After shuffling them a bit, he dealt five of them onto his knee and dumped the rest back into the bag. He picked the five up and fanned them out like a poker hand. Staring at them intently, he carefully began to sort them. Right about then my number came over the loudspeaker, so I stood up to go. He looked up and asked, “Why?”

I met his gaze, and gave him the only answer I could think of: “Because of the butterflies.”

He froze momentarily, then began nodding. As I turned away he had a beautiful smile on his face. Sometimes you just have to speak to people in their own language.

The cat was nearby in the dark room with shades pulled. He was gone and I was here, holding him. I listened to the wind. I thought about him and how he read my diary.

He lay there, looking at me with his cold and lifeless eyes. A client or not, I will hold him.

We kissed earlier and now I wished he would have walked away.

Those stolen moments are gone. That kiss, that damned kiss. I made it feel real.

I felt myself repeating myself. “I wish he would have walked away”.

She walked in my office with dark hair and a darker soul. The door heavy with envy as she leaned against the door jam. She had a cigarette on the edge of her lips and the smoke filled the doorway.

She began to walk to my desk. She walked with a sway that any Cuban would recognize as her blood red dress clung to her as if itself was making love. Strapless and was upheld by what appeared to be faith and unwelcome modesty.

“What do you need?” I don’t like chit-chat. If she’s got cash she’ll answer quick and if she wants trouble she’d be shooting her mouth or a forty-five.

“I’m looking for a fella.” She took a drag and waited.

She went on about some playboy and how the mob had taken him. He was in debt, and then got a few shiners and then gone. Maybe he couldn’t take her rambling and a call to the family was sounding good as she went on like a joke you’ve heard for the second time.

“You want me to find him?” I threw back another shot of whiskey to keep the other four company. I told her my rates and hope she’d back off but trying to find a guy I made disappear sounded like an easy payday. I don’t like complication but I like paychecks more and I didn’t have time to talk myself out of it as she sat across my desk.

She wasn’t shy and I wasn’t sober so we cleared the desk and settled the bill.

“Find him and you’ll get a tip.”
“I’ll find him sweetheart but keep the change.”

I slip out of the closet and into the sliver of light that beams from the vacant hallway. My shadow is present, larger than myself and carries blackness deeper than the night. I gently toe his shoes and move them under the bed. I will sometimes just watch him sleep. He often grips his covers, a remnant of his last expression before fading into slumber.

It doesn’t seem routine. I walk to the foot of the bed, his feet small and distant from the footboard. With fluid calmness I strike the bed. He is jarred, sitting upright and breathing in. As he sucks in the cold and clammy air our eyes meet. He turns pale, shining bright as the sliver of light etches his nightmare into being.

His scream is young, and scales. It draws his father into the room but I am gone again. At times through the open window or back into closet. He attempts to explain my presence but I am but a phantom. Monstering is a thankless job but it does bring me a hint of joy.

Unfortunately, being made of stone means he has no soul to sell, and no buyers.

So there he sits, motionless, gathering dust, and dreaming.

“Captain, orders?”
“Break orbit and return to Earth.”
She sat in her chair.
“We’re going to leave him here?” The rest of the crew looked at her and waited.
She answered with a nod and they were gone.

She merely thumbed the hammer back. This amused the old man. “Killing me won’t teach you my name. Kill me, search my body. You won’t find my name. Not my real name. Not the one that matters.”

“The villagers call you The Dragon.” She tried to keep the frustration out of her voice. She wasn’t successful.

“You know that name means nothing. It has no power. But I will tell you a secret.”

She leaned closer. Her shadow touched his, but jumped back. Probably just the candle flickering.

Probably.

“The more people who know a name, the less power it has. The most powerful names are only known by one.” The little man leaned back. “Now, please, use your weapon. I’m old and finished with this phase.” His smile was a mass of wrinkles. “I guarantee that no harm will come to you. Actually, I would view it as a kindness – a debt to be repaid. You know that I always pay my debts.”

She laughed in disbelief. “You’ll repay me after I’ve shot you? I’m a better shot than you think.”

But she put one hollowpoint between his eyes anyway. Things got a little confusing then – all she could remember later was a flash of blinding light, then freezeframes: smoke, fire, darkness.

She awoke on the mountain outside the village, with a dragon standing over her. “Saving you from the fire repaid my debt, I believe.” He laughed, blowing smoke over her head. “And no, I will not tell you my new name, either.” He flew off.

She realized that he’d never asked her name. Did he already know it? Or was it so lacking in power as to be uninteresting?

Opening the door I called out “Mom?”
A voice, horse and sickly from the back returned. “What?”
“I got one.” I said, grabbing some milk from the fridge.
“Hard to catch”
“Not really. Heavy. Bulky really.”

She cut up nicely, and the aroma rose and filled the trailer.

“Done yet?”
“Just about.”
She liked them rare but I grilled them a bit longer. I didn’t have a good reason other than the awful hue that the flesh displayed.

She ate without manner or grace. The flesh dangled from her lips. She looked up.
“I feel better now.”
“Good.”
“But it takes kinda funny.”
“Well she was a clown.”

Bob is The Company’s best fixer.

Telurgian Quintessential Juice is just the sap from this stupid planet’s stupid trees, diluted to one part per billion in water. So, even a tiny increase in sap production would create a huge increase in Juice production. Very simple.

Except, since Telurg never developed any mobile lifeforms, these stupid trees weren’t stupid. They were the highest form of life on the planet, and very intelligent. Humans still hadn’t figured out how they communicated amongst themselves, but they figured out Galactic Standard just from observing the colonists up close for a couple of years. Then, they devised a way to rub branches and leaves together to create sound, and started having friendly chats with the colonists.

This unnerved the colonists at first, and pretty much brought sap production to a halt, right as demand spiked upwards. Many of the colonists had actually become friends with the trees, and are trying to get laws passed extending human rights to include the natives.

Bob doesn’t even care about human rights for humans, much less trees.

As far as he is concerned, that sap belongs to the company, not the trees. He is very good at taking care of company property. Bob’s here, with plenty of Company troops, to get that sap. If a little bit of the colonist’s sap is taken in the process, that’s okay with Bob too.