Brain QA

The future of my field looks pretty scary from this angle. When everyone is hooked up to the internet through a chip in their brain, what happens when someone needs troubleshooting?

Me. That's what happens. I'll come into your house, with my little box of specialized tools, and I'll crack into your brain. You'll take for granted that I know what I'm doing, and that I washed my hands after I took a piss. Maybe I did, and maybe I didn't.

I'll bring up a little external computer that allows me to go into that cesspool you call your mind, so that I don't have to jack in directly. I'd bet that's a form of contact that would give too many people the willies to allow. I know I wouldn't want a stranger interfacing directly with my most private and sensitive bits.

Let's say the problem you're having is that all of a sudden, you can only see the color blue. Every other color is showing up gray scale. I'll plug in a little something something, tweak a few lines of code, and blam. You see colors again. I imagine everyone will be on pause or whatever during this procedure, but maybe if it's something minor like a color freeze, they'd be awake.

Maybe it's something worse than that. Maybe we'll be so dependent on the mental internet that, should something go wrong, you might not be able to access any financial networks. Your ability to purchase anything will disappear. I'll come in with a little bit of computer magic to fix you up right.

You'll pray that the Brain QA employees are honest people, and that they wouldn't find it funny to leave a porn app in your circuits. Can you imagine how distracting it'd be if you were on the freeway and a dick popped up on your HUD?

(Mini-serial I wrote on storylane.com.  The question I answered was 'What do you think the future of your field of work looks like?' ) 

To Create A Better Place

I'd tell the next generation not to show their tits on a webcam.

I guess that's a cheat answer, isn't it? I can't just use that as the answer to every question. I mean, it's good advice for any generation, really.

Okay, okay. Basically, if I were President of the World, I would make sure parents taught their children not to be assholes. There's nothing worse than a kid who doesn't say "thank you" or "please". Well maybe there are worse things, but it's still pretty high on my list.

I'd grade parents on their parenting. Your kid knocked every shirt off a display rack and you watched them do it, and didn't make them clean it up? You get a D-. Your kid is obnoxious in a theater and you don't excuse yourself to take them out of the room? You get a G. Yeah, a G. Don't ruin my fucking movie, it's expensive to get in there and watch it. And don't get me started on the popcorn. As President of the World, popcorn would go back down to a reasonable price.

Basically, I can't help the next generation, because that involves fixing this one. And this generation is a hot mess of entitlement and playing WoW instead of making sure their kids aren't calling other kids "faggot".

(Mini-serial I wrote on storylane.com.  The question I answered was 'How would you make sure the next generation is better prepared to move the world in a good direction?' )

For The Children, And The Children's Children

If this planet is not reclaimed by nature, vines creeping up over skeletons of people and cars alike, by the time my great great great grandchildren are a possibility... well...

I would want to tell them not to show their tits on a webcam. Obviously this doesn't apply to greatgreatgreat grandsons. Although who knows, maybe in the future it'll be a thing that everyone has a pair of tits. And there probably won't be webcams either. But the equivalent. Don't show your goods to random people. Have some respect. Too many stories in my day (is it too early to say 'in my day'?) began with "She made the mistake of flashing some random old guy her body..." and ended with "Police report..." or "No remains were found..." or "Now she's a stripper". I wouldn't want any of that shit for my children's children's children. I mean, I wouldn't want it for my children either, but you get the idea.

Maybe I should go carve this on a stone somewhere so it's not lost to time. I'll make sure not to do it by an ocean.

(Mini-serial I wrote on storylane.com, answering the question 'What message do you want to deliver to your great-great-great grandchildren?' )

A Well Kept Secret

I don't tell anyone that I can teleport. Can you imagine how many people would want to study me, pick my brain, or weaponize me? All I want to do is skip the hassle of traffic. I mean, it's not like teleporting is particularly useful. It's fun, sure. But I can't carry extra weight, so practical trips to Costco are right out.

Mostly I just use it to get to and from work. If I crave a midnight snack, sometimes I pop into a late night grocery. No, I don't steal from stores that are closed. I tried it once, and felt too guilty about the shoes to ever do it again. I ended up giving them to some homeless lady just so I didn't have to look at them anymore. "Did you think to put them back?" I hear you asking. Well, yeah, I did think about that, but I figured as long as I'd already stolen them, I might as well do something good with them.

I can teleport to places I've never been to before, but it's risky. Since I have no idea what's gonna be sitting in the way when it happens. If it's just a small thing, like a small box or maybe a rock or something, I experience a really unpleasant numbness all over my body, and I appear shifted a little to the side of the object. Sometimes, I lose things when that happens. I don't know where they go. The biggest thing I've lost on a trip like that is a shoe. I'd hate to think about what would happen if I accidentally teleported into the wall of a building, or a cave, or a tree.

I've been able to do this since I was little. But this isn't a story about my childhood, it's a story about how I get to work. And the answer is; I teleport into the women's bathroom, handicap stall, and I pray no one is in there when I do it. I've been pretty lucky so far, but I'm looking forward to a really awkward day in the near future.

(Mini-serial I wrote on storylane.com.)

Telepathy Bombs

Telepathy bomb causes the near extinction of the human race.

If there had been any journalists left behind (who cared), or news organizations left in tact after the bombs went off, that's what the headline might have read.  But I'm not much of a writer, so that's what you get.  Hell, at this point, we don't need journalists OR the news.  We just listen, and there it is.

Apparently it takes a pretty strong mind to shut out the incessant noise of another person's brain, let alone the rest of the world's collective brains.  Those who slaved away in their hot yoga classes benefited, as did much of the Eastern world.  Various other people escaped the bombs with a terrible head ache and an instinctual ability to stop listening/seeing/whatevering. It took some time, and a lot of advil, but we managed.

I'm no scientist, so even with the vague knowledge I have of what happened that day, I can't explain it very well in writing.  It was a form of chemical warfare; I know that much.  It was intended to be something beneficial for humanity.  No idea who thought it'd be a noble act to bomb the world with a barely-tested formula, but it happened, and I had other things to worry about.  

Bombs were 'dropped' all over the world, and the condition is highly contagious.  There are a few people left who aren't infected, but they've holed themselves away somewhere.  In mountains, underground.  We try not to know, but we have a general idea.  They don't broadcast their thoughts like we do, uncontrollably, but if we listen for them, we hear their silent pleading to be left alone.  So we leave them alone as best we can.

And that's the problem, really.  Most of the population went insane when they couldn't stop hearing thoughts, or seeing images.  The survivors learned how to stop listening, but we're pretty sure we never learned how to stop broadcasting.  

At first, survivors converged to the same locations to be together.  But we quickly discovered that knowing what someone thinks about you, if they know you, is really hard to handle.  The brutal honesty that you weren't used to having someone else hear, that was all out on the table.  Even if you didn't Listen to them... the temptation was always there.  Many people drifted apart, content to seek communication telepathically if they were so inclined.

Sex sure became interesting, though.  There were even a few of us who'd become pregnant since the incident... we wondered, what would happen to the babies?  Would they be Listening in the womb?  Be born full of the knowledge of the world?  How awful.

Language isn't a barrier anymore, either, because if we can't understand the language, we can understand the conjured images pretty well.

Which is how we understood what the Valn were trying to communicate when they showed up.  When we saw their ships in the sky, we all Listened, excitedly chattering at each other about the event.  We tried to send them images of doves, olive branches, other stupid images of peace. It figures that the first time we'd come into contact with an alien race, it'd be because we were the loud, shitty neighbors.  They politely asked us to shut up and stop polluting the universe with our incessant squawking. We hadn't even considered that anyone else could hear us.  Humans really are inconsiderate assholes.

Real Life Slenderman

For the love of God, 13-year-old-me, don't take that fucking book you found in the woods. Just because it's dirty and appears abandoned doesn't mean it doesn't belong to someone.

So I have a bunch of superpowers. No big deal. I hate calling them that even; they're not super. They have unfortunate side effects or consequences, and although I can do some cool shit, it doesn't always end well for me or for other people. Like the teleporting thing. Really, it's just like when you watch a video of some professional gymnast doing something insane, and you think, "how can that be a real thing he/she is doing?". It's like that, only I haven't run into anyone else yet who can do what I can. And what I can do is cooler than pole vaulting. And seriously, what the shit is the point of a pommel horse?

My abilities don't work on whatever's been following me around since I was 13. Time to get serious, folks. I don't take much seriously, but this guy... he's no laughing matter. He hasn't gotten close to me yet, or spoken to me, but I figure it's only a matter of time. He gets a little closer every year.

The book's cover was nondescript. Black with some silver script on it. Well, the silver was pretty dirty, so it was more like grey script. I didn't recognize the words, and I couldn't see the picture that used to be on the front. I cracked the book open, and there was nothing inside it. I thought hey, maybe this would make a cool gift for Amanda. She was some gothy chick I had a thing for when I was 13; no idea why I thought black lipstick was hot. That's another thing, 13-year-old-me; goth girls aren't any more interesting or deep than girls who don't pretend to worship Satan.

So I took the book with me. That night, I saw him. In the distance. I looked outside my window into the woods outside my kitchen. About as far on the horizon as I could see, there was this guy in a suit. I couldn't see his face. I would say his face was blurry, but he was just too far away for me to make out any details. There was absolutely nothing normal about a guy standing in the woods wearing a suit, since there was nothing in that direction for miles. Since I had a giant pair of balls when I was 13 (I'm not going to lie; they've since shrunk down to a more normal level), I stormed out of the house, thinking I could confront him. He was gone.

I've only seen him a few times per year, but like I said, he appears a little closer every year I see him. I've tried teleporting to him; no dice. When I appear where he stood, he appears just as far away as he had been before I moved. I've tried reading his mind; it's as effective as reading the mind of someone's bowl of cereal. And a lot less delicious than cereal, I'd bet. When I was 15, I put the book back where I found it. When I was 16, I tried to find it again to light it on fire, or rip the pages out, or... whatever. Get rid of the fucking thing. Apologize to the guy. But the book was gone.

I'm not sure what'll happen when we finally meet. But I'm willing to bet it won't be a cool fight scene like in the movies. More likely, I'll shit my pants and die in a heap of shame. My mom always told me to wear clean underwear in case I got into an accident, but I bet she didn't consider the scenario in which a real life slenderman was going to scare me to death.

[From Storylane.com]

A New Storylet...

This will be brief!

I was emailed by the CEO of Storylane.com, and it was suggested that I start posting over there.  So, I have! The site is set up to be pretty... vain.  But only if you let it.  So I'm choosing instead to use all of the prompts as small writing exercises.  I was going to tackle it with many types of stories and many voices, but I'm finding myself fall into one voice.  

http://www.storylane.com/fancylala

This is where I've started writing.  I will probably post some stories from this blog, and cross post back to here with random things I write over there.  If you're interested in reading it, or just making your own, you should definitely check it out!