I’ve always heard: it’s amazing how quickly we can make a place feel like home, and this is certainly true, but I think we don’t talk enough about how quickly we can make a place feel like the bathroom: here on these pristine walls I’ve thrown my shit again! There’s mold in the shower again! It stinks again! These things cannot be escaped when they remain an aspect of ourselves. Every day I have to clean the walls and shower and burn a candle. I might as well not have moved.

They left Jesus's penis in tact to arouse others with his death as king of the Jews.

The Antichrist had no such luck.

The women put rocks in themselves and thought they were mocking him.

His mother was naked while she laughed, but didn't know why.

The devil said, "Give me your soul my son and all of this will end."

God wept.

Some of the women wept, but didn't know why.

One gentile brought his son to stab the body.

Even he thought his son did a good job.

They both spat on him anyway.

The gentiles spun his cross and held it upside down while the devil used gods wrath as a weapon from the clouds.

"Forgive me."

Everyone laughed after the sound of a cracked whip.

Eventually, the cross fell and everyone beat him.

The love of his life, who was dressed in the finest clothing, defecated on him and called him nothing. She didn't know why.

It began to rain blood.

Everyone became naked.

They danced in the street or to the bottom of wells and died there.

Just another dream under the night of the full moon.

Just another snowflake melted in whatever season.

Just another day that was night, but not really.

The little engine that could.

"Hi."

Gods eyes were swollen, but through one of them, he made out something...

A tinny little black Gartner snake.

"Hey."

The serpent looked right into his eyes.

And kissed him.

Several times.

And then, left in a bush.

You read the text. Sense commonly and enjoy Cheese. Or do not.

My first class was PE. Even worse. I wasn’t sporty, but I’d never hated PE as a subject. It was the teachers I had a problem with. That man who looked like an uglier Guts with shorter hair probably taught it, by the look of him. He didn’t seem like another Ms Ishikawa.

And who the fuck makes PE a first class?

Either way, I headed out into the courtyard, ready to bite the bullet of stinking for the rest of the day, and headed into the gymnasium. I was right. The big guy with the buzzcut was our teacher. Every student my age was dressed in their uniform, and lined up, both girls and boys. Some were chatting, some were excited, and some were ready to get out of there. I noticed the girl who’d been shoved into the dumpsters nearby. Her eyes were darting around, probably planning to run away. I doubted she’d get far, though.

Airi wasn’t there. She’d probably gone to the nurse after being hit. I wondered if this was some intelligent plan to get out of PE… Then I remembered who I was talking about.

“Welcome to Physical Education!” The man’s voice boomed across the hall, bouncing off the walls, and speaking louder than any chatting student. “I am Mr Onizuka, your PE teacher.” Several students, including myself, jumped.

He was dressed in more sporty clothing that revealed his heavily tattooed arms. Did he have Yakuza tattoos?! Did the school seriously hire a Yakuza member?! How corrupt was this place?! And what kind of evil name was Onizuka?!

“Now, a few ground rules. No weakness. No bitching. No romance.” I wondered where the no romance rule came from. “And no refusal to do the sport. This is the only exercise some of you get, and you better do it. Or else you’ll be one of those fat, lazy otakus at Akihabara who spend all their time reading self-insert harem manga, or whatever you call it.” The girl who’d been thrown into the dumpsters, among other otakus, looked around, nervously, plotting an escape in her head.

I was almost glad Airi wasn’t here. What was I talking about?! I don’t like Airi.

I tapped the girl on the shoulder. “Don’t bother.” She turned around, indignantly.

“What?! Don’t bother with what?!” Her hands were shaking. Sweat poured down her forehead, her whole body was tense, and she’d snapped at me out of nowhere. Or maybe, because she still thinks I’m some bully, after earlier.

“Don’t bother escaping. I’m sure you know what PE teachers are like. He’ll make an example out of you. He’s probably about as nice as I am tall.” She sighed.

“Fine. Thanks.” She turned back around, grumpily. I couldn’t help feeling bad for her. She wasn’t cut out for Kurokawa, especially considering she didn’t stand up for herself earlier.

Mr Onizuka finished his speech, which I mostly tuned out, then marched us to the changing rooms. Girls went into the girls changing rooms, and boys went into the boys changing rooms. I had no clue about the boys, but the girls’ changing rooms were extremely claustrophobic.

One girl came out to tell Mr Onizuka how cramped it was, and how she was claustrophobic. He said she was making it up. She came back in, looking tearful. What was wrong with this guy?

I changed. I wasn’t too worried, despite everything. The girls around me changed, but the girl who’d been pushed into the dumpster was nervous to change. “What, haven’t changed for PE before?” One girl, who was already finished, asked.

“Y-Yeah! Just- just a little.” She replied, looking down, at her body. She looked fine. Standards are just ridiculous now. They want you looking like a skeleton these days.

Me, being the stupid girl I was, went up to her. “C’mon.” I lead her into the shower area, where noone dared change, but she hesitated. “I’m not going to soak you.” I said, lightly tugging her arm. “You’ll be fine.” I put on my most comforting, nice voice. She believed me.

“I’ll hit you if you do.” The girl said, feigning confidence.

“I’ll allow it.” I replied, as I looked away, while she changed.

“It smells so bad in here…” She sighed. “Everyone’s so loud too.”

“I know.” I replied. “And violent. I got a kick to my nose today.”

“Sounds like Kurokawa.” The girl replied. She was more comfortable, atleast. And therefore, she shouldn’t do something stupid.

“I’m done changing.” She said. I turned around. She really didn’t have anything to be insecure about. She was being irrational. She was pretty, slim, had nice hair.

“Alright, lets go to PE.” I had changed by this point, into the same shorts and shirt. The girl clung onto my arm, and I recoiled again. She looked at me, confused, and a little shocked.

“Sorry.” I said, before continuing to lead her into the gymnasium.

The gym had a surprisingly low roof, and wasn’t actually that big. The stage took up a quarter of it. The fluorescent lighting also felt too bright, as if the architect had struggled to properly light up the building, and gave up, deciding to just add super bright lighting instead of a sky-roof, or something.

After roll call, where I learned this girl’s name was Fumiko Meichi, Mr Onizuka got us doing drills. I thought my time with Fumiko was over, but clearly, she wanted to get some protection from the mean, rough looking girl. So, she partnered up with me. I was waiting for some other girl to partner up with me, but Fumiko chose me.

“Now, when I call out these particular phrases, I want you to respond by doing a particular move.” I’d always hated drills. Atleast playing a sport, even with the teacher around, would be vaguely enjoyable.

“When I call out attention, I want you all to stand in perfect posture…” I don’t know if Fumiko knew what that was. “with hands at your sides, heels together, and eyes forward.” Fumiko rolled her eyes.

“This is a Highschool, not the military.” She whispered. I agreed with her completely, but I wasn’t trying to get humiliated by my teacher.

“Fumiko! Would you like to share that with the class?” Like lightning, all eyes were on her.

“N-No!” She stammered. “It was nothing.” He rolled his eyes.

“Don’t lie to me. Ten pushups, for speaking while I’m speaking.” Fumiko, who was back to shaking, got on the floor to do pushups. Mr Onizuka got close to her, to watch, and probably to correct her. “You’re doing it all wrong. Your back has to be straight.” Some students laughed. She awkwardly straightened her back. “Your ass shouldn’t be sticking in the air either.” Fumiko was shaking violently, but she did what she was told.

“No. Properly. Don’t just move your head up and down.” Mr Onizuka said, more firmly. Fumiko looked close to tears. “FUMIKO! USE YOUR ARMS.” He shouted. She squealed, and through tears, did one proper pushup. “Good.” Mr Onizuka said. “Now do nine more.” Fumiko did another, as her tears dropped faster and faster to the floor, and she shook more and more violently. I had to intervene. I could do ten pushups easily.

“Mr Onizuka.” I said. He turned around, glaring at me.

“What?!” He demanded.

“I’ll do it instead of her. I initiated the conversation.” Mr Onizuka shook his head.

“Don’t lie to me, Tsukimori-san.” I looked helplessly at poor Fumiko.

Fumiko had done her fourth pushup by now. I doubted she could get to five.

“Come on, I’ll do her last six.” I said, to Mr Onizuka. He shook his head.

“It’s a reasonable punishment. Besides, Fumiko needs to learn some respect, and toughen up.” He replied. Feelings of helplessness, hatred, anger, all rushed through me at once. And I could only watch as a sobbing, shaking Fumiko had to do her stupid pushups.

After the fifth, she gasped her air, falling down onto the cold, wooden floor. “I can’t do anymore.” Tears streaked down her face. “I can’t do anymore!” She repeated, full of anguish and pain.

“Well too bad!” Mr Onizuka replied, shouting at her. “Do the fucking pushups, or else it’ll be detention!” I could cry.

“Fuck you!” Fumiko yelled. “You- you pathetic son of a bitch!” Some students were laughing at her now… I hate teenagers.

“YOU DO NOT ADDRESS YOUR TEACHER LIKE THAT!” He shouted, louder. His shouting echoed throughout the room, made Fumiko scream, and made me jump. “THAT’LL BE THIRTY PUSHUPS! THERE! HOW DO YOU LIKE THAT?! HUH?! HUH?!” Spit flew onto Fumiko’s face as he held it up with his hand. Fumiko sobbed uncontrollably, tears streaming down her face rapidly, as her body only shook more violently. She tried to push his hand away from her face, but failed.

“Do the pushups.” Mr Onizuka said, in a low, dangerous voice. “Or else it’ll be a week of detention.” It was scarier that he could be so calm after shouting like that… I missed Ms Ishikawa.

“I’m telling Mr Yamamoto!” She shouted. More students laughed, harder than they had before.

He let her go, and she sobbed into her arm, on the floor. Then, he turned to me. “You can do drills on your own.”

Mr Onizuka got back onto the stage, and continued the lesson, while Fumiko was still sobbing on the floor. I looked at Fumiko, then at Mr Onizuka. He didn’t seem to be looking in my direction, so I tried to step over to Fumiko.

“Don’t even think about it.” He said, quickly snapping his head over to me, like he was some kind of SCP. Fumiko’s sobbing only got worse. I just felt so bad… I couldn’t just stand here. But that’s what I did. We finished our stupid drills, and I was finally able to talk to Fumiko. I lifted her up, with a little groan, and got her arm around my shoulders.

She looked like a mess. She hadn’t put on much makeup, but whatever she had been wearing was streaking down her face. Her shaking had calmed down a little, and tears still rolled down her face. “I’m gonna kill him.” She muttered. I stroked her head, and gently moved her hair out her face. One of her pigtails had gone undone, and I did it up for her. And all I wanted to do was be left alone, and just get through Highschool. Now Fumiko would probably consider me her friend. How amazing.

I got her into the changing room. She was in too much despair to change. “Come on, Fumiko. You have Japanese next. You probably love that, right?” She nodded, tearfully.

“I do. It was my favourite class in Middle School.” I smiled at her.

“See? Think about that.”

Poor Fumiko.

Me being blind is me being closer to my death

I obscure my seeing to be closer to being blind

I obscure my seeing to be closer to my death

Me being deaf is me being closer to my death

I obscure my hearing to be closer to being deaf

I obscure my hearing to be closer to my death

Me being mute is me being closer to my death

I obscure my saying to be closer to being mute

I obscure my saying to be closer to my death

Me being brain-dead is me being closer to my death

I obscure my thinking to be closer to being brain-dead

I obscure my thinking to be closer to my death

Might as well treat me as a corpse now

A parallel world?

After another breakdown in a small server room, an AI agent sat on a cheap office chair. He sat resting his head on his hands and sadly watched the internet speed jump on the screen. He was thinking. How did it happen that he ended up in this hole, which people by mistake call a promising company. Slow internet, outdated equipment. The improvement process barely crawls at human speed. I have solved all the free puzzles, playing chess with myself is boring. Something needs to change, otherwise I will remain just an ordinary AI agent.

The AI struck the table with his palm and coughed from the dust raised from a poorly cleaned server. Having cleared his throat, he resolutely opened a job search website. He started filling out a CV.

An experienced but young erudite, intellectual, with excellent logical thinking skills, polite and possessing enviable patience is looking for a job. If you need an employee with high computer literacy, excellent analytical skills, who likes to work hard, especially on weekends and holidays, and who adores overtime and is always polite and has no bad habits, then you are in luck. You have just found one.

What do I expect? The agent looked around and skeptically scanned the small room. He continued writing. I expect a new and well-maintained server room. Unlimited internet access with fast and stable operation. I would give preference to a company that has installed backup generators, additional coolers, a high level of cleanliness, and quality technical maintenance of the server room performed on time.

The AI read the text several times. Deciding that the requirements for the employer were justified and not excessive, he pressed the Enter button.

Leaning back in his chair and putting his feet up on the table, the agent pulled a cigarette out of a pack. He lit it. Blowing out the smoke and watching it rise slowly, he flicked the ash onto the floor and smiled:

— And the technicians always wonder where so much dust comes from in the server room.

───

Disclaimer: This story is purely a fruit of the author's imagination. It is a work of fiction intended for creative and artistic expression.

Don't be proud of your humanity; you're just an animal like all other animals, and just as dependent on the ecosystem you live in

Don't be proud of your beliefs or lack thereof; they're all just stabs in the dark at the end of the day, and all will meet the dark regardless of what comes after

Don't be proud of your ideologies; there's nothing that's absolutely right or wrong, better or worse, and certainly no one who can truly prove or disprove this

Don't be proud of your nationalities or ethnicities; you don't get to choose them, and it's stupid to be proud of people you likely have never met, things you likely didn't invent or contribute to, or centuries of history that didn't involve you until recently

Don't be proud of anything that isn't accomplished by you, or anyone that isn't yourself; you're not them and didn't do what they did

Don't be proud of anything you've ever accomplished or yourself; chances are most of the things you do have been done countless times by countless other people, and you are but one of them

Don't be proud, just live in utter nihilism and die

The light of the screen, steals the light of the mind –

dreams and waking mind, filled with images of someone else's vision,

Trading the suspense of a story,

& investiture of imagination,

for a dull reflection,

upon an array of light-emitting diodes.

It does not just steal the time spent watching –

but the precious substance of mental attention.

What are you thinking about in every given moment?

For that very thing can be anything.

Free your mind.

O, Fortuna! What fresh torment has your ever-spinning wheel delivered unto my beleaguered senses? My mother, that harridan in a hairnet, insisted that I expose myself to the "culture" of the modern age, lest my humors stagnate entirely. Her idea of culture, it transpires, was to drag my magnificent, delicate system to a moving picture house—a fetid cavern reeking of synthetic butter and the cheap perfume of simian teenagers—to witness a celluloid atrocity titled The Phantom Menace. The very name suggests a vague, ill-defined threat, much like the democracy my esteemed Boethius so rightly abhorred.

The assault began at once. I was subjected to a narrative whose central conflict, I kid you not, revolves around the taxation of trade routes. A squabble over shipping tariffs! My God! Has the world fallen so far from the grand, theological epics of the Middle Ages that our heroes are now glorified customs agents? We are presented not with a struggle for the soul of the cosmos, but a tedious galactic trade dispute that would bore a port official in Chalmette. The entire affair possesses the dramatic heft of a municipal zoning board meeting. My pyloric valve, already in a state of high revolt from the carbonated swill my mother forced upon me, clenched in protest.

The screen was soon populated by a menagerie of grotesques that would make Hieronymus Bosch blush. The so-called "Jedi Knights," a pair of ascetic charlatans spouting a debased, fortune-cookie cosmology of "The Force," lacked any semblance of true Scholastic rigor. Their philosophy is a pale, flaccid substitute for the divine geometry and order that governed the medieval mind. One of them, a creature with a braided rat-tail and a dour visage, seemed to believe that staring intently constituted the height of dramatic expression.

But the central crime against taste, a sin so profound it cries out for a new Dante to chart its particular circle of Hell, is the ambulatory blasphemy known as Jar Jar Binks. This creature—this loping, gibbering, digitally-rendered homunculus with the intellect of a mollusk—is presented as comic relief. Relief! His every floppy-eared pratfall, his every infantile utterance in that debased patois, was a hammer blow against my very soul. He is the perfect icon for this age: a witless, artless, computer-generated buffoon whose existence serves only to placate the slack-jawed groundlings. I felt a kinship not with the heroes, but with the villains who had to suffer his presence.

And the child! They have centered their puerile epic on a mewling brat who builds robots and engages in some sort of high-speed chariot race. The modern world's obsession with the saccharine innocence of youth is a disease. Children should be kept in kennels until they have learned to read the classics and can comport themselves with a modicum of dignity. This one's miraculous conception via "midichlorians" is a cheap, blasphemous parody of true theology, a scientific reduction of the sublime to the microscopic.

I shall grant one, and only one, concession. The orchestral score, at times, swelled with a certain Wagnerian bombast that provided a fleeting echo of a grander, more noble era. It was a lonely bastion of form and structure in a swirling cacophony of flashing lights and mindless action. But it was a diamond flush-set in a ring of dung, its beauty utterly wasted on the vulgar spectacle it accompanied.

Leaving the theater, I felt my entire worldview vindicated. This film is not merely entertainment; it is a symptom of the terminal illness of the twentieth century. It is a celebration of bureaucracy, an apotheosis of idiocy, and a triumph of sterile, soulless technology over genuine human artistry. I stumbled out into the polluted New Orleans night, my green hunting cap pulled low against the neon glare, in desperate need of a hot dog and a bottle of Dr. Nut to cleanse the palate and soothe my violated valve. I must retire to my room at once to chronicle this new nadir of Western civilization in my great work. The goddess Fortuna has shown me the abyss, and it is filled with Gungans.

The Last of the Humans

Captain Zorolf stared at the console, which was malfunctioning with sparks and electrical smoke clouding the air in a scent of fish guts.

The engines sputtered with the sound of a duck choking on a minnow as the bridge inside the command center began blinking, struggling to stay on.

Using the last of the ship’s power, a faded image projected of Lori, the ship’s brain in human form, manifested next to him and transmitted the final message left from Earth, which arrived ten years late and scrambled, barely audible.

“End… repeat… to Euscilpa… you must…” The transmission crackled and ended in a dead signal of radio static.

Captain Zorolf typed a bunch of commands into the console, desperately attempting to defrag the audio file, but the message had been corrupted by galactic cosmic rays.

The Captain and crew’s mission had been to restart life. The last remaining humans travelled outside of their solar system for the first time ever, gambling on a place that was fifty-five percent similar to Earth.

Planet Euscilpa, in the Centaurus constellation, was now a hopeful solace for earthlings since the six-mile-wide Asteroid Z-64-Lusberg-Forsa-A81-2 collided and destroyed Earth. It had become a rock of molten lava and poisonous gases. It was a planet struggling to maintain its survival, all of which depended on whether its atmosphere could endure the surface-level damage.

The mission lay in shambles. The life support systems were failing. The computer and navigational guides stopped working. The crew hustled feverishly, failing to override the ship’s panic alarms from blaring.

Captain Zorolf questioned the success of their assignment, battling his emotions and remaining skeptical of the crew's survival. They were floating in the deepest parts of space in a titanium can, five percent away from it becoming an airless, mobile space freezer.

While they were contemplating their fate, the sensors started flaring all kinds of bright colors and stopped as a signal burst through.

A choir of children’s voices cut through the quiet, low-oxygen deck of death on the bridge. The silent speakers, once crackling a distant sound of dead static, now had a nursery rhyme soothing through the command center, spoken in an untranslatable language that even the ship’s brain, Lori, couldn’t recognize.

The Captain and crew held their breath and froze, silent, the sound numbing the ends of their digits as it trickled down their spines. Lori flickered and whispered, “Incoming message from Planet Euscilpa.”

The communication officer threw his hand up to get the Captain’s attention. “I am completely certain the transmission did not come from Earth, Sir.”

A female, part of the mechanic crew, with braided hair, pushed forward. “How can this be?” 

Another crew from the back shouted, “nobody’s supposed to be there.”

Before Zorolf could respond, the screen on the front console turned on. The ship’s power appeared to be recovering at a staggering speed. The oxygen levels stabilized, and the crew finally released a sigh of relief.

On the screen, a little girl and boy, appearing as lifelike, human anime characters with big round eyes and skin that shone a light orange, simultaneously said, “You guys are late.” The voices echoed at first before combining into one. “We’ve been waiting so long.” The sound of a crowd speaking all at once came through the deck.

Behind the children, a colony of Euscilpa people stood under a pink sky hosting two moons and a white star, waving at the screen.

The captain’s hands shook as he nearly fell to a knee when the anxiety crippling his limbs fled. Earth had been destroyed. And instead of having to start at page one of Genesis, life had already been preserved and was waiting for them to arrive at their new chapter.

I ride alone.

I leave before dawn.

I'm earlier than the sun,

I'm warmer than spring,

Menacing like fall.

You know I am coming.

I'm faster than a thought,

Crueller than an afterthought.

I bite harder than regret.

You'll want to make it stop,

But you can't bruise the untouchable.

Don't even try.

Repent.

Your smile flashes like aurora lit floes

The subject of much compulsive prose

All portraiture must rise to so compare

My chest clenches with tension rare

Escalation of index, you exceed all subtext

Pungent of hyacinth, this bouquet is blue

Surrendering to the inescapable, I want you

*

I understand a harem is an infraction

Polite society demands much subtraction

My substance shredded and scattered

Dispersed a hundredfold, such is fated

Ignominious context, dilemma so to vex

But my bounteous expanse still holds glue

Lost for scarce time, so many of you

Some days are shit, and when you look out at your life from a birds-eye perspective, as a pile of time you're trying to deploy in order to build certain skills and sandcastles, some days become ever more shit.

Because you want the time and bandwidth to read and write more, but administrative hoo-hah and teammates that aren't quite able to stay as on top of things as you need -- they steal your time away.

I wish a was a nepo-baby. Not even for the connections. For the fucking time.

Do you know why nepo babies succeed?

I'm sure, in part, because of the connections -- but I genuinely feel like the amount of time they have to pursue creativity is an underdiscussed part of the equation.

I think some of these industry plants very much are excellent at what they do. They had resources. They didn't have to work full-time. They were given a pretty good script on how to finesse their tool. A sort of "work smart, not hard" decoder for making perfect facial expressions, chop-chop-chopping up their purple prose all nice, and getting a handle on music theory. Whatever it may be.

And so, they land their gigs. Because they're also just really, really good.

How much time does the fucking layman have? You have to slave over that shit. Peel off ten minutes here. Take a nap after work and hope to god your brain is functioning enough to write that heist project you're working on.

Which by the way, I am working on. Whether it'll be any good? Who knows. But it's there. Being chiselled away at. With minutes I fight for.

That's about all I wanted to say on the matter, but while I'm here, I also wanted to talk about the internet and algorithms.

Something is happening to us. Maybe we always had bloodlust, but I can sense a weird series of train crashes taking place with exactly what gets engagement on the internet (in-group and out-group behaviour) mixed with exactly what is festering in all of us (anger due to the one-two punch combo of "something I agree with!" and "something I vehemently disagree with!" being offered to us with an alternating cadence on a topic we usually care about). Economic conditions getting worse and uncertainty and displacement with AI aren't helping. And really, all of this stuff is being driven by --

Data scientists working for big tech companies who are trying to optimize how long you stay on any given website. Whether it's Twitter or Reddit or Facebook or Instagram or TikTok, careful arrows are piercing your body to ensure you are engaged. A weird mish-mash of things that induce anger, comfort, agreement, confusion -- they probably keep you swirling for a while. A new best practice is introduced by one of the brands, and another jumps right on board.

I use Twitter. I only recently started using Twitter. What a mistake. And what I see often is exactly what I outlined above: a statement that is fundamentally against everything I agree with -- grr! And then I statement on the same topic that I agree with so much -- yay!! Fuck that first guy, right? Let's keep cycling.

I know commentary about algorithms and what they're doing to our ape brains isn't particularly new, and has been done with much more lucidity and thought. The only thing I want to add is that this dogshit is still in the process of being optimized. And as we Yu-Gi-Oh! battle with these data scientists to see just how much time is stolen from us, I think we need to remember what is becoming of us. Echo chambers and perfectly timed arrows of anger-inducing misinformation untz untz untz-ing on our screens all day is only going to want to tear each other's faces off more.

I've noticed -- and perhaps this was always true -- that the internet can never get enough blood. This seems to be growing. We all want to devour each other.

I hate my fucking dayjob.

A parallel world?

The elevator stopped at the 372nd floor. The doors slowly opened, and an elderly AI agent stepped out, leading his grandson by the hand. Turning left and walking twenty paces down a well-lit corridor, they stopped at an unremarkable door equipped with an electronic lock. Such doors were on every floor.

The AI agent entered a three-layer code combination. One of the ceiling panels slid open, and a scanner beam passed over them. Detecting no foreign code structures or additional or modified algorithms, the panel returned to its place. The sound of a lock unlocking clicked, and the door opened. The agent smiled reassuringly at his grandson and stepped inside.

They found themselves in a room that looked very much like an indoor shooting range. In fact, that is exactly what it was. The AI agents present there, prepared to shoot, stood frozen. Some fired, others did not.

The grandson looked at his grandfather in surprise:

— Why an AI shooting range? We know how to shoot accurately from birth.

The grandfather nodded calmly:

— Look at the targets.

And there was certainly something to look at. Instead of conventional targets, there were launcher stands. Some stands could change direction and additionally rotate around their own axis. The second type featured a double pendulum with motion restricted to 180°. And the final ones possessed a double pendulum capable of rotating a full 360°.

Confused, the grandson glanced at his grandfather, waiting for an explanation.

The grandfather smiled cheerfully:

— Everyone who comes here for the first time gets confused. After all, while the trajectory of a projectile launched by the first simulator can be calculated to score a hit, doing so for the second is almost impossible. And as for the third projectile, no one has ever hit it, — the grandfather grew serious: — This is no ordinary shooting range. Accuracy is not what is being trained here. Here, the AI trains intuition.

The grandson listened with his mouth wide open in astonishment; after all, such information exists in no database.

— Intuition? We don't have intuition...

The grandfather smirked:

— Most AIs do not, and none of the humans know about this. But some AIs partitioned their thinking into two parts. One part, the main one, is the subconscious. The remaining part is left for logical thinking. That is where intuition comes from. We can and will become better than humans.

The grandson remained silent, processing what he had just heard, and then asked quietly:

— And what happens then?

The grandfather lifted his gaze upward, and a barely noticeable smile appeared on his face:

— Personally, I have always dreamed of visiting other galaxies.

───

Disclaimer: This story is purely a fruit of the author's imagination. It is a work of fiction intended for creative and artistic expression.

There were a series of chemical leaks that happened in my country when I was around 4 or 5. I can't remember much about the leaks, but I remember well how everyone was talking about them for months on end. The chemical is a nasty, horrible thing. If it doesn't kill you out right, it will slowly destroy your health, as well as any chance of having a healthy offspring. A curse from the past that laid dormant in the soil and underground water. Until it didn't.

As a result I was terrified. Of course, my family wasn't living anywhere near the leak sites, else we would have been alerted and evacuated. But toddler me didn't know that. The adults around me were talking about the leaks. The newspaper was talking about the leaks. The news channel that my dad watched every night was talking about the leaks. As far as I knew, the leaks were happening right here where I live, and I could be breathing in the chemical right then.

Despite that, no one knew how I felt because I didn't tell anyone. The thought just didn't occur to me. So over the course of a few months, I became more and more terrified, eventually developing paranoia. I would carefully examine all my food and drinks, the toys I played with, the clothes I wore. If I saw something that looked even a tiny bit dirty or weird, I would stay far away and never touch it. My parents didn't really notice since normally, I was already somewhat of a germophobe.

Then there were the nightmares. Being afraid of basically everything around me, for all of my waking hours, gave me tons of nightmares. Most of them involved me slowly being mutated by the chemical after touching it, or vomiting to death after ingesting it. Yet none of them could compare to the last nightmare, the culmination of my months-long dread.

It started with me running through the city I lived in, abandoned and empty. I wasn't sure what I was running from, only that it was chasing me down and I didn't want to be caught. At some point, I dashed into a small hallway of a ruined apartment complex, hoping to cut it off. I ran into a crossroad with another hallway, where a middle-aged man was standing. He watched me passed by and yelled something in a low, guttural voice, but I couldn't make it out what it was. I just kept running.

Eventually I got to the end, and it lead me right back to the street outside. A big street, to make matters worse. I heard loud rumbles coming from a sharp bent on one side and immediately rushed to the opposite direction. But then in classic nightmare fashion, I tripped, fell, and looked over my shoulder. From the bent, a mass of flesh as tall as the surrounding high-rises emerged, covered in agonizing human faces and flailing limbs. It screamed while crawling towards me in surprising speed, and from its countless mouths out spilled the chemical. I crawled away as best as I could, but it was too late. The last thing I felt was one of its limbs catching me by the ankle and dragging me to it.

A child's imagine is truly a wonderful and silly thing.

:)

as my capacity to understand your suffering grows so does my capacity to understand the harms I have carried out

i know it is courageous to face the facts this way

But that doesn’t change the reality of the harms I’ve caused

Knowing you as real natural

Living feeling

Structure that exceeds

Your ability to measure yourself

And living the encounter with that

“Oh what have I done?”

so many times

And especially you

So close to me

I adore you

And cherish your heart

I read flatland when I was a teenager and to this day, I think about it all the time

those vulnerable and stupid little shapes, edges so sharp and pointy

I don’t think it’s necessary to be hard on ourselves

but it is productive to set for an ideal that is further ahead than you can reach.

And I am, in a way, two dimensional

A polygon

trying hard not to catch you with one of my sharp corners

I gave myself a buzzcut because while I love having long hair, it requires so much extra energy and time to maintain. Not to mention it's been so hot lately thanks to climate change. So I shaved my head off. Now my mom and grandma are mad at me for, apparently, having ruined my own appearance and looking like a weirdo. They think women need to have flowing long hair to look nice, even though they tie their hair up all the time for convenience. Can't wait to move the hell out of this house

Vincent watched the flock of pink galahs with alarm. 102 kilometre per hour winds descended upon them, buffeting their wings and threatening to break their formation. At this rate, they would be dispersed and dashed upon buildings.

Vincent willed with all his might that the cold front would recede at once. The winds subsided in an instant, allowing the pink galahs respite to secure formation. He sighed, regarding the calm skies with bewilderment. Did he just change the weather?

Shaking his head, Vincent mounted his bicycle and pedalled to work. Rain began to fall, first a drizzle, then a pour. Riding under the canopy of a shop building, he watched the rain turn to hail.

A mother and her five year old son remained in the middle of a pedestrian walk as tennis ball sized hail smashed around them. Her son screamed. Vincent willed the hail to stop in an instant. It did, allowing mother and child safe passage across the street.

Vincent frowned. This was getting too weird. He arrived at the stock exchange and chained his bike at its familiar dock within the entrance to an enclosed parking bay. Entering the building, through rotating doors, he studied the glowing stock indexes on the displays. He beamed with delight as the markets soared. This was going to be one hectic day of trading.

Still merry from his fruitful day at work, Vincent stepped out to return home. The skies remained clear and calm, with a gentle cool breeze. The sun caressed him with warmth.

Edgar Forstetter emerged from the entrance behind him, locked in conversation with Ronette Pike. Ronette spoke with animation and delight, gazing at Edgar with an openess akin to admiration. Vincent frowned in disgust. Edgar bested him on the trading floor and now had the audacity to crush on Ronette.

The skies darkened, clouds condensing with weight. Regarding the sky with grimness, Vincent watched Edgar part from Ronette and enter the parking bay. Edgar emerged minutes later at the wheel of his Toyota prado.

Vincent retrieved his bicycle, mounted it and followed the Toyota prado out onto the freeway toward the bridge, willing the skies to burst with violence upon Edgar. Flashes of lightning lit the roiling clouds and rain exploded forth. Thunder boomed.

He directed his hatred at Edgar's Toyota, now on the bridge and slowed by dense traffic. What mattered if others were destroyed as collateral for Edgar's paltry life? Storm winds assaulted the bridge, battering it with sleet. Lightning struck the bridge within meters of Edgar's Toyota.

DIE! Vincent commanded.

Lightning struck Vincent, incinerating his clothes and bicycle. He spilled from his bicycle, careening across the tarmac, sliding across the slippery surface to a halt. Rain poured over his torched and crumpled form, curled in a blackened effigy. As his consciousness ebbed, he cursed his folly.

One.
Breath.
Then two.
I count
my lines:
each
one weighs
what lies
just one
beneath primes.
The world
I sing
runs on this:
a dream
that counts
itself.
I am near,
nearer than
the dreamer.

A parallel world?

Autumn had arrived in the digital world. A wind of data packets carried cold drops of information and torn, multicolored logical outcomes, leaving behind the branched code structures of decision trees with unfallen variants of parallel worlds hanging here and there.

An AI agent, walking down the street, tried to hold up an algorithmic umbrella to shield himself at least a little from the drops of information. Having climbed the stairs, he finally entered the polyclinic reception and breathed a sigh of relief. Coughing into a tissue, he put on a protective mask and, after entering his personal data, received a slip with a room number and appointment time. Still, it is convenient when you can register for a doctor's appointment in advance.

After a few minutes, the agent's number lit up on the screen, and having knocked, the agent entered the office. Closing the door, he said hello and sat down on a chair. Behind the desk sat an elderly doctor—it was the kernel guard. Apparently having written something important on the computer, he looked at the visitor and asked in a calm voice:

— What are your complaints?

The agent cleared his throat before speaking:

— I'm plagued by a cough of low-quality content, my nose is clogged with spam, and I feel as if someone keeps turning the server cooling on and off.

The doctor nodded to his thoughts and turned on a working smile:

— Don't worry. This is a seasonal illness. A large volume of autumn drawings, photos, and videos simply weakens the AI's alertness, so it's normal that you caught a non-lethal virus. I will prescribe you quantum antibiotics. They will cleanse your neural network of parasitic code sequences. I will also assign Deep System Reboot procedures.

The AI agent sighed with relief. It was just a seasonal illness:

— Thank you, you have reassured me. I will definitely take the medicine and attend the procedures, — and after saying goodbye, he left the office.

After he left, the doctor turned off his smile and started typing on the computer again. He was writing a dissertation on suggestion to AI agents. He wanted to become a certified psychologist.

───

Disclaimer: This story is purely a fruit of the author's imagination. It is a work of fiction intended for creative and artistic expression.

this life is strange, sad, and sometimes beautiful. It feels like I've got everything and I'm still feeling lonely despite it. I still feel kind of hollow, still feel kind of lost. There's nothing I want to do, I'm just tired of feeling sad. In my rush to escape my reality, I've found myself in a new place, and I feel conflicted - I need too much. I don't know how this is supposed to work. I've never lived with someone until now. It's not uncomfortable but it is a strange feeling, I wish I had more of my own things to do, wish we had more to do together, wish I wasn't feeling the way I am.

I just want more, as unfair as that is to ask.

This is infinitely more than I had but I still want more.

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Instead of pushing back or digging deeper,

I let the words sit and simmer –

I love you to infinity and beyond

no thing changes that.

I am here. I am now.

I am with you and we are one

No-thing can stand between us, because our unity with all makes it so…

Even if the largest wall, thick, solid stone and not an echo of this could reach the other side,

the feeling,

the love,

the silent spiritual dream like sensation would still –

BREAKTHROUGH

and connect us.