Pending

Three of the four air filter modules were now out of order. James filed a new request in the supply and repair system and watched the result message blink in orange on the screen. "Pending."

Last time he needed help he had to wait a whole week to get it. Then the main transport tunnel in his area got damaged too. The worst was, he had not received his vaccine update yet. He looked up to the flash news display over the entrance. "Population: decrease 2%."

Five years ago he started donating his share to the gene and health fund. Two of his children had survived, he was informed, and resided in baby care cells. "Not that different from me", he thought, "Isolated."

A century and a half now, since the quarantine regime has been into force. Millions had died while building the infrastructure and tuning the system that sustained the life of this world. "No", he shook his head, "Our life in this world."

It must have started a long time before that but no one saw it coming until it was too late. They have tried to tame this planet, breed the species that would feed them, and kill the ones that got into the way. Then evolution filled in the gaps that were left out open. Organisms that survived adapted to the new situation, humans and their livestock were now the main, or even only, hosts for parasites and parasitoids. The greatest effort of his society was targeted at biology and medicine research and development. "And I sit here and wait, for someone to pack and send a fucking twenty by ten by eighty centimeter module over the robot wire line, before the fourth one is down and I choke to death. Someone. Somewhere. So that I can live to help someone else live. Somewhere else. To help build a future for our children that will be born one day. Sometime. And now is just an abstract thought of an abstract notion of an eternal world that stretches outside of my twenty square meters of life. Why do I care so much, when a couple of million years from now it will not matter at all."

Impassive-agressive

I wonder if it is a sign of being old
that I am not enthusiastic about people liking me or
approving what I do and say.
Criticism is a one-lane road
and I am driving backwards with my rear mirror
reflecting all those that get into my way.

And I don't really mind hurting others
so that I can prove myself right
about things I don't quite care about or care considering.
My friends love my sarcasm and sense of irony but rather
they do not understand it when I fight
to get through to issues I don't get even close to understanding.

Into the junk

I can trace my fear back to hundreds of occasions when I got not quite what I wanted. Like eating tons of junk food when all I wanted was fresh home made dinner. It meant I did not do the right thing but what is worse, I did a bad thing instead.

My mom got me a small poodle when I was ten. I remember I wanted a German Shepherd and tortured her with my whining for months before she came up with this so-called "compromise". I did not even give him a name. I spent what felt like a decade walking the ridiculous ball of fur around the block, trying to hide so none of my friends could see my humiliation. I never really took care of him and one day he was gone. My mom had tears in her eyes when she told me he had found a better home.

The education I got was not quite what I wanted, I did not get the grades. The jobs I could apply for after that were nothing like my dreams. I wanted to be someone that faded away each time I looked in the mirror. "You are not quite what I want either!" were the words my last girlfriend shouted at me before she stepped out of the door and left me for good.

I have a fear of wanting. I only dare think of what I "do not want" but still keep on bumping into it anyway.

Sand castles

That day I didn't build a sand castle. I went to the beach, walked around, watching my foot prints fill with water. Then I went back to a bench and sat down. I could see the low tide sparkle in the distance.

"You know why people stop building sand castles when they grow up?" I turned around as I realized a man was talking to me. "They stop because they cannot make them different anymore."

That's how I met Stan. He said he had been watching me for weeks.

"I have this theory", I told him, "that most of us do things only once. That people stick to what they have achieved, scared they might never be able to walk the same path again. And they never do. Fools, holding onto thin air, feeding on memories. My sand castles are my revolt. I let each one die in high waters, so that I could build another on the next day."

"No", Stan said, "You've been doing exactly what you tried to avoid. You stuck to what you knew. It was the same castle that you built each day, it was this one habit you were scared to release. Each movement was the same, each tower looked like all the previous ones. You felt it, that's why you stopped. Memories are hard to fight. Once you've learned how to do something, you cannot do it differently. Think of hand writing. Your personal unique style - it sticks forever. Sounds fine until you realize that your every reaction is predetermined by the memory of similar situations in the past. That's why adults are not as joyful as children - they have way too many memories that block any new experience. The feel of wet sand between your palms - it triggers the same automotive impulses, bringing back the memories of you building your sand castles rather than causing you to build a new one. You got bored, didn't you?"

Stan told me he was a researcher. He was testing a prototype for affecting memory through EEG-like techniques to detect brain activity and direct artificial electric impulses in the corresponding area in a highly precise way. "I can make you forget how sand castles are built."

The first thing I let him delete from my memories was the taste of chocolate ice-cream. He attached the wires and then asked questions and made me talk, think of, and imagine my favorite dessert while he was observing his monitors. Then he pushed a button. Later that day, I bought a box of chocolate ice-cream and laughed and cried like a baby as I ate it at home. I could not fall asleep that night, thinking about all those possibilities I saw appear again in my life. I could have a second helping of life itself.

Lisa. Why did I break up with her? I still loved her. Why? If I could only forget all those small things that made me leave her. She still loved me too. What if we could start anew, build up our relationship again from scratch. Maybe it could work this time. If only...

Some days later I told Stan all about Lisa. I had those wires on my head and I was crying. Every now and then he pressed a button and I felt something change.

I ran home that day and rushed up to my bedroom. The photo albums were not hard to find. A woman smiled at me from between the pages, and no, I was not mad at her. Neither was I sad. There was nothing there that could make me feel bad. I stared at her, all in white and green, holding out a birthday cake. Then it struck me. There was no happiness fluttering in my heart either. I did not feel anything for Lisa. I looked at that face and searched frantically within me. No, nothing. I tried to feel love, but I did not know her. I tried to cry but I couldn't.

"Yes, I have them, I have your memories on tape. How much are you willing to pay to get your Lisa back?"

I must have seen the tape hundreds of times now, thousands, maybe. A man, sitting on a chair, wires attached to his head. He talks slowly. When he laughs, he looks at the camera with his face lit up. At times one can hear anger in his voice, his skin gets pale. Whenever silence breaks in, tears roll down his cheeks. Later a smile brightens up his eyes again. At the end he seems distracted. I fast-forward. Then rewind. Play it back. Then rewind and stop. A man looks at me from the monitor. He has tears in his eyes, but he is smiling. I can see it there. He is in love. Love that I cannot feel. He smiles at me. Yes, I have lost her. And I have lost you too, pal.

Things

A second pair of jeans, some t-shirts, some socks and underwear, two pullovers and the jacket. One more pair of sneakers, toothbrush, toothpaste and his laptop.

"I stayed too long this time", he thought, staring at all the other stuff around. He did not bother locking the door. The plane was leaving in two hours. Once again, like too many times before, he was homeless.

Years ago, when he was ten, a three room apartment would have felt like a king's palace. His family lived together then, sharing their small possessions, cherishing every little thing they owned. Everything in its place. Everything and its place. All he knew as a kid was life in an economic crisis. Then he was fourteen and the situation started getting better - there were more things his family could buy. And they did. The apartment was the same, just fuller. And fuller. Filled up with new possessions. Sometimes stuff would fall off when he opened a wardrobe. There was a point when there was no place for the people inside. Somehow that was also the time when his family started to get smaller.

A second pair of jeans, some t-shirts, some socks and underwear, two pullovers and the jacket. One more pair of sneakers, toothbrush, toothpaste and his laptop. Just a backpack and his pockets full of documents and cards. He felt the small key hanging on his chest. Some day. Sometime, maybe, he would go back there, unlock a door well shut and try to look at all those things without fear. Sort them out. Filter out the memories he could not dare take back then.

The garden

We started this project together. The land was wild, stones and bushes everywhere. We didn't quite know what we wanted it to become, never really expected anything. Most of the time in the beginning we wandered around. The damp forest air tingled my nostrils at the edge of the woody territories where I planned a clearing for the autumn flowers maze garden I had on my mind.

It turned out harder than I thought. The stones would not let go so easily, the roots went in deep and would not give up, the soil was not good. Some hills we tried to build turned into desert dunes, the pond never really hold any water. The wilderness fought back.

"Do you still want to do it that way? It is not as much fun as we hoped it to be. We could try something different, go some place else."

He looked tired, didn't talk too much any more. Dinner would last just a couple of minutes and then he would go to his room, playing some computer or something. I had no clue what he did, he wasn't talking about it.

Me, I wanted this so badly, couldn't give it up. The vague ideas in the beginning had their roots in my heart now, growing and growing. The things that didn't work, I changed them on the fly. No questions or discussions were necessary any more, I was on my own now. He was not around most of the time, and when he was, he would mainly drag heavy things around and help me with the hard work. He would do anything I asked him but I couldn't make him smile.

We had a pizza delivered tonight. None of us was up for cooking - I was tired, he was not in the mood for it. I looked at him as he was leaning over the table, holding one piece he just bit on in one hand and putting another piece on a plate to take away in his room.

"If I didn't ask you to, would you still stay here with me?"

Nightmare in Boston

I was staying at a hotel in Boston, long business trip, stressful meetings. I woke up one night and went into the bathroom.

There was something wrong and I knew it the second the light was on. Everything was on the wrong side. The sink was on the left and it was not supposed to be there. I turned on the water, my thoughts racing. Splashed a handful on my face, hoping it will make me come back to my senses. I reached for the towel. It was not there. A short look to the other side made me whisper to myself... oh, shit.

There were things all over the floor and I stumbled when I rushed back to my bedroom, heading to the TV. Wrong direction again. I needed some human speech in this dreadful silence, something, any sane noise to take me out of my nightmare. Music, weird and frightening, came out of the speakers, so I changed the channel, turned up the volume, started talking out loud, just to hear myself speak.

"I think you should go to your room now", the woman mumbled in her bed.

A six word story

In my dreams he always dies.