The Silver Knife

They talked about many things. Life, death, meaning. The small and the large things about existence on Earth. Love and pain. The nature of responsibility. The semantics of love. To be or not to be.

Eventually he conceded the point.

"I bet you are a great comfort to terminal patients," he said, picking up his gun from where he had dropped it to talk.

"I have helped a few," she said, "but they pay me more for discussing with the healthy."

The man smiled in understanding, put the gun against his temple, and shot.

.finis.

Ex Post Facto

There are very few movies about the gruesome murder of people watching a horror movie in a dark theater.

It turned out they give 'clever' ideas to the wrong sort of people.

.finis.

The Shadow of the Tower

They could see everywhere from the top of the Tower and control it all. Every land that could see it was under their dominion, feared their armies, spoke their language.

I had been born under the shadow of the Tower, but had sworn that I wouldn't die before I had toppled it and freed my people from the rule of Babel.

.finis.

The Chain

His childhood had been commonplace enough that the routine of lies and barely disguised violence of the deep cover mission would have felt like going back home, even if the target hadn't actually been his own son, who was now ready to begin his early training.

.finis.

De Civitate Dei Libri

Were it not for memes and fads, online culture -that is, most living culture- would split exponentially into mutually incomprehensible subcultures.

They are too important to be left to chance, and they aren't.

.finis.

Catharsis

Online worlds are plagued by monsters of all kinds. It's all very therapeutic.

Humans are played by AI bots.

.finis.

Ongoing Conversations

As euthanasia was legalized and regulated, waiting lists became first common, and then long. Those in the Last Wait began to form online communities, terminal bed talking to terminal bed long into the night.

Nobody ever says goodbye, and if posts become much stranger, nobody asks where they are being posted from.

.finis.