because. [trigger #254]

Jen wiggled as much as she could, but the straps held tight. It added a certain sort of claustrophobia to the terror she was already feeling. The idea of not being free to move sent a horrible feeling up and down her spine. Part of her even wished she could slip back into unconsciousness.

She heard the locks on the door being opened. Slowly, casually. She knew it was Danny, and not a rescue of some sort. A rescue would be urgent and rushed. Danny wasn’t rushed at all. He seemed to be savoring every moment of this. Always far calmer than she would expect under the circumstances.

The door opened and Danny came in, setting a paper bag of groceries on the work bench to the side of the garage where Jen had spent the last three days. He turned to her and smiled. His smile wasn’t mad or deranged. It was that same winning smile Danny had always shown her in the eight years she’d known him. But of course, she hadn’t known her best friend. The Danny she thought she knew would never have been capable of any of this. It made it all even worse somehow. It’s terrible enough to be abducted, tortured, with no hope of escape and the promise that she would be killed in time. That it was Danny, her sweet Danny, was just too much.

“How are you holding up, my dear?”

“Please, just let me go. Danny, this can’t be you. We can fix this. You haven’t done anything yet that can’t be reversed. Please, just undo these straps and we can get you help.”

He smiled again, his face patient and indulgent, the same way he would smile at a child trying to talk her way out of bed time.

“Oh, I’ve done plenty that can’t be reversed, Jen. You’re not the first person I’ve had in this position. I’m up to 32, before you. You’ll be my number 33. And 3 is a very special number, so 33 must be twice as special.”

His tone of voice was far too gentle and kind, it was obscenely incongruent with the horrible words he was saying.

Jen moaned. The hopelessness was growing. She’d been trying to keep from crying, but in this moment she was losing that particular battle.

“Why, Danny? Why are you doing these things? Why are you doing them to me?”

Danny pursed his lips and and took a deep breath. He shook his head, just slightly. “Oh, Jen. I was worried about this. You’re thinking that it’s all been a lie. That I haven’t cared about you all these years we’ve been friends. But that’s just not it. I’m doing this because I care about you.

“You see, we have to seize life while we are living. We should try to experience everything we can before we go. Travel the world. Drink fine wine, and expensive whiskey. Have great sex and try illicit substances. Eat different sorts of foods that sound delicious as well as those that sound terrible. Life is to be lived!”

Jen looked at Danny. She felt a small flicker of hope. He was clearly insane, but maybe in some twisted way he wanted to show her how precious her life was, inspire her to live more fully.

“Does this mean you’ll let me go? As long as I’ve learned that I need to get more out of life than I have been? Because I promise I will, Danny. I see now!”

“Oh, no. I’m so sorry, sweetie. This isn’t an experience for you. This is an experience for me. I don’t just want to try doing good things, or else I will be missing an entire realm of experiences that life has to offer me. I don’t just want to see what it feels like to cause pleasure. I want to see what it was like to cause pain. I have become a connoisseur of suffering, the same way I am a connoisseur of so many other of life’s passions and wonders.

“I’ve tortured people of different races and cultures. I’ve slowly killed people of different religions to see the constrast in how they act as they die. I’ve murdered children and the elderly, to see how it feels. I’ve tasted so many of the different flavors of death. And yet, one thing I haven’t experienced is what it feels like to cause pain and death for someone I love, and I love you most of all. You’re my closest friend, and not a single moment of that has been faked. I need to see how it feels to kill you, Jen. To feel the delight and the horror. To wrestle with the remorse and the grief after you’re gone. You will offer me so many feelings and experiences I’ve never had before. It’s the greatest gift you’ve ever given me.”

His voice was still gentle, but he was clearly getting excited. There was a rising note of that passion she’d heard in his voice so many times before when he was talking about all the amazing things he loved and enjoyed. That was part of what had drawn her to him in the first place, that boundless love of living he had. It was so horrible, to hear him use that same tone now to explain how thrilled he was to kill her.

There was nothing left to do but scream.

his timing was repeckable. [trigger #253]

I tell ya what, sometimes you see a man day in and day out and you know he is a man of character, a class act. He just lives the way he’s suppose to, and for all intensive purposes, he could care less what people think, because irregardless, he is going to do the right thing no matter what. That’s what Harry is like. I know you probably heard other people talk about some guy who was supposably amazing, but then you meat them and they are terrible. But not Harry. He is the reel deal.

Casing point, his timing is repeckable. I know that may seem a small thing, some might even consider it a mute point when determining a mans character, but I think showing someone you care for there time by arriving when your meant too means something. I hate when people show up twenty minutes later then they should of and acting like it is no big deal. Its horrible. When people think they can disregard other peoples feeling’s and than get away with it, they’ve got another thing coming. Although, I admit having principles like this has wrecked havoc on my social life.

That is part of what makes Harry so great. He has high standards, but he is kind and generous to. He is outspoken as well. If your starting too be rude, even if he just met you, he will nip that sort of behavior in the butt. Doesn’t matter if your family or a stranger, it is all one in the same too Harry. Your never going to act like an ass and get off scotch free if Harry is around. But the way he speaks up about what he thinks is wrong is so gracious that it makes you want to change. I’ve seen people make complete 360 degree changes in they’re lives by being friends with Harry.

I’m just glad I’ve got a friend like him. I mean, how can people who’s hole lives have been spent without someone like Harry supposed to be better people?

Beets me.

heading to a pub quiz. [trigger #252]

There are times in every person’s life where everything goes right. It’s as if the laws of chance have fallen under your control, or God is entirely on your side, or the universe is aligning just for you. The trouble for most of us is that we can never choose when those moments arrive.

If Mark had been able to choose, he would have selected a very different occasion for his perfect few hours.

It was 7:30, and he had arrived just in time for pub trivia. Not that his team would have noticed much if he’d been a no-show. He had only contributed two right answers over the last several months. No one considered him an MVP, even if you change the meaning of the ‘M’ from Most to Moderately.

That night was different.

Things got started right after he sat down, which by some happy accident helped Mark completely forget about the nerves he normally feels at pub quizzes. Not only at pub quizzes, Mark actually felt tremendously anxious playing any game with people. That night, his rush pushed the normal anxiety out of the way. For the first time in his life, he would find himself fairly relaxed when it came time to answer the questions. If this hadn’t happened, it might not have mattered that this quiz seemed tailor made for Mark, because he might have been too anxious to think straight.

But, he could think straight, and the quiz did indeed seem tailor made for Mark. Every question in the entertainment category related to his favorite movies, tv shows, books, and bands. There was a question about neuroscience that Mark had randomly read a story about just two days earlier. There was a history question pertaining to an event he’d overheard a particularly intelligent conversation about on the bus a week before. There was a difficult political question pertaining to a 1980’s national policy debate his father had ranted about obsessively for over a year when Mark was a child. Every question seemed crafted just for Mark to answer it.

For one glorious evening, he was a rock star. His team stared in awe. His score set a new record for the bar. He got to be popular and impressive and confident for several hours. It was his moment when everything went right, when the stars aligned and he was the master of his universe.

He wishes he could have picked an occasion with just a bit more lasting value for his life.

falling asleep in mom’s arms. [trigger #251]

When someone wants to train you from birth as a weapon, there are certain experiences they need to make sure you never have.

When the world fell apart, it all went to shit. Civilization collapsed, but structure and authority remained, totalitarian though it became. Now, we have lost much of our former humanity. Even our wars have become less human.

For the type of war we fight now, one needs to be trained to have no mercy from the start. No empathy, no forgiveness, no doubt, no humanity at all. This has proven to be difficult when soldiers are mostly adults before they begin training, requiring a long process of unlearning, reconditioning, even brainwashing. That is the rub. The powers that be, on all the various sides, have no guilty qualms about brainwashing, they don’t want to do away with it because it is wrong. They want to do away with it because it has become clear that when a soldier has been completely reconditioned they lose a certain edge. They become killing machines, no longer even animals. They lose all sense of self-preservation, and thus lose all of those wonderful biological benefits that emerge when a creature is cornered and fears death. A brainwashed soul fears nothing. This makes them ideal for kamikaze missions, but not the sort of tactical ground combat necessary at times.

Thus, the desire to do away with the complete reliance on reconditioning. What if a soldier can be trained as a weapon from birth. A killing machine with a survival instinct. A true alpha predator. It has taken decades, but the process has finally been perfected.

As I said, there are certain experiences one can never have. No affection. No birthday parties or family dinners. No falling asleep in mom’s arms or being carried by dad and curiously running infant fingers over his stubble. One’s environment must be brutal and unforgiving, forcing an evolution of sorts into a monster, but not a mindless brainwashed monster, a calculating one. Granted, this makes them more dangerous to their handlers and officers, but it’s nothing that can’t be solved with the small electronic kill switches implanted beside their brains at birth. The only real risk if one of these weapons goes rogue is the loss of all the money invested into their development.

clean sheets. [trigger #250]

The apocalypse happened four years ago, and this is the first time since then that Al has slept on clean sheets. All it took was being captured by the State. It almost makes it worth it, to have a good night’s sleep, showered and on clean sheets. Almost. He pushes from his mind the stories he’s heard, about what will happen to him now that he’s been caught. He was never much of a freedom fighter or rebel, had never been connected to terrorists, so the State would probably just use him as a test subject, as opposed to any form of public torture and execution. Tests could mean anything: chemical weapons testing, drug treatment tests ready for human trials, checking the newest skin cream for side effects before selling it to those lucky enough to live within the boundaries of the City. Hopefully it is either something painless and quickly deadly, or something so remarkably painful that his body goes into shock before he can feel much. Those are worries for tomorrow though. Tonight, clean sheets. A cool, soft pillow beneath his freshly cut and washed hair. If he is going to be used as a lab animal tomorrow, at least he gets to feel human first.

the rubber duck wept. [trigger #249]

With eyes like cold steel, Captain Dove looked across the horizon. His face was hard, but those eyes were even harder. He knew what was coming, knew that many of the men under his command wouldn’t see the sunset. He also knew he didn’t have a choice. There was no turning back now. The entire bathroom was counting on him to rid the world of the evil Dr. Sponge once and for all.

His force was small, but formidable. Two ships, one submarine, a small cadre of men: Snake Eyes, Storm Shadow, Leonardo, Raphael, He-Man, Man-E-Faces, and the medic, Rubber Ducky. He wasn’t sure entirely how big Dr. Sponge’s forces were, but it was certain Sponge had more than enough dark magic at his disposal to make things difficult even without any henchmen. They’d already lost Battle Cat and Usagi Yojimbo in a previous bath… battle, a reality over which the medic was still in shock. Rubber Ducky had wept uncontrollable, inconsolable that he was unable to save his two best friends.

Dr. Sponge wouldn’t get away with his crimes, Captain Dove would make sure of that. The captain’s face grew even colder, the steel in his eyes harder still, adamantine even. There would be hell to pay, and Captain Dove was going to personally introduce Dr. Sponge to the devil.

into the darkness. [trigger #248]

Ever since I was young, light has always behaved strangely around me. It led to odd happenings, some that I didn’t realize were weird until much later, some I assumed had nothing to do with me.

For example, I would often have to flip a light switch multiple times to get lights to turn on when I entered a room. I always just assumed it was just that the wiring in our apartment sucked. Then, when I grew older I noticed it happened wherever I was, and only to me, never to family members or roommates.

I was young when I noticed that street lights would often shut off when I walked or drove by. Not all of them, and only occasionally, but enough to be noticeable. I’ll get close, the lights will dim or shut off entirely, and when I’m farther away it brightens back up again.

Things like this have always merely played at the edges of my mind. I made note of them, but assumed I was imagining things or making too much out of nothing. I went about my life as normal, up until that became an impossibility. The reason it is impossible is that it has gotten worse. Now, all I need to do is enter a room and the lights shut off. Every street light flickers or shuts off when I am in proximity. I can’t enter restaurants or stores at night without creating a disturbance.

I started lighting candles at home as a temporary solution, but I had to stop doing that because I started noticing that the candle flames bent away from me, without flickering or waning, they just bend away from wherever I am in the room. This was troubling to say the least, but also seemed dangerous. I didn’t want a flame that was overly zealous to get away from me to set my curtains on fire or something.

So here I am, trying to figure out what the hell is going on and what this all means. What exactly do I do when it isn’t that I am allergic to light, but that light seems allergic to me.

e.w.r. [trigger #247]

Most people, if they attach any meaning to it at all, understandably know EWR as the designation for Newark International Airport. However, there is a lesser known but far more interesting meaning, as it is also the designation for the self-named Enlightened Wolves of Rochester.

It is sizable group, that has increased in number from its humble beginnings back in 1956, when it had but six members. Now, the group claims a membership of over 230. The group exists to promote and celebrate a society of wolves who have decided to throw off the shackles of what they see as barbarism and tribal warfare in order to have a more just and civilized wolf society.

You might be confused, since there are no well documented populations of any type of wolf in New York State, but this is exactly why the E.W.R. has chosen Rochester as its headquarters. It is safely separate from the more established populations of wolves, within which the E.W.R. is widely rejected to varying degrees of hostility. Yet, Rochester is close enough to the sizable numbers of wolves to its immediate north in Canada, and thus they are close enough to continue their attempts in evangelization toward other wolves as yet unenlightened. The reason their number of 230 is not noticed by the scientific community as a wolf population, although it is by far the largest single gathering in the world, is because due to their so called enlightened views these wolves don’t live as other wolves do, and are thus unnoticed by humanity.

For one, the E.W.R. is entirely vegetarian. They don’t have a clearly articulated stance against hunting and eating meat, but the organization feels that the easiest way to separate themselves from the ways of their brethren is to refrain from the central quality that wolves are known for, which is the thrill of a hunting pack taking down prey. Thus, they forage and eat berries, leaves, and bark instead. Needless to say, due to their biological makeup, wolves of the E.W.R. are woefully malnourished.

The E.W.R. is also entirely democratic. Instead of an alpha male who leads as a dictator until he is challenged and vanquished by a rival male, the E.W.R. holds elections on every matter of significance, with less meaningful matters being decided by various subcommittees. Granted, it leads to a process of bureaucracy that can often be inefficient, but without the savagery wolves are often known for their population has increased significantly. Almost all of the group’s growth is from procreation rather than successful proselytizing. They lose numbers frequently from their adolescents, who escape to Canada to live like wolves of old, and yet still their numbers grow, which is why they are such a large, if weak and starved looking, population.

The E.W.R. is currently in the application process to join the Coalition of Humane Predators along with the Civilized Bears of the Mid-Atlantic, the North American Union of Literate Alligators, the Southwestern Sophisticated Snake Society (they do love their S’s), and Wild Boars for Reason. Representatives from the E.W.R. say they are hopeful their induction will be ratified within the year.

he sipped his drink and grimaced. [trigger #246]

He sipped his drink and grimaced. He should have known better than to order an Old Fashioned in a bar like this. Long before the drink was set before him he would have been able to successfully predict that he’d be served a too tall drink full of muddled fruit, sugar, and perhaps a splash of whisky. At least it tasted like a splash of whisky, because whatever whisky had been in it was diluted beyond recognition when the hapless bartender shook the bejeezus out of it. He took his chances, and finishing this crime against cocktails was the price he would pay.

It was par for the course, really. The week he was having could only be concluded with someone ruining one of the simplest drinks imaginable because no one learns how to do things properly anymore.

He took another sip, if anything, the drink was getting worse.

Just a week ago, he’d been fairly content with his life. He certainly wasn’t happy, but he wasn’t unhappy either. In just seven short days, everything had been turned upside down. His daughter had moved to New York with her boyfriend. His wife had promptly told him she wasn’t in love with him anymore and had just been waiting for their daughter to move out before ending things. The company he’d worked for the last 29 years had announced that they’d been sold to a conglomerate and thus were closing his entire branch.

Now, here he was, a shell of the man he’d been a few short days ago. Check that, he was now realizing, as he sipped his shitty drink, that he is actually exactly the man he had been a week earlier, but that the props which maintained the illusion that he was something more had simply been stripped away. That was even worse. He wasn’t a mildly successful man who had quickly been turned into a failure, he was a long time failure who had suddenly been revealed for what he had been all along.

now he’s just a man. [trigger #245]

He used to be a god. He could do no wrong. He was far more than human, so much greater than anything I knew.

His word was gospel to me, long after I should have known better. He had the power to cut to my soul, and he almost always used that power to destroy. I wanted to be like him so much, even after the cracks started showing and I started to see that he was more demon than angel, more monster than god.

Eventually he became as massive in scale as a villain as he once was as my hero. He became the bogeyman that haunted my nightmares and daydreams. He was what lurked beneath my bed. It was his voice that I heard whispering doubt and poison in my ear.

He used to be a deity. He used to be my horror. He used to be my champion. He used to be my greatest adversary.

He used to be my dad.

Now he’s just a man.