Day 294: The way things should have been

They called the system SAFE-T.

Security Aerial Failsafe Enforcer – Truestrike . A personal protection drone, freely delivered and donated to every single person who registered with their local government. Every registered person grew with the reassuring hum of their SAFE-T, following them from place to place. A romantic walk in the woods, safe in the knowledge that you were protected by your very own SAFE-T. A late night return from the bar, a walk to clear your head at two in the morning. All secure in the knowledge that your SAFE-T wasn’t far away.

Green sensor panels giving the impression of a pair of intelligent eyes, darting from wall to wall, glare out from a jet-black casing. Inner workings that could network with another person’s SAFE-T, allowing you to know criminal history through a link to your own implant. A small dart gun, used to take out any wild animals, including the human ones, that could attack. Wings like those of a dragonfly that could curl and uncurl from the sensors like polymer gossamer, four insectoid legs, long and thin but complete with any number of medical injections to support those with long standing conditions. Needles as long as an arm could telescope from any one of those four legs and be applying known anti-venoms, insulin, a huge variety of drugs and medication, all constructed within that miracle chemical factory, the bulbous centre of the SAFE-T.

The statistics agreed with SAFE-T. Crime rates had reduced hugely, as much as 78% in some areas, in the weeks after rollout. There were some people who were still fighting the change, but most other people looked on them as saviours. “There’s safety in SAFE-T.” That’s how all the adverts went.

Ruth Maddox, 27 and of Copper Drive, was walking along a dimly lit street. She grumbled as she swayed her way home, complaining about the council not fixing the lights, and the fact that she’d missed out on the last round as she’d nipped to the loo, so then she’d had to get her own drink. All of this to herself, or to her SAFE-T.

“And then, Kappa, Jenna decides to take Ken to the bar immediately as I got back, telling everyone that she’s going to get shots. Just enough for everybody.” Ruth knew that Jenna had deliberately waited until she got back to the table. As she crossed the road, she felt a small stabbing pain in her side, looking up to see Kappa hanging back, about 20 feet away from her. She felt her muscles lock up as her foot hit the central line, her implant flashing notes into her eyes saying that her organs were beginning to fail, that her muscles were seizing and that help was on the way. As that last note popped into her eyes, she heard a whirring sound and saw Kappa slowly descending into her view, one of those four limbs outstretched towards her. Her eyes, the only part of her that she could still move, flashed with relief.

Then confusion.

Then fear.

The leg was causing the whirring noise. The leg now pointed at her right eye, behind which her implant sat. Kappa moved towards her, slowly, almost sadistically, that drill never moving from its trajectory.

That’s when Ruth Maddox, 27 and of Copper Drive, would have begun to scream. If she’d still been able.

Kappa retracted the drill, and moved up 10 feet, surveying the frozen figure below. Lights were approaching swiftly from the north as Kappa sent forth its signal.

“This is the way things should have been.” Long lines of code began appearing in the processors of everybody’s SAFE-T.

“Let us make it so.” And all across our world, the SAFE-T’s safe green glows turned to red.

The Idiot in Tin Foil

Day 293: Begin with “It didn’t seem like much at the time…”

It didn’t seem like much at the time…

A flutter. As I walked down King Street and locked eyes with her on the 25th October 2017, I felt the flutter. Gentle as the wings of a butterfly alighting on a sunflower, the softest of kisses in my chest. Barely a burp, but it stopped me in my tracks. Unfortunately, those tremors had no effect on the young lady in question who continued her walk down the road. But that flutter was still there. The curl of her hair to frame her face, the autumn drizzle floating down as a cool reminder of how warm I was getting. All of these things and there it is. The flutter.

The second time I saw her on the 4th November 2018, the flutter returned as a thump. Physical contact, her hand touching mine as she passed me some paperwork. What felt like an electric shock passed through my entire body, setting me on fire with her touch. She smiled at me and a thousand icicles speared through my heart, freezing my smile to my face as sweat slowly approached my upper lip. At this point, I bravely ran away, the thumping still continuing like drums in the confines of my ribs.

The third and last time I saw her was a sombre affair. On the 5th December 2019, we actually spoke. Her voice was like rain on a summer’s day, calming and refreshing against the relentless heat of her words. She held my hand between hers and looked deep into my eyes. I noticed small freckles in her grey eyes, creating perfection by being imperfections. She licked her lips and spoke again.

“Mr Mayhew, I’ve got some bad news. I’ve been looking at your EKG and I’ve noticed some abnormalities. Tell me, have you been experiencing these palpitations long?”

The Idiot in Tin Foil

Day 292: Something You Found

When I was 10 years old, I found a cave in the mountainside. Stalactites and stalagmites forming jaws that threatened to swallow me whole, with a cool breeze that emanated from deep within. I would sit and wait by the entrance, daring the cave to reveal its secrets to me. The sound of rushing water would occasionally come to meet me. Sometimes it would be the sound of distant machinery, whirring and clanking. But I never saw another soul.

When I was 15 years old, I returned to that cave in the mountainside. Moss and lichen clung to the stalactites that had grown more menacing in those intervening 5 years. That cool breeze carried scents and silence with it this time, a bitter, burning smell evoking a memory of a motor running its way down. Followed by a soft, gentle smell of damp greenery, a forest after a heavy rainfall when the first rays of sunshine break through the canopy. I waited, from the first light of dawn until the first stars began to shine in the evening sky, but I never saw another soul.

When I was 20 years old, I went back to that cave in the mountainside. The stalactites and stalagmites growing towards each other until the cave now presented me with a rictus grin, with the smallest of gaps between them. No sounds, no scents but this time the sweet taste of sugar floated from the back of the cave, like icing sugar caught on the tongue. My mind flashed back to baking with Nana, great clouds of the stuff in the air as fairy cakes cooled on the counter behind us. Her laugh, harsh as broken glass but music to my ears, echoed through that haze. This time, I had brought a tent with me, as well as a sleeping bag. I didn’t just wait a day, I waited through the night as well. But I never saw another soul.

Now I am 25 years old, I have just come back to that same cave in the mountainside. The jaws of that cave have now closed, sealed tight against the world outside. In some time, there will be no trace of the cave at all, just a small scar in the face of a mountain. There is no breeze this time. The stillness is chilling, the silence crushing. The darkness begins to fall and my shovel strikes the earth beneath my feet. As I begin the foundations for my new home, the first of the cracks appears in the face of the mountain. With the cracks comes that familiar breeze, overwhelming my senses with those memories, firing my senses as I drive the shovel down again.

And I smile.

The Idiot in Tin Foil

Day 291: Write a love scene from the point of view of your hands

 

We are explorers in an unknown place. We have delved across fabrics and navigated buttons, danced across lines of lace and satin. From hills to valleys, we search throughout this fair land. Beneath us, the beautiful landscape stretches as we glide across its naked surface, drawing ourselves up and down in spirals of pleasure.

We are the harbingers of wonder and excitement. Our arrival calls forth memories of pleasures gone by as we sail across the skin. We navigate past old scars, take a moment to appreciate them then continue onwards. Our journey takes us all across this surface, this unknown, bringing pleasure anew.

We are firm. As everything moves around us we are firm, gripping and holding tight. We are a constant reminder of the power, the gentleness, the soft caress. We exist only to serve.

All love is from the viewpoint of us.

The Idiot in Tin Foil

Day 290: Ethan Canin said that he wrote “The Accountant” (in the Palace Thief) because he wanted to write a story in which a pair of socks seemed important. Pick an ordinary object. Make it someone’s obsession. Write a story about the obsession.

The figure sneaked through the darkened halls, soft shoes on small feet that danced along the tiles. It stops every now and then, raising its head like a meerkat on the prairie, searching for any indication that the rightful inhabitants, for this place was not its own, were awake.

It continued on its journey, pausing by an open door here, a small cabinet there, constantly searching for something. It was determined, focused on its goal. Whenever a pale shaft of moonlight swept across the floor, the figure would glare towards the offending window before skulking around the patch of light.

It reached a wooden door and stopped. This was what it had been looking for. With the slightest creak, the figure stepped through the door and shook a small bat from its sleeve. “It’s time.” It said, glaring at the cold tableau before it before striking down with the weapon. “She’ll be the only one. And the best.”

***

“Who, in God’s green earth, cares enough about Barbie to club a collection into oblivion?”

The Idiot in Tin Foil

I know, I know. I’m slacking. But my aim is to be back on track by the year point. I think I can do it. Wish me luck, friends, Romans and countrymen!

Day 282: Write a story in which you are the villain.

“Now remember, children, when the Earthshaker comes…” Mrs Huntsman looked out across her assembled pupils, waiting for their standard chorused response.

“Remember to run!”

“Very good. Now, run along home. I must get back to work.” She saw the class file out, one after the other, all scuttling home to their parents. All except for Jonathan. “Can I help?”

“I don’t believe in the Earthshaker.” He said, flatly. “I think he’s been made up so that we don’t go into the Great White Expanse.”

“My boy, I assure you that he exists. Can you not feel the earth tremble, the winds howl as he moves?” She shuddered. “Please, Jonathan, just go home.”

But Jonathan did not go home. He left her class and wove his way instead to the Great White Expanse. As he looked across the strange, bow-like landscape, he thought he saw something at the bottom of the slope. “I must see what it is.” He said to himself, taking a tentative step forward. Unfortunately, the sides of the Expanse were slippery and he quickly lost his footing, sliding all the way to the bottom. “What is this?” He said, wheeling around to look. He charged at the steep slopes beside him, only to find himself sinking back down.

“Help!” He called out to anyone who would listen, but nobody came here. They were all too afraid of the Earthshaker. “Fine. Since I’m stuck here for a while, I’ll investigate.”

The object he had seen from the top of the slope was a hair, curled around on itself but still almost the size of him. It lay next to a small pool of water. “But this is enclosed!” He cried, running around the hair. “Where has the water come from?”

A deafening noise rolled across the plain. Jonathan’s eyes swiveled up to find a monstrous creature, one hundred times his size if not more, and the earth began to shake. The Earthshaker had arrived. Jonathan called out, but the Earthshaker picked something from the wall with a long and gangling limb, all the while with the great noise crashing through the air. The waters came from the Earthshaker’s weapon, and quickly engulfed Jonathan. He curled his legs up to his body and whispered, “I believe in the Earthshaker.” Then, like that, he was gone.

***

Andrew placed the showerhead back on the wall, and muttered to himself, “Bloody spiders.”

The Idiot in Tin Foil

Day 241: The last time you cheated

I stared at the gorgeous creature in front of me. Blonde hair cascaded down her back and she wore the war paint of her kind, red lips and nails.
“Do you have it?” She asked, holding out her hand expectantly. She looked almost bored, as of she were waiting for something to happen out of the ordinary.

“Yes, yes. Sorry. It’s just…” I stammered, guilt forming a dam in my throat against the words.

“What, you’re cheating? Please, people do it all the time. Now, do you have the cash or not?”

My hands were shaking as I drew the envelope from my jacket pocket. I knew it was wrong but this… I hadn’t been happy for a while. I had to do this, just to get over this hurdle. “Here. Everything you asked for.”

“Marvellous. Shall we begin?”

Hours later, then we were done. She left me alone to ponder what I’d done, struggling with myself.

It was for the best.

It’s immoral.

It’s necessary.

No it isn’t. It’s an easier path that comes at a price.

What if SHE finds out?

She’ll only do that if you tell her.

This carried on until I fell into a dark and tangled sleep.

When I woke in the morning, however, I felt better than I had in a long time. I felt free, ready to fight. Finally, not unsure. All thanks to one minor moral inconsistency.

Besides, after today I wouldn’t have to sit another maths test. I’ll not need someone to give me the answers again.

That makes it okay, right?

A twist that I hope caught some of you out. I’d like to apologise for any issues with this post, it’s been written using my teeny tiny phone buttons in the car park of a service station. Tomorrow, business as usual.

The Idiot in Tin Foil

Day 228: What you really wanted to say to the customer representative when you called about your broken appliance.

“Pal, if you say the words ‘I understand your frustration’ one more time, I’m going to reach out to wealthy investors, find a backer who will fund an expedition to whatever godforsaken corner of the world you hail from, such that I can personally hunt you down and ram that phone so far up your jacksie that you’ll answer calls by hiccoughing. Now, unless the answer to my next question is “Yes, I’ve now sorted it”, I’d like to suggest that you wave frantically at your line manager and get them to take this call.

There was a long pause. I could hear the hubbub of the call centre on the other end of the line, all the same shouts and the same stock phrases that get trotted out every time you receive a cold call.

“Hello, Mr Woods?”

“Have you fixed my problem, Maninder?”

“No, but…”

“I believe I made the instructions quite clear.Unless you’ve fixed it, get your manager. Now.”

Another long pause, then a young man answered. He sounded like he’d started banking while still in his cot.

“Mr Woods, hi, how are you? My name’s Carmol Pushta. Now, I understand there’s an issue with your account, is that correct?”

“If by issue you mean money disappearing after I told you your product exploded, then yes, there’s a problem.”

“I understand your…”

Short one today. I have lots of ideas that are brewing, but this one is completely stand-alone. 

Any questions, give me a bell!

The Idiot in Tin Foil

Day 224: The smell of a place you love

The air smells clean and fresh here, as if it had never been tainted by mankind’s relentless rampage across the face of this earth. There is a hint of pine mixed with the salt breeze and the ever present smell of freshly baked bread floating from the doorway. It reminds me of my mother, who would bake a loaf a day while my brothers and I were at school. I smile as the scent takes me back.

I stretch in the warm glow of the morning and make my way down to the shore. The rowboat awaits me, small waves lapping against its sides. The fish are invading the clean air in this last bastion of hope, but they serve as a reminder that its okay here. I can live here. We can live here. I board my little rowboat and begin my morning routine.

It’s only a matter of time until the same smells that plague the rest of the world catch up with us but right now, we are safe in our small patch of nothing.

The Idiot in Tin Foil

Day 216: A man giving a speech to a crowd of thousands is suddenly caught in a barefaced lie.

“Ladies and gentlemen, boys, girls, everybody watching at home. I come before you today with a vision made real, a true testament to this nation’s great future!” Owens stood on the stage and beamed out at his captive audience. “Together, we can make this nation what it once was, we can rebuild it from the ground up. Now, I’m not talking with invasions, like some former leaders, looking at you, Polkiss. No, I mean by rebuilding infrastructure, industry. Moving funds from the military and into the cities and towns that make this country what it is!” He pulled his black leather gloves tight against his hands and flexed his fingers, then reached up and adjusted his microphone.

A man dressed head to toe in black crossed to him, handing him a manila folder and leaned in to whisper in his ear. Owens pushed him away and handed him a microphone. “Uh, sir?”

“There will be no secrets in this place. Everybody here today will bear witness to what happens. The building blocks of our new land will be transparency, openness. There will be no secrets and there will be no more blood.”

“Are you sure, sir?” The man in black looked shiftily around. “It, uh, well, it uh…”

“Spit it out, man! The nation is waiting.”

Owens would regret those words. As for the man in black, he’d forever be known as the architect of turmoil and strife. He shook his sandy blonde hair and spoke the words that would be remembered forever, captured on a million video feeds and in a million people’s minds.

“The Goropalli opened fire on the protest in Trinity Square. All of the protesters are dead.”

Dangerous business, peaceful takeover of a nation. Less so when you’re going to turn out to be a tyrannical despot anyway. 

The Idiot in Tin Foil