My name is Na. I am five years old and Ma just finished weaning me from her breast. I bet you’d be surprised to find that you, too, have Neantherdal DNA because of interbreeding. I was shocked to find that I must now help gather food stuff such as berries, grasses and nuts. I’m too little for this but each of us must work together. I am a girl. We all do the same things whether we are boys or girls. When I become a little older, I must hunt for wild animals. We all work together and if someone is sick or injured, we all take care of them. I can expect to live for about 40 years. We can talk in our own language but you probably won’t believe this because we have no written language so there is no proof. If you heard me, you would say I have a loud high pitched voice. Da is teaching me how to make tools. Sometimes I play with toy axes with other children but I don’t have much time to play.

I am short and have little legs but I am strong and have a straight spine. My head is big and I think I’m pretty smart. I can see and smell better than you can. I am always busy but I am okay with this because I don’t know anything different. I love my Da and Ma and my family group. When someone dies, we bury them and put flowers on the ground around them. Ma and Da are artistic and paint pictures in caves. I want to learn to do that. They know how to start fires and boil their food. I don’t think there are many Neanderthals in the world because I never see anyone other than my family and some others in our group. Maybe I am wrong but I don’t know. I don’t have much knowledge of anything bigger than where I am but I don’t think I am missing anything.

I am Jason. I am 5 and Mommy and Daddy never make me do chores. When they feed me, if I don’t like it, I say so and don’t eat it. When Mommy and Daddy say for me to do something, I talk back. I am learning bad language from my older brothers who just play computer games and talk on I-Phones. I will get an I-phone next year when I’m in first grade. My brothers don’t like me very much and are mean to me but then, I tell on them.

I never see my grandma and grandpa because they live in Florida. I guess they don’t care about me because they have their own lives. When they get old, Mommy and Daddy will put them in a nursing home and never see them, except at their funerals.

I will never learn cursive writing because I will use a computer and I am not expected to learn math because I will use a calculator. Soon computers will think for me so I don’t know what I will have to do then. I don’t really have to think much already because my parents say they know everything. Daddy and Mommy will probably live to be old – maybe 65 or 70, but they’ll be very fat. Maybe I will be fat, too, because all we ever have is fast food. I think all of us will have horrible diseases when we get old. Mommy and Daddy don’t spend much time with us because they work long hours and feel guilty so we can have anything we want. When we are together, everyone is on cell phones and no one talks to each other. I don’t really play too much with others because they are always inside with their electronic toys. I don’t think I am happy but when I feel sad, I eat candy and potato chips and I feel a little better. I know that when I start my education, I will have to study all the time so I can be better than anyone else and make more money. Nobody cares about taking care of the earth so it probably won’t be there when I grow up and then what?

It began with a subtle change in the air; a vibration. Not like a summer breeze, nor a winter wind. More like the night air disturbed by butterfly wings. But with something more. As if the air had received a small shock. Followed by another. And another. But no one took notice since the change was so infinitesimal as to be nonexistent.

Until it wasn’t.

Seven-year old Jake Johnson was the first to notice the effects of the atmospheric oddities, though he didn’t realize it. He just thought little Danny Martin had the cooties. Little Danny, in tears, ran home to his mother.

“Mama, look,” he said, crying, pointing to his arm.

“What’d you do, sweetheart?” she asked, thinking he must have fallen.

“Nothing, Mama. I was playing with Jake and then he pointed at me and started laughing, saying I had the cooties. I said no I didn’t and went to punch him, but he jumped back, laughing and told me not to touch him ’cause he didn’t want cooties, too.”

“Did you fall down?” Mrs. Martin asked, taking out the alcohol and some cotton balls.

“No, Mama. I was just playing and then Jake pointed and I saw the skin was peeling and then I felt the pain I didn’t notice while I was playing and then I came inside and…”

“Okay, baby. Let Mama clean it for you.” But as Mrs. Martin reached out to wipe little Danny’s arm, the skin began to disintegrate. “Merciful heaven! What in the world…”

“Mama!” little Danny screamed in agony.

Mrs. Martin watched helplessly as her little Danny’s skin ruptured, bled, peeled, melted away leaving him a crumpled, molten mass of human tissue. Simultaneously, the air around her was pierced with the screams of tortured anguish as every citizen of her town suffered the consequences of an event that had nothing to do with them, yet affected every living being on the planet.

Mrs. Martin watched her son die before she too became a footnote to a history none would live to write…or read.

With every problem that humanity solves, we create dozens more. Hunger, homelessness, war, our problems are multiplying like the heads of a hydra, with every head that is lopped off two more grow back, problems and issues spiraling out of control. We are losing our grasp on what used to be an easier battle, the weapons we used to hold firm in our hands now slipping as the weight of our countless failures and mistakes starts to take a toll. The trajectory of our planet is slowly getting worse, heading towards imminent danger that many don’t believe exists. Our world has veered sharply off course, and we are barreling into the unknown at an unsustainable speed, moving forward so quickly that soon there will be no ground left to run on. But the problem is, as we tumble forward into the future, we haven’t quite figured out what direction forward is. The whole world isn’t on the same page, we are charging on to hundreds of different paths leading hundreds of different directions, but they’ll all end up regressing our attempted progress until we pause long enough to go at the same speed, catching the entire world up on the mountains of problems stacked before us, and only then will we be able to forge the rocky path ahead of us, to help our plummeting trajectory begin to curve upwards again. This will finally allow us to get to the summit of our problems and be able to accept the fact that all the peaks rising in the distance are ones we will eventually have to climb, but know that now we are capable of solving them, unified, not alone.

‘‘Get up!’’

She took a deep breath and faced the being standing before her. It stood ever so bold & stared into her eyes.

‘‘What’s it going to be~ missy?’’

She darted toward it, raised her sword- before the weapon hit the being- it started to bend and curl around.

The being laughed and then smiled. She let her sword drop to the ground.

‘‘Hey,’’ the being said.

She looked at it. It grabbed her sword & handed it back to her.

‘‘Keep practicing and don’t ever throw your sword again like that.’’

Most of the being’s students had to discover for themselves that they have to keep practicing using their sword—or whatever they had come to learn how to use~ like other students before them had learned after many days of training with the eternal being.

The being wondered to himself...humans were odd ones for sure...if they spent most of their energy to do what was right, and not fight (almost) all the time, what a difference that would make in their world.

Uh, most- if not all- the students had failed to realize the final part of the practice and training- they were to only use the weapon for good. It was not meant to be used for destruction to other humans, or any other life.

The being hoped that this time this line of students would see clearly the final part of their practice and traning. Now that would be such a relief!

#AHAH

sunday, 8 december, 2019.

She drowned herself in waves of temporary relief

Loving the cleansing burn as she swallowed her own belief

Fully aware of the told dangers that stalk, lurk and creep

Her innocence on the shelf, selling for disturbingly cheap

I am tired

Tired of hearing all the news

Bad, bad, worse.

I am exhausted

Exhausted of arguing with people who will never change

Stubborn, stubborn, ignorant.

I am desperate

Desperate for some sort of hope

Different, different, please.

I am exhausted

Exhausted of fighting and being ignored

Notice, notice, pay attention.

I am tired

Tired of being tired

Desperate, exhausted, tired.

Girl Scout cookies used to be bigger, and there were more in the box.

Grandmothers used to make fudge and cookies, pies that cooled in screenless windows, made-from-scratch biscuits, fry bread, fried everything, with real lard.

The milkman delivered bottles with fresh cream floating on the top. Coagulated goodness for the kids.

Vegetables at McDonalds were burger toppings, not salads.

I don't miss the open racism. I'm glad women can vote. And it's nice we're more or less done with asbestos and small pox and polio. But damn, can we bring back the Thin Mints?

She stands in front of the Holocaust exhibit reading about the last hours of a girl not much older than her youngest sister. She’s thankful that her sister will get to live to be older than that.

He places his large, off-white paw on the ice, gingerly testing it to make sure its thick enough to support his furry body before putting all his weight down.

She walks across the graduation stage to collect her medical degree. She counts her blessings that she lives during a time where she is allowed – encouraged, even – to get a doctorate.

He sits at the kitchen table, head in his hands, tears falling on the large pile of bills that he can’t afford to pay this month. It’s a choice between heat or groceries.

She swallows her daily morning Pill, thankful that she is able to date the boy she loves without having to worry about having children. She hasn’t yet decided if she’s ready to bring kids into this world.

He looks down at the test results and lets out a curse. The damn cancer is back, after five full years out from under its cloying shadow. It seems like everyone he knows is sick with something or other these days.

The screens never go dark; information is everywhere; people are born who years ago might never have been conceived.

Life won’t stop; life will change, but life will go on. Love will always last forever.

When I was in fifth grade I, along with a few friends, were very much into the world of alternate realities, past lives, and different dimensions. I had an entire past life, full of love, friendship, tragedy, and all the aspects of real life now. I built an entire world with their help, including a runic alphabet, profiles on the traditions of many of the other dimensions, and characters. I recorded it all in a notebook along with my age, the age of my past lives and my current life combined. This notebook holds the entirety of the alternate universe I made with my friends. Along with this complex universe, we devised a "time paradox." This time paradox stated that history would go it's course until reaching a turning point, where from then history would go in reverse. Different names, different groups of people, but same underlying principles behind it. None of us ever fully established when the turning point would occur, but it was sometime in the early 2020s. Since 2020 is approaching, and this challenge popped up, I wonder..

could fifth grade me have been right?

If so, prepare yourselves.

We're going to get to relive the best (and the worst) parts of history.

I remember when he said:

The world is a terrible place,

but it is also a beautiful place.

People are born

People die

People break addiction

People cling to their comforts

People extend a hand of forgiveness

People hold tight to their anger

People will drink from the chalace of peace

and some will hope the other's is poisoned

Despite all our best efforts

humanity is falling

f a l l i n g...

f l i g...

a l n

f

a

l

l

i

n

g

.

.

.

And yet there is the ones who persist

they take their rocks

they take their bricks

they take their pain

and they b i d

u l

b u i l d

build

on the foundations of a new dawn

a new day

a new beginning

There will be people who destroy all goodness

There will be people who are good despite all the bad

If you do not see the goodness while searching around you

then it is your duty to become that goodness

Humanity is evil

But humanity is also very very good